.
That's where we're at. Just saying.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Go Ahead And Judge Me.
In the middle of cleaning my living room, I had some thoughts. I abruptly remembered I had homework to do, went back in time to sort out if I had covered all of the food groups in my daughters dinner, discovered that I can no longer find the ankle brace my jazz dance instructor lent me which I A) need for class and B) just don't want to lose because it's not fucking mine. I didn't have time to be cleaning, I was totally bombarded by having to as well as the fact that I haven't since early December, and the walls are literally closing in on me-- it's a small fucking apartment. There are a few people in my world who can understand this, but not many: Cleaning the things I have to clean is just too emotional for me, and not cleaning only makes it worse. It's like having a fear of the dentist while the cavity becomes an abscess (side note: I am terrified of the dentist and generally have not liked to go until pain from toothaches has brought me to the emergency room).
I stopped, lay down in the middle of the floor on a big pile of papers in sweatpants and nothing else (You know what? Go on and fucking judge me: The moral of the story here is that I was cleaning my living room at all. No eyeliner, no support on my double D mommy boobs, no airbrushing over the scared and tired face of a 31 year old woman who has cared for herself exclusively essentially her entire life, and minded to the task of others thinking well of her all the while-- that shit'll break you out and give you some crows feet, yo) and cried myself to sleep. I wasn't sad, I wasn't even really frustrated-- I was just full. There was a kind of surface tension, like the skin on a too taut balloon when it starts to pucker from old air a few days later, and I could feel it straining across my throat. I had been trying for hours to decide which childhood homework efforts needed to be saved and which of her hours of learning and growing could be tossed in the recycling, if I still needed this Abraham Lincoln bust I bought my ex at the dollar tree 8 years ago or if the fact that he had left in in our house when he left not a month after I did to be with the love of his life was reason enough to discard it myself. I tried to find a place for my vitamins that wouldn't get in the way of the tea or the peanut butter and longed for a moment to be the kind of woman who could add on when she ran out of space instead of having to discard this much of her life, no more or less. And just as in my overcrowded apartment something had to go from me, bloodletting of sorts--if I'd had leeches, I would have used leeches and that would have worked every bit as well.
But I didn't have leeches. And so, the crying.
I slept for about 10 minutes, then I got my ass up and blogged this because it's better than walking around carrying it, and now it's back to picking apart the little bits and pieces of my life, separating the emotional from the practical, because that's what there's room for on so many levels I can't even begin to blog it.
And now, on to the bathroom. I don't know that I've ever cried in sweatpants in my bathtub before... we'll see how it goes.
I stopped, lay down in the middle of the floor on a big pile of papers in sweatpants and nothing else (You know what? Go on and fucking judge me: The moral of the story here is that I was cleaning my living room at all. No eyeliner, no support on my double D mommy boobs, no airbrushing over the scared and tired face of a 31 year old woman who has cared for herself exclusively essentially her entire life, and minded to the task of others thinking well of her all the while-- that shit'll break you out and give you some crows feet, yo) and cried myself to sleep. I wasn't sad, I wasn't even really frustrated-- I was just full. There was a kind of surface tension, like the skin on a too taut balloon when it starts to pucker from old air a few days later, and I could feel it straining across my throat. I had been trying for hours to decide which childhood homework efforts needed to be saved and which of her hours of learning and growing could be tossed in the recycling, if I still needed this Abraham Lincoln bust I bought my ex at the dollar tree 8 years ago or if the fact that he had left in in our house when he left not a month after I did to be with the love of his life was reason enough to discard it myself. I tried to find a place for my vitamins that wouldn't get in the way of the tea or the peanut butter and longed for a moment to be the kind of woman who could add on when she ran out of space instead of having to discard this much of her life, no more or less. And just as in my overcrowded apartment something had to go from me, bloodletting of sorts--if I'd had leeches, I would have used leeches and that would have worked every bit as well.
But I didn't have leeches. And so, the crying.
I slept for about 10 minutes, then I got my ass up and blogged this because it's better than walking around carrying it, and now it's back to picking apart the little bits and pieces of my life, separating the emotional from the practical, because that's what there's room for on so many levels I can't even begin to blog it.
And now, on to the bathroom. I don't know that I've ever cried in sweatpants in my bathtub before... we'll see how it goes.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Saturday Night And The Non-Drinking Woman
Sometimes the above stated means a lot of diet soda, watching some of my favorite people do shots together, smoking a half a pack of camel light, finding They Might Be Giants on a jukepox, misspelling jukebox, and posting on my phone run on sentance style while discussing with one of my all time favorite women about what it would be like if we'd become friends when I still drank.
I love Saturday night, and for all of its absurdities and delights, I love every last Zero-proof and joy drenched drop of my life. And if I haven't blogged it yet, April, I utterly love you... the most delightful long tall girly drink in town.
I love Saturday night, and for all of its absurdities and delights, I love every last Zero-proof and joy drenched drop of my life. And if I haven't blogged it yet, April, I utterly love you... the most delightful long tall girly drink in town.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Sometimes I Really Like My Life.
Grocery shopping day, for most women. For this one? Madcap romantic adventures. Specifically (today), a deli worker of all but 20 years old (he used to be a checkout boy, he couldn't wait until he turns 21 to buy his own beer) gifted me with 4 boxes of conversation hearts... and his number. He would like to have coffee, he knows I have a kid "but that's totally cool, like-- we can go somewhere that she can come too if you feel safer that way".
Aww... that's so sweet, really. But, I will be keeping the conversation hearts. And I may give some of them to my boyfriend.
(I'm sorry, really-- it's just true)
Forward, checkout line. My daughter wanted 3 items that she had at some point in our trip realized that she needed desperately, immediately, and could not risk me not buying-- so had attempted to hide them from me cleverly in my very own backpack. I always check my backpack for just such a reason, however, and was able to avoid criminal conversion charges for unwittingly smuggling the following out on her behalf:
- 2 bags of Old Wisconsin Beef Bites (which she later referred to simply as 'that bag of beef'-- and she was referring to the one bag that yes, I totally bought)
- 1 bag of Pork Rinds (because child cannot live on beef alone)
- 1 bottle of feminine hygiene wash ("Why this?" "Um because there's this butterfly on it-- can't you see?" Obviously not. Oh wait, maybe that's because you had shoved it into the bottom of my backpack before we left a store-- but no worries, I have no doubt the police woman would also be very fond of the butterfly. I mean, look at it. It's purple, for the love of all things shoplifted)
Upon my arrival home, there was one other surprise for me-- 2 bags of Twizzlers from my Aunt Crystal. Aunt Crystal is pretty much who I want to be when I grow up-- she gardens in the right seasons, she doesn't miss birthdays, she uses stationary instead of notebook paper, she can grow things on windowsills in bottles, a skill I did not acquire from her mother and my favorite grandparent, and she knows about my completely irrational mad love of Twizzlers and that it was something I might happen to need right now.
With this extra positive energy coursing through my veins, the practical thing would be to use it to clean my fucking pit of a house.
Or... to eat twizzlers wrapped around beef bites in my pajamas. Yes, yes, that will do. Tonight I really like my life. Why try to improve upon perfection right this second?
Aww... that's so sweet, really. But, I will be keeping the conversation hearts. And I may give some of them to my boyfriend.
(I'm sorry, really-- it's just true)
Forward, checkout line. My daughter wanted 3 items that she had at some point in our trip realized that she needed desperately, immediately, and could not risk me not buying-- so had attempted to hide them from me cleverly in my very own backpack. I always check my backpack for just such a reason, however, and was able to avoid criminal conversion charges for unwittingly smuggling the following out on her behalf:
- 2 bags of Old Wisconsin Beef Bites (which she later referred to simply as 'that bag of beef'-- and she was referring to the one bag that yes, I totally bought)
- 1 bag of Pork Rinds (because child cannot live on beef alone)
- 1 bottle of feminine hygiene wash ("Why this?" "Um because there's this butterfly on it-- can't you see?" Obviously not. Oh wait, maybe that's because you had shoved it into the bottom of my backpack before we left a store-- but no worries, I have no doubt the police woman would also be very fond of the butterfly. I mean, look at it. It's purple, for the love of all things shoplifted)
Upon my arrival home, there was one other surprise for me-- 2 bags of Twizzlers from my Aunt Crystal. Aunt Crystal is pretty much who I want to be when I grow up-- she gardens in the right seasons, she doesn't miss birthdays, she uses stationary instead of notebook paper, she can grow things on windowsills in bottles, a skill I did not acquire from her mother and my favorite grandparent, and she knows about my completely irrational mad love of Twizzlers and that it was something I might happen to need right now.
With this extra positive energy coursing through my veins, the practical thing would be to use it to clean my fucking pit of a house.
Or... to eat twizzlers wrapped around beef bites in my pajamas. Yes, yes, that will do. Tonight I really like my life. Why try to improve upon perfection right this second?
Monday, January 24, 2011
I'm Afraid I'm Going To Become One Of Those Girls....
You know the ones, the ones who blog about their boyfriend and their relationship all the time because it's their most and least favorite subject (because we who blog enjoy our least favorite subject even more than our most favorite sometimes).
And I want to spill over with details: He drives a hummer and it doesn't even freak me out, I panic about having things at his house, when he's falling asleep he's a different person than when he's awake and as such I sometimes feel like I'm in two completely unrelated and sometimes conflicting relationships. I want to gush about how he's of Indian decent which gives him unbelievable eyelashes and a sexy strong jaw, but how ultimately he's just a nice boy from Wisconsin without an exotic bone in his body, he's wholesome and bitter and funny and perfect and by far the smartest or most attractive man I've ever been involved with. I want to blog about funny jokes, I want to blog about how right now I'm in a fight with him that he doesn't even know is a fight because he's too well adjusted to know how to empathize with ways the odd goings on of a spazzy girl like me strictly within the space of my own mind.
And so, there is this post. Because it should all happen at least once (and only this once), so we can move on to more important matters-- like how I'm eating honey straight out of the jar right now, why my babydaddy is a creeper, and that my 6 year old just told me that her boyfriend is a very nice young man and she doesn't know if he should be her boyfriend because she's just too young to have a boyfriend and because she just likes him "a little bit too much in school".
Eh. At least she comes by it honest.
And I want to spill over with details: He drives a hummer and it doesn't even freak me out, I panic about having things at his house, when he's falling asleep he's a different person than when he's awake and as such I sometimes feel like I'm in two completely unrelated and sometimes conflicting relationships. I want to gush about how he's of Indian decent which gives him unbelievable eyelashes and a sexy strong jaw, but how ultimately he's just a nice boy from Wisconsin without an exotic bone in his body, he's wholesome and bitter and funny and perfect and by far the smartest or most attractive man I've ever been involved with. I want to blog about funny jokes, I want to blog about how right now I'm in a fight with him that he doesn't even know is a fight because he's too well adjusted to know how to empathize with ways the odd goings on of a spazzy girl like me strictly within the space of my own mind.
And so, there is this post. Because it should all happen at least once (and only this once), so we can move on to more important matters-- like how I'm eating honey straight out of the jar right now, why my babydaddy is a creeper, and that my 6 year old just told me that her boyfriend is a very nice young man and she doesn't know if he should be her boyfriend because she's just too young to have a boyfriend and because she just likes him "a little bit too much in school".
Eh. At least she comes by it honest.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
I'd Rather be Bow Hunting
So yeah, I totally did a 15 minutes late half dance into class deal again this morning, said sorry too loudly because of my headphones, then turned in the wrong homework. The librarian (yes, this class is taught by a librarian) glared exactly as a librarian might be expected to, the headphones flew out of my ear, and about 3 minutes later I saw her standing next to my computer.
"Young Lady (yeah, those words from a librarian: Some days my world is like a Norman Rockwell painting that has little tolerance for me in the middle of it)-- would you mind turning them off, also?" It turns out my ears were not in fact just ringing from the volume of my previous listening, but in fact that my pocket was still humming with music. Specifically the words "Exquisite Dead Guy".
And then I turned in some more of the wrong homework-- not great at the online submissions, this girl.
I want to go back to bed, go ice fishing, go shopping... I would be happy going bow hunting. All I know is that I don't want to be here. I don't want to be in this semester at all for any reason whatsoever.
And yet, off to class number two which I did a crossword puzzle through last session. Oooh... I hope there wasn't any homework.
"Young Lady (yeah, those words from a librarian: Some days my world is like a Norman Rockwell painting that has little tolerance for me in the middle of it)-- would you mind turning them off, also?" It turns out my ears were not in fact just ringing from the volume of my previous listening, but in fact that my pocket was still humming with music. Specifically the words "Exquisite Dead Guy".
And then I turned in some more of the wrong homework-- not great at the online submissions, this girl.
I want to go back to bed, go ice fishing, go shopping... I would be happy going bow hunting. All I know is that I don't want to be here. I don't want to be in this semester at all for any reason whatsoever.
And yet, off to class number two which I did a crossword puzzle through last session. Oooh... I hope there wasn't any homework.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Now, I'm not saying that I think a half pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream and 2 packages of Ramen is a decent dinner for anyone, mind you...
.
...I'm simply saying it's what I just had for dinner.
...I'm simply saying it's what I just had for dinner.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The Little Things
It's the little things people forget about when dealing with the poor single mother. And it's the little things that leave me with that big feeling, the one of not knowing how to address the little things or taste the words coming out of my mouth.
I'm dating a man who drives a Hummer, lives in a 3 bedroom house all alone, and buys $50 ties without so much as looking at the price tag. And I've been a trooper, I have. I'm gracious when he picks up the bill, I don't fret about how utterly unthinkable most aspects of my life would be to him if he were to live them. But, he is a Packers fan and I wanted to wear his team shirt (more for our own amusement given my clueless nature regarding athletics than to be of some real Green Bay support mind you). And it seemed like a good idea-- at the time.
Did you know packers shirts, or at least any moderately attractive ones, are almost $30 plus shipping? And that in order for them to get here in time to wear for more than 2 days previous to the game, it's going to be about $40?
Well I do. That is to say, I do now.
And it's sad, remarkably so. I was online looking them up kind of halfheartedly (as in not yet looking at the list prices) when I got an email from him this morning, links to three separate shirts. He was happy that his new girlfriend wants to play (and I do, I really do). I could completely see the bearded little smile playing around the corners of his mouth. And then a little smile started playing around the corners of my (un-bearded) mouth . And then I started really looking, and the smile melted away as though Amazon.com were a sudden spring heatwave in early march and said smile was one of those tiny little dirty mountains of compacted snow and ice which used to be a giant mound of plowed white that remain after most of the snow has started to puddle away.
And it's not that I don't have $40 to spare here and there. It's not even as though I didn't spend more than that on my last Sephora bender. It's just that try as I might to think of it as a gesture in the way of love, I don't have $40 to spend on a sports teamed t-shirt I'm going to wear for 3 days, and I can't find a place in my mind where I have as little as I do and that's going to be one of the luxuries I choose and I can be OK with that.
Which is fine, and not a big deal, but it's one of those glaring obvious things I keep thinking about-- me and this man, we're different. And I offered to make a nice, oh fuck-- let's be frank: an absolutely adorable gesture, and then had to say "Oh, you know, it's going to take a while to get here" and know what neither of us are really talking about (and I honestly believe that in his good albeit naive nature he really doesn't think it matters at all): His girlfriend is literally poor, and sometimes limited by that.
And it's gross to blog, even knowing that he doesn't read my blog. And it's gross to know all on my own-- and some day I'm going to have to say outright "Yeah... I can't afford (some thing that isn't a big deal to him but is to me)". And it's going to feel gross to both of us. And that's when things are going to start to change.
I understand that I elected to live the life I did, that it wasn't even that I had to make a hard choice but that "I would rather not have very much money, and I would rather raise my child without too much money". It was always not only my choosing, but my very deliberate and sometimes even enthusiastic choosing. But, other people don't understand it-- not always. Men and the date night suggestions forgetting that this requires money per hour for a sitter. Friend plan evenings out that they know I'll just love, but I have strict rules about what I won't spend money on so I can spend money without concern in other areas. And ultimately, this isn't fair to them-- I've made a lot of decisions for these people and their relationships to me in deciding I was going to be poor. Sometimes too poor for the little things, which is what interpersonal relationships are made up of in general.
And I don't like Green Bay, I don't care. But I do like my boyfriend, and I would have cared to see that look on his face when I as promised showed up on game night in an adorable little green tshirt with those yellow letters across my adorable breasts, saying adorable little things and making such an adorable little gesture.
And when I think about the adorable lost in this little matter, it doesn't feel like such a little thing at all. Which is why in the time it has taken me to type this, I've decided to put one of my little splurges on hold and get this instead, because all too soon we're both going to have to look at the truth of his poor girlfriend-- and as long as that's already coming, I want to be sure there's a lot of delightful going on before the ugliness and discomfort comes along. I had someone in my life once who said that he always liked leaving my home and feeling the weight of poverty lift off of him... and he wasn't a great person to have in my life-- but he was an honest one. And since then, I've never been OK again with letting anyone else see that weight over my head or letting it seep into the fibers of their own lives, arranged entirely different for I'm sure exactly the reasons they should have been to them.
And as long as it's inevitable, I'm going to go ahead and not crush this wonderful man under that weight any sooner than need be, or even leave any clues that it is there if he's not feeling it yet.
I'm dating a man who drives a Hummer, lives in a 3 bedroom house all alone, and buys $50 ties without so much as looking at the price tag. And I've been a trooper, I have. I'm gracious when he picks up the bill, I don't fret about how utterly unthinkable most aspects of my life would be to him if he were to live them. But, he is a Packers fan and I wanted to wear his team shirt (more for our own amusement given my clueless nature regarding athletics than to be of some real Green Bay support mind you). And it seemed like a good idea-- at the time.
Did you know packers shirts, or at least any moderately attractive ones, are almost $30 plus shipping? And that in order for them to get here in time to wear for more than 2 days previous to the game, it's going to be about $40?
Well I do. That is to say, I do now.
And it's sad, remarkably so. I was online looking them up kind of halfheartedly (as in not yet looking at the list prices) when I got an email from him this morning, links to three separate shirts. He was happy that his new girlfriend wants to play (and I do, I really do). I could completely see the bearded little smile playing around the corners of his mouth. And then a little smile started playing around the corners of my (un-bearded) mouth . And then I started really looking, and the smile melted away as though Amazon.com were a sudden spring heatwave in early march and said smile was one of those tiny little dirty mountains of compacted snow and ice which used to be a giant mound of plowed white that remain after most of the snow has started to puddle away.
And it's not that I don't have $40 to spare here and there. It's not even as though I didn't spend more than that on my last Sephora bender. It's just that try as I might to think of it as a gesture in the way of love, I don't have $40 to spend on a sports teamed t-shirt I'm going to wear for 3 days, and I can't find a place in my mind where I have as little as I do and that's going to be one of the luxuries I choose and I can be OK with that.
Which is fine, and not a big deal, but it's one of those glaring obvious things I keep thinking about-- me and this man, we're different. And I offered to make a nice, oh fuck-- let's be frank: an absolutely adorable gesture, and then had to say "Oh, you know, it's going to take a while to get here" and know what neither of us are really talking about (and I honestly believe that in his good albeit naive nature he really doesn't think it matters at all): His girlfriend is literally poor, and sometimes limited by that.
And it's gross to blog, even knowing that he doesn't read my blog. And it's gross to know all on my own-- and some day I'm going to have to say outright "Yeah... I can't afford (some thing that isn't a big deal to him but is to me)". And it's going to feel gross to both of us. And that's when things are going to start to change.
I understand that I elected to live the life I did, that it wasn't even that I had to make a hard choice but that "I would rather not have very much money, and I would rather raise my child without too much money". It was always not only my choosing, but my very deliberate and sometimes even enthusiastic choosing. But, other people don't understand it-- not always. Men and the date night suggestions forgetting that this requires money per hour for a sitter. Friend plan evenings out that they know I'll just love, but I have strict rules about what I won't spend money on so I can spend money without concern in other areas. And ultimately, this isn't fair to them-- I've made a lot of decisions for these people and their relationships to me in deciding I was going to be poor. Sometimes too poor for the little things, which is what interpersonal relationships are made up of in general.
And I don't like Green Bay, I don't care. But I do like my boyfriend, and I would have cared to see that look on his face when I as promised showed up on game night in an adorable little green tshirt with those yellow letters across my adorable breasts, saying adorable little things and making such an adorable little gesture.
And when I think about the adorable lost in this little matter, it doesn't feel like such a little thing at all. Which is why in the time it has taken me to type this, I've decided to put one of my little splurges on hold and get this instead, because all too soon we're both going to have to look at the truth of his poor girlfriend-- and as long as that's already coming, I want to be sure there's a lot of delightful going on before the ugliness and discomfort comes along. I had someone in my life once who said that he always liked leaving my home and feeling the weight of poverty lift off of him... and he wasn't a great person to have in my life-- but he was an honest one. And since then, I've never been OK again with letting anyone else see that weight over my head or letting it seep into the fibers of their own lives, arranged entirely different for I'm sure exactly the reasons they should have been to them.
And as long as it's inevitable, I'm going to go ahead and not crush this wonderful man under that weight any sooner than need be, or even leave any clues that it is there if he's not feeling it yet.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
"Mommy, is 'sustainable' like sharpening a pencil instead of just throwing it away when it breaks like you do?"
Um... probably.
Clearly, in this house 'pencil sharpeners' are for damn hippies.
Clearly, in this house 'pencil sharpeners' are for damn hippies.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Overwhelming Realities
I was sick for a week. In the world of a single mother, this is no small statement. I don't have family, I don't have the kinds of friends who can come and take a child for a few hours... "I was sick for a week" means "Too much TV was watched, the cleaning was not done, and I didn't fight with my 6 year old the way I should have about eating her fruits and vegetables".
And then a friend died. This resulted in 2 days of tears that just won't come but in passing bursts of snot and mascara, and that haunting feeling that of course I'll see her one more time to give her a hug, to talk about things, just because you see someone one last time that stands out. I don't remember the last time I saw her, it may have been a couple of Saturdays ago when I did the Macarena with her, but it may have been last Tuesday when I was flustered and didn't give her a hug. And I'm not entirely sure which is the case, and that isn't the way you see someone for a last time. Except that it is, I'm never going to see her again. And it is what it is.
And I start school tomorrow, I don't have any text books, my apartment is a pit, and I don't know what smells in my kitchen but I know something does. A friend, one of those dear ones that you just 'get' and that just gets you and you don't know how you weren't always friends with, referred recently to "living like a depressed child". I entirely understood the sentiment at the time, or I thought I did, but now that I really entirely do I want to go back in time and retract the "Oh my God, I know exactly what you mean" and wait until now, now that I really do.
There are panties on my kitchen counter, my class schedule is scrawled like a suicide note inside of my notebook (there are 5 buildings on my tiny little campus, how do I not know where 3 of my classes are?), I have not gotten any of my text books, I have 3 pieces to finish for an auction I signed on for months ago and am only half done with, and tomorrow I am turning 31 and want nothing more than to curl up fetal position and be reborn no sooner than spring. It's seldom that there's too much for me to deal with... but there's too much for me to deal with right now. This too shall pass, that's what I keep hearing and keep telling myself, but I'm dead on my feel right now, blogging instead of cleaning, and while willing everything to pass quickly, I'm still not even attempting the very basic fix of just for tonight passing out on the cool side of my pillow.
That's how fucking overwhelmed I am-- I can't even go to sleep because I'm too overwhelmed with the thought of waking up to all the same messes in the morning.
And then a friend died. This resulted in 2 days of tears that just won't come but in passing bursts of snot and mascara, and that haunting feeling that of course I'll see her one more time to give her a hug, to talk about things, just because you see someone one last time that stands out. I don't remember the last time I saw her, it may have been a couple of Saturdays ago when I did the Macarena with her, but it may have been last Tuesday when I was flustered and didn't give her a hug. And I'm not entirely sure which is the case, and that isn't the way you see someone for a last time. Except that it is, I'm never going to see her again. And it is what it is.
And I start school tomorrow, I don't have any text books, my apartment is a pit, and I don't know what smells in my kitchen but I know something does. A friend, one of those dear ones that you just 'get' and that just gets you and you don't know how you weren't always friends with, referred recently to "living like a depressed child". I entirely understood the sentiment at the time, or I thought I did, but now that I really entirely do I want to go back in time and retract the "Oh my God, I know exactly what you mean" and wait until now, now that I really do.
There are panties on my kitchen counter, my class schedule is scrawled like a suicide note inside of my notebook (there are 5 buildings on my tiny little campus, how do I not know where 3 of my classes are?), I have not gotten any of my text books, I have 3 pieces to finish for an auction I signed on for months ago and am only half done with, and tomorrow I am turning 31 and want nothing more than to curl up fetal position and be reborn no sooner than spring. It's seldom that there's too much for me to deal with... but there's too much for me to deal with right now. This too shall pass, that's what I keep hearing and keep telling myself, but I'm dead on my feel right now, blogging instead of cleaning, and while willing everything to pass quickly, I'm still not even attempting the very basic fix of just for tonight passing out on the cool side of my pillow.
That's how fucking overwhelmed I am-- I can't even go to sleep because I'm too overwhelmed with the thought of waking up to all the same messes in the morning.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Must Be Friday Evening
Little Old Woman at store: Oh, that smells beautiful (lavender scented hand lotion). Your husband will like that...
Unwed Mother: Oh, I'm not married. It is nice though.
Little Woman: (patting me on the hand softly) Such a pretty girl. It's OK, you'll find someone.
Aging Spinster who clearly has little to live for according to look on Little Old
Woman's face: (backing away) Um, I'm not really the marrying type. Thanks though.
Disappointed Little Old Woman: It's fine, young lady. You'll meet someone some day. God has a plan for all of us.
Needless to say, I did not buy the hand lotion. My God, when does this ever fucking end? At what age will they finally just say "Poor dear, must be too late for her now" and not address me at all?
Unwed Mother: Oh, I'm not married. It is nice though.
Little Woman: (patting me on the hand softly) Such a pretty girl. It's OK, you'll find someone.
Aging Spinster who clearly has little to live for according to look on Little Old
Woman's face: (backing away) Um, I'm not really the marrying type. Thanks though.
Disappointed Little Old Woman: It's fine, young lady. You'll meet someone some day. God has a plan for all of us.
Needless to say, I did not buy the hand lotion. My God, when does this ever fucking end? At what age will they finally just say "Poor dear, must be too late for her now" and not address me at all?
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Eh. Easy Come, Easy Go.
Did my 6 year old really just call me ugly on our way to school today? Reallly? Ah well, so much for the love-in that was yesterday.
And At The End Of The Day....
It was bound to happen, and of course it was bound to happen less than a month into things: I was going to pour all of my "I've been hurt" issues out on the freakishly handsome absurdly kind uncomfortably smart new boyfriend in a 237 paragraph email in Shakespearean pros with illustrations and footnotes in 3 languages. And he was going to write back in a completely sensible fashion (which includes about 12 sentences... I never got the memo the rest of the world did on appropriate email lengths) that I'm a very nice girl and he hopes I feel better and he's going to be really nice to me because he likes me.
And now I look like this traumatized moron and he looks like (and is) this very reasonable lovely man who I have no business being with, and that's going to sit in the middle of the table glaring at me. But he won't notice, because he's just that wonderful. Which will make it all the worse. I just ruined all the enjoyable parts of a brand new relationship (it doesn't go back from that kind of disgusting self-inflicted humiliation), in record time. Even for me.
I'm simply not old enough, calm enough, or normal enough to date.
In unrelated events, my daughter told me today that she loves me more than anyone (melt) and that includes daddy (gloat). I informed her that she just loves daddy in a different way but every bit as much as me I'm sure... then I gave her some gummy worms and secretly gloated yet more. Through the day I rescued her from a nightmare, nursed a wounded knee, found a lost doll, calmed two nervous fits of fear that I dare say resembled existential crisis (What am I supposed to be?!" and "I don't know what is going to happen after right now!"-- dude, she totally gets that shit after time with her father, don't look at me) and gave 1 fabulous piggy back ride home from school. The house is a mess, my love life is in shambles that only I am aware of, but this is right... this is natural... this is what I do.
This is what I'm supposed to be. At the end of the day, I can't get anything else right very often, but this is who I am, this is what I know. And if I'm a lame girlfriend, an uninspired student, a scattered blogger at best... I am mommy. And I'm damn fucking good at it, and that's more than enough to go to sleep feeling that all is right with the world next to the little girl who loves me more than anything, despite what I may or may not have done to anything else through the day.
And now I look like this traumatized moron and he looks like (and is) this very reasonable lovely man who I have no business being with, and that's going to sit in the middle of the table glaring at me. But he won't notice, because he's just that wonderful. Which will make it all the worse. I just ruined all the enjoyable parts of a brand new relationship (it doesn't go back from that kind of disgusting self-inflicted humiliation), in record time. Even for me.
I'm simply not old enough, calm enough, or normal enough to date.
In unrelated events, my daughter told me today that she loves me more than anyone (melt) and that includes daddy (gloat). I informed her that she just loves daddy in a different way but every bit as much as me I'm sure... then I gave her some gummy worms and secretly gloated yet more. Through the day I rescued her from a nightmare, nursed a wounded knee, found a lost doll, calmed two nervous fits of fear that I dare say resembled existential crisis (What am I supposed to be?!" and "I don't know what is going to happen after right now!"-- dude, she totally gets that shit after time with her father, don't look at me) and gave 1 fabulous piggy back ride home from school. The house is a mess, my love life is in shambles that only I am aware of, but this is right... this is natural... this is what I do.
This is what I'm supposed to be. At the end of the day, I can't get anything else right very often, but this is who I am, this is what I know. And if I'm a lame girlfriend, an uninspired student, a scattered blogger at best... I am mommy. And I'm damn fucking good at it, and that's more than enough to go to sleep feeling that all is right with the world next to the little girl who loves me more than anything, despite what I may or may not have done to anything else through the day.
Friday, December 31, 2010
"Some Things Will Be A Little Different."
This afternoon I took a break from getting ready for a couple of New Years things to journal. I wrote cleanly at the top of the page "Things To Note In The New Year", and after about 15 minutes of staring blankly at the page, I scrawled "Some things will be a little different" and tossed the pen somewhere under the sofa. It rolled past 4 bras, 3 pairs of nylons, a pair of thigh highs still in the package, and 2 girdles to get there-- but it did. And I resumed preparing for New Years festivities.
Some things will be a little different.
-I will no longer denounce dating, romance, involvement between the sexes. I have a boyfriend (which I assure you looks every bit as bizarre to you as it does to me), one that I adore and wake up staring at in some or other utterly repulsively google-eyed fashion. I kiss him at red lights and resist the urge to make a picture of the two of us my desktop. I met a man, I am hopelessly smitten, and I love it.
-I will lie to my daughter. No about why Daddy lives in a different state. Not about the fat man poking around in the living room. Not even about why I'm sad on any given day. No, the above statement implies that I have to lie to my daughter about something very different this year-- not about what ails me, but about what makes me happy. She has told me in no uncertain terms that she does not want me to have a boyfriend because she does not want me to break up with a boyfriend. She has seen that, twice, and does not care to see it again. Which is fair enough, and I can understand the sentiment entirely (as is evident from the past 3 years of halfhearted and self-sabotaged dating)... but it is what it is-- this happens to make me happy, and inevitable sadness be damned, I'm walking through. Which would totally piss my daughter off-- if I were going to tell her. Which I'm not.
Which would also totally piss her off. If she knew.
But she won't, because this year is the year that I become a deceptive untrustworthy mother.
-The heels? Gone. Some sprains just never do get better. This is one of those sprains.
Yeah, fine. Maybe it was the never icing it because I don't like to feel cold, maybe it was the refusal not to wear heels until 2 weeks later when the swelling had still nowhere near subsided. Maybe it was the decision to still walk a male every other day, go dancing, go to a party in platformed boots, take up dart tossing despite it consisting entirely of standing with wight on one of either foot for at least an hour if I'm doing it right.
Maybe.
Regardless, there are no more heels for this girl in the new year, and that is sad.
There is more, I know there is. And I could get into it right now... but I won't. Because in he time it takes to save a draft, go to new years eve, spend the night with my boyfriend (yes, still bizarre to type, and et utterly delightful in it's way), fumble on he keys of an unfamiliar laptop, it has become the very different New Year I have been thinking about, the things that will be a little different are in fact just that, and there is a fabulously terrible horror movie on that isn't going to watch itself.
Some things will be a little different.
-I will no longer denounce dating, romance, involvement between the sexes. I have a boyfriend (which I assure you looks every bit as bizarre to you as it does to me), one that I adore and wake up staring at in some or other utterly repulsively google-eyed fashion. I kiss him at red lights and resist the urge to make a picture of the two of us my desktop. I met a man, I am hopelessly smitten, and I love it.
-I will lie to my daughter. No about why Daddy lives in a different state. Not about the fat man poking around in the living room. Not even about why I'm sad on any given day. No, the above statement implies that I have to lie to my daughter about something very different this year-- not about what ails me, but about what makes me happy. She has told me in no uncertain terms that she does not want me to have a boyfriend because she does not want me to break up with a boyfriend. She has seen that, twice, and does not care to see it again. Which is fair enough, and I can understand the sentiment entirely (as is evident from the past 3 years of halfhearted and self-sabotaged dating)... but it is what it is-- this happens to make me happy, and inevitable sadness be damned, I'm walking through. Which would totally piss my daughter off-- if I were going to tell her. Which I'm not.
Which would also totally piss her off. If she knew.
But she won't, because this year is the year that I become a deceptive untrustworthy mother.
-The heels? Gone. Some sprains just never do get better. This is one of those sprains.
Yeah, fine. Maybe it was the never icing it because I don't like to feel cold, maybe it was the refusal not to wear heels until 2 weeks later when the swelling had still nowhere near subsided. Maybe it was the decision to still walk a male every other day, go dancing, go to a party in platformed boots, take up dart tossing despite it consisting entirely of standing with wight on one of either foot for at least an hour if I'm doing it right.
Maybe.
Regardless, there are no more heels for this girl in the new year, and that is sad.
There is more, I know there is. And I could get into it right now... but I won't. Because in he time it takes to save a draft, go to new years eve, spend the night with my boyfriend (yes, still bizarre to type, and et utterly delightful in it's way), fumble on he keys of an unfamiliar laptop, it has become the very different New Year I have been thinking about, the things that will be a little different are in fact just that, and there is a fabulously terrible horror movie on that isn't going to watch itself.
You know what I fucking hate?
Blogging on my phone because a friend dragged me out to lunch and will not agree to leave or stop hitting on the waitress. I really need to remember to start carrying crossword puzzles with me, at least as long as I like to keep company largely with assholes.
Monday, December 27, 2010
And On The 3rd Day...
...God created maternal sadness.
It happens on the third day every time she's with her father for a week or more-- my daughter being gone will absolutely break my heart. I'll be overwhelmed with the quiet, saddened by the My Little Ponies that I step on in the night, guilt ridden over plans for time to be spent with the new boyfriend. I'll know the next few days are going to be exciting, fun, peaceful, romantic, lazy.. which is to say. the following days are not ones in which I will be myself.
I am not a girlfriend, I am not a student, I am not an unmarried 30 year old. I am a mother, who happens to have all of these other things going on as well. But in these days, I am a mother only as a secondary career I am laid off from.
I am a displaced mother.
And I am a fraud, walking around living a double life as someone I am really not.
It's simply the way it is, and once the winter break has passed it doesn't happen again until summer in this way, but in the last few days of the winter visitation, I'm a train wreck, I have identity crisis, and as of an hour ago, I cry very easily and blog very poorly.
6 years down though-- 12 to go. Moving right along.
It happens on the third day every time she's with her father for a week or more-- my daughter being gone will absolutely break my heart. I'll be overwhelmed with the quiet, saddened by the My Little Ponies that I step on in the night, guilt ridden over plans for time to be spent with the new boyfriend. I'll know the next few days are going to be exciting, fun, peaceful, romantic, lazy.. which is to say. the following days are not ones in which I will be myself.
I am not a girlfriend, I am not a student, I am not an unmarried 30 year old. I am a mother, who happens to have all of these other things going on as well. But in these days, I am a mother only as a secondary career I am laid off from.
I am a displaced mother.
And I am a fraud, walking around living a double life as someone I am really not.
It's simply the way it is, and once the winter break has passed it doesn't happen again until summer in this way, but in the last few days of the winter visitation, I'm a train wreck, I have identity crisis, and as of an hour ago, I cry very easily and blog very poorly.
6 years down though-- 12 to go. Moving right along.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
'Unnerved, I'll prepare for 237th date.'
(this is not the correct amount of dates-- that's just no ones damn business)
So I met a man, and upon reading the above statement as the closing of a recent email, it's dawned on me that he's more than a little like I am.
I'm pretty sure we somehow almost immediately went from "going on dates" to "kind of dating". I'm actually entirely certain as it involved detailed discussion, debate, and eventually nothing resembling resolve. No, that's an untrue statement: There was debate as to this being a good idea, clarification that good idea or not, it seems to be the case, and no correction of that statement in the morning. And as my 6 year old is not home and he is a bachelor who enjoys low-key, we are spending Christmas day together because eh-- it's Christmas, why not?
And that is how a neurotic woman goes from bad first dates and frequent declarations of "never ever ever ever going on a fucking date again" to multiple good dates with the same person and some level of involvement that isn't concerning enough that there is even a status option for it on any Internet social networking sites, but is concerning enough that I need both a good solid blog about it and a serious nap.
Spazzy Christmas, from my neurosis to yours.
So I met a man, and upon reading the above statement as the closing of a recent email, it's dawned on me that he's more than a little like I am.
I'm pretty sure we somehow almost immediately went from "going on dates" to "kind of dating". I'm actually entirely certain as it involved detailed discussion, debate, and eventually nothing resembling resolve. No, that's an untrue statement: There was debate as to this being a good idea, clarification that good idea or not, it seems to be the case, and no correction of that statement in the morning. And as my 6 year old is not home and he is a bachelor who enjoys low-key, we are spending Christmas day together because eh-- it's Christmas, why not?
And that is how a neurotic woman goes from bad first dates and frequent declarations of "never ever ever ever going on a fucking date again" to multiple good dates with the same person and some level of involvement that isn't concerning enough that there is even a status option for it on any Internet social networking sites, but is concerning enough that I need both a good solid blog about it and a serious nap.
Spazzy Christmas, from my neurosis to yours.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
The Night Before Alternating Year Single Mother Christmas
In this home, as so many, every other year is a Christmas that I will have my child, and on the off years (and how off they feel!) the night before Christmas eve becomes the night before Christmas. The stocking (she is six and doesn't care if I have one) is hung on a neon pink thumbtack that holds up a postcard of the Vestal Virgin with care, I am in my yoga pants and certainly no variety of cap. Forgoing the nap, April and I are exchanging needless panic over irrational things (the after 11:00 PM variety, not the around noon variety). The gifts have been wrapped, and I am soon to settle down for a 3 hour Dr. Who session so that my favorite Dr. Who nerd and I can watch the Christmas episode at least close to the actual date.
And then from my porch there arose such a clatter... and I am now poised at my computer with bear mace in hand wishing I had (as Jim who gave it to me had suggested) learned to aim and fire it correctly. I have peeked outside of my bedroom window to confirm that there is in fact someone walking around the yard, and it isn't fucking Santa Clause (which would have pissed me off anyway really, I just dropped a healthy amount on gifts that I probably wouldn't have had I known he was on his way). No, it's a wiry hillbilly meth looking guy who I suspect was just on my porch (because of the extremely loud clatter and slamming of my door, you know)... and now that I listen closely, I suspect is again.
Yes, absolutely-- he's talking to himself.
Ordinarily one would call the police, but ordinary is not something that works for a single mother who knows in the following week that she will be alone in the house, and that even worse would be to make enemies with any local creep when her daughter could in fact be home. There isn't a big strong man to protect me (of my own choosing mind you, this is not a lament). There isn't the uncertainty of when anyone will come home to catch him slitting my throat in the shower. And there is no way I am going down these stairs to so much as lock my door, more or less call the police and piss of some cracked out spaz who very well may be a friend of my neighbors, and if he isn't doing anything else illegal, would be allowed to roam free the rest of the night anyway (presumably to slit my throat as previously mentioned).
This is not the first creepy person to haunt my porch in the moonlight, nor will it be the last I have no doubt. It is, however, the first ghost of Christmas Present to pop up, and I felt that was worthy of at least a little blog note. So help me, Christmas past and Christmas future better not fuck up anything out there that this guy hasn't already gotten at... this is totally ruining my cookie eating, who watching, and basking in the glow of the artificial spruce in my living room.
And then from my porch there arose such a clatter... and I am now poised at my computer with bear mace in hand wishing I had (as Jim who gave it to me had suggested) learned to aim and fire it correctly. I have peeked outside of my bedroom window to confirm that there is in fact someone walking around the yard, and it isn't fucking Santa Clause (which would have pissed me off anyway really, I just dropped a healthy amount on gifts that I probably wouldn't have had I known he was on his way). No, it's a wiry hillbilly meth looking guy who I suspect was just on my porch (because of the extremely loud clatter and slamming of my door, you know)... and now that I listen closely, I suspect is again.
Yes, absolutely-- he's talking to himself.
Ordinarily one would call the police, but ordinary is not something that works for a single mother who knows in the following week that she will be alone in the house, and that even worse would be to make enemies with any local creep when her daughter could in fact be home. There isn't a big strong man to protect me (of my own choosing mind you, this is not a lament). There isn't the uncertainty of when anyone will come home to catch him slitting my throat in the shower. And there is no way I am going down these stairs to so much as lock my door, more or less call the police and piss of some cracked out spaz who very well may be a friend of my neighbors, and if he isn't doing anything else illegal, would be allowed to roam free the rest of the night anyway (presumably to slit my throat as previously mentioned).
This is not the first creepy person to haunt my porch in the moonlight, nor will it be the last I have no doubt. It is, however, the first ghost of Christmas Present to pop up, and I felt that was worthy of at least a little blog note. So help me, Christmas past and Christmas future better not fuck up anything out there that this guy hasn't already gotten at... this is totally ruining my cookie eating, who watching, and basking in the glow of the artificial spruce in my living room.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Neurotic Girls Need Different Email Settings.
When in an argument with my 6 year old daughters father, he made her call me to ask what time she would be picked up or if she should be dropped off after a winter camp (highly illegal, and furthermore just highly irresponsible for an adult to put a 6 year old in the position of relaying information regarding her own care). Normal girls would politely send a curt email: I know it to be highly illegal and furthermore find it just highly irresponsibly for for an adult to put a 6 year old in the position of relaying information regarding her own care.
And that's good for Normal girls. I am not a normal girl, however... I am a neurotic girl. What I will do is write a 7 page 'request' that he attempt being less of a smarmy little toad of a thing, that I have always felt that perhaps the worst decision I have ever made as a parent was to let him know I was having a child ( perhaps true, but not particularly needing email documentation or any mention whatsoever), and so on and so on and so on. He's shorter than me, which maybe came up, as well as teenage girls who were hooked up with in Vienna when I was pregnant, the absurdities involved in his general parenting policies on his alternating weekends and holidays, and maybe some psychoanalysis based on information revealed to me by his mother about how long he nursed as a child.
When I meet a boy I'm surprisingly taken with and things are going unusually well with (He doesn't show up in a fur coat at 9 in the morning, he doesn't stick his tongue in my ear 20 minutes into our first date, he doesn't delete me from his social networking site after my first out of the blue neurotic email, and I'm not met with a bizarre compulsion to reject further date requests because I am somewhat taken with him: Yes, these are the things I consider going unusually well-- as stated: I am not a normal girl, I am a neurotic one), I'm not just going to leave that alone and continue going on and enjoying dates like normal girls. . Most normal girls are likely to say "Well, this is great!" and enjoy the nature of such things. There is probably no emailing to be had about it at all. This girl, however, is going to send a 4 paragraph babble about drastic differences between said lovely man and herself that clearly he absolutely hasn't noticed and in fairness she should really clue him into this second, right now, immediately before he makes some dire mistake regarding mix CDs or further dates or whatever other curious things don't particularly concern normal girls out of the clear blue sky.
What I need is a different set of email tabs.
I need 'compose mail', 'rant' and 'panic' (which also has an auto-correct 'babble' mode for run on sentences). I need delayed sending tools that activate after a quick blood pressure, heart rate, or pulse check. I need an email account that won't even let me into it until I have blown into a balloon attached to my computer that will immediately lock my keys if any Creme Brulee ice cream or the slightest indication of Swiss cake roll is detected. And above else, I need a simple unsend tab.
Until I have all of this, I need a box of Swiss Cake Rolls... stat. Because there is no unsend button, there are emails floating around waiting to be read that I can do nothing about, and the neurotic demon that writes them inside of me is hungry. My hope is that if I feed it, it will take a nap and I can at least start drafting my retraction emails with some degree of peace.
And that's good for Normal girls. I am not a normal girl, however... I am a neurotic girl. What I will do is write a 7 page 'request' that he attempt being less of a smarmy little toad of a thing, that I have always felt that perhaps the worst decision I have ever made as a parent was to let him know I was having a child ( perhaps true, but not particularly needing email documentation or any mention whatsoever), and so on and so on and so on. He's shorter than me, which maybe came up, as well as teenage girls who were hooked up with in Vienna when I was pregnant, the absurdities involved in his general parenting policies on his alternating weekends and holidays, and maybe some psychoanalysis based on information revealed to me by his mother about how long he nursed as a child.
When I meet a boy I'm surprisingly taken with and things are going unusually well with (He doesn't show up in a fur coat at 9 in the morning, he doesn't stick his tongue in my ear 20 minutes into our first date, he doesn't delete me from his social networking site after my first out of the blue neurotic email, and I'm not met with a bizarre compulsion to reject further date requests because I am somewhat taken with him: Yes, these are the things I consider going unusually well-- as stated: I am not a normal girl, I am a neurotic one), I'm not just going to leave that alone and continue going on and enjoying dates like normal girls. . Most normal girls are likely to say "Well, this is great!" and enjoy the nature of such things. There is probably no emailing to be had about it at all. This girl, however, is going to send a 4 paragraph babble about drastic differences between said lovely man and herself that clearly he absolutely hasn't noticed and in fairness she should really clue him into this second, right now, immediately before he makes some dire mistake regarding mix CDs or further dates or whatever other curious things don't particularly concern normal girls out of the clear blue sky.
What I need is a different set of email tabs.
I need 'compose mail', 'rant' and 'panic' (which also has an auto-correct 'babble' mode for run on sentences). I need delayed sending tools that activate after a quick blood pressure, heart rate, or pulse check. I need an email account that won't even let me into it until I have blown into a balloon attached to my computer that will immediately lock my keys if any Creme Brulee ice cream or the slightest indication of Swiss cake roll is detected. And above else, I need a simple unsend tab.
Until I have all of this, I need a box of Swiss Cake Rolls... stat. Because there is no unsend button, there are emails floating around waiting to be read that I can do nothing about, and the neurotic demon that writes them inside of me is hungry. My hope is that if I feed it, it will take a nap and I can at least start drafting my retraction emails with some degree of peace.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
A Few Things:
I'm haunted a little this evening by feelings that have no vocabulary and events that should be explained in dimensions of lint rather than words.
~Richard Brautigan
Some days everything comes on in thick layers, and by time I have waded through it all to the keyboard, I cannot recall the well-worded entries I had planned on. This past few days has been of just such a nature. And it's since evaporated, all of it, and I'm left with a sticky need to wash it off but no concise way to do so. I am not going to do so, I am going to list, post, and go to bed easily... because some nights, this is what a blog is good for.
-Men touch me without my permission. Not you or you or you specifically, but men in general. Sometimes there is a special look, an indication that you are fond of someone and would like them to touch you, of course there are these things. And for some women I am sure that is helpful. For me, however, the overarching policy is almost always hands on knees, caresses on backs, pulling me closer in a hug when I am stepping back and flailing desperately for air-- all for no other reason than because I am within an arms reach. In the past week I have been touched casually and familiarly in over 9 instances that I in no way whatsoever offered even the slightest consideration of any physical contact at all-- and this is not irregular, any more so than me actually having to exert some real physical effort in dislodging myself from this touch. It seems that this would be enough to desensitize me to real wanted desired physical touch (I'm speaking outside of a sexual nature-- this isn't that kind of blog), but to the contrary it sometimes leaves me starving for something sincere and mutual. A hand hold that brushes fingers first and recognizes my receptiveness or dismissal. A light tap on the nose at a time that I am not jerking my head back to avoid it. A hug that I have stepped towards in any fashion at all before it is launched forth. I want to participate in physical contact, not find myself engulfed in it because I have failed to watch for it more carefully. If I am not staring you down and leaning towards you, sitting needlessly close, I do not want you rubbing my back, touching my hair, placing your hand on my knee or over mine, directing me by my shoulder or steering me through a crowd we are in by the small of my back. Keep your hands off of me. OFF. You're ruining me for touches when I want to take part in them completely.
-My daughter has decided she loves She-Ra. When I was very small, before I even remember my mother being sick at all, I remember visiting her in her apartment one time. There was honeysuckle growing in the alley (in adult visits to Oklahoma I have never seen it growing anywhere, this must have been a very specific short season for them that I have never stumbled upon again) and I was sick-- she took me in the house, made me tea and toast with no butter and turned on She-Ra. It's one of those little half slips of memory that almost seem impossible because you realize how young you must have been, but when my daughter asked me early this afternoon if we could watch She-Ra together I went into productive mode trying to get more of the memory by re-creating it. I made us tea, I drew the shades so it was very dark for daytime, and I gave her toast with no butter on it. This wasn't some big emotional act mind you, just a curious experiment: It turns out my daughter doesn't like toast with no butter on it, and asked to open the blinds. I did, and then we split a Twinkie. Nothing at all was lost by no new memory gained, and about 5 minutes in I found that as a 30 year old woman, I'm not very fond of She-Ra myself.
So, now I know.
-Thank you, Secret Santa. Or maybe secret admirer, I will never know. If in fact you are a devoted secret admirer who sees us as somehow connected however, I should probably add a couple of disclaimers to the thanks from the bottom of my heart.
a) the person who was sitting in what was supposed to be your seat at the Chicago Theater is not someone I have any romantic inclination to at all, so please do not do him any harm, boil his bunny (he does not have one) or key his car. He's a lovely man and with all due respects, you didn't tell me there was any other sort of plan. Or anything else for that matter. You left tickets to my dream-show in my mailbox and I took them out... that is all. and
b) I generally don't get too into romantic gestures. Or involvements. This isn't to say that I'm not occasionally smitten, or even that I'm not maybe currently very much so... just that it is absolutely not with you, whoever you may be. If your goal was to be certain that I see an amazing show that may well be one of the 3 best I have ever experienced and feel much joy, then thank you a million times as that is exactly what was achieved. If it was anything more, please don't hurt ME or boil my bunny or key my car (I have neither), but it is not mutual if I know you at all (and if I do not, I own bear mace and big knives, and my big strong male friends are plentiful and protective of me: All of which you must already know if you have stalked me with any proficiency whatsoever).
-Speaking of that show: There were realizations. When listening to "Either Side Of The Same Town" with some added lyrics, I scribbled on a slip of paper in my purse that "I am not afraid of commitment as I so frequently hear that I am". To the contrary, I have a difficult time not being committed to something once I have done so, which can sometimes tether me for a bit to a sense of obligation to something that is no more. I am not afraid of commitment: I am the most committed person I know when I commit at all. So, HA.
- Riding back into South Bend from Chicago, I always think the same thing: I don't care what anyone says, I think the Midwest is beautiful. Americana at it's finest (and I do not mean that sarcastically).
And now... Dr. Who will not watch himself and one of my favorite TV geek friends is growing impatient for me to get caught up so we can discuss with more freedom than the current "STOP, not a word, I haven't seen that yet". And so, that is all.
Boy do I feel better.
~Richard Brautigan
Some days everything comes on in thick layers, and by time I have waded through it all to the keyboard, I cannot recall the well-worded entries I had planned on. This past few days has been of just such a nature. And it's since evaporated, all of it, and I'm left with a sticky need to wash it off but no concise way to do so. I am not going to do so, I am going to list, post, and go to bed easily... because some nights, this is what a blog is good for.
-Men touch me without my permission. Not you or you or you specifically, but men in general. Sometimes there is a special look, an indication that you are fond of someone and would like them to touch you, of course there are these things. And for some women I am sure that is helpful. For me, however, the overarching policy is almost always hands on knees, caresses on backs, pulling me closer in a hug when I am stepping back and flailing desperately for air-- all for no other reason than because I am within an arms reach. In the past week I have been touched casually and familiarly in over 9 instances that I in no way whatsoever offered even the slightest consideration of any physical contact at all-- and this is not irregular, any more so than me actually having to exert some real physical effort in dislodging myself from this touch. It seems that this would be enough to desensitize me to real wanted desired physical touch (I'm speaking outside of a sexual nature-- this isn't that kind of blog), but to the contrary it sometimes leaves me starving for something sincere and mutual. A hand hold that brushes fingers first and recognizes my receptiveness or dismissal. A light tap on the nose at a time that I am not jerking my head back to avoid it. A hug that I have stepped towards in any fashion at all before it is launched forth. I want to participate in physical contact, not find myself engulfed in it because I have failed to watch for it more carefully. If I am not staring you down and leaning towards you, sitting needlessly close, I do not want you rubbing my back, touching my hair, placing your hand on my knee or over mine, directing me by my shoulder or steering me through a crowd we are in by the small of my back. Keep your hands off of me. OFF. You're ruining me for touches when I want to take part in them completely.
-My daughter has decided she loves She-Ra. When I was very small, before I even remember my mother being sick at all, I remember visiting her in her apartment one time. There was honeysuckle growing in the alley (in adult visits to Oklahoma I have never seen it growing anywhere, this must have been a very specific short season for them that I have never stumbled upon again) and I was sick-- she took me in the house, made me tea and toast with no butter and turned on She-Ra. It's one of those little half slips of memory that almost seem impossible because you realize how young you must have been, but when my daughter asked me early this afternoon if we could watch She-Ra together I went into productive mode trying to get more of the memory by re-creating it. I made us tea, I drew the shades so it was very dark for daytime, and I gave her toast with no butter on it. This wasn't some big emotional act mind you, just a curious experiment: It turns out my daughter doesn't like toast with no butter on it, and asked to open the blinds. I did, and then we split a Twinkie. Nothing at all was lost by no new memory gained, and about 5 minutes in I found that as a 30 year old woman, I'm not very fond of She-Ra myself.
So, now I know.
-Thank you, Secret Santa. Or maybe secret admirer, I will never know. If in fact you are a devoted secret admirer who sees us as somehow connected however, I should probably add a couple of disclaimers to the thanks from the bottom of my heart.
a) the person who was sitting in what was supposed to be your seat at the Chicago Theater is not someone I have any romantic inclination to at all, so please do not do him any harm, boil his bunny (he does not have one) or key his car. He's a lovely man and with all due respects, you didn't tell me there was any other sort of plan. Or anything else for that matter. You left tickets to my dream-show in my mailbox and I took them out... that is all. and
b) I generally don't get too into romantic gestures. Or involvements. This isn't to say that I'm not occasionally smitten, or even that I'm not maybe currently very much so... just that it is absolutely not with you, whoever you may be. If your goal was to be certain that I see an amazing show that may well be one of the 3 best I have ever experienced and feel much joy, then thank you a million times as that is exactly what was achieved. If it was anything more, please don't hurt ME or boil my bunny or key my car (I have neither), but it is not mutual if I know you at all (and if I do not, I own bear mace and big knives, and my big strong male friends are plentiful and protective of me: All of which you must already know if you have stalked me with any proficiency whatsoever).
-Speaking of that show: There were realizations. When listening to "Either Side Of The Same Town" with some added lyrics, I scribbled on a slip of paper in my purse that "I am not afraid of commitment as I so frequently hear that I am". To the contrary, I have a difficult time not being committed to something once I have done so, which can sometimes tether me for a bit to a sense of obligation to something that is no more. I am not afraid of commitment: I am the most committed person I know when I commit at all. So, HA.
- Riding back into South Bend from Chicago, I always think the same thing: I don't care what anyone says, I think the Midwest is beautiful. Americana at it's finest (and I do not mean that sarcastically).
And now... Dr. Who will not watch himself and one of my favorite TV geek friends is growing impatient for me to get caught up so we can discuss with more freedom than the current "STOP, not a word, I haven't seen that yet". And so, that is all.
Boy do I feel better.
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