You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March, 2008.
“I’ve been waiting for tomorrow from December til today
And I’ve started loving sorrow along the way…”
-Counting Crows
I can’t believe tomorrow is April first. I have been waiting for April for a long time, for many reasons – some of which I cannot go into here. Looking forward to April got me through much of the winter, and now the reason I was looking forward to is gone and it seems like it’s going to be just like any other time, any other month, and that is a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. I guess I had forgotten how quickly April was creeping up until I was looking at the calendar with my kids realizing that tomorrow is April Fool’s Day (which I hate – so no playing any pranks on me because I hate that shit), and duh, the beginning of April.
It makes me sad to realize that what was supposed to be will not be, and I am doing my best to fill the time with other things to look forward to and lift me up. I have a long weekend getaway planned with some girlfriends (I’m so excited, girls!), I have my decadent spa day to look forward to, I have the shift of my husband’s work schedule coming right up. There’s a lot on the horizon to be excited about, and I’m trying to focus on the positive and what will be, rather than on what is no longer in the cards.
Not for nothing, I have to say that that in itself is progress. I spent a few hours around 3 a.m. today kind of turning it over in my head, and seeing how I was feeling. That no tears were involved is a big deal, and that I’m still standing is also huge. I hate being vague and cryptic, but there’s no other way to be – I am sad, but I’m standing and I’m doing okay (for now).
In the movie “Into the Wild” there is a line that says: “I read somewhere how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong… but to feel strong.” That’s where I am right now – I’m trying to act as if – maybe if I try hard enough, I’ll finally start feeling the strength again.
(Yeah, I’m still on a big Counting Crows thing… the new CD is really awesome and the quote is appropriate…).
“Well I got to keep it going keep it going full steam
Too sweet to be sour, too nice to be mean…”
-Beastie Boys
Ah, Sunday. Is it just me or are the weeks flying by at an insane pace? I’m not 100% sure I mind the super-freaky-speedy flow of time, because I’m kind of glad to get the hell out of March, and I can’t wait to wake up and find myself smack in the middle of May. As if.
As usual, with the ebb and flow of my life and the week, I’m actually not doing too badly today. The expected high is 50 degrees (it’s only 40-something right now) and that should be enough to melt the lingering piles of snow in my yard (the fuck? It’s SPRING. I’m so over winter). People talk about the joy of living in the midwest and getting to experience the change of seasons. To be honest, I don’t like the change of seasons. I like spring (when it’s warm but not too hot) and fall (where it cools down but it’s not too cold). I’m pretty much a middle-of-the-road kind of gal… which is why it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that I live where I do.
No panties have gone missing this week – I think we’ll call that a victory.
Given the recent tensions in the house, I think my husband finally figured it out when I put a nice little dent in the bottle of Absolut that maybe I was a wee bit stressed out. Maaaaaaaaybe, just maybe, a gesture of goodwill – a gesture that says, “Hey, I get it, things have been crazy around here for you too! might be in order. He made such a gesture today – a gesture that will allow me to spend about five hours in a spa on a mid-April day – he even booked the appointments. I’m very much looking forward to being pampered. And hell, that should buy him some good will from me for awhile anyway. Until the next time.
In other Lyrical news – Happy to report that our neighborhood molester (ugh) is still in jail and has sold his house to pay for his lawyer. Rock on. It’s nice to know, for the sake of keeping our kiddos safe, that he’s no longer a part of the neighborhood – but it sounds like all the trial stuff has yet to hit and my neighbor is stressing pretty hard about it and the possible impact on her kids as well. Understandable.
The sky is grey outside – I was honestly hoping for a little sunshine. I was hoping to get outside and get some exercise – I’m starting to hate my treadmill – all that time I spend on it without ever going anywhere. It’s starting to drive me nuts.
“Never gonna stop, give it up
Such a dirty mind
Always get it up for the touch of the younger kind…”
-The Knack
It’s supposed to be Earth Hour, and I love my planet I do, I do, I do (believe me, I recycle everything – plastic, cans, batteries, whatever), but I cannot bring myself to turn off the television when I finally have the peace and quiet to watch…(aw yeah) “Reality Bites” on DVD. I ordered this last month when I was all wrapped up in the drama of the stuff with my friend and I did a little bit of online retail therapy with Amazon.com. But I hadn’t watched it until now. And I’m not turning it off. Kids are sleeping, husband is at the bar catching some March Madness. It’s hilarious because it’s totally not about the basketball – he never watches basketball. It’s about the beer and the male bonding – I keep giving him shit about his buddy and their “bromance” (Defined by the Urban Dictionary as “the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males”. And I’m going to pause here to say I totally adore the Urban Dictionary – where else are you going to get a definition of “fingercuffs” that leaves no question as to what the word means?). So, the men are off doing men stuff and I’m at home chilling, and remembering the 90s and learning the definition of irony (Another note – have y’all realized how many people use this word incorrectly? Not everything is irony, or ironic. It’s just not).
Right now, I should be like sitting in the dark, which isn’t altogether an unappealing option. I don’t mind being alone in the dark… but, I’m too sucked into my movie, so I’m gonna have to give the Earth Hour a rain check.
“So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains
And we never even know we have the key…”
-The Eagles
In the midst of my funk the other day, I emailed a friend to basically say, “I’m feeling pretty shitty, I don’t know why and I don’t know how to fix it and I know it must sound absolutely absurd and ridiculous to you, but… It’s how I’m feeling. Also, I’m back to hating on myself again and it sucks.” Or. Um. Something kind of like that?
Tonight I got an email response full of positive thoughts (which means the world to me, as he’s kind of got his own stuff going and needs his positive energy for himself). In the message he said to me, It’s all in the way you react to things. I honestly don’t want or need someone saying, “Don’t get mad or sad (or insert emotion here).” If it were that easy, I’d be one of those shiny, happy people that REM sang about. Though his email wasn’t exactly anything I didn’t know, it was a reminder I needed – a) that it is indeed my choice in how to react to the stuff that comes my way, and b) I do have friends who care about me enough to send a message when I need to read it.
There is some cheesy saying that life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it. If I’m being totally honest (and I am, because hey, would I lie to you?), sometimes I react very badly to things. Very badly. I take things personally that I probably shouldn’t, and I over think many things that I have no control over – overthink to the point where I replay things in my head, wondering what happened, why, should I have done something differently? For someone who is busy with life, sometimes I really have too much free time on my hands. Sometimes I’m really just too thinky for my own good.
A friend once told me that I tend to use my superego more than most, that many people tend to rely on their id. I don’t know if that’s the case, though it was quite the flattering explanation for why I think the hell out of stuff.
I sometimes wish I could be one of those people to easily let things all roll off my back – to deal with stuff as it comes up and be over it when the moment passes. Instead, I dwell. I wish I didn’t. I wish I wouldn’t. But. How much I dwell – isn’t that up to me?
Sometimes I think I just need to turn my over-thinking brain down.
“We’re just moments, we’re clever but we’re clueless.”
-Jack Johnson
It’s Friday afternoon and there is a blanket of white snow covering the yard, and the fact that we’re a week into spring and there is snow on the ground is really pissing me off. The sun is shining though, and I’m trying to let them lift me after a few days of being mired in the grey and feeling gloomy, stressed and in a funk. I can’t even seem to verbalize what has got me so far down, all I know is that I’m annoyed and there seems to be no cause and no cure.
Surely this is normal (though how does that saying go? “Normal is only a setting on your dryer”?).
Got into one of those senseless arguments with my husband last night – we were getting along pretty well, I said something. He didn’t think it was funny. It was sarcasm, for sure – and my dad always gives me grief about how sarcasm is really just anger cloaked as humor or something. I don’t think it was anger. I really am somewhat of a sarcastic person – it’s a way of being for me, and I don’t mind sarcasm – mine or anyone else’s. So, I was sarcastic, my husband didn’t see the amusement in it. I apologized for my lame attempt, he continued to be moody about it.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s always going to be that way – one or both of us saying too much, saying it wrong, not saying enough. I always kind of figured that the longer you are in a relationship, the easier it would be and instead I feel that ten plus years into this, I’m working harder than ever. It gives you a sense of, “What the hell?!” I miss the days fueled by the whole excitement of getting to know someone, and the learning about him and the firsts and all that. It’s hard when it’s not new anymore. Yes, there’s a sense of comfort of familiarity… the being able to sit in silence and not have to fill every inch of silence with noise.
But then there is sometimes the noise of the silence. Somedays it just feels really loud to me.
“That I would be good even if I did nothing
That I would be good even if I got the thumbs down
That I would be good if I got and stayed sick
That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds…”
-Alanis Morisette
Last night, my husband said to me, “Your attitude about yourself and your body borders on unhealthy.” I honestly wanted to laugh at him. Borders on? Are you new here? I have never worried about what other people think of me to the extent that it gets me down too much because no one can think of me as harshly as I sometimes think of me.
Lately, I’ve been hating on myself pretty hard.
I’m not proud of it.
I don’t like it.
There is something that happens when I look at myself though – I cannot see myself objectively, the filter through which I see myself is not the same as others see me. For awhile, I thought I was getting better. I was learning to be nicer to myself, and I was learning to see myself the way others were seeing me. Something happened and now that is gone, and the thing is as obnoxious as it probably is for other people to see me struggling with this, it’s harder for myself to deal with it because I know it’s ridiculous – and despite how it might appear, don’t people think I really would rather like myself better if I could?
It’s not that I need a cheering squad constantly reassuring me that I’m thin or hot or whatever. Sure, compliments are nice, but that’s not what this is about. My husband does tell me how hot he thinks I am (I think it was in our vows that he was supposed to). As recently as a few months ago, I was in this head space where I even told myself, “You could gain a few pounds and be alright.” So, I did. I gained about three to five pounds (I don’t own a scale) and now it’s back to the way I used to be where I look at myself and wonder who I am and how I got this way and how can I make those pounds go away?
I’m not a puker. I’m not even a starver, though I used to be. Neither are practical. I know it’s ridiculous. I know there are healthier ways to lose weight, and hell, I don’t need to lose weight. It’s just my head telling me that this isn’t going to work, that this isn’t right, that this is too much.
I need to get things back to my normal. Maybe it’s the months of being cooped up inside that are just weighing me down. Maybe it’s the stress of my life leaving me fighting for control of something, anything. Maybe it’s grief for stuff that I’ve lost. I don’t know. All I know is that for awhile I was giving myself a break, and now I’m trying to keep my head up. It’s hard. These are the days when I wish I were a man, I wish I could walk around thinking the sun rose and set on me. That I could pat a beer belly and rub a bald head and still think I was god’s gift. I really wish I could feel that way.
“I don’t want to feel so different
But I don’t want to be insignificant
And I don’t know how to see
the same things different now.”
-Counting Crows
This week has emotionally kicked my ass and I’m not sure how or why or what or anything. I have checked the calendar and this can’t be a hormonal mood swing, I don’t believe. That’s really unfortunate – I wish to hell I could blame my hormones for the way I am feeling.
I feel like my head is all over the place. And I don’t know that anything has really changed. Nothing but me, that is. I feel like I’m just not the same person I was a year ago, and I’m having trouble reconciling if my struggles are because I’ve changed or because everything else stayed the same.
“I’m almost perfect some of the time
I’m also sinking some of the time…”
-Counting Crows
Do you ever have those days where you think, If I was someone else looking at me I would be embarassed for myself? Yesterday was a hideous day, one of those days where I would catch myself saying something and wonder why the hell I said it, or feeling something and wonder why on earth I was feeling such anger and madness and frustration.
It started with my oldest daughter waking up sick in the morning. She has a cough, and she gets the same cough every winter. It is this barky asthmatic cough – I have the prescription for the meds. Instead of taking the medicine, she spent five minutes whining at me about how much she hates it, why she can’t take it, why she won’t take it. In the moment I was damn near ready to spit fire if I could – I mean, you get sick – you take the medicine you know will help, and then, voila, you don’t feel like shit anymore. Granted, she’s five. I don’t expect her to have that kind of reasoning about it – she just knows that albuterol tastes like garbage and she didn’t want it. All her resistence was frustrating to me.
Then, I tried to get her to take a Tylenol melty-tab thing. She spit it on the floor when I wasn’t looking.
Then I started to realize that she could well be staying home from school on a day that my younger kid goes to daycare, in essence – my day off would no longer be a day off. My plans to work, to work out, to get the house picked up, to recharge my mental batteries… all of that… I just saw it fading. I could see it and it scared me, because I needed it. I really needed the day to decompress, to recharge.
She persisted, coughing and hacking – no fever, and I suspected that once the albuterol kicked in (she finally took it) she would be fine. She moped and moped and so finally, I called the school to tell them she wouldn’t be coming, and I no sooner turned around then my “sick” daughter was turning cartwheels in the living room. And I was pissed. I said to her, “I thought you were sick. I just called the school to tell them you wouldn’t be there and now you’re doing cartwheels. Are you fine now?”
She looked at me, “I must be. Hooray for me.”
Dammit. I was just stunned. My kid totally played me and I wasn’t sure what to do. I couldn’t exactly call the school right back and say, “Well, I guess she was just lying. She’ll be there after all.” I mean, she did have a cough. Oy. We took the little one to daycare, ran to the grocery store to pick up some things, and all the while I’m telling her, “If you’re sick, it’s going to be a BORING day. No television, no treats. If you’re sick, you need to stay in your bed and get rest.”
Of course – before that, I had to go to parent-teacher conferences at her school. Since she was “sick” and not at school, I had to arrange for her to attend with me. The teacher had lots of lovely wonderful things to say about my kid and then the teacher said, “You don’t look very sick. Maybe you can stay here for the rest of the day.”
And by god – she DID.
And yes, she is still coughing today, but is otherwise fine. She made it through the school day yesterday and was basically fine. I got my afternoon to myself which was very much in need.
But when I catch myself thinking of how upset I was, it upsets me. That I was upset with her for being sick upsets me. Of course, in retrospect, I’m more upset that she was trying to be shady with her sickness to get out of going to school (She’s five! Do kids really start that scamming that early?). I told my best friend about it last night over ice cream, about the things I said and the way I felt, and she laughed at me. “Do you have any idea how much like your mother you sound right now?”
Oh. My. Hell.
As a sidenote completely unrelated to my kid, but totally related to the quote used for this post – the new Counting Crows cd came out yesterday. It’s called “Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings” and it is fabulous. I have been listening to it on repeat ever since I got it, and I am really digging it. Good stuff!
“My man is smooth like Barry, and his voice has bass
A body like Arnold with a Denzel face…”
-Salt n’ Pepa
Once on an episode of Friends there was discussion of “the list” – I can’t remember what they called it, so I’m just going to call it “The List”. The list was the five celebrities that you could, no questions asked, no consequences, sleep with should the opportunity arise, even if you were dating or married to someone else. In the episode, Ross was having some internal debate and ended up taking Isabella Rosselini off his list just before (as luck would have it) she strolled into the Central Perk.
Y’all with me so far?
Sitcom television aside, I’ve heard of other people who have this list. I’ve heard of it because I have a list. Asking others who is on their list is always an interesting conversation. My husband probably has half a list and while his list is basically useless because he can’t remember names of celebrities, even hot celebrity women (“Um, the chick who has the hair that is kind of like long and was in that movie with that dude…”), I know probably the top contender on his list to put the moves on (as if!) is Giada DeLaurentiis from the Food Network (aka “Gi-hotta”).
My list is ever-changing. Even at my age, I’m prone to getting goo-goo eyed over eye candy men. I do. I did as a pre-teen over Ricky Schroeder in Silver Spoons (Oh come on, who didn’t think “The Ricker” was cute?!), and I do it now. As it stands today, my list of five is:
1. Matthew McConnaghey (even though he doesn’t wear deoderant, I think I can get over it. Maybe we can do it in the shower)
2. Matt Damon (Droooooooooooooooool)
3. Wentworth Miller (Though I was kind of bummed that on the last season of Prison Break they had him in a long sleeve shirt the whole time – what the hell?)
4. Jack Johnson (Hot guy who makes music – yum)
But when it comes to the 5th, I’m iffy. It used to be John Travolta. But, well… while I still adore him, I’m just not sure. And John Corbett, swoon… but… have you seen him lately? Yeah. Me neither. Heath Ledger was super hot. But. He’s kind of not an option any more either. The guy who played Sucre on Prison Break was pretty hot too, but I don’t even know what his name really is. So, my 5th is going to have to be a wild card.
For Tuesday, tell me who would be on your list? If you have a significant other, who are they hot for?
“Well everyone needs a better day
And I’m trying to find me a better way
To get through the things I do and the things I should…”
-Counting Crows
My best friend is moving and I’m pretty bummed out. Right now, we live less than a half mile apart, which is probably the closest we’ve ever lived to each other. When we met in eight grade, she lived about ten miles away. On spring days, we’d ride our bikes from my house to hers or hers to mine. It was a long bike ride for us, but we loved it. The roads were curvy, the days were warm and we would have thermoses filled with lemonade. We’d stop often and take big sips from of the lemonade and then proceed on our way again.
Through the years, I’ve moved a handful of times, and she’s moved perhaps two handfuls of time. Right now, she’s less than a half a mile away. She’ll be moving nearly 40 miles away. That really stinks.
It’s funny – distance has never been a huge factor in our friendship – I mean, I see her more now than ever, but over the years, we’ve still always been able to connect despite the geographical distance. In the past several months, due to circumstances in both of our lives, we’ve gotten closer and I really am sad that she’ll be living on what feels like another planet.
I’m trying not to be blatantly sad about it, though. I know she’s very excited, and I certainly don’t want to send her on a guilt trip about it. She knows she’ll be missed. I’ll miss the simplicity with which last minute excursions came about – how when she has been just down the street from me, I’ve been able to say, “Today has been tremendously crappy – let’s go to Coldstone and eat some ice cream.” I won’t have that anymore, and I’m going to have to find other ways to let off some steam – though, one might argue a Coldstone run isn’t the best way to get through tough times – it’s certainly not the most effective as far as me being able to continue to squeeze into my jeans.
For awhile, I had been sheltering a lot of who I actually was from my BFF. I was filtering myself, censoring myself, and finally – decided to stop doing that. Initially, it was out of necessity – feeling like I had to release some of the stuff jingling around in my head before my brain would expose. What I find, though, is that the more I am myself with her, the more she is herself with me and the better our friendship is. We’ve been friends for a bazillion years, and we are closer now than ever. I guess I have to remind myself that our friendship is such that the distance won’t matter. She’s never truly too far away.
