Love is remembering and sharing
In the last year and a half, I’ve managed to transform my hobby-and-occasional-gig into a sustainable career. Which, frankly, still amazes me. When we were down in Georgia a couple of weeks ago, someone asked me what I did and I answered, “I’m a writer” without batting an eyelash.
I had only a short period of time to bask in this accomplishment before the logical follow-on to triumph took over: Exhaustion. Freelancing is not for wimps. There are no paid vacations, no sick days, and it’s very easy to fall into a pattern of working all hours, every day of the week. And then? What initially felt SO GOOD starts to feel a little bit like the third circle of hell. read more…
Daylight Savings broke everyone
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that, well, everyone seems to have gone COMPLETELY INSANE since we changed the clocks, but I dunno. I think the cosmic balance has been upset. Or Mercury is in retrograde. Or there’s a monster on the wing of the plane. (Wait, not that last one, probably.)
Seriously, the last few days I’ve been having a difficult time for a variety of uninteresting reasons, and then I started looking around and realized that really, it’s fine, because everything and everyone else has gone haywire and by comparison it’s all good. read more…
Maybe you could wake me on Friday
Today was one of those days where I spent the entire day really just wanting to sit down in the middle of the room and weep for a few hours. No particular reason. Well, a hundred particular reasons, but none any different than any other day. Today just happened to be the day that I’d had enough, and yet, ODDLY ENOUGH, the world did not halt so that I could have a break, a snack, and a tantrum. Go figure.
My fabulous shoes that I bought for a song to go with my wedding dress arrived today, and they are even more gorgeous in person than the online picture revealed. I unwrapped them and thought how lovely to have one thing go right today! Then I tried to put them on my feet and that was the end of that. read more…
Well-dressed floundering
I have had about 1,001 things that need doing before summer, and this weekend, I knocked that list right down to around 995. Hooboy. We are rockin’, now. Look out, world!
Many of you have asked to see for a picture of my wedding dress and I am not trying to be coy, I am just… ummmm… I don’t know what I am. Superstitious? I don’t think we can call me superstitious when I’m getting married in a multicolored (including orange and fuchsia) cocktail dress, really. So that’s not it. Weird? Well, THAT’s hardly a debate; obviously I am weird. But that’s not the issue, I don’t think. I think it’s more like the baby names thing. You never tell people what you’re THINKING of naming your children, because SOMEONE will invariably say “Oh, I knew someone named Chickadee and she was a chronic nose-picker” or something, and then your love for that name will forever be tainted. But if you NAME your kid that, even the most boorish people can generally be counted upon not to say stupid stuff like that when faced with an actual human. So.
All of this is to say, I will post a picture after we get married, and then if you hate it, OH WELL. As a consolation, would you like to see my blurry kids? read more…
Bent
Are you missing anything that might be located up high? Or is there perhaps going to be a meteor shower tonight? No? Pity. I just finished painting my ceilings and may never be able to look down (or even just forward) again.
I’m getting old.
Also, I would like to decide that I’m one of those people who is far too regal and privileged to do menial tasks like painting ceilings. Then I could just avoid the whole thing with a sense of righteousness. As it is, I spent the entire time wondering why I hadn’t batted my eyelashes a little harder at Otto and gotten it done when he was last here.
Oh well. read more…
Paint on my fingers, eels on my toes
I’m trying to get motivated to get my house ready to show. In a fit of misplaced optimism I emailed the folks with whom we have the contingent contract. Because maybe they sold their house and just forgot to tell me! And they would open my email and smack their foreheads and immediately mail back, “Mir! No, don’t worry about cleaning your house! We’re all set!”
Instead, I got back some mail that not only spoke of their frustration in still not having sold their house, it said something about how this is a “very unfortunate situation for all involved” and I had to go back and reread to make sure that no one had died. (I concluded that no one had, but that my buyers may be even more melodramatic than I am.)
So, it looks like I have to finish painting and, um, burn everything we own. read more…
I brushed my teeth before I wrote this
I ran out for some groceries while the kids were having dinner with their dad tonight. While perusing the produce I spotted a prodigious head of garlic practically crying out for a good roasting, and so I brought it home and did just that. Dinner was much of the resultant goodness smeared on slices of wheat baguette, and while I enjoyed it very much, you probably don’t want me to breathe on you. Or near you.
The kids came home and Chickadee cocked her head to the side as soon as she entered the kitchen. She sniffed her way over to the stove, and beheld the leftover roasted garlic as well as the papery skeleton of the head. Then she peered at me with great concern and cupped my face in her hands. read more…
Because the boobs need discussing
When I woke up this morning, I was planning little more than an ordinary day, albeit starting off with a coffee date with a friend I haven’t seen in a long time.
I didn’t even have breakfast on the table when she’d called to cancel. (Damn those unpredictable children and their foolish illnesses when we have coffee to drink! Damn them to hell!)
Oh, well. I’d just stay in and do my work.
Then I checked my calendar and realized I had a mammogram appointment at lunchtime. Clearly I was in for a treat. read more…
It helped a little
With all of the recent events and stressors swirling around in my head, I did the only two things that made clear sense.
First: I informed Chickadee that her ass is MINE this week. Slavery is BACK, baybee. She came home from school and did all of her homework for the week and then scrubbed toilets until it was time to go with Daddy. A good start, says I. My house shall gleam by Friday. And she went willingly, and then (unprompted) came and snuggled up with me tonight with her book about divorce
Second: I shopped for shoes. And they’ll be here tomorrow. And it’s a little sad how much that cheered me up, but how can you not be a little happy about $100 shoes for $12? It’s a sign that the universe is still a good place.
Happiness, interrupted
We are home, and it was almost a really lovely trip.
Tomorrow we will get up early and resume our normal routine; the children will lag and I will attempt to hustle them through breakfast and then we will walk to the bus stop and they will go to school and I will spend the day working and hoping that I do not get a phone call from school to tell me something that I do not want to hear.
As for me, I am exhausted. I am glad to be home because next to Otto, I love my bed most of all, and I am so tired I want to sink down into the mattress and sleep for a week. read more…