This is the post that introduced the Tater Tot series and also cemented my random at best style of writing. 

---

---

I fear I am at the end of writing this blog.
Maybe it is God gently telling me, it is time, Kari. 
Not that time!

Time to quit blogging!

---

I sat at my computer for 10 minutes trying to come up with a title for this blog post, and that up there is the best that I could come up with.
Sure, I could have titled this Miscellaneous or ETC. or Things that Pop Up In My Head Randomly.
But those are the titled I’d expect from a new blogger, not someone entering their seventh year of blogging.
Yet that was the best title I could come up with.
The alternate title was Screw It, I Am Eating Tater Tots. 
Which may also double as the title of my memoir.

---

---

My blog is being an asshole.
My Google-based blog is currently inoperable in my Google Chrome browser.
I couldn’t make this up if I wanted to.
In order to edit my blog before publishing it, I must switch to a Firefox browser.
So thank you, FIREFOX, for being there for me when GOOGLE drops the ball.
Guess who has been pricing migration to WORD PRESS this past week?

---

Recently, Mike and I were watching The Breakfast Club, and as I was listening to the dialogue, I wondered, how many words were in his original screenplay?

Suddenly, I felt very screenwriterly.

So then I googled (dammit, I can’t break up with you!) “how to write a screenplay for idiots” and I found a Wiki screenplay tutorial on how to write a screenplay.

It as if I were taking a screenwriting class in my living room while The Breakfast Club played in the background.

Essentially, my wet dream.

---

---

Menopause is kicking me in the nuts.
I don’t actually have nuts, but I feel like I might soon because of menopause. 
I’m really disappointed in all the women who have lied to us before.
NO ONE TELLS YOU HOW AWFUL MENOPAUSE IS.
Or how long it lasts.
It lasts forever.
And ever.
You think childbirth was hard.
YOU HAVE NO CLUE.
At least with childbirth, you have a child at the end.
With menopause, you get a hairy chin, and you are a complete and utter asshole.

---

I despise people more now than ever because of the above.
It sucks the life out of you.
It makes you sob at a stoplight when a Dionne Warwick song comes on the radio.

It makes you listen to Dionne Warwick.

---

---

I miss bloggers. Where did they all go?
It’s like someone farted at a party and the room cleared.
This is how I feel in the world of blogging currently.
Like I am the fart.
Except there are now a ton of those DIY/Recipe/Lifestyle bloggers.
They will survive a nuclear bomb, I am sure.

---

---

I got fat this winter.
This is what happened:
I started taking Topomax last year for my migraines.
Topomax has a side effect of weight loss.

So, I lost some weight in the beginning. Then not too long after, I got the stomach flu. So then I was too thin, fitting into my pre-pregnancy clothes. I mean, I could eat anything I wanted and didn’t have to be careful or anything because of Topomax.

But over time, I started having some side effects with the Topomax. I began having pins and needles all over my body, numbness in my arms and legs, a ticking sound (think time bomb) in my ears when I would lie down at night.
So the doctor had to lower my dosage because, at one point, they were worried I was exhibiting symptoms of MS.
But I was still eating anything I wanted because I was on my Topomax high.

---

---

Only, what I wasn’t aware of was that once you lower your dosage, you also lower your chances of losing weight.
DOHHHHHH.
So all the while I am eating like food is going away tomorrow and the LB’s are going up.

And up.

And uppppp.

It was around February that I noticed my skinny clothes weren’t fitting anymore and I needed to move up a size.
Then two.
Aww, snap.
Only my jeans weren’t saying aww snap, they were actually not snapping at all.

---

So back to the gym and watching what I eat again.

ALL DURING MENOPAUSE.
It’s not fun to watch what you eat during menopause, by the way.
I almost cut a bitch for running on my treadmill.
And I don’t even have a specific treadmill.
SEE?
Asshole.

---

Prince died.
While I am going through perimenopause.

The day that he died, Ella was devastated.
Seriously devastated. I’m not sure why. But still very sweet.
Two cool things happened this weekend: we were on our way home from dropping off Annie at the high school and the song Purple Rain came on the radio and Ellie sang along with me.

Purple rain, purple rainnnnnnnn. 

I wanted to cry. Right there in the car. Maybe I did. I can’t remember because perimenopause.
She said, “I only know the words Purple rain, mom, but I will sing those” and I said, “Prince would love that, I know he would.”
Second thing: we have a dove living in our garage as of this weekend.
STOP IT.
I. kid. you. Not.
We named him Prince.

---

One recent Sunday I was editing one of my old posts because I spotted a grammar error.
I am anal-retentive like that. 
Then I fell down a rabbit hole of blog posts and started reading my old posts.
Post after post.

And you know what I realized?
I was funny.

I was really funny.

Now I get what some of you were saying when you would message me and say, “wow, I never realized you were so funny!”

Thanks. I think.
But now?
I am not as funny.

Oh sure, I have funny moments here and there, but my creative juices aren’t flowing like they were in ye olden days.
Then I had a moment of “what if I hit my peak already?”
And what if all of my creativity is being used for a screenplay that will never be seen because I don’t know Tina Fey or I don’t take prescription pain pills?

WHAT IF I AM WASHED UP?
What if I never have a funny thought as long as I live?
This must be what Kim Kardashian feels like.
God help that girl when she goes through perimenopause.
Although that bitch will probably hire someone to go through perimenopause for her.

---

Then this morning, I open the box of Trix to find this:

Do you notice anything missing?
Oh, I do, it’s called COLOR.
Chemical shitstorm color.
Then I look at the box.
NO COLORS FROM ARTIFICIAL SOURCES.
Super. The crunchy people got to THEM too.
Dammit.
WHY CAN’T THEY LEAVE MY CHILDHOOD ALONE?

Bring back the chemical shit storm green Trix balls, please?
And my personality?
And my skinny jeans?
And Prince?
And since we are bringing stuff back, can you bring all those bloggers too?
But only the ones who are nice because I will cut a bitch if they aren’t.