Tuesday, April 29, 2003

Bear With Me

I'm still figuring all this stuff out.

But here's a picture...



Monday, April 28, 2003

Testing, Testing

In the Fridge

Bad meat
Withered up strawberries
Picholine olives
Sliced cheese

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Random

Comments make me happy. What is up with you people? I KNOW you are coming in here and looking around, but no one hardly ever leaves a note.

My boss told me today that she spent years of her life with "Frosty the Snoman" stuck in her head. She didn't tell anyone at the time because she was afraid they would think she was crazy...which, of course, she was. I think I would prefer Chinese Water Torture to an endless loop of Frosty.

What else can I tell you. It feels like a random day. I'm learning to spell things like cholecystectomy and synechiae. Such is the life of a medical transcriptionist.

I have a head cold that I just can't shake so I've been hopped up on Sudafed for the past several days in order to keep working. I'm as high as a kite, but I'm keeping that sinus infection at bay.

Easter didn't really happen this year. We went to church, but that was it, and I'm feeling guilty for cheating my kids out of the bunny and the chocolate and the egg decorating. I just couldn't get myself together to do it. I'm really bad at holidays, I resent taking on all that extra work -- shopping for stuff, cooking special meals, decorating things, wrapping presents, the whole production just leaves me feeling inadequate and tired. So I bailed. And then my 5 year old cried in the car on the way to day care yesterday morning, saying what a terrible Easter it had been, and I felt like the world's shittiest mother. I guess there won't be any more shirking of holiday duties from now on -- the boys are too old for me to get away with it. But damnit it's HARD doing all that stuff with three kids and a full time job! How do people do it? I just don't get it. I can just barely manage to feed my kids and keep them in clean clothes, let alone make a holiday happen.

Please, leave a comment.

Saturday, April 19, 2003

What Makes me Happy

Brian
My kids
Foot rubs
Fastlane
Good hair days
Anne Lamott
Mangos with lime
Uninterrupted sex
Uninterrupted sleep
Horseback riding
Matisse
Flowers for no reason
Pozole, plantains and sangria on Saturday morning
Al Green
artichokes with melted butter and lemon juice
The Ranch
Little black dress + strappy shoes + fancy restaurant
Singing in a chorus
Sand in my toes
Japanese food
Driving fast
Letters from friends




Friday, April 18, 2003

What's Good About It?

I mean, it's the bleakest day on the Christian calendar, right? God is dead, right? I've never understood the "Good" part.

Thursday, April 17, 2003

That's What it's For

So I had one of those dreams the other night. Dionne Warwick was singing with a bunch of cute backup girls, and when I woke up I realized, hey, I made up an entire song! How cool! And then I stopped and thought about the lyrics for a minute, which start out:

He just made love to me
That's what it's for


...and only get worse. I busted out laughing. Actually, that dream has had me chuckling for a good 3 days now. Whenever my boss gets really testy I threaten to sing the song and she immediately starts behaving.

Friday, April 11, 2003

Nachos

This is the funniest damn thing I've read in ages. Aaron Kinney rocks the house. I'm talkin' bout the April 8th entry.

Old Friends


Well, he didn't really remember me, which was something of a blow to the ego, but I finally did hear back from Kevin Platt (see "Where Are They Now?" below) so I could tell him this:

I don't even know if you remember this thing you said one day to {name
withheld to protect the innocent}, in defense of our teacher at the time, Mrs. Levin.
Said classmate had been bitching and whining and moping around for Jake whom
we all missed terribly...I believe he was rather unfairly fired from the school for being
a somewhat renegade teacher, thus depriving us of what should have been our
Second Year of Jake. In his place we had acquired Mrs. Levin, who I can
barely recall except to say she was fairly unremarkable. Mystery girl that day
said yet another bitchy little thing about how Jake would have done things
differently, and in my version of this event you raised your little self up
out of your chair and told her in front of the whole stunned and silent
class of 5th graders that she should cut it out, we all missed Jake, but he
was gone, and Mrs. Levin was our teacher now, and we'd all heard just about
enough from her about Jake this and Jake that. And then you sat down.

At the time, I felt like applauding, but I was instead pretty much stunned
into silence like the rest of the classroom. Years went by but that scene
has always stuck in my head and I've always wanted to say thank you to you
for speaking out, and doing it so well. The chick in question was bossy and pushy and
difficult, and even though she was my friend she was also intimidating. You
put into words that day what I had wished all along to be able to say to her
but was unable.

So this is what inspired me to hunt you down. You probably think I'm a
nutcase, you might not even remember this thing you did, but there you go.
I remember.



Naturally, he didn't remember the incident either. But it felt good to tell him, and it's lovely to be in touch.


Seriously Ill

And it's no big surprise. Cutting down on my sleep and adding a 180 mile round trip commute to my day has been hell on my immune system. I've been shuffling around the house all day in my bathrobe, very feverish and fucked up. I think I have SARS. Well, OK, I don't have SARS, but it's some kind of flu and it sucks. Add to the suckiness that my new job is a contract job, so I don't get paid if I don't show up. Sick days do not exist. Brian has pneumonia and he is home and feverish and fucked up in his own house. Every once in a while we call each other on the phone, wake each other up, mumble something inchoherent, and hang up.

Sigh.

Thursday, April 03, 2003

Working

The reason for my extended absence (admit it, you missed me, all none of you) is that I have an actual, honest-to-goodness JOB. And I think it's even a good job. Time will tell, but it's seeming that way. Still, I now have to get up at 6 in the morning, haul my kids out the door by 7:15 at the latest, drive them 25 minutes south, deposit them at day care, and then turn my car around and go 45 miles north to work, arriving by 8:45 or so. I work until 4:30, get back in the car, make it to day care by 5:30, pick all the kids up, get back home by 6:15 or so, make dinner, administer bath, read stories, tuck in, collapse...interrupted of course by the one or two or three middle-of-the-night cries (only Eli could bump his head at 2 in the morning while SLEEPING). This schedule has me and my car feeling just a little bit flattened out, but it's still better to be earning money and feeling tired than the alternative, which was starting to scare the shit out of me. I'm still, of course, scared, as the work isn't yet paying what I'm hoping it will, and I'm desperately behind on some of my bills, but at least things are looking up.

Javier is doing marvelously in day care, he hasn't skipped a beat. And the big boys are growing bigger and more wonderful every day. I count my lucky stars, I do. Of course, with this new schedule I'm seeing much less of Brian, and that's hard. I'm lonely for him.

The war has me down. I'm waking up and driving and going to sleep to NPR, and when it's not NPR, I'm surfing the web for news of the war while at work. When I think about those Iraqi soldiers, most of them conscripted into service very much against their will, coerced into taking up arms and then getting blown to pieces for it. When I hear the words "collateral damage." When I think of the hundreds of thousands of children who are scared and hungry and hurt. When I think if the havoc we are wreaking on this country in the name of oil freedom...it all makes my head hurt.

Other news...I finally had "the talk" with my mother tonight. It felt good, actually, to get it all off my chest, even though my initial plan was to not get into it with her. I told her I thought she was worried and anxious for no reason, and had an unhealthy attachment to my children, and that she should tell me in person how she's feeling instead of waiting and sending a letter on the eve of her trip to Europe, and that she was most definitely NOT welcome to come back in May, as she was hoping to do. Parents. Can't live with 'em, can't leave 'em by the side of the road. I wish she'd just learn her lesson, but it never happens. Anyway, it felt good, for me anyway. I'm sure she's feeling pretty horrible right now, but she brought it on herself.

I've been doing a lot of shooting with my Nikon in the last few weeks, getting ready for the wedding which I'm shooting the first weekend in May. I'm so excited about this professional photography job I can hardly stand it. I've got film in my bag to be taken to the lab -- shots of Maida and her beautiful dog Violet in front of a more-wisteria-than-thou wisteria bush. I swear, this plant was definitely trying to make a point. I can't wait to see the pictures.

Here's a timely poem for you.