Saturday, February 14, 2004
funny thing seen tonight:
on the way home, i ended up next to a bus. i looked up to see if i could get the route number and figure out if it would be crossing my path. didn't see the number, but i did notice that someone in the T maintenance shed must have been punchy - they had painted a black and yellow flame job on the gas tank flap.
funny thing i heard the other day:
i was in the office for a few hours, and had LMB with me. he, of course, was playing with everything on my desk. fortunately, i have many toys. two of them, that live on top of my monitor, are a wire mandala that you can flip around into different states, and a Ganesh finger puppet. LMB asked why i had an elephant puppet, and i explained that that's how some people see God. 'huh?' 'well, you pray to Jesus, and you think he looks a certain way. if you're Jewish, God looks a different way; if you're Muslim, he looks different, and if you're Hindu, this is one of the ways you might think he looks.' (oversimplification, certainly, but hopefully about right for a 5 year old brain.)
'oh. okay.' and off he went to play with the mandala and the puppet. a few minutes later, i hear 'look!'. he'd flipped the mandala around into a cage, with the puppet inside. 'i trapped God!', he crowed triumphantly.
out of the mouths of babes, indeed. :)
:: scribbled at
11:25 PM ...
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o
to my upstairs neighbors, who are apparently completely
sans clue:
your late night partying habits have irritated me for some time. i think i've showed you respect by treating you politely and asking you to quiet down. however, you have failed to show me any courtesy in return. the entire scenario repeats every few weeks, at 1, 2, 3 in the morning, indicating to me that you have not, in fact, caught on to the fact that it's not cool to wake up the neighborhood, and that i do not, in fact, enjoy hauling my ass out of bed to walk upstairs and ask you to knock it the fuck off.
but now you've upped the stakes. you've chosen to consistently party on nights that leave me exhausted on stepson days. i lose the one day a week i get with him, because you and your friends chose to get rip roaringly drunk and wake me up at 3:30 in the morning.
guess what? you lose. next time, it will be the cops knocking on your door. and don't even think of complaining to me, when you have to lie in the bed that you made. live with it.
:: scribbled at
11:18 PM ...
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o
Friday, February 13, 2004
mental enema, part two:
some of what has me frustrated is integrating all of what's going on, with relationship, with self, with roles. i don't think that it should all be one seamless whole; no, more that there should be a place for each facet of self.
i've been in relationships where i've lost track of who i am. those have been frightening and depressing. this is most certainly not that. (this is not that. did i really say that? note to self: write more to retain grasp of native tongue, not to mention logic and reason.)
no, this is more about... i still have a good sense of who i am, just not where i fit, what the new roles are, how all the pieces go together. and lately, that's felt a bit overwhelming. i think that's where the fierce need for not only 'me' time but feeling that my opinion is being heard and fairly evaluated (to the point where there is no right answer because i'm waaayyyy too sensitive) comes from.
there is an upside to all this, as well as a light at the end of the tunnel (please, don't let it be a train): conversations with my mother lately have been enlightening, entertaining, and reassuring, as she tells me how things went when we were small - oh, what an eyeopener *that* can be! it's been great to talk with mom about some of my concerns, and get her advice. the light: things are getting easier. as i can put my finger on specific things, each can be discussed and managed. i've always been committed to working things out, but have been a bit doubtful of my capacity to do so, so resolving an issue or two helps me feel better about that.
and someday soon, i may be able to write a more elegant sentence. ;)
:: scribbled at
7:53 PM ...
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o
an appropriately weird list for today's
the friday five:
1. Are you superstitious?
yup. i prefer to think of it as a healthy respect for unseen powers.
2. What extremes have you heard of someone going to in the name of superstition?
noone in my immediate circle has done anything i've considered extreme. i've read news stories, to be sure, but that's hardly the same thing.
3. Believer or not, what's your favorite superstition?
favorite in terms of always do it? knock on wood if you say something that could bring bad luck.
4. Do you believe in luck? If yes, do you have a lucky number/article of clothing/ritual?
tricky question - let's say i think you can make your own luck, to some extent. and yes, there are numbers that are speak to me.
5. Do you believe in astrology? Why or why not?
to some extent, altho certainly not the drivel you find in the daily papers. hey, if we're 'big bags of mostly water' (which is a quote, i think, from
Buckaroo Bonzai) with an electrical charge, it only makes sense that planetary pull would affect us one way or the other. ;)
leave"
:: scribbled at
6:48 PM ...
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Friday the 13th. ah. how appropriate. good time to get a few thoughts out of my head.
you may have noticed that posts are pretty sporadic lately. (or not - maybe it's a good pace for you. in which case, i apologize for trying to catch up.)
it's not that i haven't thought about writing. i even power up the computer when i get home. then, inevitabely, i plunk down on the sofa, and the evening is shot. and hey, that's not unusual in and of itself. i've been called the Queen of Procrastination before. but this ... this is more persistent, and feels different.
for a while now, i've felt as if i've been having three kinds of days. some days are days with The Dane, some days are family days with The Dane and Little Monkey Boy (sidenote: he's more of a Medium Monkey Boy these days), and some days are mine. except, see, those days that are 'mine' aren't even really mine, because i may be on the phone with The Dane, or shopping for LMB, or just thinking about family stuff. so really, the three kinds of days are running together into 'days that aren't mine anymore'.
(the whole 'different kinds of days' gives me a little taste of what LMB might feel, with school days, home days, mom days, dad days, and all. but that's a whole 'nother story.)
i guess by 'mine' i mean 'unscheduled down time in which i can goof around and do whatever i damn well please'. and i haven't felt like there's much of that lately. technically, i've got three nights a week for that, but then there's working late, or running errands, or having to do laundry... you know. life. and even that hasn't been happening lately. i can't even remember the last time i saw my vacuum cleaner. and letting things slide around the house makes me crazy, too. i like a nice, neat house, and i get angry with myself for not making the effort to keep up, doing a few little things here and there. (i know, i know, i should just do it instead of getting angry, but when you've let dusting the blinds go for ... oh, i dunno, *years*, there's a more than a little catching up to do.)
where was i going with all this? oh, yeah... dusting aside, there's been a shift happening. quite logical, when you (by which i mean me) step back and think about it: i'm part of a 'we' now. and that means reshuffling all sorts of things, from socks to bedtimes and a whole lot of things in between.
i guess i've mostly been caught off guard by my ferocious attachment to 'me' time. not just hours, but mental and physical space to operate. does that make sense? i've been lucky enough to be living in my own space for about 6 years now, and while friends and family have been there all along, i've had quite a bit of latitude in doing things my own way.
i'm not sure i'm really being clear about it, in part because i'm still sorting this out for me. in a way, it comes down to something as simple as this: my morning thinking time in the shower feels one way now, because the only being on the other side of the shower curtain is my cat. it feels different when The Dane is over. and i can't even predict how it will feel when there's a little small in the house. the transitions scare me.
going from single to involved is a transition. relationships are work, sometimes hard work. involved to committed (interesting, how that term is used, eh?) is another transition. (as sis and i were discussing, amazing how much stress a little piece of jewelry can trigger.) this is the second marriage for both of us, and i know for me, there's a great deal of terror in making the jump - hell, i didn't get it right the first time, so who's to say i've learned enough to get it right the second time?
and becoming a step parent? whoo boy howdy. in a sense, i knew that i was signing up for a huge sea change when The Dane and i got involved. i knew he was a dad. but i don't think it's possible to appreciate how much different things are in a relationship of 3+ (because there's the other parent and all that that entails).
so, pretty much, fear of change, failure, conflict, my ability to step beyond the comfortable known into the unknown. fear, and sandwiches. and i've been so wrapped up in all that, trying to work thru it, figure out what scares me and why, how to fix it or accept it, and be happy that i've been a little mentally constipated.
i've wanted to wrap it all up in a pretty little package before i wrote about it, because that would make it seem manageable (for me, at least). i've managed to get it in a box, so i can frame it coherently. i think maybe i'm going to try just blithering about bits and pieces of it for a while, to see if that helps. hopefully, that won't scare anyone off. also, perhaps, it will free up some mental space for me, so i can write about other interesting things going on in the Real Live World - because these are interesting times we live in these days.
:: scribbled at
6:24 PM ...
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o
unconscious mutterings:
Identity:: muddy
Reveal:: risque
Live:: wire
Attitude:: adjustment
Night:: and day (shades of Cole Porter)
Nevada:: Tuscon
Weekend:: getaway
Write:: block
Friend:: Gibraltar
Seventeen:: child
:: scribbled at
12:00 PM ...
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o
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