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They say to write what you know and write what you feel.  If I’m feeling depressed, it’s hard to write about anything else even about Silas’s new obsession:  the word and act of farting.

photos by my husband, Paul

Last weekend, I started a post in which I was describing a ho-hum afternoon:

It’s gray outside.  I’m still in my pajamas.

I’m trying to approach this fact with a glass half-full mentality.  It’s a luxury really.  To be in one’s pajamas at a quarter past one…

…Still, how do you conquer the afternoon in which you just can’t make it to the shower?  You know the type when you just stare at the yellow walls. Just stare.  Maybe wash a dish or two.  Get tired.  Continue staring.

That’s the kind of afternoon that I’m having.

…I’m completely unmotivated.  Not even to eat really.  And, now with Silas asleep and Paul setting up for his big gig,  it’s just you and me baby.  And since you are not even really real.  Then, well, it’s just me.

So, again, today, this is the kind-of afternoon I’m having.    Except that today is sunny, I was in my pajamas until 2:30 not 1:15, and Paul is working instead of preparing for a gig.  There is an obvious pattern here.  Of depression.  On the weekends of all things.

Today, I woke up late (blamed my medicine), missed church (blamed Silas’s low-grade fever), waited for Silas to take his nap so that I could get some work done (because our house is trashed and I’m behind at work), found it challenging to get anything done because I abhor the state of our house (Amityville), moped about (of course), talked on the phone with little to no enthusiasm (most likely spreading my ugly state of mind), and then finally decided to forget the house and the work and to lie on my bed an read (Ahhhhh….).

And, voila, a little bit of happiness ensued.

Why couldn’t I just have read on my bed in the first place?  It’s as if I have to have an excuse to do something pleasurable.  Like I just can’t allow myself to be happy.

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I just set Silas down for his afternoon nap.  Thank God we still nap.

Even better, it’s thundering and lightning outside so I can’t mow the lawn.

Yippee!

So, I’m here again. And, yes, that means more silence.

Maybe you’ve gathered that I have little to do but read, and write, and do housework.  And since, more often than not, I avoid the housework, then, well, I have little to do but read and write.  And, now that I am a Facebook member, I also obsessively check my Facebook account.  Not quite sure what I’m expecting to find there.  Perhaps I’m just lonely.

I did go for a long hike today.

So, onto Mirielle Guiliano.

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I just stuffed my gullet with peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies and downed them with a fat glass of milk.   I wasn’t really hungry.  In fact, for all intents and purposes, I really didn’t want to eat the cookies.

Hmmm…

Furthermore, while I stuffed my face with these less-than-gourmet treats, I sat on my fat behind and read the first three chapters of French Women Don’t Get Fat.   (Damn the french!)
Why?

Je n’sais pas.

I simply don’t know.

I just wanted to point out the ironie.

But, I basically just poisoned myself with high fructose corn syrup and cheap sugar.

If you are not sick yet, I am.  (Literally.  I feel really gross.)
Anyhow, if I stick to reading the relatively uppity, but seemingly practical, dietary smash by Madame Guiliano, I will let you know.

For this evening, however, I will just continue to berate myself as I count sheep.

1-sheep-your-a-fool-2-sheep-your-thighs-are-like-tree-trunks-3-sheep-you-have-a-jellyfish-for-a-belly-4-sheep…

Bonne Nuit.

I have decided to enter a fiction contest.  Just a local one.  Winner gets published and $75 dollars.  It costs $10 to enter.

Oddly, I’m a wreck.

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As a mother, everything cuts so much closer to the bone.

I believe that I am a person who has always felt emotions with great passion. My highs, Mt. Everest; my lows, the Great Abyss. I am often covered in goosebumps. Photographs, songs, poems, novels, billboards. You name it, I’m inspired. I didn’t think my well of emotion could be dug much deeper.

Until I had Silas.

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Today I decided to pick up For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange.

I finished Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama a few days ago and was excited to have recognized a reference to this choreopoem in the middle of his memoir. Hence, I decided to pick it back up.

Man, is it filled with pain. I was getting goosebumps every few lines. I was filled with that lightening buzz of excitement you get when you are reading something so powerful that you want to pick up the phone and share it that minute. Or, maybe you want to scream. Want to run uphill so when you buckle over gasping for breath you know you are alive.And, then there were the scenes about salsa.

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So, I finally picked up Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions.

Really, I should clarify that statement. I didn’t just pick the book up. I’d done that many times before– sometimes pressing the cover to my forehead hoping to ingest some of its unknown wisdom.

No, this time I actually picked up the book and read it.

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Note: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood is a graphic novel/memoir by Marjane Satrapi about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Persepolis is also an ancient Persian city that is now in ruins. Persepolis is also, also the name of a french film, currently in theaters, which is the cinematic adaptation of the graphic novel and its sequel.

So, we went to see it.

Persepolis.

And, it happened again.

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