An end-of-naptime quickie in 4 parts

Proabably four times in the last few weeks, our power has been out at home. Sometimes we're here to experience it, coming in from the backyard in the sunshine and flipping useless switches, sometimes we come home from work to a blaring stereo and blinking clocks.

Every time it happens, we find three or so dead birds, fried right up, piled under the utility pole with the huge gray box on top in the alley behind our house.

++++

I am going to organize a campaign in the fall to banish the word "Best" used alone as a closing in emails and letters. As in,

Blahblah blah blah nonsense blah blah please let me know your feedback and I will relay it to the client.

Best,
Joe Coworker."

I get a lot of these. I fucking hate it. Don't do that.

++++

We are going on vacation in less than a week, with my whole family, and I could not be more ready or more excited. And when I return I have pledged to be a little purging dervish, donating or tossing every single item in this house I don't use or love. I'm thinking of giving myself a goal , like 1,000 things. Ambitious.

++++

My bird is waking up whiny as we speak. Eeeeh. Eeeeeeeeeeehhh. Eeeeeeeeehhhhhhh. I'm going to go set her free again into the world of the fully awake.

This morning she sat still like a little churchmouse, hands folded on the Book of Common Prayer and eyes straight ahead, singing out of an upside-down hymnal. Cutest. Thing. Ever.

YS List

There’s something written on my calendar for tomorrow that says “YS list.”

I have no idea what it means. But I wrote it earlier in the week—earlier in the month?—for that day specifically and I’m wracking my brain trying to remember what I’m supposed to do about it.

I’ll spend all day tomorrow totally spooked that someone will come flying at me demanding my YS list, and I will be grievously unprepared.

x x x x

I got a cut and color yesterday. The answer to “how does the miracle $15 haircut lady make a living?” has been answered: color. It’s cheaper there than at most places, but writing that check still made me catch my breath.

x x x x

Today at work I was coming up with a title for a sewing demonstration DVD, and I was making this huge long list of related words and concepts in a stream-of-consciousness way. I just looked back over it, and one of the words I listed was “demon-sew.” As in Demonstrate + Sew.

But now I’m picturing black, wispy demons with horns and jaggedy wings trying to thread sewing machines and pricking their thumbs.

Now there’s a way to sell a sewing machine.

x x x x

Birdy is the fricking potty training queen. She is also at a stage in her social scene where lots of the kids in her daycare class have pregnant mamas or new babies in their lives, and she spends most of her free time walking around with a baby stuffed in her shirt, asking you if you want to touch her tummy.

It makes people kind of uncomfortable to see a pregnant toddler.

x x x x

I have a photo of her as my monitor’s wallpaper at work, and I’m staring at it right now, missing her like fucking crazy. This week has been long. And boring. As shit. And what’s that? Oh, two hours? I have TWO MORE HOURS to fill in this day, and nothing to fill them with. Doing nothing is far less fun when you have nothing to put off in order to do the nothing, if that makes sense.

I was teary about this job yesterday morning. There has been very little work for me in this past week, and I feel over-payed and under-needed. I miss having people call me and ask for help, and being able to say, “I will help you.” I miss knowing what to do. I miss procrastination; right now it’s just boredom.

And also, nothing interesting has happened to me during my eight-hour workdays in the last month. No crazy hillbillies, no bad hollers, no weird roadside shit. No weird requests or desperate pleas. No profound life lessons or cautions. No more squirrely feeling in the pit of my stomach, it’s true, but also no feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Week in Review

Monday, I had my cute little new-fangled phone sitting nice and flat on top of my little desktop speakers, on vibrate. A. sent me a text (which said "call me," by the way) and my phone began to shimmy, working itself off of its resting place and plunking itself directly into the glass of water below. Like a perfect little cell-phone high dive. The rest of the story is boring but involves the dismantling of the phone and laying it out piece by piece on my windowsill to dry, like a little beach for cell phone parts.

Tuesday, I got the standard "what's your story" questions from my coworkers in the break room, and became acutely aware of how I sound like a compulsive liar when I give my employment history. "I graduated from college, got accepted into a competitive Master's program but didn't go, worked with the crazy and homeless for 7 years, worked in an ad agency until it dissolved, had a baby, worked with people who happened to be dying from a cruel and rare terminal illness, and then landed here to be a writer. Oh, and I'm also a massage therapist."

I have suffered from awful allergies this week, beginning Wednesday-- sneezing, awful congestion, continually dripping nose. I know I'm a really welcome addition to this open-floorplan creative department, with my scronking and snurgking all the live-long day. Wednesday I took some generic Allergy meds and maintained a paranoid, clumsy, fuzzy high for 2 full days. My patience has been short with Bird (though she's contributed enough "TWO" this week to last a month) and I've been bumbling around like an idiot, not choosing the right words, the right shoes, or the right cross streets. My job pretty much revolves around my being clever, and clever I am not when I'm stoned on generic Claratin-D. Thursday morning I told Andy my head was full of snot, but what came out of my mouth was "my head feels like it needs to take a shit." which, come to think of it, is the most accurate thing I've said in a while.

My job is going well. When I'm being really honest, I'll tell you I'm a little lonely. Sitting in a quiet little room with nothing but words to think about shifts my brain into a different gear, like when you've been reading a novel for four hours and the phone rings and you kind of forget how to talk to live humans. Sometimes I'll put my two cents into a conversation, but I usually return to my office slapping my palm to my forehead and wondering how I have existed this long in the world and am still unable to make decent small talk without revealing my own weird shit. I find as I walk down the hall to the bathroom that I'm starting to narrate my own movements in my head, and sometimes I even narrate my own thoughts, like I'm describing to myself whatever it is that I'm thinking, which is kind of a messy process. And no, I have not been dropping acid.

And no, that doesn't mean I regret taking this job, either, or even that it's going badly. My social skills have always been weird. I'm ready to be six months into this and be able to stop explaining myself and telling the back story to everything. I'm ready to be comfortable, but it's only been two weeks.

I'm also just having to re-condition myself-- I haven't written in this kind of a marathon since college, really, and that was a while ago. I'm out of practice at being this acquainted with my own brain, being required to use it this way.

Oh, also at work this week someone was talking to someone else about kids in a kind of know what I mean? tone, and I was standing there a little in and a little out of the conversation, and this person said something to me like, "Well, you're not old enough to have any kids yet, but when you do..."

And I just sat there kind of stunned, not sure what to say, because WTF? So I came up with these three options:

1. I got my period when I was thirteen, so technically I've been "old enough" to have kids for almost twenty years! Suck it!

Okay, I really only came up with one option, that was it. There was another option but it involved a very simple, one-fingered hand gesture. I'm not sure why it all bothered me so much.

Maybe it's because I'm adjusting to working in the creative field again, where everything you put out there is judged in some way, evaluated, chosen or not chosen. And feeling like a bad mama to boot, walking around all high on Claritin and ignoring my child until she acts out and I can't cope with her two-ness. And here is this person questioning my ability to be a mother? Or is it about questioning my experience on this earth in general? In any case, that remark freaking flew all over me.

What I actually said in response was, "I have a daughter. She's two and a half."

And then of course today, because I am the way I am, I had to start some totally unrelated conversation with the other person that had witnessed this exchange that called into question whether or not I should be birthing babies or trying on prom dresses. Some stupid, awkward conversation that I crafted to give myself the opportunity to state my true age. As you might imagine, this exchange was not gracefully executed on my part.

In other news, I got to hold my friend J's sweet and teensy little baby this evening. I could have eaten him in one delicious bite.

You Make Up a Title, I'm Over It

First, a Question:
Why is Mary-Kashley Olsen famous?

Next, a Quote:
I swooped Bird up on the playground yesterday at daycare and she yanked the neck of my shirt open, looked in, and said:

"Hey Mama, you got a baby sister in your tummy for me?"

Sigh. I could have replied, "You got an extra eight hundred a month lying around somewhere that would pay for a baby sister's daycare?"

But I replied, "No, not yet. Maybe someday."

When what I kind of wished I could say was Yes.*

Now, a Puzzler:
When we bought our house almost six years ago, my mom bought us a set of sheets with an insanely high thread count as a housewarming gift. They are soft and heavy and smooth. They are (were) perfect. They cost a fortune, as sheets go.

I mentioned once to my mom that I never used any other sheets, as we had become so spoiled by the luxury of the perfect ones. I told her how I just strip the bed in the morning to wash them and put them right back on at night.

That year, for Christmas, we got another set of sheets with an only slightly-less-insanely high thread count, though they were also soft and heavy and smooth. They also cost a pretty penny.

For the next 3 or 4 years I alternated between these two sets of sheets.

This week, we noticed a hole in the fitted sheet of the first perfect set. It was a small hole that turned in a matter of nights into a gaping, ripped slash in the fabric and was the official death of that perfect sheet. I mourned.

No, seriously. I grieved that sheet.

Last night I put our OTHER set of sheets on the bed and noticed four (FOUR! MAYBE FIVE!) smallish holes in the fitted sheet, holes just like the ones that killed my first darling sheet. I know it is only a matter of nights before we will be dragging out the green sheets with their regular thread count and bitching about how it is just like sleeping under sheets of newspaper as we grieve these two hard losses. And in such a small amount of time! It's heartwrenching.

What do you think is happening? Did they have a contagious sheet disease? Could these holes be a result of sleeping on the same sheets for six years? (though the fabric was certainly worn it did not show thin spots or major signs of wear.) What the holy eff is going on in there that took two of the most wonderful fitted sheets in the whole entire world to an early grave in just a week?

And, a Non-Story.
Tuesday during my mediocre lunch at Fazoli's in Clarksville, Tennessee (when will I learn?), I couldn't help but notice the group of middle-aged, NASCAR-moms in the booth next to me. The kind of lady who will wear a Dale Earnhardt sweatshirt with a silk-screened autograph across the back, drive a Chevy Suburban and carry two keys and nine keychain doo-dads with pictures of her kids and her sister's kids and her cat and her husband back when they were in high school, and use seven gallons of hairspray each morning to support a weird hairdo only found in the South. The kind of woman who meets her best gal pals at Fazoli's for lunch.

Please note that I'm not judging. I'm observing.

And what I observed that day was that the loudest hen of the group had a cell phone that just would not stop ringing (which she answered every time), interrupting the conversation four or five times during the meal.

Her ring tone was the theme song from "Friends." And I observed in a strictly observational way what a strange thing it was that this early forties, over-sized NASCAR mom in a medium-sized town in the mid-south SO LOVED this show about fashionable, carefree twentysomethings living in New York City, so much so in fact that her love has continued in the many years since the show went off the air, so much so that she would make sure she heard the theme song at least six thousand times a day, each time envisioning those kooky Friends splooshing around in the fountain and walking into each other's apartments unannounced.

Maybe you don't think that's interesting. I think it's interesting.


*Just to make it unmistakably clear, I am not pregnant.

Dude,

STOP LICKING THE F*CKING COUCH.

I Received an Email Demanding a Blog Post, So

Here we are on the Greenway on Saturday. A truly lovely day, fantastic weather, quality family time.

While we were walking along the greenway, we heard a bicycle whizzing up behind us (a common occurance on this trail), and as he approached, the biker said, "On your left, Ladies!"

And then I said to A. "Huh. He just called you a lady."

++++++++

So the not smoking thing is going GREAT. Greater than great. A. has made it through situations (drinks, backyard fire pit, bars, band practice) I would never have dreamed he could make it through, and has remained his funny, easygoing self instead of morphing into a six-headed monster throughout the process. And because of that, I have been extra-strong as well. It's been over two weeks and I haven't wanted to hurt anyone or crawl into a corner and die, so that's a plus. And an even bigger plus is that I haven't really wanted to smoke. It's only a taste of success and I realize that, but yum.

+++++++

This work, this work! There is such bullshit running unchecked! As in, my boss totally did a no-call no-show on Friday and FLAT OUT LIED to me about it. MY BOSS. Hello, we are being led by a tenth-grader.

+++++

So, we haven't been sleeping well at our house, for a few reasons. Weather, for one. Tennessee has had some dramatic nights in the sky as of late, with wind and lightning and slapping rain, bright red radar screens on the news and devastating photos the morning after. Even if we could sleep through it, the big dog does not and he's a quivering, drooling, pacing mess before, during, and after the storm. And he totally wants to plant his stinky ass in YOUR bed until the sky gets quiet.

Bird has not been sleeping well, either, and when Bird doesn't sleep well, nobody sleeps well. She's clingy, on the verge of a winter cold and still staving it off, but barely. One of us spends at least half the night mashed into her twin-sized bed with her while she flops and clings and whines and pops up in the middle of the night fully awake and wanting to change her clothes. We've got to make another game plan-- I haven't woken up next to my husband in several days.

I also have not been sleeping well, with a tense body and a zillion things on my mind that keep my wheels whirring in the dark. I'm a champion sleeper, and In my life, not being able to sleep is the equivalent of not being able to enjoy, say, cheesecake. It's absurd.

And the fact that much of my unwelcome wakefulness is related to my work frustration makes me even more angry. I have plenty of important things to worry about, but for some reason I can't let this one go.

+++++++

Because the big things really are big and they bust open a hole so big in the fence of my brain that all of the smaller worries can slither in after them and there is no stopping it: No money in the bank or in the pocket or anywhere I can see it, Grandpa in intensive care with ilius and a MRSA infection, other Grandfather in his final days with family and hospice hovering close by, dad having prostate surgery to remove stage 2 cancerous spot on Thursday, Mom shouldering all of this worry, child not sleeping, immense job dissatisfaction, looming exam, dog with mystery hairless patch on bum, attic needing insulation, car tags needing renewing, giving up cheese for lent (stupid), clogged sink in upstairs bathroom, out of tomatoes, no clean underwear, and on and on like this until I find myself drilling down to a point of lying in the dark and obsessing about whether or not the dogs are going to ruin the garden I have not yet planted, purchased, or planned.

Welcome, it's scary and disorganized in here. And there aren't any cigarettes, so don't ask.

++++++++

Me: Ouch, Bird. You're pulling my hair. I don't like that.

Bird: I don't care.

++++++++

Okay, there's a story behind that. A. was trying to get Bird back down to sleep night before last, and she was trying to lay on his face in the middle of a sleepless vacuum of time, and he was all, "no, Bird, you can't lay on my face." and she was all, "Daddy, I don't like that when you say I can't lay on your face," and he was all, "I don't care, you can't lay on my face."

The next morning they talked about their rough night and hurt feelings. Bird told A. that it hurt her feelings when he said he didn't care. He said he was sorry, and that he was frustrated and tired. They kissed and snuggled made up.

But we're still left with the occasional "I don't care." She throws it out there and looks at you like, "Holy shit, what's going to happen next?" And I look at her like, "Holy shit, what do I say next?" And I have a whiz bang glimpse of the future where I am standing nose to nose with an adolescent Bird and I have to just snap out of it already and enjoy that I have to try not to laugh now because man alive, it is so not going to be funny when she is thirteen, no sir.

++++++++

Bird: (running laps through the house as we're trying to cook dinner and have some semblance of a conversation) POOPOOPOOPOOPOOPOOPOOPOOPOOOOPOOPOOPOOPOOMOUSE!!!

A: Hey Bird, I think it's time to call your parents and tell them to come get you.

++++++++

Just kidding.
Just look at her, so cute.
So TWO.




+++++++

So, A. shaved off his mustache. I think this is the closest he's come to psychosis while taking Chantix. He started out trimming his beard, and I got in the shower, and when I got out he was sporting a mean fu manchu. The fu was quickly removed, but the redneck photo is freaking priceless. I am fortunate to have married a man so weird and lovable.

Wednesday, Thursday, Myday

So this was the plan for today: Wake, eat, shower, daycare drop-off, cat to the vet, purchase dog food, home, do dishes, studystudystudy. And while some of those things did indeed happen, it didn't exactly go that way. Once I found myself out and about in the world with no real agenda, a day to myself just seemed too good to pass up. And even now, I'm sitting here feeling kind of guilty about it, because I didn't complete my list, because I parked my kiddo at daycare so I could spend the morning tra-la-la-ing around doing nothing. But hey, today was Music Class for the toddlers AND share-box day (think show and tell), and she was all jazzed up to go. While I was still full of good intentions about my planned Friday accomplishments, we stopped at the bakery down the street and sat at the window while we ate our sweet treats and talked about cars and dogs and I was instructed to USE BOTH HANDS, MAMA when taking a drink of my coffee. Um, every time. And there was pointing.

So here's how it really went, once I was nicely full of casserole sandwich:*

Took my cat to the vet. He's been losing weight pretty steadily over the past year or so, and it's gotten to the point where... well it's gotten to the point where he needs to go to the vet. Once a regal-looking 13-pounder with a lion's chin, he's now a bony little mewler with an appetite we can't keep up with.

Turns out it's hyperthyroidism, sending his metabolism into overdrive and his heartrate steadily upward. To be honest, I'd been dragging my feet about taking him to the vet in fear of being presented with some long, involved treatment options vs. end of life options. In other words, if he was going to die, I'd rather him just do it under the kitchen table while I'm sleeping than have to look him in the eye and explain to a vet how we just don't have the money or the commitment to keep him alive.

But it turns out he's just old, and this happens to old cats. And it can be fixed with medicine. I was also afraid of the cost of the visit, and my fears were confirmed there. But it could have been worse. And looking at that cat up on the table, that cat that has alternately been a good roommate and driven me to the brink of insanity for the last nine years, I remembered that he is a very good friend of mine. A friend who pukes up bellies full of food on the rug and shits in the basement, but still. A very good friend. Here's to Thomas, the college roommate that never moved out.

Next, I drove up to BigBoxville in search of a Best Buy to purchase a wireless headset for my new phone, since I do 99.9% of my phone-talking in the car. Oh, right-- I got a new phone! I'd been carrying the "cheese block" Nokia for the last four years, and A. recently launched a campaign in our home for new phones since his was literally crumbling to pieces in his hand, and it was just easier for us both to upgrade. A new phone! For me! (although I'm realizing that there was a little -- medium sized, maybe?-- part of me that was wearing that old obsolete cell phone like a badge, like a middle finger to the "stay connected, surf the internet at your own wedding" kind of culture. Who knew?)

I didn't make it to Best Buy because (insert long explanation here), and I didn't drive far enough. I stopped a block too soon, and ended up at Wal-Mart.

So anyway: my vote for Most Depressing Place in Middle Tennessee might just have to go to the Madison Wal-Mart. *shudder*

I don't frequent Wal-Mart, but not because I boycott. I boycott out of convenience, I suppose, since I'm already not going there because it's too damn far away in any direction and too much of a time commitment. But. They sure have a lot of stuff. So much stuff, in fact, that I generally find myself ten minutes into the belly of a Wal-Mart, fighting the urge to drop my armloads of crap and run at full speed towards the door before I completely short-circuit.

But my point is this: Wal-Mart during the day in Madison, TN is not a happy place to be. I got my bluetooth (would have been fine with my old wireless earbud dealie, but New Phone is particular about these things), and got the hell out, adding only a stocking cap and a 12-pack of disposable tupperware that we will do our very best to lose within the space of one week.

My vote for the most exciting place I visited today would be the Goodwill Store just down from the soul-sucking Wal-mart. Ah, the Goodwill, home of so many tiny wool sweaters that have had a turn in the clothes dryer. Having unlimited time in the Goodwill is a little bit meditative for me, but mostly nostalgic: reminds me of college, when I spent chunks of time picking through granny coats with nothing better to do except maybe study. So yeah, pretty much exactly like today. But to be unrushed! In a nice, clean Goodwill, where things are arranged by color but not so much by size! Oh!

I walked out with three skirts, two sweaters, an 8 X 8 pyrex baking dish (mine is lost forever), and a long-sleeved Free People shirt for around $30**. Was it in the budget? Nope. But SCORE.

And now I am home with a belly full of mac & cheese, ready to attack our current laundry crisis (CODE RED), make a cup of coffee, load the dishwasher, and then study. Or maybe just go pick up Bird, because I miss her. And I feel guilty about stashing her at daycare so I could pick away aimlessly at this day until it is almost gone. But no guilt! Joy is not a luxury! I'm taking my time out and I'm owning it! And then going to get Bird because I still feel a little bit guilty!

In conclusion, here is a Bird Quote from this week:

Me: (hugging her) You smell like daycare.

Bird: You smell like Bwoccowee and sewp.

(translation: Broccoli and soup. So, in other words, kind of stinky.)

*OMG, so good. If you live here, go there. Order the breakfast sandwich. I keep ordering it under the guise that I'm researching what might go into making it, so that I can recreate 24 of those suckers for the price of one at the bakery. But the truth is, I'll never do it, and if I did, they would not be nearly as good, so I'm going to keep getting them at the bakery. And plus, they are so nice there, and Bird loves to sit and watch the dogs and cars go by.

**Also, I tried on a very cute little pink 1950s capelet/ sweater type thing with amazing details... if you are a little smaller than I am, get your butt to the Goodwill, stat! Sweater awaits!

EDITED TO ADD: have I told you how much I have grown to love Sirius Radio? Just now, two of my Tom Waits favorites, just like that. And TWO NPRs.

Kind of Tired of Making Up Titles

Before we begin, know that I am posting with great difficulty this morning due to the fat band-aid on my right index finger, meant to cover and heal the spot on my top knuckle where I grated my finger like a hunk of cheese last night. Ouch.

(BTW, I was making this, which was absolutely delish. Don't skip the pine nuts if you make this one. Just learn from my example and be careful grating the parm.)

(and BTW again, finally, I found an eggplant- heavy dish that I like. Success!)

And Now Down to Business:
So, my house. She is a good house, not too big, not too small for our little pack. She is a bungalow within two years of her eightieth birthday, full of charm and bricks and wavy glass and arches, high ceilings and glass doorknobs. She was a bargain in an "emerging" neighborhood for A. and I as newlyweds, and has hosted us for 5 + years now. We love her dearly.

Her windows are so charming, in fact, that you'll need to put on an extra sweater in the winter to handle all of the drafty character. Her one full bathroom is so cozy it fits exactly ONE adult who, if they so choose, could sit on the commode with one foot in the hallway while turning on the shower with the opposite hand. (and that one adult must use the hair dryer in the kitchen, because the bathroom is also too charming to have an electrical outlet. But it also has a truly charming floor of teensy, octagonal tiles.) Her kitchen is so charming that if you cook, say, a curry dish, you will be reminded of that dish for a week straight with no exhaust fan to suck out food smells. And you will be charmed to prep the whole thing on a countertop the size of a postage stamp.

These are the things about her that we just live with, because we love her, and because she sure overlooks a lot of bullshit we throw her way, like two dogs and a cat that shed 7 pounds of hair daily, a toddler with crayons, overflowing laundry, slacker maintenance skills, etc.

And then there are the upstairs bedrooms. Two small, afterthought divisions in an attic "finished" sometime in the sixties, I'm guessing. But still with the 1930 windows and very, very limited insulation.

Sleeping up there (which A. and I do) is like camping. Hot as shit in the summer and freezing cold in the winter, with a few weeks of just-right temperature between seasons. Right now? It is bum-freezing cold. And the toilet seat in the half-bath? MADE OF PURE ICE.

There are things we need to do. Like blow in more insulation and replace windows. But we have about $30 to fix this problem, so...

Enter the space heater.

Enter also my maddening, all-day anxiety about whether or not the space heater is still on, even though I vividly remember turning it off before I left the house.

Here is the list of constantly cycling OCD questions* that flavor my days, including but not limited to:

1. Did I turn the oven off?
2. Did I lock that back door?
3. Did I turn off the coffee pot?
4. Is the baby monitor on? (a bedtime obsession)
5. Is the garage going to catch on fire since you guys were smoking back there?
   
6. Is the alarm set for a.m. and not p.m.?
7. Is the curling iron off? (I literally have not used a curling iron since my freshman year of high school, by the way, but here I am at thirty-one, with fleeting thoughts of a gnarly, hairspray-caked Conair curling iron sitting on my parents' bathroom counter.)
8. Are there candles burning?
9. Did I remember deodorant?**
10. Are my keys still in the door? (answer is often yes)
11. Where is my phone? (leads to constant checking)
12. Did I flush the toilet?

and now my new addition to the OCD family of thoughts:

• Is the em-effing space heater still on upstairs, possibly with a sock draped over it because it really is sitting way too close to the laundry, possibly catching our sweet old house and everything in it on fire at this very minute? How will the dogs get out if the house is on fire? WE MUST THINK OF THE PETS!

*Please understand a bit of history: that I grew up in a small town where my father handled much of the insurance business in the area, and was frequently awakened in the middle of the night for a house fire, tornado damage, a car accident, etc. My dad is a good guy, and he takes insurance seriously, and he was often standing in the snow with a family in the middle of the night, watching the volunteer fire department try to save what was left of their burning home. But his familiarity with tragic incidents and the causes of said incidents has made him a cautious, boy-scout-prepared type of a man who has a sharper focus on prevention than most. He is a man-scout, I guess. And I, having grown up in the shadow of his preparedness and caution, have some signs of OCD as an adult.

** I do recognize that doubting my own ability to address personal hygiene and sanitation have little to do with my dad. But that curling iron thing? That was hammered home to me with a brainwashing-strength intensity from the time I laid eyes on that Conair with the skinny barrel and put it on my Christmas list.

Look, a post!

I'm thinking it's time for a haircut.

I think this A LOT. And then I think, "not so much." And I go about my life not having a haircut.

But now I think I do want a haircut. There is always at least one hair in my mouth and one invisible one somewhere on my face causing twitching and clawing at my cheeks, and collectively it's becoming a tangled and stringy mess the longer it gets. I feel like I live my life peering through a curtain of hair-- most often when I'm leaning over looking for something or discussing pressing issues with a two-year-old. Which is about 75% of my time. Not to mention I'm spending waaaaaay more time in the shower than I'd like during our hectic morning scramble, just trying to wash/ rinse/ condition/ rinse.

Now to figure out if I trust the bang-trim lady to do the short-short. I'll keep you posted, I know you're on the edge of your seat.

In other news, I either have a rotten but suspiciously intermittent cold or I am allergic to something in my own home. I'm guessing the Christmas Tree, but I might also place blame on the balls of dog and cat hair rolling lazily from one room to the next, sometimes being mistaken for whole animals all on their own, as in, "Holy Shit, when did we get a guinea pig?" Or maybe the dust, inevitable lurking mold, something. I am sneezing violent, unpredictable sneezes and living life in a big fog at the moment.

But, Christmas is upon us, and I have not created the Advent wreath I was dreaming of for Birdy (though she made quick work of all 24 days of her Advent Calendar), Have not created, purchased, or mailed a single Christmas card (and won't), have purchased exactly ONE gift which is for Bird which happens to be the most awesome sock monkey ever from the Farmer's Market. Soon enough we can remove the tree and see if I'm still blowing out candles from across the room. It might not hurt to dust and vacuum, as well.

Speaking of the Holidays, we are going home, of course. 10 days of touring Indiana from top to bottom-- lots of time in the car and out of a suitcase from house to house to house and back again. And the more I think about all of it and the closer it gets, I have no desire to do any of it. Not the packing, not the drive, not the giving, not the receiving, not the sleeping in a hundred different beds (or rather NOT sleeping-- I have a toddler, you know), not the eating pounds of bullshit that makes my body work poorly, not the hugging and the happy voice and the realizing I've forgotten to pack a bra, not the ten solid days without a moment to myself, without a private moment with my husband, without a quiet moment with my kid. I love being with all of my nearest and dearest, I do-- but this year I just don't want to go.

There, I said it.

Eight

I was tagged for a meme a way-long time ago--in MAY, no kidding, and I have finished it. Finally. It's a pretty open-ended "list eight odd/ interesting/ et cetera things about you" type of meme. There are many things happening in the Land of Snee, but none that I want to discuss right now because the air conditioning has gone out in my office and it is so effing hot in here that I can't communicate well, and the things that are going on deserve to be communicated well. And this post was basically finished and ready to post, so it's a freebie.

I'm not tagging anybody else for it. Do it if you want. Or don't.

Begin.

1. In high school, I was a member of the National Honor Society, the Thespian Society, the Marching Band, the Swing Choir, the Art Club, the Spanish Club, the Speech Team, the United Methodist Youth Group, the Junior Rotary Club, the Mass Media Class, and the AV Club. I got excellent grades. I never snuck out. I never went to parties. I never drank a drop or even smoked until right before Senior prom. And yet still managed to be a complete slacker in college, lived in a bona fide party house, took a few drugs, had a few brushes with some ugly grades, told some hideous lies to get out of them, and somehow graduated five years and only one change in majors (Fine Art to English) later. I applied and was even accepted into two MFA programs in creative writing, one in New Mexico and one just outside of San Fransisco.

2. I didn't go into either program, because my father had recently suffered a heart attack and I didn't want to be so far from home, also because I would have had to take some bullshit summer algebra class to finish my B.A. on time (which scared me shitless after successfully avoiding math classes for 5 years), and largely because I didn't want to leave my new boyfriend. He is now my husband, and though I wonder sometimes how things would have been different for me, I have never regretted that decision.

3. I've been vegetarian since I was about eleven, when my mother took me to the doctor and explained that I was refusing to eat meat, and the doctor said, "that's okay." The only meat I have eaten since pre-adolescence is the very rare hot dog with sauerkraut and onions outside of a bar in college. Unless you talk to my brother, who swears that I eat chicken enchiladas, which is a big fat lie. I would no sooner eat a chicken enchilada than I would eat my own finger.

4. I keep my deodorant stick on the windowsill above my kitchen sink. And I don't have a reason for that. I just forgot to take the new stick upstairs to our bathroom after a grocery trip, and all subsequent sticks have just lived there on the sill.

5. I fell in gym class in the sixth grade, bonking my knee on the hardwood floor. I was a scrawny kid and I hated gym class. I fell, it hurt, and then everyone started crowding around me, so I made a pretty big deal about it. I went to the emergency room, there were months of physical therapy, et cetera. I will spare you the details, but the whole incident ended in knee surgery, and I'm certain it was all brought about by my exaggeration rather than any actual injury.

6. I have a very, very hard time making change. I mean like nickels, dimes, and quarters.

7. I had my gallbladder removed at the tender age of nineteen. It runs in my family, the gallstones at a young age.

8. I worked with severely mentally ill patients for many years, and one of my all time favorite patients was a schizophrenic woman I met on my first real caseload, who routinely called me "Tina" and peed in every chair she sat in. I used to take her to buy bright green and purple wigs at the costume shop, and she'd stare at herself all the way back to the group home in my passenger-side mirror, thrilled with her appearance. "Oh!" she'd say. "This is what the kids are wearing!" Most of the time she refused to leave the house for fear of Barbara Walters hovering around outside. She once told me that Lucille Ball ate the baby Jesus.

My daughter is named after her.

My Baggage

So, Velocibadgergirl did this thing where she dumped her bag and told us what was in it, and invited everyone else to do the same. So I did it. She also tagged me for a meme (me? tagged for a meme? Has never before happened! So I did that, too, which will come in a separate post.)

**BIGBAG**

1. Moleskine notebook for jotting notes, many of which I'll never understand later
2. Giant plastic filing envelope-- you have no idea how this is saving my life
3. Plastic pencil case: holds pens, highlighters, old gum (wrapped, thank you) and Swiss Army knife
4. Bigger notebook for jotting: I make a list of the "must do" stuff here every day and keep it visible... if it isn't in writing, it so isn't happening
5. Board Meeting minutes from earlier in the week(these should live in the Giant Plastic Filing Envelope)
6. Thank You card from someone I care about, addressing a touchy subject*, need to respond (also should live in the GPFE... but seriously, you should see the stuff that's actually in it)
7. Business card from the BLIND TAX GUY
8. Shiny snail toy found in the park, to which Bird is now so very attached and who knows where it came from or where it's been, and no matter how hard I try to lose it, it just keeps coming back
9. Smallbag: lives in big bag. Holds necessities, functions like a little submarine that lives inside a bigger submarine and it shoots out to go exploring shipwrecks and shit. Smallbag explores shipwrecks. That's right.

**SMALLBAG**

1. Wallet. Had it since mid-college. Given to me by a former roommate as partial payment on a rather large phone bill-- I think he stole it from Urban Outfitters.
2. Planner. Daytimer Pocket Size, leather cover, 2-page-per-week calendar pack. I'll shout it from the rooftops, I love this thing.
3. Vet card**
4. Chapstick. Never leave home without it.
5. C.O. Bigelow minty lip gloss. Kind of sticky, but smells good, claims to freshen breath, though I'm not sure how unless you eat it, which you could if you were into that.
6. Lipstick, at least 3 years old, worn down to barely a stump.
7. Baby hairbrush for the babyhair
8. Starbux giftcard... thanks, mom (she really is so, so kind)
9. Old ass phone says "okay, how bout now? hello? you there?"
10. Pen and sharpie that used to be attached to keys... too dangerous, so I removed it and now it is a free-range sharpie.

*From brother-in-law's very long term and very recently former girlfriend, whom I just loved. It is all so sad.

** Rudy the Beardog is allergic to fleas.
Me: Does he even have fleas?
Vet: No, not really. That will be one hundred million dollars. Have a great weekend.