a dozen ‘next’s

Ever click ‘next’ on a WordPress blog? I just did 12 times.

Results:

http://letmepourthetea.wordpress.com
http://tfooq.wordpress.com/
http://alldayson.com/
http://regcso.wordpress.com/
http://teenatheist.wordpress.com/
http://dxblog.wordpress.com/
http://pamsplace.wordpress.com/
http://blogdoeusozinho.wordpress.com/
http://hischarge.wordpress.com/
http://rumahtulisan.wordpress.com/
http://bethanydianne.wordpress.com/
http://3seed.wordpress.com

I am killing time while I wait for my husband to finish reading tabloid sites (while singing made up lyrics to a French song). This is sad… and true.

as my husband is playing air-guitar in the other room…

Seriously, that is a way to start a day, no? Especially when the wife one has a headache, a headache caused most likely by impending illness.  I think illness in unavoidable at this point.  My dear tot, the child who has only had about two colds in his three years, woke up Saturday night with nasty croup.  Sunday morning it turned to a cough and fever.  He is still a little sick… He sneezed in my face.  I was talking to him, my mouth was open… I am doomed.  Also: I sat up with him these past few nights as he was hacking and sweating.  My poor little guy!

An interesting thing: his illness has not slowed him down.  It has only made him very bossy.  The child has not connected his butt to furniture during any waking hour of this ‘bug’.  Instead he marched around the house barking orders at me like a little tyrant.  Bless his little spirit.  He figured the sick-sympathy thing out pretty quickly.  I think he realized when I turned on the cartoons and let him have my comforter.  He got right up and started asking me for cake.

We never have cake.

Anyway, I am looking forward to coughing and sneezing as well.  Maybe I can stave it off ’til Sunday, after my long-awaited date on Saturday.  I probably can’t do that since my sleep will be limited and I do not have a person to fill in for me.  Please fill in for me so I can go have fun with my husband somewhere outside of my apartment, please?

In other news of suffering: I went to the gym last night to discover that the New Year’s resolution crowd still has the place over capacity.  Great.  I guess it is time to take the running on the road.  I did get a decent work out in last night but only after watching an entire episode of ‘Will and Grace’ while standing behind some poor guy’s treadmill.  Thank-you guy who let me watch that television and eventually take that machine.  I hope I didn’t intimidate you too much by standing and staring like that.

I am doing some Kundalini Yoga this morning.
I miss the days of just being able to get out and walk all day.  I think my son does, too.  I used to be able to appreciate all of the seasons but this winter in particular is just too much for me.  Too cold, too sleepy, too house-bound…  I am finally starting to understand why people flood to the Caribbean.

I think I used to not mind winter because I would get out at least every other night to eat or drink something somewhere.  I am from a colder place than this, trust me, that is the beauty of winter: that cozy sort of escape from the elements with like 20 of your closest friends.  With a good buzz the walk home in sub-zero temperatures is no biggie, right?

What am I talking about?  Sorry.

I don’t have much to share today except this sort of blah-blah-blah chatter.  I should be blah-ing it up for the people I owe emails, too.  Maybe to the person I stood up two weeks ago for a meditation date.  Perhaps I should return a phone call or two.  I have a good excuse: I feel temporarily socially paralyzed.  I have the urge to communicate with people who do not live in this apartment building but with that comes some inability to feel comfortable talking and relating to people I do not see almost every day.  I have been doing alright with my co-workers but they understand my level of exhaustion, not to mention all have multiple children (and husbands who play air guitar from time to time) at home.  They know what is like to be unable to hold up ones end of a conversation for a bit.  It seems lately the only conversations I am truly gifted in are the ones that involve some form or bitchery.  I am trying to cut down.  I feel terrible after I have just dissed anything.  I know I only do it as a last resort because my brain just will not engage properly on the spot and, hell… bitchy goes with tired and almost ill, right?

Wow, I have been sitting here uninterrupted for like 25 minutes.  I see they are working on some air-funk-bass in the other room.  Who am I to judge ?

on and on and on and on

Wow. I am sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy. I just did my round of overnights after not really recovering from the last round and the trip to visit the fam. I feel aged. I feel like this will be a list of a post- coherence is lacking today-

-I stopped just like two feet short of being in a serious car accident. A person ran a stop sign and I came too close to broadsiding her. The clincher? We looked into each others faces and we slammed on the brakes- this woman is no stranger. She was sleeping with my ex-boyfriend while he was still living with me. She got pregnant IN MY ROOM while I was slaving away to pay the bills. This was confirmed as I recognized her vanity plates. It was the worse time in my life- he also knocked up my friend. It is amazing what a man can accomplish while the lady of the house is spending long days working and visiting her sick father in the hospital. Part of me wanted to do something about this near collision: then I remembered one cloudy and crazy evening when I kicked one of the doors of her expensive SUV for a very long time. I even enlisted the help of my rave-queen neighbor, I think we did some damage. I have also considered that she is now a single mother and that he has probably caused her so much more suffering than he caused me. I suffered damage to my pride and my bank account but I am pretty much intact. I guess I am lucky on two counts: I stuck it to him when I had a chance and stuck it to him good. Also, our cars did not collide. Gosh, the world is a weird place.

-I ordered new sunglasses at 4a.m. this morning after seeing my face in the mirror of the lobby bathroom at work. The lack of sleep shows. I am not ready to take on the world with those purple circles.

- My son has informed me that all his meals are to be taken with chocolate chip cookies.

-I have been having the craziest dreams in my scarce and precious sleep. I dreamed this week that I made good with my best friend from junior high as we were being tormented by a pretty sleazy guy who had hijacked my car. My former friend started playing Shonen Knife’s “Insect Collector” on his guitar and for some reason it sounded so profound and moving that his rendition has stuck with me all week. That strange dream moment has caused me to mentally let go of the grudge I have been holding for years. I don’t think I could ever explain to him why I will be nicer to him should I ever see him again.

-I realize this week that I take so many things way too personally. It has occurred to me that maybe that is what I am known for amongst other people: the chick who is affected by everything and holds grudges. I will work on that, I will work on that.

-This presidential primary season is making me so nervous.

-I discovered (while at work in the middle of the night) that my mp3 player is a genius. The shuffle function has grown from random to shear genius. How did it become such a dj? I know pronounce it an official member of the family. Long live my ZenV.

-I stopped drinking coffee on the overnight shifts and this action has improved my mental health. Coffee and I still have our morning thing, though.

-Iron Chef is funny. I saw how people harvest those swallows nests. I just couldn’t bring myself to cook with it, I would just wonder how many poor people fell to their deaths.

-I have a blanket apology to the world. The Emily who has been stewing and spewing acid all over, well that is my evil twin. She is very, very tired and can’t help being so negative. I pledge to overcome this shift work personality split. In the end I am just a nice person who is a little overwhelmed, right?

-I will resume contact with the world tomorrow. I plan to return emails and phone calls and even try to get a play date together. I even planned a date with my husband next weekend. A DATE. CRAZY.

not all here

I think I am suffering from what could be called ‘exhaustion’.  It was late in coming, but pretty much inevitable.  I missed three nights of sleep last night (and only managed to get a couple of short naps in) and followed that up with a trip to visit my husband’s family.  I held it together pretty well but this morning I woke with an ache in my bones and an almost complete inability to think.

I head back to work tomorrow night.  I do have so many things to do today……………

I will get back to the blogging on the weekend (I hope).

And to all people in the world I owe emails or phone calls… You just don’t want to talk to me right now.

no, not the frog cup- i want the pink cup

I don’t know how it is that I am sitting her on a laptop at my kitchen table while being yelled at by a small person who seems to not care that I have not slept in 36 hours.  Nah, he doesn’t care.  He just wants me to give him a different cup.  It is a trick.  If I give him the pink cup he will ask for the frog cup again.  I think there is some great trial going on here, some great thing I must learn to move forward in this universe.

I still have more overnights followed by home with a toddler days to go.  I finish my work week on Saturday.  I will arrive home only to have my husband leave for work as he has to do some overtime on the weekend.  After he finishes whatever it is he has to do there we will be heading to the homes of my in-laws, two hours away.

It is interesting when one cannot look to the next bout of sleep or at least some moderately relaxing situation.

I managed to put together some sort of red pepper polenta stew for dinner.  I want a f***ing award.  No recipe… I can invent well on no sleep.  I am all creativity no common sense these days.

I have just dealt with the pink cup situation.   No mention of frogs yet.

This morning I dealt with an off-leash Rottweiler situation.  That was fun.  Me, three guests, and an angry dog in a small, small room.

I have also cleaned the apartment in my head.  I want to get rid of EVERYTHING.  Sleepiness makes me hate stuff.

It is strange to be at the point in my life that I am at now.  I don’t have a single vice.  No smoking, I drink in such super moderation.  I don’t even abuse the caffeine.  I stopped bitching about people (I think that was a vice, maybe). I am in a relationship that is, well, good, permanent, healthy… no craziness there.  On a day like today I have the tick-y feeling that I need to do something- like chain smoke and bitch for hours.  30ish me is over that.  OVER IT.  I deal.  I make polenta stew.  I sort out the toddler cup issues.  I work.  I fold towels very neatly.

I must say this: my little guy is amazing company (when he is not freaking out about cups) for a tired person.  He does the cuddle thing and tells the most bizarre stories.

I am going to clean the kitchen now.

gah!!

What a couple of days! I was mad at the world then down in the dumps then numb and indifferent (I had a rant posted here earlier, that is gone now).  I feel like I am finally back to my normal self.  I have been reading about how sleep deprivation helps treat depressed people but get this, it causes depression in people who are not clinically depressed.  Good news? I am not depressed.  Bad news? I feel depressed.  Figure that out!

Clementines and tea and a bath seem to be a winning combination.   I think that helped.
Watching “Juno” and crying like a baby for some reason may have helped, too.  I don’t know if other people cried at that movie… uhm…

I am working more hours this week- guess what? They are all overnights!  I will probably look like hell and smell like oranges.  I would suggest not hanging out with me this week.

this is getting irritating…

A woman exists (I actually happen to know that she lives in Connecticut) who has the same name (middle initial, even) as I did (my last name has changed). She is a writer and also has a gmail account. I am not sure what her gmail address is, but it is very similar to the address of the account I used before I started using my married name.

I have mail from the older gmail address forwarded to the one with my current last name because I don’t expect that everyone has to forget that I ever had another name. I guess I might have to delete that account, though. Things are getting out of hand.

It seems both Emily X and I are constantly applying for jobs and submitting writing in secret to this or that sort of thing. I have only submitted two pieces of writing in the past year so I was very surprised to get about five rejection letters in my inbox. I did not recognize the senders and eventually established that Emily X was not only meeting her former sorority sisters for drinks, she has been trying her hand at getting short fiction in print.

About three months ago I received and urgent email from Prague. It seemed my father (other Emily’s father) was in a bit of a pickle and needed to get some information to his business partner. His business partner’s cell phone was turned off or out of order and an immediate mission to find him needed to take place. I wrote the man back telling him that I was not his daughter Emily. What else could I do?

This morning I received an email congratulating me on earning a top internship for a publication in Washington DC!! Imagine my surprise? I decided news like this should not rot in my inbox. I found a phone number on the email and called the sender to tell them that I was not Emily X. They are calling her to give her the news.

I guess that is good news for Emily X.

fun in the no-sun?

The last few days have not been sunny and bright but they have been warm and well, that is all we needed.  The small boy and I have been all over the place, any place but home!

I have mentioned the little guy and the coffee dates.  We spent a lot of time at coffee shops.  Not a lot of people who are three years old are as serious about coffee shops as he is.  It is imperative that I get a coffee and that we sit near the window.  He comments (in low voice, like he knows it is invasive somehow) on people passing by on the street and asks to smell my coffee once in a while (is this a bad sign?) while he drinks his milk in the ol’ sippy cup.  We made our coffee stop yesterday after about forty-five minutes of walking all over and doing some run and slides (on purpose) on icy patches.  We also did a little wandering through shops.  This is another new hobby of his.  He is a big fan of the new hardware store in town and the asian market.   He even let me stop and catch up with a pal for like 15 minutes without getting upset.  The baby loves downtown.

Today was  a little bit windier (and kind of dark) so we just kept to our own neighborhood and played with our cameras.   Check it out!

oops?

The bathrooms in this apartment building are by far the most public area.  Paper thin walls and the fact that they are all aligned makes it very easy to hear almost anything that goes on in (and this is a guess) like three other bathrooms from my own.

This morning as I was doing the primping and preening I could hear some male voice singing standards.  Without paying any attention I joined in for a bit of “Fly Me to the Moon”.  I did not even notice I was doing this!  We all sing around this apartment all of the time, it is not like we even think about it.  Only when it became suddenly silent beyond the wall did I realize what I was doing.

Oops.  Is that creepy of me?

i just can’t win, can i?

I have been fuming a little over two separate comments lately.  I just now realized just how stupid they seem in close proximity to each other:

1. I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in years.  We caught up for a second and then the uncomfortable endpoint of the somewhat forced conversation came.  I said ‘we should keep in touch’ (you know, just something nice to say, right?).  Her reply?  “Oh, you see, I am not into the partying thing any more so we probably won’t have much in common’.
2. Another friend (who fortunately does not read this blog, right?) sent me a letter over the holidays explaining why she never visits on her time off anymore.  “It is just not as fun as it used to be for me.  I am not really the kind of person who thinks hanging out with kids all day is a good time’.