In case you have something better to do tonight (WHICH YOU DON’T), here’s a reminder of why you need to be at home on the couch tonight.

I was utterly exhausted last night.

Bryan and I thought we’d endeavor in a double-homicide experiment and BOTH go off of our meds at THE SAME TIME.  Cause that’d be fun, right?  Kind of like Celebrity Rehab without a Baldwin, a hot doctor, or funding?  Oh, contraire.  In fact, it is NOT fun, and usually ends with Bryan stomping around while I ignore him and mentally plan to take the baby and run to Mexico.

ANYWAY.  Did I mention the exhaustion?  This is the first time I’ve “detoxed” (don’t I sound all cool and Britney Spears-y?), so I didn’t know what kind of side-effects I’d have.  Mainly?  I cry at everything (including a McDonald’s commerical that made me stop what I was doing, set the baby down, and bawl like I just watched my dog be skinned alive), and when I try and go to sleep, I get Restless Leg Syndrome.  ALL OVER MY FREAKIN’ BODY.  It’s horrible.  So I’ll get up, since sleep is not a possibility, and go watch The Hills or some other mindless tv (sidenote: When did ANTM jump the shark?  Why the stupid “dramatic” scenes with Tyra and the J’s applying .. shudder .. personalities?!).  Till, you know, around 1 o’clock or so.  And then I go and fitfully sleep till my alarm hits at 5:15.  So.. I’m a bit tired.

I’m too tired to exercise.  Which is mostly true, but it still feels like an excuse.  I feel very badly that I promised Jillian Michaels I would give her thirty days, with only 20 minutes a day, but MY GOD, I just don’t have it in me.  Cause I suck.

We had The Boy a lot longer last night than normal, so my typical Wednesday television binge was already askew and I figured I needed some motivation to get my fat ass off the couch.  Know what I did?

I got out my pre-maternity clothes. 

I had literally not seen these clothes since May of 2007.  Over a year ago.  And it was like flipping through an old yearbook, and I was so incredibly sad that I can’t wear these clothes that I loved so much. (I won’t lie; there were a lot of pieces I pulled out and have NO rational explanation as to why I purchased them.  A cordouroy skirt?  Really?)(If you have said skirt, I apologize.  I am just not that girl.)(Seriously, I love the material and I love skirts.  Just not the combination of the two and definitely not in metallic red.)

I tried most of them on and SURPRISE! they didn’t fit.  I know.  You just fell out of your chair in the shock, right?  But what really did surprise me (I’m being serious here) is that a lot of them?  Came CLOSE to fitting.  Like, were I not so incredibly insecure with myself, I could conceivably wear them.  TODAY. 

So I’m all sorts of renewed now.  We’re coming up on my favorite clothes season (I can ROCK the HELL out of some sweaters, boy), and I have such a huge and fantastic fall/winter wardrobe that I’m dying to wear again.  Silk, angora, wool.. not a polyester sweater in the bunch.  I’m DYING to get in them.

Once I get some sleep.

Try to relax, honey.  Just relax.  Concentrate on me rubbing your head.  Just try and go to sleep.  There’s nothing you can do tonight.  We’ll still be just as broke in the morning.

This is what my poor husband chants every night, trying to appease me into just letting go.  If even for a little while.  Just letting go.  Just enough to sleep, to recharge, to try and start again tomorrow.

He tries.  Very hard.  It doesn’t work.

I get so irate every time I see that monkey-faced buffoon of a president tell us, calmly and authoritatively and all decider-y, that there is no recession.  Our economy is fine, he says.  Don’t worry.

And on that, my friends, I call BULLSHIT.

Gas in my neighborhood, if you can find any, is $4.05 a gallon.  I pay almost $200 a week to daycare.  My baby’s formula is $27 a can.  He goes through 2 a week.  And we got the phone call that his AFO (ankle-foot orthotic) is now ready for pick-up.  And it’s not covered by insurance because it’s a custom-made brace.

I remember, when the whole mortgage crisis really started snowballing, sitting back and thinking, “People are so irresponsible, to let their bills get so out of hand.”  Oh, poor little naive Sarah.  We are not extravagant people.  We don’t travel, we don’t shop, and we rarely spend money.  And yet?  Mere penny pinching is not helping.  We are barely afloat.  If I were to be perfectly truthful, I would tell you that I cannot see a light at the end of our tunnel right now, a time when we will remain comfortably in the black and not live on overdraft fees.

Our one expense is eating out.  We love food too much to not eat out, but we’ve given that up as well.  We only have home-cooked meals, unless we’re treated by others, and we take the left-overs for lunch.  But even that route?  Not fucking cheap.  My grocery bills, even with just the essentials to get us through two weeks, easily tops $200.

We’ve been carpooling as we can, but our work schedules are vastly different.  Most of my mornings begin by 7:30.  His begin at 8:30.  He works late enough that it’s a race to pick up the child from the overpriced daycare on the other end of town.

So tell me, Bush, what I’m doing wrong.  Tell me how I’ve fucked up my household budget so mightily that the recession is only a personal one, one I’ve inflicted on myself.  Tell me how I’ve not done my part to fix the problem that you say doesn’t exist.  Explain to me how healthcare is affordable, gas is not unreasonable, and the mortgage crisis is nonexistent.  Tell me how this is the fucking American dream.

If this is the dream, it definitely explains my hesitation to fall asleep.