You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2009.
I just laughed until a wee tear came out of my right eye.
Um… what? Was DIABTES or ROSES or NASCAR already taken or something?
I promise I’m not being overly sensitive because I’m close to the topic, I just think that’s dumb. I mean WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?!
But I spent my night watching a sweet, chubby baby be born to one helluva strong mama.
I so win.
First, I’ve totally jumped on the Fleet Foxes bandwagon. This is “Blue Ridge Mountains”. Sometimes they sound almost 50s-ish, but I think this song taps into a CSN&Y sound, with Young being the main comparison to me. Regardless, it’s just a cool band.
So I don’t really have a whole lot of time to delve into big stuff, thus this will be another fairly simple post: updates and pictures. Like everyone else, things are just kind of flying along, with periods of quiet when I try to catch my breath and collect my thoughts.
[Speaking of, I’ve been thinking lately about the benefits of meditation. I get the point, but how does one center themselves smack in the middle of a stressful moment? Don’t you need to be able to be still to access that tranquility? I’m curious.]
Things are picking up at work; I’m understanding things better, and for the most part it’s beginning to click. My doula couple is now technically “past due” [insert placemark for future rant here] and I’m never far from my phone (of which I have a new one, and though I dig it, I’m obviously having a hard time mastering the dumb thing, as the picture of Whomp and me below attests). Jack graduated from Kindy last week, and it’s simply surreal to think that three short years ago he was non-verbal. As in unable to talk or carry a conversation at all. It’s just nutso to think how far he’s come, my sweet, tenacious little fartknocker. I went to a Killers concert recently (SO much fun) and hopefully will go to the Ben Folds coming up (come on out, Baby F!). We also have a float trip the first weekend in June (Seriously, Baby F, I’m not kidding.).
And that’s about it. We’re going to my ‘rents today for a cookout to celebrate a belated Mother’s day, and that sums up the rest of my weekend. Hope all is well out there. Ciao amicos!
…
I just can’t get over how she annihilates an ice cream cone.
Meg and I celebrating her birthday. Apparently in mime paint…
Happy, toothless Jack on the last day of school.
Earlier in the day the candle in the picture below had been both sgaghetti (spaghetti) and lenninade (lemonade), so hours after Lo left and I finally found my glasses, I had to wonder what purpose the glasses served. Possibly something for the characters her brother’s always talking about? Say, a fork for Hookanabaka (Chewbacca), or maybe a straw for Dardader (Darth Vader)?
Trust me when I say the world will never, ever know.
So here’s some irony. Becoming a mother was the single most empowering thing I’ve ever done, and yet I have less control in my life right now then I’ve ever had. Ever.
I have no real address. I have no car (just a loaner I was thankfully, blessedly, graciously given to drive. Don’t mistake my gratitude.). My income is tenuous, at best. Jon and I got into a stupid (but resolved, because we were, in fact, always friends first) fight that only could have happened because of a divorce. I’m in a fairly constant panic about trying to remember bills and and birthdays and events and schedules, because I simply feel un-moored. Adrift, mostly.
At the moment my life is the pause in the movie while the buffering attempts to catch up. You know it will get there, but goddamn it’s torturous waiting sometimes.
Now. Having said that (but not a whole host of other things I could mention), I want to say that I’m not unhappy – mostly because I have a strong and loving group keeping my head above water. And as another cliche proves to be true, I appreciate my moments of happiness much more than I could have known to do before. My life is a helluva lot simpler, somehow, and that’s pretty freeing in a lot of ways. But mostly it’s my kids, in all of their vulnerable, tiring, destructobotic, nomadic, innocent power, that are the only compasses I feel comfortable trusting right now. I don’t know up from down, but I love them and that’s enough to start with.
So, because I’ve got my Girls on, and I’ve been meaning to post some pics of my handiwork lately, I’ll neatly tie this Mother’s day leit motif with ‘Closer To Fine’ and recent pictures.
Have a great day, friends, and don’t forget to tell your mother you love her.
1. I learned today I’ve been writing the ampersand ( &) symbol facing the wrong direction.
2. I have the capacity for a lot of grace. Out of a hundred conversations, I’ve only had maybe a dozen people approach the subject of divorce objectively and/or non-judgmentally. I get that; I really do. It’s a painful thing all-around. But some of the things people have had the audacity to say to me are inexcusably out of line, and though I realize I’m sounding arrogant, I’m trying to say that I get why they said it. It hurts, but I understand the near-impossibility for impartiality. People bring their own crap to the table when this subject comes up, whether they even realize it or not. This is definitely not something I would have known in any other avenue in my life – despite regularly making unpopular decisions – so this really has been a pretty big insight into how people connect.
3. I apparently say the word “asterisk” without the second S consonant. I have zero idea why, since pronunciation is pretty important to me. I also can’t say ‘rear wheel drive’. My mouth sounds like I have palsy when I try to sound it out.
4. I am not so good, in fact, at the little details. I’m totally lying when I say that on my resume. I can spot editing mistakes because I’m a visual learner, but otherwise I’m a total cheddarhead. Know what happens when you realize you’ve made a very stupid mistake after editing 6 images, making a preview sheet, printing aforementioned things off on expensive photo paper, making a .jpg release CD for the client AND burning back-ups of all your work? You feel like a total loser and start over, cussing that you numbered two of the images the same. THANK GOD I’m working for a family that has six children. My boss is a father first, and must have realized he was taking another goober under his wing when he hired me.
5. I am actually capable of athletic competitiveness, even if it doesn’t actually include athletic ability. We played a team in kickball the other night that irritated me so much it was a toss-up between my desire to (as the catcher) sweep the leg of the girl trying to crowd me off the plate (seriously you asshat, it’s friggen KICKBALL) or just miraculously homer the ball and be carried over the plate by my teammates. Which means, of course, that I didn’t get on base for the first time ever in a game. Regardless, I reveled in this new feeling of aggression, and I’d like to learn how to harness it for rude people in customer service positions.
6. Most people probably are good at heart. The mechanic bought my car (sniff, goodbye sweet girl, you were great while you lasted) and is trusting that I’ll actually pay off the rest of my car loan so I can get the title and give it to him. Kansas is wiggedywacked in this regard, and I don’t actually own my car until I pay it off. So I could take his money and run, and he’d never be able to sell the broken piece of crap in his lot, but he risked it anyway. And he gave me a fair price. Good guy.
6. I’m doing some on-line scoring for a company where schools send their standardized testing, and I actually was unable to qualify to score the writing samples of 4th graders in California. Apparently the rubric was just vague enough that despite hours of poring over examples, if they say Joey got a 4, I only gave him a 3. Or I thought Sally didn’t really understand her prompt and gave her a 1, but they say she got a 2. I had to match perfectly on 70% of my qualifying scores and 60% was the highest I was able to do. Holy batman I was pissed off. So they put me on the next assignment, which is to score 5th grade math. If you know me, that’s pretty funny. But, as someone pointed out, I don’t have to actually DO this math. I’ll have the answers right in front of me! No ambiguity! Huzzah! And the best part is that I got a check for a whopping $46 dollars for that infuriating night I spent trying to qualify.
I got paid to fail people, and that kicks ass.
Surely there’s some philosophical lesson in that, no?
OK so I know I’m always the last to join the party, but I’ve never really gotten into TV On The Radio, for no discernible reason. But I am super-liking their newish song, “Family Tree”:
And to start your weekend off with a lip-smacker, on the way home just now, I glanced in the rear view mirror (of the loaner car I’m driving, more on that later) at a stoplight and saw a guy – in his forties at least – digging for gold unabashedly. Like, truly weeviling around in there. So yeah, that’s gross, but whatever, it kinda made me giggle. A short distance later at the next light, I see him digging in his ear in the same fashion. Again, gross, but whatever.
Third light, however? Back to the nose, except now it’s the other nostril.
…
DUDE. DID YOU JUST DISCOVER YOU HAVE HOLES IN YOUR HEAD? MY THREE YEAR-OLD IS LESS FASCINATED WITH THE CONTENTS ON HER FINGERNAIL.
KNOCK IT OFF.
Huzzah! 