Honestly, do they make an announcement at my grocery store the second I walk in the door? Should I be listening more closely when I get my cart?
Because I have taken not 2 and not 3, but 5-- yes, 5-- numbers in the past 2 weeks so men would leave me alone to finish grocery shopping.
And you know, not a one of them has offered to buy any-any-of my groceries.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Effin' laundry day
I cannot imagine how it is that I wear the same 12 outfits over and over like a cartoon strip character, and yet cannot wade through enough of my walk in to figure out what goes to the laundromat and what stays at home for a different day that I am feeling more ambitious.
Certainly something has to give. It's probably time to toss the jeans that aren't going to fit me again even if they did look so cute when I was 89 lbs. If they fit me again, it means I am in a fit of postpartum hysteria and eating every third day. I do not want those pants to fit me again, I do not want 2004 back, I do not want to be 89 lbs of fear and depression and breastfeeding. I can probably get rid of those jeans, even though when they did fit, they looked cute.
And sweaters... I have always had a problem with sweaters. I dress like a dirty trollop and that's all there is to it, but sometimes I like the option of covering up those two quivering scoops of flesh. I know there is in all honesty nothing more inherently womanly or motherly than the very breasts a child is meant to nurse at, but many a mother may beg to differ, and I admit it, I let those boobie-shunning bibs of shame sweaters have become for me live in my purse for in case I run across just such a woman. However: How many bibs of shame do I really neeeed in April? Couldn't I cut it down the way that one does a belt to, say, 1 brown, one black, one white? That should cover all ground, no? Or rather, all breast? Do I really need the brown one with the pencil stripes because it makes my hair color look cute, the one that doesn't stay up on one shoulder because it lets me alternate between tart and curt with blindingly manipulative ease, the button down green green cropped sweater with the short sleeves because in a pinch Morgan can put it on, the cut-off flash-dance one just because I love it, the gray striped one that I got from one of those adorable basement boys in high school that he still probably doesn't know I have since I quit school the next month and never have seen him again, the one I bought my ex boyfriend but took with me when getting out of his car after friend-lunch one day when I found out he let his new girlfriend have it after we broke up last year, the maternity sweater that I don't want to store because what if I'm wrong and some day I decide I really DO want another child, the 4 Morgan is waiting to grow into, the one that I know I'm going to grow into any day now, the long mesh one that will never be in style again but I don't care because it makes me feel beautiful so I wear it around the house all the time anyway...
No. All of this... all of this, I do not need.
The jeans? Yes, I do need all 12 pairs. The shorts, yes. 3 micro mini-shorts, one black, one white, one brown. The same of micro mini-skirt. Brown, black, white. Every tank top I own, every single one, gets millage also. The socks... somehow, I cannot find the socks. The bras? A knotted tangle of straps and hooks, varying from a small C to a large D, in 32, 34, and 36 from various stages of nursing, postpartum depression, weening, weight gain, push up results, etc. I am wearing one of the 2 I got on clearance at TJ maxx, and the other is in the laundry-bag. One is brown, and one is black-- in bras it seems, I do not care for a white.. Though I'm certain there are a few of those amidst the bra-ball in the closet too.
Something must be done, this is the bottom line. In the time it has taken me to list this (yes, I realize a blog and a list are to normal people different things-- but what normal person has named the bra ball in their closet, I ask you that.), it has started to rain, and I won't be doing laundry today after all.
I'm glad I'm freakishly attractive, it's easier being dumb in a world you're beautiful in I've found.
Certainly something has to give. It's probably time to toss the jeans that aren't going to fit me again even if they did look so cute when I was 89 lbs. If they fit me again, it means I am in a fit of postpartum hysteria and eating every third day. I do not want those pants to fit me again, I do not want 2004 back, I do not want to be 89 lbs of fear and depression and breastfeeding. I can probably get rid of those jeans, even though when they did fit, they looked cute.
And sweaters... I have always had a problem with sweaters. I dress like a dirty trollop and that's all there is to it, but sometimes I like the option of covering up those two quivering scoops of flesh. I know there is in all honesty nothing more inherently womanly or motherly than the very breasts a child is meant to nurse at, but many a mother may beg to differ, and I admit it, I let those boobie-shunning bibs of shame sweaters have become for me live in my purse for in case I run across just such a woman. However: How many bibs of shame do I really neeeed in April? Couldn't I cut it down the way that one does a belt to, say, 1 brown, one black, one white? That should cover all ground, no? Or rather, all breast? Do I really need the brown one with the pencil stripes because it makes my hair color look cute, the one that doesn't stay up on one shoulder because it lets me alternate between tart and curt with blindingly manipulative ease, the button down green green cropped sweater with the short sleeves because in a pinch Morgan can put it on, the cut-off flash-dance one just because I love it, the gray striped one that I got from one of those adorable basement boys in high school that he still probably doesn't know I have since I quit school the next month and never have seen him again, the one I bought my ex boyfriend but took with me when getting out of his car after friend-lunch one day when I found out he let his new girlfriend have it after we broke up last year, the maternity sweater that I don't want to store because what if I'm wrong and some day I decide I really DO want another child, the 4 Morgan is waiting to grow into, the one that I know I'm going to grow into any day now, the long mesh one that will never be in style again but I don't care because it makes me feel beautiful so I wear it around the house all the time anyway...
No. All of this... all of this, I do not need.
The jeans? Yes, I do need all 12 pairs. The shorts, yes. 3 micro mini-shorts, one black, one white, one brown. The same of micro mini-skirt. Brown, black, white. Every tank top I own, every single one, gets millage also. The socks... somehow, I cannot find the socks. The bras? A knotted tangle of straps and hooks, varying from a small C to a large D, in 32, 34, and 36 from various stages of nursing, postpartum depression, weening, weight gain, push up results, etc. I am wearing one of the 2 I got on clearance at TJ maxx, and the other is in the laundry-bag. One is brown, and one is black-- in bras it seems, I do not care for a white.. Though I'm certain there are a few of those amidst the bra-ball in the closet too.
Something must be done, this is the bottom line. In the time it has taken me to list this (yes, I realize a blog and a list are to normal people different things-- but what normal person has named the bra ball in their closet, I ask you that.), it has started to rain, and I won't be doing laundry today after all.
I'm glad I'm freakishly attractive, it's easier being dumb in a world you're beautiful in I've found.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
And the best question my 5 year old has asked all week isssss.....
"Mommy, how come time and temperature never just calls you for once?"
(That this was followed up with a sigh (from her) really gave it a little something, too.)
(That this was followed up with a sigh (from her) really gave it a little something, too.)
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Cosmic signs from the checkout lane: It's not you it's me and the 40 times I've learned that.
"It's not you, it's me".
So, maybe that's true. Maybe. But it's also true that since the dawn of my womanhood, or at least since I got my first training bra, I have single-handily been responsible for men the world over realizing what about them (not me) it was. The thought of having to see ME again, of maybe being my boyfriend or even having to go through another Friday night with me for any reason at all... that helped them to see something... you know... about them.
In short, there's just something about me. Or rather, more specifically there's something wrong, very very wrong about me, that makes men realize something about themselves-- and their never wanting to see me again.
And, it's what it is. I've always been the girl before the girlfriend, the girl to whom you say "It's just that I respect you too much to keep just hooking up and not actually moving forward"... but doesn't respect you enough to maybe, as you'd been waiting for all those stupid fumbling nights after closing down the bar with him, for him to m maybe ask "Do you want to go to a movie? Or rent one? Or maybe even swing through a drive-through on the way back to your apartment and I'll pay?"... but maybe, maybe this certain boy respected me too much for that too-- I mean, he wouldn't have wanted me to feel like a hooker or anything, right? No, no, 'Blue-Ribbon' boy... I have never forgotten that winter. It was a cold winter, and that 'respect' has chilled me to the bone for all these years hereafter. Someone once told me it was because you were so Irish... that it was because you were so this or so that, but the truth is, it wasn't any of those things-- that was my first peek at the reality of it... that it wasn't anything about you. It was that you were (or rather weren't) with me.
And so I don't know why-- because I am 30, because my partner of 7 years has met the woman of his dreams in under a year, jsut because it's what people say I should do--I continue to try, now and again, to date. Cautiously, generally firmly set against it before even considering coffee, googling to be on the safe side and secretly hoping to find out that this time it will be you to get it out of the way before having to put on makeup even that first time.
But, I do, I keep that door just the tiniest crack open. I do not know why, it's in my nature... a romantic without any trust is a messy thing. In past years I would be very good friends with Emily Dickinson, no doubt, though I feel certain she would not care in the slightest for the fact that the only way I write is to blog.
And, it's in my nature to be a kind person. And recently, when seeing a my-god-i-cant-believe-a-man-that-hot-can-be-walking-the-face-of-this-earth lost soul of a creature wandering desperately through a grocery store looking for a place to throw out his gum, I offered him a wrapper from my purse. I even offered, though he refused, for him to put it in my purse (not because I'm creepy, relax-- I just happen to have a child nearing 6, it would probably be the least creepy thing in my purse). And he said "It would be wrong to just you know... stick it somewhere". And I agree-- there are just certain ways one ought to behave in this world. You should return your cart to the cage for it in the parking lot. You should never throw your cigarette butt on the ground. You should never leave a tip for a waitress under the plate so it gets lost or dirty. You should always ask customer service people how they are, and you should really want to know when you ask... and it's nice to see others of that nature as I do here and there. So we got to talking, and talking led to chatting, and chatting led to "I don't want to be to forward, but you're extremely attractive and seem like a kind of special girl-- are you married or engaged?"
And I'm not. And we exchanged numbers, and it was nice. And it took some of the hurt from the most recent 'it's not me, it's just me not wanting you' experience, which was still a little fresh just because it went down in an awkward fashion, and because by now, it's a familiar kind of sting, it's getting old and more wearing.
But I digress. Before side note, we were exchanging numbers. And I continued my shopping, kind of tickled, a little flattered, but as ever myself thinking "But I probably won't call him... anyway, who the hell meets someone in the grocery store? And he totally wasn't my type". But, the number, it did go in my purse. And there it stayed...
Until the checkout lane. And there, there was the last one. The most recent reminder that 'no, no, you are not for dating... you are one who doesn't work for others'. His perfect jaw, soft eyes, everything about him wonderful, just another of so many who knew that he was worlds apart from me, something I somehow failed to register. And that's something that always happens, really this was just a little cosmic sign from the checkout... "Reality check at the express lane, please".
And I waited for the cosmic reminder to leave, remembered who I am and what I'm not (datable) , and that it's not me, pretty much as a rule. And I walked out the door after all these years with the thing I've never entirely gotten finally sunken in firmly. I dropped the number behind a trash can. I knew better. Guys and me... we have a 3 weeks shelf life.
There's a poem I remember from an elementary school reader about a kid watching moths flying to their fiery deaths in a bug zapper, and the last line after a moth explains to him the exhilaration of that moment beforehand making it all worth while is something to the effect of "I wish I wanted something as badly as that moth wanted to fry itself" as he watched utterly clueless an d befuddled at the white wings pop away.
And I get that today, I do.
The boy has been in touch... we will have lunch, but for some reason I get it now. I do, I literally truly give up... I have finally come full circle from a 21 year old hopeless romantic to a 30 year old romantic who doesn't know hope. It's always going to hurt like hell, it's always going to end badly, and it's never ever been and never going to be worth it to get there. I don't want anything as badly as that moth wanted to fry itself, and baby... when it comes to who gets zapped in the end...
It's not you... it's me.
Always.
(*I really do want to note here that the most recent "ummm...not vibing you" guy is really a great guy, wonderful even. I wasn't mad that he didn't like me, it happens. He just happened to be the one in the checkout line when self doubt creeped in.)
So, maybe that's true. Maybe. But it's also true that since the dawn of my womanhood, or at least since I got my first training bra, I have single-handily been responsible for men the world over realizing what about them (not me) it was. The thought of having to see ME again, of maybe being my boyfriend or even having to go through another Friday night with me for any reason at all... that helped them to see something... you know... about them.
In short, there's just something about me. Or rather, more specifically there's something wrong, very very wrong about me, that makes men realize something about themselves-- and their never wanting to see me again.
And, it's what it is. I've always been the girl before the girlfriend, the girl to whom you say "It's just that I respect you too much to keep just hooking up and not actually moving forward"... but doesn't respect you enough to maybe, as you'd been waiting for all those stupid fumbling nights after closing down the bar with him, for him to m maybe ask "Do you want to go to a movie? Or rent one? Or maybe even swing through a drive-through on the way back to your apartment and I'll pay?"... but maybe, maybe this certain boy respected me too much for that too-- I mean, he wouldn't have wanted me to feel like a hooker or anything, right? No, no, 'Blue-Ribbon' boy... I have never forgotten that winter. It was a cold winter, and that 'respect' has chilled me to the bone for all these years hereafter. Someone once told me it was because you were so Irish... that it was because you were so this or so that, but the truth is, it wasn't any of those things-- that was my first peek at the reality of it... that it wasn't anything about you. It was that you were (or rather weren't) with me.
And so I don't know why-- because I am 30, because my partner of 7 years has met the woman of his dreams in under a year, jsut because it's what people say I should do--I continue to try, now and again, to date. Cautiously, generally firmly set against it before even considering coffee, googling to be on the safe side and secretly hoping to find out that this time it will be you to get it out of the way before having to put on makeup even that first time.
But, I do, I keep that door just the tiniest crack open. I do not know why, it's in my nature... a romantic without any trust is a messy thing. In past years I would be very good friends with Emily Dickinson, no doubt, though I feel certain she would not care in the slightest for the fact that the only way I write is to blog.
And, it's in my nature to be a kind person. And recently, when seeing a my-god-i-cant-believe-a-man-that-hot-can-be-walking-the-face-of-this-earth lost soul of a creature wandering desperately through a grocery store looking for a place to throw out his gum, I offered him a wrapper from my purse. I even offered, though he refused, for him to put it in my purse (not because I'm creepy, relax-- I just happen to have a child nearing 6, it would probably be the least creepy thing in my purse). And he said "It would be wrong to just you know... stick it somewhere". And I agree-- there are just certain ways one ought to behave in this world. You should return your cart to the cage for it in the parking lot. You should never throw your cigarette butt on the ground. You should never leave a tip for a waitress under the plate so it gets lost or dirty. You should always ask customer service people how they are, and you should really want to know when you ask... and it's nice to see others of that nature as I do here and there. So we got to talking, and talking led to chatting, and chatting led to "I don't want to be to forward, but you're extremely attractive and seem like a kind of special girl-- are you married or engaged?"
And I'm not. And we exchanged numbers, and it was nice. And it took some of the hurt from the most recent 'it's not me, it's just me not wanting you' experience, which was still a little fresh just because it went down in an awkward fashion, and because by now, it's a familiar kind of sting, it's getting old and more wearing.
But I digress. Before side note, we were exchanging numbers. And I continued my shopping, kind of tickled, a little flattered, but as ever myself thinking "But I probably won't call him... anyway, who the hell meets someone in the grocery store? And he totally wasn't my type". But, the number, it did go in my purse. And there it stayed...
Until the checkout lane. And there, there was the last one. The most recent reminder that 'no, no, you are not for dating... you are one who doesn't work for others'. His perfect jaw, soft eyes, everything about him wonderful, just another of so many who knew that he was worlds apart from me, something I somehow failed to register. And that's something that always happens, really this was just a little cosmic sign from the checkout... "Reality check at the express lane, please".
And I waited for the cosmic reminder to leave, remembered who I am and what I'm not (datable) , and that it's not me, pretty much as a rule. And I walked out the door after all these years with the thing I've never entirely gotten finally sunken in firmly. I dropped the number behind a trash can. I knew better. Guys and me... we have a 3 weeks shelf life.
There's a poem I remember from an elementary school reader about a kid watching moths flying to their fiery deaths in a bug zapper, and the last line after a moth explains to him the exhilaration of that moment beforehand making it all worth while is something to the effect of "I wish I wanted something as badly as that moth wanted to fry itself" as he watched utterly clueless an d befuddled at the white wings pop away.
And I get that today, I do.
The boy has been in touch... we will have lunch, but for some reason I get it now. I do, I literally truly give up... I have finally come full circle from a 21 year old hopeless romantic to a 30 year old romantic who doesn't know hope. It's always going to hurt like hell, it's always going to end badly, and it's never ever been and never going to be worth it to get there. I don't want anything as badly as that moth wanted to fry itself, and baby... when it comes to who gets zapped in the end...
It's not you... it's me.
Always.
(*I really do want to note here that the most recent "ummm...not vibing you" guy is really a great guy, wonderful even. I wasn't mad that he didn't like me, it happens. He just happened to be the one in the checkout line when self doubt creeped in.)
Thursday, April 15, 2010
And then there was the time I was thinking about having brunch with a a philosopher and historian of science, Dissertating at ND....
... but then I thought about it some more.
That was a good call on my part.
That was a good call on my part.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Homecoming
It's always overwhelming, 2 days of a different life, a different me. One who doesn't tell bedtime stories or do the dishes, one who doesn't rub glitter on knees because it is 'fairy powder' and the biggest lie in all of maternal history but for some reason I've come to terms with the fact that I will never again be young, enough, perfectly wiling to want happiness and comfort enough to understand the magic behind, it is the only think that can make a 5 year old girl, nearly 6, think a growing pain doesn't hurt anymore. I go out late. I dress like a brazen hussy. For a few weeks in there I even kissed boys without worry of the sitter (that is over now, mind you-- seems it's hard to tell a girl you're not interested anymore when your tongue is in her mouth, but luckily, this girl knows to ask. Via text.). I drink red bull, I stay busy, I watch slasher films in the middle of the day and blare Liz Phair and They Might Be Giants until the windows shake to spite the Gin-Blossom rocking mullet lady downstairs.
And then, I go to bed alone, and I cry a little bit because this isn't me anymore-- I am not a girl who hangs out in bars and makes vapid chitchat and intrigues with little substance and much charm... I am more (now), my life is bigger (now)... I am not also a mother, I am a mother first and all else on the side. But the Indiana State Visitation guidelines insist that every 21 days I not look into my own eyes on a smaller face, marvel at the little girl that has her fathers mouth but wears my smile... that I assume another identity.
And I don't mind the break. I don't mind the monthly atmosphere of freaky holiday, I even look forward to it sometimes. But there are these times, the longer stretches like Spring Break, that I fear it. I feared losing myself. Closing down bars with diet soda, sleeping until noon, kissing virtual strangers because some boy made me feel bad about myself, wearing too much makeup and showing too much breast even for the stiletto-halter-mini mother of the year that I have always been. Yesterday, I woke up and thought "Oh, there were other things I was supposed to do in my time off".
In my time off.
Something terribly strange happened to me this week, something I didn't like. I have always had great respect for motherhood as hard work, my primary career, responsibility, life's calling. But never, never, have I seen it as a job. I forgot for a moment in there something crucial, something I've never forgotten before: Being my daughters mother is not what I do... being my daughters mother is who I am. It's what I was put on this earth to be. It's all I ever wanted, and I never knew crawling in and out of so many beds that it was only because that's what it would take a commitment-phobe like myself to have her head where it's always belonged, on the pillow next to mine.
And tonight, her first night home, I tucked her in and she held me close and said in half sleep to me that "I missed you so much... I'm really glad to be back home. It smells like our house here, mommy. It's different to be somewhere that doesn't smell like you. Here, hold on to me tighter like this so we're really close again at home ". And she held on until she fell asleep with one other whisper to me, the one I needed more than I knew.
"Can you crawl in my ear when I go to sleep, like get really small? Because then you can always be in my brain since I think about you all the time anyway. You can have a house there, and it can smell like you when I'm not home, and so it can smell like me for you too when I'm gone".
They were the babbles of an exhausted kindergartner up past bedtime, I know that, but that little tired 6 year old is smarter than I will ever be. She could never forget for a moment what I did for that split second here and there when she was gone... that there's no telling who really belongs to who anymore, where one of us starts and the other one begins. So I smelled her hair and listened to her snore for a bit, and kissed her forehead for the first time in 8 days.
And she smelled like her, and she smelled like home. And I'm madly in love with that little girl, the me I wish I could be and a million times more, the very picture of perfection, brilliance and living poetry.
And in this very second it dawned on me... summer break is really going to be a fucking bitch.
And then, I go to bed alone, and I cry a little bit because this isn't me anymore-- I am not a girl who hangs out in bars and makes vapid chitchat and intrigues with little substance and much charm... I am more (now), my life is bigger (now)... I am not also a mother, I am a mother first and all else on the side. But the Indiana State Visitation guidelines insist that every 21 days I not look into my own eyes on a smaller face, marvel at the little girl that has her fathers mouth but wears my smile... that I assume another identity.
And I don't mind the break. I don't mind the monthly atmosphere of freaky holiday, I even look forward to it sometimes. But there are these times, the longer stretches like Spring Break, that I fear it. I feared losing myself. Closing down bars with diet soda, sleeping until noon, kissing virtual strangers because some boy made me feel bad about myself, wearing too much makeup and showing too much breast even for the stiletto-halter-mini mother of the year that I have always been. Yesterday, I woke up and thought "Oh, there were other things I was supposed to do in my time off".
In my time off.
Something terribly strange happened to me this week, something I didn't like. I have always had great respect for motherhood as hard work, my primary career, responsibility, life's calling. But never, never, have I seen it as a job. I forgot for a moment in there something crucial, something I've never forgotten before: Being my daughters mother is not what I do... being my daughters mother is who I am. It's what I was put on this earth to be. It's all I ever wanted, and I never knew crawling in and out of so many beds that it was only because that's what it would take a commitment-phobe like myself to have her head where it's always belonged, on the pillow next to mine.
And tonight, her first night home, I tucked her in and she held me close and said in half sleep to me that "I missed you so much... I'm really glad to be back home. It smells like our house here, mommy. It's different to be somewhere that doesn't smell like you. Here, hold on to me tighter like this so we're really close again at home ". And she held on until she fell asleep with one other whisper to me, the one I needed more than I knew.
"Can you crawl in my ear when I go to sleep, like get really small? Because then you can always be in my brain since I think about you all the time anyway. You can have a house there, and it can smell like you when I'm not home, and so it can smell like me for you too when I'm gone".
They were the babbles of an exhausted kindergartner up past bedtime, I know that, but that little tired 6 year old is smarter than I will ever be. She could never forget for a moment what I did for that split second here and there when she was gone... that there's no telling who really belongs to who anymore, where one of us starts and the other one begins. So I smelled her hair and listened to her snore for a bit, and kissed her forehead for the first time in 8 days.
And she smelled like her, and she smelled like home. And I'm madly in love with that little girl, the me I wish I could be and a million times more, the very picture of perfection, brilliance and living poetry.
And in this very second it dawned on me... summer break is really going to be a fucking bitch.
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