11:59

Today has been a rough day. What have I been busy doing, that is so rough, you wonder? Mothering. Mothering and laundry.

I feel guilty for this whole damn day. I feel guilty for my feelings, guilty for the way I reacted, guilty for the words that came out of my mouth today.

My son, my joy, my reason for being, my heart, my son is difficult. One of his biggest issues is rigid thinking. He has always been like this but as we enter the teen years, I fear we will be experiencing a whole new level of this. I fear for my already fragile sanity. I often wonder what the neighbors in back of us think of us. My son likes to yell. The therapist tells us to remain calm and not engage, but by gosh by golly that is fucking hard. We just want him to be a happy well adjusted child, who learns how to manage frustrations, and can follow directions. We want him to be able to hold a job.

Today, from the second he got up, til the second he went to bed, he argued with me. He argued about ice cream choices in target. We left with none. He argued about the time he would show up to a friend's house tomorrow for a pool party. The invite said 12:00, he decided 11:50 would be perfect. Of course I politely tried to launch into a teachable moment about why we don't show up to people's parties early. He relented to arrive at 11:59. Um, no, 12:00. Mr. Control Freak did not like that and continued to press 11:59. I internally chuckled to myself for a moment, but then it started to get really annoying. He argued about dinner. He wanted tacos. I had no ingredients for tacos. If I asked him to take something out of the car, I got a resounding 'No, I am not doing that'. Honestly, he knew he would be doing it, he just seemed to enjoy the act of telling me no. He really enjoyed it as he did it at least 10 freaking times today. Did I mention the incessant tapping and drumming and noises he can produce. I know that some of it is involuntary, and whatnot, but when I ask  you to stop, for fucks sake, stop. Don't mutter under your breath 'never'. Don't.

If I vent to my husband,  he will tell me to take things away. I can tell you that taking things away, does not really move the needle.  I think the only thing that will help is if I act like a zombie. Dead inside and non reactive to any of his shenanigans. Say it once, and walk away. I can say it once, but the walking away part is kind of hard to do. I think that is more of a 'state of mind' in this house as there really is no where to go to get away from him when he gets upset and starts ranting.

Now that I have made my son sound like a maniac, I need to say that for the most part, he saves this behavior up only for me. I get compliments all the time about how polite he is. How well mannered he is. Tonight as he sleeps, I will relive each interaction we had today and mostly blame myself. I feel  like I somehow fuel this fire and don't handle the control issues all that well. I wonder if my control issues somehow make this whole thing even worse than it should be.


Mommy needs a spiked seltzer tonight. Or two or ten.

I've been dranking

Link to article about dumb ass teacher fired for playing drunk in love to her students

For real, I would not even let my 11 year old hear this song. If it came on in the car while I had the radio on I would change it immediately. Honestly, I would change it when it came on my pandora station while I was taking my walk around the neighborhood. I listened to it maybe twice and it made me uncomfy. Plus it kind of confused me. Surfboards, and watermelon? Waking up in the kitchen? Huh, wha? I felt like church lady listening to that song. I would not want to answer any questions that my child might have while listening to that song. Honestly, if I think about it that song kind of pisses me off. It's inappropriate and it's almost like porno.  I am not a member of the bey hive.

This story pisses me off because I am pretty much convinced that I am never going to find a job as a teacher any time this century and yet, morons like this are able to convince someone out there that they are worthy of collecting a paycheck for educating our youth. A math teacher too.

I am trying to figure out how she incorporated this song into a math lesson? How many stupid heads did it take to hire me as your math teacher?

Please Mr.Postman

Today, the mailman was kind enough to bring me 2 letters. One was from the hospital where I had my medical tests, the one where I applied for financial aid.  Apparently they need more information. They need documentation of my income. When I called, I explained that I had no income, that I was a stay at home mom, the charmer who answered the call, told me that since I had no income, then I would have to provide documentation of how much money I cost my husband each week to provide for me. I sensed a certain amount of self satisfaction and enjoyment as she told me this. I can't wait to work on this list. It will be so fun.

The other letter was this:

In other words, you suck.

Thank you, Universe, for making me feel like a big useless loser today.

Got it bad, Got it bad, Got it bad....I'm Hot for Teacher

Oooh teacher barbie, you so naughty

When I first started teaching, back in the 90's, my mom got me a teacher barbie with a talking blackboard for Christmas, as a kind of joke gift. For shits and giggles, I did a search on eBay to see how much that was worth, as I have never taken it out of the box.

Apparently in 1995 there was a glitch in the system and a number of these teacher barbies were extra naughty and were packaged in their boxes sans panties. Maybe the dude working the underwear putting on device at the barbie factory that day was feeling a little randy. Once Mattel realized the issue, they stopped sending out bloomer less dolls. According to the pervs on ebay, this makes teacher barbie extra valuable.

I don't think I would feel comfortable even selling my poor pantie-less barbie to some creeper.


OK, I am going go tear my closet apart now and do an undie check on my doll.

The Things We do for Love

For my son's 9th birthday, we got him a bearded dragon.  We never had a reptile before, there is quite a learning curve when embarking upon a herpetological adventure.  Growing up, I  had a sister, and neither of us liked bugs or insects or creatures of any kind. Having a son myself, I have constantly amazed myself at my willingness to encourage my son's love of nature. Before we got Spikes, my living room hosted a multitude of wildlife, including millipedes as thick as your index finger, tomato hornworms that hatch into disgusting bird like moths, a Madagascar hissing cockroach (that actually hissed)and various worms and bugs found in the backyard. I was not thrilled, but after a while, I kind of got desensitized to the various flora and fauna I was forced to host.

Bearded dragons are omnivores. I did not know this before we got him. I did not realize that what he ate, would also become our pets. We learned the hard way after a bag of crickets turned died en masse. The guy at petco laughed when we tried to return the plastic bag of cricket carcasses explaining  that we needed a special cricket keeper to house them and a jar of gelatinous cricket food.

It was not enough that we were charged with feeding Spikes, we were also responsible for the survival of his meals. My living room sounded like a forest. The chirping was almost deafening at times. Eventually we tuned it out, and even later on, crickets were abandoned in favor of mega worms. The first time I brought home a container of meal worms I cried. I opened the bag and I just sobbed. All I wanted to do was go to an American Girl doll store. That was not in the cards for me.
So, it became a big pain in the ass to feed our beloved creature. No one told me he would eat ten dollars worth of crickets/ worms in a week. No one told me I would be running to Petland discounts twice a week to purchase these items.

That said, Spikes became part of our little family. He does not do a whole lot, but he is a kind little creature. He is quiet. We are thankful that he does not poop that often because bearded dragon poop smells like a swampy roiling sewer on a 99 degree day. I consider myself a lucky gal the times he poops when I am not home and my husband has to clean out the tank. Spikes sits in our tiny living room, plodding along with us, watching us watch TV, listening to us argue and laugh, he is part of us.

Yesterday morning, my son ran upstairs and busted in my room crying that Spikes has a sore on his face. He was very upset about it. I came downstairs and checked, and yes, indeed he had a really bad sore on his face. That was not there the day before, or at least we did not see anything. He is in the middle of a shed though, so it's not uncommon for him to look like a slight fiasco. I googled, and did not really come up with anything. I thought about putting some neosporin on him.  I could not let it go though, and I started calling up some vets.

It's not really an easy thing to find a vet that treats reptiles, or at least not in my area. I called at least 11 vets and finally someone was able to give me a number of someone that could see him. We got an afternoon appointment. I dug out an amazon box for him and we got him ready for the ride. Can I just say now that it's not a good idea to put an angry lizard in a box without a top in the care of a germaphobic 11 year old boy in the back seat, while you are driving 60 mph on a highway. No matter how high you think the box is, it's not tall enough to thwart an escape.  At one point, spikes was clamped tightly to my son's shirt, he did not want to go back in the box. We finally arrived at the vet. My son ran into the bathroom and washed his hands for a good solid minute and tried to wash the part of his shirt where Spikes climbed on to him.

So, Spikey got an exam by a doctor. She started by pulling off all the shed from him, which kinda sorta made me want to yak. Then she asked me questions. I felt like my mothering skills were being put to the test with her questions. I guess I need to work on my defensiveness. On that exam table, his sore looked even worse and in fact, he had another one. It broke my heart to see that little guy suffering. They look really painful.

She said that he might have something called 'yellow fungus'. Which along with sounding completely gross, is also fatal. We were not prepared for that. It could also just be a skin infection, maybe he tried to scratch off his shed. Who knows, we certainly can't ask the patient. They were able to get a stool sample (lucky them) and I was given instructions on how to give him a syringe of antibiotics. If you think wrestling with a belligerent toddler trying to get them to choke down bubble gum flavored amoxycillin is rough,  you have never tried to give an angry bearded dragon antibiotics. It is not an easy task, by any means. It's a ten day supply. It's also a 2 person job. I will do what I have to do, but this morning I dreaded it. I think he realizes that the drops taste like shit. Today, he took one drop, then closed his eyes and tried to pretend I was not there trying to jam a giant syringe into his mouth.

She also gave me a prescription for some cream, which I had to take to CVS. That was almost comical. When I dropped it off, they asked for all my info. I explained that it was not for me, but for my pet.  When I went to pick it up however, they would not give it to me because I could not provide them with spike's birthday.  I thought the Rx was under my name, it was not, it was under Spike's name. The line was growing long with impatient people while they were trying to figure this out. The whole event was somewhat bizarre and and strangely humorous. It was weird not to use my insurance card at CVS, thankfully the cream was not too pricey. It needs to be mentioned as well that this whole extravaganza cost us a few dollars shy of $200.00. I got a lovely low balance alert on my phone this morning.

So now, we wait. Many times in the two years we have had Spikes, he has looked like he was circling the drain. Every now and again I have poked him with my finger to see if he was still alive. He likes to crawl under things and stay there for a few days not moving. I came downstairs this morning with great trepidation, and thankfully my fears were eased when I saw his slow moving breaths rise in his little lizard body and his eyes opened and shut. Our ultimate hope is that our Spikes makes a full recovery from whatever it is that plagues him. I hope that any treatment we give him now cures him and at the very least helps him not be in pain.

What I should be doing right now

Right now, this Monday night at 9:58 pm, I should be cleaning out my freezer. My window of opportune times to throw out unidentifiable and no longer wanted food is very small for 2 main reasons.
The first reason is because the trash is collected tomorrow and that would mean my unwanted food could be disposed of immediately, instead of fermenting all week till the next pick up.
The second reason is because my husband is working tonight and won't be home to scrutinize all the things I will be removing from the freezer.
I do all my cleaning based on those two principals. If I am cleaning up a closet, and I have bags of things I need to either donate or trash, I hide them till they can be disposed of. My husband has hoarder like tendencies. I think part of it is due to him being incredibly sentimental. Or at least, that is my way of making it seem less annoying.
Once, I had 1 big black garbage bags of toys in the back of my car ready to drop off at savers.It was also there with another large bag of my old clothes. I left it in there for a few days, and that was where I failed. When I got to savers, I opened up the back of my car and discovered that I was missing the bag that had the toys. I angrily dialed my husband on the phone and discovered that he was worried I was getting rid of something good and took the bag out of my car and into his garage. I use the term garage loosely as my garage looks like a post apocalyptic nightmare. I learned a lesson that day. Hide all evidence.
So, tonight, I must purge the freezer. There are random hot dogs in there leftover from camping trips. Giant bags of artichoke hearts that seemed like a good idea at the time. I need to make room for my new frozen fruit collection. I have been pinning vitamix smoothie recipes like a madwoman and I saw someone put all of their veggies and fruits in little individual serving size ziploc bags, ready to throw in the blender in the morning. I figured it would eliminate the excuse of having to actually assemble the ingredients for a smoothie if I had them all ready to go. I subscribe to the illusion that I too can have a freezer worthy of pinterest.

At any rate, everything must go now, the planets are aligned and the time is right to throw things away without guilt, or having to explain myself.
I think it boils down to how we were raised. I would not say my family was wasteful, but I would say my husband's family is the polar opposite of not wasteful. It pains my husband to waste things. I often find a half of paper towel stuck on the side of my coffee pot when my mother in law comes to visit. A whole sheet would have been wasteful, so the non wasted piece sits crumpled waiting for it's turn. Rotten fruit is a travesty. Once, I got a half hour lecture over a pear that I did not want to eat as it was way past it's prime. Not wanting to cause unnecessary angst for my husband, I feel like I am doing him a favor as well as me by doing my tossing when he is not around. I know that there is truth to what he says. We are a wasteful society. That said, I am not eating freezer burned hot dogs.

I am mind numbingly tired right now. All I want to do is go sit on my couch and watch a real housewife. But I must plug on. Such is the life of a clandestine tosser.

Life Lesson of the Week: How to Suck at a Job Interview.

When someone asks what you can bring to the job, be as vague as possible. Leave out as many details of all the things you have accomplished over the last 20 years. Disregard the work experience that has prepared you for the job. Do not even consider the life experience that you bring to the table. Stuttering and stammering is a great accompaniment to this.

Trembling hands are a nice touch. As is dry mouth.

Try not to include how you work well under pressure and can motivate even the most unmotivatable of people.
Don't come across as capable, instead, it is wise to just keep your mouth moving and  make as little sense as possible.

Don't hand out a hard copy of your resume either. You know, the ones you spent 20 dollars copying at office max the day before.

Make sure you are self depreciating. And make sure you use the word 'actually' at least 25 times.

When they ask you what your strengths and weaknesses are, make extra sure to spend more time talking about your weaknesses. Have at least 3 to discuss. Go on a little longer than you think is adequate. If you dare come up with a strength, it should be of indeterminate origin and not a really useful one for the job.

Try not to give specific examples at how you would act at this job. Try not to give the impression that you would be capable.

On the way out, don't look at the table of people who just asked you all those questions. Whatever you do, don't shake anyone's hands.

For a follow up, don't send a thank you note.

Spend the rest of the week mentally punching yourself in the throat and reliving each and every question and wondering what the hell happened to your brain.

The word of the day

My 11 year old son has the vocabulary of a 38 year old man. That lives in his mom's basement. Sometimes the words that come out of his mouth make me take pause. For someone who spent the first 4 years of his life essentially wordless (although not silent, by any means), he must have been taking in all the five dollar words he heard people using. Sometimes he uses them in the correct context. Other times, not so much.

Today, in Target, at the check out line we were talking about our impending bike ride. In an effort to get my non athletic self, and my non athletic offspring out and moving, we were planning on biking to the post office to mail out an ebay package. He wanted to get popcorn at the target food counter. So he told me, "first I need to go get my popcorn, and go home and eat it, and then we will go bike riding. Does that sound formidable?" "What?, I said. He again said "does that sound formidable, mom?. I said "yes". Although, I was not entirely sure what formidable meant. Upon looking up the definition of formidable, my answer to his question is actually debatable. Unless he thought I was taking him on a hell ride down a mountain cliff, I guess the correct answer would have been, "no, actually it's not formidable". I think he was trying to make it sound like he was trying to be agreeable. In actuality though, if you were to spend any time at my house listening to my child argue about every dang thing under the sun with me, including trying to be physically fit, you might actually think formidable was the correct word choice.

for·mi·da·ble

ˈfôrmədəbəl,fôrˈmidəbəl,fərˈmid-/

adjective

Inspiring fear or respect through being impressively large, powerful, intense, or capable.

"a formidable opponent"

Synonyms: intimidating, forbidding, daunting, disturbing, alarming, frightening, disquieting, brooding, awesome, fearsome, ominous, foreboding, sinister, threatening, menacing, dangerous

It's not easy being green

I have a love hate relationship with green juice. Mostly hate. I want to like it, it's packed with goodness and full of life and bursting with nutrients and vibrancy and all that stuff. But it tastes like ass.
I think it's mostly my rigid thinking getting in the way of my taste buds here. I like fruit . I even like fruit juice. I love veggies.. I like V-8. But somehow, mingling the two causes me some form of tastebud anxiety. My brain can't process a fruit and a vegetable mixed together like that.
I just got a vitamix for my birthday. It was on my long list of 'things I really want but won't ever get'. I was shocked last week to see a giant box on my dining room table next to a smiling husband. He was so proud of himself and I was definitely surprised. My kitchen is not worthy of it. I know it sits there mocking me thinking it somehow wound up in the wrong house. It came with a giant binder of recipes. Recipes filled with goodness. The promise of a new day of healthy living in a shiny new gigantic blender.
The first thing we made was a pina colada. With the exception of the rum, it could actually be considered a Paleo concoction as the only other ingredients were pineapple and coconut milk. It was delicious.
The second thing I made was a green smoothie. After a $98.00 jaunt to whole foods and a cart full of hope, I was good to go. My idea of a smoothie is like a milkshake. This was not my idea of a smoothie. It had grapes, a half an apple, a half a kiwi, a smidgen of cucumber and a bit of broccoli along with some water and half a lemon. It was supposed to be a breakfast energy drink but I procrastinated making it all morning and after 5 cups of coffee, I finally relented at 11:00 am. It was a beautiful shade of lime green.  I still did not want to drink it.
I felt the pressure though. My husband got this for me so that I could forge on with my ever present plans of eating clean and vigorous exercise. I spent all this money on fresh organic produce. I poured the concoction into the glass and took a sip. I'd like to say it was delicious. It was not. But it was not the worst thing I ever drank. I choked down the rest of what I had in the glass. While I was drinking that, the stuff left in the blender started to turn brown due to oxidation. Part of me felt guilty for pouring it down the drain. But most of me did not.

I don't know if most people are like me. I have two me's inside me. The one that is on the straight and narrow, gluten free, sugar free, carb free, riding my bike, parking far away, drinking lots of water and going to bed early. That me is well groomed, wears makeup and even puts earrings in.Then there is the other me. The one that eats cookies for breakfast, and wears pajamas to the supermarket, and frequents the wendy's drive through, and does not always wash her hair and accidentally throws her fit bit in the garbage.  It's a constant battle between these 2. They both put up a valiant fight and honestly, it's still anyone's game. Somehow, they need to go to mediation and come up with a plan to get along. If I could figure that out, I would not need to drink green juice.

It must be known that I love my vitamix. It was a very thoughtful and extravagant gift and I know I will get lots of use out of it!!!!!! Both sides of me love it too as I am going to whip up a nice broccoli soup in it, as well as some margaritas.

Lift that rock up for me so I can crawl under it.

I had a job interview today. After 11 years basically at home, with the exception of a bullshit part time job here and there, I had an interview for a real job. I submitted my resume on the online teacher database for my state, and low and behold, right out of the gate, I landed myself an interview. I did not need any favors called in, any friend of a friend to put in a good word, or hand in my resume. I got it all on my own.

I spent the last 2 weeks mentally rehearsing all the platitudes of life I would spout. Profound yet no nonsense was the angle I was going for. I am a good teacher, and I would have been really good at this  job. It was not an easy one, and it was not a high paying, tenure track job, but it would have been a great way for me to get my feet wet so to speak. There was a panel, 4 people.  They did not ask me any hard or unusual questions. Yet for some reason, all of the philosophies of life I spouted to myself on the long drives in the car last week seemed to evaporate from my brain and all that came out was blah blah blah blah blah. Even as it was coming out of my mouth, I knew it was not the way I intended it. Why did I choke? Why did I act like someone who had no teaching experience, or life experience or even any kind of brain?

Maybe I am not as ready as I thought I was . Maybe my confidence is not where it should be. I used to be a lot more confident. Being at home for 11 years, gaining weight, frumpified and somewhat isolated is not good for your ego. I need to work on that. I know one day I can use this horrid experience to my advantage. Just not today. Today I want to take my bra off, put on my jammies and go watch 'Don't beTardy to the Party' with  a bag of chips in my room.

I sat on a hiring committee a couple of months ago as parent member, we hired a high school special ed Social Studies teacher. I felt so bad for the candidates who had to endure that. I think what made me choke is knowing that these people who interviewed me were going to spend the next 15 minutes after I left ripping me apart. I think, no, I know, that is the part that I must get over.  If I can be strong enough to not let that rattle me, I will be ok.

When I left, the one teacher to my right made eye contact with the principal on my left. She made a face, it was not a good face and it was about me. I wanted to say then and there, 'um, lady, I can see you'. I made it out to my car and proceeded to sob like a pathetic sad sack.

In the big picture, it's a blip on the radar, one of life's lessons. My son asked me how it went and after I told him , he said 'that's ok, you will get another chance, was it something you loved to do?' That was  good question. I am not entirely sure that was the job for me, and perhaps the universe has some other plans for me.

The Daily Grind

I am a night grinder. To put it mildly. I am slowly destroying all the teeth I have in my head. I have lost 2 teeth on my right side due to this horrible habit that I can't seem to control. I am about to lose a third tooth, only now it's on my left side.

I have a night guard, in fact, I have had many night guards, the one before last I dropped in the toilet bowl. I could not bring myself to put that back in my mouth, no matter how many times I cleaned it. I just got a new one, apparently this one is the heavy duty model. They don't make them out of stainless steel yet, I think I need something stronger than a piece of plastic.

This disturbs me. It bothers me that my mind is so troubled, that it's not even enough that I worry and stress during my waking hours. No, I must continue the self torture while sleeping. It's like my mouth says to my brain as it lulls me off to sleep 'don't worry guys, I got this'.

In my  many googles, I came across this sentence, "nighttime bruxing can occur as often as 40 minutes for every hour of sleep, producing up to 250 pounds of force per square inch. That is enough pressure to crack a walnut"


Maybe instead of the night guard, I should just shove a walnut in my mouth.


It sucks. It really does. I would like to be a Buddhist but I think my wiring is not conducive to that. I think my brain needs a kill switch. I have read all kinds of things, like you are supposed to consciously open your jaw, and not have your teeth touch while you have your mouth closed. The problem is, I don't do it during the day. I am not much of a sleeper to begin with. Between the hot flashes, and the subsequent chills and the thoughts of my mortality and the bill I forgot to pay last month, it's really not that great.

In an effort to save my remaining teeth, I downloaded a hypnosis recording for my iPad. I listened to it last night. It has this emotionless British woman telling me to relax and pretend my hands feel like lead. In addition to this it supposedly emits frequencies that send my brain into a relaxed state and then I guess it tells me to stop grinding my teeth. Honestly, I fell asleep halfway into it, although I would kind of wake up intermittently and hear all these weird and crazy sounds. It was a little disconcerting to be honest.

I am not sure if it helped with my grinding, but it certainly did help to lull me off to sleep. I will give it some time. If it does not work, I will go buy a bag of walnuts.

The endless road

My son does not like traditional camp.  Once I signed him up for the y and by the second day he told me he was not going back. Since he is an only child and my block does not have much in the way of kids to play with, I have to find various week long programs in his area of interest. That is not too much of a problem, the finding of the programs. It's just that none of them are even remotely close to where we live.
I tell myself each spring when I start signing him up for this stuff that it won't be so bad. I will listen to music, I will drop him off and go to the gym, I will organize the closets in the 2 hours in between the 2 hours of driving. I don't know why I believe these lies I tell myself each year. I am almost done with the second week of a three week stint and my sanity is starting to falter. To say I am developing a slight case of road rage would be an understatement. I think I have that look in my eye.

I have a lot of time to think on these drives. And think, I do. I remember the most random crap. And I think about all the weird stories and people I have met in my life. Little snippets of bizarre. I guess we all have those.

Today, I was thinking about a group project I had to do in college. Does anyone in their right mind enjoy a  group project? It was for a philosophy class. I remember not knowing anyone as it was my first year there, and well, I was not the most confident, outgoing and social creature. My team, including me ,was made up of 4 people. Two guys , myself and another girl. One guy, I can't remember his name but I think he was a jock,  seemed like he was disappointed to be in our group. The other guy was named Chad.  The girl was named Sheila.  Our project was on the philosophy of art and if it was indeed possible to discern the difference between fine art and a print ad(it wasn't). I remember it being so awkward. We met that first time in the rathskeller (a glorified bar). It was like a blind double date. I don't know how we managed to get that presentation together. I remember Sheila and I bonding over our dislike of Chad and his smarmy attitude. The other guy did not contribute much either. I remember our presentation, we were all so nervous and I think it was over really quickly. I also remember we got an a-. I think during that time I considered double majoring in art and philosophy but my mom got angry at that idea and told me to forget about that immediately. I think the rationale behind her insistence was that majoring in art was not really going to make me career ready and there was no need to add in another useless major in there. I liked philosophy because it made me feel smart. I liked feeling smart.
At any rate, after the presentation, I never spoke to Chad or the other guy again but I remained friends with Sheila. She was kind of bizarre and I appreciated that, although I never really felt entirely comfortable with her either. It was hard to get a read on her. There was this peep show place near our university. It had those booths that you put money in and watch a show. I think the women's study majors would go and picket it regularly. Sheila and I used to talk about how creepy and gross it was there. She decided she was going to go in there and see what the hell they do in there. She went by herself. I decided Sheila had some set of balls to do that, as I would never have ventured in there in a group, let alone by myself. I think she said she took the bus there. She said it was kind of depressing. That there were a few men in there that would go into a private room and a screen would come up and a girl would do a little dance and then the screen would go down. She said they also had these movie that you would look at, which I imagined to be like those flip book contraptions that they used to have at the shoe store when I was little. You cranked the handle and looked through a view finder and it would be a little movie. Only this was a dirty version.
I wonder what happened to Sheila. If I knew her last name, I would look her up on Facebook. It was 30 years ago, good Lord.
I have no idea what made me think of Sheila, or that group project or even the University of Wisconsin at Madison today, but I did. I feel like I have been going through the catalog of the stories of my life lately. That was a nuggett that wanted to be remembered.

and another thing.

Today, I kept thinking about that movie. I also kept thinking that I was recommending a great movie to absolutely no one in particular as I don't think anyone is actually reading this blog.  I was going to delete it but even that, is kind of silly and pointless. Instead, I just want to talk about that movie. Tonight, I let my son stay up a little later so I could get him to sit close with me on the couch and watch diner's drive ins and dives. It's rare that I get my 11 year old to lean his head on my chest and let me pretend he is just a bit younger. He lets me kiss his head and smell his freshly washed hair. I remember vividly one night when he was like 2 weeks old, when I sat up all night, watching bad TV with him on my chest. I remember telling myself one day he is going to be so big and it's going to be a blink of an eye. It was one of those profound moments you have. Like a notch in time.

Just watching 12 years of lives unfold right before you, it just kind of got to me. I mean, I know it's a movie, but it had that special element, it could even be called a gimmick but it added such a bittersweet tinge to the whole thing. That sweet boy, he just evolved in front of me, and even though I know it goes really fast, to just watch it up there on the screen kind of drove the whole thing home. And just in case anyone is actually reading this, I won't give away too many details(not that there were any shocking moments, it was more of a glimpse into a family's life) but I really relate to Patricia Arquette's speech in the end where she realizes that her kids are grown and that's kind of it. It really is the blink of a flipping eye. 

I have really been feeling that pressure lately, that pressure to make something of the time I have left. That quote I see on fb, attributed to Buddha, about how you think you have more time than you do. Ugh. It's kind of ruining my present for me as I feel like I really need to get my ass out in the world and go make some kind of difference. 

Motherhood has kicked my ass ten ways til Tuesday. But it's time for me to stop hiding. And I need to really be in the moment, especially when it comes to my son.

When things are crappy, as they kind of are for me right now, I really want to make it better now. I want this feeling, these feelings to go the fuck away. Honestly though, it does not work that way. Change is a process that you can't rush.You can't wish those icky feelings away, instead, I need to look that tiger in the eye. Stare it down. Feel the feels. I have been reminding myself of that when I start to freak out and think that things are never going to change and I am just going to sit here and be stuck. I have already changed so much in the last few months, I need to remind myself of that too.

Anyhoo, if anyone is actually reading, go carve out some time for yourself and see that movie. It was like watching a really good book unfold before your eyes.

Boyhood

See this movie. Once you get past the totally cool concept of Linklater filming this movie over the course of 12 years so that everyone in the movie ages and grows up right before your eyes, it's a really great story. Especially If you are like me and like to cry at movies. There is part in there where the mom, Patricia Arquette really nails motherhood home. It's long, so get a large popcorn and lots of ice in your big soda. And bring tissues.