i ran

Wow.  I ran tonight and it was not fun.  It is amazing how not good it was.  I guess the only way to fix that is to run more!

I noticed a trend: I only really post anything here when I am in a bad mood or apologizing for a bad mood or have a headache.  I will strive to get back into blogging about anything that is not grumpy and terrible.

This blog is nearly a year old! I must invest some time in a super happy post for my own entertainment.  I must!  I must save my depressing piece of internet real-estate!

for now, here is some stuff from my not exciting for you life.

-If you live in the U.S.of A. go vote, early or absentee.  Vote for the good guy, please.

-I am suddenly craving a piece of cake or something.  I don’t have anything like that.

-It got cold so quickly this year!  My son and I met up with some friends in the park today and froze… FROZE.

-I need to string my guitar tomorrow.  I also need to put the fans away.  I think I also thought I was going to bake bread.  I am so interesting, yes?  Well, more interesting than my husband will be tomorrow as he is inspecting the car and, uhm, ironing ties or something.  GROWN UPS!

-Somehow I have access to my new neighbor’s music on my itunes.  I know nothing about this phenomenon.  I appreciate that he has similar taste, though.  Is it bad that I helped myself?  Sorry, man.  If I see him around I will ask him what that is all about (his play list showing up and all).

-I think since cake is out I will get to work on a pomegranate and some dark chocolate.  Is that too messy to get into at 10:22 at night while I sit on my bed?  I guess so.  Maybe I will just brush my teeth.

up

I am back from the terrorizing grumpfest that was my birthday.  I have justifications- I mean, it was a perfect storm.  Mix a ’stomach thing’ (a bad one at that) with ‘that time of the month’, a young boy who is not so very used to the potty yet, (same) child who was feeling as fussy as I was feeling, a few bits of bad news, and an overly literal husband.  Yes, I have learned that when he asks me what I want to do he means it.  I can’t snip back that he should think of something to do.  Some people want/need instruction and I knew it all along.  I just had this vision that some burst of unexpected something would come from nowhere and save me from my mood.  Luckily a little sleep and a lot less stomach pain seems to have done the trick.

My apologies to family members (who don’t really read this, but I apologized in person).

Anyone who has known me for a length of time is beginning to figure out that if it is my birthday they need to  keep me out of the house and keep me busy or things could take a turn.  It was my beautiful idea to not go out this year.  I think I learned a lesson.  I guess I need to find a babysitter.

What else?  Hmmm.  I have made a lot of stuff lately: earrings, bags, hats, scarves, mittens.  It can’t be stopped.

I am being an angel for Halloween.  I know that is not very creative.  I am doing it only to foil the big and little Joes that I will be spending the evening with.  They have both chosen to go as sinister things so I feel it will be a little funny if I tag along as an angel… plus, I have everything I need to be one.

I got cut off between this paragraph and the last.  It is very hard to get any time on the computer these days, believe me!  The child will move my hands off of the keyboard and get to work. Its not worth the war!

I don’t remember what I was writing about or doing.  I guess its just as well I end this and add the tags and try hard to live an interesting life so I have something to write about later in the week:)

a video today: something more than 15 years old (i am guessing its 20 y.o?) , kind of random- right? Like me? Right?  I am gonna go make cookies before I start to think too much.

birthdays are for suckers

So.  Here I am at work and I feel TERRIBLE.  I seem to have contracted some sort of ’stomach thing’.  It started about an hour after I woke up this morning, continued throughout the day, and plagues me still after midnight as I work TIL MORNING.

So what did I do on my birthday?  I assisted my poor three year old with his bout of gastro-intestinal nastiness.  We were supposed to have this little birthday lunch date but we ended up on my bed watching “Alice in Wonderland”.  That is fine with me.  Something about the smell of that little guy’s head makes me forget to be in a bad mood…

…until I get to work at 11 and discover that 1)I seem to be the only employee who does not get their birthday remembered 2)I am still ill afterall, 3)It seems my annual review was also forgotten and 4) there are mountains of things that have to get done.  Am I doing them? Well, yes, of course. I am sitting out a stomach cramp or two, I am disappointed as hell at the world tonight, but I will get up and do whatever it is I have to do and get excited for my near-coma tomorrow.

Disappointed?  I guess that best describes how I felt this week.  Examples? I told my husband not to do anything for my birthday… and he didn’t!!! Can you imagine?  I guess I have to mean what I say!  I meant ‘don’t go to too much trouble” I guess, not “just say ‘happy birthday, that’ll do’.  So, I have myself to blame? In a way, I guess.  It wasn’t the best week in general.  I don’t remember much about anything lately except that a lot of people have died, people are losing their houses, people move away… my mom is sick.  It didn’t really hit me until yesterday when we talked about banking my blood-  oh yeah, this is the first year in my entire life that I don’t get a card from my Grammy.  I had no idea how much I missed her, really, until I checked the mail today.  How many people can be counted on like that?  Five dollar bill or not, her card meant a lot to me:*(

So- yes, as I was getting to: maybe my son has the right idea.  He can’t stand birthday celebrations.  He runs into another room and yells at us to stop.  Birthdays are for people who have 1)babysitters who want to babysit, 2) money, 3)no stomach ailments.

yep.  Birthdays are for suckers.  I have sooo much work I have to do now!!!

not feeling it

Not feeling the blog, the birthday, Halloween.. It is sort of strange, because I into other things, but why are some things less ‘there’ than ever?  It is probably a bunch of little things that do not have much to do with each other.

First of all: blog- well, I just haven’t had a lot of time with my computer and what time I have had has been rushing to get emails out to my penpals in Ghana and Bhutan and the U.K. (a great idea, email penpals), or scanning headlines, or paying bills.

Birthday? Well… hmmm.  I decided a fews weeks ago that I didn’t really want to do anything this year since I am working tomorrow night and need a nap when Joe gets home from work and I didn’t want us to spend any money whatsoever and almost everyone I know is suffering from some sort of setback so I sort of just let anyone who was interested know that my birthday was sort of cancelled and I am following through.  I am following through so well that I have not even received a card.  I am not sure if I meant it to go to that extent,  Thanks family! Thanks friends!

Halloween?  I have to work on that night, too.  I think we will take the tot trick or treating and that is fun.  I feel that.

Limited computer time, see? I have to leave this hear as my child is yelling at me for something.

I will try to get back to this sometime.

from my phone, from my porch-

I am way too tired to be doing anything.  I have about two and a half hours before my husband comes home and I can go to sleep. I have stuff to blog about…

… but I won’t be.  I am too out of it.

So- here are three crap-quality pictures from my phone while on the porch in my pajamas feeling weird about being so tired when it appears to be a nice day outside.

Stunning pictures, really.  One of my foot under my giant pajama pants in shoes for some reason on my plastic rug that I love so much- one of a homemade refridgerator magnet (the fortune glued to it reads ‘friends who have been long absent will return to you’- I may have that wrong) that we found on the sidewalk and stuck to the apparently magnetic material that is one wall of our porch- one is a blurry picture of objects I seem to have abandoned out there: a bag (looks to be made in India) that I purchased long ago in Quebec City and my polka-dot bathing suit that I hung on a hook to dry in, uhm, August.

I am sleepy.

i was planning on…

posting my recipe for mung bean stew with cornmeal dumplings on here.  I was also planning on posting my recipe for tomato sauce (that I made tons of and froze yesterday) BUT I GOT A MIGRAINE.  I got one yesterday, too, at the same time of day, even.

I think I had some stuff to say.  I don’t remember what.  Like about a friend moving away or all of the fun and creative crap I have been up to or maybe about the books I am reading or stuff I have been planning on doing…

So- things are great and I have been busy doing this and that BUT THE STUPID HEADACHE IS TAKING FROM ALL OF THAT.

I am not a fan of taking stuff (unless you count the occasional self-medicating with cocktails, and by occasional I mean about twice or thrice a week) but this evening I have taken one of each of the headache remedies I found in the cupboard.  I hope I feel up to ranting and raving at the television when the debate comes on.

Here is some stuff from my phone.

Here is a video

never mind.  My head hurts.

yeah, thanks facebook

Have I written about this before? I am sure I have.  Today, while trying to sleep during the day for my shift, I had something like an elementary school, church, highschool, college, adulthood stress dream.  This would be like the basic sort of stress dream with an all star cast from every era.  Not only was I plagued with something currently causing me stress, but old characters from stressful incidents past made cameos to remind me of three decades of bullies, insecurities, and any angst.  Fun!

So… I am dreaming that I am trying to get to work/pay for something/whatever the original silly plot was and I am faced with a bully from elementary school. He is still much bigger than me and keeps asking me questions and knocking me around for the benefit of his burnout friends who all picked up pack-a-day habits in the first grade.  I am trying to get away but I am living in dorm of sorts with not only him but this scary dealer/general hustle-y type person I knew in college.

I get in an elevator with some person delivering many containers of stuff that is fried.  The elevator gets stuck- the delivery person is hitting me up for all of the money that some frat boys owe him.  I end up eating some onion rings and feel instantly guitly- I don’t know how I got out of the elevator but I am suddenly seeking solace in a group of friends I knew in highschool.  I really want this guy in particular, an old bff sort of that always had a crush on me (the guilt of always relying on that fact haunts me still) and he starts to get cold and is paying more attention to my (then) frenemies.  I pull him aside and he tells me that it is pathetic for me to still use him when I am married and grown.  I remember that I am married, married to someone amazing, but I am trapped somewhere in time (like all of time) and I can’t remember or can remember but can’t get back to my regular life. It is even more complicated than all of that.  The friend from highschool that I had to cancel ‘blast from the past’ plans with last week (in my real, waking, now life) is giving me a ride and starts to point out that I am really not so nice as I say I am and that everyone has this sort of low-grade contempt for me— as I had feared all along.

This is not the first dream that I have had like this.  I have this one re-occuring dream where I am in this one argument over and over again.  The actual argument occurred in 1992.  I was walking down the hall at school with a couple of friends and no one had anything to say.  I tried to lighten the mood and get told to just ’shut up’, and that the only reason this particular girl had been tolerating me at all lately was because these guys that we knew liked me and wouldn’t stand for her destroying me or something very 1992 like that.  This plaid-clad ‘my so-called life’mare keeps coming back and coming back since I added this girl on myspace.

I can’t help but wonder what it was like even ten years ago when people dealt with all of this garbage on one day (that could be easily avoided, even): a highschool class reunion, or some other ‘old times’ get-together.  It must have ben so easy to forget.  I would have forgotten half of the people that I have recently added even existed!

I can’t say it has been all bad, though.  I mean, I have reconnected with people that I actually missed having in my life.  It can be truly great to find a childhood friend and reminisce.  It can be! I have really enjoyed that.

Something I can’t get past is the sort of ‘look at me now’ factor.  I am wary of anyone whose invite comes with a fairytale-type story followed up with very pointed questions.  “I fell in love, it has been a whirlwind romance… after we back-packed Europe… teaching the children in the jungle…. so, you have a kid now?  You married someone with a job?” I think some people live for the big ‘reveal’.  Like, “remember what a frump I was in highschool? Well, now I am super beautiful and everyone else looks older and so matronly”.  I percieve that a lot.

Yeah, I had considered how unready I was to be available to my past in a click. I mean, people put on this big facade for one evening at their class reunion: coaching their spouses, crash dieting…. Isn’t that the stuff of sitcom legend?  I am just sort of suddenly ‘out there’ with no real illusion at all.  There is my picture, there are a couple of pictures other people have added that I am in.  Here are some people I am know.  This is where I live.  I have a kid and I am married to this guy.  That is really all there is. When people ask me what I have been up to I tell them the most boring story in the world: I work part time, I am home with my son.  I am happy.  I field questions about former craziness or bizarre rumors and have to disappoint.

Anyway- this is entry is going on too long.  I have to get ready for work. I am getting ready for work with 30 years of insecurities fresh in my mind.  Thanks!

book

The pace of my life has changed a bit lately.  Things had been going along at such a stressful and hectic pace for a while and now things seem, well… good? Peaceful?  I can actually remember the things I like about day to day life: waking up before the alarm clock or my son and getting a half- hour semi-cuddle in with my husband, walking around aimlessly with my son each morning, baking bread, reading an entire book in a day- today I made two pairs of earrings on a whim.  My son and I ran around in the wind.  I let him make his own pizza.  We turned up the music too loud and danced around.  This is all very good stuff.  Soon I will be back to the 9-5 thing and he will be in school and we will remember when we had all of the time in the world.

Anyway- getting around to the book- My grandmother died a few months ago. Around that time I learned a bit more about my family.  My father’s family can be a mystery to me.  Example: We are watching the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco.  Someone says “you have a cousin in there”…. that sort of thing. One thing is certain, we are all certainly very, uhm, well, I can’t describe it. I always wish we were more cohesive.  I was saddened last year to look at a myspace page of a cousin who committed suicide.  I didn’t know him, but when I looked at his page I really wanted to.  All I still know is that he was a rock-a-billy fan, a horror movie buff, and that he killed himself.  I don’t even really know how I got to his page.  I think he was a friend of a friend of a friend or something. 

Oddly enough, all of the information is there for us.  My father has many, many old pictures and stories if I ask. I don’t really know what to ask.   For years all I really knew about his family was that 1)we had the farm and 2) we were not related to all of the other people in town (a small town where there are only a few families, really).

So I was shocked to learn about a book.  A book? Yes, a book that was fairly popular at one time in which my great-grandfather was a character.  I obtained a very old copy of this book (a wartime printing with crumbling pages) and spent most of Thursday reading through it.  The book is an autobiographical account of a woman’s three years spent in wilderness-wilderness.  The foresty-forest, as my brother and I would say.  Most people would call the place where I grew up the wilderness but we would correct them.  If you drive past the paved roads and cross in and out of the country a few times on those half-kept logging roads you will reach something that you have never seen: miles miles of forested land, a hermit’s cabin every 50 miles or so, a few logging outposts, lakes, streams, ponds… yeah, wilderness.  People canoe through fairly often on one of the rivers… I guess they know, anyhow-

This woman goes out there to teach at a small school.  During her first winter she encounters my great grandfather: a guide who can neither read nor write but has an ‘encyclopedic knowledge of the wilderness’.  He lived in a cabin that was about a 200 mile drive from the nearest paved road. He would snowshoe 20 miles a day sometimes to trap beaver. I talked to my dad a bit about him.  He acted like this was all the most normal  stuff in the world.  He used to work out there off and on when he was between jobs.  Didn’t everyone?  I also learned about an uncle of mine who was one of the most notorious bootleggers in the Northeast.  Really?  Really?

I am so happy to own this book. When I finished it I put it away so my son can read it when he is old enough to turn fragile pages.  (BTW, this entry feels like a book report, sorry).  It is so interesting that my son, who learned to read somehow at 2 years old is descended from a man who could not read his mail at 50 years old.  Also odd that my grandmother who wore Chanel on week days was the daughter of a man who roasted and ate beaver tail  on the trail?  Good to know… good to know.

It is late- this is my sort of break at work.  It is not really a break, just a time that I am waiting for the printer to finish up and standing by to press a button now and again on the other computer. Night audit isn’t really weird any more.  I don’t suffer at all from the sleep deprivation.  Isn’t that strange? 

I feel lost without my spell check- I am also two tired to look into my grammar.  Forgive me.