April 2008 Archives

Okay.  A correction needs to be made.  To this post.   I went to yoga tonight and saw the guy who I *thought* was 56 (I am not sure how I misheard that originally, but he talks quietly and I like to jump to conclusions, so there you go).  Turns out I have no manners and pushed the issue again (it did sort of organically come up while we were getting stuff out of the cubbies) and discovered he's ten years older than I am, not nineteen.  The best part of the story is that I said, Uh, oh.  I blogged about you! I am going to have to correct that.  And he said (refreshingly) SO, tell me; what IS a blog?

Tonight I owed Nathan some one-on-one time, and I am sort of ashamed to say that the time was spent going to T4c0 B3ll (that looks so Tron! but if I don't do that I could end up with email asking for tacos. You never know!).  He was such a sweetie and didn't even mind that we didn't do something fun.  He held the door for me, didn't freak when I told him no soda, and he somehow managed to talk me into getting him a whole bucket of chicken.  It's a T4co B3ll slash KayFCee, so, you know, you've got options.  I still owe the other kids a little mom time this week, and it's not terrible that I have set the bar so low, because I now don't have to produce a magical experience, and they all KNOW that I can't out do the T4c0 B3ll run because, DUH: Not Fair.  Sweet!  Though I think I will try and pick a grocery store or something next time so I can grab a few things.  Too bad the bank's not open at night.

I was invited to help beta test a photo editing service.  Service as in SomeoneElse does the editing.  I have so far sent in 8 photos, and will send either 8 or 12 more.  I'll put up some before and afters when I get them.  Am really curious to see how they come out. 

I don't even remember what it was that we were arguing over a few days ago, but Lex was mad and glaring at me, arms crossed over his chest.  When we aren't crossways, we are so close; when we fight his anger is larger than life.  During this back and forth the other day, I suddenly had a flash of memory.  Lex at three, maybe four, sitting on a booster seat in the barber's chair with a black nylon drape around his shoulders.   They were just getting started, and the barber was wetting Lex's hair with a spray bottle.  Lex's eyes got wide, he sat up straight, looking at me, It's raining in the barbershop! he whispered loudly to me, so that I'd be able to hear him.

Yesterday afternoon, Gwendomama appeared in my cubicle with boxes of her killer chocolate baked goods that she traded to the BlogHer offices in exchange for me.  We left for San Francisco at the scandalous hour of 4 o'clockish, found our hotel and dropped off our things, and were shopping at American Rag (with one eye on BevMo) by 5:30.  Hmmm. If you click on the link to American Rag and read the copy, you will see that I am older than their target demographic.  I am a pre-Nirvana thrift store shopper.  Whatever.  I bought the VeryBestDress I have ever put on my body, (1960's ? red velvet, short sleeves, swingy skirt, want to lick it is so, so Pretty) and I did it while on a rather important conference call.  A rather important conference call during which I also had the following conversation with the guy at BevMo about the big bottles of Belgian gluten-free beer:

BevMo Guy: Uh, this is pretty good, but it's, like, six bux a bottle.
Me, The Asshole on Her iPhone:  Holds up two fingers and whispers, OKAY. GIMMETWOTHANX

I was totally listening to my call, though.  I am uber-professional.  Gwendolyn is rolling her eyes.

I went to sleep last night by ten, in a bed full of kids.  Nathan woke up around 2, coughing and complaining, so I brought him water and tissue and then got back into bed and stewed until 4.  I used to have insomnia when I was little; like eight and nine years old.  I remember being at my dad's house, sleeping on the black and white houndstooth sofa bed and watching the digital clock over the television slowly make its way through the early morning hours.  It was always the worst on Sunday nights, when I knew I needed to sleep because I had school. 

Today when 4 a.m. arrived, I realized it wasn't doing me any good to try and sleep when all I had going for me was tight muscles because of a mild sense of panic about the stuff I need to do.  I got out of bed and sent a few emails for work.  After about ten minutes, Sophie came to get me because she'd had a bad dream, and so I got back into bed so that she could sleep.

This is, I realize, a fascinating list of events.  I will give you a chance to click to greener pastures now, [GO] because I'm going to be an ass and blog the dream I had sometime between 4:30 and 5:45, when I actually did sleep.  Look, I know it's wrong, but it's the most interesting thing that I am willing to share at the moment.

So.  I am at the airport with Willow, who is an infant in a babysling again.  We're waiting for a flight somewhere, and the flight attendant comes and finds me in the gate waiting area and wants me to come check out something on the plane before everyone else boards.  She somehow knows that I don't like to fly, and she wants to make me feel better.  We walk down the jetway, and get to the door of the plane, where I can see the pilots in the cockpit, getting everything in order.  She invites me to get in the plane, and so I do. 

Next it comes to pass that it's just me and Willow and Giovanni Ribisi in the plane.  Only, he's not an actor, he's like an airplane mechanic or something, and before I know what's going on, the plane starts moving.  No one is flying it, though G does have headphones on and seems to be talking to someone.  I cry as the plane takes off and does a really unsettling turn over San Jose.

G is concerned with my reaction, so he takes off the headphones and tells me that it's his job to make sure the plane is working right, and not to worry and that we're going to land.  And, everything is on autopilot!  So, we do land, on 880 (a freeway that is right by the airport) and then he is driving the plane back to the airport along the surface streets, with me and Willow sitting in the seat next to him.  We are talking about his job and how much he likes it.  He says he loves the fact that he gets to fly planes, but doesn't have to go far away and can still have a beer or five with his San Jose homies (that's what he said, don't blame me) every night. 

When we are almost back to the airport, I check my email on my iPhone and see a message from my buddy from work, Hoku.  He is telling me that because G didn't respond to the control tower (because he had the headphones off to chat with me.  About his homies!) they've decided that the plane met a bad end and have sent out a DefCon4 Warning.  Or something like that.  And G was all, Whoops! Haha! Won't they be glad to see us?

I should have put the kids to bed ten fifteen twenty thirty six minutes ago. 

They are (depending on the kid)

• finishing up a report
• watching anime with a tiny bit of cursing (is 'damn' still a curse word?)
• eating corn chips (not junkfood because they are organic!)
• drinking the last of the milk (crappy tomorrow morning to follow)
• urgently reminding me (again and then again and twice more for good measure) that tomorrow night is Open House
• grumbling about stuff I chose to tune out
• getting all up in my grill

I am

• having a beer http://www.newgrist.com/
• yelling a little bit
• reading a magazine http://www.dwell.com/
• the following is not really a bulleted list item, per se, but, if you have ever been to my house, you will see that my OHMYGAWDIWANTTHAT attraction to beautifully made buildings and appliances and furniture is one of my invisible passions.  the difference between how I would like for us to live and how we do perplexes me.  please do note that you have to click on the magazine link for this comment on my "invisible passion" to make sense, unless you already KNOW of dwell magazine and then, well, you are excused from clicking. 
• getting a second beer
• thinking about sad things. about this man I've never met, but who is part of our extended family circle, who has little boys, a wife, and now, suddenly, cancer.  cancer that will probably take his life before he's halfway through it
• watching the following video -- happy earth day

I'm a big fan of Lynne Truss's book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, (I especially loved the Oxford comma part) and was floored when Sophie came home with the KID'S VERSION.  Schoolastic book order; I take back all the shitty things I've said about you and your poor quality (straight from TV and movies) selections.  Well, MOST of it, anyway.

Can I just say w00t?

Willow turned five in February, but her due date was just last week (April 15th).  My friend was asking me if it's hard for me when her birthday rolls around given how rough her start was in the world. 

So, I was asking myself that.  I think that the answer is really complicated and it depends on the day.  Mostly, though, I'm just incredibly grateful, so much so that the really terrible moments of her birth (and the worst christmas I've ever had) are fine, really.  They don't matter.  Of course, I'm finding those links and reading them has me crying at my desk, so I guess it is still hard to think about.  Blogging during that time helped. 

Dr. Cohen is telling me about the two small holes in my daughter's heart. She's asleep on a warming bed in the neonatal ICU, one day old, seven weeks early and perfect. He says the fibers that make up the heart muscle are long strands that cross over one another. Willow's heart has two spots where the fibers have somehow missed each other leaving two small spaces where the blood seeps through. They are inside her heart. She won't need surgery; the holes should close on their own within three months. I wonder if she'd have survived if the holes were on an outer wall, and again count our blessings even though I'm not feeling all that blessed.

The days pass unnoticed by me. I make trips down a cavernous long hall lined with windows. At first someone pushes me in a wheelchair, but as I gain strength and my c-section incision heals, I make the journey on foot. I notice the sunshine, the rain, the thinnest crescent moon over the mountains at sunrise, as I make my way from my room to my daughter's every three hours. My feelings are so raw that everything looks more beautiful somehow.

At every visit I scrub my arms and hands, clean my fingernails, put on a sterile gown. I find the door to her room and as I push down on the handle and swing it open things are okay again. She's connected to all sorts of machinery. Her father and I hold her all wrapped up in blankets and try not to get tangled in the cords that monitor her. Her connection to us doesn't trail from the bottom of her blankets, but it is there and more real. My love for her is the most tender I can imagine. She is strong and completely vulnerable. Leaving her at the hospital after five days is hell.

I'm driving home alone on the night I was discharged after going back for a visit. I'm thinking about Willow's heart, and suddenly I picture mine, unraveling from the bottom up, leaving a thin strand floating behind me above the road. The end of it is connected to her, tangled in the bottom of her blanket, looped around the IV tubing. I'm crying so hard that I turn on a cd and try to make myself sing along so I can focus. I need to drive and I can't see or breathe. I drive and move my mouth to the song, but only hoarse sobs will come. I reach my driveway exhausted. As I drive back the next morning I gather up the strand and reweave my heart, finishing as I hold her again, knowing that the holes there won't close until she comes home with us. . .

Then there was the whole severe anemia and feeding tube thing when she was one.

Now, though, she's this little freckled girl with purple glasses.

I can say that no one has ever taught me more about what it means to love, or how scary it can be, or how much beauty there is in a life.  So, while I do get emotional around her due date, [and also, while thinking about it now, dude, pass the goddamned tissues] it's not so much because she had such trauma as a newborn and one-year-old, or because she wasn't born at home, quietly, like I'd planned, into a quiet room of hushed voices like her sister was.   I'm just so grateful.  Not too long ago, I overheard someone my mother hadn't seen in many years ask her how things were.  She said, My life is an embarrassment of riches.

I think that even when I am thinking otherwise and throwing one of my oh-poor-me tantrums, I know that mine is, too.  And I am grateful.

My kids were super sleepy this morning; all that football and late night bathing wore them out.  They all four slept with me last night, again, and I let them sleep past the time that school started, except for Lex, who had to go early for safety patrol.  We walked into the office about an hour after school started, and the secretary said as she wrote out the late slips, You NEVER do this! Wow.  Reminded me of that comic who talked about what a rebel he was for drinking milk past the expiration date.  Remember him?  I cannot find him by googling: Comic "expiration date" milk "I'm a rebel."  Sometimes the internets let me down. 

Since I was an hour late getting to work, I decided to stop in at HoleFoods by the office and pick up something for lunch so that I could not move from my cube for the six or seven hours that I'd be there.  I took the opportunity to not only get my lunch, but to also outsmart HoleFoods.  If you've never shopped there, and dont' know why some of us call it WholePaycheck (dang it, who started that?) then this won't be as cool ** but here it is anyway:  At HoleFoods, there is a Hot Food Bar.  In the mornings they have roasted potatoes, scrambled eggs, little omelettes, BACON, fruit-covered French Toast, that kinda thing.  So, if you get bacon and eggs and potatoes and you eat a lot like me, breakfast can cost $17.95 because they go by weight.  I've never had a $17.95 breakfast there, but I have accidentally spent more than that on peaches.  Anyway.  What I do is I go to the hot food bar and get *just* bacon.  Like, ten pieces.  I like my bacon crunchy, and I think that weighs even less than disgusting, soggy, chewy, barfy bacon.  And it only costs about $1.40.  HAHAHA.  It tastes so much better when it's cheap like that. 

Anyway.  This morning when I was checking out with my practically free bacon, I was behind this guy in his early twenties (maybe, maybe late teens) and his mother.  The guy had all sortsa tattoos, and pants that sagged down to his knees and boxers hanging out.  Baseball cap.  You know the guy.  The sound system was playing HOT BLOODED (hehe has its very own wikipedia entry!) and he was Rockin.Out.  Seriously.  Like we are all standing there waiting for him to pay for his stuff, and his mother was just, I don't know what she was doing, but the guy, he was SINGING and dancing and I was standing there holding my bacon and thinking that if I have to be late for work, at least I got the gifts of cheap, crispy, organic, and nitrate free bacon, and a show. 

**Kinda in the same way that if you don't know this total shithead of a guy (who I would like to squash) named DAN if I knew his last name I would put it here and his "girlfriend" (who can also fuck off) RANDI again, if I knew her last name it's not really THE BEST HOOK UP STORY EVER to know that they met through a website for people with irritable bowel syndrome.  Something like IBS sucks dot com brought them together!  If you know them, though, that is SO PERFECT.  I hate them.  They owe me and John something like a thousand dollars and they SUCK and are dumb.  "<whatever the html is for NEVERENDING here> RANT"

Last night when I got home around 7, the kids were in the driveway playing basketball with superballs.  My neighbors were out with their sweet little baby, and we stood there talking and dodging the superballs winging around our heads.  I tried to get everyone to come in after John left, but it was still light and warm.  The weather's been weird; in the fifties one day, high eighties the next.  Yesterday was hot and summery and it just felt right to stay out and play past bathtime.  Nathan saw two long haired boys across the street playing touch football in the driveway with their dad, and he yelled EXCUSE ME? CAN I PLAY? 

Within five minutes we were all over there, along with this little boy who is always out and always alone.  He says he is six, and when I ask him why he doesn't wear a helmet while he rides his scooter he says that he doesn't have one.

I hadn't met this family before, and liked the dad straight away as he let Sophie into the huddle and showed her the plans by tracing his fingers on his palm.  We came back to our side of the street so we'd have a little more room, and another neighbor came home from work and stood with me, talking and watching the kids play.  Her kids were at their dad's, and we talked about how we really should all line up our weekends so that her kids, my older three kids, this dad's kids and my other neighbor across the street's kids were around on the same weekends this summer.  Apparently we are the street where everyone has been divorced at least one time, except for the really nice young couple next door with the baby.  We showed the girls how to do cartwheels and slapped at the bugs flying around.  The dad from across the street spun the girls' pink basketball on his finger and we all clapped. 

The kids played football until it was too dark to see the ball.  They made awesome catches, Sophie got really good at kicking off after touchdowns, and she even got a decent spiral on her passes.  When we were getting ready to all go in for the night, the dad said This is exactly what I wanted, a neighborhood like this.   

One of my favorite memories from when I was a kid is hanging out with my mom while she got dressed in the morning.  She'd stay in just her slip until it was time to go, and I'd be at her elbow near the bathroom vanity, watching as she put on her makeup.  I remember a blue and black bottle of YSL Rive Gauche always being on the countertop.  Feeling superior to the other kids, because my mom was a million times prettier.  A tan plastic box of hot rollers against the wall.  One of those light-up makeup mirrors that had the Day Evening Home Office settings.

After I grew up some, but before I had kids, I'd sit at the mirror by the open window in my apartment in the late afternoon before a shift at the restaurant, smoking and listening to music and putting on eyeliner.  Then I had kids and went years without haircuts or makeup (or smokes), wearing sweats or jeans, teeshirts.  Chuck Taylors.  Once when Sophie was just a newborn and I was dating John, my mom came over.  I was on the couch, nursing, in full schlub mode and my mom was all, Wow, it's really great that he likes you so much that you don't even have to make ANY EFFORT AT ALL with how you look.  [HINT HINT]  (And I took that with the love that was behind it -- I'm not bitching at all.)

Now that I'm working and actually sometimes not only wearing makeup but also coloring my grey AND using hair products (sadly, that is a big freaking deal), I have mornings where my girls sit and watch me get dressed.  I tend to be clumsy where my mom was elegant, and my girls aren't shy to point out my zits or tell me that it's time to go get my eyebrows waxed.   I cannot for the life of me figure out what the hell to do with my hair.  Look! Here's Yvonne using the flat iron on me in New York because I would have burned my head right off if I'd tried:

I was going to steal a photo from Yvonne (like the one I ripped off from Jenny's flickr page above) but she's all protective and so Here is a Link instead.  Of my hair looking not terrible thanks to Yvonne.  And here's more proof:

Where was I even going with this?  I got lost in the vain.  Oh yeah -- so I had this really bad ass zit on the end of my nose about a month ago.  Was super embarrassing and huge and even though it's gone, the end of my nose is STILL red.  Still.  Also, the adult acne is bad (my aesthetician was all Hey! Don't worry, it will make people think you are younger! Umm, NO) and so a few weeks ago I bought tinted moisturizer (total grown up makeup that I don't know how to use) and then, yesterday, I bought the green stuff that you put over the red on your face and UNDER the stuff you put over that.  Yeah.

Although the thought of applying green or purple makeup to your cheeks or under the eyes may remind you of Halloween, undercover makeup in these colors serves a real purpose. Undercover makeup is applied under a skin-toned foundation or concealer. Green will diminish the appearance of the red cheeks of rosacea patients. Purple lessens the yellow hue of sun damaged skin. White covers the brown of melasma.

So, while the girls watched me get dressed and put on my make up this morning, I got out the green stuff and tried to use it to cover up this mosquito bite on my forehead.   I thought that I did okay, until I got into the van and looked in the rear view mirror in the harsh light of day.  Dude.  It looked for all the world like I'd taken a softball to the forehead.  I totally made a bruise with makeup!  The mosquito bite didn't show, though, and so I guess that was one step forward, a few steps back. 

(this is the part where you email me makeup tips)   

Sophie has always had a great mind for free association.  When she was little, she'd come up with the best insults ever.  Stuff like Monkey Underwear Pee Cheese, Mustard Butt Hotdog, Butt Hair Hat (I blogged that a long time ago and get mad google hits for that phrase. True story), and the vilest: Butt Hair Salad.  I just kinda threw up some.

And here's part of an old post from when she wasn't even four years old:

Heh.  Sophie is mad and came back here stamping her foot.  She said, "What is that sound!?"  And I said, "Hmmm, what is that sound?"  She said, "IT'S ME STAMPING MY FOOT ON YOUR BUTT!"

Then, there was this prayer she said:

Please Lord of the Flies or Jesus or God DO NOT let it rain on Wednesday.  Or I will faint and go to heaven and you will see me there.  Amen.    (That "see me there" part? A TOTAL THREAT)

Other things she's done: toasted a Legolas LOtR card (yes, in the toaster), fingerpainted on the walls with her own poop (I bleached the shit -- HAHA literally! -- out of the walls), and used her own sock to drink water from the toilet. 

She's totally going to thank me for this post someday.

Anyway -- here's a video (because I? am suddenly a vlogger or whatever it is) of her singing a song to me last night.  Yes, my bedroom is trashed, and YES that is a snake cage behind her.

Last night at my yoga class, the teacher was talking about intercostal muscles and he used a guy from class to show where and what he was referring to.  I've seen this guy around for the past year, and, well, he's a very attractive guy with an incredibly incredible body.  I've never talked to him, but I figured that he was in his late twenties, maybe early thirties. 

So, the yoga teacher is pointing to his muscles and he says something about him being almost sixty years old. 

?
and, also
!

I know it was horribly rude of me, but after class I walked up to him and said, You are NOT sixty years old.

He said, Well, no.  Not quite, not for four more years.  I'm fifty six.

My mission is to sneak a picture of him with my phone or something, because I swear it's the most amazing miracle I have ever witnessed and I will never ever ever EVER stop doing yoga.  I can't get over the fact that I was off on his age by almost thirty years and while I thought he was younger than me, he's actually old enough to be my father.

Moving on.

Because I'm a weirdo, I bought this book (the top one) at the used bookstore I love:

Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine was first published in 1896 and it's a total pageturner.  One of the more fascinating tales so far was the story of Edward Mordake, which you can read here.  I was not at all surprised to find that while there isn't much information available about Poor Edward, Tom Waits wrote a song about him and this guy made a claymation video to go with:

One last thing: if you're a regular reader of Savage Love, don't miss Dan Savage's column this week.   Bring your hankie.

The first things I saw when I woke up this morning:

I'm trying to figure out how to make Gwendolyn let me live with her.

Willow would be happy with that, too.

I had to have a beer before I could let her do this.  I get a little nervous just watching it, even.

When she let go of the bar, it smacked her in the head, but she was fine.

To completely rip off one of my Very Favorite Blogs Of All Time (Unphotographable)

This is a picture I did not take looking out at the blue, blue Pacific beneath a warm, cloudless, almost sunset sky from the top of a sandstone mountain.  The rock under my feet odd, alien, worn by wind and rain.  Stunning red manzanita branches twisting up to place their silver leaves in the sunshine.  Four miles of ponderosa pines stretching from the bottom of the mountain to the sea; a cool green and lush band between the brown under my feet and the blue forever horizon.  Hawks and crows circle the forest, land on treetops, flimsy branches bobbing gently under their weight.   I balance on one foot atop a pointy moon rock, in my flipflops and skirt, legs scratched up from hiking through the woods. 

I got myself back to the yoga studio last night and let me tell you I am kicking my own head (really, I actually did) for not going sooner.  Two weeks away was two weeks too long and even though my neck and back are hurting today, my mind is much mostly a little bit better. 

There's just something about the combination of focusing so intently on breathing while moving and sweating (and I mean SWEATING) in a 95 degree room for 90 minutes that makes me feel really clean and good and maybe even a little happy.  I bet that I sweat an entire litre of gin after all the (mostly except for that one part) fun I had on the east coast.   Bugs in the yoga studio are still plastered if they got into my sweat on the floor.  (Ewwww. sorry)  Plain water is really extra good this week.

Last night the kids decided that they wanted to roast marshmallows in the fireplace.  All we had were the dinky ones and it was after 9 o'clock and I was in my PJs when they asked me to go to the store for big marshmallows and skewers and kindling. 

I said, Uh, NO.  Maybe tomorrow. 
Before work?
Maybe.
Pleeeeasssseeeeee?   *insert tears here*
Hmm.  We'll see. 

So, of course at 8:30 I walked over to the market around the corner and got the stuff minus the kindling (they didn't have any) and plus graham crackers & hershey bars.  I brought it back home to a hero's welcome and lots of kisses and was even able to get them to promise that if the fireplace wasn't working out to use the microwave without any crying. 

I wanted very much to stay home today and roast marshmallows in the fireplace on a too-hot day for it with my kids.   And I cried a little because I couldn't and because I won't see the big kids till Monday night.  And, yeah, I can roast marshmallows with them another time, but I miss the spontaneous fun we used to have.  I know that a huge part of this broken hearted feeling I have is about missing my kids.  About the fact that they do just fine without me and that I went from knowing all about their lives to not knowing much at all.  I feel like an outsider when I watch them play and I know I am not but I also know that they have adjusted to me not being there.  Don't get me wrong, I would hate it if they were not coping well with the changes.  At the same time, I really do miss feeling needed by them.  I loved being just a mom.  I was good at it.

Holy hell. 

You know, I'm okay, but damn if I'm not getting it from all sides right now.  And, secretly, when I say I'm okay I'm thinking something else entirely. 

I'm disappointed with the pictures I took in New York.  I totally lost my photo mojo.   

Today I paid almost four hundred dollars to find out that I owe ten times that in taxes.  Then, I checked my bank account and realized that I have been using the WRONG debit card (we have two checking accts with debit cards and one is *just* for online purchases so that if anyone gets the info (has happened to me before) our main acct will be okay) while I was in New York, and at Trader Joe's and to get gas.  Yeah.  So that was a few hundred bux in overdraft charges.  I called the bank and told them what a complete dumbass I am and they took some off, but still, 70 dollars in fees there.  I was using the wrong one because new ones came in the mail, and I put the wrong one in my wallet.  Because I'm smooth like that. *sigh*

Tomorrow night I will go back to yoga and see if that knocks some of the bad mood out.  Gwendomama sent me a link to this story about a tightrope yoga guy.  I'm just waiting for the surfer yoga guy to make his debut. . .

Googling "yoga surfer" led me here.  And, if I wasn't kicking $4k to the government, I'd be ALL OVER that place.  Damn.

There were kids playing baseball in Central Park on Sunday morning.  Jenny and I stood up on a bridge for a minute, watching the game and checking out the daffodils and squirrels.  I love those sounds; of the kids' voices and the bat smacking the ball.  The hooting and whooping.  How they echo in the big open space of the park and the noise is just part of the air around you.

It isn't a secret that I've been having a rough time of things lately.  Yesterday my to-do list started with FIND THERAPIST AND MAKE A GODDAMNED APPOINTMENT.  I didn't get to it (the Busy is fierce and unyielding)  but I will.  I am 37 years old and find myself reading a little too much into my fortune cookies (I cannot eat them, but I'm all over the message inside) and really, actually, earnestly, making a wish with my eyes closed like a little kid and throwing a shiny penny into a fountain -- because the extra-shiny pennies have a better chance of granting your wish, do they not?  I cry far too easily, I take things so personally, my feelings get hurt all the time, I overshare (LIKE NOW!), and I look forward to a drink after work and going to sleep in a way that tells me I need help. 

I'm really grateful, though, that I'm not completely in the dark.  I don't want to die.  I don't want to stay in bed and never see anyone.  I'm just sad.  It's maybe pointless, the things I'm sad over, because they just Are What They Are, and for me to wish for something different is for me to argue with reality and that's always going to leave me losing.  But I can't figure out how to let go and move on.  I'm stuck feeling like I made a rotten choice at a fork in the road way back (I am deeply sorry for the shitty metaphors -- blame depression!) and I can see that path I want to be on, but I can't fucking get over there. 

Right now I need to get in my car and drive to work.  My commute is on one of the very most beautiful highways in the world, as far as I'm concerned.  No billboards.  Green hills with live oak trees.  A gorgeous monastery.  Cows and egrets.  Geese, wildflowers, daffodils, fog, blue and green mountains.  Perfect curves.  Thirty miles of that.  On the way to work I will stop for coffee and while I drive I'll listen to music and I will feel good.  I will remember Yvonne's reaction to the church bells early Saturday morning (they chimed at 6, and I heard from her bed: WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!  and that? was comic gold right there, and was so funny I know I can depend on it to get me through the darkest of times) and there's also this.  This will get me through if the bell thing seems not so funny.   

Jenny and I got into a cab on Sunday morning so we could go to the Met and see a tiny slice of Central Park before we went to the airport.  Our driver asked us something (maybe if we liked New York) and we both said YES at the same time.  I've got singers! he said.

Then we talked about earthquakes while we drove down Madison Avenue and I was glad that we weren't walking because then I'd have come home to no more money in the bank.   He was incredulous that we could live in California and still sleep at night.  THE VERY EARTH UNDER YOUR FEET! MOVING!? he said.  NO WAY. 

You know what they should do?  They should get airplanes and helicopters all set up, and when there is an earthquake everyone could just get up off the ground.

I was actually loving that plan, but we did point out to him that there isn't really any warning system set up. Also, that would be a LOT of helicopters and airplanes in the air at the same time, which just might be worse than doing the duck & cover.

I'm shamelessly blogging at work, which isn't against the grain in this office, natch, but I do have several hundred emails to answer (NOTE: NOT A JOKE, THAT).  This is what I've been daydreaming about since Saturday:

I talked to the girls last night for just a little bit.  In contrast to the tears they squeezed out for me when I was (guiltily) leaving them (I think in my 11 + years of parenting you can count those on a couple handfuls of fingers) tonight was direct Webkinz questioning.  MOM: IF THEY HAVE THOSE IN NEW YORK, AND IF THEY HAVE UNICORNS BUT THEY ALSO HAVE PIGS, I WOULD LIKE THE UNICORN.  OH YEAH -- P L E A S E !

I think I could have predicted that. 

So, I have slept for maybe ten hours since I got up to go to work on Tuesday.  Where I am now, it's Friday afternoon.  I suspect that I may be a bit sleep deprived and not quite myself.   Case in point; I can't even figure out how many days and nights Tuesday morning was ago.

I feel a little silly, because after wanting to come and see New York ever since I was a teensy sesame street watcher, I'm holed up 14 stories above it, a little to frazzled to get out there.   I didn't die of claustrophobia in the Lincoln Tunnel, but I nearly passed out when I realized that not only was I in one long-ass tunnel, I was in one long-ass UNDERWATER tunnel.  Luckily before I keeled over, we popped up into New York and I felt better. 

I'm going to google how the hell much I'm supposed to be tipping people and then get out there. 

Last night I came home a little early, and Nate was in the driveway playing basketball with a couple of his friends.  I like that it's light later.  I feel like I get to see the kids more for some reason. 

They helped make a salad to go with supper.  Nate loves to play with knives (also known as "chopping things"), so he got out a bag of baby carrots and chopped them into pea sized pieces.  I gave Soph an avocado and a butterknife, and she chopped it into a mushy pile.  Willow cried, so we gave her a tea set knife and she mushed it up some more. 

After John went to work, all the kids got into bed with me and we read a couple chapters of Matilda.  Even Lex put down the book he's reading (All Creatures Great and Small) and lay near me, listening.  After the girls fell asleep, I scootched them over so that I could sleep next to Nate.  Lex slept crossways on the foot of the bed.   I woke up several times with a knee jammed into my spine, and Nate kept me up from 2 until 4, whimpering and fighting and calling out in his sleep.  You'd think that I'd be all drooling over the thought of having my very own hotel bed, but even though I'm looking forward to this trip, I'm not really into leaving the kids. 

I'm going in less than 24 hours, and I still have to get a ton of work squared away, pack, pay bills, balance the checkbook, shop -- all that last minute stuff. I'm just finding it harder and harder to keep up with my life.

There is much more sink than swim.  More working than mom.