DragonBlog

Stealing Treats...

The summer after I graduated from high school I finally got my driver's license. It wasn't that I failed the test, I never bothered to take it as we couldn't afford the insurance to add another driver to the policy. But I got a job that summer, and they told me I needed either a state I.D., or a Driver's License for them to photocopy for their files. My mother decided that I could try for the license, and if I failed the test we'd just get the state I.D. for the moment instead. Although we were already discussing the logistics of me getting a car to get to and from my new job.

I did pass the test (which is a story in and of itself), and it didn't take long before we'd secured a small loan from my grandparents to buy me my first used car. It was an offwhite Buick Skyhawk I think, and it was mine. Shortly afterwards, my grandparents decided to be kind, and decided to make a graduation gift out of it, instead of making me pay back the loan. So it was really mine. My car. My sacred sanctuary. My mother didn't go into my car very often, as she had her own and loathed being a passenger, it seemed. So it became the place where I stashed all the secret treasures that I could never have had in the house. Cookies - if I ever I brought sweets into the house, it generally meant sharing with my mom, so hoarding cookies and other yummy things was the first thing. My mother also had frequent cravings for those syrup and ice drinks known to many as "slurpees" from the local 7-11. Once I had a car, I was more than happy to run get them for her - to spend time in my little car, eating my forbidden cookies. It was a similar thing when I started smoking too - the car was the place I smoked the most - at the time it made me feel as if I was grown up finally, despite how I felt whenever I was back at home.

Needless to say, the car was one of the harder places to deal with when I quit smoking almost two years ago (July 11th!).

I've gone beyond the car now - I have my own house, with my husband of course, and I have my corner of the family room where I can sit in sanctuary and write or play or eat chippy or chocolatey things as I so desire.

Or, rather, I find myself "stealing treats" still, after all these years. The "treats" this time, however, are moments of time - "me moments", where I'm not doing anything productive at all, but instead I'm doing something "frivolous", like playing a computer game when I should be doing laundry instead, or ignoring the fact that my living room carpet desperately needs vaccuming (long-haired black cat, yeah that decision was not made on logic) in order to steal another moment to read a couple entries of another person's blog.

And, as I'm one of the "good" girls, if I steal something - I feel guilty for it.

In fact, I'm finding I'm doing a lot of things out of guilt, which makes me depressed, which makes me unmotivated to get things done, and when I don't get things done - I feel guilty about it. It's one of those nasty downward spiral thingies again.

Well, shit. If it isn't bad enough I judge myself by everyone else's standard ('cause I still don't know what the hell my own standards actually are!), now I find I'm giving myself guilt trips left and right because I can't actually live up to everyone's standards!

*sigh*

More to ponder on. But, in order to bring symmetry to the day, I'll just say it...

It's rubbish. Guilt I mean. No, really. Rubbish.

And no, for those who happen to read little.red.boat, I'm not trying to alter my style of writing to one like hers. It's just fun to throw the occasional bit in like that. I like her style. But if I tried to write like she does on a daily basis, I'd be exhausted just coming up with things to talk about. My life is just not filled with "fucktard" mice and small toads named Little Boris Johnson.

Nope. My life is rubbish instead. And I feel guilty about that too.

*wrinkles nose*

Oy vey.

G'night!

Rubbish!

It's always good to learn something new every day. In fact, it's hard to go an entire day without learning something. However, I've decided that so far today, everything I've learned it decidedly "rubbish".

Anna, at little.red.boat tends to use the word "rubbish" frequently when things are, well, rubbish. So, for today anyway, I'm stealing it. Not that it's really hers anyway. It's just a word.

The following are today's things that I've learned are "rubbish":

1. The vaccum cleaner has a sander thing-a-ma-bob on it that is supposed to, you know, sand things. If you put a piece of sandpaper on it, that is. Which I did. And then it didn't. Sand things. The whole plastic accessory, that we probably paid a good penny for, extra from what we paid on the vaccum itself, is rubbish.
2. Attempting to compensate for the inadequate sander thingy, I took the sandpaper in hand and began working with it the old fashioned way - elbow grease. Which was hard, and did nasty things to my hands and fingernails, and kicked up a lot of sawdusty-like stuff, which couldn't have been sawdust since it didn't seem to really do anything at all. That's right. The whole idea was rubbish. I am now entertaining new ideas on how to get the old finish off the edges of my son's bedroom floor without removing the trim.
3. I own several "sports" bras. Last February, for Valentine's Day, I got bras. Brand new, silky, some even a little sexy, bras. I picked them out myself, and they cost a pretty penny. And they are (say it with me folks...) rubbish. In order to wear them I need extenders for most of them, since I forgot to get those that day at the store. I've worn one of the bras on several occasions, despite the fact that it's technically not the right size, and a couple of the others I've tried to wear once each. I'm pretty sure we paid $60, at the very least, for a bunch of bras to sit in my drawer looking pretty despite the evil they play upon me whenever I put them on. The ones with underwire (which is most of them) bite into me and are uncomfortable as hell. So I end up, the majority of the time, still wearing the ridiculous "uniboob" sports bras instead. Because they don't hurt when I wear them. They don't hurt as much, anyway. Most of the time I just hide down here at my computer - blissfully bra-free!

There's more, I'm sure, but my husband got home while I was writing this, and is now eating the dinner I cooked before I started writing this - without me. (Admittedly, I did tell him to start eating.)

Anyway, possibly more from me later, we'll see. It is "therapy night" after all. Woo. Aww, what the heck, add a Hoo too.

Later!

And now,

Would you rather:
1. be constipated for a week at a time and only poop on fridays OR have to go pee every hour on the hour?
Considering I already deal with an intestinal problem on a nearly daily basis, I think I'll pee every hour on the hour, thanks. I don't need to add more discomfort to my already aching abdomen.
2. never forget a face OR never forget a name?
Well, I can't seem to remember either, generally, so I'm thinking it would be nice to remember people's names for once. I know that it makes a person feel more special if you remember them by name.
3. when you orgasm, uncontrollably sing "wake me up before you go go" by wham OR "i'm too sexy" by right said fred?
um... eww! *shudder* Neither. But I have to pick? Damn. I guess I'll go with "I'm too sexy", which at least suggests some level of self-confidence and can maybe be made less stupid with some sort of lap dance to distract the guy???
4. stub your toe every day for a week OR get a zit on your nose?
Easy. Toe. That fades far more quickly.

Dreaming again...

It was hard to drag myself away this morning, from the vividly colorful dreams that floated in and out of my consciousness as I attempted to ignore the incessent beeping of the alarm clock. Eventually I rose from the bed long enough to turn the accursed thing off and crawl back beneath the warm, soft, sanctuary within my covers. Hugged by my pillows, I slipped back into the dreamworld to see how it ended. Such is the trouble I have on many mornings. Today's trouble was so much so, that morning itself slid by me, leaving me to wake in the afternoon and immediately drop a load of fresh guilt onto my shoulders for the day. It didn't help when I found my husband had inadvertantly forgotten the diaper doubler in my son's bedtime diaper, and one cloth diaper could only hold so much pee. Fortunately, the leakage was limited to being wicked up by the edge his shirt, merely requiring a change of clothes along with the diaper.

The dream, itself, had been filled with dragons and danger, evil men with viruses they tested on the innocent "volunteers", and an odd segregation of climate and terrain that needed to be resolved so that the world was livable again. The dragons, it seemed, held the only cure for the virus. One man, it seemed, held the ability to call the dragons. And that man was going to show me the way, so that I might save the others, as the man was dying (but not of the virus). I made fast friends with one of the "head" dragons, who could change his form into that of a man (who looked much like an old wizard, down to the pointy white hat with blue stars all over it), or several beasts upon his whim. He took a liking to me, and decided to help me, not only in saving people from the virus and the men doing the testing, but also in changing the climate to one more suitable for us to start fresh in afterwards. He and the other dragons (who were very "Whelan" by the way) soared the skies, melting the frozen wastelands with breathed fire, and somehow calling the rain to fall and extinguish the burning plains in the other half of the world. Suddenly we could move out from the lines where the zones had crossed and the climate had been barely livable. And we gave the virus to the bad men - with no hope for them of getting a cure through the dragons. All was well again in my imaginary dreamworld...

In some of the recent conversations on loneliness, there's been mention of losing oneself in one's imagination for a while, often facilitated by the magical stories held within the covers of a book, which seem to come alive in your mind as the words leap off the page and spark the flames of imagination into action. After last night's dream and the recent conversations, I find myself recalling the first time I truly fell in love with dragon stories, thanks to an image by Michael Whelan of a young girl and her tiny dragon friends, that led me into the covers of Dragonsong, by Anne McCaffrey. I devoured each story with a desperate hunger that no book could truly fill, but each offered a moment's reprieve from the realities of life.

I think that this is why I want to write. I think it's also why I want to paint. Maybe one day I'll be able to give back what I stole from those books and painting that inspired my imagination. Maybe, in turn, I'll one day inspire someone else.

More later maybe...

Feeling a Little Quaky...

I was right! I did feel an earthquake last night!

CNN article is here.

That's the second time I've felt an earthquake here in Illinois. Actually, it's the second time I've felt an earthquake period. It felt like the floor swayed under my feet a bit, and something was rattling in the room. The house itself creaked and cracked a little as it shifted too. It was really short-lived, and admittedly not very strong, but neat in an "I had an experience" kind of way. I still can't imagine what it would be like to be in a big earthquake though. The little one weirded me out for a moment, but I imagine a big one might just scare me a bit.

Anyway, I didn't want to go without blogging it, and there wasn't any articles up yet just after it happened. I was pretty darn sure this time that that's what I was feeling, but I didn't want to put it up here without some solid evidence. CNN ought to do.

Later!

Routines...

Today has brought back some of the usual routines that seemed to dominate my schedule prior to Brian's vacation. For one, I'm back to posting on To Our Children's Children on a daily schedule (hopefully Brian will have a chance to catch up one day), and today marks the beginning of a new tale for us to tell on Quick Shtick Writing. Brian got the first paragraph on this one, and it seems we're heading into the realm of heroes and magicks for this one. Or is it magics? or Magiks? Or perhaps, when magic is involved in the first place, you can just start making up spelling of your own. Although "Magiks" is the only one that dictionary.com didn't seem to like. I've found myself using that site more frequently, as I'm too lazy to reach over and grab on of the two dictionaries sitting on my desk with my rhyming dictionaries and thesauruses (thesauri?).

The routines I'm supposed to be working on - getting up at 8:00 am and having some breakfast and exercise before waking Jareth at 10:00 am - seem to be failing miserably. Despite the fact that the alarm went off at 8:00 am, my extremely undisciplined self turned the damn thing off and crawled back into bed. Which meant another morning of waking my son up while still bleary-eyed and otherwise shaking off sleep. It's reset for 8:00 am tomrrow, but so far this experiment has been a rather dismal failure. It's not helping that I'm staying up to the wee hours, working on the story I'm writing. I'm now a couple of pages into chapter 7. And, if my goal is approximately 250+ pages, then I'm abot 1/5th of the way through. Although I don't really know how far into the story I am yet. Trouble is brewing, but my main characters still need to get their respective acts together before they can take care of it.

I've already started looking at the web site for one of the community colleges near me, and it looks like I'll be able to apply online, or print out the application at the very least. I still have to look at their class schedules and such to see if they have night classes in what I want to take, and find out when the next session begins. Yay! I don't even know what class I'm going to be able to take first, yet I'm still excited. I'm considering seeing if they'll let me opt out of "grades" though. I'm going to learn technique, not get judged on some lousy curve. Then again, I always get that warm fuzzy feeling when I get good grades, so I'm not overly worried about it.

That's all for right now. I have a load of laundry to fold (one of Brian's bags from vacation unloaded almost directly into the washing machine), and "homework" from my therapist that I want to get done. After that, I have a nice long list of things that need doing to pick from. Oh joy. Not to mention the floor I still need to finish in my son's room. Although I don't think I'm going to mess with that one today. Maybe tomorrow.

Later!

Viruses - humanized and computerized...

Wow. Brian comes back and already I'm posting after everyone is in bed again. But this is the quiet time of night, when there aren't distractions, so that's why I have generally waited until then in the past. We shall see how the weekdays go, but I expect that the night posts will often be the case on the weekends.

He's got blog material written from when he was on vacation, he hasn't had the opportunity to get them up yet, although he did put a post to that effect up instead. Apparently he brought home a little souvenier from Canada - the flu. Although my son had a flu shot around Christmastime, I, on the other hand, did not. And I wasn't exactly "distant" when he came home last night...

eep.

It sounded like they had a problem with food poisoning one day, but now it appears they may have gotten a stomach flu instead. I won't say more about the trip though, as I enjoyed his reading of the "blog posts to be" this morning over breakfast and don't want to spoil it for any of his readers who might happen to pop over here as well. Or vice-versa. Whatever.

So, we talked, and talked, about all sorts of stuff. And then he napped - since he felt icky. And then we talked some more over dinner before smacking some evil around via computer game. He wasn't exactly up for much more - between driving all day yesterday, and trying to fight off the worst of the flu, I think we may have inadvertantly sapped up the last vestiges of energy he had left when we "greeted" each other last night. Poor guy.

Damn it. Now I can't even be jealous that he got a vacation and I didn't, 'cause he's sick.

But it's a "go" on me taking an art class and such. I didn't ask for permission exactly, but I also left him room to say something if now wasn't the right time for some reason, or if he truely hated the idea. At least I think I did. Either way, he didn't have a problem with it. So sometime this week I'll have to find out when the next classes start up at the community college nearby. Although I have to wonder if I'll end up with any of the same teachers my sister did, as she took some art classes there as well. But she's not going there currently, so even if I did, it would give us more to talk about. That would be cool.

I need to find my easel. And my canvases. And pull my bin of paints and such to somewhere more accessible...

I wonder how many classes it will take before I can paint the image I have in my head to my satisfaction? I wonder if I will have forgotten the image by then?

At least it's something I'm excited about - and it's just for me. I'm not doing it for anyone else. So it's a step. A little one, but a step nonetheless.

And I'm now on chapter five in my writing. And my husband understands that he's not going to get to read it until I'm done with my first draft. Which means I might be working on it a lot, since I already can't wait to show it to him. He may not be the target audience for the storyline, but he will help me catch any glaring mistakes, and figure out which areas need the most spit and polish before they can be considered "ready". In the same font size and line spacing as my story, (though not the same line spacing a publisher would want) his book comes out to more than 250 pages in rough draft form. I've done 40 pages since Wednesday. If I can do at least 40 pages per week, I could be done in 6 weeks!

Yeah. Like that's gonna happen. It took him months. It's highly unlikely that mine will manage to just pour out of me in six weeks, no matter how well I think I know the storyline. I'll think about trying to get it done before the end of the year holiday preparations kick into full gear. Having a full rough draft before Halloween would be nice. Someone remember I said that, please? I may need some prodding in a month or so.

The other thing that happened today is somehow my "safety net" laptop got mucked up! After I just said it was the "safe computer" for my work, I think I got a virus. I've been getting a lot of spam on one of the accounts I've only given to maybe two people so far, as it's been a "business" e-mail only. I think I had a virus slip through. All I know is that it kept rebooting my computer over and over again - and there are some viruses that do that. This will make the third virus I've gotten in all my years of computing (and downloading tons of stuff) so far. *knocks on wood*

Mind you, this kind of stuff never seems to happen after I've just backed everything up. Nope. Thanks, Murphy. Fortunately, I did managed to get it fixed, without losing any of my data, so you bet I'll be doing a backup this week sometime. I knew there was a good reason to own an actual operating system disk for these computers, instead of the ridiculous "recovery cd"s that these things come with these days. The laptop wanted to format the hard drive and rebuilt windows. Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen if I know I can get my data back some other way. Popped in my WindowsXP CD that I'd bought the last time I thought I was about to lose everything, and fixed the boot files. Poof. Works now. Never buy an HP. I should have listened to my own advice on that one, but I went with the cheap laptop that allowed me to turn off the touchpad. I like that, as I tend to brush it with my wrists when I type. But, at the time, it was for school, which meant I would type on it. Nowadays the only typing is to send e-mail, as I really do all the work on my main computer with a real keyboard.

Yes. I am picky. I know. Deal with it. *wicked grin*

So, I didn't do much blog reading today, but I'm hoping to do some catching up tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm off to see if I can finish chapter five before bed.

G'night!

Wheeeee!!!

Okay, so I decided to actually try to go to bed at a more reasonable hour instead of 4am like last night...

So, around 1:30am, I hopped into bed.

And tossed.
And turned.
And tossed some more.
etc.

At around 2:00am, I heard noises downstairs.

(Insert ominous music here)

Based on the noises I heard, as I sat bolt upright in bed and listened, I determined it was either:

• A. My husband coming home earlier than anticipated, or
• B. A burglar.

So I crept slowly out of the bedroom, wondering why I'd never thought to put anything baseball bat-like on the topmost level of our house, and where the nearest baseball bat-like thing was located in case it wasn't my husband...

But it was!!!

He'sHome,He'sHome,He'sHome,He'sHome,Yippeeeeee!!!!

Once I'd confirmed that it was him, we proceeded immediately, without delay, to the toe-curling lovemaking on the floor bit. Which is all the detail you're getting on that part.

Then he put his clothes back on long enough to retrieve his pillow from the car, and we went to bed. There was a brief exchange of some tidbits from our respective weeks, but he'd apparently been driving since 6am Saturday to get back, so he's totally wiped, and likely sleeping quite soundly as I type this.

The problem is, however, that after sex I'm usually not tired. In fact, I'm usually running high on an adrenaline rush. I'm wide awake, and frequently hungry. Which is why I now find myself sitting back in front of my computer, eating low sodium Triscuits, and blogging.

I did warn him he's not allowed to read my blog until after he opens his father's day gift, and I'm intensely glad I took the time to wrap it yesterday instead of waiting until today. I'm also glad I popped my son and myself into the bathtub earlier too. Although I think my son was confused on what I was doing when I shaved my legs. I generally pass him off to my husband, who gets him dried and into fresh clothes while I shave my legs, although lately my husband has been getting more bath time with my son than I have. Which is ironic, as I'm the one who insists that an actual bathtub is an absolute necessity in my life. But I've noticed that he seems more secure sitting in the tub with daddy watching over him for some reason, although he did really well with me today which was encouraging.

Brian brought in a plastic bag that he dropped off on the table too, that apparently had his handwritten blog from this past week in it, so I expect we shall see it coming soon over on his blog site.

Okay, now it's been a half an hour that I've been sitting down here, and my Triscuits are slightly stale so my jaw is getting tired. I think I'll stop here. More later, most likely, but after I've had some sleep.

G'night!

One day away...

By this time tomorrow, my husband should be back at his folks' house with his dad, possibly eating dinner about now with his folks, his sister, his son, and myself...

HOORAY !!!!

*does a happy dance*

And, his father's day/"you da writer now!" gift arrived today, so all I have to do is wrap it up and he'll get it tomorrow like I'd hoped. I opened it up and peeked at it - it looks all tiny and techy and cool - yes, I am jealous. But I shouldn't be - I'm the one with the laptop that never goes anywhere. Doh!

I use the laptop as my work machine. I had my main computer crash twice in as many months, making me suddenly unable to do work for my boss for the duration I was trying to fix it. Not wanting that to ever be an issue again, (I nearly lost everything on the hard drive!) I transferred all my work files over to my laptop and set it up so that it's only a work machine. I technically still do the work on my main computer, and transfer files over the little network I have here, but if my main goes down all I need to keep working is on that laptop. It's a safety net, really.

I've spent a lot of time thinking this week. Some of which I've shared here, for those willing to read my rantings, but mostly for myself. For me, the act of writing it down makes it real. It's like etching it into stone. I can't take it back once it's out there. And I don't want to. It helps cleanse me of some things, and makes me take a closer look at others.

I find it interesting that the routine I've settled into by the end of this week is different in a few ways than the routine I usually have when my husband is home. For one thing, writing this blog during the day, I've noticed, has lead to me spending the time after my son goes to bed writing. I'm on chapter four now, chapter three was long. Last night I was working on chapter three at about 11pm. I noticed the clock at midnight and figured I could stay up for another hour, since I was absorbed in what I was writing. The next time I looked at the clock, having finally moved into a beggining for chapter four, hours had passed and it was 3am. By 4am I was finally trying to get to sleep, after a brief stop to calm my son, who'd woken up crying for some reason.

I overslept again today. My son's schedule and my own are completely shot, not to mention that my husband's iguana must be confused by all the different times of day she'd been fed at this week. I expect I've gained a couple of pounds instead of jumping back into Tai Chi and losing a few. And I haven't been doing too well at getting up at 8am, like my therapists told me to. I imagine I'll look rather guilty going into my next session on Wednesday.

But, on the other hand, I've made some decisions.

For one, I think I need my husband to tell me that he doesn't expect me to be a "breadwinner" of this family right now. I'm not going to quit doing the work I've been doing so far for my current clients, but I'm not going to bother actively trying to make a business I could care less about work. It's not what I ultimately want to do, so I'm not motivated to do it. I've got the stupid web site up for it, but I haven't advertised anywhere at all, so no one knows where to find me anyway.

He's taken on the role of "provider" money-wise in this family for now, but I've been carrying around a lot of guilt about being the one at home. I've been sitting here waiting for something to happen that would free him of that burden. Hopefully, with his writing, he can free himself instead. And I am still interested in pursuing the idea we've had to open a coffee shop/bookstore one day. I think we'd both enjoy that. But it's not going to happen if we don't start kicking it into gear.

I want to write. I want to feel that I am "allowed" to write, and that it's not some frivolous thing I should only indulge in my "spare time". Although I have to admit that my husband managed to write almost all of his first draft in his "spare time" - something that we shall have to adjust, so that he's got more time available to work in.

I also want to take an art class or two. I keep having images in my mind's eye that I want to draw, or paint, or sculpt, but I don't have the skills necessary to transcribe what I'm seeing onto canvas or even paper. I've spent years and years trying to encourage and support the "artistic side" of the people around me...

I forgot to encourage myself.

It's amazing what a week with only a one-year-old for company can do to a person. When the only outlet I have to talk about the various things I think and feel throughout the day is through the words I put down on this blog.

There are other things I enjoy that I'd love to do, but they are entirely impractical at this point in my life. For one, my Associates degree is primarily based in Theatre. I'd love to get involved in it again, but the time needed for that is far more than I want to be away from my son and my husband. I also have a deep connection to music, but the piano classes I once took seem to have made it entirely clear to me that I cannot seem to grasp the ability to read music. And I don't feel as if I have some unwritten masterpiece inside me that just needs to be properly composed for all to hear. I sometimes do feel that way with writing and art. And, even if they aren't masterpieces, I'm at the point in my life where I wouldn't mind producing something that someone could say is "not half bad", at the very least. The only masterpiece I feel sure I've created so far is my son, and I have to share credit on that one. Especially since he's the spitting image of a once-smaller version of my husband.

I enjoy this blog as well, and reading other people's blogs. I've had more time this week to catch up on a few I'd fallen behind on, and I found a couple of new ones in the process. I need to weed out my blogroll a bit though, so I can separate my "dailies" from my "weeklies", and "web comics", and my "not blogs at all" links. I'm probably going to pay for a proper blogroll subscription this week. And I'm not going to ask my husband permission to do it, like I did with getting my own domain name and web space.

I'm getting very tired of asking people for permission to live my life.

It's not that my husband expects me to ask him - he's never been like that, so don't get me wrong - but I always have. Nearly everything I've done in my lifetime has been because someone else allowed me to do it, from the moment I was born.

I think my husband and I are in for a long, long discussion once he's back. And I know that he will have spent some of his time in Canada, mulling over his own life, and his own choices for the future. I have a feeling he'll have plenty to say himself.

And, if there's one thing that has always made our marriage work, it's because we communicate with one another. Sometimes we're not on top of things, and they simmer a little first, until some silly little thing uncorks the bottle and it all comes out, but we always end up talking. Not screaming, or yelling, or breaking things. Talking.

I've been standing at the crossroads of my life for an excruciatingly long time now. It's time to decide which direction to go. And if the only true strength I can strongly identify in myself is "creativity", then I have to follow where it leads.

*deep breath*

Oh, boy. This ought to be interesting.

Later!

Friday...

I'd better be careful, or this "posting during the day" thing might run the risk of becoming a habit.

The Father's Day gift for Brian hasn't arrived yet, even though I had it sent Priority Mail. Usually I get stuff in 2-3 days, so even if it went out on Tuesday (although the e-mail they sent me gave me a Monday date and time) it ought to be here by tomorrow. I hope so at least. It would really suck to have to tell him what it is on Sunday, instead of handing him a little wrapped parcel to open. They sent me a tracking number, but US Postal isn't too current in posting information on their site. Most stuff in the past has arrived the same date that they bothered posting that it had even been picked up from the sender in the first place!

*grumble, grumble*

So... In reviewing the week, I decided it was about high time for a list of pros (yes, there are some) and cons to not having my husband at home...

PROS:

1. When I put something away, it's actually still there the next time I go looking for it!
2. My toes have had a chance to heal from stumbling about in the dark at night trying to get to the bed without waking him up or turning on the light.
3. I can run errands at any time of day, instead of trying to get them done and be home in time for dinner.
4. I can eat dinner whenever I damn well please, and whereever I damn well please. (Brian likes us eating at the table like a family, but I still like to "couch out" with a plate now and again)
5. Unlimited "chick flick" rental potential.
6. No one chiding me about how much junk food I've consumed over the last few days, and reminding me that I want to actually lose a couple of pounds and get in shape.
7. I get all the covers!
8. No one keeping me awake with snoring.
9. No alarm going off at five in the morning, when I've only just finally fallen asleep.
10. Not bothering to close the bathroom door when I'm in there. (that's one we've just always done - it's okay to keep talking through the door, but neither of us feels comfortable with someone hanging out in the same room while we drop our drawers, so to speak.)
11. Not wearing a speck of makeup for most of the week. (I often don't if I'm not going somewhere, but if I'm feeling particularly dissatisfied with my appearance, I'll still sometimes dab a teensy bit on so I'll look better for him)

CONS:

1. No one to spoon with. Snuggling with my son is just not the same as cuddling with my husband.
2. Cooking for 1.5 is next to impossible for me - Instead I cooked one big-ass casserole on Monday that I will finally finish tonight. Jareth has been eating a la Gerber this week, as I don't think he's ready for italian sausage if he won't mash ground beef.
3. No sex. 'nuff said on that one.
4. No break from my cute little, rashy, teething, son, who has decided to have a fit at least twice per night this week.
5. I may be able to rent the "chick flicks", but there are other movies I want to see that I have to wait on until he is here, as I know he wants to see them too.
6. No one to over-analyze the movies with.
7. No one to talk to in multi-syllable words and sentences.
8. No one chiding me about how much junk food I've consumed over the last few days, and reminding me that I want to actually lose a couple of pounds and get in shape. (And no one I can ask to scoop ice cream for me so I don't get all greedy and fill the bowl).
9. No one slipping me a quiet hug and kiss in the morning before scooting off to work.
10. No one saying "I love you" at least 3 times per day (yes, sometimes we still act like newlyweds).
11. Lonely, lonely, lonely...

Okay, so there's likely more than those, but that's a few of them anyway.

I started writing two nights ago, and I'm into chapter 3 of what might be a book or story or something if I make it to the end. I'd love to post some of it here, but then again if I do get it finished, I might actually try and see if someone would want to publish it, and posting it here would defeat that entirely. I did, initially, start it on my private blog, but last night I moved it to my hard drive instead, and deleted the blog entries. Which means my "private blog" is actually empty again, as I never know what to put on a blog no one will ever see. With the exceptions of a few particular bits, I guess I'm not a too terribly private person, per se. Although yes, there are those bits that I only share with people I can absolutely trust on a face-to-face kind of level. Which means my husband knows all my secrets, but no one else knows everything. It may be that no one else ever will. We shall have to wait and see.

Anyway, I actually know most of how I want this story to go, and I even know how I want it to end. Which is good, since I often have the beginning, the ending, and a few choice scenes in the middle somewhere, but no clue how to get the beginning to connect to the ending while still using those scenes. In this one, I happen to know most of how point A gets to point B. Which means this one stands a plausible chance of getting completed. But I think I'm going to have to pull my own trick on myself, and not let my husband read any of it until I'm finished with the rough draft. It's almost as if, after I've told the story to him, there's no point in telling it on the paper anymore. Hrm.

Which sucks, since I'm really liking how the first chapter came out, and I'm hoping the second one isn't half bad either. The first one happens to be action-packed for most of it, and I'm hoping it reads the way I see it in my head.

Okay, I have to stop blogging for now, as I just had to delete a short description of what happened in the first chapter from the text of this post, so as not to just give it away. If it sits for a year without being added to, maybe I'll post some of it on DragonBytes at that point, but for now I'll just have to keep it to myself.

Later!

Loneliness & Learning to Live...

As usual, Father Jake is influencing my posts again. So much so, I'm even posting mid-day. My regular readers know that I usually make my posts sometime between 10pm and 2am...

In a comment on a recent post of mine, he said "The problem, at least for me, is trying to learn how to live instead of just survive."

I get that. I have spent most of my life just "surviving". Possibly all the way up to the point when I said "yes" to my husband one Christmas morning when he officially proposed. From that point on, I've needed to do more than just survive. Now there was another person involved, and I had made an active choice to allow that person deep access to me. Trust has never been an easy thing for me to give anyone. And, in many ways, in the journey towards that proposal, I put him through some relative hell as I unconsciously tested him to see if he could be trusted. It still amazes me that he not only passed with flying colors, but stuck around afterwards too.

You'd think, after a year wandering around the country in a motorhome, I'd have "found myself", so to speak. I did live during that time, seeing and experiencing things that will be cherished in my memories forever. I think half the reason I've never taken up painting or photography in earnest has to to with the feeling that I'm utterly incapable to put to canvas or film the magnitude of some of the sights I saw. Trite as it might seem, the Grand Canyon was one of the most pointed examples of that - this massive crack in the earth left me standing there at it's edge with a slack jaw and unblinking eyes - even words escape me when I try to put what I felt down on paper. Photos can never compete with the actual experience. I breathed in the world around me as we traveled.

But did I live? I don't know. I wanted to. I searched for myself out there, and I think I found pieces of me, but perhaps not yet enough to complete the whole. And, the manner in which our travels ended crushed some of those pieces, bringing me back into the reality that most of the world lives in - where money is God, and God will forgive most anything if you just show that you have enough green paper "faith" in your pockets. No matter what the songs say, you can't actually just live on love in today's world. The people who have the money, but not the love, will beat you senseless if you try.

And yes, I'm a cynic. No matter how hard I try, I still have a hard time believing in the goodness of the world. Anytime I've started to, someone has been willing to step forward and slap me back into place again.

If I'm going to "live" properly, I still need to find the rest of the pieces of "me". Not to mention iron out the ones that Ford crumpled when they explained that the warrantee on our brand new re-built motorhome engine became invalid the moment it was put into a class A motorhome.

I expect, however, that those pieces of "me" are just quietly following along behind me, waiting for me to turn at just the right moment and catch sight of them in the corner of my eye. I just haven't found the right moment yet, so I'm not sure what all they contain. Although I guarantee it's not dishes and laundry. Yep. Pretty sure on that count. *nod nod*

Father Jake also talked about loneliness on his site today, and expressed curiosity in thoughts on the topic. Seeing as how that's the primary focus for much of my blogging this week, I'll just answer here instead of leaving a chapter of comments over on his blog. Besides, he likes to quote stuff on his, so I'll quote him on mine. Mwahaha! *grin*

The following are snippets from his post, with my commentary about them, if you want to read his whole post, click here.

I suspect that loneliness is a state of being that is much more prevalent than we might think. Few of us will admit to suffering from it, either to ourselves or others. It sounds weak, even pitiful. Yet, I think many decisions and actions, especially during our free time, are driven by our attempt to escape this dark place.

Yep, yep. I try to escape that place probably at least once per day. Weak? Yep. Pitiful? Yep. I so need a life. Or at least another grown-up or two to have actual conversation with. I've already figured out most of the translations of the word "Ga!" as my son uses it....

The feelings that we identify as loneliness don't only bubble to the surface when we are alone. We can feel lonely in a crowd. These feelings are very similar to the longing for that elusive "something more" that I have spoken of previously; the feeling that something is wrong with us, and if we can just discover that something "out there," and get it "in here," we'll be fixed. Often, this longing is quite natural to us all, and can even be a positive motivation for personal growth. It does have a shadow side however, which would include addictive and compulsive behaviors.

Okay, I'll come back to the "crowd" comment later. I'm not sure how addictive and/or compulsive I am, although I will say that this week, with my husband away, I've consumed a rather unseemly amount of sugar for my usual diet. I thought for a long while that I'd found my "something more" in my husband. And my son has filled another emptiness I didn't realize I had, but there is still this empty spot. Where I'm supposed to be. I don't see it as something "wrong" however, it's more a feeling that there's just something not quite right yet.

We sometimes call this "longing for something more" by the term loneliness because that is the situation, or the symptom, by which such feelings are either triggered or identified. We notice the feeling of emptiness when alone, or when feeling somehow isolated from others by some invisible shield. If denied, and not met with some kind of counter action, such feelings can continue to allow us to fall even deeper into the dark pit of self-loathing and depression.

Oooh! Oooh! Dark pit! Self-loathing! I'm so there! Oh. Wait. Damn.

Let's talk about what we can do when we seem overwhelmed by loneliness. Let's begin with the situation of actually being alone, due to job or family situations beyond our control.(snip)

1. Make friends with yourself. This means you have to accept yourself just as you are, and even begin to like yourself. Sometimes this means forgiving yourself for the things you have done wrong in the past. My experience is that replaying the past for too long when alone is usually deadly. This might also mean that you have to recognize that the negative messages you get from those around you about who you are, and your value as a person, are most likely wrong, or at least incomplete.

To entertain yourself, or as the cliche goes, to "be comfortable in your own skin," you have to accept yourself, warts and beauty marks together. Until you learn to be comfortable with yourself, you'll continue to be self-absorbed, and find it difficult to connect with others. Being comfortable in your own skin will allow you to get out of yourself; to engage with others, which is the obvious, and most healthy, cure for loneliness.

In my case, those messages have always dictated who I was supposed to be. I spent 21 years of my life with someone explaining to me that anything that went wrong must have been to some mistake of my own, and that I didn't deserve any notice or approval unless I did something absolutely perfectly to her standards. Breaking the habit of trying to be what everyone else wants me to be is not the easiest thing to achieve. Old dogs + New tricks = Hard! Hence - therapy.

2. Use your imagination. Before being confined, I loved television, especially movies. I loved stories. After the isolation, at night in bed, I used to strain to hear the TV in the next room. Eventually, I gave up on that, and started playing out my own stories in my head until I fell asleep. The next night I'd pick up the story where I left off. I sailed the seven seas, discovered magical islands, won many battles, traveled into outer space, fought off monsters, saved more than a few damsels, built a few inventions, flew from treetop to treetop, and, of course, was elected President and saved the world.

When my own imagination seemed difficult to access, I fed off the imaginations of others. I discovered books; specifically novels, although the volumes of the encyclopedia I smuggled home from school were quite helpful as well. To this day, my primary self-description is that I am a reader. That's what I do. Can this become simply escapism? Yes, it can. Anything in excess can be harmful. But it can also stretch us and inform us as we begin to manifest some pieces of those imaginary worlds into concrete realities.

Writing things out is another good expression of the imagination. Keep a diary, or a journal. Don't worry about style or content. Just dump it all out. Be disciplined. Do it every day.

One note of caution regarding the imagination; I have found that reliving scenes from my past, and changing the script, is usually not a healthy use of my imagination. The "what if" game seems to feed the darkness.

Well, at least I have that one covered. I've been "daydreaming" for most of my life. I've started several stories based on the ones I cook up in my imagination. However, I have to worry that the amount of time I could spend just sitting somewhere and daydreaming wouldn't possibly be healthy. Some escapism can be a good thing - it breaks the monotony, but a person needs to live in the real world on a daily basis. And the real world rarely lives up to the ones in my imagination.

3. Talk to God. That might sound terribly corny to those who are not spiritually inclined, but I don't want to dress this point up with fancy theological terms, or even cloak it in the more respectable attire of "prayer." I can't recall a time in my life when I wasn't aware of the existence of something, or someone, beyond myself. Maybe this is delusional, like having an invisible playmate. I really don't care. This belief has served me well, and has helped me get out of myself many times, so I think I'll hold on to it.

As a child, during times when it felt like I was disconnected to everyone and everything else, I'd talk to God. No, I didn't kneel and fold my hands. I didn't use KIng James language. I just talked. And back then, God used to talk back to me. This was before I became "sophisticated" enough to know that I wasn't supposed to admit that God talked to me, unless I wanted to end up in a straight jacket and injected with Thorazine. My memories are of lots of laughter, and gentle words that seemed to caress me and hold me close until I knew that everything was going to be alright.

Anyway, it has worked for me over the years. Keep in mind that you have to put empty places in the conversation, and sometimes wait a bit for your own stuff to quiet down before you can hear God's part of the conversation. And don't always expect words. Often, it seems more like a communication through feelings; "spirit crying out to spirit" kind of thing. And don't get hung up on "the right way" to do it. Just do it. If an eight year old boy, who hadn't been to church for many years, could do it, I imagine just about anyone can.

Well, my spiritual beliefs lean a little differently, so talking to a simple, singular, "God" is just not gonna happen here. However, I do get that warm, fuzzy feeling when I think about my own beliefs and the connectivity to everyone else that comes with that. Long, long before my epiphany, when I was just a little girl pressing her ear up against the cool glass of my bedroom window, I heard angels though. Or at least that's how my child's mind interpreted it at the time, as that's what I needed. As for talking to "God", in my version it's not a "he" or a "she", but "us" instead. We are God, each of us, individually, are part of the infinite unity that could be called "God" for lack of a better term. In our current existence we need to put our beliefs in little boxes in order to better comprehend them, so we might make "God" into a very nice man with white clothes and a deep booming voice, just to fit into a pattern we can understand in our current form. It's not an easy thing for most people to grasp infinity - this lifetime has a beginning and an end, and that, in and of itself, is part of the experience. But I digress.

4. Care for a pet. I can't emphasize this enough. I happen to prefer dogs, but I've had cats, birds, hamsters, fish, and even a culture of protozoa! Besides the comfort of having another living being around, a pet demands that you get out of yourself. They have to be cared for. They have to be loved. Beyond that, pets can teach us beings with oversized brains a few things. An animal is not consumed with regretting the past and fretting about the future. Pets reminds us to live in this present moment. Which is a critical thing to remember; the only thing that is real is that which is contained in this present moment. And usually, in this moment, even when alone, all is well.

Pets are good. Got a cat. She helped a bunch when I was home alone and trying to get a doctor to take me seriously and find what inevitably turned out to be my gallstones giving me pain. I also have a long history of having conversations with inanimate objects. At least that's how people who once went to school with me remember me generally - the girl with the long scarf who talked to her locker. I get it from my mother, who named and talked to her plants. Yes, she needed a life too.

If possible, force yourself to engage in social events. Join a club (or even a church!), or a support group, take a class, or just get together with friends. Being alone for too long can cause us to become more and more passive in our response to life. Sometimes we have to make ourselves be pro-active. There is nothing wrong with being inclined towards being an introvert. But complete isolation is unhealthy for most of us.

You know, I'm not inclined towards being an introvert, it's just how things seem to have worked out. If found in a social situation, I'll frequently burst out of my shell, but I'm not the type to just jump in uninvited. I keep wanting to sign up for a mommy-kid class, and meet other mommies. The problem is, most of my best friends have been guys in the past - I have little in common with most of the women I meet. As for getting together with friends, at this point 80% of the people I call "friend" are living in other states. And the 20% here in Illinois are either married to me (which doesn't count in the same way), or are busy with lives of their own. I don't like to intrude on my friends' time, so I tend to wait for them to make the first move. As a result we tend to be out of touch for a while and then start having less and less in common. I know where my "not wanting to intrude" comes from too - self image. Somewhere along the line I unconsciously decided I wasn't worth their effort, or at least that must be the case, since they rarely put forth any. I bend over backwards to be what people want, and then they continue to expect me to do so as a result. Backfire!

Where does one go to meet new people anyway??!! There are plenty of options available for people to go to "pick up" someone, but what is the acceptable locale for two people to meet up and just be friends? I don't go into an office to work. It's generally not acceptable to just start chatting someone up in the grocery store... Maybe when I figure out what it is I actually want to be doing, I'll find some activity that complements it where I can meet people with similar interests, but in the meantime I'm at a loss. Friends 'R' Us anyone? Pffft.

For some, feelings of loneliness can be a symptom of severe depression. This is a condition that can't be dismissed lightly. Those who do not suffer from it cannot understand it. They will compare it to their own periodic blue funks. Depression can be the result of a chemical imbalance; a malfunction of the neurotransmitters, and can be relieved with the proper professional help, which may include medication. If loneliness is a condition that seems to be becoming life controlling for you, seek professional help.

Yep, yep! Got the fun drugs. That "being lonely in a crowd" thing is part of the tipoff that lead me to consider that avenue a while back. My depression can get pretty down into that "dark pit" mentioned earlier when I'm not on something. It's a light dose, but it helps. I also don't get severly panicked in a crowd the way I used to. Although I still have trouble in a packed movie theatre and in the mall at Christmastime. Although I think anyone could get a panic attack during the mall at Christmastime! The only trouble with being on something is the side effects - the one I'm on right now makes me jittery, and I have trouble holding my hands perfectly still. But so far that's better than the loss of clarity I suffered on others I've tried. I don't generally like anything that messes with my abilities to concentrate and think clearly. Not that I don't have my own "one too many" stories, but that's for an entirely different blog. *guilty grin*

Mind you, I went off of all meds during the pregnancy - I'll just say again, for the record - my husband is a saint. LOL! It's quite possible that it's a very good thing I didn't start blogging until after I gave birth. You might think I'm neurotic for a week while my husband is away (or you might just think I'm neurotic all the time), just imagine what I was like with all those motivated little hormones going ape-sh*t during a pregnancy! Actually, no. Don't imagine that. I don't want to scare you off when I hopefully get pregnant again next year.

Somewhere, at the beginning of all this, I had a point. I know I did. But that was over an hour ago, and it's been totally lost now.

But yeah, I've been lonely while my husband is away. It's hard to go through the day without my "security blanket" husband coming home in the evening and wrapping his arms around me, instantly improving my day tenfold. It's hard having your only meaningful conversations being either one-way (on this blog), or with a 1-year-old and his barely two word vocabulary. Part of who I am is "Brian's wife", and that's always been one of the best parts of who I am. That, and now being a "Mommy". But that's the problem. Brian wants me to be myself. I want me to be myself. And I want to set that kind of example for my son.

But, at the moment, nobody's told me who that's supposed to be!

And I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to figure that out.

Damn.

Can I get a second opinion?

If someone could just tell me what I like so that I can start doing that maybe?

Shoot.

Okay, yeah. More therapy next week. Which reminds me, I still haven't done the "homework" she gave me. What am I, in grade school?

Actually, no. I never had to do pie charts in grade school.

One day, I'll have a life. A real, honest-to-goodness life, where I do things I truely enjoy and share my joy with those around me. One day. Once I figure out what the hell those things actually are.

Oh, well. It's all good.

And, as for this week, I'm definitely over the halfway hump. It's much easier when there's less days left to wait for him to come back home than there are days he's been gone.

But I'm still lonely.

Can you tell?

Sure you can - I just told you!

*grin*

It's all good. It's all part of the experience that is my life.

Until next time. (can't say G'night, 'cause it isn't yet, and G'afternoon just sounds silly!)

And now,

Arrrgh!! I forgot to do this last week! And, I think, the week before too! And, of course, this week - since it's already Wednesday and almost Thursday!

Would you rather:
1. hear somebody breaking into your house and all you have is a bat OR an unloaded gun?
Bat. I'm a pacifist - that means no killing anyway, so the gun wouldn't do me any good. Besides, I wouldn't have a gun in this house to begin with. Nonetheless, if someone is going to break into my house, then I feel entirely justified beating the crap out of them with a bat. Nothing permanent, just a good whacking.
2. walk barefoot over 6 feet of roaches OR 6 feet of thumbtacks?
Thumbtacks. Bugs = Icky, bad, nuh-uh. I get very girly when I find bugs.
3. after playing a game of beach volleyball for over an hour, have only a pitcher of milk to refresh you OR a pot of fresh-brewed coffee?
Is it good coffee? Because if it's pre-ground canned crap, you may as well give me the milk, as I'm not going to drink either. I'll wait for the next water fountain, thanks.
4. at a neighbor's party, be caught picking food out of the trash and eating it OR going through their dirty laundry and sniffing it?
I guess the laundry. I think I could make something up to cover that one. Although I don't see myself doing either, much less being caught if I was...

Midweek...

Feeling better today. Not sure why exactly, and I'm quite sure it has nothing to do with the laundry tumbling away in the dryer a room away. I woke up late, ran errands, did laundry, watched yet another stupid "chick flick", and other dull and otherwise mundane stuff. By all accounts I should be miserable. Most likely, I'm just done PMS-ing or something.

*shrug*

Oh - last night, after I finished posting, it occurred to me that my mention of "cracking open a beer", might have been taken wrong by some. I wasn't doing that "I'm depressed and going to have a drink" thing. Just in case anyone might have misunderstood. In fact I drank that beer over the course of about three hours and never did finish it. I was busy reading the rest of Brian's book, and then mulling over it while kibbitzing on my computer again. I think it's good. His book, that is. I think it needs some work, but I like it. It was interesting though - it didn't start sounding like him until the last third really, at which point I could nearly hear his voice as I read it. There was just a point where it distinctly sounded like something he would write. I also have to find it interesting that most of the book is written from the perspective of two people, one of whom is female. It's always interesting to see a man's interpretation on how a woman will react in certain situations... Not that I'm any expert on how "all women" will react to anything, but he and I are going to have to talk on a couple of points. LOL!

I mean, really, swooning??? I don't care how tight her corset was... swooning?! Bah!

But I'm not going to say more about it than there is dashing men, swooning women, and other assorted good guys and bad guys. Although I think that perhaps some of the men might need a little more of that "dashing" if he thinks the women should be swooning... that's all...

And one character needs some closure, but the other person who's read it so far agrees with me on that point, so I have a feeling there will be closure incoming.

Now, I have to read it a second time and make some marks on specific points throughout. I made a few notes in it as I went through it the first time, but I didn't want to get ahead of myself too much. It was tough, as I already knew much of what was going on, where a first-time reader normally wouldn't. He's been discussing some aspects of the storyline with me for months and months, so it was hard to be a truely first-time reader at all. Now I can pour through it again and nit-pick a little.

But not tonight. Tonight I'm going to finish the stupid laundry. And, when I returned the "chick flicks" to the video store today, I went and rented two more!! No, I don't know what came over me, except they both look more "artsy" than the fluff I'd rented previously. We'll see. One looks like romantic drama, the other looks... well I don't know. There's romance anyway. But neither of them are the typical Hugh Grant-swilling tissue fodder that most of the romantic comedies are today. Of the four movies I've watched by myself this week, two of them fell into that category (minus actually having Hugh Grant in them, mind you). The other two were decent enough, but not movies I have any great desire to rush out and add to my collection or anything. I won't name them, I don't feel like actually reviewing them here. Despite the fact that I generally have a lot to say about the movies I see... well, that's the problem - I like to say it. Not type it up here. It feels too much like writing an essay after seeing a play, and I did enough of that while I was studying theatre. Although I did always do well enough at writing them, I get much more excited when I can bounce my opinions off of someone else and discuss the movie (or play, for that matter). And, since my readers (all four of you - and yes, that's including Father Jake too!) seem to be the quiet type, I'll just save my reviews for actual conversations.

Speaking of readers, the mysterious person is back, now commenting on old posts on Quick Shtick Writing. I haven't checked to see if it's the same IP I banned on this site or not, but I've banned it there. I suppose I should just copy/paste and ban it on all my blogs and be done with it. Maybe I will, we'll see.

Well, the dryer buzzed ages ago, so my husband's pants are wrinkling away in there. Since I absolutely, positively, under no circumstances iron, I think I'll go hang them up before the wrinkles start holding.

G'night!

Nighttime...

Nighttime is usually my favorite time of day. Nighttime is when the loud chaos that is the world around me simmers down to a dull roar. Sometimes, nighttime is even quiet. One day I hope to live somewhere that is quiet at night, where the only sounds are the crickets and small animals outside.

There are moments when nighttime calls for loud music and boisterousness, but most nights for me are relatively the same. The evening rushes by breathlessly, stalking up on bedtime with a fervent hunger. And then, at 10 pm, the world around me settles in for the night, falling into patterns of slumber and snore.

After that, the night is mine.

"me time."

But right now, "me time" is claimed by all the things I didn't get done during the daytime. All the stuff that keeps creeping up on me this week. And all the "extras" that I need to pick up while Brian is away. Tonight, for example, is "garbage night".

There are a few tasks that I see as proper "husband chores". Just as the dishes are one of my "chores", Brian gets things like the garbage and the lawn mowing. He didn't mow the lawn before leaving, and it was already long when he left, so now it's embarassingly long, and I either need to keep out of sight of my neighbors until he gets back, or mow it. I have managed to not have to mow a lawn in a very, very long time. My mom had a large corner lot at the last house she lived in, and it was my job to mow it for many years. I hated it. I also hated doing the garbage, although not as much as laundry, or dusting, or vaccuming, or shoveling the driveway and sidewalks during the winter. My mom didn't have a child, she gave birth to a maid. She just had to wait a few years until I became useful enough to put to work.

*sigh*

I do, however, actually enjoy doing windows. The insides anyway. And mirrors. Maybe because that's one of the things my mom didn't have me doing every single weekend of my life for almost as long as I can remember while I was living there.

Nighttime is supposed to be my "unwinding" time, where I relax and let my hair down, so to speak. But it seems that so often my nighttime is intruded upon by things that still need doing - dishes that I didn't have time to get to, laundry that still needs finishing, work I couldn't find time to get done during the day...

Right now, I sit here blogging before I go to do the garbage. Which irks me, as the garbage isn't even my chore, but I'm picking up the slack while Brian is away - feeding his iguana, doing the garbage, possibly mowing the lawn, etc. - not to mention that I don't get a break from "mommying" and diapers and such like I usually do in the evenings while they have some "daddy/son time".

I thought I was jealous before he went off on vacation, but now I wish I could have a vacation of my own when he gets back. I haven't even had time to get any of the work done on Jareth's room yet that I had planned for this week. I know it's only Tuesday, but tomorrow has to be errands (the iguana is out of carrots), and I'm still working on reading Brian's book. And I stupidly rented a couple extra movies back when we did "girls night", so now I'm just watching them to get them out of the way, instead of making "me time" to relax. I'm multitasking my relaxation time, and missing half the movie to begin with. I'm trying not to multitask reading Brian's book, since I want to give it my full attention, but that means only reading it at night. And with the headache I have at the end of the day, reading has not been on my list of things I really want to "wind down" with. I ended up multitasking feeding Jareth his dinner while I read some of it tonight anyway. I don't want him coming back next Sunday to find me not done with it. I'm enjoying it, but it's hard to find time for. Generally, that's the reason I have a huge reading list and never get anything on it finished. There's too many things more important that need doing. My "list" (which I've pointedly not looked at in quite a while now) is intensely overwhelming.

I think my therapist wants me to start considering mornings as "me time", but mornings and I have never gotten along. Morning is the point when you're supposed to "gear up" for the day and try to get motivated.

Although, I think the real point is - why can't I have some "me time" during the day?

Guilt, mostly. As long as Brian brings in a paycheck and I don't make squat, I feel guilty - as if I'm not doing enough.

But if that's the case... why am I so damned tired all the time?

Here I am, at the end of my third day straight with no real "grown-up" conversation, and no break from being mommy until my son goes to bed.

I'm a wreck.

So, screw it - after I finish the garbage, I'm cracking open a beer to toast all the single mommies and daddies out there. Because I supposedly waited until I was "ready" for kids, and I still am buckling under the pressure here. I can't imagine doing this alone all the time.

I'm also noticing that there are some things I'm just not motivated to try and fit in right now. Mostly because - who do I share my accomplishments with at the end of the day if my husband isn't around?

I am very, very, very lonely right now.

G'night.

In the Aftermath of Father's Day...

I was going to blog about why I was in tears a half hour ago, after watching some stupid "chick flick", which wasn't the reason I was crying at all.

I was going to blog about how I've been through a whirlwind of emotions today: loneliness, depression, guilt, love, adoration, and anger (which, of course, was followed by more guilt and depression). And I was going to blog about how this was all related to my husband being off on vacation.

I was going to let Father's Day slip by again this year without thinking about my own father.

I was wrong.

I'm feeling feisty today, and my husband being off on vacation with his own father is only fuel for the fire.

Because, for some odd reason, dropping over at Father Jake's reminded me of one of the sorest spots in my life. That my own father didn't want me. Not ever.

As if it wasn't enough that I was never good enough to meet my mother's standards, I never even had a chance at earning my father's approval. My mother told me that, at my birth, she saw his distinct look of disappointment that I was a girl. I wish she'd never told me that. It's haunted me ever since.

When I was nine months old, he left. They divorced (for the second time), and he never took advantage of any of the visitation rights he had. There were a few cards, I believe there was usually a small amount of money as a gift, although I do remember one check bouncing. He only decided to exercise his visitation rights when my mother tried to hit him up for money to help pay for my orthodontal work. A date was set, and I was terrified of the very idea of meeting the father I'd never known. That's one of the times I can actually remember my mother being supportive - I think that was one of the only times she specifically didn't say anything negative about him, in order to help me be less worried.

He never showed.

In fact, we found out later that he moved to another state altogether.

I'm not sure how old I was, but it was likely around first grade, since that's when my orthodontal work started. So maybe 8 years old?

From an 8-year-old perspective, I thought if only he'd seen me then maybe he'd like me after all. But he didn't want me. Not ever.

No father did.

When my mother re-married, her new husband told me he'd adopt me and I would officially be his. I took on the last name as my own for the duration of their marriage, but he never once made any effort to go through with the adoption. Again, I apparently wasn't worth the effort.

And people wonder where my lack of self-esteem comes from? Why I cling so desperately to my own husband, hoping I make him happy enough? The fact that I never feel pretty enough, or smart enough, or tough enough has nothing to do with how he treats me. It's my own terror of the man I love more than life itself suddenly agreeing with all the other men in my life, save one. My "gramps", my mother's father, was the only one who treated me like I was worth something. Not only did he stick by me, he even stuck up for me during the one instance my grandmother actually got seriously angry in my presence. But even he had his limits, and in the end I had to apologize to my grandmother for "upsetting her". I remember my grandfather quietly explaining that I didn't have to be sorry, since I hadn't done anything wrong, but being "sorry that she was upset" would suffice to fix things. I probably would have done anything that man asked me to, just so long as he kept hugging me and looking at me with such love. My grandmother asking me to keep the whole incident "our little secret", however, was what blew the whole thing. It made me uncomfortable, feeling like maybe I had done something wrong, and eventually my mom dragged it out of me and all hell broke loose in the family for a couple of weeks when my mom actually went ballistic on my grandmother - something she never did, for fear of us ending up out on the street with nothing and no one.

My mom may have had her flaws, but she always bent over and took it when my grandmother dished it out, just so I could have a house over my head and a decent school system. I remember once telling her that I'd rather live in the projects and have her happy, but she didn't consider that an option. And her unhappiness never helped the situation. I think she saw most of her life as a series of disappointments. Which often included me.

After I moved out of my mother's house, I made a decision to find out more about the side of my family I'd never known. I got in contact with them, something which happened to get back to my father, whom I'd not been brave enough to try and contact directly. He surprised me at the time, wanting to meet with me at a time when he was going to be in town. So I met with him in a Denny's restaraunt. It seemed to go well. He gave me the impression that night that he had wanted to know me, but had not had the chance.

If someone tried to separate me from my child, I would go through hell and high waters to get to him. He's a part of me. Now that I have a child of my own, I can only find myself even more disappointed in my father's lack of concern for my well-being.

We didn't really have too much contact after that, although I planned a visit with my aunt on his side, who lives in Illinois. The visit with her family seemed to go well, and I had plans to visit my father since I was to attend a wedding in Ohio, not far from where he lived.

My aunt asked me to take a letter to one of my stepbrothers for her. I saw no harm, despite the obvious indications that she and my father didn't get along. I assumed it was a simple letter reminding her nephew that she cared, despite the differences.

Yeah... I know what it means to ass-u-me. I should have opened the letter. I should have said no. But I felt put in a spot, and didn't think she'd actually do anything that would stick me in the middle of a petty family feud. But she did. The letter hit a sore spot all around, although I was correct in my judgement that the boy was mature enough to decide for himself if he wanted to share it with his father (the aunt had asked me not to let my father know, although I weighed that decision all weekend, basing it on the son's maturity instead).

It's strange to think I have brothers, only a state away, who are just as related to me as my sister is, but whom I know next to nothing about. I wonder, sometimes, if they wonder about me at all. I wonder, sometimes, if that side of my family isn't a part of the reason why I write some of the entries in my blogs the way I do, and why I make myself generally so easy to find, making sure my maiden name still stays slightly attached to my married one. It's not just so that friends from school can find me. It's also in case anyone on that side of my family ever starts to give a damn that I exist.

Although my grandfather on that side continued to send me Christmas cards for a long time. I didn't really respond to them, as I never knew what to say. It's not like we had an intimate relationship. He and my father's mother would visit me when I was little, before they moved off to Florida, and then they saw me a couple of times afterwards, when they were in town to visit family. When my grandmother died, my granfather sent me a music box shaped like a bird that she apparently wanted me to have. I still have it. It's in a box in storage at the moment, but I will put it out somewhere once I've found it again. I'm sentimental like that.

I sent my grandfather a copy of our Christmas newsletter last Christmas, also announcing the birth of my son previously that year. But I've gotten no response back. A google search leads me to an e-mail address he left on some web site he visited and left a message on. His current wife left a message too, so I know it's him. But I haven't used it. I've no clue what I'd say. I don't even know if he wants to hear from me. I don't even know if mine is his first great-grandchild or not. Maybe one night I'll get up the courage to google some of my other relations on that side.

After the "letter incident", it was silence. I had gotten a copy of the letter mailed to me, along with my stepbrother's response to it as well as my father's, since he did show it to him. I immediately called my father to let him know my side of it, that I wasn't trying to get involved in it. He seemed to accept my explanation. I also put in a call to him on a father's day. His wife, at least, seemed to think that he'd be thrilled to hear from me, as she answered the phone.

Then there was nothing. I'd made the last call, so the ball was in his court again. But there was only silence.

Finally, I wrote him a letter.

In it, I laid out all the emotions and feelings I'd had bottled up for so very long. I tried to explain, without saying it directly, that I needed him to either be an active part of my life or bow out completely. I told him it was the last time I planned to leave the door open, and myself so vulnerable to letting him in.

The letter he sent me back, which I happened to get on Christmas morning, effectively slammed that door shut. I'd had Brian read the letter for me (this was before we were married), before I sent it, to help me make sure I wasn't being overly emotional or angry. I had intended only to explain how much I'd missed having a father in my life for all the years I'd been growing up. How I'd needed him. How hurt I was because of his absence.

But he saw it as an attack, and responded defensively and angrily, making it plain that he didn't give a damn how I felt about him or the lack of him in my life previously.

When my mother died, I think I effectively became an orphan. My uncle (my mother's brother) gave me away at my wedding. Although I lit a candle during the ceremony for my mother, I didn't give my father any thought that day. I didn't let it spoil my moment. But it still tries to seep in now and again, like today.

Why is my past so filled with people who can't see past their anger? When do I get to be angry about it all, without someone slapping me in the face as a result?

Aren't I worth it? Am I just something to be dragged around and then forgotten?

And, worst off, why do I allow it?

I guess because the general concensus seems to think I'm not worth it.

And, of the two people who do think I am, one of them isn't here right now to tell me, and the other is upstairs presumably sleeping. I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning for another look of adoration from my son to help lift my spirits.

And, I know, I know - It's all part of my experience. And, although I take heart in that thought, I also know that it wouldn't be as complete an experience if I didn't let these feelings manifest themselves. Even my pain is meant to be.

But next life - I totally want a less sucky childhood, okay? Sheesh, all this f---ing baggage that pops up now and again.

Well, my apologies. I used this forum to vent tonight. This is definitely one of my more deeply personal posts. Not what I'd initially intended for tonight, but hey, what are blogs for if you can't vent now and again?

G'night!

Indulging again...

I don't know what it is about Sundays. I didn't go to "Sunday Dinner" tonight, since we got together last night instead, but I'm still sitting here in this odd "quiet" mood that often settles over me on Sunday nights for some reason. I'm not sure what it means exactly. By Sunday, though, I'm usually worn out from Saturday at the very least. I'm just plain worn out altogether tonight. I usually spend all day trying to balance getting stuff done around here with spending time with my son. By the time my husband comes home, I'm ready for a little break while he takes over with Jareth for a while. But right now there's no breaks except for when he's sleeping or content to play alone (usually after breakfast for a while). I haven't been getting anything done these last couple of days, since I think Jareth has realized that it's been a while longer than usual between times when his daddy is home. He's been crabby and needy, and it hasn't helped that yesterday he started breaking out in what is now a full-blown nasty "teething rash" on his poor little bottom, which makes changing diapers a somewhat painful experience for him if he's especially messy.

And we girls ordered stuffed spinach pizza last night.

And he loved it - ate an entire slice (fed to him in little bite-sized morsels of course).

But boy does spinach look nasty when it comes out the other end!!!

This was his first big dose of spinach in the diet too, as I was told not to give it to him during his first year - something about an enzyme in it not being good for infants or something - but he's past that mark so I've given him some of the Gerber raviolis with spinach in them a couple of times now, but haven't cooked anything with it yet. But stuffed spinach pizza is a favorite for both my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law, and I'm pretty fond of it myself, so we indulged and ordered one. I had also picked up some coffee cake for breakfast this morning, and they had strawberries on sale so I picked up a big package of them with some chocolate shell stuff they had. We sort of forgot about them last night, caught up in the movies we rented, so we had some with our breakfast. Maybe not the "breakfast of champions" or anything, but certainly a lot of fun!

Besides, Brian isn't big on strawberries, so I rarely bother buying them just for myself. But I had people to share them with! I cut one up for Jareth too, and he seemed to like it better than the coffee cake! Which is wonderful, and I'll cut him up another tomorrow with his breakfast cereal since I have some left. If I play my cards right, Jareth might just enjoy fruits for dessert far more frequently than any cookies or other junk foods. Although I want to make sure he does get some junk food if he wants it now and again - there were a lot of things my mom wouldn't let me have growing up that I seriously over-indulged in when I first moved out on my own. And junk food might well be the top of that list. Right up there with a social life. Heh.

Jareth astounded us all by drinking heavily from a cup yesterday evening. He wasn't holding it himself yet or anything, although I think we're getting much, much closer to him feeding himself, but he usually turns his head away and hardly sips at all if you can even get the sippy-cup top into his mouth. Last night he just started chugging away at it halfway through dinner, drinking half of a cup of water. He's still doing it today, so I'll be getting more water into him finally.

Other than that, quiet day. I've gotten about 1/3rd of the way through my first reading of Brian's first draft, and ordered him a little something for a father's day gift. He ran out of room for his book to be on floppy disk, since he does a lot of his writing during his lunch hour at work each day and brings it back and forth on disk. He mentioned wanting one of those USB memory stick thingies that he can use instead, so I ordered one a little bit ago after doing some price comparisons. He'd suggested that he wanted it for his birthday, but I think he should have it now anyway, so I'm making it a combo Father's Day/Congrats on finishing the draft gift, since it was more expensive than our customary Mother's/Father's Day gifts. I just hope it arrives before he gets back next Sunday. It should, but if not I'll just tell him it's coming, since he'll read about it here anyway... LOL.

Anyway, I'm off to start the second cycle of washing on the weekly diaper load in my washing machine before I kibbitz around until I can toss them in the dryer. Then I'm off to bed. It's not like they'll wrinkle if I leave them in the dryer, but then I know they're clean if there's a diaper emergency... We still have a few clean ones up on the table though.

Although I'd bet a freshly dried, still-warm diaper would feel neat to him... Hmmm. It's still so cool showing him new sights and sounds and sensations. I don't remember if I mentioned it, but on Friday he noticed a plane crossing the sky above him and watched it go overhead with a wide open mouth and that "wow" expression he gets when he experiences something new. Although the overall winner in the category still seems to be ceiling fans. He absolutely loves to watch ceiling fans, and seems to look for them everywhere we go! LOL!

G'night!

Awwww...

Not going to say much tonight, but didn't really want to break my blogging streak, so I'm going to drop in a pic of my husband and son just after my son was born - we were still in the hospital even:

I'm still pining away for him, but I'm all distracted tonight by "girls night" here at my place. We've rented some movies, made some light froo-froo drinks to sip at and we're kicking back. So I'm off to see the next flick, we'll see if my mother-in-law can stay awake for it or not, it's past her usual bedtime!

G'night!

By my lonesome self...

Well, I've survived the first day without seeing or talking to my husband in a really, really long time.

I've decided that mornings are the easy part. He's up before me and I'm usually so out of it when he heads off for work that I have trouble recalling his hug and kiss he usually gives me before he leaves. Some mornings I do. In the past, there were some mornings that he said it as I was finally heading to bed. But staying up that late just won't do now that I'm a mommy.

So getting through the morning was pretty simple. I stayed up way too late last night, so I blew off getting up at the 8 am alarm, resetting it for 9 am. And at 9 am I decided to bump it up to 10 am. I did get up at 10 though, and threw on some clothes and got my son up. So, at least he was up on schedule, so my guilt on that count was averted for the day. I also blew off exercising, although I did do it yesterday, and plan to continue. Most exercise programs call for 20 minutes three times per week, so if I miss one day here and there I don't see it as a big issue. Especially since I do about 20 minutes of the tai chi and then usually follow it up with some time on our exercise machine. Mostly rowing, since the tai chi is great on the muscles, but not very aerobic.

I kept having moments throughout the day, though, where I would remember that Brian isn't coming home this evening. I think Jareth is a little concerned too, as he was especially quick to cry if something didn't go his way today. I think tomorrow evening will help both of us some though - my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are coming over. While the "menfolk" are away, we girls are going to have a sleepover. We're going to order pizza and rent a "chick flick" or two and then pop open some wine coolers. Brian has also left me alone with two containers of vanilla ice cream, so I foresee the potential for some very yummy milkshakes as well.

I think the hardest part though, was actually last night. I crawled into an empty bed. Although it was kind of cool to flip on the light to get undressed, instead of my usual toe-stubbing methods of bumbling about in the darkness, it just wasn't the same crawling into my side of the bed and not hearing him stir a little from it. Usually when I come to bed, it seems to jostle him just enough that he tends to turn over from one side to the other, and then settle in again.

I remember one instance, when we were first living together, where he had to go somewhere for the night and I missed him, so I snuggled up with his robe.

But it's not the same when you can't smell the subtleness of him in the fabric.

*sigh*

I'm pining for him. I bought a father's day card for him from me today, and I'm afraid it's going to be a sappy one. I nearly cried reading some of them at the store.

Maybe "chick flicks" isn't the best category to pick from? They are usually romances. Sheesh.

Oh, well. Enough of this - I've got a manilla folder with Brian's first draft in it, calling me, and finally have some quiet time to dig into it.

G'night!

Now that the cat's away...

Well, Brian is gone. He's packed up his stuff, loaded the car, gotten in a nice long quickie spent some snuggle time with me, eaten dinner, played with Jareth, and even managed to squeeze in a little time for some computer game "carnage" (sometimes it's just soothing to pound evil demons into dust after a hard day!). I've been totally torn - half of me being entirely emotional and irrational, screaming inside my head saying "NO!!! Don't let him GO!!! TEN WHOLE DAYS???", and the more rational and yet also emotional side of me saying "Oh shush you! He deserves a vacation, he'll have a great time, he's with his dad, and ten days isn't an eternity you know."

Nonetheless, no matter how hard I tried to just be excited for him, I still got a little damp in the eyes during that last "group hug" where he squished Jareth and I in his arms and reminded us how much he loves us both.

And not just because it was one of those sweet, sappy moments that one might get misty-eyed over, but instead I was selfishly thinking how I wasn't going to have any more of those moments for ten days.

I mean, we don't go a single day without saying "I love you" at least once. We still act like newlyweds half the time for crying out loud.

All I kept telling him was "You had so better have a good time. I'm not going ten days without you so you can stay all stressed! Have fun, damnit!"

The funny part is, I still think my father-in-law was surprised that Brian was able to go. I think he thought I wouldn't let him or something. But Brian makes up his own mind, I don't "own" him. Although I probably could have fanagled my way around it when it was first mentioned and I'm sure he wouldn't have gone. But I wouldn't do that to him, especially when I saw how excited he was at the prospect of going. He and his dad have been out of synch for a while, but when Jareth arrived they suddenly had something new in common - both being fathers. It's like Brian rose in the ranks to a new "league" of men or something. LOL. And now they've been starting to bond again. It's very cool.

Anyway, it's Jareth's bed time, so I'm going to go do all the "mommy things" I do when he goes to bed, and hopefully not forget to include all the "daddy things" too. Brian usually does the last changing and brushes his teeth, and then I come upstairs and we tuck him in. Brian always winds the mobile over his crib too.

*sniffle*

Then I think I'll blow sh*t up for a while. After some ice cream. Yeah.

G'night!

Hunger, Clocks, Pie Charts, and Giggles...

First off, in my internet travels today I came across a cool web site. Gear That Gives, is a site where they are apparently making use of buying wholesale + internet selling to raise funds for five different causes: hunger, child health, breast cancer, animal rescue, and the rainforest. Cool idea, actually. And they have stuff in the "handmade & fair trade" section that I'd love to have - some of the Shona statues are wonderful! Like most organizations, they are probably only benefitting a certain group, but it's still a clever way to raise non-for-profit funding. I will most likely do some shopping there, at the very least around Christmastime. Thanks to Father Jake for sending me over in that direction off of his weblog.

In other news, I had another therapy session tonight. I did add a couple of entries to my list, but they weren't solid. Sometimes my stubborness and my dependability/reliability can be assets, but they both bring about some nastiness as well. I also made up a "schedule" of my day, using the patterns from a "good" day instead of a lousy "I woke up late" day like today was. After some consideration, we've decided to start me on some new "patterning". Do I get cookies? No. Apparently we're past the treat stage in Pavlov's theory, and moving directly into the purely "ringing bell" stage. For some odd reason, I'm not drooling...

Oh, and I'm supposed to exercise right after getting up! ACK !!!!

I'm not good for anything right after I get up! Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Until I've sucked down at least one Diet Mountain Dew or some decent coffee, I qualify for the zombie category.

And now, I'm supposed to hop out of bed and turn off the alarm (which she told me to move across the room. At least my husband moved his too.), turn it back on again (no excuse that the "alarm didn't go off" the next morning - damn!), and then cheerfully head downstairs and exercise.

Okay, she didn't say I had to do it cheerfully. The very idea of me doing anything cheerfully before 10 am is foreign to me.

*grumble, grumble, grumble*

Nevermind that it was my stupid idea to get up at a reasonable hour in the morning in the first place. Silly me, going and telling my therapist what I'd really like in life... what was I thinking!!!

So, tomorrow morning I should actually be "awake" a good couple hours before my son gets up. On purpose. As part of a starting ritual. Eww.

Nevermind that I've been trying to work on this stupid "waking up earlier" thing for a long, long time now. But I think I'm calmer than I used to be. The last time I tried putting the clock across the room, I think I had to replace the clock. One morning it went off and I was half asleep and couldn't find it. Once I finally found the darn thing - I flung it. That was a bad day. Usually I would just try answering the phone instead, and wonder why it kept making that odd "ringing" noise once I'd picked it up...

I'm also supposed to do some comparisons on where my time goes each day now, and where I'd rather it be going. That ought to be interesting. She wants pie charts. I can do pie charts. What I can't do, is time management. I actually really suck at anything organizational the moment it gets personal. If it's an office - I can organize it. If it's my life - it's in piles on the floor.

Of course, if money wasn't an issue, I imagine my daily routine would start something like this:

8:00 am Wake up to the sounds of my computer being booted up for me, the housekeeper gently calling my name as she sets out a comfortable outfit for me to change into for breakfast, and the smells of Pierre's cooking wafting up the stairs...

Poop. I haven't even gotten to eat my breakfast yet and I'd already be bankrupt from paying the hired help. We hadn't even gotten to the "pool boy" yet...

Ah, well. Until I magically win that lottery I never buy tickets for, I guess I'll just make do with what I've got.

Which reminds me - when we say "giggle, giggle, giggle" to our son, he sometimes responds with a close approximation - "giggle, gurgle, google, giggle". It is so adorable!!! The tricky part is going to be getting a sound file of it. I've got some cute ones of him from several months ago, but I need a new one - he sounds different now. Eventually I'll just burn them to CD - Jareth's Greatest Hits, Vol. I.

Then I'll pop it into the player when he's older and has a girlfriend over.

*wicked grin*

G'night!

Pass the stupid chicken soup, will ya?

I think I have discovered the source of the headache that started the day before yesterday, drifted in and out with aspirin, only to keep returning. I'm pretty sure I have an ear infection. Which means a doctor trip. And I hate, loathe, and abhor redundancy doctor trips.

*grumble, grumble, grumble*

Not only that, but tonight my husband's pre-vacation schedule lightened up suddenly, so he was able to spend some "family time" instead of some other stuff he'd expected to have to attend and do. And I've been wanting to... um... you know... give him a "send-off". Or maybe I just wanted a little something to "remember him by" while he's gone, if you know what I mean.

And if you don't, go ask your mother. 'Cause I'm not gonna be the one to explain it to you.

But I feel awful! Even with the aspirin in effect I feel some headache, and any time I move my head it hurts just below the ears. And, actually, it just generally aches there even when I don't move my head. At least my ears themselves aren't in pain. Yet.

My left ear has it worse. It always does. I have some small problem with air flow in that ear. I saw a specialist when I was young, and it was determined that I didn't need tubes if I "popped" my ear occasionally to help encourage the air flow. The trick is, whenever I have an ear infection in that ear - it hurts. I remember one instance in high school when I was in horrible pain and crying, due to it. I also remember that my mother didn't believe me, but that's another ball of meltable ear wax for me to deal with. When your own mother has stood in the emergency room of a hospital and declared the suicide attempt you just had to be both "made-up" and "a ploy for attention", you kind of stop caring so much about the times she didn't believe you had a cold...

You know what? I may not be in the best of moods right now... hmm...

I think this headache is going to my... well, my head.

I'm sick and pms-ing. Tomorrow night's therapy session ought to be a doozer.

And, two days from now my husband will have left already for his folks' house and the beginning of his vacation.

*sigh*

I so had better be able to get a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Seriously. I don't need "sick" right now. Pffft!! Poopy!! *Pout!!*

Okay. I'm done now.

G'night!

Ribbon!!!

I'm tired out. Apparently there's a lot of work involved in getting my husband ready to go on vacation... Not to mention he's got my car tomorrow while his is getting all it's maintenance done.

The countdown continues... He'll be leaving here Thursday night, to crash at his folks' place, then he and his dad head out to join up with the rest of the group that's going early the following morning. With the way this week is scheduled, I'll almost be relieved when he's heading out the door...

Nah. Who am I kidding? Anyone?

Nope. didn't think so.

And, in case it wasn't a screwed up enough week, his job is sending him out of town all day on Wednesday. The first time they need to fly him somewhere and it's on the second to last day of work before his vacation? Oy... So he's got a super long day that day, flying there and back again on the same day. Fortunately it's not actually a long flight, but it's the hassle involved that is poorly timed. I suppose it will make him appreciate the vacation that much more though. Heh.

Poop. Enough idle chatter from me tonight. More gratuitous Jareth pics...

That was from his birthday. He was more interested in the gold ribbon on his packages than half the items inside him. How typical. Yep, he's a kid.

G'night!

Go! Aspirin! Go!!!

So, without Quick Shtick Writing entries to be done in the morning right now, I completely forgot about getting my To Our Children's Children post done. I put it up just a little while ago instead. I suppose at least I did get it done on the right day though, but I usually do it much earlier.

The real irony is that it was a question about how I kept cool during the summer while growing up, and I'm sitting here with a small headache from being in and out of the heat today. Brian's folks don't have central air, and I do. So their house was warmer to me than usual, as well as getting into the hot car and then having the car air on too... The in-out-in-out of it all sometimes starts pounding on my head. I just broke down and took a couple of aspirin - hopefully they'll kick in soon so I can go to bed. I can't sleep if my head is pounding or splitting - those headaches I just like to lay down with something cold wrapped around my head until it goes away. I'm almost at that point, but not quite. Go aspirin, Go!

Poop. I just had to go back and fix my spelling. It's not "asprin", no matter how it might sound. I know it's not spelled that way. I think I have it right now, but I'm feeling too lazy to pop on over to dictionary.com to double check it. And even too lazy to sit up and grab one of the two dictionaries on my desk. I own something like six dictionaries - you'd think I'd know how to spell. Although most of my spelling mistakes are usually typos. I frequently just change to a different word if I'm not sure of the spelling of some big-assed word that sounds too flowery anyway. Like superfluous. That might be spelled (or is it spelt) right, I'm not sure. Amazingly enough, that word came up in conversation at dinner with the family tonight. The things we talk about sometimes! LOL!

Bah, I have more to say, about dreams and stuff and how hard it is to have a conversation with two different versions of your husband at the same time - one with the one in your dream, and on with the real one who's trying to wake you up... I kept wondering why he didn't know what the heck I was talking about when I'd wake up and try to continue the conversation we were having. And the "dream Brian" had done the dishes, but the real one hadn't... poop. There's probably a whole psychological "thing" to all of that, but...

Not tonight, readers... I have a headache!

Mwahahah... ow.

I'm going to go do something computer-game like that doesn't require any real "thought" for a little bit while the aspirin kicks in.

G'night!

Wrapping Up Loose Shticks...

Well, the first story is finished on Quick Shtick Writing. The only thing left is to name it, so I asked for submissions from our readers. We'll see what comes up. Now we're putting that on "low simmer" until Brian comes back from vacation on the 27th, and starting up a new story on the 28th. He's apparently already got some ideas on the first bit for the next one, so I've no clue wh