Shallow Days

“People staring, Mary Jane humming softly to herself,
Nobody really knows her.
Any day now it’s all right,
She tells herself that this will be the last time.
Mary Jane pulls her hair back and wonders what she’ll do with all her free time…”
-Counting Crows

And here I come drifting in, waving hello like I haven’t disappeared for days, weeks, nearly months with barely so much as a glance over my shoulder to tell you all where I’m going, who I’m going with, when I’ll be home mom, but I assure you… I’m here.

In general, I’ve had a very difficult time writing lately. Particularly when it comes to being real – when it comes to talking about my feelings – about who I am. I have been working on a set of lyrics for over a week, and I can’t get myself to finish it because I don’t really know where I want to take it, where I want to go with it, or even where the story really ends. And I guess that’s part of it – is that right now I don’t know where the story is going.

I’ve made no secret that things aren’t always rosey and sunshine for me and my life… And sometimes that gets frustrating and sometimes I find that I’d rather just shut up and not blog it because the fact is, even I get tired of listening to myself – and it’s my problems, and my life and my hooey. I can’t even imagine strangers really giving a shit. (Not that you’re all strangers – you, over there? You’re no stranger. How you doing?).

So, let me think of some less dismal stuff…

I am working on my first song written on the guitar – it’s kicking my ass, quite honestly, because I’ve always written lyrics - sometimes with a melody in my head, usually not. I’m not so good at translating that to my limited guitar skills yet.

I am counting down until school begins again – and that makes me feel like a monster mom, but you know I was in this same boat last year at this time (before this time), so you’re not shocked.

Maybe it’s about time to start a round of 20 questions to dig me out of my slump and give me something to write about… anyone have anything for me?

Man In The Mirror

“If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change…”
-Michael Jackson

Y’all. I had to quote Michael.

I have no real opinions on his death really, except to hope it was natural causes, that it wasn’t an OD – because the dude (crazy as he might have been) had children. So, y’know, there’s that. Also… he made a lot of music over the years. Some is classic shit that I have loved and will always love – some of it was a flaming pile of crap. Law of averages and all that.

I’ve been gone awhile. It’s summer and it’s been chaotic and all of that. I have projects I’m working on and irons in the fire and frankly, I have been going through a hard time that I didn’t feel like broadcasting, even under my somewhat anonymous Lyrically blog. Sometimes you get to the point where you realize you can only spew so much venting — and then it’s time to reevaluate, take a look at what’s not working and then figure out how to make it better.

Sure, venting would have gone a long way in the past week to making me feel better. I won’t lie. My brain is CONSTANTLY moving. I was constantly checking and re-checking things in my head – would I have felt better seeing it written out? Probably. I gain a bit of perspective that way. However, I opted a different route, and while it was a somewhat lonelier route (keeping shit bottled up? Ugh – it’s teh suck), I think maybe I’ll be better off. Time will tell, right?

How are all of you? Good? Are you still here? My absence has probably made ya’ll run off. Bear with me. I’ll be back.

Go On Say It

“A hitchhiker told me I don’t talk a lot
It made me feel fine, made me quiet…”
-Blind Pilot

Yeah, I’m still here. I have been quiet, I know I have been… Not really much to say. My head hurts. Literally – that’s not a metaphor for any great thing. Right now there is a pain in the top front right part of my head. Hurts like hell. Need some ibu.

Beyond that, I guess all is as it’s been. My husband is back at it workwise, so fortunately the unemployment spell was short lived. That’s a tremendously good thing because he was getting on my damn nerves.

I woke up this morning to a sink full of dirty dishes and stuff everywhere and about lost my shit. Perhaps maybe I should start tracking my cycle better so I don’t go all PMS postal on my family (though maybe if they would put their freakin’ dishes in the sink I wouldn’t have anything to get all disturbed about).

How are all of you beautiful people?

Welcome to England

“Bring your own sun
Just enough for everyone…”
-Tori Amos

A few days into this whole unemployment thing, I guess nothing has changed. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. It’s kind of amusing – here we have a three day “holiday” weekend, in a house where none of the adults now has a job outside the home to go to. Happy memorial day weekend. It might as well be  a Thursday.

This is not going to turn into the “bitter wife who is bitching about her unemployed husband” blog. I know he’s having a tough time too. He’s really trying. Calling headhunters, sending resumes, touching base with people, and all the stuff that you’re supposed to do. I can’t fault him when I talk to my friend who said to me yesterday that her husband told her he didn’t know if HE would be able to find a job because, “I don’t really have any skills.” She was incredulous as he said it, and even more so as she was telling me – and I was gobsmacked – how can you get into your 30s and not feel that you have anything to offer any workplace? And seriously, if you don’t think you can do anything, how the fuck do you even START looking for a job? I can’t imagine there’s a section for “Useless people who have nothing really to offer our company besides hanging around breathing our air and taking our paycheck”. Who knows – maybe on Craigslist there is. But it definitely cleared up how on earth she’s been supporting their family for all this time. The job market? It’s so fantastically shitty, but, wow.

So, I’m lucky – I know my husband has job skills that are gonna make him an asset in the right place. I just hope that place happens to be lookin’ for him. Like now.

The past few days have been a blur, though. I spent awhile today just lying on the dining room floor. Guess I’m feeling a little bogged down and sometimes it feels good to get amoebic on your dining room floor – just bleh. Lying there, looking at the ceiling and just looking at things in a different way. I got up when I turned my head to the right and realized there were so many cereal crumbs on the floor that if I stared at it much longer, I would feel the need to vaccuum and I just didn’t want to go that route at the moment.

I guess it’s just a matter of taking things as they come these days. What choice do I really have at the moment? Just rollin’ with it.

“She is something altogether different
Never just an ordinary girl…”
-Counting Crows

Poor Adam Duritz – this video was obviously taken in the midst of all his hooey where he gained a bunch of weight and I still have to say that he could be the size of two houses put together and I would still adore him for the magic he makes out of words.

Let It Rain

“Let it rain,
Let it rain on me…”
-Amanda Marshall

Yeah, so when I said, “Oh hi blog readers, I’m doing so much better, I am feeling a lot better than I had been feeling… I just have a bit of writer’s block…” Well, the cosmos took that as a sign to kick me in the face: My husband lost his job yesterday.

Today was day one of  unemployed husband and I alternate from feeling sorry for him to being mad as hell that we’re going through this again. I’m stressed, but really trying to put a happy face on it.  A friend said to me today, “Well, you sound good or are you putting on a face for me.” The only one getting the face is my husband – with my friends, yeah, I’m straight up. It sucks – it sucks so fantastically I can’t describe the extent to which it sucks. BUT, I also know that bitching about it, stressing about it is not going to solve our problems and it’s not going to get my husband a job any quicker.

But to be totally real about it:

I’m mad as hell that he got let go. I think the company has made some horribly bad business decisions in the past few years, so no, I wasn’t shocked to hear that a factor was the financial need to save some moohlah. But then they criticized his work performance in direct contradiction to a review he had a few months ago and in my opinion, that’s pretty shitty.

Do I think his performance was a factor? Yeah. Probably. I think that could very well be. He’s not a super detail oriented guy – I know it drives me batshit crazy sometimes. But, who knows. We’ll never really know because the explanation they gave was the face they chose to put on it and no one knows what happened in whatever meetings they had behind closed doors.

So, that’s where we are. I am the breadwinner. I am the breadwinner? It’s scary as hell, and I hope this is a short lived nightmare.

Bea’s Song

“John says I look at the moon and the stars
These days more often than I look at his face
And I can’t disagree so I don’t say nothing
I just stare on past his face at venus rising
Like a shining speck of hope hanging over the horizon…”
-Cowboy Junkies

The sun is high in the sky – not a cloud to be seen. A soft breeze keeps the air from feeling heavy and all around the colors of spring make every thing so pretty to look at. Yet, somehow it felt like a Cowboy Junkies day yesterday.

I have writer’s block – I don’t know what to write about. But I’m still here.

Rainbow Connection

“Rainbows have nothing to hide…”

Well. I love this song. Always have. Since I was a kid. Happy Sunday, all.

Collide

“I’m quiet, you know
You make a first impression…”
-Howie Day

This is one that I want to learn on guitar because I just adore it even though it’s a few years old…

Fast Car

“I remember when we were driving
Driving in your car
Speed so fast I felt like I was drunk…”
-Tracy Chapman

It’s raining today. The weather since I rolled out of bed this morning has been causing chaos in my head – the warmer weather of spring has sent my allergies on a rampage, and the heaviness in the air with the pending rain has made me feel headachey.

I tucked my daughter in for a nap this afternoon, hoping for time to just bullshit and get things done. Instead, I got zapped with a work project out of nowhere. I had a very awesome reader email to ask if I was okay, how work was going, among other things (Thank you so much, by the way – your caring made my day). Work is… going. There have been more layoffs – once again I was spared. I have no idea how I keep escaping the land of the dreaded pink slip – but I do. As a result, I feel I have been busting my ass now more than ever before to ensure that my employment status stays as it is. Consequently, I feel like I’m spending more time than ever chasing projects and trying to prove my worth to the powers-that-be. It puts me in that ass-suck mode I hate so much. I hate kissing ass. I’m horrible at it (exhibit A would be my grandmother who would buy extra stuff for the ass-kissingest grandchildren. Never me. Nothing I want badly enough than to stoop to brown-nosing to get it. But it worked out well for my brother).

Speaking of my brother… I saw him Sunday and he looks like hell. A few months ago, his health was all a big mess and he was diagnosed with diabetes on top of all the other shit wrong with him. He was started on insulin injections and told he really had to manage his diet and all that other lovely stuff that you have to do when you’re diabetic. In the beginning, he lost a ton of weight and seemed to be doing better. He seems to have lost his grip on that – and is apparently doing whatever the hell he wants. The result is that he’s gained a TON of weight back. When I saw him Sunday, he reminded me of Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers movies (I wish I was kidding – he’s not THAT big yet – but his chin is blending in with his neck… he has a bit of a waddle in his walk now too). These are the times when I look at him and realize that there is probably no way he can live another ten years. Not with all this shit going on in his system, and not when he blatantly disregards the doctor’s instructions. My dad’s wife apparently said to him, “You keep this up and you will DIE.” But… he’s like an eight year old. He has a very self-centered view of the world, and I don’t think he grasps that concept. I think part of him feels, “Well, shoot. I’ve made it through everything else, so I’ll be fine. I’ll always be fine.”

It makes me worry for my mom. He’s going to die and it’s going to wreck her. It’ll be hard because parenting him has been hard.

Light hearted post, right?

Today, I was driving home from an errand. It’s a road I take all the time now. Back in high school, it was a road I almost never used. One year on prom night, I remember driving on this road – the guy I had liked at the time didn’t go to prom and he met me in the parking lot after the dance. Always classy, I changed out of my prom dress into jeans and a tee shirt in the banquet center’s parking lot and with him in the passenger seat, drove back to a mutual friend’s house. I am not a pedal to the metal kind of girl. Never have been – but that night, I was – speeding through the curves of the road, with the windows down, the music up and a cute boy beside me. When I think of carefree moments, that’s one that crosses my mind.

That boy died several years ago. Now that I have kids, I take those curves much slower. Somedays, I miss the carefree moments that let the wind whip through my hair. But most days, I’m really okay.

I promise.