i'm already losing

I thought about those pesky New Year's resolutions today. I don't like making them and yet this year I went out on that limb. And a wobbly weak one it is. I almost have no plans to keep any of the ideas I thought were so fantastic a few weeks ago. Take Obama for instance. It's pretty exciting to me to hear all the good news coming from his camp. I believe in him the way people first believed in Bill Clinton. I was never swayed by that smoothe talker, but Obama looks like what our future should be. He's all shiny and pretty like a new penny. But, my working for him seems like a dream and a far distance wish. And yet the idea I had was simply somethink akin to making phone calls for him with a high pitched excited hope lingering through all those fiber optics and cell towers. I barely have time to shower these days. My world is spinning just a little too fast. It's not a bad thing, just a hurried thing and I can't imagine adding one more thing to the growing pile. It's time for things to slow down, for me to take time out and smell the fresh scent of new babies being born because it seems like they're starting to come out of people's ears, but I can't slow down and I don't really want to. We'll see about Obama, but for right now the writing has lost hope and exercise- what's that? It's why I don't make those resolutions in the first place. But then again, if I hadn't what would be lurking over my shoulder rather than bettering myself?

clear as mud

Of course nothing in my life is as easy as snapping your fingers. Take glasses for example. I learned that I would have to begin wearing them fulltime 10 days ago. I've kinda known this for a year, but my old quack doctor said I had nothing to worry about until the good eye went bad. I thought that sounded funny. So did my new eye Dr. one year later. It turns out that I have an astigmatism in one eye that should have been corrected 10 years ago. Funny, I've been going to eye doctors fairly regularly for 10 years. Hmmmm.

The things is, when I hear that I am blind in one eye, my mind starts to think that I am blind all over and I start to obsess and begin to think that I cannot, in fact, see anything. This is and was not the case, but I wanted my glasses and I wanted them yesterday. So, upon gaining access to my prescription I went about getting some "in about an hour" glasses last Thursday. And when I first put them on I thought the world was better, wonky, but better. It turns out- the world, was not better.

I had heard there would be an adjustment period and that my depth perception would change, but I just had a gut feeling that what was happening to me was not happening to the rest of the four eyed world. My bad eye was hurting, I mean hurting and my good eye could no longer compensate so that things from far away were clearer without the glasses on. Hmmmmm again.

I went back franctic to my eye Dr. this morning and after much attention to my whining he lessened my prescription and baby the world is better and not wonky. I love my gut instinct. I love that I was right, that glasses should make you have an "aha" moment and not and "aaaaaahhhhhh" one when you put them on.

Oh yeah- and I might have bought more pairs than I need and my everyday ones might have diamonds (faux) on them.

w

"We HAVE Homer Simpson as our president."~ Jon Stewart

I haven't laughed that hard in a long long time.

been merry and reading

I was so lucky to haphazardly be granted the chance to read an advanced reader copy of Janice Erlbaum's Have You Found Her. My little review can be found in my "what I'm reading on the tube" as well as on LibaryThing.com. You should read it too. It was a good one.

And Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I'm sure I'll be back soon.

refreshing this itch

I've just been busy. It's the worst excuse. It satisfies no one. But, it's true. When you get busy, your priorities change. Sometimes that's good and sometimes not. This blog is a priority that I shouldn't let slip and yet I have. And reading, it's gone by the wayside too. And now there is time to ponder, time for naps and TV and blogging.

I went through all the links yesterday on the side of this blog and it was like going through old photos, remembering times and sentiments that used to be a part of your everyday. Like the daily photo blogs of London and New York. I forgot that I've missed them. They felt like old shoes, all comfortable with a tinge of homesickness. So, blog world, I hope I'm coming back to you now. I hope this is more than a day or two fleeting feeling. I want to spend some time with you again and I hope you'll do the same.

the year of the lean

The last thing I want to do these days is blog.  It's lost its luster.  The tingly, warm feelings I used to have about this little space in space have fluttered down to a dull hum.  And part of me wishes that weren't the case.  For instance, two Sunday night's ago I wanted to blog the following, but had absolutely no energy or desire.  Something about a lunchbreak today though makes blogging sound real good.
 
I put up my Christmas tree three weekends ago with my nieces.  It's become a tradition that they come over and put all the ornaments on after I've nestled it in it's stand and strung it with white lights (only white lights, only).  But this year was a little different.  They had to stand outside in the spitting rain while I very ungracefully took the tree out of the back of my SUV.  I had opened the the window and thrown the tree in with the fat part inside the car.  Kroger will sell you a tree for real cheap, but they won't give you string or even help you haul it to your car and since I'm a single girl who likes to make things difficult and do it my ownself, I was forced to get up close and personal with a very wet and sappy frazier fir tree.  The tree top stuck out of the window, but I couldn't pull it out that way so then I had to open the gate and finagle the tree and well, it wasn't pretty.
 
I picked my tree for it's crooked top branch that reaches so haphazardly to the sky.  I feel like a Christmas tree should reflect it's owner and so I always look for the ones that are a little off.  But, my poor nieces in the rain watched helplessly as I dragged the tree up two flights of stairs.  One of them was carrying a hacksaw wrapped very carefully inside a towel.  I'm telling you, this was a stressful little venture.
 
Once the tree was inside my warm and not raining apartment I had to do some surgery on it.  I took the hacksaw that the 6 year-old carried in and started sawing forcefully.  After about 2 minutes the 5 year-old announced that she was bored.  I was sweating and wet from rain and sticky with sap.  I cared not about her boredom.  
 
When the time came to put the tree in the stand, I had a feeling that I had not taken off enough branches, but my arms were aching and the tree needed a resting place.  I got all the screws tightened as much as I could and prayed that my nieces would not be killed by a falling tree this year at my house.  When the light stringing began, the nieces got bored again.  And I was still sweating and wet and sappy.  AND while putting the lights on, the tree decided to fall two times and I had to enlist the 6 year-old to hold the tree, a 6 year-old to hold the tree (wanted to make sure you got that).  
 
With lights finally on and a civil, sisterly fued avoided- we began the ornament hanging.  The youngest one bugged out and watched Hannah Montana or something like that.  The six-year old, my little trooper stayed with me throughout, carefully picking out ornaments and placing them as high as she could.  After one more tree fall that almost crushed the six-year, I decided to give up and just lean the tree against a wall.  Hey, it beats battling with it and worrying that in the middle of the night all my ornaments will be broken. 
 
So this, people, is my Christmas tree.  A wall is supporting more than the ceiling this Christmas.  And I love every crooked little leaning branch of it.

in which i'm totally a techie, but still a girl

I got a new phone. Not because I needed one, but because it needed me. My phone, my wonderful old flip phone (my first) was just making me sad. I loved him so much when he was pushed into my hands, but this new one, this upgraded, uptraded one is all sparkly and wonderful and I'm sorry, but I haven't looked back at the little Motorola that had no camera, could not recieve pictures and voice calling or bluetooth - what are those. But my new baby, my baby rzr is all pink and all girl even though she does eveything the grey ones do. You go girl. And if I had you number I would totally text you cause that stuff is cool yo. I will say though that I do love it when cool phones are totally free. Want to see a picture of my Christams tree? Send me your number.

in which i'm thankful

My favorite time of year when the trees look like paintings and the air (should) feels like a cool dip in fresh water. This year has been one for the books and one of my quietest ones. I can't say why I've been so quiet, why the yearn to write out loud stilled inside me, but I wouldn't take back what's happened in the real world. I found that happiness and contentment is a place I'd trade for writing any day. Maybe there is something to artists and pain or maybe there are just moments that I want to keep all to myself, wrapped up for me to remember or forget. I want to return to writing, to make it a daily habit and it might be a goal I set up shortly. I'd like to see what writing looks like with my newly wired mind. And I'd like to know what it wants me to share or hold back. We'll see about that.

Right now I'm thankful for the time I get to spend with my family this week, and I'm a little sad for all the family that won't be around this year. There are babies and babies and babies to come and my dream, my absolute wish is for a Thanksgiving where all the people I love come together and spend the night under one roof. That roof would have to be big, really big cause I got a lot of love up this heart and I'm so giving thanks for all ya'll.

because sometimes i think it

In some ways I feel like a stranger to myself. Because constant contentment has never been part of me- never even a fleeting thought- that sometimes I don't know if it's real. But it is. It all is. And yet nothing has really changed. A friend on the phone tonight said, "You sound sad." "I'm not," I insisted. Twice. It's just such a knee jerk reaction- from me, from my friends- to assume that I am melancholy. What I am at this moment is me, whatever word that describes me (is there one?) I just am. I feel like now, like this day, this moment- even when the tiredness in my voice is read wrong- that I can finally just be still. I guess it's a little like a Buddhist feels after so much meditation- calm, OK with the now. And yet I've done no meditation. I haven't even changed my diet. Should I call this Nirvana or Enlightenment? I don't know. I think what I really am right now is normal. I think I finally feel what most humans feel from the day they are born. It just took me 30 years to get there. So is this my rebirth? In some ways yes. I finally understand that days flow like a river through our lives and that conscience movement of time does not have to be an obstacle, but a serene knowledge of consistency. I've been a time fighter, but now time just is. If I go on a walk, great. If I spend an hour watching TV, awesome. If I finish a book, good job. And stress- I hardly know her. Sure there are things on my plate, deadlines, commitments, friends, family- and my answer to them is "OK, I've got stuff to do, let's do it." And that is the part of me that feels so foreign, so other. I've always been a procrastinator, a tomorrow-is-another-day, even (mostly) a dreader. I'm now a today girl and today and tomorrow and even yesterday are good, really really good. And hope that this feeling, even now when I just want a nap, is something I can hold on to for much, much longer. And dare I say- share it.

things being what they are

I've been standing on a cliff dreading the descent below me. I don't want to jump but I know from somewhere deep that the fall is inevitable. In the space between the knowing and warding off of these fellings I do my rituals which amount to breathe blowing in a strong wind. I can't stop the force that's brought me here. I can't unstep my path and yet I want nothing to do with this cliff. I don't want to jump. Not even the lure of a free fall is exciting. I want solid ground again where everything is monotany and calm, where a sneeze does not equal the push that sends you headlong into the void. And yet I know this place well, have stood here many times before- sometimes even willing the wobble on the edge, coaxing the feelings of balance to last a little longer. But this time, this day, I don't want the cold that is barreling down my throat no matter what days off it promises. I want health and sunshine and to enjoy the beginning of fall that is coming, just glinting through the trees.

it will happen one day

Absence, I think, makes the heart forget. I believe a little more in the "Time heals all wounds" in that after awhile my pre-alzhiemer's mind will not remember. But, I haven't forgotten this blog. I just have had no time and even little creative energy to even summarize my days and life. But, fear not- I will return in some form one day. Until then you should take a trip back in my past and ruffle up some old feathers. There's good stuff back there I promise, but you might have to dig a bit.

it's because i'm sooooo good lookin'

There was once a Seinfeld episode where the members of Jerry's gang decided that when someone sneezed it made just as much sense to say "You're sooo good lookin'" than it did to say "God bless you."  I kinda like the sentiment of this.  And every so often it runs through my mind- and usually not when people sneeze- it's more often when someone annoys me.  And if you think about it, that might be a better use of the phrase.  Someone cuts you off in traffic.  You simply keep driving calmly and exclaim, "You're sooooo good lookin'." 
 
Anyway, sorry for being absent from this here space, but it's simply because I'm sooooo good lookin'.

my new mantra

I was raised in a very conservative household. This being said there was also a lot of chaos. You know the kind- "We put fun in dysfunctional." It's your almost typical American story, but recently I've begun to try to turn the heads in my family from perseveration to meditation. My new saying is "Let go and let Buddha." I'm not Buddhist though I respect those who practice it. It's more of my own version of the classic 12 steps "Let go and let God." The sustitution for me is all wrapped up in family dynamics. When I plug my mantra into a conversation where someone is certainly being analyzed and torn apart, laughter comes out. Laughter because we need it, because comedy is alwasy better than tragedy and also because God is too serious. If I used the classic saying then I'd get things like "That's right. Those demons should be banished." Wah! Yeah, I know. So I choose Buddha as my comic relief buddy. Buddha is my little fat comedian. He helps lighten the anger, sometimes even helps release it. And I am the happier for it. You should try it too. It's easy. When something is grating on your nerves (like I don't know, your entire family) just let go and let Buddha.

sooner or later

Lazy would be an understatment. Before any time off I make lists upon lists in my head about morning walks, afternoon teas, museum visits, matinee movies and reading under a tree in a beautiful public park. When the time off truly comes I wake up late, decide that Regis and Kelly are way more important than a walk or bike ride and then I hit the downward spiral of channel surfing all day. It's bad, it's really bad. There have been summers where I refused to turn on the TV except, of course, to watch Jessica Simpson's married life "reality" show.

But, today is different (ha!). I'm off to Starbucks to get some true energy and then to a knit shop. You see I must relish a little bit today because tomorrow starts a part time babysitting job that will heavily interupt my reality TV watching life (at this point it's all repeats). I'll soon be hiking and sitting poolside with two young kids. Oh the tan needs to not fade away. Not fade away.

reaction

I need you sometimes just to be what I fall into. I don’t want to mutter in the low times anymore. It’s too dark there and I’ve been there too long. I like this lightness now, this floating I’ve been feeling. It doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes need you to be the blanket, my wrap around. Because we all need something that makes the ground softer just like moss on a forest floor that dampens the fall of acorns or pinecones- being the equal and opposite force that stops their fall. And it is what I need now, just something I can curl into and lie still with, something that only needs me to be still and quiet- my equal and opposite.