days could maybe be weirder-

I am not sure.

I think a thunderstorm will start up any minute- I cannot really tell.  The sky gets dark then clears… over and over.  My son and I went for a very early morning walk and had a little talk about how my sister will be over today and she will be very sad.   We then talked about how it is my mom’s birthday today and she will also be very sad.  I told him that his great-grandmother went away but where she is she can recognize people again… hmm.  I didn’t tell him that his uncle’s step-father died… I just don’t know what he knows.  I think he thinks death is something that happens to bad robots or something.  He cried when he saw an owl die in a cartoon once… This is the rough part of the parenting thing.  Death and potty training, man.

The easy part?  We are back in our apartment singing to the Kinks and Tegan and Sarah and eating strawberries.  I feel so a little guilty lately because I think my life is, in all ways but financially, easier than most.  Maybe it could be complicated, but it isn’t.

I spent the weekend listening to drunk guests spill their guts.  Maybe I should be a bartender.  For some reason people want to tell me things.  I sit there and let them look through my mp3 player.  We watch documentaries and syndicated television and they ask me about my son and my husband and tell me about whatever sordid things got them to where they are now and I solve some of their problems and hook them up with fresh towels… In some cases save our company a lot of business by calming down freaked out people.  This weekend I prevented a small racially motivated crisis.  Maybe sometimes people just need to listen to those poor drunks far away from home.  Trinidad and Tobago is pretty damn far from here.

So I am going away.  My son and I are heading up ‘home’ to see my parents, pay my respects to my late grandmother… just be in that place I never go to anymore.  We have to leave my husband behind (and on Father’s Day!) because he has to work (the job is brand new).  I was feeling very weird about all of this until I saw some pictures early this morning. They were pictures of endless green fields and deep, deep woods- all of the things I don’t even realize how much I miss.  I felt something sort of heavy in my chest.. homesick! I got homesick.  Homesick just in time! Just in time to take my son out to the middle of nowhere and show him the trails in the forest that were mine when I was just a little older than him.  It makes me feel so strange.  Maybe it is because I miss my grandmother?

I wonder how much more of my father’s side of the family I will ever see or hear of again now that my grandmother is gone?  They are such a mystery to me: Waco cult, restaurants I never really patronized, the Blue Oyster Cult? A lot of things are the stuff of legends… slightly unconfirmed legends.  Some are confirmed legends and just as strange.  Maybe I will make good use of my visit to learn a thing or two.

It sure is hot and humid today!  I think we will go get ice cream.

May 7th, kind of an odd day

Today feels alright so far. Yesterday really, really did not.

-Around 7:45 a.m. the door bell rang, and rang, and rang…. I went downstairs and swiftly pivoted and ran back up the stairs. The ringer was my famously cranky ‘eccentric’ (that is putting it lightly) neighbor looking for people to yell at. This is always a bad sign.

I no longer feel the need to respond to her antics because she: a) has a twisted crush on my husband that disturbs him deeply, b) called the police to report that my then 2 year old son was vandalizing her property in the middle of the night, and c) when we last spoke she told me that she was sexually violated by a dog while people (uh, she didn’t call any of ‘em people, she used three different racial slurs in one sentence) watched…. I avoid her.

-Went to our favorite park. On the way there my son read a sign that said “no parking”. He thought this meant “You can’t go play at the park”. He started ranting at me “YOU SAID PARK”. We had to straighten that up.

-Park was filled with like 10 babies. Babies, flowers, and little butterflies. Sweet!

-While at park I stood up underneath a piece of playground equipment and OW. Instant huge bump, saw stars…. Yuck.

-Ate strawberry ice cream cones even though I had vowed to get super-hot on this blog earlier that day.

-As we neared my home we heard something… I actually wondered if there was some sort of concert somewhere… it was loud even from three blocks away. What was it? Industrial speakers piled on cranky old neighbors roof NEXT DOOR TO MY HOUSE blasting top 40 station and local ‘alternative’ (its not really alternative, its like Good Charlotte, fight with me about that if you must) alternately (alternative alternately).

-Also, our street and our yard were littered with old shingles and most of the clothes of the roofers

-Went into house and realized the music was almost as loud inside. I had just remarked to someone the other day that I hadn’t actually heard a Mariah Carey song in years (I was wondering why she was suddenly everywhere- I am selectively out of touch). I can now sing for you “Touch My Body”. Thanks!

-Get message from friend warning that ‘we have been discovered’ by other friend. Uhm, whatever? What is the big deal? There has been this sort of exponential ‘finding’ thing going on lately since everyone is finding everyone who didn’t find everyone before… uhm, I have been accepting with a little caution, I mean…. it has been years and years, right?

- REASON FOR WARNING APPARENT. Letter from old friend apologizing for turning me on to post-punk and anti-societal views when I was 14. Now wants to turn me on to a friend she calls “Jesus”. Yes, girl who shaved half her head and drew the anarchy symbol on the shaved half every morning went to Bush’s inauguration. She sent me a link to her blog where she also explains how she is ‘over feminism’ and really very pro-military now. Not only her, but her brother and one of our mutual friends. This mutual friend once (like 1990?) disposed of all of her Violent Femmes albums one day because she was offended when Gordon Gano referenced Jesus. These people aren’t really big on moderation, I don’t think. Interesting, though.

(I thought it was a little cocky to be concerned that she had ‘influenced’ me so much. She was just older. Its not like I bought in to everything she did! I never got into the ironic viewing of porn or the re-creation of satanic rituals for kicks on a Friday night. I just sort of borrowed tapes and envied her Doc Martens (my mom wouldn’t let me get any that laced that high up).

-chatted with friend (one who alerted me to the ‘find’) about all of this.

-music still blaring!!!!!

-Brother-in-law phoned like a billion times while music was blaring to tell me that the music was blaring and to ask if it is possible to make macaroni and cheese without cheese. Spent significant amount of time teaching him to make macaroni and cheese with soy cheese.

-Husband comes home. He is not hungry and I have made way too much food because the blaring music kicked me into some strange, twitchy mode.

-Music FINALLY STOPS. I have a drink and kind of stare at the television.

I hear that the music will start up again really soon………

*DISCLAIMER* I am not really opposed to anyone being any religion, and I have nothing against most religions. I myself am not exactly an atheist. I DO, however, react strongly to certain conversion techniques and some right-wing ideologies because I was raised, for as long as my parents kept it up, in a fundamentalist-type faith.

the rest of the weekend

It wasn’t all failed suicide attempts and laundry.  I did get out of town for a spell.  My sister and I headed out for a little mini-holiday- the trip sort of went down with mixed results.

The first negative was the decision to get Chinese take-out.  My sister and I are not exactly the best-matched travelling companions.  I suppose our differences have been exaggerated over the years as our respective husbands have settled us into our own distinct sets of habits.  I wanted to go out to something like a bar and grill for maybe a drink and a smallish meal.  She wanted the whole vision of take-out boxes and chop sticks in front of the television and I, being the big sister, gave in easily thinking that television and preservatives are two things I don’t really get so much of these days.

We decided on take-out from the only place we could find a menu from: the worst restaurant in the entire world.  I may not be exaggerating.  The food received, all dishes, tasted exactly like the crusty, burnt, greasey scrapings from an old grill.  Even the rice tasted like burnt toast!  The sauce?  It all tasted like salt!! The consistency of EVERYTHING?  Hard rubber.   We took a few bites each and gave up.  After the first bite reached my stomach my appetite was effectively extinguished and did not return for the entire weekend.

The roller rink that I had set my heart on has apparently been closed down for some time.

We spent some time in the hot tub.  I worried about my insides cooking. I only really enjoy that sort of thing if it is contrasted with really cold air or something.  I wasn’t really fond of sitting in hot, chemically smelling water in a hot, bright room.

The pool was full of children throwing balls so that sort of got crossed off of the agenda.   We watched some television.  We don’t have the same taste in television… not at all.  I am used to watching it with Joe.  Our tastes have merged to the point where program choices can be made without speaking.  My sister and I have to discuss these things until my jaw hurts.  It sort of hurt from trying to chew that food anyway….

The bed was comfy.  I ended up reading part of the “Book of Mormon” that I found in the nightstand.

I was very excited to get to eat cereal with skim milk for breakfast.  I am just so not fun sometimes, right?  My sister wanted to go out for breakfast.  I wanted to eat in the sun and look out the window… I don’t know… we didn’t get that part of the day off on a good foot.  I don’t think that is natural to wake up with people who aren’t the same people one wakes up to every other day of one’s life….

What did go well was the discovery of a second hand store where I immediately went nuts and purchased two pairs of shoes, a skirt, three shirts, and some clothes for my husband.  I was moving along to the books and records area when I saw that my sister looked like she was in serious pain.  I accompanied her to a ‘real’ store and bought an ‘etch-a-sketch’ for my son.

I realize just how damn hard it is for me to function without my son and my husband for an extended period of time.  I miss my son (and his little kissy cheeks) to a probably not sane extent.  I think I annoyed him with kisses when I got home.  He dug the toy!

I hope my sister does not hate me.  I neglected to mention that we did have some fun with skin care and it is always exciting to find the worst of something that one will ever encounter.  I feel the discovery of the worst food in the world really was an event.  My sister was telling me that her Egg McMuffin from McDonalds was like a religious experience after eating that shit.

I am home and a little sad that I did not get any sort of skating in. It seems I have been on this great quest (without really even being aware so much) to skate.  Ice, roller… Sigh.

And the rest of this weekend? Well! The sun is shining!!!  I am so f***ing happy to get out there with my guys and walk around.  Coffee!  I need coffee and sunlight!  Life has just been a little too weird.

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.

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.

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.

and how was your weekend?

Basically mine was a descent into madness and then back to normal.

Here is this song, first.
I guess motherhood and working overnights is not the easiest combination to pull off. Something I sort of neglected to do the last FEW days of the week was sleep. When I say I didn’t sleep, I mean I DID NOT SLEEP. Wednesday night I should have been hard at work getting the last night of solid sleep but I suppose I was up with the hubby reading, watching something, chatting– I don’t know. I don’t think I met the proper requirement to get a good start on my week. Thursday morning I should have tried to sleep in but the usual morning circus started here at 6 and I was up whether I chose to be or not. I did not nap on Thursday afternoon. I watched something on my computer. I don’t even remember what, it was that important. I didn’t take a nap before work on Thursday, I watched caucus returns.

Thursday night at work was alright. I suppose I made the mistake of consuming far too much caffeine. I think I went wrong with espresso. I was tired but wired and not quite crazy yet. I did have a few moments of ‘not quite right’. I mean, I looked in the mirror at my no-makeup, clothes for work, way-too-tired, puffy face and eyes self and felt really, really low.

Friday things started to get hellish. The mass amount of caffeine I had ingested the night before kept me from relaxing at all. My son was also dead set against me having any sort of peace at all. Usually on Friday morning we just sort of cuddle together and read then I let him watch something and I sort of drift in and out as we chat. It is usually a bonding sort of morning for us both. This Friday in particular my son had other ideas. He came up with a new sort of approach to hanging out with me that involved tugging on my hair, putting his hands in my face, and saying everything in a very loud and high pitched voice. He also needed constant help with everything. This is not like him. What could I do? I started overindulging him (I am not a bad parent, do not judge me, I was just having a really rough day) by granting him anything he requested. This did not work. It just left the table covered with uneaten food, a whole bit lot of games and toys dragged out and untouched, he didn’t take a nap…. What did I decide to do? Give him a haircut of course. He was due for one. I should have taken a picture. I have no words to describe what my son looked like on Friday afternoon (until I fixed it nicely on Saturday). See, his hair was in his eyes, so I thought it was time for a trim. What I didn’t realize is that I was especially mal-equipped to deal with a flailing, angry three-year-old. I think that is the first instance I actually cried in this whole ordeal of a weekend.

My husband came home in the early evening to relieve me of my duties. I rushed off to bed and… did not sleep. Nope! I could not do it. 10:30 rolled around and I was getting ready for work once again.

So here it is: the real madness started to set in. I got to work just fine, got everything started. I saw my reflection as I was sickened. What was I doing going around looking like my mother? I needed to make up my face and change my clothes… of course!! It so happened that I had clothes and clean laundry in the trunk of my car (I don’t know how that happened to be, actually). I retooled as I cleaned the ladies bathroom in the lobby and I don’t actually know how much better(or unlike my mother?) I looked but it satisfied me for the moment and I was able to get things done without obsessing.

Then the radio show came on.

I usually scan the AM dial for anything of interest to listen to as I get things done. On this particular night I happened upon a show about the inevitability of an Avian Flu pandemic and how this would result in rolling deaths around the world in a matter of days. It didn’t hurt that the interview was with an actual respected health professional and presented as a real possibility (30%?) in the next 10 years?? I was not equipped to deal with what I heard. I won’t bore/terrify you with the details but it was SCARY. Scary and way too real. I couldn’t help but imagine… well, it was not quite like imagining, the sleep deprivation had me basically dreaming with my eyes open and basically to some extent experiencing my life and losses during something like this. I couldn’t get it out of my head! As the interview ended they went to commercial with the song “White Bird” by “It’s A Beautiful Day” as bumper music. I think they played the entire song, actually. The song became the saddest thing I ever heard as the horror movie of my imagined future played through my head. It was sort of the end of the line as I held my son in my arms in this future dream and this song played and it was all over and…

…and there I was standing in the middle of heaps of laundry all dressed up and completely bat-shit crazy. What did I do? I went into the lobby for a breather and got some coffee. All I could hear was that damn song: “White Bird, in a golden cage, on a winter’s day, in the rain….”.

I wanted to call my husband and make sure everything was normal and safe at home. I did not do this. I think he would have been a little alarmed to hear from me at 3a.m. and what would I have been saying? “White bird must fly or she will die”??

I just got back to the coffee and the work and the song running through my head and the terrible images in my head.

Lucky for me my crazy trance was a productive one. I had everything set and ready for the next day by 4:30 which left me two and a half hours to try to restore some sanity by the end of the shift. I turned on CNN in the lobby and sat with a ‘fitness magazine’ and tried to get back to a normal mindset.

“Fitness” magazine may have been a bit of a mistake. I started reading fitness regimes and it only pointed out to me what I had failed to do in the past week. I weighed myself in the fitness room (a room with mirrored walls) and I was 10 lbs heavier than I had been at the beginning of the week!!!! What? (I learned later that I retain roughly TEN WHOLE POUNDS OF WATER over my two no sleep nights… so, uhm, that was that, I suppose). I think I may have shed a tear and another round of “White Bird” was running through my head.

I was saved, though. Saved by a guest in the lobby needing printer paper for the lobby computer. He was there on the computer making normal, safe conversation and I was suddenly in the real world and able to keep pace. I could talk about the upcoming primary elections. I could talk about the weather. I could talk about things like that just fine. He said I looked tired… That is fair. I did. I drank a few glasses of water and had some toast to absorb the stomach acid that the caffeine had plagued me with.

The woman who has the next shift at the desk came in early (bless her) and was chatty and soon I was wrapped up in some gossip, chatting about husbands who played hockey (we both have that in common), and television shows. I was not only feeling better, I was feeling happy. I told her about the fright I had and she agreed that was a terrible thing to hear about after two days of working all night/momming all day. I left in a good mood.

I got home to both guys, big and little, in good spirits and not coughing their lungs out as I had imagined earlier in the morning. I went to bed for a little while BUT THE DAMN CAFFEINE…. Not to worry, I am much more sane with my husband than on my own. I don’t know why that is. We took the child for a ride and listened to music. I was alright until some issue with one of our families was discussed and I was back into a pit of despair. In retrospect it is nothing that should have really affected me as it did, but you know, I just wasn’t sane this past weekend….

This story could go on but I just don’t feel like writing about it. The end is a sort of mundane crazy- like accusing my husband of looking at me wrong or getting angry at salad dressing.

I fell asleep while shutting down my computer on Saturday night. I just remember my husband trying to get me a bit more settled and offering him “Ah hmmms” instead of answers. I got a solid 11 hours of sleep!

Yesterday I was not so sleepy but physically spent. We did have a lovely day. The weather was so mild. We took the tot downtown for a coffee date (I may have mentioned he is now in heaven sitting at a table by a window at any coffee shop while he sips his MILK, I was not that crazy) and then just walked around looking in windows as we do most Sunday mornings.

Last night I stayed clear of the gym simply because my body sort of hurt anyway. Most of my ‘me time’ is spent at the gym. I decided to spend it a little differently last night. I spent my ‘me time’ running errands and looking pulled together. It mattered a lot to be out of the house slightly rested with my hair and make-up looking presentable and feeling like a regular member of (a non-diseased) society. I thought to call a friend who had wanted to go to a Buddhist meditation center for a session but then I thought differently. I thought to call another friend that I have made a sort of standing (but never actually happens) running date, but I thought better of that, too. I never know when I really feel like I am able to be a good or even slightly tolerable friend lately. I have let many old friends down by not visiting or calling lately but… I don’t know. Anyway, I was too tired to spend quality time with someone outside of my apartment yesterday. Part of me has really wanted to have a non-related (I see my sister often) very close friend to do things with once or twice a week simply to talk to, etc. That is a whole other blog entry, though. I just haven’t made an effort lately to be a friend. I get so wrapped up in my day to day and then fail to make time to really connect with anyone else. That can change.

So.

It is Monday morning. I have had too solid nights of rest. The sun is shining and my son and I can go out and about. I feel normal again. I have a plan for the end of this week. It involves naps and water in the place of caffeine.

(sorry if this entry is a headache to read, I am still really quite sleepy)

do(o)

 I AM SO FREAKING TIRED I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I AM DRAGGING MY ASS TO THE GYM….

…in a moment.  I have resolutions-ish.  I will post them tomorrow.  Tonight, quickly, a list:

THE LAST BIT OF 2007-

-We attempted a family vacation this weekend.  We turned around and came home three hours after we checked into the hotel.  Apparently someone (someone small) doesn’t dig the idea of sleeping away from home these days.   At least we made it home in time to drink and watch that football game (you know which one) that we decided to watch for some reason.

-I had to clean up dog poop that was intended to piss someone else off.  I am good at this hospitality thing, no?

-My husband ate ham.  Sometime if I have nothing better to do I will write an entire blog entry about how much I hate ham.

-Did I mention seeing an owl in the Old Port? I don’t know if I did.  It seems like this has been the longest holiday season ever for some reason.  Yes, we saw a huge owl.

-I watched a scary movie in the middle of the day and was still scared.

-I translated a lot of Spanish.  I don’t know very much Spanish but sometimes I have super powers, I swear.  My new friend from Mexico agrees.

-I got to hear about all of the latest scandal on my side of the family.  It seems so strange that I am no longer scandalous at all.  Really, I am just not scandalous… sheesh!! Well, I suppose I had a good run.

-My computer has not crashed in four days!

-I can’t translate any Eastern European languages.  That would have come in handy this week.

-I am still sleepy and can’t believe I am forcing myself to run.  Why

WHY?

so something will be here tomorrow finalizing the year because I guess that is the sort of thing that belongs on a blog like this, right?

maybe i need to start checking the box marked ‘other’

Merry Christmas.

This Christmas has proven to me that I lack some secret ingredient that makes a person a celebrator of Christmas.  Maybe like my Jewish, Asian, Persian, North African, and Eastern Orthodox friends I am just not a person who fits the December 25th holiday profile.  Its not as clear as religion or anything, I don’t know what it is.

I did some stuff that was holiday like.  Mostly I am just trying to recover from the pre-holiday.  Most of the pre-holiday issues for me involved drunk hotel guests doing things like putting together parking lot soccer games at 3 a.m. as well as complimentary cookie eating contests.  This makes a girl tired.

Every little holiday thing I prodded my child with failed.  He must have got that recessive gene that I have: holiday dud.  I was reading a friend’s blog and was amazed at her photos: her children singing by candlelight, exchanging cards they made themselves, decorating gingerbread cookies… I gave my child a gingerbread cookie and he tossed it aside and informed me: “I don’t eat that”.

So its over for a year.  I have plenty of time to work on whatever part of me  is askew.

In other news: I have resurrected this damn thing yet again.  Why do I do it?  I thought it was gone for good.  I should just be rid of it for good.  I just keep going back.  Why? Because it is mine.  Content as I am with my current status, my current life does not seem to involve many things that are solely mine.  Let me see: there are things like my underwear and my pants- my husband and I do share t-shirts to some degree.  I wear a lot of his to sleep and to the gym.  I guess my toothbrush and my makeup are all mine, though my sister does like to dig around in the cabinet to see what might look alright on her face.  I guess that other than things that go on my body this computer is the only thing that is really and truly my thing.

I am getting ready to resolve!  This year I have no big obvious ones to take care of.  I am not really hating the one vice I have kept (like three drinks a week? Hardly anything).  I have some particularly good habits going for me these days (like my free time spent reading and running?) So my resolutions will involve creative endeavors.

Here are some thoughts:

-a goal of writing a short story a week- good or bad- just writing one- it would be interesting to see what happens, eh?

-the ol’ cookbook- at least get a recipe out a week on a blog or something (and Annie, we could totally get that done someday, right?)

-make a quilt- yeah right, I guess that sort of thing is just not me.  I think this one is out

that is what I have thought of for now.

My husband and I are going to wrap up this holiday-of-sorts with some solid media time now.
Merry Christmas or December 25th– whichever box you check!