Stacie tagged me to write a 7 random facts meme about myself. Since I pretty much love writing all about me, me, me, me, me, me, and me, this me-meme is well received.

Unfortunately, today I am a CRANKY me. So my 7 things will reflect that. There are some rules or some shit like that, but I am not playing nice today.

Here it is, the 7 reasons why I am so damn cranky today.

1. Didn’t get enough sleep last night. Spent about 2 hours dealing with a surplus of cat litter boxes (a problem that I myself am responsible for creating, since I have been procrastinating this task way way way too long). I finished this task around 12:30 am, and then needed a long, long shower to feel clean again.  Asleep in bed by 2 am, up by 8:30am.

2. Ran out of anti-depressants about a week ago. Four phone calls, two missed return phone calls complete with snotty messages left by Nurse Crachett, and one cranky visit to the doctor’s office later, I *think* there should be a bottle of happy pills waiting for me at CVS. There better be, or this will need to be an 8 reasons list instead of 7.

3.  Got up early, ran around getting C ready for her circus class, and didn’t make coffee prior to leaving the house. Not a good idea, especially considering items #1 and #2.

4. Sitting through circus class, watching C poke, nudge, and otherwise flirt with the boys, making them all be irritating and annoying and disruptive to the class whilst A insists on hanging upside down on my lap, squirming around, and spilling chocolate milk on the studio floor (no food or drink in the circus studio, please). And all this with no coffee in me. Fit to be tied, I was.

5. Dear Aunt Flo, It’s so lovely having you visit this week. My, oh my, who would have know that such incredible high tides of red could be possible. Those new jeans aren’t looking all that new anymore, but hopefully nobody’s going to be examining the crotch all that closely. Still: ew.

6. One un-medicated parent is bad enough, but two? Hi honey, I guess we both need our stimulants to be functioning. And yes, I know I’m cranky and irritable. You got some kinda problem with that?

7. Ok, I know this is LAME in the EXTREME, but PACKRAT on Facebook? What’s up with the constant error messages when I spammed my “friends” to try to get a “rare edition” card?? No card, but I bet the spam went out just fine. Grrrr.

I’d tag someone else but I am too cranky to think about whom to tag.

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

Take out the trash, compile the recycling into bins, snuggle Annie, retrieve data from two different ailing hard drives for clients-who-are-friends, do the laundry, clear out the clutter in my bedroom, freecycle a crib, plan the after school program for next week and for today, write a newsletter, clean the kitchen, take Annie to preschool-that-started-about-an-hour-ago, do billing for my business, pay bills for the biz, buy myself some new shoes (I got paid today!), take a shower, clean the dining room, organize my classroom space, buy pet supplies, clean the cats’ boxes, clean the guinea pig cage, vacuum the kids’ rooms, play scrabulous,  eat breakfast, make coffee, update purchases for the biz bookkeeping, call my dad, call my mom, clean out the car, get my antidepressants rx refilled, take a nap.

Well, at least I got ONE thing done so far.

Drob’s grandma (85) is moving out of her one bedroom apartment and into more of a studio-sized apartment in an assisted living village. She’s lucky, if you ask me, to be able to afford such high quality living in a beautiful place. She is well, able to care for herself, and has been living independently and alone since her husband died in 1999. But her memory isn’t what it once was, and she can’t (or won’t) hear very well, and now she’s emptying out her apartment of the things that she has accumulated in the last fifty years or so.

She’s giving us her dining room chairs (purchased in 1947), an old fashioned mirror, an assortment of kitchen things as well as a glass bowl from her mother’s house, and numerous other things. I should be grateful for all this, but actually I’m quite overwhelmed.

I want to purge my house of the clutter, so what am I doing getting so much more of it? Well frankly, what I am doing is helping out Grandma who needs to get rid of things. I will soon be sending out messages to Freecycle some of these things.

The dining room chairs, though, they are great. It so happens that my dining room chairs (bought circa 1979 by my parents, then passed to me) are falling apart.  They don’t make stuff to last like they once did, do they?!

All in all, I’m so overwhelmed with the status of my home that I am not even that worked up about the primary season. I have in fact, made up my mind about which democratic candidate I’d like to win the election, but I also would turn and support my second up choice in the general election.

If only the candidates would show me some love by coming to my house and helping me clear out the clutter. Do you think any of the campaigns offer that kind of service? Just a thought.

I think it’s fair to say my mind is a bit on the weird side today.

We’re regrettably late for school nearly EVERY DAY. Today I had a conference with C’s second grade teacher and was surprised to find how upsetting it is for me to be reminded of our continual failure to be on time.

I find it humiliating, arriving late for school – it is really hard to manage each morning. I have a hard time waking up, a hard time getting everything ready for the day, getting out the door, and it seems like there is always a delay of some kind. The shoes can’t be found. The homework’s not done. The lunch isn’t ready. Someone’s hat. Someone’s glasses. Someone’s keys can’t be found.

Different problems, different days.

Then today I went to this conference, thinking it may be raised as an issue, but not a HUGE issue, not a HARD TO DISCUSS issue. It was really hard. I ending up crying which made me feel like a fool, an idiot, and a nutbag.

This is especially hard when one is a new employee and one’s co-workers now have seen one crying and being a blubbering pathetic idiot who can’t even arrive to school on time each day.

I am so ashamed. Of my tardiness. Of my emotional reactions. Of my apparent inability to do what everyone else apparently does with such ease and panache. I feel like a failure- which wouldn’t be such a big deal if I hadn’t been trying so damn hard.

It’s one thing to be a screw up thanks to being a slacker, an un-caring person who just doesn’t give a damn (that’s not me). If that were the case, I’d at least be uncaring and indifferent. I wouldn’t be SUFFERING! OH THE SUFFERING!  But no, I failed over and over and over again to be on time to school when it’s been pointed out to me that it’s soooo important… and that was with actually trying very very hard to get there.  It makes feel so despondent. How can I possibly do this when I’ve failed all along.

It’s not like I haven’t been trying Every. Single. Day. Since. September.

Oh and this being late in the morning is by no means limited to this year. It’s been a nearly daily sense of shame and failure ever since C was a pre-pre-schooler and her teachers gave me a daily dose of the hairy eyeball for having arrived too late.

In fact I can trace our tardiness problem back to that time easily; it coincides quite neatly with me being the parent of not one but in fact two small children.  The addition of my darling Annie to the family caused a dramatic shift in our family’s ability to arrive anywhere on time.

AND YET. And yet, we have never missed a plane ride.

AND YET. I am almost NEVER late picking up the kids from their schools.

It’s not ME, I keep thinking, but then again, I guess it is. It’s me in the morning.

I’ve never wanted a tattoo, but if I ever WERE to consider getting one, I think I’d like it to say “NOT A MORNING PERSON.”

The real trouble is the suffering. I am ashamed of myself for being late so much. I feel absolutely horrible thinking of C’s friends who routinely expect her to “not be there” for their little morning exercises. The kids in her class each have a job in the morning, and she’s essentially “late for work.” And she’s a “dreamy kid” who “spaces out.” Yes, we are all spacey in this family. What do you expect? Our big brains are working overtime coming up with some kind of creative genius thing and how could we possibly keep track of the location of our shoes and coats and bags also??

But poor little C. Her education is suffering! (and I’m paying HOW MUCH again for that education??)  Her social life is suffering! Her transitions are slow and dreamy!

What a horrible job I am doing, I think to myself! I’m modeling tardiness! I’m failing to teach her to be organized and structured! Because I’m disorganized!

It all comes back to what has got to be my favorite Philip Larkin poem entitled “This be the verse”, which I’ll quote for you now.

They fuck you up, your mom and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults you had.

And add some extra just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats

Who half the time were soppy stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Well it may be a bit cynical — the poem does end with an exhortation to “not have any kids yourself”. OOOPS! Too late for following that advice!

But in a funny way, this poem really calms me down. I am not perfect. I am flawed just like anyone. My only hope is that our creativity, our sense of humor, and our ability to think and express and emote in beautiful ways will more than make up for the fact that we arrive for life about ten minutes later than anyone else.

And my therapist hasn’t even called me back yet. Did I mention the suffering??!

There is absolutely nothing more boring than listening to someone go on at length about their diet, or their weight. I know, I have a friend (one who doesn’t read my blog) who has lost so much weight, blah blah blah. It’s been going on for at least six months, probably more. I am bored to tears by it, but being such a nice friend, I use the old smile and nod technique, along with a few “good for you!” interjections as needed.

So, I know from boring chatter. In spite of that, here I am subjecting you gentle readers with all my crap about my life, and my trip to florida, as if it were simply fascinating.

Nevertheless, there are few updates I need to include for the sake of accuracy, since my previous post, when I looked it over, seemed so darn bubbly. I’ll give you the choice, whether you want to Read the rest of this entry »

According to the statistics that Google Analytics offers me, I have had some international visitors, which is very exciting. The majority of visitors here are in the USA, with a few others tuning in from Canada. It’s wonderful to have visitors at all, but I especially would like to reach out today to anybody who either lives away from mainstream USA (either in their minds or otherwise) or else lives in a different part of the planet than USA.

I want to talk about BODY HAIR. Specifically, women’s body hair. I personally do not value shaving my legs or armpits. I don’t see the point in it. Why shave my legs at all? If I did, why not also my arms, indeed everywhere? Is there something inherently offensive about the fact that hair grows on the legs and underarms? Is it offensive on the arms too? Not to mention, the “bikini zone” and eyebrows and well, you get the idea.

Now, please, don’t get upset, all you happy shavers out there. If you shave just because you like how it looks and feels, that is fine with me. I am not saying you should stop. I just don’t get it myself. Why is hairlessness “normal”? I think the normal should be what happens without any particular effort.

Then again, I don’t much wear makeup either. Or do much to my hair other than brush and put it up as needed to keep it out of my face.

I guess you could call me a non-conformist. But I also get insecure about my body hair from time to time, and then if it gets to much to bear (bare?) I do in fact shave.  Then I almost always regret it, and feel annoyed at all the growing-back itchiness and bristle.

Some people I know only shave in the summer. That make some sense: some must figure that hairless legs look nice but why bother if it’s winter and you’re in pants all the time anyway.

And the issue of shaving isn’t just limited to women’s needs.  You’re sure to find plenty of marketing that tells manfolk how they can improve themselves — even make their manly parts look larger — by shaving. Some of the marketing materials on this site, for example, had Drob and I in stitches.

All this is to say, here I go to Florida, day after tomorrow. I won’t be in my winter clothes for a week.  I made it through the whole past summer in all my hairy glory.  Why should I shave now?  I have no one to impress. Drob doesn’t mind my hair one bit, in fact, it’s the scratchy part of growing it out that annoys him. My leg hair is long, sure, but it’s soft. It doesn’t bother me or him. If I shave it would bother both of us.  Plus I don’t want to model shaving to my kids. I don’t want them to think about this issue at all for at least another 5 years, when C hits puberty and has peers who are talking about it.

So… why do you shave? Do you ever wish you didn’t “have to”? Have you ever considered going against the cultural norm?  Or do you live somewhere where the cultural norm doesn’t tell you that having hairy legs is bad? If you live somewhere like that, how’s the food? Should I move there?

Oh, and my eyes are still miserable. I will be visiting the doctor tomorrow if I don’t see improvement in the morning. Bleah.

My eyes are So Disgusting and Miserable.

I thought for sure I’d be all better, or nearly better, by now, but instead for the second day in a row I woke up with sealed eyes. Ugh!

For fun, my kids put together and decorated some gingerbread houses a couple of days ago. Now is the stage of gingerbread house destruction. This includes little bits of icing crumbs being spread around the house, and children licking, then putting back, gingerbread walls. Must post some pictures of the houses – they were quite pretty before demolition began.

I’m in a sort of stupor, not just bleary-eyed from the pinkeye. I’m going to Florida in two days, but feel really unprepared. I have to pack (I hate packing!) and plan. I have to get to the bank and deposit money there tomorrow, that is something I really MUST do. That requires leaving the house. Ugh!

Oh yeah, and going to Florida requires leaving the house, too. Ugh!

I did get out of the house a while yesterday, pinkeye and all, and that was a good thing. I took A and C to the playground, where we met up with A’s best friend from last year’s pre-school class. They were so happy to be together again, it was like old times! And with the 52 degree weather, and sunshine, getting out was really good for me too. I just need to keep reminding myself that it really is okay to go out of the house. What is my freaking problem, anyway??

Guess I’ll go eat some worms.

This simple phrase is really a perfect one to describe how I feel when I’m depressed.

Not (yet) suicidal or anything, but just feeling really low. Really insecure.

I don’t know why I get this way sometimes. (other than, hello… it’s the depression, stupid)

I just know my eyes are welling up, my mouth is twitching downwards, I feel spooky and tingly and sad. I feel like I’m a TERRIBLE friend. An AWFUL and irresponsible cat owner (Luna is still off in the wide world, gawd knows where).

I know it’s not true that nobody likes me. I can even be aware of that fact, and think that at the exact same time as I sit, words blurring in front of me, tears rolling down my nose. Maybe it’s the phase of the moon. Maybe it’s the cold, dark, gray and rainy days we’ve had lately. You can barely notice the vibrant colors of fall with all this chill surrounding you all the time.Sob.

It doesn’t really fit into this post’s depressing theme, but I have one anecdote I can share that’s kind of special. After all my angst, I finally did calm down. To bed we went, D and I, me super intent on hurrying up and sleeping RIGHT NOW. Oh, such a restful feeling!
Meanwhile, D dropped off into his early sleep phase, a kind of hypno-drowse that he goes into before falling into total sleep. It is times like this that he talks in his sleep. Sometimes it’s unintelligible mumbles, or bizarre dream words, but last night it was clear as a bell.

“I wish I knew how to make [Pann] happy,” he sleep-talked, “I just love her so much.”

So yeah, not everybody hates me.

Worms, anyone?

FACTS that are making my mind awfully full. I’m the kid raising her hand in the back row asking, “May I please be excused? My mind is full.”

One of my best friends is in the hospital, recovering from surgery. What they removed was not a benign cyst at all, it was cancerous. A rare one that they’re not sure how to treat, but surgery was certainly the first step, and she is recovering. I am really sad, and angry that this is happening to my friend, and I feel very powerless to help.

Meanwhile, a cargo ship hit the Bay Bridge, 58,000 gallons of fuel into San Francisco Bay not too long ago. I’m powerless to help.

Within the last couple days, a typhoon / cyclone in Singapore Bangladesh claimed the lives of more than 1500 people. Can’t do anything about that either.

I have a proposal to write, that was due yesterday, but didn’t get to finish because my grandmother in law apparently thinks I’m a free taxi service and calls me at random asking for rides… right now? Not powerless in this situation, just frustrated. I do not usually work when my gals are with me, so how will I get this proposal written?

My mom wants me to pop on over to the Italian Market (30-40 min car ride to south philly from where I live) in order to pick up a few christmas gifts for friends of hers, and some fresh pasta. Uh, in my copious free time.

There are way more dirty articles of clothing here in my home than clean ones. Gah.

My daughter wants me to take her to a nature center this afternoon. Sure hon, just as soon as we get back from the Italian Market?
My other daughter’s friends want to come for a playdate today, but my house is such an embarrasing heap of dirty things that I can’t bear the thought of their mom seeing it. Sorry honey.

The 100-days-of-flowers bulb assortment I bought sits on my front porch, and I don’t know when I’ll plant it or even WHERE I’ll plant it. Guess those bulbs will just sit another week. Hope it doesn’t freeze yet out there.

My yard and other outdoor spaces are in bad need of raking, but I don’t even have a rake because someone made off with ours. Maybe I can get a rake in the Italian Market.

I have two clients who require phone calls from me today. One is someone whose laptop I was supposed to have worked on sometime in the last month when it was sitting up in my office, forgotten and ignored. The other is someone who bought his computer from me over a year ago, and it’s now giving him some horrible error message and not starting up anymore.

My gutters REALLY need to be cleaned out. This is something that I can do, but it requires wriggling out the attic window onto the flat roof.

The cat litter boxes in the basement are so bad, that half my readers will want to figure out where I live and call the ASPCA and report me as a bad cat owner. Plus my wild, evil cat was out all night and she is still not back.

Plus, Swistle is going through her blog and deleting a ton of things that might offend her unreasonable and obnoxious relatives. Which is her right, but is so sad to me… such a good blogger, having to censor herself. Bleh!

I guess you could say I am a bit overwhelmed.

As jumbled as this post is, so many things of different weights roiling around together, that is how my mind is. Just not in a very effective mood, not an ideal way to be when you have a lot to do, people to call, proposal to write, friends to think of, and gutters to clean.

I’m writing this post as I listen to the moving acceptance speech of my city’s newly elected mayor. This man is incredible.

“Even here, in Philadelphia, we can make this city better,” he just said.

“I believe in a place called hope, but I also believe in a placed called Philadelphia.” Great stuff! I sure hope he really will live up to his fine speech.

I’m sitting here at the computer when I should really be in the kitchen getting lunches prepared for the girls to take to school tomorrow.  I’m having some kind of crazy paranoia that I’m pregnant when it’s utterly unlikely.  I am trying to decide if I should run to the pharmacy just to get a test and pee on it and see no extra line show up to set my obviously addled brain at ease. On the other hand, maybe I should just get my butt into the kitchen and pack up some lunchies.

Here’s the top ten reasons why I’m not, just can’t be, really and truly, I am not pregnant.

10. My weight gain is easily explainable via the huge quantities of halloween candy that I’ve eaten.

9. I feel nauseated because of the huge quantities of halloween candy that I ate. And all the other crap I ate, too.

8. Having cajun catfish and greenbeans for dinner is quite sensible. But it doesn’t really go with those gummy fruit snacks, seaweed rice crackers, roasted pumpkin seeds, and hot homemade applesauce. All these things are yummy in and of themselves but…

7. At least I can honestly say my breasts are not tender. Much. I’m imagining this. Really I am.

6. I have given away all my maternity and baby clothes. Cuz I’m done, man. Really.
5. My waistline’s not swelling; my jeans just shrank in the dryer.

4. Sure, in the past I only liked peanut butter when pregnant, but people’s tastes just change sometimes. It doesn’t imply that they are busily generating a new lifeform inside of them!

3. I haven’t had sex. Much.

2. I have a copper IUD. Very effective, these things.

1. I haven’t missed any periods!  EVERYONE knows that you CAN’T have a period and still be pregnant. Right? Right?