Lion and Magic Boy

So, I’ve been dutifully trying to keep up with all the manic posting of NaBloPoMo, and daily over at Fussy, who’s responsible for the whole thing anyway, I’ve also been enjoying daily posts about shoes for NaBloShoeMo, which is clearly for those people who actually have 30 pairs (or more) of shoes.

Women supposedly have a thing for shoes. Girly shoes. Pretty shoes. Or just…shoes. I am not one of those people. To wit, this is the contents of my shoe closet. If I even had a closet devoted to shoes.

• 3 pairs of running shoes, so ironic considering how I feel about running. But one pair is more than two years old, one was bought more for hiking/trail running (I love my idealism!), and one, weirdly, I WON just last month. They’re all size 9 1/2. But I measure a 7 1/2.
• 2 pairs cycling shoes, including one with cleats for clipless pedals. The other pair cuts off the circulation in my toes. I love them.
• Wool Haflinger slippers that are falling apart. I love them.
• A pair of Uggs bought on the way to the airport for a trip to Finland where they were much appreciated and have continued to be since. I don’t care what people say about them. I love them.
• Crocs.
• One pair of black pumps. For those court appearances. They may one day be comfortable.
• Jeweled sandals. Worn once, and I had the blisters to prove it.
• Black sandals, bought for my trip last summer to BlogHer that I didn’t go to.
• Nondescript ugly brown leather slip-on shoes that must be about 6 years old and that have been everywhere with me, including hiking in Whistler. I hate them and love them both.
• A pair of brown short side-zip leather boots, about six years old and barely worn.

TOTAL = 13 pairs. 5 of which are for some sort of athletic activity. I guess I’d better get off my ass then.

All this birthday talk. Or maybe it was watching “Neverending Story” tonight, which brought me back to like 22 again, which somehow translated into being 7. I don’t know, but I recalled the birthday party I had that year. Which was so memorable that I never had another.

The big thing at the party was going to be the giant balloons. Giant balloons that you could sit on and bounce. At least, this was my idea, my vision. But it was to be the highlight of the party, bigger even than the miniature golfing. And the Shasta black cherry cola.

I think maybe 5 or 6 other girls came. Or maybe there were boysthere too; it’s all a little hazy. There was probably food. And my dad likely disappeared for the afternoon, leaving my mom to seem unnaturally convivial, jovial even, not that she was usually morose or anything, but there was definitely a heartier-than-usual “company face” that she donned for occasions like that which were fortunately infrequent. Which I am afraid may be a genetic trait.

The balloons were quickly abandoned. They were difficult to blow up and didn’t become nearly the size required, plus, hello, they were balloons? Not so hot for bouncing on.

My dream shattered, I couldn’t wait for everyone to leave. And never found it desirable to have another party.

Though if I could get one of those really big balls with a handle? For bouncing on?  Or, like, 20 of them?  I might change my mind.

At least, not a thought that’s printable.

But! (nice segue there) At least I heard back about the small claims court thing from last week. So glad I got dressed up for THAT one!

(Why yes, that was intentionally ambiguous, why do you ask?)

Oh! The NaNoWriMo thing. And the writing-ahead-for-the-two-new-jobs thing. And the Posting Queen at Strollerderby thing. All on hiatus! Apparently. Because, when something’s important to me, then I get all FUCK YOU IMPORTANT THING, I’LL SHOW YOU A THING OR TWO! And then I watch an entire season, okay half a season, of 30 Rock in one night. With popcorn. AND butter. I tell you, I know a thing or two about self-destructive behavior, I do!

Yeah. And then I went out and bought some Tic-Tacs.

So today? I managed to Not Write pretty much all day. Yay me!

Oh, and there’s no internet connection here.  I hate that.  I even unplugged stuff and then plugged it back in.  Still nada.  So thanks, Jennie, who is apparently a neighbor or something, for your wireless connection.

So I guess it’s time I show you my podcast.   It’s really quite awesome.

When I was growing up, there was a phrase in our house: “baking cookies.”

Apparently, whenever there was something my mom didn’t want to do, she made cookies instead. Usually these were rock-hard chocolate-chip, but sometimes fork-tined peanut butter. Whatever. I didn’t care. It only happened a few times each year, but for whatever the reason, I was blissfully unaware yet eternally grateful.

I love how phrases arise in families that mean something other than originally intended. I am trying to think of how this applies to my own family but I’m just drawing blanks.

Procrastination, though, that’s something I can get behind.

My whole mind is a blank today. I’ve been unable to post at Strollerderby all day; everything I start writing just sounds trite. I’m totally into my NaNoWriMo project, though, and read an installment to everyone over dinner today.

Serena: You sound just like a real author!

Me: I am a real author.

Serena, astounded: Really? But you haven’t written anything.

Ooh. The bitter truth of a seven-year-old.

No worries.

But I’m dealing with the-glass-is-half-empty-syndrome today. Which leads me to believe I have been deceiving myself all this time. And have bitten off more than I can handle. And this is only Day #2.

A long month.

Blargh.

No, it’s nothing to do with the rain. The rain, actually, is quite nice. Though rain + wind + beach = a short walk.

Speaking of beach and walk, I must take my leave to do so now. Though I will be thinking of you, dear internets!

Why hello there! I am reminded that I have a blog. Well okay then!

Here’s a story. You like stories. When I was in my twenties, sort of like yesterday only not, I lived in the sunny and oh-so-freaking-hot clime in Phoenix. And while people later said helpful things to me like, “But it’s a dry heat,” I always reminded them that 120 degrees is 120 degrees no matter how you slice it.

And I had no a/c in my car for the first two years.

But it was no big deal, really, because all those golf courses and swimming pools and stuff that dotted the otherwise arid landscape between Camelback Mountain and the Superstitions? Yeah, not for me. I was an Indoor Girl. Working at my Indoor Job. No matter that everyone else in the Valley of the Sun had awesome tans. For me, it was just Too Hot To Be Outside.

So then the Upper Management People decided they wanted us Peon People to wear bermuda shorts and polo shirts in the summer one year. Yeah, fine. Um, no. Not for me. I was going to have to make people pay their rent on time and yell at contractors and order stuff and look important while wearing shorts?

I felt slightly ridiculous.

And then a women came in my office one day, very pale-skinned, who took one look at my legs which though quite skinny (that was my anorexic period, verrrrry attractive) could likely double as roadside reflectors in their dead whiteness, and said that she never thought she would ever in her entire life see someone with legs as white as mine. Why thank you! Yes, I like you too.

So I never forgot that comment, not that I’ve been haunted by it or anything (much), but I’m just not a person who tans much.

Which makes this all the more ironic:

Had parts of my face burned off. Before they turned into cancer.

Welcome to the fabulous world of sun screen!

Oh, do I look pissed off? Why, yes I am! Faugh on the cancer! But of course you know I really look like this much much more of the time.

Moving on. Eric is going to be a drummer, I think. Or have his own band. He likes taking a metal pail, upending it and holding it under his arm, then banging the hell out of it with a wooden spoon while he wails sings.

He can do that for hours, apparently.

Oh, I met a new guy a couple days ago. He’s pretty cute. I took his picture, too, you wanna see?

I thought you might.

Ready?

Okay, here he is:

That’s my grandson.

P.S. Wear your freakin’ sunscreen, people. I’m telling you this because I love you. And put it on your kids.

I quietly fell apart today over the vacuum cleaner, weeping there on the unvacuumed livingroom floor with the vacuum cleaner in pieces spread out around me, mocking me. I cannot get the damned thing back together, having taken it apart to an extent I have done dozens of times before as part of its regular cleaning and maintenance. Now the thing glints at me evilly and refuses to fit back together, one important element somehow having mysteriously grown too large to fit back into its shell.

Maybe that’s my problem too.

I am tired of this, tired of having no one to turn to when I need help, of having no complementary strength to share and rely upon when needed.

I am so fucking lonely it hurts.

The other day Eric reached out and gently and affectionately touched the top of my head, and that touch was so achingly familiar yet so distant that I looked around, convinced there was someone else in the room. It hit me that save for a few days over the past several months, a few magical yet fleeting days, I haven’t felt touch like that in a very long time.

And what I thought was there, what I thought I was moving toward, may not be there at all. Some things simply vanish into illusion when you reach for them, even though you know with the reaching that they await you. I know deep down that it’s more like catching a butterfly, or better yet a hummingbird, something so ephemeral that the merest breath will send it shooting off in another direction. In the end all you can do is wrap an invitation around you and wait. But seeing what lies 2400 miles away from me through the thin but undeniably opaque glass of the screen on my laptop is nearly impossible. I feel with my heart and with every fiber of my being, and then in the reaching destroy the illusion I have built to match the feeling. Between us stretches a gossamer thread that is so incredibly fragile yet strung with the combined weight of the past and the future which threatens to pull it down altogether.

So there is nothing behind me and nothing in front of me. There is nothing but me, suspended alone in space and darkness. There is no one but me, and I feel too tiny, too weak, too ephemeral myself to buoy myself any longer. Worse, there are three incessantly needy little people depending upon me to have some semblance of put-togetherness when I just don’t have any for anyone, not for myself or for them or for anyone.

I am a shell, and my inside no longer fits what I have erected around it.

This afternoon I enticed Eric into his stroller and we went for a long walk. I was hoping to walk away some of the fear, some of the pain, to find balance there, to find my stride again. Instead, I found that more than anything, I simply wanted to just keep walking. I found myself thinking about those women who go out for a walk and keep walking, who go out for a drive and then just keep driving. The allure of simply disappearing, of walking out of one life and into another, was incredible.

I could do that, I whispered to myself. I would do that. I would have, too, maybe, under other circumstances. Not today.

Instead I found myself doing what I predicted I would, putting one foot in front of the other, taking step after step. My dad told me once that walking is really a controlled fall. So I fell, slowly, back to the house, washed off a little of the pain, then made a dinner I couldn’t eat and once again put away the pain and immersed myself in the moment.

Don’t mind me, I’ve been hitting the Benadryl tonight. And I’m such a lightweight, too. So I have no idea how this stuff might react in my system, but I am guessing from my delayed reactions and the weird way things look all of a sudden and the fact that it took me three tries to click on the right button that reads “write a post” that I could be in for a veeeeeery interesting night.

I have no update on the worm situation. None. I am still shuddering from, frankly, TMI. You people are far less squeamish than I am, I’m afraid. So I have decided that what I don’t know won’t hurt me. But she did mention casually today that she had been seeing the worms (INTHEPOOP!) for weeks now.

Ba-dum-bum.

Oh. The Benadryl. I bet you’re wondering about that? Or is it for purely recreational purposes, you may be asking yourself. Well, no. The hope was to alleviate some of the itchy lungs which have escalated somewhat into REALLYITCHYLUNGS. And coughing and stuff. Because that ragweed, it has friends, and they are all out playing. And they hate me.

This probably woouldn’t have been an issue had I remembered to get my car inspected last month before the registration expired (oops). Because then the ragweed isn’t out and I would have stayed indoors today and held my breath instead of riding my bike to go pick up the car that hadn’t even been fixed.

Well, they did put four new tires on it. These were tires that were looking pretty bad a year ago when I bought the car (which, for the record, STILL smells like that), so the fact that I successfully drove on them for a whole year despite needing to be replaced makes me look like quite an excellent driver, really, and thrifty too! kind of stupid.

Oh, and they changed the oil, too! Since I haven’t done that since I’ve had the car. (KIDDING! Well, not really. But I have checked the oil. Twice!)

But the clunking noise it’s been making since the day I drove to the airport in July and wondered what that sound was and was it going to prevent me from getting to the airport in time for my flight or was the entire front axle or maybe just a wheel going to fall off while I was driving 75 down the highway hasn’t gone away. It turns out I needn’t have worried so much about making the plane but now I need a new sway bar link to pass inspection. Because it’s completely broken! Not only that but there is “play” in my right front inner tie rod. I’ll bet there is.

(I don’t know what those things are exactly, but I know they have something to do with keeping the wheels attached to the car, so I wasn’t far off actually)

But the itchiness in the lungs could have something to do with the tremendous ego that made sure everyone in the auto shop (two people) knew that I was making a great sacrifice (as if it was really nothing) by riding my bike the 4 miles back to the shop to pick up my tired but un-sway-barred car.

Because no one here rides their bike to do anything. A couple people do for exercise, but for running errands? Things are too far apart.

So I was breathing diesel exhaust (those trucks go by FAST!) and thinking to myself how nice it would be to live somewhere that was accessible to bikes and that it would actually be a viable alternative to driving. Because I haven’t ridden my bike to do an errand since I got my driver’s license when I was 16.

And I made sure those car fixing people knew how speshul I am and they likely enjoyed the sight of me wrestling the bike into the back of the car afterward (I weighed the relative merits of the bother of taking the front wheel off versus just shoving the bike into the back, and guess which won?).

[cough]

And the car fixing lady was kindly advising me to have those new tires rotated every 6000 miles and I nodded sagely as if I was not only hanging on her every word of brilliance but also as if I could actually be the sort of person who gets their tires rotated every 6000 miles, but really I was thinking FAT CHANCE LADY! Because I can barely remember to put water in the cats’ bowl even when they stare balefully at me from time to time and then scope out the sink to look for errant drips that have fallen there randomly, their little kitty lips dry and parched, barely able to croak out a pitful meow. Let alone remember to have tires rotated and to even know when 6000 miles have elapsed.

Yes, I can see the approach already: the moodiness, the biting sarcasm, the disappearing into the bedroom for hours at a time.

I’m about to have a teenager on my hands.

He’s only 11, three months shy of his 12th birthday, but I know the signs, all right.:

1. chocolate consumption far surpasses anyone else in the house, exponentially
2. alternates between sincere helpfulness and grudging obligation
3. throws himself down on any available piece of furniture with a dramatic sigh, several times a day for no apparent reason
4. hides naked parts on the way to shower
5. much better at sarcasm than anyone else I know
6. the thought of him having of his own computer is appealing
7. the room may not be clean again until 2014
8. zits!! where did those come from?
9. alternates between being stunningly brilliant and stunningly obtuse
10. questions.everything.  no longer accepts “because” as an acceptable answer

[sigh]

I would say to send cookies, but the carbs…nah. This is why they invented apprenticeships, I’m pretty sure.

Wish me luck.

Yep.

And this is how I know.

I’ve talked about my mom here a couple of times, but since she lives in California and I live on the east coast we don’t actually see one another much though I phone her nearly every week, dutiful loving daughter that I am, ever hearkening to my filial obligations.

So I called her yesterday as usual and left a message. My mom screens her calls and hardly ever actually answers when I phone, but usually returns the call within a few minutes, probably after she’s had time to stuff a fresh kleenex in her sleeve to prepare since I frequently manage to make her cry on these calls. We’re an emotional pair, we two. (Oh. The kleenex thing. Undoubtedly it was handed down to her from her mom, though I have to report that the sleeve-stuffing kleenex gene has apparently skipped a generation.)

But my mom didn’t call back yesterday. I had a brief thought that maybe something happened, maybe she slipped and fell while attending to her twelve or maybe sixteen cats and no one had yet found her body (or what was left of it after the cats finished her off) or had cause to, this being a holiday weekend and all.

But no, me being so psychically-attuned and all, I didn’t get the sense that anything dire had occurred. So maybe she forgot. Maybe she was busy.

So I called back today, and INSTANTLY I got an apology: she had received my call during a History Channel marathon about the history of ALL FIFTY STATES, and I had the bad timing to call WHEN THEY WERE ABOUT TO DO MONTANA, which she clearly could not miss just to talk to me. Her only daughter.

So now I pretty much know where I stand.

Right there under Montana.

Hi Mom.

[tags]mothers, Montana, History channel, stupid things on TV, filial obligation, priorities[/tags]