Do you have a garden?  I bet you do!  What do you grow?  Tomatoes.  Cucumbers.  Cute little clones of yourself?  Can you imagine if you cloned yourself?!?  You’d be in the grocery walking down your favorite aisle for that favorite food of yours, you know that food that you consider all your own, and you’d see yourself there buying out your favorite food and then you’d get in a fight with yourself.  It would be weird.  Would you mind turning over, under the sheet that is, I don’t look.

This is not a lie.

Is that light enough and funny enough for you?

That guy is probably a psycho-killer…

I just found out that my dreaded anoscopy (I wasn’t joking about that) will be performed by a woman and I hope there is little to no conversation.  I have no idea how long the procedure takes but it better be quick.

Anyhow, I’m going to get a massage that day to reward myself for going through the whole damn thing and that’s what made me think of the loquacious masseur.

That and my co-worker friend who suggested I write about teachers (because we know one) who get massages from their students.

That’s truly sick and teachers like that should be obliterated.

There are also those who text, talk on the phone, and You Tube during class.

Why am I busting my ass when those folk get paid the same, maybe even more, than I do?

I’m letting my son eat raw lasagna noodles.   That’s how I get these lovely little posts done.  I sit in the kitchen and make sure Silas is distracted with utensils and food items that he chews on and smears all over the floor.

We’re very upscale around here.

No, seriously.

Tonight is Music Together night.  The night that Silas and I go to music class together and he runs around screaming while I have to pretend that my fingers are a tickle snail and scoot them up and down a strange man’s arm.   It’s really fun.  I look forward to it every week.

No, seriously.

I guess I don’t have much else to say.  I just wanted to live up to my promise.  The promise that said I’d try to think of something funny to say.

I hope I could amuse you in some way.

Now I have to peel my son off the floor and get ready for the madness.

Until tomorrow.

So, I mentioned to my mom and sister that I finished a post today and that it was dark.

“Big surprise,” they both commented and rolled their eyes.

Big-f-ing-surprise.

I asked them if they’d read my Facebook posts.  They’re almost always cheery and full of joy.  I even had a friend, after reading my Facebook posts for awhile, tell me that she looked up to me as a powerful and positive woman who just stuck through it all.

Of course, she doesn’t read my blog.  But, neither do my mom and sister.  Not really anyway.

So, I could, if I wanted to, apologize for my earlier post.  But, for some reason, I can’t.  And I won’t.  And, I’m sorry if you only think I whine.  (Do NOT comment on this post and tell me that I whine.  Or that I’m all dark.  Or that I’m just plain self-defacing and evil.   Just don’t.)

The world can be a  pretty depressing place if you’re like me– a glass half empty kind of gal.

But, my friends would tell you, I’m really not like that at all.  I’m charming and funny and just plain fun to be around.  Yeah, I’m afraid of psycho-killers but I really am quite jovial.

Most of the time.

But, maybe, because I’ve had a hard time for, well, a long while now this blog is just a place that I dump all that crap.  My worries and my guilt and my insistence that you should start your morning thinking about genocide.

But, I’ve been funny.  I have.

I can be funny again.

Let’s see…

I have an appointment to bend over a table and have a camera stuck up my butt with no Valium or anesthesia.

That’s the funniest thing I can think of at the moment.

And, you’re right, it’s not funny.

One time, in the middle of an improv scene in which I was playing a young woman who was afraid of horses I yelled out “I don’t want to get near that horse, it just tried to have my baby!”

That’s not funny either.  It’s just really, really, really weird.

So, maybe, I need to spend some time thinking about the humorous and get back to you.

Or, maybe, I can be like Mike the Bull and write about the McItaly.   (That’s no criticism.  I love hearing about the McItaly.)

I’ll get back to you tomorrow with something really light and funny.

In the mean time, in the words of my beautiful, not all doom and gloom 2-year-old, it’s a “gobblegonny day”!

P.S. ~ Don’t let a killer slip in your back door while your asleep…

I started this post last night until an aching stomach just forced me to lay down and watch the Olympics.  Oh, the torture.

Still, the post might have been better written in the post-sunshine hours.  Who knows?  Still, I must post something.

So, yesterday, while working on my Boards… (Yes, that’s a lot of all I do.  Remember those vagrants that used to squat here?  Yeah, they’re back.  Full force.)  So, yesterday, while working with a fellow candidate and friend, this other insane woman looking for a 12% pay hike shared with me the story of how she injured her finger.

Apparently, her basement is a scary place.

(Yes, I mean, Boogie, Goblin, Ghoul scary.)

And, she slammed her finger in the door trying to run away from it.

She told me this as if being afraid of her basement was something silly.   As if, perhaps, adults shouldn’t be running from their own imaginations.

Now, my sister often says that I take things a might too far.  That I cross the line.  That I’m a little too often a little too much information.

Anyhow, I think you’ve seen this quality in me before.

Still, when my friend, and I really don’t know her that well as of yet, shared with me her treacherous tale of Basement Boogie, I felt the need, as my mind always races to find personal connections, to talk about my very real fear of psycho-killers.  I went as far as to share the time when, after watching a clip of the trials of the BTK killer, I accused my own husband of serial-killing women when he was supposed to be at work.

Thankfully, she had the grace to laugh and smile and hold it together as if I were some kind-of normal.

Thank you!

Still, in the world of running-from-imaginary-things, accusing your husband of psycho-killing seems to be on the real thick edge of abnormal.

But, that has been, in years past, the full extent of my paranoia.

Just yesterday, when complaining to my mom that I couldn’t do all the things I want to do because we’ve got a kid, we don’t have money, and I have to work on this damn project, she told me “well, you can see that band when they come back to town” and “that restaurant will be there next year when you’re more caught up”.   I told her that I might be dead by then.

She was displeased with my comment.  Maybe even thought I was being whiny.  But, it’s true.  And that’s where my mind travels.  On it’s own little paranoid track.

Still, my paranoia has been better.  I haven’t actually heard a serial killer outside on our back deck for months now.  I haven’t melted into a lump of shallow breaths and tears over our mortality or the reality of genocide or the violence of war in almost as long.

I guess I’m improving.

Or, am I?

Part of the ease with which I now live my days comes from the price I pay to various Pharmaceutical companies. (Which I am seriously rethinking and is a whole ‘nother post.)  Some comes from maturity.  Some from the support of people around me who recognize my panic button and, instead of getting irritated with me, lovingly bring me back to a place of logic and clarity.

Still, and I’ve always felt this way, maybe we should all be melting into lumps of shallow breath and tears instead of just walking around like our world is a manageable place.

I mean, the fact that I have panic attacks after movies (remember the beautiful-dark, dark-beautiful film Dogville by Nicole Kidman?  If you don’t remember it, rent it. ) maybe just means that I am more tuned in to the ugliness that is real in our world.

You might have noticed that I don’t fear the imaginary (not that fearing the imaginary doesn’t come from some real, deep-seated, honest-to-God fear) but that I fear the possible:  killers, rapists, molesters dressed as clowns, plane crashes, death, genocide, exposure to radiation.

I suppose that most would say that it is no way to live letting these demons into your head.  And, I agree.

However, I also feel like the me that used to have those real, earth-shattering panic attacks–  crippling or no– was more in tune with reality, not less in tune.

The world is a damn, dark place.

So much for looking on the positive side, eh?

So much for a post to brighten your morning or celebrate the sunshine.

So much.

I’m sorry.  And, I don’t even have the time to wind this one down or apologize.  I just think that, while spending the morning sipping our lattes, we should take a moment to take a deep breath and pray, meditate, think, reflect upon, what-have-you, not only the blessings we have but the dark reality that exists in the world.

Maybe we, un-blinded, can make the difference.

Now, send me your pledge and I’ll be outta here.

Anyhow, this Ms. Leifer and her partner Lori, decided to become late-in-life mamas by adopting a little boy named Bruno.

I could go into the whole ain’t it neat that late-in-life women still have the opportunity to become mamas (as Leifer did) or into the whole this is a two-mama family raising a little boy thing (which Leifer did not).

But, I won’t.

I won’t because something more personal, maybe more profound, spoke to me about this conversation.  Leifer became, against all odds, a mama at 50.  And she commented that she is a better mama at 52 than she could have been at 22, 32, 42.  She explained how her place in life is so much more settled, more quiet, less go-go-go.  How now, as a 52 year old she is able to just slow-down, relax, and enjoy her son.

Hmm.

Now I’m kind-of wishing that my uterus would hang tough for another 20 years and allow me this revelation.

I know I’m a better mama than I would have been at 22.  Dazed and confused is often not conducive to quality parenting.

Still.  I’m 32.  Do I know much better?

I had a stressful day today.  Really stressful.  And, while I made dinner and sat and ate with my boy, I also sipped on a a wee-too-much wine and then Face Booked while he colored.   That may not be a sin.  But, I don’t feel good about it.  I mean, I hadn’t seen him all day.  And that’s how I spent our evening together.

I know that’s just an off day. But, lately, I’ve been so friggin’ obsessed by my boards that I am revising entries while Silas is in the tub.  I let him splash until he’s pruny while I type for the 17th friggin’ time my draft of entry 2.

I am alone with Silas most evenings and have this deadline looming over me. I’m just trying to be creative.  But.

But.

That’s not really parenting.  That’s not slowing down, relaxing, enjoying my son.

Instead it’s really go-go-go or survival or laziness or just plain negligence.

It’s hard being a full-time teacher who’s working on National Certification with a husband who works in the evenings.  (Have I said that before?  You think?)

I can complain until I’m blue.

But, the fact of the matter is, I should be spending those hours after work playing with Silas.  That should take 1st priority.  Even if I have a bad day.

Maybe.  Maybe, if I was 52 or 62 or in a whole different tax bracket.  Maybe, I wouldn’t be so damn selfish.

I don’t know how to juggle it all.  And, I’m still learning.

But I teemed with jealousy at Leifer’s realizations, at her living life all over again through her son’s eyes, at her ability to put Bruno first 99% of the time.

How do I be more like that?  More in-tuned?  More relaxed?  When I have so much on my ugly 32-year-old plate?

I don’t know.

I do know I am forgiving myself my Face Book time.  I am forgiving myself my tub time revisions.  I am forgiving myself the immaturity and the go-go-go of my age.

I can only try and do better next time.

And, you know, next time, I will.

And then, inevitably, I will falter again.  And, then I will be back here pondering it again.  And, then I will do better and the cycle will go on and on.  But, at least, I’m trying.

Amen.

PS-  If you’re a secret fan– and I know there are some of you out there as your secret becomes public from time to time–  I ask you two favors:  comment every once in a while and if you haven’t check out my archives.   Once I was funny.  No seriously.  I was funny.  And, thanks for reading.

I say “blossoms” cautiously.

Sometimes it’s not so beautiful.

Sometimes it’s really tough.

As a language arts teacher, I have the unique opportunity to pair students with art– in all it’s various forms– that speaks to these ‘tweens’, to their needs, to their hopes, to their vast insecurities.

As part of a science fiction unit, we recently watched the classic Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder”.

This is the episode in which a woman, wrapped in bandages and trying for the eleventh unsuccessful time to change her appearance so that she might look “normal” ends up being, after much suspense,  beautiful (by our standards) but is living in a society in which the norm is ugly (also by our standards).    The episode teaches all about suspense and climax and irony and resolution.  It is intriguing and almost dangerous and is a wonderful little teaching tool.

It also teaches a critical lesson about beauty and self-esteem:  beauty can be manifest in many ways and forms and is, like so many things, contingent upon the societal norms and cultural preferences and, of course, the times.

This is a lesson that I, unfortunately, am still learning.

It seems strange to me, and a little embarrassing in fact, that I am learning basic self-esteem skills along with my 12 year old students.

Recently during our bi-monthly, school-wide character development lesson, I was talking students through using positive affirmations and turning negative self-talk into positive self-talk.

I am still working on this with my therapist.

Often, unsuccessfully.

Sometimes I wonder if I am choosing texts and art and themes to teach my students acceptance or whether I’m subconsciously trying to quiet my own disparaging self-talk.

Still, I always feel good about sharing these self-loving ideas with them.  I don’t remember many people sharing these ideas with me.  I just remember the pin up girls in Teen magazine and my grandmother practically shrieking at my acne.   I remember developing early and feeling like the big girl in class.  I remember thinking that no boy would ever really love me.

It’s sad.  Pitiful what we go through.

And why?

Now, as a mom, I’ve had to sing, whether I feel like it or not, a different tune.

I’ll be damned if my boy doesn’t love himself for who he is.

Still, how do I teach that lesson when I don’t always practice it myself?    When I have an inherent distaste for all of my shortcomings?

(I should say that there are also times, however, when I am full of absolute, delicious conceit.  It’s a strange dichotomy.)

I suppose I should try my best to learn from these texts that I teach.  From the girl who claimed that there was no freckled flower, no flower like her, only to find the freckled tiger lily; from the boy who hated his poor boy’s jacket, hated it with a passion, only to realize that he was lucky to have a jacket at all; or the woman in the bandages lamenting, just about ready to kill herself, because she didn’t look ugly like the rest of them.

I suppose that no matter what’s inside I put on a brave face.  I smile.   I celebrate.  I model self-love.

Just like I do for my 6th graders.

Basically, I try to be, at least on the outside, what I want Silas to be.

I shed off my self-loathing skin and somehow, perhaps precariously, I blossom into a woman of power and confidence.

I use the word “blossom” cautiously.

Because sometimes it doesn’t feel beautiful.

Sometimes it’s just tough.

Still, I’m experiencing one of my life’s little pleasures right now:  a stomach-twisting bout of anxiety.

As often is the case, I can’t quite pinpoint what is causing me to feel this way.  I’ve felt that way off and on since yesterday’s post:  feeling guilty about slamming the babysitter, making a poke at Creationism, afraid that people will comment and say that, duh, your child is autistic, or comment and ask me how I could write about autism is such an insensitive way.  (I mean, I did use the word crazy.  But, I wasn’t referring to autism as crazy.)

I woke up with anxiety.  Decided to catch up on some mama friends’ blogs.  The anxiety mounted as I read:  maybe I’m not such a great mom, I don’t do things the way they do, I can’t keep up with my own flippin’ blog.

I couldn’t even spend the time to look for one of Paul’s butterfly photos.  I had to settle for the a close up he took of a fly.  Hey, maybe that’s more fitting.

So, yeah, I’m paranoid.  If I let it snowball, I’d be practically rocking on the floor worried about what the neighbors have been thinking about the broken garage window we can’t fix.  We’re horrible, horrible, penniless homeowners and I often fear that we’re bringing the surrounding property value down, down, down.

This brings me back to Silas.

We did, Paul and I, spend some of the night searching through “the book” and on the Internet.  Nope.  Not autistic.  Not in my mind.

Still, and this could very possibly be a  little something to worry about: he is my boy.  My blood.  My DNA.

And, I’m friggin’ crazy.

It’s not impossible to think that my son might suffer from anxiety or find it difficult to deal with the rush of his emotions.   Because I’ve worked and worked and worked on my ability to present as normal and keep all my odd mental meanderings and obsessions wrapped up in a nice little bundle in my stomach (can anyone say ulcers?) and to be able to discuss in a normal way with normal people my feelings, I don’t think that I model inappropriate behavior.  But,  that doesn’t mean Silas hasn’t inherited my “condition”.  I’m certain that I inherited it.  Have maybe even taken it to a new level.  So, why wouldn’t he?

I don’t know if this is something to worry about right now.

But, when do we start to worry about it?

When Silas is rocking on the floor, tear-streaked and gasping,  worrying that he’s brought the intellectual level of the classroom down because he got a “B”?

I don’t know.  I have often chosen not to think about it because I don’t want to look for things.  To decide his fate for him.  To even, maybe, push him toward a life of stomach cramps and second-guessing.

Still, a person very close to my son claims that she is seeing something very different about him.  Very distinct from the other kids.  Something that has her worried and leaves her wanting help.

I guess that’s disconcerting.  Maybe that’s why these little– well, these giant–  iron-winged, evil-spirited butterflies, have decided to play racquetball in my stomach.

I just want the best for my little boy.

I don’t think that’s too, too much to ask.

PS-  We are bad parents.  Silas is making some wild noise on the drum kit as he tries to find the beat to an old Outkast tune.  It should be familiar.  It’s about all he listened to en-womb.  Maybe, that’s the problem…

But, that’s normal, right?

Normal.

Hmmm.

My day care provider just sent me home with a book about autism insisting that Silas get evaluated.

How’s that for normal?

My instinct is to throw the book back in her face and tell her to get out of my child’s head.  I just don’t see it.  He’s met all his milestones, he’s huggy and lovey and sociable, and gets along with other kids.  Sure, he gets repetitive at times.  He does run in circles at music class.  And there’s no question that he’s a sensitive kid.

But none of those things add up to autism.

Still, there’s that part of me that is second-guessing myself.  The part that has seen him “act out” at play dates.  The part that makes me wonder if I’m one of those “there’s-absolutly-nothing-wrong-with-my-kid” parents.  The type that blame the teacher for the child’s outbursts.

Still, these are the people that sent us for a $400 (after insurance) EEG because they insisted that he was having absence seizures.

His EEG came back normal.

So, the question is, do I have him evaluated just in case?  Do I sit for hours on the computer and sifting through library books to see if I see any sign?  To try to convince myself that he’s going to be somewhere on the spectrum and that he needs help?

I know the day care wants the help with him.  But, is he really that much of a handful or are they hypochondriacs?

I don’t know.

I lean toward the hypochondriac theory.

I mean in this age when so much medical information and misinformation is available at the click of a mouse everyone thinks that they’re an M.D.  While I fully support the idea that knowledge should be in the hands of the people, it isn’t always such a good thing.  It seems like everyone has a label.  I’m bipolar, Paul’s ADHD, now my son has Asperger’s.  I mean can’t people just be people.  I’m emotional, Paul’s disorganized, and Silas is a kid.  A two-year-old at that.

My sister wants me to pull him out of that day care. I want to throw my fist in the air and yell “hell yeah!”

But, I’m torn.

Sure, she texts me every Thursday to remind me to pay on Friday.  Yeah, yesterday she hinted that Paul had forgotten to feed him breakfast because he “cried and cried” for food at 10am.  (Paul had feed him.)   And, the reason that she handed me the dreaded book is because, after seeing a mom pick up one of the other kids early, he wouldn’t take a nap because he wanted to go home.  (I guess he kept saying “Daddy.  Shoes.”  Is that crazy?  Or just persistent?)

But, she’s done a lot for us.  She helped us out when Paul wasn’t working.  She’s kept him late, without notice, so that I could go to see my therapist without him listening in on all my baggage.  And, she’s always finding neat little ways to celebrate Silas’s successes.  She even dropped a get-well gift off at our house after Silas had his surgery.

And, most importantly, Silas is happy there.  Yeah, he brought home an art project for each of the seven days of Creation.  But, hey, is that going to kill him?  Surely not.  Not if he’s loved.

I don’t know how to “step into my power” as my therapist would say.  I don’t know how to insist that she drop the issue.  She even claimed that a guest was at the day care one day and asked if Silas was autistic.  I mean maybe they are seeing something that we just aren’t.

But we aren’t.  We aren’t.  We aren’t.

So, what to do?

And my butt.

I’ve been working on my f-ing portfolio for three GD days.

Straight.

Why, oh, why am I swearing in, what the fuck are they called, acronyms?

It must be the two year old.

Yeah, the one who said “shit” and “damn it” at day care the other day.

The one who was picked up and carried out frothing and screaming at music class this evening.

The one who a friend just commented was so “damn well behaved”.

Honestly, he is a good kid.  Just picked up some bad habits from his father.

Anyhow, back to my butt.  I am so, so, so, so tired.   I even worked on my paper while I was in the bath tub for Christ’s sake.

All to find out that my margins were all wrong and I have 15 pages for one of my entries when my limit is 11.  Sounds like more friggin’ work coming my way.

I love it.

No, really.  I. LOVE. IT.

So, if I’m so slap ass tired then why am I here?  When I’m never here.  Why?

Well, it’s the alternative to chopping my right arm off.

Plus, several new people, some without my prompting,  joined this blog’s Facebook page.

How can I continue to disappoint?

Why do I keep insisting on writing only one line at a time.

I am annoying myself so bad right now.

But, my son, you know the real helluva angel, is really annoying me.    He’s throwing one hell of a temper.  So now I have to go.

I’m sorry.

No, really I am.

And, that’s only because I’m overdoing it.

I’m polishing off Silas’s plate of healthy, uneaten food (center cut pork chops with a light mustard cream sauce, brown rice, and very lightly sauteed zucchini slices) and drinking my second glass of (not so posh) wine while he sits on the floor mixing corn meal into the sugar bag with a butter knife.

And, I’m not stopping him.

I’m not sure why I’m not.  But, I’m not.

So, there.

I’ve started several holiday posts with no success toward completion.  But they started out really damn good.  If I do say so myself.  So, yeah, at least one of them is in the wings.   Waiting.  Waiting. Waiting.

I hope you had a delightful holiday!

I kept it together so well my mother asked me if I was popping pills.  (Thanks for the vote of confidence.)

I wasn’t.   Popping pills.

So, yeah, I feel like all went really well.

Now Silas has poured corn meal on the floor and is mixing chocolate animal crackers into it.

I’m a bad mother.  Very, very bad.

But, I’m posting, aren’t I?!?

And, it’s like, abstract art.  The mess that Silas is making.

I’m letting him explore his inner Picasso.

Or, whatever.

So, this is where the post ends.  I started it over a week ago.  Haven’t had the time or gumption to finish it.  But, a friend recently said that the key is to post not necessarily to finish the post.  So, here is the first of many unfinished posts.  Expect little direction and nothing profound.  But, expect.

(For the record, I eventually cleaned up the kitchen floor and got Silas to bed.  Not exactly in that order.)