The New Girl

What Am I Doing Here, Again?

Don't worry. It's not YET ANOTHER post about how I feel like I have so much going on and so much to tell you and yet I feel YET ANOTHER log-jam in my brain and so I go on and on about THAT before I get to the real point of my...

Oh, wait.

Shit. I'm sorry.

Anyway.

Let's start over.

I have a lot cooking right now. Some on the front burners, some on the back burners but it's sizzling and smoking and if I don't pay attention to it all, it's going to boil over or burn the fuck up and well, I'm tired of this metaphor already. The point is, I'm working out consistently, laundry is piling up and threatening to take over, the toilets need to be scrubbed, I have a new job opportunity developing, I'm trying to do a professional website, my kids are crazy-insane, The Man is way less available and way more stressed due to a number of factors unrelated to any of the aforementioned issues and well, it seems I'm tired of this even when it's not in metaphor.

The working out is good. I have been experimenting with counting calories (!) using an app (My Fitness Pal) on the Ipod. It's a great app, really. It factors in your goals and activity level, giving you a STARTLINGLY LOW (at least to me) calorie limit for each day. You enter in your food intake and it calculates automatically (obviously, or it, uh, wouldn't be very effective, I suppose.) You also enter your exercise and it adds the calories burned for you to eat.

Those are some very tasty calories.

I have found the value in this experiment in a few ways. One, it just forces me to pay attention. For me, not paying attention to my physical self (not exercising, mindless eating) is the NUMBER ONE culprit. So, just applying the gentle but consistent pressure on my Will to focus on what I'm doing is, in and of itself, helpful. The second is when I started keeping track of calories, there were two behaviors that, as my dad would say, came to a screeching halt. Eating while I'm cooking or preparing food and eating from my kids' plates.

Seriously. Cold Turkey.

It's also kind of a fun little game to get in under the goal for the day. Strange fun, maybe, but fun nonetheless. 

Anyway.

The last thing I want to get into one of those horrible, internet misunderstandings that go along with weight discussions. I normally put all of this kind of thing over on Balancing The Scales but, eh, I don't know what I'm doing here or what that blog is for, anymore. Is it a food blog? A weight issue blog? Fitness slash baking blog? How INNOVATIVE!

The other stuff, I don't have time to tell you because the one crazy-insaner is hiding all her toys and then going to find them ("We're playing HIDE AND SEEK!") and the other is in his crib, bouncing up and down, up and down, waiting for me to come in there so he can immediately tell me he wants his "COARS."  (OMGCars.) (Some kind of Boy Switch got flipped and all of a sudden? It's ALL COARS ALL THE TIME.)

Vrrrrroooooomm.

 

*Do I even have to mention that this isn't a sponsored post? No. I didn't think so.

Fun Fact Friday!!

Ho ho! You thought it was dead, didn't you?! (So did I. Totally.)

- For whatever reason, (it's totally a Mental Glitch, I know,) it kind of skeeves me when a man buys a woman clothes as a gift. I know it's crazy and if your man is tuned in enough to know [what size you wear] your taste in clothes and he buys you nice little gifts of clothes, that's awesome [but for whatever reason, a little skeevy. I don't know why. MENTAL GLITCH.]

- I was once watching an episode of Giada and her cute husband came home and brought her a present, a [tiny] pair of white pants and she was all excited and was all, 'I'm going to wear these awesome [size minus 4] pants to dinner!' and I was all, 'Hm. How...sweet [and a little ookey]!'

- Once, when I was dating The Tool, he bought me an *outfit* for Christmas. I'm saying that he went to The Limited, [flirted his ass off with the first woman he could find, I'm absolutely sure] approached the sales girl and asked her to pick out an entire outfit for me. She basically pointed him to a manikin and he purchased every single thing that manikin was wearing, down to the crazy bracelet with a million little balls on it. (The bracelet was the only thing I kept. Swear.)

- Do you guys remember those? The days of Pearls on Steroids? An over-crowded strand of whatever with all kinds of jingling and jangling?

It kind of looked like this, only mine was shades of bronze, copper and brown:

 

- When I was a surly pre-teen, my mom got me 'The Sweater' one year for Christmas. Jazzed as I was to get clothes for gifts back then, this sweater...it was..tragic. It was black and its front was host to a bazillion strawberries.  The strawberries were connected by a vine. On each cuff was a detail, two little berries. The sweater was expensive and well made and my mother looooved this sweater and her disappointment with my, uh, [incredibly rude and ungrateful contempt for it] reaction ensured this story remained one of the Golden Oldies in our family. You know, as in,  'It was like a STRAWBERRY SWEATER...' for any situation in which you were disappointed or disappointed someone else or when you badly misjudged another person's likes. So, it wasn't a total loss. That [horrible] sweater.

- Later in my teen years, a guy who *liked* me bought me a coat. A fucking fox fur coat. I have no desire to flip this into a judgmental, paint flinging, FUR IS MURDER, comment clusterfuck. I don't really care if you like fur, if you wear fur, if you sleep with a fur comforter, if you have fur lined gloves or undies. Whatever you do is your business and I could not be honester when I tell you I don't care. I just, you know, don't wear fur. And although I knew this guy, and he knew me, this gift was nothing short of Crop Circle Sized Sign that we were Never Ever Going To Be BFFs and that omg, he was a little, er, craaazy (not because it was fur but because it cost so fucking much and what the hell, dude?) (He actually DID turn out to be crazy, too, so.)

- He dropped the present off or had it delivered or something, because he wasn't there when I opened it. I was in the living room with my mom, my sister and my friend, I think.  When I moved the paper back and the soft, silky, silver fox fur became visible, my mother sucked her teeth and blew out a low whistle and chuckled. I swear, as she walked back into the kitchen, I heard her murmur under her breath, 'That poor sucker.'

- I never wore that coat but neither could I figure out what to do with it. It sat in my closet for years and years. And years. AND YEARS. When we went to clean out my dad's house (so weird to call it my dad's house. It was my mom's house, too. And mine and my sister's. So, the family house, then.) I found that coat in the closet, along with a GREEN MINI SKIRT. Made of SUEDE. omfg. Whaaat? I put them both into a bag and donated them to The Goodwill.

- I hope the same person buys them both. And rocks them OUT. At a costume party.

 

 

Kidney Beans, Pink Ties And One Big Can Of Whoop-Ass.

I don't remember much of what she said after she whirled around and shouted at the three or four of us, a few paces behind her and her two siblings.

"WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE HIM ALONE?!" is all I really remember her saying verbatim.

Seared into my memory, though, is the expression on her face--rattling fury mixed with broken-glass-sharp contempt.  I remember how pale her blond eyebrows looked against the crimson of her complexion and how the breeze caught some of the strands of her long, straight hair, sending them swirling around her head, as if she was electrified.

***

I am and have always been known to be a Fuck-With.  A Ball-Buster.  Cage-Rattler.  Whatever you want to call it.  I'll give you an example.  One day, when I was in high school, a popular kid wore a pink tie.  A Pink Tie.  It was the absolute height of Preppy TragiComedy and I rode his ass so hard about it, that he took it off in World History class and walked up the aisle to throw it at me.  He was laughing, though, and I put it on and wore it for the rest of the day (with my black nail polish and my braided side-tail. TFS!)

Sometimes I would tease a little and sometimes a lot.  It was humorous.  It was a way of relating.  It was my natural inclination.  I learned through the years that it was also a defense mechanism. It allowed me to connect without feeling too emotionally vulnerable.  To make others laugh was (and still is) one of the things that I do best and teasing others, picking up and playing with the little stuff that irked them a bit was one way to do that. 

My teasing was never, ever, meant to hurt anyone.  My aim was never to humiliate or embarrass someone in public or to demean them or make them feel less than. 

The funny thing about aim, though, is that even if you're really true most of the time,  you can still totally miss.

***

After my third grade year, the public school which I attended was closed.  My fourth grade year dawned with me clad in a plaid jumper with navy blue knee socks.  I remember being optimistic about the prospect of attending the Catholic school but my hopes were cast aside  like so many kidney beans out of the school lunch chili.  The kids there had been together since the first grade and they weren't taking any new customers. 

I was awkward, a horrible combination of deep, scratchy voice, false bravado, questionable hygiene and bad, bad hair.  I cried every single day before school, manifesting stomach aches and headaches that sent me complaining to the nurse.  There was one other girl from former school and when I reached out to her--a continuation of the congenial relationship that we'd had only a few months back and a few blocks away, she turned on me and pretended we didn't know each other.

I was excluded but I was never picked on.  I imagine that my acerbic wit and my speedy-if-somewhat-caustic comebacks may have been a part of what made me immune from the grisly treatment that two of my classmates received for the four years I attended that school.  I still had my neighborhood friends, who also attended the Catholic school.  They were all older than me and so even though we didn't see each other during the school day, we walked home together. 

It was during this same year that we would walk home behind the redheaded boy.  I don't recall his name.  I had a vague idea of where he lived but to this day I can't say I knew him.  I don't remember what we used to say to him.  I only remember that we used to walk behind him and tease him.  And tease him.  And tease him.  I don't remember him crying or yelling or doing anything in particular.  In fact, I don't remember any real response at all until that day his sister whirled around and opened up a can of whoop-ass on us all.

We stopped short, all of us, when she spun around, dirt and small stones crunching under her heels.

"WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE HIM ALONE?!" she screamed. 

There was more but the details are lost to me all these years later.  The gist was basically, 'Who do you think you are?' and it was only a matter of seconds before she spun again and stalked away, siblings in tow.

It was as if she'd doused me with a giant bucket of ice water, that's how shocked I was.  I stood, stunned silent.  I was surprised by the intensity of her emotion on his behalf and that what I experienced as a little post-school fun, he must have experienced as long-suffered torment.  To have my perception changed so rapidly like that--it caused a kind of emotional vertigo.

We resumed walking and my friends were whispering, keeping voices low in that Oh-Holy-Shit-What-Was-THAT? tone.  The boiling hot shame flooded me--filled me right up past my vocal chords--and threatened to spill over and out.  I was overcome with emotion and I had nothing to add to their conversation because even then I knew.  I knew she was right.

A few days later, I approached the redheaded boy and his sister.  I apologized for the teasing and told him that I would stop.  And I did.  Was I a bully?  I don't know.  I don't think so, not in the classic sense.  But I was definitely a Fuck-With in a bit of an emotional crisis, blowing off steam in an inappropriate way.

There was relief in giving a sincere apology and having it accepted.  And in doing better.  There was a giant lesson in the experience for me--an opportunity to reflect on my own behavior.  An opportunity to gauge the effect that my behavior had on others, regardless of my benign intent. 

 I don't know if an adult's intervention would have had the same effect on me.  It may have. 

But I still remember her face. Clearly.

The fury, the broken glass contempt.

The electrified, swirling, platinum strands of silk.

The Great Temper Experiment.

I don't remember exactly what it was that pushed the point home, finally.  Pushed it in far enough for me to act on my realization.  I had an epiphany for sure, though.  (An Aha Moment, if you're partial to Oprah-speak.)  The way that it usually works for me is this: I suddenly realize something that I've known for a long time, even maybe forever.  It's like, in an opportune moment, I really see this thing.  I see it clearly and in a way that is sudden and complete.  Like lightening striking.

How am I supposed to teach my daughter to stop screaming and yelling when she's angry, if I'm all the fucking time screaming and yelling when I'm angry?

Bzzzzt.

I have long thought that my yelling and carrying on (in the parenting realm) was related to my own upbringing and an innate lack of patience.  But included in this Not-Too-Comfortable epiphany was this, here:

It's not Lack of Patience.  It's Lack of Impulse Control.

Bzzzzzzt. Bzzzzzzzt.

When the realization hit me that my ever-increasing-in-frequency episodes of over-the-top, in-the-fucking-red-zone, aggressive-yelling were, indeed, were more about a lack of impulse control than anything else, something in me clicked.  

Initially, it was more than a little humiliating, actually.  I can only surmise that is why it stayed outside my conscious thought process for such a long time.  But a few moments after that, it started to sink in. I was impulsively acting out my anger.  And that, I needed to fix.

So, I started with a decision.  A decision that will, no doubt, sound absolutely crazy to some of you but what can I say?  It's what I did.

I decided that the following day I was just...not going to act angry.  Even if I was.  I went from thinking that in order to have fewer angry incidents, I would have to do the hard-if-not-impossible work of cultivating more patience (HA!) to deciding that even if I was pissed off, I was going to deal with it internally.  I was not going to act angry.

Or, more like it, I was going to act 'not angry,' even when I was*.

As a therapist, I am incredibly adept (most often) with keeping my own feelings to myself.  It is a skill that I have honed over the years.  I'm actually very good at it.  For me to have a feeling and act on it impulsively, professionally, would be unheard of.  I am able to compartmentalize and stash away my own feelings for my later examinations.  I mean, I worked through two hard pregnancies and the death of my mother, all the while attending to the needs/feelings/problems of my patients when I was at work.

It's not a giant stretch to bring some of that talent to bear with regard to keeping in check my anger at my 3 year old kid.  

So, I don't remember what it was that flipped the switch but I remember when it was.  It was June 17th.  It was a Thursday and I was in the doctor's waiting room with my dad, looking at some parenting magazine with a bullshit(ish) article on 'How To Get Your Kids To Listen Without Ever Having To Endure A Tantrum EVER,' when the lights came on in my head. 

And I made my decision to Act 'As If.'

The basic premise being that, initially, I would 'act as if' I wasn't angry, allowing my brain to burn some new neural pathways so that eventually, I really wouldn't be angry at stuff that didn't need to make me angry.

I started that day and have been doing it every day since.

Here are a few things I've found so far:

1)  It was easier than I thought it would be.  Once I made that decision to act in a certain way, regardless of internal, emotional experience, it gave me a framework, I think.  Something concrete to do instead of flip my shit.

2)  There were many, many times that I wasn't even really, truly angry.  My anger wasn't, isn't, *real* anger.  Not the kind of anger that is founded on some reasonable action/reaction loop, anyway.  It's an impulsive, angry reaction, out of proportion to the situation at hand.  Given 3.4 seconds, I was able to chill and realize that she's just testing or testing or possibly even testing.  Like 3 year olds are supposed to do.  In fact, if I'm totally honest, I found myself 'trying to teach the importance of certain points' via the angry tone and scowl.  As if.

3) Me simmering the fuck down, in an of itself, helped her to simmer the fuck down.  Of course, it stands to reason that when your mother is visibly angry and yelling that you, as a kid, will feel...a lot of intense emotions.  I did a little thinking about-slash-remembering-slash-realizing how I used to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing (LAUGHING!) in my screaming mother's face.  It is counter-intuitive maybe, but I found that when there was less anger from me, there was more compliance from her (which, I imagine, is due to less anxiety and impulse to be oppositional when a stark line is drawn.)

4) The Out of Proportion Angry Responses were cyclical in nature, creating a counterproductive loop and also a larger pattern of communication.  Disrupting that cycle, that loop, that pattern, has resulted in a more peaceful cycle, loop, pattern and house.

5) There are benefits to slower, longer reactions. It was an unforeseen outcome that, while trying to keep in an impulsive action, I was slower to react and thus, took a little more time to work things through.  This afforded me some opportunities to actually negotiate and stay places vs. cutting and running when TLNG was acting up.

If I were a math person, I'd be able to calculate for you a percentage of reduction in episodes of Out of Proportion Anger but in my 'just-eyeballing it' kind of way, I'd say it's been nothing short of stunning.  They say that to make a new behavior a habit takes a good 6-8 weeks.  And we're close to that.  I've had slips and I'll continue to have them, I'm sure. 

Some days are harder than others.  But it's so much easier to recognize and regroup.

And it makes me feel much, much nicer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*It may go without saying but I'm going to say it anyway, just in case.  I'm not talking about not expressing valid or justified anger/upset.  I'm not even talking about not expressing annoyance or frustration.  I'm talking about a certain level of pissivity, an impulsive acting out of a rush of exaggerated anger.  It's hard to define it, really, as it's all on a continuum.  I know it when I feel it, though.

Through this experiment, I've found that expressing even my legitimate anger/frustration/whatever in a calmer, quieter way gets better results. Makes a better loop. It's a work in progress, I suppose.  I share it as another way of working through. And to close a circle.  If you have questions or comments, I welcome them.  Don't be shy. It's not like I'm going to FLIP OUT at you. HA HA HAAAA!

On Shaping Up What's Been Forged.

For my whole life, I have described myself (among other things) as 'Inconsistent.'  I've done it here, probably lots of times.  I've done it on the [temporary] [inconsistently written] Fitness/Health Kick(ish) blog that I started and stopped and started and for which I never fucking write a post.

Ahem.

But recently, I've started to see it a little differently.  Through the ongoing process of self-awareness, I've have a few AHA Moments, recently and now, I'm wondering whether, along with (or, perhaps, in lieu of) being Inconsistent, I am also Undisciplined.  Just.  I don't know.  Lacking in whatever fundamental internal structure people have that facilitates and makes it easier for a person to remain consistent and linear in thought, attention and action toward whatever goal.

I'm not totally lacking in the fundamental structure, obviously.  I mean, I have a house and a job and close relationships and all that.  But in certain cases, it feels/seems almost impossible for me to do what I have to do to change my behavior for the long term.

As an aside: Part of my world view is that we are each born into this world with a temperamental style with various 'set points' for things like Approaching New Stimuli or a Threshold of Tolerance for things, etc. I think that certain personal traits are born-in, in other words, and work as we might, there's only a certain amount of elasticity that we're going to get in the way of behavior change in those areas.  Or, rather, there's a range of expression for certain traits--and anything outside the range is going to be more of a challenge to maintain.  Not saying impossible. I'm certainly not arguing that people can't change their behaviors.

I'm a therapist for fuck's sake.

What I am wondering, though, is how much of my inconsistency is really that I lack discipline in certain areas, as a kind of character trait, thus giving me a [fucking headache] hard time when it comes to adapting certain behaviors?

Each person has his or her own Issues to Wrestle, I'm aware of that. (For example,  I believe that an introvert can work on becoming more comfortable socially but I also believe that it may feel effort-filled for that person.  Almost all the time, especially at first.  Whereas for me, the quintessential extrovert, social interactions are usually not only stress-free but Enjoyable.)  So, I'm thinking that for me to maintain a consistently disciplined life in my Troublesome Areas may require a more or less continuous effort be applied to my will--to bend it and shape it into something a little different. Or, maybe, I can adjust my expectations and work toward realistic change in life-long patterns of behavior.  Somehow, viewing it differently makes change seem more do-able instead of just wishing I was different or trying to figure out why being consistent is just so hard for me when it seems to be so easy for everyone else.

I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud here. (Are you thinking that perhaaaaps, I should work this shit out ALL THE WAY before sharing?)

Me too.

Anyway.

Here's a list of areas that require more discipline than I typically posses to be/feel what I consider to be successful:

1) House Work.  I am not the messiest person around.  Largely 'Clean As You Go' kind of person but I am start/stop in this area and there is no denying that when I try to stay on top of it, it seems to take up ALL my free time and after a few weeks, I lapse into 'Not Noticing' until it gets, um, Embarrassing.

2) Weight Management. Oh, hell. Up. Down. Up. Down. You know. I'm up now.  So it's a thing.

3) Vehicle/House Maintenance. I have been known to let my oil changes and inspections go until the State Troopers and Oil Lube Employees knock on my door, asking me to PLEASE, PLEASE pay attention. (And you know how often THAT happens.) (One time, I got pulled over on my own block for a lapsed inspection sticker.  I pulled into my own driveway and confused the hell out of the nice policeman who just gave me a warning. TFS.)

4) Financial/Paperwork. Same as above.  Only, I think that people to whom you owe money actually WILL knock on your door, so I always get around to it in time but I let it linger. And avoid.

5) Bookkeeping.  In my job, I have records to keep and compile.  I am METICULOUS at keeping the actual records and ABYSMAL at compiling them.  You try to figure it out. I'm an enigma.

6) Physical/Medical Maintenance.  I've gone years. YEARS! Without seeing a dentist. Or a gynecologist. Or...you get the picture.  I'm back on the wagon with both, so, don't worry. 

7) Artistic Production. I don't write these days.  I don't do any real artwork, either (unless you're counting the 'crafts' I whip up for TLNG. And, uh, I wouldn't).  I don't post as often as I'd like.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I got the title for this post from an Indigo Girls song.  The full line is: I measure to what degree I can shape up what's been forged in me.  I love the imagery of that line and like almost all their lyrics, I think that it's poetry set to music.

Like Sands Through The Hourglass.

I hate getting mad at my kid The First Thing In The Morning or The Last Thing At Night.  It's not like I love getting angry at any other time during the day, but it seems especially heinous to get angry and/or deal with a red-faced, screaming three year old before my tea is even done steeping.  And, well, when my girl is going to bed...who wants to be mad then?  I don't want to be impatient, counting the seconds until I leave the room to go and finish what's waiting for me in the kitchen.  I want to send her to sleep with warmth. With love. And some measure of comfort.

***

Sometimes, the baby gets overtired and wired and has a hard time settling down to sleep.  And by hard time, I mean it takes more than the usual 2-3 minutes (literally, I KNOW) of bouncing on the yoga ball to put him out.  On those occasions, he doesn't fuss, he just wiggles, blows raspberries on my boobs, makes constant eye contact and busts into a huge-ass grin when I look back at him.  It's hard to be irritated at that, you know.  Even though the hard nights are still rarely, RARELY, more than ten minutes of bouncing and humming, I still feel restless, a little. Itchy for him to relax. Itchy to end my day.

***

These days, with my daughter, it seems that I am a Mostly-Full Cup of Irritation and it doesn't take but a little bit extra to have me brimming, threatening to overflow and make a giant mess all over the place.  There have been tantrums.  And hostility.  And tantrums.  And acting out.  And difficulty coping.  And...tantrums.  It's not totally clear to you which one of us I'm talking about right now, is it?  That's deliberate.  In my brain, my logical, intelligent, knowledgeable brain, I understand what she's going through, being three.  My brain understands the hard work of this difficult stage.  The pushing, pushing, [fucking nightmare] pushing against the boundaries has to happen.  The trying everything despite massive evidence that should dissuade, the freshness, the goofiness, the exploring emotions and options and alternatives--all of these are necessary. These are things that my brain knows.  But somehow, for some reason, my brain seems somewhat...detached from the process that usually begins with my daughter's ridiculous (and totally doomed) request and ends with me cleaning up the Irritation-Overflow Mess with a mop of my own regret.

***

When my son is wriggly and wiggly and can't get to sleep, I hold him extra tight.  I wrap him in my arms, like a human swaddle blanket, holding his head and chest snug against my body.  I hold him and bounce and hum 'Lullaby and Goodnight.'  He struggles at first and I hold, I contain.  I surround him, support him, make him snug.  When he strains against me, I hold extra firm.  And in about 35 seconds, his eyes close. And his muscles relax.  I feel the weight of him. The heft.  I hold his entire body in my arms. I bounce him for a minute or two more, looking at his sleeping form.  I realize that these days are numbered.  One day, he will be taller than I am.  He'll have whiskers and smelly shoes.  I look at him, quiet and peaceful, snuggled up against me and I ache for the day that he won't fit there anymore.  I try slow down and soak it in. 

***

When my girl goes to bed, she dismisses her father first and asks me to sit on the floor so we can 'Talk About Our Day.' I reach through the bars of her crib and stroke her hair or her soft, soft cheeks.  She sticks her arm through and we hold hands.  Lately, we talk a lot about the time outs or the times I felt angry during the day.  The things she did that set me off.  We talk about the other stuff, too.  The good stuff.  The fun stuff.  She wants me to stay a little longer.  I have to go and clean the kitchen, I tell her, when our time is up.  And when I close the door, in a hurry to get the rest of my work done, I think about how these days are numbered too.  The days of tantrums and irrational requests meant only to provoke and test, the days of three will give way to preschool at four and then movies in the theater with popcorn at nine, and then, before I know it, to driving her friends around at seventeen.

***

When I'm all the way done and the kids are both asleep, I think about them.  I miss them.  The idea of them has a spectacularly lush quality that can sometimes be lost in the day to day life that is caring for them.  But these days, one after the other, are gone.  Past.  So, I try to remember that.  I try not to be so itchy.  I try to empty my cup and do my best to slow down.  To relax against the snug restraints of this day to day life.

Giveaway! The New Girl Style! AKA: Getting Rid Of Some Of My Shit That You Might Want.

Whether due to Primarily Catholic Upbringing or being the child of a book collector, I am UTTERLY INCAPABLE of tossing books and/or other perfectly good things that I don't want/have room for.

As in: I. Can't. Do it.

So!  Here it is:

Are you newly pregnant?  Do you know someone who is newly pregnant?  If you do, leave a comment on this post and I'll pick a winner at random to receive [a box full of shit that I can't bear to throw away, due to aforementioned Mental Glitch] some great Newly Pregnant Person stuff.  Mostly bookish type things.  Good stuff, though, not junky.  You can leave a comment and win even if you're NOT newly pregnant, it's totally up to you.  A few of the things, though, are geared toward and will get the most use from someone who is...you got it...NEWLY PREGNANT.

omg.

I need my afternoon caffeine.

The comment can be about anything but let's see...what am I curious about today?

How about telling me about a really, really great gift that you were given.  How's that?

Edited to add: The random number generator picked Jess! Whooop! Better get knocked up quick, Newlywed!

Experiment. Or, If You Like, Practice.

So, the feedback on the last post was Pleasant! And surprising! And Pleasant!

It's nice to have internet friends who don't judge you or get sick of you saying the same shit over and over (or so you say NOW, heh) and so I'm going to try an experiment.  I'm just going to...you know...write.

My usual method of writing posts (believe it or not) is (generally) to have a more or less, fully formed idea and then to sit at the computer and write it, shape it and polish it up before I hit publish.  If you read me in a reader [you're like, 'what is her fucking DEAL?'] you may often see multiple 'publishes' on a lot of my posts. That..happens to me.  Still shaping after it's published.  (The internet equivalent of re-re-re-FUCKINGRE-recording voice mails before I'm satisfied. It's a Mental Glitch of the first order.)

So.

Today, I figured, let's try something [crazy] new and do a [rambling post with no purpose] stream of consciousness writing.

....

..

?

Um.

//

\\

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Welp. Let's call me a beginner.

I am taking my dad to the doctor today. He's doing pretty well, actually. (My dad, you know, not the doctor.) (Well, the doctor's probably doing well too, but WHATEVER.) I think that he may have found a house that he likes (!!) The heaviness and difficulty that will accompany the readying and selling of my childhood home is balanced (at least right now, when the paint rollers and dumpsters and hours upon hours of back breaking work are only in my IMAGINATION) by the floaty feeling I get from thinking of my dad living so close by that he can come for dinner, or trick-or-treating, or Thanksgiving AND Christmas morning AND whenever [all without his dog] and then go back to his own house, where he will (eventually) be comfortable.

I'm optimistic, as he's starting to look around at the street signs and try to figure out where things are in relation to other things (and lo, I have discovered from whence my ABYSMAL sense of direction hails) and he said, 'Well, I can just come down here and go do my shopping at ACME, eh?'  And I'm like, 'Dad. I can come and get you. And we can go together. And then I can drop you off at home with your groceries.' And he nodded, kind of surprised. And said, 'Save me on gas.'

It's hard for him, and in a collective sense, all of us, sometimes, to imagine the good things that will come out of the difficulties, I suppose.  The harder things are more evident to him.  Partly because they are so, So, SO challenging. Big-Ass Life Changers.  But too, I think, because they are all up front.  On the front end is the buying and the cleaning and shedding and organizing and moving and all that.  It's only after he's here, I think, and a little more comfortable that it will dawn on him the amazing opportunity he has to engage and be a real part of this family for which he worked so, so hard for so, so long.

And I hope to remember this feeling that I have. The feeling of so badly wanting him to be close to us, knowing that no parent wants to be a *burden* to his children.  But for me, moving him closer isn't the burden.  The REAL burden is the worry that I feel when he's that far away, well outside the reach of my [evil clutches] loving care.  Or the uprooting, driving, uprooting, driving, uprooting that we have to do when the inevitable bad things start happening.

I understand how he feels, I do.  But I also hope to remember how *I* am feeling now--in case I'm lucky enough to live that long--because one day, my kids might feel this same way.  

And I don't ever want to be a burden to them.

So, I Should Title It: The Same, The Same, Everything Is The Fucking Same.

It seems that when things get hectic for me, I shut down. Isolate. Make like a turtle and fucking Shell-Up. If you've been reading here for any length of time at ALL, you are like, 'Yeah. News flash of the effing CENTURY, that.'

Anyway.

Part of the reason, I think, that I drop off of writing when things are stressful for me is that there is a certain lack of movement.  For me, much of my own self-inflicted frustration and angst comes from not having enough motivation to create the inertia that is necessary for me to affect (effect?) some actual change.  For some people, I imagine that wanting to change and then doing the things that are required to make the change, is a more or less linear process.  They kind of decide, (or whatever their equivalent process is) and then they go all Nike and you know...Just do it, already.

Oh, how I covet this kind of personality trait.  Seriously. COV.ET.

Whether or not it's a trait that they got by DNA transfer or an ability that they've honed and shaped over years of steady practice...I don't know. It ELUDES me.  Consistency in many areas just..doesn't come naturally to me.  It is one of my most hated Mental Glitches and the one that has caused me the most angst, long term.

I start. And stop. And start. And forget. And start. And get side-tracked by some major fucking life event. And start. And want to tear out my hair. Aaaaaand, you get the idea.  It's fucking frustrating as hell.  And also? I'm sure Wicked Boring to read about.

So, I don't write.

Because, seriously.

Do you want to read about how I have to start over AGAIN with paying attention to what the hell I'm putting in my mouth? Or how I've yet to figure out to make working out a consistent part of my routine? Or how my temper is STILL giving me a problem and making me doubt my ability to EVER be a half-way patient parent? Or how my dad is still here, feeling depressed and facing huge life-changing decisions? Or how I'm still taking remedies that get stuck in my throat so that I can keep my boobies juicy?

Maybe you do and I am underestimating your [motivation to avoid your work] [masochistic tendencies] ability to commiserate and identify with my [groundhog's day life] issues.  Either way, I fear that I am testing your patience.  And not that I write this blog SOLELY for the readers and what it is that they want from me, but part of what drives me to write here is the interaction.  The communication.  The connection.

And I am just SO not interested in being that one friend you have who complains about the same shit over and over.

Because, DAMN, she's annoying. Ain't it?

I'm Feeling A Little Like A Criminal. If Kidnapping Smallish, Post-Op, Half-Bald, Elderly, Italian Pirates Was A Crime.

Oh, HEY! Hey hey! How yoooooou doing? 

Things around here have been [tense] [fucking hectic] [stressful out the ass] since my dad got here.  After a trip there and back and the stress of leaving him in a rehabilitation center (the therapies are great but the atmosphere in the dining room made me want to HURL MYSELF OUT THE WINDOW) (pun intended,) The Little Sister went back to get him and bring him here.

You should see him. He's quite the sight. A shaved head! Black tape over one side of his glasses! (to get rid of the double vision, 'Don't cry, TLNG! It's like Papi is a PIRATE!') A giant, upside-down, U-shaped scar! ('Hey Look! It's the shape of a RAINBOW!!') (omfg.)  Physically, he's doing well. Pretty amazingly well, actually, for someone his age to whom this kind of surgery was done.  Mentally and emotionally is, as they say, another ball of wax.

He feels kidnapped, I suppose.  The turnaround time at his house was very short, as more time would have just been prolonging the inevitable, not to mention keeping my sister from her nursling.  And while he was being whisked through Pennsyltucky, I was busy making follow up appointments and transferring a lot of his care from there to here.

The visiting nurse came to see him yesterday.  She asked him a series of questions.  One of them was whether or not he'd had any issues with The Depression.  He said, 'No' at the very same time The Little Sister and I said, 'Yes.'  She asked him why he was, 'all the way over there when his whole family was here?'  And then she said, 'Are you going to move here now?' and he said, 'Maaaaaah. I guess I'm going to have to but I don't want to.'

It can't be easy to be wrenched from your life, (not to mention thrown under the bus) by even the most loving hand.  I understand this.  I really do.  But it doesn't change the fact that in order to care for him in the way that The Little Sister and I want, he has to be closer.  The truth is, bringing him here relieves a whole host of not only worries, but also massive inconveniences.  Roadblocks in the form of miles, that would make it impossible for us to be involved enough in his care to make a difference in its quality.  Or, more likely--because I can't see leaving him there in a time of great need--the repeated uprooting of my family and the upheaval of my entire life, which is just not okay right now.

But still.

It's like the title says.