I stayed home today to study again. Here's how it went:
7:45: Drop Bird at Daycare.
7: 46: Run into my friend C. dropping off her little one at Daycare.
7:50: Go to breakfast with C. Delightful!
8:45: Return home and gather laundry, start laundry, various household tedium, listen to NPR.
9:00: Receive call from baby brother, with whom I have not chatted leisurely in a coon's age. Catch up on ailing relatives, current job woes, political candidates, cat medicines, LOST.
11:15: Study. Really! I studied a proper long time, even while I ate my lunch. (egg noodles, frozen peas and carrots, shredded cheddar, Bragg's. Yum. (okay, in my head right now I hear a little Asian woman saying "Oh! You should study! A proper long time!" like in that 2 Live Crew song.)
And now it is time to pay bills and finish the laundry and collect my child from daycare.
So, it is no secret (especially to the people I know in the flesh) that we are having some issues surrounding the new captain of the ole ship here at the office. So I said something to a person above him about it, and I've listened and talked (probably way more than I should have) about it with my co-workers, three of whom work in satellite offices in other areas of the state. I had my review yesterday. It went okay. I was first on the list, and everyone else will be reviewed in the coming weeks. It was neither horrible nor great. There was much weirdness. I wish I could tell you more.
Anyway, today I feel like freaking CNN, reporting the same breaking story twice every hour as people call to check in and see how it went, what can they expect for their own review, what did I say about this or that, etc. And everyone has a different motivation for knowing this information: some are curious, some are concerned, some are pissed off, some are strategic and some are scared, and I continue to add fuel to the collective fire every time enter this conversation. I feel like there is a mutiny among the staff and somehow I have become the unwilling chairperson of the mutiny (though I'm fairly certain that mutinies are not organized enough to have chairpeople) just because I spoke up about a few things that were legitimately effed. And the problem now is that the few things are, come to find out, larger than previously thought and generally unfixable, as they are rooted in personality and maturity issues. I gave up on trying to change personality and maturity with my first college boyfriend.
1. I had my chakras treated (by pendulum) on my last day of massage clinic. Do I believe in chakras and energy centers? Yes. Maybe. Mostly. Everything was open and flowing freely except my sahasrara (higher consciousness/ spiritual connection) chakra was spinning in a wide circle. Backwards. WTF.
2. So we went to church on Sunday, in part because I was feeling a little shaken by the whole "your spiritual connection is not only off, it's backwards" thing. My bedside reading has been Blue Like Jazz, a gift from my Dad, and there have been many other nudges lately pointing me back in the direction of our sweet and liberal neighborhood Episcopalians.
3. My Gran is in the hospital, three days before we were scheduled to visit. We will still visit, of course, because what trip to the home town of both of my parents would be complete without forty-seven lunch and other various commitments and the pressure to really soak up the family that is all together all too rarely? She left me a bizarre message Sunday night, and according to my mother there is still an unexplained fever and some not-entirely-with-it behavior. But hey, who among us doesn't exhibit a little fogginess now and then? And then again, I'm also going to guess you're not eighty-seven. Because there's also that. So-- good thoughts toward my Gran, please.
4. I'm reading the History of Love by Nicole Krauss, which had been suggested to me and which I avoided for some reason, probably because I thought the title was hokey and it sounded like one of those best-sellers on an end-cap shelf at the check-out at the grocery, a book by someone with a first name common in my own generation, a book with little to no content, just a semblance of a story riddled with brand names and the pursuit for Mr. Right. Of course, it is not that book. It is beautifully written and twisty and I can't put it down. Next up on the reading list: frantic studying for for the national board exam. I promise not to write any kind of review here.
5. I've been checking this group regularly. Because it's like going to some hipster place and people- watching, without having to fight the line at the bar to buy a beer. Though I wish there was beer involved, sometimes. And sometimes there is.
6. A disturbing new trend in my office: continuing to participate in conversation after you are safely in the little bathroom with the door closed. This is a small office, and now we can no longer pretend the hearable is unhearable. inaudible. whatever. If we can continue our conversation while you're in there, I can't pretend you can't hear me pooping.
7. I got really dedicated to my job a few months back. And now I'm taking a break from that dedication. Many reasons, one of which is that my office is an ovening bunnery, with everyone gestating and wearing granny panties and complaining of heartburn, and wanting to talk about breastfeeding and what kind of pack-n-play they should put on their registry. I am completely willing to kill an hour or two a day this way. Another reason is that I've made it known that I plan to stick around there for a while until I figure things out, and I believe that at that very moment when the words came out of my mouth, my dedication went from flame to flicker. Another reason is that it's heart-wrenching work, no matter what your boundaries, and sometimes I just think you have to lay low, dammit. I'm on break. I'm still doing the nuts and bolts of my job and nothing is falling through the cracks, still enjoying the steady paycheck and the flexible hours, and I'll get my act together soon.
8. Once again, you are rewarded for making it to the end of this post. Bird has been singing "you are my sunshine" on a continuous loop for days, sometimes going for 30 minutes at a time. A. shot and cut this together. Please notice "you make me happy, and that's okay"
I've been listening to a lot of Sirius satellite radio lately, thanks to my long-ass drives to see patients in the past couple of weeks. Mostly the Gay Radio station-- the morning show is like sitting with a towel wrapped around my head in my best friend Joseph's kitchen in college with a Vodka + Grapefruit, reading a Celeb-tabloid Magazine while waiting for some kind of freaky-ugly hair dye to work its magic. Except it's early in the morning, I'm wearing slacks, and I'm in the car going to visit dying people. Other than that, it's exactly the same.
Anyway.
I've also been listening to the "Left of Center" station, and being married to an indie music snob for so many years makes me automatically skeptical of a mainstream-ish media outlet serving up some band we saw three years ago at the Springwater. But whatever. I bought a Feist CD with some of my precious, fast-spending Christmas money a while back, on the recommendation of a friend. I hated it. I hated it so much I returned it to Grimey's and got a refund. And now I hear this Feist person all over the Sirius station I listen to the most. And I don't mind it so much. And THEN (please let this get interesting soon), I was bumbling around the internet, stopped at Sweet Juniper, and found this link:
And I must say I like the song much, much better now that I know there's choreography involved. And now that I know that this Feist woman and I have pretty much the exact same haircut.
I know, I've been absent from this blog lately. But hey! I've been busy as a little bee, and my wheels haven't stopped turning in months as I plot and plan and waaaaaaaaait to figure out my next steps for work, childcare, et cetera. I turned thirty-one last month. I made an appointment to get my hair cut. I left my dome light on for an entire weekend and had to buy a new battery. I've made some delicious meals thanks to a new wave of library cookbooks (which I promise to share someday) and I've made commitments and promises all over the place, as usual. Bird is sleeping in a Big Girl Bed by herself (for the most part), and yesterday she looked A. right in the face and said "Dreams come true." Really. It just doesn't get any better, even with all the madness.
Yesterday, while putting my makeup on in the kitchen mirror (better light, long story), I turned around to find Bird smearing chapstick under her arms like deodorant.
Later that morning she actually got her hands on Andy's OldSpice Red Zone or whatever, and swiped that all over her chest and arms as well. When I dropped her off at daycare, she still smelled suspiciously masculine.
Today I was putting on makeup sitting on the floor of Bird's room (long story, again), and I looked over to find her smearing blush on her face. She had the right idea, but she looked like a little geisha and she screamed like a tiny, rabid monkey when I wrestled it off of her face with a baby wipe.
From these stories, you might think I actually wear enough makeup to know something about it, but you would be wrong. Any time I've worn it, it's ended up in the wrong place facially in some way-- mascara under the eyes or lipstick on my teeth or weird swipe of something on the side of my head. And yesterday in preparation for a patient visit, I thought it would be nice to finish off my grown-up costume by wearing some actual foundation, which has not happened since I don't even know when. I keep that in the spice cabinet, if you were wondering, and no I am not making that up. And I managed to get splotches of it all up and down the arm of my nice meet-and-greet summer sweater. The only clean and presentable upper-body clothing available, I might add. I was just never cut out to be a functioning adult, I suppose.
Your Reward for getting this far in the post: Here's a video of my Bird singing a song a couple of weeks ago. (21 months)
