Sick or Depressed?

Or same thing?

Something has rendered me quiet (except for the complaining), chock full of the mehs, and feeling like doing nothing at all. Or at least nothing productive. Even my cherished act of ironing - the domestic engineering equivalent of Xanax, isn't working it's typical magic today.

The fun has even been taken out of comfort food. Chloe, the Dancer, has taken up her post next to the kitchen door and I can feel her silently judging me as I drift in and out of there hunting for something to make me feel right again. I know that she looks at my growing ass and thinks "dear lord, is that what I have to look forward to?" right before she starts clearing her throat and throwing disdainful glances at my bowl of ice cream or glass of soda or that Duggar-Family sized bag of cheese doodles I'm pulling in the wagon behind me.

Nothing tastes right, I'd really rather just sleep, passively watch old movies or kinda sorta read. And there's this nagging sense that I should be doing something. It's an internal nag, not an external one. Except for the moment when MathMan very sweetly wondered aloud if I'd be joining him at the gym today, I damn near took his head off in a most unpleasant growl "Did you not just hear me say I don't feel like doing anything?" I hit almost every word in that sentence so hard for emphasis that I don't even know where to place the italics.

I'm sorry MathMan. As if you need a grump of a wife to deal with now.

So my question is out there - sick or depressed? Please discuss. Before I make another attempt at the ironing, I'm going to don a disguise and sneak into the kitchen for some pudding. I think there's whipped cream, too.......

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You

###########

She was writing a novel and hit a wall. The story just stopped.

"Is that okay? Is it okay for the story to just stop? Because the lives the story is about or rather, based upon, continue. They haven't ended. The story isn't over. So maybe this isn't a good story at all." She was babbling. First she said it to herself. Later, she repeated this to her husband.

"What do you mean? Of course it's a good story. And no, stories don't have to have neat little endings," he was trying to drive and cope with a needy wife. These aren't always fun things to do simultaneously. On the other hand, one (the driving) can provide a jolly good excuse for ignoring the other (the needy wife).

She gnawed on her thumbnail and stared out the window. "Did you feel that? That rowr, rowr thing the car is doing?"

Her husband had that look. His forehead was furrowed, his eyebrows coming together. "It's revving. Yes. I guess you'd better take it in sooner rather than later. You'll have time?"

"I figured as much and already took a vacation day tomorrow so I can take it in. God, I hope it's nothing expensive," she resumed chewing on her nail distractedly. The story was driving her crazy. She just wanted to finish it, but it seemed too busy. It seemed like too many stories happening at once. It occurred to her that she'd have to go back to it and pull it apart. Oh hell.

Her husband ticked off a number of things that could be causing the car to behave the way it was. Neither of them wanted to name the big, horribly expensive thing that could be going wrong. She recognized it from the time she was driving their daughter's car over the summer. They'd just been getting ready to take a little combo trip - her company's annual conference with the family joining her to enjoy the resort for free. She was on her way home from the office when she stopped for some shredded cheese at a local convenience store. When she pulled out of the parking lot, the car bucked and revved and then just quit. The clutch had gone out.

Two days ago, when she was driving home from the office, she noticed a similar feel to this car. She was on the entrance ramp to I85 and when the car kept going, she told herself that she was imagining things.

Her husband was still talking. As usual, she was only half-listening. "Well, whatever it costs, it's money we don't have," he said somberly.

"Fabulous."

**************

The nice Toyota man looked a little worried. "Okay, so it's the clutch. Eleven hundred dollars parts and service. I'll have to order the parts, though, don't have 'em in. Ya got someone to pick you up? Because your car isn't safe to drive."

She stood frozen on the spot, opening and closing her mouth, not quite able to respond. Yeah, this was the perfect morning to give up coffee. Again.

"Um. Uh. No. This is our only car. I don't....." she managed.

"Okay. That's okay. I've got another Corolla you can borrow. I'll get someone to bring it around. Tina here will get you all set up. You should have your car back tomorrow, maybe Friday." And with that he was gone.

Tina smiled sympathetically at her and slid a triplicate sheet of paper her direction. "Just sign here. And you'll need these keys."

********

She got into the car. It was familiar, pretty much just like the Corolla she and her husband drove, except this one was an automatic. She got into the car, adjusted the seat, turned on the lights and wipers because the rain was still coming down in sheets and pulled through the large, glass door that had magically lifted up for her exit.

"But I don't have eleven hundred dollars," she finally said aloud.

The drive home was just enough time for her to replay, once again, all the financial mistakes she and her husband had made over the twenty plus years they'd been together.

Uncharacteristically, she went chronologically. She started with the student loan money she'd sent to her boyfriend in France in 1987, clicked through the stupid student loans, her husband's expensive periodontal surgery paid for by credit card in 1990, the stupidity and short-sightedness of quitting jobs when she was first out of college, leaving the best job she ever had because she listened to her mother who was convinced that life would be better in the hometown, agreeing to her husband's adding on to his already massive student loans so that he could be a teacher and make not a lot of money, the financial strain of having children, and her favorite - always, always being a bad negotiator and not getting what she was really worth in the workplace.

She pulled the loaner car into the garage, still wondering how in the world they were going to come up with eleven hundred dollars. The lottery was a seriously long shot. She could unwrap the holiday gifts, find the receipts and begin returning things. She could just leave the car running and stay in the garage. She was worth at least her life insurance policy, right? But then, there's that pesky suicide clause that she's never been sure about. Is that true or not? And besides, how long would that take? No, that was no good.

She went upstairs and did what she always does. She cleaned up after he kids who are old enough to clean up after themselves. She checked her email and Facebook and then sat staring out the window at the rain. A kitten wandered in, merped at her and then jumped into her lap to receive lavish love and kisses on its white belly.

A few minutes later, the kitten jumped down, making her think again that it needed to have its claws addressed. She considered going to the kitchen for a bite to eat - this morning's apple had made only a small dent in her hunger. Instead, she turned back to her computer and opened up the file with her story in it.

###########

May Have Bitten Off More Than She Can Chew

I think it may be time to go back to taking speed. Three jobs, three kids, five cats, one house, two books in progress (writing), one book nearly done (reading), blah, blah, blah.....all work and no play makes Lisa a dull ___________.

That is all.

The Martyr Speaks. Again.

Can I just tell you that I would hate to be married to me today? Seriously, I'm a pill. And MathMan just hangs in there and hangs in there. He is the Timex watch of husbands.

I am miserable and for no damn good reason except things just aren't as hunky dory as I think they should be. Nope. I'm stewing and fretting and getting all afroth about life and when I'm like this, the best thing would be to just leave me the hell alone. But MathMan doesn't do that because he's afraid I'll carry a hose out to the garage, attach it to the tailpipe of the car and sit with the door shut revving that poor Corolla's engine one last time before becoming part of the great Gothic tale of life gone wrong in Euharlee, Georgia.

Silly guy, that's too much work. Experience demonstrates that I'd mess it up somehow. I'd have the wrong size hose or try to do the deed too soon after driving the car and burn my fingers on the still-hot tailpipe. Or I'd waste a bunch of time looking up exactly how to do it on the internet, then realize I have to pee, then find that funny Edward Gorey book next to the toilet and lose my taste for quick death, then hear the dryer buzzer and go down to fold laundry, get distracted by something on the television, sit on the sofa and fall asleep and then forget what I was up to until MathMan wakes me with a funny look on his face while he holds my neatly penned suicide note out in front of him like a talisman.

I'd surely break a fingernail or the car battery would turn out to be dead and I have to call J's daddy for a jump start. Imagine that conversation. "Mr. M, can you come over and jump my car again? The battery is dead and I need to hurry up and make it run so I can kill myself before my husband gets home....."

It's a given that something would foul things up and just like that time I went all drama queen and sped away in my car, stopping at a Jiffy Treat to drown my sorrows in an extra-thick chocolate milkshake, and then discovered that I was stuck because the stupid, ugly Ford Fairmont wouldn't start and the only person I could think of to call was the same person I was so angry at, but I called MathMan anyway to come rescue me and then, and only then did that damn car start......well, you get the picture. When I go for the drama mask, I usually end up with that somewhat sinister looking laughing mask instead. Were I try to kill myself via the running car in the closed garage trick, it would end with me calling MathMan on his cell so I could swear at him in blame because something went horribly wrong on the way to my suicide.

Besides, I don't want to hurt anyone else and suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning could cause trouble for those still living in the upstairs of the house. MathMan should know me better. I'm a no muss, no fuss kind of chick. Pills. In the bathtub with my clothes on because I'm not too keen on my own nudidity at the moment. And the tub wouldn't be filled with water or anything, but at least if I hurl or something, the mess will be much easier to clean. I suppose I could just stand in the shower, too, but what if I bump my head as I take my final slither down, leaving a nasty bruise on my noggin? Now wouldn't that be a pain in the ass for some funeral home makeup artist to have to cover up while adhering to the strict instructions I'd leave in a nicely typed in triplicate note to ensure that if there is some goony open casket thing, my make up better look as natural as it does when I apply it. (see enclosed picture)

Not that I've given it any thought. Funny thing is, as long as I can talk about it and laugh about it, it's not going to happen. It's when I'm quiet that I'm a danger to myself and others.

So what the hell is up my ass, I keep wondering. MathMan is certain that my depression is chemical. Just this morning, he correctly pointed out that if I had a headache, I'd take an Advil. True enough. But this stupid depression just hangs on and on and no matter how much talking I could do with a therapist, the fundamental issues that plague me don't go away. That's just the reality. I will still have to help support this family and be a mother and a wife and do all the grown up stuff that wears you down to a nub.

So pardon me if I'd like to step off once in a while. Take a break. Go a'travelin' for a spell. Who doesn't want that from time to time?

Recently I read a novel that just fueled my feeling of ennui mixed with the acid of worry and regret. In her story The Ten Year Nap, Meg Wolizter writes about some stereotypical Manhattanites who have chosen not to work so they can stay home with their children. Please note that I'm so over the whole work-mommy versus stay-at-home-mommy thing I could scream, but what really made me fidget while reading this book was the idea that I was reading about the angst of women who actually possessed the freedom to stay home with their children. Listen, I realize that I'm not artsy-craftsy lovey-dovey mama material, but when no one is looking, I cover my kids up in gooey mom-love. Were someone to have offered me the chance to stay home with them when they were little, I would have been all "Hell yeah, I'm staying home with them" and I would have never looked back with regret. I suppose that might be the difference between having a "promising career" as described in the novel and my job which is white collar enough (pink collar ghetto more like it), but not something for which my passion burns. It pays the bills, end of story.

Tough as it was to swallow, I slogged my way through the book. MathMan asked me a few times why I didn't just toss it aside? "Why are you still dating that book?" he asked, giving me the stink eye, "You dumped boyfriends with greater alacrity than you've been able to decide whether to stick with this book or not."

If I acknowledged him at all, it was mostly with a rude gesture and then I'd make some meager statement about time invested, blah, blah, blah. The fact is, I promised myself I'd finish reading the book because I wanted to see how it ended and when I sneaked to see if I could just wrap it up in the last couple of pages, was thwarted by the way Wolitzer dragged out the conclusion. I swear, it was like removing a jagged splinter from a wailing child's foot. At some point, I just hung on to the book and yanked the words from it. I finished it sitting in the library, forcing myself so that I could return it on time and having met my goal. So I sat and chewed the inside of my cheek and flicked the edges of the book's pages and read and stewed some more until I could walk across the library and drop the finished, if not enjoyed, book into the return slot with a satisfying plunk.

Have I mentioned I'm all about goals now? I hope not because I don't want you to hold me to that. Yet.

Anyway, completing the book gave me no satisfaction because what it really did was add to my desire to navel gaze and wonder and wish and regret about all the stupid choices I've made over my lifetime. Regret is particularly poisonous when I'm in this mood.

Then, Friday night, we had a hypnotist at the dinner event that I was responsible for planning. He was very good. I had my reservations about booking him, but I was impressed by his message and I'm convinced that some of the subjects he chose from the audience were, in fact, hypnotized. Not to mention the fact that it's pretty dang funny to see your boss "go under" and then claim later that he "never actually was hypnotized." Yeah, right. And, natch, he wants me to destroy the video that I took. Ha, I say. Ha ha ha. And no way.

The hypnotist talked about how successful people visualize what they want and remain focused as they pursue their dream. I sat, sipping my wine and savoring the Chateaubriand (I know, life isn't that rough, I know) and thought about that. I considered a conversation I'd had with our guest speaker, another motivational guy, the evening before. He asked me why I hadn't done something to make this blog a money-making venture or done more in an entrepreneurial effort to free myself from the shackles of workaday blues. (He must have been able to read the boredom and weariness on my face.)

"Why hold yourself back? You have to make your own way, no one is going to rescue you from an unhappy life......" he stated pointedly. I could have smacked him for being so spot on.

I looked around the large room at the members of the association I work for. They are all there because someone in their family decided at some point that they were going to run their own business rather than sit around and hope that some employer was going to reward them for hard work and brains. We all know that hard work and brains aren't rewarded as much as we're told they are, right?

And so here I am, alternating between droning silence and bursts of venom as I drive along I75 this morning, MathMan riding shotgun. He shifted in his seat. The whole car moved under him, his motions were that deliberate and meant, I believe, to get my attention.

"What are we going to do about the depression?" he finally asked using his firm, I've had it, Lisa, voice.

I smirked and held back from asking him which depression did he mean? Big D Depression or the little, more insidious one? I mean, I know I'm amazing and all, but I do believe that solving the big D Depression is President Obama's job and too many cooks, etc.....

See? I don't want to be serious. I don't want to go and sit and talk and tell some non-judgmental therapist about all the muck inside my head because then I might cry and blow snot bubbles and still walk out feeling utterly ridiculous for being bunged up because I have to work too many jobs and I'm tired and I want a vacation, a looooooooong vacation, and mostly I want my past back so I can fix things.

I brought the budding conversation to a screeching halt by biting MathMan's head off when he said that I needed to "find the time" to write my damn book. The book has now graduated to being "that damn book." I think of it in much the same way. So instead of talking about how I'm about to embark on a new thing that might eventually free me from having a long commute and a job that thrills me not at all, I chose to zero on what really irritated me about that statement - the idea that the reason why I don't have time is because I don't make time. Or rather - I don't have time because I waste time.

I believe that among the huffs and forced hoots, and the "oh no you didn't just go there" hair toss/eye roll, I spat out a few stinging words including magic wand and doing the impossible. So long constructive conversation between adults, hello growly silence, punctuated by heavy sighs and angry staring out the window.

But MathMan is right. I have to make the time. Right this second, we cannot afford for me to chuck my association management "career," but I can tell you this - I am going to make this new venture work so that I can be free to write and make my own way. I am sick to death of having over half of my waking hours dictated to me so that when I get home, I am so tired and distracted by all the unfinished projects that I don't feel like focusing on what matters.

The Post By Which I Alienate More Readers and Make MathMan Wish He'd Married That Nice Girl from Kentucky Instead

UPDATED: Because at 1 o'clock something in the morning when I really have to pee, I don't edit or scan for typos very well. I also added a link to explain Les Nessman for those not familiar with WKRP in Cincinnati and the song isn't really called Zipblahblahblah. I believe it has something to do with bluebirds crapping on my shoulder or something.


Because the nice girl from Kentucky never had an opinion on anything.

I've heard from another one. One of those people who thinks I've gone all soft since I stopped blogging about political things. Says they miss the rants of the old days. Oh yeah? Well stick around because you're in for a rant and a half. And I'll squeeze politics into it even if it's awkward and hurty.

First of all, while I'm sitting here typing this, The Dancer is just yapping the fuck away at me. Does she not see that I'm typing? I swear to you, she is sitting here telling me about all sorts of things including the cat shit she stepped in as she walked in the door just now. She just got home from the studio where the annual orgy of taking company and recital pictures was taking place. It's the kind of thing that used to make me wish I'd never taken her to that first dance class. Now that she can drive, I don't have to stand around the studio all damned night, but I did make the mistake of staying up until she got home.

And now she's talking to me about how she gets hot at night while she's sleeping and and and I can still her voice, but I can't make any sense of it. It's 12:14 a.m. and I'm seeking peace and quiet and this brilliant child is not reading my body language that says "see these Les Nessman walls? see me typing here? what does that tell you?" I hate it when she's a teenager and she wants me to be a mom after midnight.

As if I didn't do enough for this kid today. I worked from home to attend the awards program at Garbo's school so I was available to drive Garbo and The Actor to school this morning while The Dancer slept in. Hence her alertness after midnight and so it's my own fucking fault that she's sitting here talking to me right now.

The Dancer and I left skid marks getting out of that stupid elementary school awards (citizenship award? artistic award? most creative award? most creative thinker award?) I had to rush The Dancer to her school for an afternoon chorus class. When I dropped her off she mentioned that I should pick her up at 3:30., but she would text me if she got done sooner. Fine. I drove the 14 miles home in her car with the clutch that hates me.

All the while, I was exchanging texts with The Actor who was making a case for skipping school the last two days of this week. I finally did what any good parent does in that situation. "I'll discuss with Dad and let you know." Ah, yes, the old stalling method. Why carry that monkey on my back alone?

I was home just long enough to open up my favorite porn site when I got a one word text from The Dancer. "Done." To which I responded "R U Fucking Kidding me?" I closed my porn window, wiped out my internet history, zipped up my slacks and made the 14 mile trip back to The Dancer's school to pick her up.

On my way, I saw Garbo getting off the school bus. Good thing I wasn't looking at porn after all. She waved me down and asked to ride along. I got to spend the next 15 minutes listening to her tearful lamentations that she should have gotten the artistic award instead of the penmanship award and sniffle, whine, something something.

I was trying to drive the car with the clutch that hates me, maintain my sanity and still not make her feel badly about the whole thing. Finally, I could take it no more. "Those awards are just bullshit, Garbo. They're subjective and stupid and unquantifiable and who cares? You know what you're good at, where you excel. Now stop whining about it before I wreck this car and kill us both."

My pronouncement of bullshit was quickly followed by my typical disclaimers that she need not go to school the next day and explain the world according to Lisa. The last thing I want is a call from the principal asking me to expand on what I mean by calling the awards "bullshit." Although, I'd be more than happy to tell her exactly what I mean.

Helper award, indeed.

On our way home from picking up The Dancer, Garbo, who is very locust like when she comes home from school, announced that she was starving. My empty stomach growled in agreement. We decided that we'd stop at the hot dog joint that serves Vienna Beef dogs. It was 3:13 p.m. When we got to the door, we were met by some guy who was not the owner. He explained that "she" was closing down. He jerked his head in the direction of the counter which we couldn't see because it's blocked by a center island that runs from floor to ceiling.

I eyed the good ole boy suspiciously, but Garbo, The Dancer and I left, grumbling. The sign says they are open until 3:30 p.m. for goodness sake. A bit later, it occurred to me that I should have raised a stink about it or at least grabbed a menu by the door so I could call the place to complain. I mean, what if the guy who said they were closed was actually robbing the woman behind the counter and that was a great way to get us out of there. Of course I know that's not the case, but it did make me think that I should question more of the petty nonsense in life just in case.

MathMan just came into the room carrying his laptop, wearing nothing but his underwear. He was half asleep so he didn't process that The Dancer was sitting on the floor grinding on my last nerve with every little petty grievance from her evening. When last I saw our hero, he was breathing loudly and doing school work late into the evening. Finally, he'd had enough, grabbing his laptop, announcing that he was going to go watch Dick Van Dyke on Hulu, he shuffled off to the bedroom where he watched the opening credits and promptly fell asleep.

Well, there's a fine how do you do. I go to the trouble of entertaining him with my version of Zip-a-dee-doo-dah in as many voices as I can manage AND by accidentally squirting Reddi Wip up my nose when I missed my mouth and he has the nerve to skip out and leave me to listen to The Dancer's tales of woe?

And so another busy day comes to a close (12:53am, 1:20 a.m.) and the martyr rereads her words, noting what's missing. Oh yes. Work. Squeezed into all of that other jackassery is the cleaning, the laundry, the full time paid work, phone calls to doctors and dentists and random odds and ends of things I have to do to help keep this place humming in its giddy whirl of activity.

Oh and not to mention all those blogs I'd opened in Firefox tabs only to have firefox crash so the feed was gone and the window closed so I don't know which blogs to go back to.

So if I want to sit on my ass and blog and read blogs and laugh at funny things instead of grinding my teeth at the news of the day or just fuck around all evening seeing how much I don't know about my facebook friends or watching youtube videos of nothing in particular, well then, I hope some of you will understand. I don't ask much of you, do I?

Oh, yes - the political. Here you go......somehow all of this is the fault of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. I just know it. In fact, let's just say it's the fault of Monsieur Le Torture himself, Dick Cheney. He's cleverly disguised torture as parenting and he must think that I'm part of an Al Qaeda sleeper cell sitting right here in the middle of nowhere Georgia, plotting an attack on the American Way of Life.

Thank goodness for Dick*. He's keeping us safe one over-programmed child at a time................

*You heard me.

Out of Alignment

I've had this odd sense of discontent all day. The weather is gray. The air is moist and the whole day has been of the verge of tears. The day, not me, And, as luck would have it, the day chose the minute I walked out of Kinko's clutching my box of color brochures on glossy paper to let go. The skies opened up and the rain poured down.

My co-worker and I had driven over to Kinko's together because she has a company credit card and I do not. We climbed into the car, the big raindrops having just started to dress us in polka dots, and watched as the neon oranges and purples of the FedEx Kinko's sign shimmered like a watercolor behind the curtain of rain.

"Figures," my co-worker said, almost as if to herself.

"Yeah, the timing......" I sighed in response and put the key in the ignition.

Rubbing her hands over the damp box she continued, "Do you ever feel like no matter what you do, things just don't line up on your side?"

I laughed. Oh, yeah.

Lately, that's been the perfect description for how I feel. It's hard to identify because it's the sense that powers beyond my control (and I'm all about the control) are messing with me in ways to keep me just on edge, out of sorts and slightly off kilter. No major blow ups. No disasters. No delivery of doom on the front door of the New Golden Manor. Just this feeling that things aren't quite right.

I suppose for me specifically it's a culmination of all that's been going with moving, a bout of illness, changes to my job, a longer commute, and the churn of people in and out of my life that's just a regular part of everyday existence. For our family, it's been the larger issue of the move, of course, spring activities, the closing down of the school year, lots of standardized testing, the end of The Dancer's high school years, the angst of her college decision, and the herky-jerky start up of baseball season during a very rainy spring.

Things just seem a bit.....off.

There's Garbo who is convinced that she's dying from swine flu. She's been watching coverage of the illness on videos of The Today Show and this morning asked me if I was aware that "swine flu had come to Georgia." My lack of running around in circles and screaming out of concern for her impending death did not much please her. She didn't laugh at all when I offered to don black clothing and wail like a banshee when the time did come to bid her farewell down the River Styx.

The Dancer, who drives Garbo to school each morning isn't helping matters by teasing her and telling Garbo that her nose is looking more porcine with each passing day. Garbo really is ill with a nasty cough, slight fever, stuffy nose and general blechiness that she caught from the germ ridden little goobers with whom she goes to school, but my highly specialized doctoring skills tell me that it's not worthy of wearing masks, no matter how fun and fashionable that would be.

The Actor has started to bark like Garbo. Naturally. He's been a barrel of laughs, first with a nasty case of poison ivy, then the stitches after an ill-fated balancing act on some pole during his walk to school. If he catches what Garbo has, it'll be ten times worse because that boy doesn't do anything small.

The Dancer has been battling her Achilles heel - literally. After several trips to the podiatrist for an exam and initial taping up (which I lovingly refer to as dinner and a show because her doctor is a multi-talented scream), follow up taping, then a visit to the general practitioner to see about an ugly rash left by the tape......all because she's in pain from DANCING ON HER TOES FOR HOURS A DAY! I mean, who knew that pushing the human body to its limits would cause one pain? At least her pain provides us the amusement of a daily visit from the basement when she brings her fancy orthopedic sling sock upstairs and utters those now famous words "Daddy, will you strap me in?" while I sit quietly chortling to myself, stifling strap on jokes that wouldn't make anyone but me laugh anyway.

The upside to The Dancer's rash and The Actor's poison ivy is that we have this steroid cream in the house that seems to have taken care of my unexplained and embarrassing rash. Me - talk to a doctor about that? Are you kidding?

MathMan is barking, too, when he's not messing with a crown that's come loose, that is. I look at him and he's all twitchy around his mouth as he tries to force the damn thing to stay in place. The real fun starts when he sneezes and has to catch the crown as it flies from his mouth. Hell, I'm afraid to kiss him for fear that I'll end up with an extra tooth in my head. Ewwwww! I know.

(At this point she rereads this post and realizes that this is exactly why she used to refrain from asking her grandparents how they were - they would tell you in excruciating detail, cataloging each pain, describing every ache, recounting lively tales of visits to any number of doctors offices and pharmacies, listing all medicines and their exact per dosage costs, and whipping out a slide projector to present supporting evidence of each ooze, drain, wound, hack into a tissue and bowel movement.)

While I'm at it, I will tell you that the contraband kitties remain petulantly confined to the basement, fighting over a coveted spot on The Dancer's bed and jockeying to be the first to climb onto the window sills when the blinds are raised and the windows flung open, complaining loudly at the door to be allowed to roam free in the upper floors of the house and behaving in a generally confused manner each evening when they are finally allowed to explore upstairs. They do that flattened out cat thing where they get all low to the ground and hold their ears high, checking for danger, I guess. Goofballs.

At the moment, aside from that itchy itch that I've now conquered, I'm doing well. I'm perpetually tired, but I've just accepted this as a way of being. I know the culprit - me. Too little sleep, a near starvation diet and not enough exercise. I don't even need my super specialized doctoring skills for that diagnosis.

Tonight I probably won't get the rest I need either. See, tomorrow is The Dancer's eighteenth birthday. I've been planning something quite special to celebrate and it's not going to lend itself terribly well to getting a good night's rest. But that's okay. My girl doesn't turn eighteen every day.

I've spent the last hour preparing the living room to look exactly like our apartment on Claremont Avenue in Chicago circa 1991. This is where labor started and where I remained through early labor. I've arranged the master bedroom to mimic the birthing room at Rush North Shore Hospital where The Dancer was born at exactly 1pm on May 7th.

As I re-enact the labor, delivery, and recovery I plan to walk the floors holding my back, watch the dvds of Northern Exposure and Working Girl that I rented for just this occasion, munch ice chips, pee twenty times, take showers, wake MathMan repeatedly to ask him "Do you think this could be it," lean over a bed and groan loudly that this back labor is not fun anymore while someone rolls tennis balls across my spine, pull my lower lip over my head and then throw up from the pain, inexpertly stick needles into my hands in an desperate attempt to insert an IV, and then, in an exhausted state, begging for pain medication and threatening to punch the next person who tells me to push one more time, finally giving up and shoving a vacuum into my vagina to suck out........well, whatever represents The newborn Dancer. Because as flattered as she was when I told her that I want to make a big deal out of her birthday, she refused to take part in the re-enactment when I explained my plan.

"No, no, hell no," came her stern refusal.

"But you can play the part of the midwife," I offered hopefully, smiling vaguely at the recollection of that day. It's true. You really do forget the pain*.

"No, mother. The whole thing is just......weird." And that was that.

I sat glumly, picking at lint on my Old Navy slacks. "Okay," I said. "But remind me to ask Daddy if he knows where the big silver mixing bowl is. I haven't seen it since we unpacked."

The Dancer stared at me silently, trying to read my face. "Why do you need the silver mixing bowl?" she asked slowly, almost afraid to know the answer.

I stood up and started rooting through the cabinets, searching for the bowl. "Because after you were born, that's what they put your placenta in. Daddy loves to tell that story...." I paused to see what she was doing after a thump diverted me away from my search. An overturned chair was all that greeted my questioning glance...........

*lie - you never forget. And if you're smart, you never let them forget either.

Adventures in Real Parenting: Skip Thursdays

I saw the picture on the left Tuesday as I drove to work. For just a moment, I was pleased that I was sitting in bumper to bumper traffic so I could snap this photo. I knew it would be useful at some point.

So what am I doing instead of writing and reading blogs? Well, it's a varied list.

(1) Fretting over things (nothing new here)
(2) Doing the happy dance because I'm down another clothing size
(3) Actually working
(4) Trolling for just the right birthday card for someone special
(5) Wrestling with my desire to nap
(6) Being passive-aggressively difficult and annoyed because it's Thursday which means that I have to drop everything and take another kid to the doctor. This time it's not because someone has blood pouring from an open wound on his leg. No, it's someone who has something itchy on her leg and foot.

Hmmmm. While I'm there, perhaps I can ask about my unresolved itch. No, that's not a metaphor.

Well, at least I've managed to create enough guilt in The Spawn that they are sufficiently obsequious when they know they are causing me a pain in the ass. Upon realizing that I would have to leave work, drive 35 miles back to C'ville to take her to the doctor because she's one week shy of 18, and then come all the back back down to MathMan's school to pick him up later,

The Dancer sent a text of apology that read "I'm sorry I have disrupted your day. Thank you for taking care of this."

To which I responded "It's okay. I assume one day you'll come rescue me every Sunday from the swarming hordes of old coots who follow me around the assisted living facility by taking me to lunch somewhere nice."

Smart girl that she is, she replied quickly. "Of course, but what about Daddy?"

From me: "He'll be busy being cougared by the older gals. I don't think he'll want to leave the joint."

Her response: "I should have guessed. We'll bring him some takeout."

The Dancer is nothing if not practical.

Yes, she finally committed to a school. Phew. Details later if she says it's okay.

The Ongoing Saga of Golden Manor - At least the knick knacks are all perfectly lined up on the mantel

And so the settling in to the new home continues. We're up, we're down. We're stabbing things with carving knives. You could say it's a smorgasbord of laughs, or an unidentifiable pain in your eye. Either way - we definitely packed The Crazy into the one of those big boxes and brought it with us.

Okay - so it's not horrible. I can rattle off a list of pros and cons with the old house versus the new house pretty easily. May I start with DSL? What a beautiful thing it is, too. We've been so long in the wilderness, that I forget that I can now upload photos to flickr, delight in all sorts of jackassery on You Tube, indulge in a few "after hours" of private video, download itunes updates and still not blow the bandwidth. It's like seeing light for the first time or something.

And there's the crown molding, the chair rail in the office, the dogwood trees blooming in the front and back yards! And don't forget the Love Tub. Which warrants its own damn post. If ever we get some bubble bath. Although, MathMan nixed my idea to live blog from the tub with webcam.......

MathMan and The Spawn are on spring break. I made the mistake of working from home yesterday. While I attempted to do summary of some new FTC rules that I have to distribute to the organization's members, the madness went on around me like a maelstrom. Let us review:

(1) The Dancer learned that she wouldn't receive a much hoped for scholarship from the University she really, really, really wants to attend. I am not so hard hearted that I can't understand the resulting tears, but the gloom that descended upon my darling girl did not dissipate the whole day. By 9:30 p.m., I had announced that if anyone sat down in the chair opposite from me and dare to do anything other than smile and giggle, I would commit some horrendous act of violence.

I am now in the process of writing a groveling email, asking the University's admissions office if they can see any way around the out of state fees. After all, MathMan and I are alumni of said University and we still have plenty of relatives - like my parents and siblings - living in that particular state. (Thank you in advance to those who will suggest that The Dancer take a year off, live in that state and work and then go to school. It's been discussed. We fear that if she does that, she'll lose the other scholarship money she's been offered.) She does have other options. I'm simply indulging her desire that we exhaust all possible methods before chucking the idea of attending that school. It's all I can do since MathMan and I have not saved the money necessary to allow her to go to school anywhere she damn well pleases.

(2) Garbo has decided that she wants to move back to the old house. I don't know what else to say about this except "change is hard." She tosses out barbed statements about the new place. She cries bitter tears of sadness. She threatens to run away "back home." I try to comfort her while firmly reassuring her that this will eventually feel like "home." But this is a kid who refused to rearrange her room back at the old place. Change? Let's just say we'll have her talk to her therapist about it. In the meantime, I've offered my lap, hugs, to check out a book about moving from the library and a trip back to the other house, now standing empty and full of echoes of our time there. Nothing will solve this. And she can't have her way.

My sympathies for both girls will be short-lived, I fear. At some point, soon, I will be telling The Dancer to buck up and carry on with one of her many other options. I'll be offering to pack Garbo's suitcase. As their mother, I see my role to offer comfort, yes, but I will not lie to them. The whole "life's not fair" thing is a painful thing to learn.

(3) Humming to myself because my work day was done, I opened the drawer that holds our kitchen utensils. My nonchalance came to an abrupt halt as I spotted something skittering around and screamed. I grabbed a carving knife and started waving it around, thinking I would stab whatever it was running about in the drawer. I actually thought it was a little mouse.

Upon further examination, and with two alarmed Spawn peering over my shoulder, I poked around in the drawer with the end of the knife blade. Discovering that the massive creature inhabiting the drawer was a roach, I did the only thing I could do besides faint. I uttered the magic words...."get Daddy."

(4) Because tears, madness, and a cockroach the size of a chihuahua aren't enough, we also learned that the lovely patch of winter rye growing at the far end of our new back yard is a restoration project being managed by our neighbor. A very nice man in a corporate logo shirt brought a nicely typed letter in an envelope with a stamp* on it to the door and explained that there was an ash escape a few months ago and they were finishing up the restoration after clean up.

Huh. Well, then I guess we won't be planting vegetables in that raised bed right next to where that ash went sluicing down the little creek bed behind the house......

Always looking at the bright side, I am. I mentioned to MathMan that perhaps we could solve all our problems at once. We could abandon the new, arsenic contaminated place, move in with my parents, send The Dancer to that school she wants to go to and tell Garbo that she may be losing her old home, but she's gaining grandparents and wouldn't that be nice for a change!

MathMan looked at me as if he were glad I'd put down that carving knife.

Later it occurred to me that when The Actor appears to be the most sane person in our household, we're lurching about on some pretty shaky ground. Oh, sure, we'll get through it. Compared to many, we have precious little to whine about, but the challenges of the last week and the ones that lay before us have me feeling a tad anxious.

I know we're all feeling it and we'll each process the anxiety in our own way. Some of us mope, others cling, still others yell and behave manically. There will be tears, flattening of tires, food fights, short-sheeting of beds, defiant stares, hidden television remotes, ignored orders, accelerated consumption of sweets, threats, excessive fluffing of throw pillows and more than our share of slammed doors.

For my part, I've noticed my OCD kicking back up again. You want to set off a neat freak? Move her. Oh, yes, that's the trick.

Just today, as I stood at the copier in my office, waiting for it to warm up, I noticed that a couple of adding machines, abandonded to the bottom storage shelf were quite dusty. I took off my shoe and dusted the display of an adding machine with my stocking-clad toe. Then I saw the crooked stack envelope boxes, the slightly off center painting of the Georgia State Capitol, the not quite lined up logo on the water cooler, the flecks of dust on the copier display.......

*Note to self - pry off that uncancelled stamp

Blah, Blah, Blah, Pretty Much There

Well - just don't look at the garage. We still have some intense reorganizing to do before we can park two cars in there, but I'm confident that we can manage it. Look - I admit it: After ten plus years of schlepping babies, diaper bags, briefcases, class projects, sack lunches, toddlers stuffed into snowsuits and groceries to and from a car parked at the curb in our old Illinois neighborhood, I will not have a garage so stuffed with things that one can't properly park a car in it. That simply will not do.

So we carry on....we are mostly done moving our household. Holy cats, what a process. The packing, the culling, the unpacking, the stabbing comments, the climbing up and down stepladders, the sleepwalking, the confusion when you say the word "home," the hiding for a few moments of peace, the laundry back up, the lack of sleep, repetition of phrases like "Where did I put the....," the dance breaks with and without jazz hands, the shouted threats and muttered oaths, the disappearing wires, screwdrivers and toilet paper and the constant need for someone to announce their current state of being - tired, bored, hungry, horny, weepy, exhausted, sad, hot, cold, achy, gassy, wheezy, overwhelmed and over it. (And that just covers my announcements. You should've heard what issued from MathMan and The Spawn.)

Let's get on with it, shall we? We're nearly done. Nearly done. Nearly done. Like Dorothy clicking her heels three times, I'm hoping that repeating it three times will make it true.

Following is some photographic evidence of our nearly doneness.

Garbo is learning about the pleasure and pain of neighborhood living. She's already been shoved down and scraped up her knees when a friend of the little boy across the street got the better of her in a fight. In retaliation, she's formed an all girl street gang dubbed the Covered Bridge Springs Tarts. I wouldn't mess with them. They fueled on Freezer Pops and Dum Dum suckers.

The laundry room might be my favorite room in the house. It's like the panic room, I swear. I can be in there for a long, long time before anyone finds me.
And, yes, those hangers have been sorted by color. What of it?

XBox Central. It reeks of Axe, Doritos and root beer burps.
Caution: Extremely high testosterone levels may be combustible and
make you misspell words like martyred.

Blogging Operations are nearly complete. Thank goodness.
Not having online access is akin to _____________________.

The Dancer enjoys practicing her sloth on the same sofa in a different living room.

When discussing whether or not to hang the Chinese market silk thing over the toilet again, MathMan announced that he likes looking for the dragons while he pees. That explains a lot.

I give the framed picture on the counter two weeks tops before it's lying shattered on the floor.

P.S. My mother would call my style of decorating "overdoing it."
At least I never decorated in that late 80s "country" style rife with powder blue geese
and mauve pineapples, so there.

We're down to a couple of unpacked boxes of books and the moving around of a desk or two.
And, of course, we need to find a place for the junk drawer. We don't have a junk drawer yet.
It's not a home until there is a junk drawer. That's a rule, right?

I've decided that it's high time The Spawn learn geography.
Now if I can just get them to shower.......

Whenever we move, this is a common MathMan activity.
I think he does this on purpose so he doesn't have to put away spice jars.

I finally stopped shrieking about how much I hate organizing the kitchen around 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. MathMan got involved and things went much faster with two sets of hands.
Now we just need to deal with the ants that have come in through the window over the sink.
Demonstrating once again, it's always something.
P.S. WTF, cabinet installers? Why install cabinets to open in the same direction?
Clearly you've not spent much time in the kitchen, if you think this is efficient.

And finally, when things have settle down, we're treated

to a little something new by MathMan who found a harmonica randomly tossed into some box.

Le fin.......thank goodness.

Priorities

What will eventually be blogging ops....

So have I mentioned that we're moving?

Yesterday the moooooovers came and carried most of our big, heavy stuff to the new place. They were a touch late so the day went longer than we anticipated, but no one's head exploded, nothing got broken and MathMan and I didn't kill ourselves lugging big pieces of furniture and appliances up and down stairs. We saved killing ourselves, and possibly each other for the unpacking phase of this life project.

Anyway, the moving crew were really nice and didn't even get upset when I hollered "Hey, be careful with our Bondage Gear, willya?"

There was some concern about the missing piece of our bed's footboard (movers don't want to be accused of damage they didn't do). In response, I grossed them out thoroughly by telling them it was damaged during a particularly wild night of sex. Funny, they stopped yapping and moved faster when I asked "Wanna see the video?"


So here's the part where I tell you I wish I were Samantha Stevens. I'd get Darren drunk, blow him for good measure and then twitch my little upturned nose and have all this crap unpacked and put away right fast.

Sadly, I'm more bitch than witch and so the process continues. We're almost done with blah blah moving blah, blah. Next I'll be all blah, blah unpacking, blah, blah......oh am I sick of this subject already!


Nevertheless, priorities are being managed. When The Actor asked if we had thought to pack and bring over the food yet, I believe I pointed in the general direction of the office/dining room and yawned "I think there are some PopTarts in a box over there somewhere." The nerve of the kid to think we should have considered food. Selfish prat.

No matter - the sofa may be in the kitchen and there's a good portion of stuff still in the garage, but the important things are all set.....

As they say on MTV's Cribs. This is where the magic happens.
Just don't ask to see MathMan's wand. That would be too personal.
And I'm all about the boundaries, aren't I?

Please Do Not Rattle My Signature Poise and Other Affronts to My Delusions

I really am trying to age gracefully. I'm coming to accept the fact that I have a daughter who is old enough to be graduating high school in May. I've let my natural gray grow in, changing the whole way I view myself. I was always a brunette or, sometimes, a sort of redhead. But this silver which some people think looks blond is a radical change for me.

Perhaps I'm not so much aging gracefully as I am trying not to fight the inevitable in a way that makes me feel ridiculous. I've not entirely forsaken dressing like a teenager meaning you'll have to pry the hoodie from my cold dead body. But you won't find me in butt floss and I only listen to hip hop when I relent and let the kids choose the radio station.

However, when I get an email that begins:

Dear Lisa H. Golden,

It's been 20 years since you graduated from IU and it's a great time to reconnect with your alma mater by joining your Indiana University Alumni Association.

I lose a bit of my signature poise. You can stop laughing now.

It's rather like the proverbial dash of cold water to be reminded in an email that I'm TWENTY YEARS OUT OF COLLEGE!!!!! Hells bells, shouting it in all caps isn't enough to make me feel comfortable with the idea that I'm TWENTY YEARS OUT OF COLLEGE!!!!!!!

In case you're wondering, yes, I AM crying big, fat tears of realization. They're plopping down on the laptop like big age splotches. Because you know that's next, right? I'll be sporting those liver spots, joining the Red Hat Society and planning a trip to Branson, Missouri, to see the Osmond Brothers and Barbara Mandrell and her sisters performing live on stage at 5:30 p.m. Their show will be sponsored by who else? Depends. (Note to MaryCatholic - please send Depends and Poise in discreet packaging. Thank you.)

Accepting the fact that I'm TWENTY YEARS OUT OF COLLEGE!!!!!! is going to take some time. Oh, all along, I've looked in the mirror and noticed the changes, fussing about the wrinkles, the sun damage, wondering aloud how my mother's hand got on the end of my arm, but when Indiana University sends me an email putting a number on the years stretching between then and now? I start to envision my personal decay speeding up like time lapse film.....

I'm not ready to be what? Middle aged? Seasoned? Mature?

Okay - stop right there. We all know that's not going to happen. Me? Mature? I don't have it in me.

If I.U. wants me to send in a little scratch to the alumni association, that's fine. I will. But tell me I'd better do it because The Dancer will get more scholarship money to attend the alma mater of MathMan and me. Or tell me that if I don't, little puppies will go unpetted. Or that without my twenty-five dollars, the Bluebird will close. Or tell me that if I neglect to pay up, I will find that my bras no longer fit, the toilet will overflow and that my favorite tweezers that I just found will get lost again. Anything. Anything!

But do not, I repeat, do NOT tell me how many years it's been since I graduated college!

There are some illusions I'd like to maintain, if you don't mind.

Beer in a plastic cup, anyone?

I Am the Invisible Woman

Dear People of the Internets,

Before I do a faceplant on the bed and start the nightly wrestling with MathMan for the covers (stop it, you filthy-minded boogers, we're married, we don't frolic anymore - sheesh), I just wanted to say a few things.

(1) Thank you. For everything. For the kind words, the compliments to the family, the laughs, the encouragement and support. You guys buoy me when I need it. And you give me that swift kick sometimes, too. Thank you. Really.

(2) I haven't stopped reading you. I've been swamped at worked (you mean I don't get paid to comment on blogs? what?) and with kid things and work and packing and moving and work and driving and lying in a fetal position in the back of the closet to hide from all the have to things that still manage to find me and drag me clawing and screaming from my safe haven back into reality.

(3) Following up on number 3, I'm sorry I haven't commented like I normally do. My wit and energy got packed in some box and I can't find it. Okay - I know, the wit? It fit in a tiny ring box, but it's packed nevertheless.

(4) I'm easily distracted. And MathMan isn't helping. I just whipped my bra off through my sleeve and threw it at MathMan because I'm feeling churlish, I guess. He is now sitting there with the damn thing on his head.

And it fits.

(5) Hell. Where was I? Rachel Maddow is distracting me now.

(6) Oh, yes, dammit I'm really sick, but I'm not. I mean I'm hacking and wheezing and things are leaking from my body and it's most unpleasant. But like many moms, I'm not sick enough to take to my bed. Fever? Hacking cough? Leaking wee when I cough and sneeze, despite my best attempts to practice my kegels and squeeze really hard to the point where my legs are crossed and my eyes are shut? Please. That's not sick. That's inconvenient. Oh, look! I just coughed up a lung. That might make me a little late for work tomorrow, but if I move double time in the morning, I should still be able to make it....

Shut up. I'm liking the view from this cross.

Now I'm just getting abusive. Sorry.

(6) We're making progress with our move. We've gotten several loads of boxes and things moved to the new place and we've even unpacked a few things. Oh, yes, the love tub decor is nearly complete.

Anyway, this is my long winded stab at telling you I'm sorry I've not been about saying hi and leaving comments and behaving inappropriately on your blogs. I'm stuck here acting the fool and being grouchy and snotty. Literally.

Thank you for visiting. Sooner or later I'll be back out there and then you'll be sorry. You can take that as a threat or a promise. It's up to you.

Love,

Lisa

Friday Flashback - Hanging On

I once started a post at my old blog PoliTits with the following sentence: It's no coincidence that the same day I pay bills, I'm later seen vacuuming the garage.

So last night, after a busy day with an odd emotional twang to it, I found myself standing in the laundry closet holding several kid-sized hangers in my hands. I was sorting them by color. All the sudden, it was excruciatingly important that the pink go with the pink, the dark blue with the dark blue, the light blue with the light blue.....you get the picture.

I won't go into how I also wiped down the washer and dryer because they'd accumulated a bit of dust and effluvium, but I will tell you that the cat who has been conducting the furtive pooping campaign around the basement was caught in the act. My bellowed accusation of "So it is you!!!!!" sent him skittering through the basement and clomping up the stairs. Now he'll probably shift his pooping to the backs of closets. Oh, well.

I wasn't particularly grateful for something else to clean since I'd just gotten the OCD out of my system. And cat poo is never my OCD medium of choice. My OCD is only self-diagnosed and it only seems to come out when things seem incredibly out of control. I do these stupid little things so I can feel like things aren't flying apart. It's not the funny light switch licking of David Sedaris, nor is it the twitchy habit of an old dorm mate who would sit in a sink in the community restroom and pluck her eye lashes out one by one. Although, I suppose I could see the fun in that.....

There's stuff to deal with. And I guess I'm going to have to stop rearranging hangers and get to it.

I'm away from my computer today, staffing a seminar in Macon. I know that some of you are just grinding your teeth with envy over my obviously glamorous, jet-setting life. Envy not - it's not all gold-threaded linen wrapped soaps and fancy chocolate covered strawberries. This is one is what do you mean you thought I was bringing the LCD projector? and Why isn't the print on my name badge the same point as his?

Hooooooo boy! (Since I'm putting this up to post early, let's just hope that I remember the projector. And my emergency Reddi-Wip, just in case I forget.)

For willis.

Oh, the other day I said ennuinnie - a combo of ennui and me just plain old being a weenie, whining about this and that, which is my signature sound lately.....

Wow, willis, being in Vietnam, dropping acid and listening to this music? I'm thinking you have some incredibly interesting stories to tell......I'm wondering if you've considered writing about your different experiences? Nag, nag, nag....

And, willis, this song is a good one. I watched the video twice and wished that I could have been one of those go go dancers. The song itself is perfect for right now.

An administrative note: I'm going to give myself a little vacation from the blog. A couple of days. I need a break. In the meantime, please check out the blog roll. Read some archives. Take a break yourself. I'm going to be lying around bemoaning the fact that I still don't have a staff to carry out the hard labor. Or I might don my superhero outfit and go fight some injustice. I might even take up the banjo. It's just going to be a couple of wild, free and easy days where I wake up in the morning and consider clothes? No clothes?

You know what they say, this blog may be monitored for quality control purposes, but in the end, it's meaningless. I've just outsourced it to some far flung place where the lovely person on the telephone only sounds like she understands English.

See you soon........for now, set me free, why don't you, babe.........

Is There a Proper Way to Spell the Sound of Reddi-Wip Coming Out of theCan

So I was standing at my kitchen counter, squeezing honey from the little plastic bear straight into my mouth when I realized that I hadn't posted anything today.

And, though, I use this line often right before launching into a long, convoluted stream of semi-consciousness, I mean it tonight.

I have nothing to say. I'm all in.

Maybe it was the trip to Target and the grocery story. Spending money gives me hives lately. Maybe it was listening to Britney Spears' Circus not once, but twice while driving to town and back with Garbo. Whatever this day has been - it's taken a chunk out of me that no amount of honey or now the Reddi-Wip squirted right into my mouth can replace.

Wallow, moan, wallow, harrumph.

Maestro!

I'm giving up late nights, as inspired by the Bad Mom. So I'm off to snuggle in with Chief Inspector Barnaby and Sergeant Troy. And maybe MathMan, too.

P.S. I think I figured out the source of my ennuinnie. It was my day to work at home and I had a sick kid with me. That's not only a buzzkill of a different color, it also cuts down on my weekly lip-syncing fest (shit! I'd planned to work on I Will Survive! Dang it, dang it, dang it!). And that whole porn surfing break at 11:00 a.m.? Very inappropriate when The Spawn are at home.

' night, y'all.

Sloooooow Saturday

If I were moving any slower, I'd be going backward.
I have now discovered that I can make at least fifty-eight different sounds when I yawn.
I do believe that candle burning at both ends just flamed out with a fingersnap and a whoosh!
The fact that the skies over Georgia are a hazy, taupey, gauzy melange of cloud and more cloud isn't helping.
Fifty-nine. That last yawn was in the key of C, I believe.
The Actor, Garbo and I discussed some pretty edgy plans for filling up our day since MathMan and The Dancer are on their way back from the Land of Hoosiers and Other Delights. We were going to go shop for a dress for Garbo and a pair of much-needed shoes for The Actor, make a trip to the library, the dump, Target and maybe the grocery store.
We are all so meh.
The trip has been whittled down to me going alone to the library to drop off dvds, pick up a couple of new ones and then stopping for an order of Mongolian Beef we'll split three ways.
This life rocks out loud. Oh, yes it does.
Sixty. Same key, but that yawn came in two notes. Aaaah. Ah.
There should be a blog rule that when lack of sleep reduces one to writing posts about yawns (which has become a bit of a running gag - paging Jack Benny, Oh, Mr. Benny!) and about how the gray skies have put a damper on errand running - well, I guess the rule should suggest strongly that one reconsider posting at all. Or maybe strolling over to YouTube to look for a video of the Jackass morons on yet another spin-off show called Wild Boyz, approaching a wild black rhino for the express purpose of giving it a massage. That would be good for a laugh.
And I guess that is what I like about blog rules. They are fluid. They aren't hard and fast and rigid. Open to interpretation, they suggest, support, guide and direct. They never order.
Like the rule that says I should link to the blog where I found this lovely and rib-tickling quote today.

nearly everything improves for being encased in pastry

The blog rule says I shouldn't be a prickish, selfish ass and hoard her to myself. I should link to her so you can go see for yourself just how funny Jawyalker of Belgian Waffle is. So there. I did what the rule says I should do. This time.

And while I'm at it, I'd like to suggest that you check out the bloggers in my sidebar. What a far ranging set of people are there now. Old friends, why not check out the new finds and X-Chromosome bloggers? New friends, check out the people I know, the people I feel like I know and the blogs I read a couple of days a week because if I read them all everyday, my ass would have fused to my black swivel chair by now. Imagine the mutant creature that would spawn from a mingling of my DNA and that of the cheap Office Depot Managers Chair I occupy much too frequently. It's not a pretty sight at all.

And dang it, while I'm thinking about it, I bet I need to clean up my blogrolls as I've collected more rss feeds. I'm sure some of those feeds need to be added. I'm like an old lady at a buffet. I grab rss feeds like they're yeast rolls and I jam them in my big old pocketbook of a Google Reader. And I forget that last step of redoing my feed/blogroll thing. Dang, dang, dang. So much to remember.

I need a secretary for the blog. A nanny for The Spawn, a cook, a chauffeur, a personal trainer, a masseuse, a laundress, an upstairs maid, a pussy groomer, a gardner and someone to finance all of it. Note: I don't require a downstairs maid. Don't want to appear too greedy and helpless.

Oh, hang on. I just realized that I was sleeping in front of my monitor with my eyes open again. My fingers are so well trained on the QWERTY that they can tap out whatever nonsense is passing through my head in the form of dreams.

Anyway, I suggest you check out some of these folks. There's Anita at A Wife, a woman, a mom - Hi, Anita! I hope you're having a great weekend!; Braja at LOST and FOUND in india,whom I plan to hang out with in India, even if I have to prostitute myself as a hausfrau to the messiest people in town or as a sex kitten to the oldest man east of the Mississippi; Miss Healthypants - who was one of MathMan's blogpals long before I had to stick my pointy nose in and see what all the laughing was about.

Okay. The Actor just stopped by my desk/napping cubby to tell me that I'm missing a Wild Boyz marathon. And I still have to haul my carcass to the library. And that Mongolian Beef that we were going to split? I suspect it will have its cousin fried (hey, look! the male bluebird is sitting on top of the birdhouse!) rice with it now that we've all gotten that much more hungry and I'm even less inclined to cook.........

Sixty-one. That yawn almost made me wet my pants, it was so powerful.

See you when I wake up!

(And the real horror is that it took me nearly an hour to write this nonsense. Good thing I don't put my inefficiencies to work for good instead of evil.....)

I Was All Set to Get Some Things Done Today

And then the phone rang.

I was busted by another stage mother for not attending the high school musical version of Aida currently being performed at the Dancer's school.

Guess I better get in the shower and scoot on out the door......

Dang. It was a rough morning around here. A very yelly and cranky and pick on your younger sister and get your face ripped off for it kind of morning. A parents turn on each other because the kids are out of control kind of morning. The kind of morning that makes me wish that I'd had more perspective about being raped in Brooklyn - figured it was just part of the Welcome Wagon activities - and stayed the hell in New York with the job that paid more and the children left far behind.

Did you know moms think that kind of thing? They do. I'm sure my mom did.

And yeah, I just made a joke about being raped. We all process things in our way, right?

So we ended up with a conversation like this:

Me: I have a solution to our problem with the kids and it doesn't involve ebay, duct tape or incendiary material.
MathMan: Lay it on me.
Me: You and I will get divorced and live in separate places and each of us will take one kid.
MathMan: (stares at me, eyebrows raised)
Me: Oh, yeah, I almost forgot the most important part.
MathMan: I'm waiting.
Me: We would still get together for sex three times a week.
MathMan: We'd have more sex that way.
Me: Exactly.

Okay, y'all. I've gotta roll. I may not get all the housework done that I'd planned, but maybe I'll be able to catch a nap in between intermissions!

A Post Like PBS Fundraiser

I typically don't share with you viral emails, but I got this one from a coworker and watched it because I knew I'd be quizzed on it at some point during the day. So I watched.

After viewing this, all I could think was (1) I need an aspirin with a mojito chaser and, (2) Quite selfishly, I might add, and I still can't get decent broadband internet out at the corner of noplace and nowhere?

Which brings me to my next harangue. People, I am begging you, please consider removing Word Verification from your blogs. Maybe you don't realize that you have it on? Maybe you aren't stuck with the dismal, but expensive and limited internet we have in our lovely, pastoral setting. But please, for the love of all things bloggable, kill your word verification. It's not just that it slows your commenters down, it does, but sometimes we can't leave comments because the gibberish word jumble won't load. Last night I invented new curses and oaths as a result of a battle with word verification. Even The Spawn noted that I was crossing the line from a string of fucks, shits, hells and damns into the worst kind of off-color language they'd heard yet. I was cursing in French with a combination midwestern/southern accent that made light bulbs burst and paint peel from the walls.

I know some of you have to do comment modification because of stalkers, trolls, and commenters who throw fits about your other commenters (me), but I'm talking to all the rest of you who have word verification, knowingly or unknowingly, those who use it to cut down on the occasional spammer. Consider dumping it, please and thank you. Really, thank you.

(If you use Blogger, you can find the word verification under Settings, Comments, Word Verification.)

Begging over.