Lion and Magic Boy

I have decided that my headstone will read as follows:

Died of constant stabbing pain in side of head, but not before wishing she had a dollar for every time she had to blow her nose.

There. Days are incredibly long now, or at least this one is. I’ve been up for 5 hours and I wrote one small post at Strollerderby, wiped Eric’s nose and mine about 114 times, kept Eric from 1.) throwing cups into the kitchen sink, 2.) throwing various toys repeatedly at the door going down to the basement, 3.) throwing part of his bagel behind the TV, and 4.) playing his xylophone.

But that’s all I’ve done. I can’t really work and it has piled up enormously, people awaiting information about their lives and relationships, all because how can I listen to the voices in my head when half my face is sliding off and my eardrum is slowly imploding?

So my attention turns to the outside, still covered by snow and ice which plainly show the tracks of the next-door dog who again is allowed to roam freely through my yard, excreting at will. Last night when I was almost asleep I heard them calling and whistling for the dog, half-hoping that it had wandered out onto the road because I am astounded at the gall and stupidity of these people, letting their dog just wander around while they stay warm inside. They own three dogs and one is generally tied up behind the house next to where I park, that little yardlet having become the dog’s personal crapping station, a fact we became painfully aware of a few weeks ago when Serena was running in the yard and then we all got in the car and later we wondered what that yellow-brown stuff was on the back of my car seat where she likes to rub her feet. I’d love to approach these people and say, Hey! But then I’m not sure what would come next after the Hey. Maybe: Would you like to clean my car for me? Or: How about I leave my cat’s poop in your yard, would you like that? Or just: Hey, we talked to you guys about this six months ago, what gives??

[sigh]

I hate confrontation.

So I will sit here and seethe.

Care to join me?

On a happier note: For several weeks, the phrase “Mr. Clean Magic Eraser” has been going through my head. (Do you think that’s odd? It happens all the time actually. What was weird was when it was “Osama bin Laden” in August 2001. That was weird.) I don’t watch much TV, but I do remember hearing about this product on some Snopes-ish email about the evils of these mysterious Magic Erasers (which I had no idea what they actually were), which of course sort of made me want one, contrarian that I sometimes am.

So the other day I bought some. $5.00! On sale! That seems a mite pricey, but oh well, I thought. Maybe it will help cover up the evidence of Eric combined with the .00001 micron-thick coat of paint applied in the building process of the incredibly cheaply-built townhomes we live in. And….yes! I was right! This thing is very strange, and I do NOT want to know “where” it “disappears” to, but the marks of repeatedly thrown items, the fingerprints strategically placed at the height of a seven-year-old’s hands, are All. Gone.

Yay.

One more thing.

Michael has been telling me about a technique he has been using, something he’s known/read about for years, about getting yourself more present in the moment. Why would you want to do this? Well, I don’t know about your head, but generally in mine the narrative runs about like this:

Oh shit I have so much to do I am such an idiot I can’t even get it together to write or channel and what are all these people going to think of me oh there’s the laundry got to put that away hey there’s my pants the ones I can’t fit into yet am I ever going to be that thin again oh no look at me fat fat fat and god I am getting old I hate that why are there spots on the mirror I have to clean those off and look I need to dust the lights up there hey Eric is still watching TV while he eats his pancake and is that the voice of Greg Proops on that show what is it oh Bob the Builder that’s what it is okay back to the computer what was I writing?

Do you hear that stuff too?

So I’ve said before that we create our own reality. Actually, it’s not my own original idea, but I do believe it. So if you’re constantly throwing out all that energy in the form of words that essentially act as a diatribe about yourself, it not only serves to fuel your own negative beliefs about yourself but also confuses the universe about what you want. You might say: “I want to be happy”, or “I want to manifest abundance”, and you might believe you are sending that message to the universe, but if in actuality all day you are sending “hey there’s my pants the ones I can’t fit into yet am I ever going to be that thin again”, then how does the universe know what it is you want? You’re saying “I’m fat”, and so, yep guess what, you’re fat!

So. Instead. This is what to do. And for me it feels very strange, so bear with me. (I’ll report later on how it’s going.)

Instead of the running diatribe, give yourself a narrative about what you are doing in that moment. For instance, last night I took a bath, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Normal stuff, right? But they took on an extra glow, because all the while I was saying, “Here I am in the bath, it feels warm and my skin is getting clean and this is good because I have been sick and it will help me feeel better, now I am drying my legs/feet/hands etc. and I am really paying attention to how this feels I’ll bet I used to notice this when I was a child feel how good that feels all warm and dry now, now I am brushing my teeth I like the feeling, now I am getting into bed, feel how soft the sheets are…”

Okay. I know it sounds stupid. And I felt a little stupid. But. I felt, also, different. Present. And I felt the joy in the simple acts of what I was doing. So I am going to try this for awhile, care to join me?