Stationary Unicycle

My husband is sewing a giant pillow like thing to tuck next to the bottom of the front door to keep the draft out. He is using some of the left over red felt from Halloween costumes and some of the kids out-grown t-shirts as stuffing. He and my son sit together on the couch, my son is sewing up the end of the pillow while my husband gives him gentle pointers and encouragement. My husband is much better at sewing than I am. My husband knows actual stitches, their official names as well as their proper execution. Glad he's around to teach the kids this stuff. I've been scuffing around today in my pj's and my husband's old grey plaid robe all day. I've got grey baggy circles under my eyes that coordinate nicely with the robe. I'm feeling a bit run down and am so grateful that I can spend the day inside, puttering around, chatting with the family, making soup with the Thanksgiving leftovers, taking it easy. I'm grateful that my husband ran errands for m...

Earlier today, my husband and I helped out my mom, We gave the kids a lot of space to do the stuff they like to do without nagging them. Later in the day the four of us played a board game, we ate a big dinner, and my husband made the kids awesome red felt squid hats. I'd explain but I have other stuff to do. Suffice it to say, we're content, the kids are adorable, and my husband is cool for sewing hats. Right now I'm wedged on the couch with my daughter, a cat, the dog, and my husband. My son sits close by. We're watching Man vs Wild.  Man is doing crazy shit. He's eating a spider and drinking his own urine. Oh dear. But the beyond the content of the program we're watching, the thing is, we're watching the show together. And we're not the kind of family to just watch quietly; we add commentary and say silly things, and it's a fun way to be funny and smart together. Today's blog post is going to be short so I can go back to being with t...

It's been a great Thanksgiving. We managed with the help of a good friend to get my mom into the house. She can't walk well so it was tricky getting her up the stairs, but it worked out. The house was clean enough, the kids were good enough, the food was plentiful. I made good gravy, the turkey wasn't dry. No arguments or vomiting happened. Some of my favorite people in the world were able to sit at the same table and it was a successful day. So, I write this tonight from the cozy recliner in the corner, feet up. The dog is sprawled across the couch sleeping, my son is quietly playing a game, my husband sits at the table gluing pictures in his collage book, my daughter is sitting at the table next to him, playing with beads, they're talking about books. A Pogues cd is playing in the background. The dishes are mostly done, and I'm not thinking about Christmas. I'm just going to sit in this warm moment, be in this safe place, enjoy the quiet. Very thankf...

Yesterday my mom set off her Life Alert alarm by accident. The Life Alert dude was alerted and called my mom to see if she was okay or if it was a false alarm. My mom didn't answer the phone. Life Alert dude called my sister to see if she thought he should call an ambulance. She wasn't sure. My sister called me to see if I thought she should tell Life Alert dude to call an ambulance. I had tried to call Mom a few minutes before all this and thought it was weird she didn't answer the phone so when my sis asked if she should give Life Alert dude a green light on the ambulance calling, I said, Yes, tell the dude to call an ambulance. I was worried and scared. I was so worried and scared I appeared to be completely calm. I'm never calm. When I appear calm, you know bad shit is happening. I couldn't leave my house to go to my mom's to see what the hell was happening, I felt completely useless. So I waited and finished cooking dinner and exuded an air of calm wh...

I used the self cleaning feature on the oven the other day. Self cleaning is sort of a funny term for what amounts to cremating the earthly remains of the lasagne and the pies that cooked over and ran all over the bottom of the oven at temps rivaling the fiery pits of Hell.   You lock the oven door, you set it to "clean" and it gets very fucking hot. A couple of hours later your kitchen is a tropical vacation destination, the house is full of toxic smoke, making it a polluted tropical vacation destination, and you have a very messy looking ashy mess in your oven. While way better than spray on oven cleaners, the self cleaning method has problems. For instance, the smoke and ash. I also worry about my oven bursting into flame. I worry that a flaming self cleaning oven would turn my entire house into a flaming self cleaning house. Which would be bad. Anyway. Thanksgiving is a high impact cooking holiday and it heralds the start of the holiday baking season as well, so I...

I'll be thankful when November is over and I won't need to blog every day. Although I might sign on for December, because despite the fact that blogging is starting to feel masturbatory and not in a good way, at least I'm doing something. But if  blog-sturbating in public is the measure of my productivity, perhaps it's time for me to reassess. Hey. Look. I made up a new word. Blog-sturbation, blog-sturbating. I'm fucking Shakespeare.  Now I'm laughing at my own jokes. I immediately feel that deep shame that comes with any sinful activity. Tsk tsk. 

1)    You and your partner have a shared history so you can have conversations that make no sense to anyone else: "You remember that time when..." (perform odd hand gesture and make whistling noises) "Of course I do!" You know they know exactly what you're talking about.  2)    Your partner remembers who you really are. You may not look like your younger self to anyone else, but to each other, you're the same.  3)    Chances are you are not going to grow old alone. 4)    Your partner knows what your weaknesses are and can jump in and give you a hand when you need it. 5)    They know what your strengths are and they aren't threatened, they think it's cool that you are awesome. 6)    Farting, belching, scratching, morning breath, it's okay. 7)    You will never have to recount all the horror stories of your youth to another romantic partner. I mean, damn, that's tedious.  8...

Well, I'm not going to wait until 11:30 tonight to write today's blog post. Waiting until 11:30 last evening didn't really work out well for me, but yesterday was sort of a bad day, maybe the worst day in a short series of successive suck days in a row, so I'm letting it be okay. I'm thinking about all the stuff that needs to be done before Thanksgiving. 1) clean oven Hey wait, do I really need to clean the oven? Perhaps the smoldering black residue in the oven will impart a nice smoky flavor to the turkey. It sounds fucking gourmet.  Screw oven cleaning then. I'm going to cross that off the list and add smoked fucking gourmet turkey to the menu.  New #1)  clean out fridge I really have to do that because the inside of my fridge is a horror show of errant dog hairs, pinkish congealed tacky spills, and other scary shit. People not part of my immediate family may be opening my fridge this Thanksgiving, people I admire, so I must clean th...

I'm consciously trying to keep depression at arms length. This is not easy. I've been trying to put myself back together. This is not easy either, but it's necessary if I want to keep the depression away. Being raised in a home with a sadistic narcissistic parent has damaged me. As a child, I had to fracture my self to adapt to the crazy crap at home and while this kept me from feeling the bad stuff while it was happening, long term effects, not good. My spouse endured much of the same crap I did when he was growing up. The fact that we both are still alive, that we are not bitter mean stunted people, and that we've managed to be good parents to awesome kids despite everything, is evidence that we're fucking awesome. While I've just about knitted my fractured self together for the first time since I was 3 years old, everything isn't all better. I'm not better. I mean, I'm better than I was, but there is still work I need to do, and every da...

It's getting late.  I'm fighting the urge to bang my head against hard things.  I've written and abandoned several little essays.  Nobody cares.  Plus, I have messes to clean.  I would like to write about the amber necklace. I would like to write about the new shoes. I would settle for writing about today's visit with my mother. I would settle for an essay about my daughter's Spanish homework. I would even be okay with writing about cleaning houses. But nope. It's not going to happen. It's all about the scurrying around and never getting anything completely done.  Piles of dirty laundry to be washed, piles of clean laundry to be folded, piles of dishes, but Jesus Christ, I haven't I been doing laundry and washing dishes all fucking day?! How can there still be laundry and dishes?! HOW?! The relentless drudgery is eroding my soul. Okay, that's a bit over the top.  No. No it's not over th...

Other people need me. Right now. I can sit here quietly and stare at the wall all evening and be completely ignored but the moment I make for the laptop to try to write a blog entry, I'm 100% in demand. The pulse in my ears is almost as loud as the conversation that the kids are having. The dog is licking the floor, don't know why, and the noise is driving me toward insanity. I have had a headache for two days now. But hey. That's okay. The scene: The dining room table, again, always. The time: 7 in the evening. It's completely dark outside, the light inside has a yellowish glare, it must be my headache. My son is to my left, working on his 5th grade math, stem and leaf graphs, and I have no idea what that means. My daughter is sitting to my right making a paper celestial sphere model which resembles a paper lantern and has become her obsession as she tapes and re-tapes and trims and offers a running commentary on it all. The boy asks math questions that...

Real life, you are a fucker-upper. That's okay. Relinquishing my grip on the fantasy of being able to plan ahead, finding immediate relief of self imposed angst and worry. From last night my today plans went like this: 1)  rise and shine at 5 a.m. because I go to bed at a decent hour 2)  raise children from their slumber with a warm smile and kind words 3)  prepare healthy foods 4)  bid both my children happiness and success and send them off to school 5)  shower 6)  visit Mom at nursing home at 9 am 7)  go to Mom's apartment and clean up in preparation for her going being discharged from nursing home tomorrow 8)  go to grocery store for Mom 9)  return to Mom's apartment with her food 10) go to my therapist at 11 11) go back to nursing home with stuff Mom needs for tomorrow 12) go home and clean up my own crap 13) Welcome my eldest child home at 2:15 14) do the all the other stuff and usual homework dinner routine...etc ...

 Telling regret to fuck off is the hardest thing I've ever done. Coming in a close second was the time I put a dust ruffle on a king size bed by myself.  No easy task, let me tell you. But still king size bed solo dust ruffle installation, slightly easier than telling regret to fuck off. My life was all about the regret. I felt every choice I made was the wrong choice. Making choices was painful no matter how inconsequential the subject. Just choosing the "right" word during a conversation was enough to make me want to weep. So much pressure. Every exchange became painful. Talking to the cashier at the grocery store? Painful. I might say the wrong thing. Chit chat at a public gathering? Oh please, you obviously want me dead. Everyday decisions were agonizing. What's for dinner? OH MY GOD!? How could you ask such a question?! We could have spaghetti but so many carbs! We're all going to die! What kind of soap to buy for the kids? The cheap stuff...

I am pressed for time this evening. Weekends are pretty full and there isn't much time for me to do the bloggy thing. When I am finally able to sit still and think about stuff, I find myself sitting in the same old place -- dining room table facing the kitchen, thinking about the same old stuff -- kids, housework, elderly parent.  Tonight I'm multitasking. My son is working on homework while I sit here trying to keep my promise to blog everyday. Every other word I write is interrupted by a question or a comment from my boy. Sometimes these interruptions are ordinary and expected. How do you spell ____? How do you spell _____? Or, how do you spell ____? Okay, we're not awesome spellers. Most of the questions are spelling related and that's cool because I can spell most 5th grade words. Also I have access to online dictionaries which makes me seem like a smarter lady than I am in real life. That's cool.  If the questions are math related, my son is out...

What follows is a rather choppy account of my personal philosophy. It informs how I parent and how I do other stuff, too. Kids need unconditional love. They need  to be cherished. If children are cherished and respected at home when they are small, they won't exploit others trying to create a world that will fulfill their unmet childhood needs when they are grown. It's okay to teach kids that they are special as long as you also let them know that everyone is special. We each possess unique qualities that make us indispensable to the greater world. You have gifts, talents, and strengths. Everyone does. You are special. Everyone is. No one has to be perfect to be deserving. This is good because perfect is impossible. No one is more special. The specialness of others doesn't diminish what is special about you. It's all good.  We can admire our own abilities without becoming arrogant snots because we acknowledge that others have admirable traits too. We feel comforta...

As a mother I have dealt with so many fearful disgusting messes, I've developed an immunity to gross. In my younger years touching nasty stuff would send me yipping and hopping and shaking my hands around like some sort of weird yipping hopping hand shaking weird person. But since I got the Motherhood, overreacting to gross shit is a thing of the past! When my son was a baby he was a wild little guy. In order to make dinner and keep him alive I had to strap him to my back in a baby backpack. He'd quickly get bored sitting up there with nothing death defying to do, and so in an effort to amuse himself, he'd grab handfuls of my hair in his adorable sticky baby fists and pull back with all his might causing my head to jerk back suddenly; whiplash! Fun! This was not a fun game for me. One evening while attempting to make food for dinner with my energetic son on my back, out of desperation and in a misguided attempt at self preservation, I gave him a wooden spoon play ...

Well, it's day 14 of the blog every day daily blogging challenge. Whew! I've been feeling anxious for a few days. That's okay because I have an all natural anxiety treatment: I call it the "eat everything in the house with special emphasis on foods high in fat, sugar, and salt, while writing snarky things on the internet" anxiety treatment plan. You can't get this kind of relief from a pill. Surcease of symptoms is short lived so one must administer the treatment hourly to achieve optimal results. Side effects may include headache, bloating, and loss of friends but it's totally worth it. It used to be I'd sit down at my typewriter with a pack of smokes and a pot of coffee and write like a crazed crazy person for hours. I was smoking like a toxic fume spewing chimney while plumbing the depths of my anguish and it was cathartic. But that was years ago. I'm much more careful with my health now. These days I'm hunkering down with my l...

So, I've been thinking about that unabashed orgy of American Corporate Greed and the Pavlovian Consumerist Response. You know, Black Friday. Let's just skip ahead in time, shall we? (Cue magic wand waving sounds now) Happy Thanksgiving! We're all high on tryptophan, feeling content and gassy, picking our teeth with the wishbone. We're thinking about the generous Pilgrims and their BFFs the helpful happy Indians. We push ourselves away from the table and the remains of our obscenely huge meal. We finish lecturing our kids about how they should count their blessings, that it's better to give than to receive, and that we should all remember the reason for the upcoming Christmas season. What was that reason again? No time for that silly shit now, it's almost 6 pm and FU-Mart will be opening soon! Grab your hat and bolt for the door. Stand back, Black Friday, make way for Black Thursday! Actually, if you want to get a good spot in line before the door...

Just for fun I checked out the Blogher daily blog writing prompt for today and I thought, hey. Okay. But why would anyone want to read about 5 things in my fridge and what I think of them? I don't really know.  Here we go then: Five things in my fridge and what I think of them: 1. Hot sauce. Sriracha, to be more precise. Two bottles, because I'd cry real tears if I ran out. I've loved Sriracha for a long time because it's delicious, not because I'm trendy. The very thought that I would obsess and adore a condiment and slather it liberally on everything I eat so people will think I'm hip and cool is STOO-PID. How the fuck many people watch me eat my meals? Not counting the dog, most days it's a grand total of two people, both under the age of 16, who will always think I'm uncool by default because they're my kids. If you count the dog among those who see me eat on a daily basis, it's still only two people, because he's a dog.  2. Sitt...

It was painful to leave yesterday's post up for the shear suckage of it, but a promise to blog every day is a promise and by 8:30 last night I didn't have much left. I adore my kids, they are my life, every moment with them is a blessing if not a joy. It's not like they are purposely sucking my will to live from my soul. There are very few things as critical as a teen aged daughter, unless of course it's an elderly mother. I have both. I am lucky to have these two women in my life. But really, sometimes it's enough to make me want to dye my hair, change my name, and skip town. It's okay, though it's usually more okay when I can remain mindful that their criticism of me intensifies with their own anxieties and self doubt. Yesterday must have been fraught for both of them, either that or I had a Kick Me sign on my forehead. My other kid is a lovely individual and not critical and is more demonstrably affectionate and loving. This other child has a kind...

The story is here, it starts now. Everything is the story. Home at the table, with the dark and the light. This is the story. It's night though not as late as it feels. The children, one laughing, one singing, are the story; the shaggy black dog sleeping on the couch his long face partially obscured by the puffy white tale of the cat who sleeps curled against him are the story too. There are dishes in the sink as always, dinner dishes, white bowls filmed with brown gravy and small blue green plates. Unfinished projects left scattered on the dining room table; paint and glue, saw dust, a drill, a flat wooden heart riddled with small and bigger holes, an unfinished glass of milk, an unfinished cup of tea, a bottle of honey, salt and pepper shakers, an unfinished cup of coffee and a glass of soda with an orange straw. A pile of freshly washed and folded blankets drape over the back of the arm chair, a pile of neatly folded jeans and a pile of neatly folded black shirts wait in...

I'm sitting contentedly across the table from my husband and son. They're shuffling through boxes of wooden doodads and thingamagigs with art on their minds. It's Saturday night, it feels late but it's not. Outside, November has finally realized it's late autumn and is acting appropriately cold and dark. The lights inside seem bright and seem to cast a golden spell, making me feel like I'm looking at this moment as a memory and I'm really somewhere else and much older remembering a perfect guilded moment. It's nice to sit here and look at their faces. They have nice faces. My boy attempts to put some pieces together and my husband watches. My son has plans, my husband follows his lead. They are making a little person. The little person needs a sword. The boy works a small length of wooden dowel into the body of the little person. My husband digs through the assortment of wooden parts and finds a suitable sword. Son is using a thin fine bit from a d...

I have a HUGE zit and also today is my husband's day off. The first bit, the zit part, that has nothing to do with Friday, it's just a HUGE zit prominently displayed prominently in the middle of my face. It could be Tuesday for all this HUGE zit knows. Anyhow, I'd hoped that perhaps my guy and I could spend a nice day together, maybe go out for lunch, but Brad works nights and he hasn't been getting enough sleep lately and I knew when he dragged himself in after driving the kids to school at 8:30 this morning that he needed to sleep or he was going to die. Okay, that's hyperbole. But really, the sight of him swaying in the doorway with his eyes closed, looking paler than his usual shade of pale, mouth agape, startled me. "Sohhh honey," he slurred, "wha da ya wanna do today?" And then I swear to God, the man started to snore. "I want you to live and not die from some sleep deficit induced death syndrome," and I sent the guy to bed....

So our lives are filled with the profound and the mundane all mixed together. It's odd trying to fully experience the sysmic shifts and life altering moments and still get the dishes washed and dinner cooked. Perhaps it's good though, that we have these concrete tasks to keep us grounded. Otherwise we'd be transfixed and drooling staring into the depths of God's Navel and we'd never get dinner on the table. My partner in life is at work, he works nights and that means I'm solo parent with the kids in the evenings. I'm dinner cook, dish washer, laundry doer, homework helper, homework cheerleader, homework harpy, homework proofreader, child therapist, resident comedian, medic and so on. Tonight much of my energy has been spent t helping a child process his feelings after finishing Where the Red Fern Grows . Oh why oh why does the dog ALWAYS have to DIE in children's literature? Why? I've been listening intently to my teen daughter, waiting for th...

Life is good, life is great. Yesterday's blog post is dated Nov. 4, but to be clear, that's an error and I'm still on track with the blog everyday thing. Just wanted to say that. So, yeah, today's been a day and work happened, appointments happened, cooking housework laundry happened. And here it is dinner time and the kids are needing me which is nice, but blogging is going to have to take a back seat to living. But a quick story before I go, (spaghetti is burning on the stove, this is an exercise in brevity) Today my boy had french toast with jelly for breakfast, yeah, I made that, I rock, I know, and I let the boy do his own jelly thing, and that's good too. After seeing sweet boy out the door I got myself ready for my jobityjob and headed out the door myself. In the car I noticed a daub of raspberry jelly on my arm, and thought about my cute boy who loves his raspberry jelly. I got to my job, pulled the jobityjob site key out of my purse and noticed ...

This thing happens, maybe when you're too young to know all the necessary words and the people who should be help you, build you up and adore you, are so busy protecting themselves they don't notice or don't care when bad things happen to you. You have a will that is as much a part of you as your face. Some people don't like this about you. They find ways to humiliate and hurt it out of you. Just because they are supposed to love doesn't mean they do. You forget who you are. You're young enough that you don't remember a time before forgetting. When you look into the mirror you don't see your own face. Everyone thinks you have a nice normal family. Aren't you lucky? The words directed toward you are sharp. You are expected to memorize, internalize, and reflect the following:  you are ugly, bad, stupid, fat, lazy, wrong, annoying, weird, inferior, clumsy, disorganized, broken. You can't do anything right, can you? If something is wrong, it...

I just wrote a thing that left my arms numb and triggered heart palpitations. I dragged it out of the unspeakable depths. It was all kinds of cathartic. It felt profound. I don't need to read it or revise it. The numb arms and fast heart are all the proof I need; what I wrote today is crap. Or tripe. Maybe more like a crap-tripe casserole. It's my humanity on virtual paper, it's my very f***ing soul translated into language. Served up for the masses this essential essence-y essence of my very humanity undergoes a stunning transubstantiation  and becomes what? You guessed it, a boiled bovine stomach and fecal matter melange. It squeaks when chewed. I don't recommend it. It's just that bad. So today's blog post is a bit of a let down for me. Oh well. On the other hand I did write for several hours and it was all right. I have to remember that some days the output is pleasing and sometimes it sucks. That's normal. In the meantime, let's ta...

It's Sunday morning. Thanks to Day Light Savings Time either starting or ending, I always forget which, we have been granted an extra hour, an extra Sunday morning hour, which is a beautiful thing. At some point my spouse wanders into the sunny room where I am sitting with my coffee. He sits down next to me reaches out for my small cold hand, holds it firmly in his large warm hand, looks me in the eye and asks me what my plans are for the day. I haven't made any but I imagine how nice it would be to take a walk with my guy. It's unseasonably warm, the sky is a crazy autumn blue, there are piles of leaves to kick through. I get a bit nostalgic for those Sunday mornings when I was younger, before kids, when Sunday mornings could be about cuddling with my man without fear of being besieged by children with big eyes and embarrassing questions. I start to fantasize about my perfect Sunday. I let my mind wander for a moment. I imagine a scene of unspeakable debauchery an...

The point is just to keep writing the blog every day, put it out there, stay active, and some days content will have to take a backseat. Days like today when I've been running around like a goober, doing stuff for my sick elderly mom, doing stuff for the kids, making phone calls, arranging work, cleaning the house and trying to reconnect with my long suffering spouse. I'd taken a long vacation from the blog a while ago. People stopped reading, children were in crisis, my marriage was floundering, my mother was ailing, I was heading into depression and there just didn't seem to be a reason to keep the bloggy going. I  recently made a promise with a pal, and I'll give this a go for the month of  November, but days like today, there isn't the time to delve into anything interesting. The kids are as cute as always but there's nothing I care to relate, no, "hey look at this adorable kid thing my kid did" sort of moment. I've got heavy big though...

My boy woke up way too early. It might have been 3 a.m. he said. He crept quietly downstairs and watched tv and ate Halloween candy until I woke up at 6. I asked him why he didn't come and get me. I suggested I could have helped him get back to sleep. He said he didn't want to make me mad by waking me in the middle of the night. I gave him the "really?" look. I suggested that perhaps he didn't want to get me because he wanted to watch tv and eat candy without any one else around to tell him no. I mentioned that perhaps the idea of having unlimited tv and candy at 3 a.m. was a dream come true and seemed worth any consequence. He gave me that look that says, "Damn. How does my mom know stuff? It's like she can read my mind!"  I wanted to spill the beans and tell him I know all about his motivations because I would have done the same thing at his age. Hell, I still do things like that at my age.  I'm an adult who knows better but I often stay up u...