I’m just coming off of a seven hour cleaning high. And, ahhhh, I needed that. I’m only working 1/2 days now and Silas took an extra long nap and somehow I got my momentum going and then Bam! for the first time in, uh, six months, I feel like I have a home again! Teaching full time and parenting full time is no easy task. Tack on a giant remodeling project that you did not consent to and it’s, well, hell actually.
I am terribly exhausted, but am here because I committed to be here. No profound musings this evening. Just a little check in. Day Care is closed for the next two weeks because of a swine flu scare. (Yeah, we’re having an outbreak in good ole’ Henderson County.) Silas seems fine and is not showing any signs or symptoms. Thank goodness.
He is, however, being a large night-time pain in the ass. Somewhere along the line, our consistent beddie-bye routine sort-of disintegrated and now we are left with the ugly fall out. Sometimes Silas will drift off into La-La Land with little complaint. Other nights it’s like we’re back at square one doing the screaming-soothing-caving-in song and dance that we started over a year ago. I’m willing to let him cry, Paul isn’t. Either way, it’s a real drag. But, I suppose, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
At the moment, Paul and I are banished to the living room while Silas tries to make night-night in our bed. I’m thinking of just camping out on the sofa, but Paul assures me that I have to take one for the team. I guess that means I have to stay up until the little prince commits himself to rest and then sneak back into my own bed. Ridiculous.
Other reasons for my sheer exhaustion: I’m fat. (But I’m climbing to the top of Connemara every day, so that should change.) I hate my summer job. (Over in four days!!!) We’re embarrassingly broke. (Getting a double pay check Tuesday!) I’m sure there are other reasons, but I just don’t want to appear like I’m whining or anything. Ha!
So, that’s that. That’s all the energy I have for today. Maybe tomorrow I can expound upon why vampire families don’t paint an honest picture of parenthood or upon the reasons why I wish I could sit and breastfeed and watch all four seasons of Project Run Way back to back in one day.
It’s officially summer. May and most of June slipped by silently. At least silently in terms of this blog. I haven’t posted since the end of April. But, it is officially summer and I look forward to writing again.
Especially when he left little sticky notes around the house saying things like “Write. Read. Garden. Relax.” Now I’m a real schmuck.
In other words, I am sitting in the glider brought from Silas’ room to our room watching our son asleep in our bed. (It was Daddy night as I was off performing in my first improv show in months.) He’s gorgeous and it is hard to imagine that he once lived inside my body. Plus, he’s such a ball of peace when he’s sleeping.
My improv show went well. I’m tired. I really just wanted to state my, uh, apology, and make sure I was on my blog today. Off to a novel and some beddie bye…
First let me not recommend The Other Boleyn Girl—novel or film.
That said, it is garden time again. Thank God. The lilacs are blooming and I’ve got kale in the ground. Life seems good. Or, at least better.
Recently, in couple’s therapy, I stated, with no humor in my voice, that living in our house is like living in Amityville. This house that seems to be constantly mutating but never really improving, this house that seems to have possessed my husband with a deranged adderal-driven handyman who cannot finish what he’s started, this house in which the evil stifles me as me walk through the front door and holds me in its depressive clutches until I leave again.
About a month ago, I spent a good 24 hours detoxing in the most primitive of ways: vomiting every last nutritive (and non-nutritive) fiber stored, however temporarily, in my upper digestive system while simultaneously (well almost simultaneously praise the lord!) urinating out my behind.
The studio formerly known as “my yoga studio” which is certainly now someone else’s yoga studio has a cute little framed picture of a dancing bear above the toilet. I don’t usually go for the dancing-bear-in-frame motif, but above this this particular teddy (one might have once referred to it as “my teddy”) are the words: Remember to use positive affirmations. I am not a dork is not one of them.
I always chuckled at this little ha-ha because “I am not a dork” is my kind of affirmation. Along with: I am not a loser. I am not a cow. And, I am not destined to be another slug popped and gutted under the iron heel of mediocrity.
When I try on phrases such as: I am hip. I am sexy. I am both intelligent and talented and am a virtual giant of creativity. I just sound like a fraud.
(Yeah, I should also try on the phrase “Even though I’m a language arts teacher, I don’t know a good goddamn about grammar.” Yes, that explains the odd jumble of colons and periods and the lack of quotation marks or whatever.)
So, I’ve been staying with some friends. Silas and I. It has been difficult, but I couldn’t stand living in the demolition zone any longer. It is not a separation from Paul as much as it is a separation from the house. I had become so depressed that I lifting myself from the bed was becoming impossible. Mascara a herculean effort. Paul is taking this time to put our home back together and I hope he does it quickly.
In the meantime, I have been listening to a collection of 55 word short stories about love and death. The collection itself is not really very good. But, the idea was inspiring. Since, I don’t have too much to give, 55 words seemed managable. Read the rest of this entry »
But, here is a friend’s blog. Friend Jason Denton. You can access his blog at http://www.gagorder.org That is the current web site for my improv group. Sorry I’ve been away for so long. I finally feel something brewing… stay tuned.
