Things occurring right now:

Chiggers down there. If you don't know what those are... well, just feel sorry for me.

Ok... so that ended up sounding like some kind of STD. I'll clarify. I took the dogs out in the backyard, and I happen to have a national forest in my backyard, complete with deer, raccoons, etc, and all the bugs that live there too. Chiggers are small red bugs, so small you can barely see them on your skin, that crawl up to the first place that's chafing-- your sock band, your waistband, your armpit, where ever, and burrow in, causing a red, incredibly itchy bump. Well I had on slip on shoes that don't rub and loose shorts, so the first chafing place? The insides of my legs. Nice. 

My dad's birthday is coming up and my little brother wants to go in on a really nice present for him. He's a photographer, and recently he's gotten interested in digitally edited photos, so I might find a nice one of those. Photoshop or something? I don't know. I need to research. 

I had Indian for lunch and Italian for dinner, so my stomach's not exactly happy with me. My taste buds were though. We're lucky to live in a small town with such good restaurants.

I'm sticking my neck out for a new designer I want to use for work. My boss isn't sure about him but I just know he can get the project done right. I'm putting my trust in him. I hope it doesn't come back to bite me in the ass. Because I've been bitten there enough lately....

I'm glad tomorrow is Friday. We're grilling with friends tomorrow night, passing the puppy off Saturday. I'm going to miss her.

1) Another dog, happy and warm and loved, saved from the shelter, and going to live a long life with a good family. Daisy, a small basset hound mix, a lover and snuggler:

2) Clean Sheets

3) Bananas

4) My father-in-law. Today is his birthday. He was my art history professor and advisor while I was in college, so I've known him a couple years longer than I've known my husband. He tells good stories, even if he does ramble some, and he really appreciates having an art-lover for a daughter-in-law, because I actually enjoy his long winded tangents about artists and such.

5) A night to myself, watching my favorite shows, eating brownies and ice cream. Other than the barking dogs, it was very peaceful, and I feel a bit recharged, like I just had a mini-weekend.

Whew

Puppies are WORK. I am so tired. Daisy's finally asleep, in Bub's bed, at the foot of the couch. Bub has passed out on Daisy's towel under my feet. Whatever, as long as they're quiet.

Work has been very, very busy lately, and I'm not quite sure why as nothing has changed. I suppose it's because my boss has started to trust me more with bigger projects. I appreciate that, and I like not being bored, but a little down time isn't a bad thing. Especially when home has been so crazy this week too.

Husband went to the baseball game tonight. The mid-week games are never as exciting since that's when they schedule the small or private college opponents. And the wives hardly ever go to those games either, so I'd be sitting around with a bunch of guys, all wishing I wasn't there so they could bad mouth their women, cuss, spit, scratch, whatever else it is guys like to do when we're not around. So I found a few minutes to make myself a plate of spaghetti and salad, dodging the dogs between my legs the whole time, and now I'm resting in front of the tv. Lost is on, can't miss that. Maybe I'll even go put on some of my tomato and mint face mask later. Totally girl it up.

Well, I spoke too soon. The yorkie puppy across the street just started barking, which caused all my puppies to run to the window barking. It's been so long since I've had an untrained dog around, I don't know, I don't remember, how to get her to stop doing something I don't want her to do. With Bub, I snap my fingers, literally, and he freezes. But Daisy doesn't even know her own name yet, no matter how loudly I scream it. I would love to have another dog some day, but it won't be a puppy. Whew.

I'm still a child myself, so how could I raise one?

As a child, I wanted four kids, two boys and two girls so that everyone had the experience of having both a brother and sister. Mathematically that is the lowest number of children possible for that to work, and yes, as a child, I did the math. This want stemmed more from me being frustrated as a child, wanting a sister more than anything and wanting understanding and feminine companionship, than from actually wanting children, and four of them at that, not that I knew that then. 

Sometime later... was it high school or college? I decided I didn't want kids. No, that's too absolute. I never decided, I never had one coherent I don't want kids revolutionary light bulb. It was a gradual realization that came to me over years of dating unreliable and untrustworthy men, watching parents ruin children, watching this misogynist world ruin girls, and watching us all swirl ourselves and our planet into a garbage-heap of an oblivion. Not to mention not wanting to change my la-de-da ways and actually grow up. I can't remember the first time I thought the whole thought or said it out loud: I don't want children of my own, but there it is now.

It's a weird thought to have, so foreign to the way girls are raised, especially Southern girls, so bizarre. I should want kids. I should want to spread my love and my genes, mix them up with my husbands, shake them up and blow on them for luck, toss them out and hope for a seven. My brothers make me not trust genes, though, as the three of us, all so different, all came from the same place. 

And having a baby, a pod inside me, like a leech, an alien life form, sincerely grosses me out. I know you don't believe me. No one does. Everyone thinks that I'll change my mind, blah blah blah, that one day I'll want my own, that I'll wake up one day and suddenly think Holy crap, I have to fill my house with red and yellow plastic toys and sticky fingers and squealing RIGHT NOW. I'm ok with not having a free moment for an original thought for at least the next 5 years until this thing can take care of itself plus the 15 or so years on top of that of financial and emotional support of someone I might not even like.

I didn't suddenly decide not to have kids on a whim, even though most people think that's the case. It was a studied, deliberate conclusion to which I came after years of thought. I'm leaving the possibility open, in my agnostic trust-nothing believe-nothing way, but I'm about 90% sure I will remain childless, at least children of my own. Adoption is another story, another post.

It scares me, of course it scares me, to think that I'll be old and alone one day, if having lost my husband too early I have no where to go on Christmas because we never had kids. But I can't live my life based on what-ifs. What I know now is that I am happy with the way things are. Having this puppy in the house this week (I'm keeping my parent's new dog until they can get up here to pick her up Saturday) has shown me that. Running around chasing that thing, trying to keep it from picking on the cat, peeing on the carpet, eating my shoes, on and on, I hardly get any rest, forget the chores and work to be done. And that's just a dog. Kids have tons more accoutrement and requirements. The tv shows they watch alone is enough to make me babble. I'm set in my ways, and I'm selfish, but at least I can admit this.

When I turn thirty, in three years, we're reevaluating. I feel like adoption will be the answer, though. I wish there was a way I could convince my friends of this inevitable fact, and my parents... they're another story. My dad's opinion my adopting one day, well, I'm still too angry to post about that.

things learned and remembered on a dreamy Monday morning

I remind myself of Jekyll and Hyde sometimes. One side of my face is photographable, the other is not. I put myself to the left of people when I see a camera pulled out, always, and I find myself turning my head ever so slightly to the right so the lens catches more of the left side than the other. 

Some days I'm sweet, friendly, and some days I'll tell the truth even if you can't take it just because I think you need it. Some days I'll do both. Some days I don't know what I will do either, what I will say, until I say it. I don't find out until I have a conversation, and the words flow out of my mouth, lacking my permission, escaping from the cage in which my brain has tried to lock them. Some days I'm better at keeping them in than others. You could be showered with Southern hospitality, or I could make you avoid me for the rest of the day. 

There's the first me, the left side. The wild me, could be sweet or honest or both, but has unleashed herself on the world, thoughts spewing like lava, no restrictions, no cares, no fear. I wish I could be her more often. I like to see the reaction on friends' and stranger's faces when I am her, when she comes out of nowhere. They're either fearful, taken aback, or amused. Usually the amused are the ones that have seen her before and know that's actually me, that's actually what's in my head, and for some reason I've chosen to be her that day and they're in for a good ride.

But I'm usually the second, the right side. I'm like the first, but strapped in like a tandem skydiver, padded down like a fragile vase in a move, lips locked with a key thrown away. I protect myself, steel myself up, because I'm tender and easy to get to in my other state. A sly word, a hurtful word, spoken in my direction and I clam up, unable to return the favor. I'm incapable of hurting others. The truth hurts, yes, but that's not my fault. Everyone has their own version of a truth I suppose, but I feel the more versions of it you hear, the closer you come to The truth. Maybe that's silly, I don't know, but it makes sense to me.

Neither side of me knows how to debate, though. I'm empathic with everyone and every side, I consider all the options. I'm not easily swayed unless you present to me a view I hadn't considered. I'm open to change in those situations, but usually I just weave the new into the old, allowing it room to move around in my head and push out old notions, alter some, but mostly just exist to the side. It's tiring. I can't be blind, I can't be ignorant, therefore I can't be at peace. Everything to me has worldly implications, everything is connected to something else. My life has meaning because it's connected to others, and those are further connected to everything else. Everything I do makes a difference to you. Everything you do makes a difference to me.

Reeling back in... This weekend was warm and full of new life. I chose to be my true self on Saturday and lived. Screaming at a baseball game, laughing as we piled seven people in a pick-up, dancing in the street. My parents adopted a new dog and I helped pick her out. Last night, I cried before dinner, out with friends, over a stray puppy, starving in the dirt, dying for love. People passed by and say "oh, what a sweet dog, how sad it is that she's alone" and kept going, back to their cars, back to their boxed in lives. How? What is it in people, what evil, allows us to see a suffering creature and move on by? Why are we so apathetic? 

After my small rant, I stood up, walked outside to get her, take her home, get a good meal in her and find her a permanent home, when a young couple who had just eaten picked her up themselves. Oh, I forgot, I thought, and I smiled at them and returned.  Some people do care. Some people are like me. They don't know me, but that choice to help when help was needed affected me more than I remembered possible, and I was a bit shocked by it. We all have two sides, we all have choices to be made. We can be our true selves, come out of our shells and live our lives, connected and open to everyone else, or we can stay holed up in our own cocoons, forgetting how much our actions or inactions can hurt and maim without our permission or knowledge. I'm choosing to try to push myself out there, to live a life examined and whole, without fear, to be myself from now on. 

around and around

Life is so funny sometimes. I've been cruising along lately, conscious only of weeks and not days, time zooming past like race cars on the track. Suddenly it's 80 degrees outside and time to put away the sweaters. I'm a week and a half from being 27 when the last birthday I really remember was... 23? No, 24 was a good one, we were in London. London was three years ago. I'm shaking my head at my keyboard, wondering where in the world the time went and what in the world I've done with it. 

I've driven the same car since my sophomore year of college. My father helped me buy it. It was his idea, and it was too expensive for me, so he helped me out because he wanted me in the safest car available. My aunt, my mom's little sister, who had been born with scoliosis and so spent her life with her head tilted to one side in a constant questioning motion, was killed in a car accident that year. She and I drove the same kind of car, and although what actually killed her was scar tissue breaking off from an earlier spinal surgery and clotting her lungs, my dad freaked out a  little and bought me a BMW with steel side bars and roll-down air bags. Used, but nice, especially back then.

Now I call it the ghetto-W. The windows won't roll down anymore, and sometimes the doors refuse to unlock. I replaced the reverse gear and the coolant system a couple years ago (has it been a couple years really?) for a whopping 3k. Everything on these German cars is more expensive to fix, like 3 and 4 times more. A headlight bulb costs me $25. 

So yesterday, on the way home from work I was sitting at a red light listening to NPR's All Things Considered, some story about Obama and credit cards, and suddenly my car raised and lowered, like I had gone over a bump but was sitting still, and I heard a ka-plunk. And my check engine light came on. I thought for a second the guy behind me had bumped me, but I could still see his bumper in my rear view mirror, so I knew it wasn't him. I immediately called my husband, and we agreed I should turn around and drive it to the one guy in town that works on BMWs. He opened my hood and there was oil everywhere. Awesome.

So we are carless. We borrowed a car so that we could get to work this morning. His car quote was $407 (as I said yesterday, his fan threw a blade into his radiator, so we're replacing both). Who knows what mine will be.

It's enough to make me want to lock myself in the house all weekend. But there are worse things that could happen. If he comes back with another 3k quote, it might be time for a new car. As much as I don't want to take on a payment right now, at least we probably have the resources to do it. Life is all about our reactions to things, isn't it? And my husband and I spent most of the night laughing about this. I just hope I can keep laughing when I hear the news, good or bad.

Edited to add: Husband just told me that as a part of our refinance, there's an extra $1400 in our old escrow account, and they'll be mailing us a check in 30 days. Now I'm shaking my head again, in disbelief this time. I just never know what to expect. Life is a roller coaster, that's for sure. I'm glad I like roller coasters. 

home

Everyone has their place. That place that tugs at their soul, makes them feel calm and complete, happy and peaceful. For some people it's a particular house, known as home. They feel like they're on vacation in their backyard. I've moved too much to call a physical structure my home although the one my husband and I live in now is getting close. For other people it's a city, full of the people and activities they love. Sure, my town is great, but it's a bubble rarely penetrated by the outside world, leaving us stewing in our own ideas and personalities sometimes. Just gotta get out of it on occasion. And there are some big cities near here each with a unique vibe, but none of them hold anything for me. Some people love the mountains, especially around here. They go a little further north every winter and ski, or in the summer they hike, step carefully rock to rock on bubbling streams, and observe nature. It's beautiful up there, but too cold, and dirty, with lots of bugs. I like to camp but it's not a vacation to me, and it's not a place I feel compelled to go.

There's a mile-long stretch of glimmering white powdery sand and blue blue water down in the panhandle that pulls me, begs me, urges me to visit every year. As a child we'd go for a week every July to the same hotel on the same beach, and memories flood me there, from age 6 to 26, good and bad. That crazy bee that stung me, the time I met my friend from Alabama who came every year too, my first bikini-- pink zebra stripes, when my friend's little brother chased us with a bat, my first kiss at 14, taking my ex there and watching him get drunk in front of my parents, going there with my husband and feeling so... whole. I feel like a child and an adult there, remembering those days and recognizing the difference between then and now. Watching the waves roll back and forth, absorbing the blazingly hot sun on my spf 45-slavered skin, savoring the broiled crab claws and the strawberry daiquiris, and spending real time with the ones I love.

I don't know that I'll get to go this year. My parents are taking a long trip to see my aunt, a two-week RV drive, during the time we usually go. I'm not sure my husband and I can afford to go on our own, as much as we'd like to. Maybe we can get some friends together, but it just doesn't seem like it's going to happen.

There's a line connecting my soul to that beach, thrown out like a fishing line over this 350 mile distance, reeling me back to it. I can only fight it for so long until my little fins get tired.

Do you have a place like this? What makes it call out to you?

Grateful Thursday

1) That even though my husband's car's radiator cooling fan broke off a blade that flew into and wedged into his radiator, it didn't cause an accident, he's ok, and that's all it was in the end. We do need a new fan and radiator now, which will be $300 a least (ugh), but we have it, and even if we have to eat cheap for a while, we're fine. It would happen right before my birthday, but I'm looking on the bright side.... I don't need anything anyway.

2) Wildlife. There is an animal eating my birdseed overnight. Yesterday when we went to bed, the birdfeeder was full to the top with seed, and when I sleepily walked through the kitchen this morning, I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn't just seeing things-- no, the birdfeeder was completely empty, not a sunflower seed or millet left. When my husband went out to investigate, thinking surely it had malfunctioned and the seed was on the ground, he discovered no seed and a hole dug beneath it as well. Raccoons? Opossums? Really fat birds? I wonder if we'll ever find out.

3) My new conditioner. Between that and putting the blow dryer away, my hair is so much softer lately, even if I am still regularly cutting out split ends. Grow hair grow!

4) It's 80 degrees today and will be 80 and sunny all weekend!!!! And there are three baseball games and an art festival Saturday!

5) My boss. Yesterday was administrators day, (used to be secretary's day I think) so he gave everyone in the office (I guess we all technically work in admin, although since there's only 3 of us other than him, you can't leave someone out. Except the part time girl, she was left-out but she wasn't here) gift certificates for a massage. Nice.

Weird list today. Weird week though.

necessary roughness

Things have been a bit tougher around here lately, not easy going like tomatoes growing in the Southern Spring sun, not like usual. 

The part time worker in the office is destroying the calm friendliness we had going. No one likes her. It's sad, almost, but she asks for it. I'm not the kind to befriend the unfriended, I have to say; it's one of my negative qualities I guess. Part of me thinks that if you have no friends, there's a reason, and I don't like the extra work. I suppose it's selfish. Anyway, she tries too hard to impress the bosses, and in the process puts the rest of us down. She's the newest to the group and so should know her place, and live in it for a while, but instead she seems intent on becoming the boss's best friend by slowly but surely making a fool of his current best friend and our coworker. It's a complicated situation, but suffice it to say my boss sees through this, my coworker sees through this, the rest of us see through her, and as soon as her loud, intrusive, and brash self leaves the office, we tend to congregate in one area with "ugh"s and "finally"s all around. I don't know why she's still here, frankly, other than she has a skill set that we need temporarily for the office, and it's easier to keep her around that perform another job search for a temporary position. She'll be gone in October, fingers crossed. 

I usually avoid confrontation, sometimes at all costs, sometimes even when it's good and will cause positive change. But today I started a fight. Our printing company was very unhelpful today when all I needed was some help. Ever come in contact with someone who's rude and difficult just because they can be? This guy had me reenter our address 30 times (really, 30, no exaggeration) on his website today. We were ordering 10 different sets of cards, and the address was deleted twice from all ten cards-- his website's fault, not mine. In the end, I wrote him a nasty email about how his website had better be efficient for his printers because it certainly wasn't customer-oriented, and apparently I caused quite a stir. All I can hope is that they'll change their ways so that next time I don't waste an hour typing an address he already has on file over and over just because he's too rude to do it himself.

A 21-year-old girl was raped on our town center recently. She was alone at night, and a man pushed her into an alley and forced himself on her. We live in a small town, and our center is always full of people at night as that's where all our restaurants and bars are, so she must have been in a back alley or it must have been very late, after most people had gone home. It's scary nonetheless. The police have no leads. Random acts of violence occasionally occur in this town, like someone getting purse-nabbed in a beauty shop parking lot. That man was caught on his way out of town and was from two states over. That's usually how it happens-- someone passing through. Or family violence, boyfriend on girlfriend violence. I can't think of the last time I was in the center at night alone, but it will be a long time before that happens again.

Any time I think of myself in that situation, I picture myself fighting with all my might, struggling and flailing and aiming for the spots that would hurt, like eyeballs and the throat and that lower area men like to protect. I wouldn't stop, I'd be like a mad woman unleashed. I don't know how much it would help. I'm not the largest or strongest woman. I took a self defense class and know some tricks though, like how to pull my arm away from someone who has grabbed me by pulling towards their thumb and forefinger as that's the weakest part of their grip. Or by folding one knee on top of the other if he's got me on the ground. I was a gender studies minor, so I know too much about rape, too much for my delicate mind, like how most rapists don't actually finish, how 3 in 4 rapes go unreported, how many reported ones are never prosecuted, how rarely the prosecuted are found guilty, and how the guilty on average don't go to prison for more than 6-8 years. All that violence, for just 6 years.

The best thing I learned was to not be afraid of hurting them, not to be afraid of necessary roughness. Women, especially us Southern gentile women, are taught to be polite in all cases, meek in all circumstances, passive and obliging and quiet. Don't make a scene, don't talk back, don't stand up for yourself. No one ever says don't fight a rapist, no, but it somehow melds into that, so that when the police officer said "Ladies, hurt him. Hurt him good. Don't think about it, just fight" a light bulb lit up for me. Fight for your life. And I would. 

Of course, having never been in that situation, how would I know what I'd do? That's the interesting thing about being a human. We never know how we'll react until we have to. 

I've decided to fight back more often. To embrace some conflict and debate. Not too much though. No one likes a brash, loud, intrusive woman, do they?

quick Monday

Things have been really busy around here today. I can tell you that one of my favorite things is Backyard Burger's veggie burger, add cheese and hold the onion please. Yum. Here's some pictures from the weekend.

Bubby loves to have his picture taken.

It rained like crazy on Saturday, but the doves don't mind.

Lizards much prefer the sun, though.

Sunday night, at the big-city bar. Interesting use of Blue Willow...

We preceded to eat entirely too much at dinner, including key lime pie with mango sauce and turtle cheesecake for dessert. Ugh, I still hurt.

random dusty thoughts

I'm hibernating. I'm walking and talking but I'm not really here. My mind is snuggled in my warm green and brown quilt at home, resting my weary neck on my contour memory foam pillow, Bub spooning in the crook of my knees.

Things have been quiet around here lately, both in the real world and on my blog. It's given me time to think, to analyze the purpose of me being here, other than just an activity to keep me awake early in the morning when my boss is on the phone and I have nothing to do but wait for that call to end. I started this blog because my mind was beginning to become engulfed in cobwebs, the lost thoughts and feelings sticking together and forming long, delicate, dusty trails which if followed led to a deeper dark yet to be explored. Time to explore, I thought.

I'm trying hard to be my true, authentic self. People don't understand me, don't understand the depth of my feelings and the reason for my words and actions. The true me is foreign to most people, my quiet ways and sudden truthful outbursts unsettling. But I know no other way of being, even though I've tried on so many personalities over the years. I wasn't the quiet, smart, shy girl I tried to be in high school-- no, there's too much spit and fire implanted in me by my great-grandmother. I'm not the crazed, grass-roots, feminist protester I tried on in college. It was too much work and didn't allow for the quietness I crave. I'm somewhere in between, but it's hard to find a medium. Don't get me wrong: I'm liked, I have friends, I'm even sought out on occasion. But I don't have an abundance, I have two. My husband and my best friend. I find it hard to give myself to anyone else because there's so much of me that I don't even understand, I don't trust anyone else with it either.

Before I married, before I even met my husband, I wondered if I was living my life right. As if there is a right way. I still wonder that sometimes but not as much anymore. The speed at which days fly by now takes my breath away; by the time I notice a moment is happening, it's gone. There's not enough time to wonder anymore, I just have to live. I'm jealous of people who somehow have managed to dedicate their lives to their beliefs, like life-long environmentalists working every day for the health of our planet, or a doctor without a border. I don't have that in me. I feel tired, like somehow I've done that before and this time around I just want some peace and quiet. All I have the energy for in this life is loving my husband and seeing the world and maybe saving some animals along the way. 

These are just some ramblings from a tired girl on an early Friday morning. By Friday afternoon I'll probably be a different person with different thoughts, following a different cobweb trail.

Grateful Thursday, and interview questions

1) The birds on my feeders in the morning. We had a goldfinch and an indigo bunting this morning. They make me happy, and hearing my cat bark at them (yes, it sounds like barking, a sharp little mew, mew) makes me happy too. I am not thankful for the greedy cowbirds though.

2) I think Spring may actually be here for good!?! No more cold? Please?

3) A plan-filled weekend. Friday night out with my coworkers, Saturday with good, old friends and their kids, and Sunday with my younger group of friends headed to the big city for a fancy meal and arcade games (somehow those go together).

4) Financial security. Not abundance, but security.

5) My car, my paid-for car. I'm hoping if I talk nice about it and to it, it will last a little while longer and the pulling thing it's been doing lately when I take slow sharp turns will go away. Because those things usually just go away, right?? sigh. It's more used to me cussing at it than talking nice, so maybe I just need to keep cussing. But I'm thankful for every payment-free day I've had it so far.

Ok, so although visitation to my interview post was small (I think everyone took an early weekend around here, haha), I'm posting some interview questions to pass on to anyone interested in answering. I tried to be creative here...

1) What makes you feel most beautiful (or handsome I suppose)?

2) When you were a child, what did you dream of doing when you grew up, and if you aren't doing that now, what happened to change your mind?

3) It's a weekend night, you've got no obligations, but you're looking to do something fun. What do you do? 

4) Who is your hero and why? (and I don't mean Superman)

5) If you could only watch five movies the rest of your life, what would they be and why? (or if you don't like movies, make it books)

There you go. Have fun! And be sure to pass new questions on to any interested readers. It's a good way to waste an hour or so. 

in a constant dream

"Hello? Hi, hi, how are you?"

"Oh, hi Grandmom, I'm good, how are you doing?"

"Well, my chest is hurting, so they're taking me down for x-rays. My stomach's been hurting too, so I don't wanna ride in the car anywhere."

"You don't have to go anywhere if you don't want to. It sounds like they're taking care of you. What have you been up to?"

"Not feeling well. What are you doing?"

"Nothing, just sitting at work"

"Oh, are you busy? They keeping you busy?"

"Yes, ma'am, they sure are."

"Well, we enjoyed our trip up there. It sure was so good to see you."

"You too, Grandmom, I hope you can visit again soon."

"Me too, when I start feeling better. I'll hand you back to your sister now."

"Ok, Grandmom, bye.... Hi, Mom."

Mom likes to call me on her cell phone from the nursing home, the Alzheimer's/Dementia wing specifically, and let me talk to my grandmother, her mom. She knows who I am... most of the time. There are no chest x-rays. Mom was coming to get her to get new glasses today, but she wouldn't leave. Which is fine-- we live in her world after all, and you never could make her do anything she didn't want to, not even before the dementia took hold. She hasn't been up here to see me since last summer, but she always tells me how nice her trip was. Whether she means that trip or one she's more recently taken in her mind, I don't know. And she always thinks Mom and I are sisters, especially on the phone. She knows who I am, she calls me and my mother by name, but the words daughter, sister, mom, have lost their meanings, gotten mixed up somewhere, stuck in a bit of the plaque that's invaded her mind.

Dementia is not something that I can explain or that can be understood by someone who hasn't had direct experience with it. She's there but she's gone. She's lost in her own head. Like someone so long at sea they've forgotten the smell of grass and feeling of dirt under their toes, she exists only in her own boarded-up world now, the rest of us fading in and out like ghosts, haunting her troubled mind. She doesn't know when she's eaten, so she overeats, now almost 300 pounds despite the nursing home's attempts at exercise. She misses her mother, Gram, who died before I was born, and tries to call her all the time, dialing the 30-year-old yet correct numbers into the phone my mother has disconnected by her bed. She told me once she was pregnant and insisted another time that she was only 35. She looked me in the face, called me by name, yet somehow it was ok, it was logical, that she could be that young and still have an adult granddaughter. Time no longer holds any meaning for her. She's drifting back and forth on a raft, engulfed in fog. The first few times you experience this, it's unnerving, that a human mind could deteriorate like that, that she could be perfectly fine by all appearances and yet so wrong inside.

I miss her. I miss her with all my heart. I mourn her loss every time I speak to her. The loss is drawn out over these years, with glimpses of the real her interspersed with rambling, dream-like conversations. I crave those glimpses but they come fewer and farer between now. In a way, I wish death for her. How awful that sounds, I gasp rereading it, and it feels heavy and prickly in my heart. I carry that wish around like a dirty secret, hiding it from the light, hiding it even from myself, hushing it when it surfaces. But she's not there anymore, not really. I wish her mind peace and her body no more pain, and I want some peace for my overworked mother. It leaves me torn, knowing that I only have a few precious moments left with her before she's completely gone, and wanting that sweet release for her and for us.

We live in her world now. You can't fight it. You can't explain rationality to her anymore. You go on a ride with her, living her dreams with her. If she's pregnant, you ask if it's a boy or girl; if she says she's been on vacation, you ask her to describe her adventures. Sometimes it's completely a dream, made real to her by her sticky brain, and sometimes she tells stories from her history, just in the present tense. We've learned from her in this way, stories about her childhood, about my grandfather, things we might never have known otherwise, like eavesdropping on her past. 

Usually when I am someone else to her, I'm her childhood friend, Harriet, and it comforts me to know that she thinks of me as her friend, her dear friend, when I could be a stranger. She still knows she loves me even if she doesn't know my name. Her face lights up when I come in. Mom says that it will be that way til the end, that she will know she loves us even when she knows nothing else, even if she's forgotten her own name. I hope she's right and I hope that's enough, if not for me then for her. My mother is so strong, she handles this all with so much composure. When my grandfather finally succumbed to his cancer, she insisted on taking my grandmother to his funeral, knowing she wouldn't understand but knowing it was the right thing to do, no matter how difficult a task, both physically and emotionally. I wonder if she knows her own strength. I hope I inherited at least some of it, but I also hope I never have to use it.

in the hot seat

Jo over at A Majority of Two was herself interviewed by a fellow blogger, and she's passed along the fun to any of her readers who want to participate. Since my brain is still sleepy from not eating enough yesterday (damn dentist and his drill) and being woken up by my poor Bubby and his poor little sore leg (damn those deer running away too quickly), this will serve as my post today. I'm too tired to be creative.

1. Have you ever been influenced by a work of art – music, painting, book – and if so, how?
Yes, yes, and yes. How? In every way, in every part of my life. We'll start with music. My husband and I are both obsessed with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and we were this way before we knew each other. Our obsession has been fed by each other's, so that now we have every cd, book, and dvd known about him and his band(s), and have been to several concerts. Hearing his music now brings up such strong memories and associations with my husband... it's like his spirit and the joy of our relationship is in that music. 

Paintings- I'm an art history major. Well, I have a masters in it too. How's that for inspiration?

Books- You've seen the stack of books on my nightstand before. Recently I'm taking a break from novels and have been sticking with the New Yorker magazine, but I think I'm going to pick up this new book from my father, Edward Sautelle, about dog trainers. And I've covered my relationship with Pride and Prejudice here before too. That book is like tomato soup for me, like butter on a burn, it warms me and heals my soul.

2. If you were a chocolate bar, what type would you be?

Dark. 60% cocoa at least. Maybe with almonds. And I'd go best with a good glass of Pinot Grigio.

3. What is your secret weapon to lure the opposite sex?

They aren't really secret since they're plastered on my face-- I have Angelina lips. They've gotten me quite a lot of attention, both good and bad. But if we're going non-superficial, I'd have to say that men have always been attracted to my easy-going-ness, my ability to slip right in without causing a fuss, my low maintenance t-shirt wearing way of being. I don't play games and I tell the truth, which causes me to be both intriguing and refreshing. At least that's what I've heard. I think it's just my lips.

4. What, in your opinion, is your greatest accomplishment?

That's not so easy. I've accomplished a lot, I suppose, but I don't know that any of it is "great." I'm proud of myself for picking the right man, and I think our relationship is a great accomplishment on both our parts. As for personal accomplishments, I went to college on scholarship and finished grad school, but I'm not using those degrees at all, really. I've got a good job and a nice house, but those things kind of fell in my lap. I'm proud of the work I've done on myself, though, happy with how happy my life is and how whole I feel inside. I wasn't always like this. People have this misconception of happy people, that we have no problems, never feel pain. But in reality I think truly happy people are those that have experienced the worst and have come out scarred but in one piece on the other side. Not everyone can do that. So that's a pretty great thing.

5. How many friends do you have on your Facebook account?

I'll have to check... 146. And they are all people that I actually know in real life-- old high school and college friends, cousins, coworkers, etc. I've tried hard to keep the riff-raff out, and yes I have turned down quite a few random requests. I use facebook as an address book, mostly, a place where everyone's contact information is a couple clicks away, where I can say one sentence to somewhere without having to look up an email address. My mom is on facebook. She has 52 friends. And my little brother has 267, but I bet he's got a lot more than that in real life.

That turned out to be a pretty informational post. I need a nap now.

Edited to add: I forgot, I'm supposed to pass questions on to anyone else who wants to be interviewed. I'll think of some good ones and post them later this week. 

making my day

I caught a sob in my throat on the way home last night. Leaving the big highway for the little highway, on the off-ramp a weird sadness overcame me. The sky was so beautiful, with rays of sunshine filtering through the blue gray clouds, and it made me think of heaven and those I love that are there. I don't actually believe in "heaven," not the heaven of the Bible anyway, but I do hope that there is somewhere souls go when they leave their earthly vessels, that is if we don't just return to another vessel.

But there I go rambling about my agnosticism again. That's never a short conversation. Full of maybes and what ifs.

Everything annoyed me yesterday. My boss, my coworkers, the woman that appraised our house for our refinance, the grocery store check-out guy, other drivers. I was glad to make it home. Yesterday was a sad day, and even though looking up from my office window today all I see are low hanging light gray clouds, the sun's reflection off them nearly blinding like that off new fallen snow, and I know that at some point today it's going to rain, hard, and that I will probably be in the dentist's chair with a needle and a drill at my mouth when it does, I'm determined to be happy today, to make this a good day.

And if I can't in the end, there's always tomorrow, when all of this will be behind me and the sky will be yellow and blue again.

One bit of good news that I hope will last me through the downpour and the mouth pain: I'm pretty sure I'm getting my way at work and will be taking over the creative side of our business. Right now I'm the catch-all person, the office manager, the momma of the office if you will. The girl that had been in charge of creative development is getting more and more into software training, and she likes that, so someone needs to take over all the website, logo, and other design stuff we do for our clients. I'm the logical choice, and luckily I have a rapport with the graphic designer we use. Meeting with him at 12:30 to go over several projects, then off to the dentist. What to eat for lunch first? Something that doesn't stick. Ugh.

oh brother

I have two brothers, an older and a younger, both by three years. This is about the elder. 

I distinctly remember, in detail, several bits from my pre-teen years, which is odd for me and my mushed-up memory. These memories come back suddenly, like a bad dream lingering in my waking hours, like a foul taste I can't brush away, Nirvana mumbling Smells like Teen Spirit in the background. The time he cussed out my mom, ran and locked himself in his room, my dad taking a hammer to the door, me laying in my room with a pillow over my head to drown out the banging. The day he left for rehab. The day I found my mom crying alone at the kitchen table in the dark, a broken plate on the white and green linoleum floor. The day he threw a brick at me, the time my new computer went missing, the day my grandparents got back from their Alaskan cruise to find their kitchen trashed, dirty pots and pans, muddy footprints, drug residues everywhere. 

But I don't pause on these memories too long when they surface. I stuff them back down. I've cried enough for him, for those days, for the lost years, for my lost brother. I wish I could say the same for my parents. My mom has made her peace, she's released him from her life, he is no longer her baby. How hard that was to do I can only imagine, and I never want to know for sure. My father can't do that. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. He chooses to keep sending money, keep talking to him, keep trying, keep believing in him. The rest of us have given up, but he can't. He's an enabler, sure, but what else can he do? 

As for drugs, I don't know what he's on and what he's not. Nothing hard as far as I know. He's in Portland, I haven't seen him in two years, and I haven't talked to him since Christmas. Even then it was a stolen conversation on someone else's phone, two minutes at the most, hardly long enough to say Merry Christmas. Before that, July, his birthday, and no more than 30 minutes. I have nothing to say to him. Talking to him is like visiting those days again. I shrink down to 12, I whoosh back to being that sad, shy, lonely little girl. He makes me feel small and helpless without trying, twisting my words to make me seem mean and hateful. I avoid that, like crossing the street when you see an old enemy coming. Who wouldn't? I avoid conversations about him too. I don't want to know what lies he's told, what failures he's had, how much money he needs now. 

I suppose it's not as bad as it sounds here. He supposedly is in school. He's supposedly engaged, to a tattooed thrift-store employee with a ten-year-old son. He's even supposedly in counseling. But I am conditioned to believe nothing. I doubt he's ever picked up a book-- that tuition my parents sent? Probably paid for his Vegas trip. I've seen the pictures on myspace. That woman? She exists, but I doubt they'll ever marry, and him, a step-dad? Counseling? Yeah, right. The boy who wouldn't talk to his rehab counselors, wouldn't talk to the four different psychiatrists he saw, wouldn't talk to my parents or anyone who was trying to help. Another ploy for money. He's a manipulator. A classic manipulator. And I will no longer be manipulated.

I used to miss him. I feel cheated. As a child, he was a typical protective older brother. He was supposed to remain that, I was supposed to be able to turn to him for advice, for love, for protection. I turn away from him now. I wonder how I would feel if something terrible happened to him, if he died. I think I'd feel the same way I feel now: angry, sad, and cheated. Maybe a little faith remains, a little hope that one day he'll grow up and be my brother. I would cry for the loss of that, and I would mourn for my parents, more than I already mourn for them.

There are worse things that could have happened to me. We all have tragedies. This was, and still is, one of mine. I want it to go away, and I want it to stay, because it's all I really have of him.

no place like home

A tumultuous storm blew through at about 2 a.m. The first big bang of thunder woke me up, and I don't know that I ever reentered REM sleep after that. I was stuck, floating, in that half awake/half asleep stage I find myself in all too often, where I know somewhere subconsciously that I'm sleeping in my bed, but my thoughts are dreamlike, silly, and irrational, and I can't get all the way back into sleep no matter how I try, like an old pair of favorite jeans obviously now too small no matter the contortions I do to squeeze into them. 

At some point, I remember distinctly, I believed our house was being blown down. I thought tornado was coming, and I had what was then a completely rational thought-- well, I'd rather stay here asleep and die then have to get up and run to the bathtub. That's way too much work. Plus our house is brick, so we're fine. I practically shrugged in my sleep.

Tornadoes are serious here. Just last year we had our town's industrial road leveled, about 2 miles from my house as the crow flies. So, no, that is not a rational thought. But there were no tornadoes, just a lot of howling wind and rain. 

My first thought on hearing my annoying beep beepbeep beepbeepbeep alarm this morning was how late I'm going to sleep tomorrow. But then I remembered that my parents are coming to town, and my dad wants to drive over to my great-grandmother's hometown, about thirty minutes from here, and do some grave stone rubbings. We've been waiting for a pretty day, and I think tomorrow may be it. We both got interested in our genealogy last summer, and he's decided to write a book about some of his side of the family. Plus he's a road-trip kind of guy. 

I wonder what my ancestors did 50 years ago, 100 years ago, when a tornado was a-coming. No brick houses for them, not that it really helps anyway. I know my Granny at one point had a root cellar-- a big hole dug in the ground, with wood doors over the hole, ala Wizard of Oz, and they would run to that any time the sky turned dark. They didn't have the news stations breaking into regularly scheduled programming to alert them to bad weather using highly sensitive and specialized radars that track clouds. They just looked outside and guessed. Not that I was taking advantage of any of those radars last night either. 

But I guess growing up here, being used to our weather, makes a difference. I know what a real tornado sounds like-- I've heard that freight train scream, and let me tell you, you don't forget it. I have to trust that even in my sleepy stupor last night, that sound would have forced me to wake and run for cover, Bub under one arm, my husband being pulled by the other. 

It's raining again right now, huge quarter-size drops, randomly banging themselves into the ground, one over there, six over here, the wind greatly diverting their usually straight course, their usual rhythmic pounding on the roof now sounding like a herd of small children playing a game above me. And just as quickly it's gone again, the sun shines through.

Grateful Thursday, and other random thoughts

I made thirty angel food cupcakes last night, and frosted them in pastel vanilla-- pink, blue, green, yellow, and purple, although the purple isn't very appetizing. It's kind of gray-purple. Still tastes good though. Advice: when making angel food cupcakes, remember that angel food doesn't rise as much as other cakes, so fill the cups almost all the way full. I ended up with a couple one-inch tall cakes. Those stayed at home.

We're having an office everyone-cheer-up and stop-being-stressed-out Easter party today, with tuna salad or chicken salad sandwiches, deviled eggs, pretzels, cupcakes, and candy. Our new software is due out soon. Everyone's a little on edge.

My boss gave me a little blue monkey with white bunny ears. Sounds weird, but he's so cute. When I walked in this morning, he said "Do you like monkeys or lions better?" and because he's the king of weird, philosophical questions, I took way too long to answer, exploring in my head the implications of one answer over another. "It's not a difficult question...." Oh, but it is. I said monkeys, and voila, a blue monkey appeared on my desk.

I've been obsessed lately with cutting the split ends out of my hair. I don't know why my brain does this. I pick up on something, like how dry my hair is, and it becomes a mini-obsession for a month or so, where every day I have to cut a few out. Or I'll get attached to a certain food and eat it every day until I'm completely sick of it, or I'll wear a certain pair of shoes every day until other people start to notice. 

Last night as I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep, I was seeing split ends and cupcakes dancing before my eyes. My mind was not at peace. Too much purple frosting. 

1) The coworker who's idea it was to have this party today. I've been looking forward to it all week. 

2) That tomorrow is a holiday, and although I have to work, it will be a quiet day so I can catch up on quickbooks. I'm so behind.

3) The maple tree across the street from my office window. It's such a shock of maroon against all the green, and I love to watch it blow in the wind.

4) My husband

5) Baseball season. It's a cheap way to hang out with friends. We pay $150 at the beginning of the year for season tickets, and maybe $10 on groceries a weekend (we potluck), $15 on beer, and the entire weekend is done, taken care of, planned out. Plus we get to sit in the sun.

And for this. It's stuck in my head today, probably because I've listened to it every day for a week. There we go with that again. Her voice is so... healing.

letter to my husband

I love you. Those words don't sound like much, so small, and maybe they lose a little of their meaning after almost four years of saying them to each other once, twice, sometimes twenty times a day. So I want to look at them more closely, one by one. 

I: me, this girl here, that you met on Halloween... how many years ago has it been now? The red hair piled in a spiky bun, the long legs barely hidden under a plaid skirt, brown/green eyes rimmed in black. I'm the girl you flirted with for over a year, biding your time, while I watched you sheepishly, wanting to tell you what I felt. Me, the girl you told, not asked, to go on a date with you, who slept with you on day two and never left your bed. I'm the one you hurt a few months later, and who hurt you when you came back, the one who had too much champagne and made that call. I jumped out of a plane for you. I said yes, married you, moved away, held your hand through our struggles, wrapped my arm around you when you needed it, especially this past year. I adore my time with you, every minute, from working in the yard to dressing up for a ball. I give you the bigger brownie, I think of your feelings at every turn. I fit in your arms, I belong to you. And I always will.

You: you're the guy that walked through my door and took my breath away, that left me speechless from the start. Pleather pants and eyeliner, you had the guts to wear it that night. And afterwards, you would look at me and make me feel noticed, adored, and wanted, even before you called me up and told me we were going on a date, before you even knew you wanted and adored me yourself. You got scared and ran, but just for a little while, and you helped us find our way back to each other. You pushed me out of a plane and followed me down. You told me you loved me and my heart felt like it would burst. You surprised me with a ring in the parking lot, and you went on an adventure with me, hand in hand the whole way. You held me so tight when I was hurting, feeling alone, missing my grandfather. And you urge me towards my true feelings, talk to me when I need advice, listen when I need an ear. You insist I take the bigger brownie. You make me whole, you are home to me. And I trust that these things will always be.

Love: it's a difficult emotion. It can make one feel empowered, bold, and on top of the world, but at the same time reckless, brash, and insane. It can build you up and break you down all at once. Our love is steady, our love is comfortable, like a couch, a big quilt, and worn socks, snuggled up together, like a beer in your hand on a hot summer day watching the balls fly, like a Tom Petty song played on the radio right when you need it. Love means that when I cry, you comfort me, and when I win, you win with me. When you get angry, I balance you, when you need help, I'm there. These things are unconditional. It doesn't matter if you yell, it doesn't matter if I scream, if you drink too much or I cry too much. After the fog of that has lifted, we're there for each other. Everything is forgivable because everything is forgiven. I can look into your eyes and see us old together, still laughing, making kissing faces at each other across the room, rubbing our feet together under the sheets. We're still holding hands, giggling like newlyweds, connected heart and soul. That's our love.

So, I love you. Now you know what it means when I say that, all of this condensed into those three syllables, those three very large words.

I almost don't want to send this to you. I'm embarrassed by how much power you hold over me. I don't know who I am without you, and that's scary. You would never hurt me or leave me, and I have complete trust in you, but it's still scary. Me, before you... I hardly remember that girl. I feel like my life began when you walked through my apartment door that Halloween night. Sometimes I feel like a little lost puppy following you around, but then there are times I turn around, and you're there, like a little lost puppy yourself. I don't expect you to respond to me in the same way, I know that sentimentality does not mesh with your thought pattern. I expect an "I love you too" and maybe a slightly more lingering kiss tonight before you go to the baseball game. Your pizza will be waiting when you get home, kept warm for you. And I might save a cupcake for you too, if you're lucky. I know I am. 

coldness

It's cold. There's nothing else to it. It's cold. But nonetheless, Bub must be walked: he demands it, gets in your face and dances and woofs until you can't see anything but white fur, flying. Even though we were leaving the house last night for two-dollar pitchers and 25-cent chicken wings at a local bar (we were supporting our Kathy, who supports her UNC, and the guys must have their chicken wings), we walked him first. I enjoy my walks with my husband, even in the icicle-wind-- it gives us time to talk to each other with no distractions.

The house next door has been achingly empty the last few weeks. Even though they're trouble-makers (you can see it in all four of their little blond-topped faces), I was beginning to miss the boys next door, even more so because of the reason for their prolonged absence. As we topped the hill on our descent home, they were there, all four of them, riding various wheeled things, bikes and scooters and a miniature car, in the cul-de-sac in front of our houses. Their grandmother's car was in the driveway. Well, three of them were riding. The fourth, the littlest at about 5, took a hard tumble, his bike crashing on top of him. 

I'm not good with children. My natural reaction is not to run to him, but to run for the nearest adult (because, of course, I am not one of those), namely his grandmother. I called to the oldest boy, at about age 11, who was already at his brother's side, if he was ok, but he just looked at me. So much sadness on his stern face. Stranger? No, that's the woman next door. But still he didn't say a word, so I turned onto his sidewalk, rang his doorbell, and his grandmother came to the door in her blue-socked feet. I told her the little one had fallen. She walked out, in her socks, to check on him.

She told me their father passed on Saturday. I knew it had to have happened, it had been any day now for a while. The boys followed their grandmother inside, all of them rubbing their hands together for warmth, the oldest with his hand on the smallest one's head.

I don't know these boys. I didn't know their father, only met him briefly, and I've had just a few small, neighborly conversations with their mother. I have nothing helpful to say to them as I have no idea what they're feeling. They don't want to be talked to anyway, I suppose, not by someone they don't really know. They'll get enough of that. I can't imagine not having my father in my life. If I had lost him, at any age these boys are now, I would be different. I would be unrecognizable. 

The cold is fitting. A sunny Spring day, flowers buzzing with bees, dandelion seeds in the wind, the kind of day that beckons little boys to their backyards and their balls and bikes, the kind of day they used to spend playing basketball with their father, would have been a second slap in the face. So let it be cold for them, let it keep them inside, near their mother and grandmother's warmth. I don't pray, but all my good energy flows to those boys right now, those four little blond boys.

weekend in photos

Had some nasty weather:

But the sun came out eventually, and so did the wildlife, safely on the other side of the window:

The cabbage plant I put out in November is finally forming buds for its yellow blooms:

And a female Eastern Bluebird visited for a minute. I wonder is she's the mate of the male that I photographed a few weeks ago?

a prevailing mood

Sometimes, just occasionally, I'll watch a movie, and the mood of that movie will overtake me, like grey clouds rolling into a blue sky, or a bright lightbulb sparking on, illuminating a dark room. It doesn't have to be a good movie, it just has to affect me in some small way, and for the rest of the day, the next day, the next week I can't shake feeling from my soul, even though the memory of watching the movie may have long ago faded.

Twilight isn't a good movie by most movie-making standards. It was interesting and a good way to pass a rainy Thursday night on the couch with my husband, but there are plot holes and weird scenes and unanswered questions. Part of that is probably because I haven't read the book and that there are more movies to come. Despite that, the mood of the movie, greatly dependent upon the cinematographer and the actors' brooding stares, especially the main male vampire, crept into my brain like one of those grey clouds. Last night and this morning as I was getting ready for work, I felt the world was pale, cold, foggy, and sad. It made me long for that new love feeling, the kind that makes you crazy and uncontrollable, that makes you risk everything you know, that wells you up until you burst. I won't have that again, I realized, and it made me kind of sad. 

I think my husband must have felt it a little too, as he was much more snuggly than usual. By the time I woke up, that part of the feeling had faded-- a night in his arms and I was reminded how much better this real love that we have is anyway, that that new love insanity either melts away or becomes what we have now. But the melancholy was lingering in the back of my mind, especially as I never really did sleep. Bub has a hot spot on the back of his front right leg, and he licked all night. He's now at the vet.

There's something about stepping into this office that brings me back to the real world though. I would like to feel the sun on my face, just to shine out any last remaining traces, but it's still cloudy after all the midnight rain. I am glad, though, I didn't watch the movie on a Friday night-- I'm afraid the gloom would have survived the weekend.

Are there movies that do this to you, that latch onto your brain and won't be shaken off? Any in particular that you remember? Books can have this affect on me too. If I'm upset, I pick up my worn, hunter green paperback copy of Pride and Prejudice, the one I've had since high school, I flip open to a random page, and read until the mood has slipped away again. It almost always works.

drops in the bucket, and Grateful Thursday

That line of storms was nasty. And I got stuck going to pick up lunch right about the time that big yellow and red blob in the middle was right above my office. Luckily I had my trusty classic 3/4 tan trench coat and an umbrella, so only my feet, in my shiny gold leather flats, got wet. The bottoms of my jeans are still damp. But I was glad I had these shoes and not any others, because these are impervious to the wet, what with all the patenting and such.

I tried to dress up a little today. My boss's mom is in the office. She seems sweet, but she puts me a little on edge. He values his mother's opinion very highly. Today has gone fine, other than the rain. And the fact that my main coworker, the one I rely on the most because our jobs are so linked, has been out sick since Tuesday with strep throat and the flu. I only saw her for about an hour on Monday. I'm hoping I didn't get it-- surely I'd already be sick if I did. With the storm, though, she hasn't been answering emails from her house as her connection went down, so that's been difficult.

Other than that there isn't much going on around here. My brain feels... quiet lately. I haven't been sleeping well the last couple nights so that might have something to do with it. I'm asleep in here. The animals woke me up twice last night (snoring and licking and then sliding a shoe of mine around the floor, this left gold shoe. I had to search for it this morning) and the night before last I couldn't turn off my brain. I woke up very hot, threw off all the covers, went to pee (because yes I'm like a old woman already and I have to pee in the middle of the night), and came back to bed, all in a half awake, half asleep stupor. My unconscious mind was creating stressful events at work and trying to fix them, while the back of my mind, the awake part, knew none of it was real and that I just needed to shut up and go to sleep. I struggled with that and the sheets for a good hour before I finally exhausted myself.

Hopefully tonight I'll have a good cry after Grey's Anatomy (because what else is that show for other than providing fodder for a cry), and drift off to sleep uninterrupted. And hopefully it will storm again like they're saying it might-- nothing's more soothing that rain drops on a window.

How in the world did I forget it was Thursday?? I'm adding this to the bottom of my earlier post I think, since it's only been up an hour or so, and I'm going to make it a quick one too.

1) There's only 45 minutes left at work. What a day.
2) The rain. It makes everything green again.
3) Emails from my father today. We've been discussing photography, photo storage, weather, and my mom. I'm grateful for my relationship with him.
4) That my boss has decided to research office health insurance. Yay!
5) Japanese food. Fried rice makes the best lunch.

cupcakes and fools

I was going to write about how I just had a chocolate hostess cupcake from the Wonder day-old bread store next door, and about how a guy in my office eats boxes of those things at a time, but now I'm annoyed. I hate April Fool's day. I think it's a stupid excuse for people to make asses out of themselves while trying to make fools out of unsuspecting and innocent bystanders. I do not like to be surprised, and I do not like to be messed with, and I definitely do not like to be "fooled."

The office phone rang. I am the office manager of a very small firm, only 5 employees, and only three of us are here today. We have an automated system, you know one of those "Thank you for calling, if you know your party's extension..." Well, if you press 0 for the operator it rings at my desk because I'm the one that's always here-- everyone else travels as a part of their job. We're a very team-oriented environment though; everyone has a role, and the other roles would fail if one of us didn't exist. We're egalitarian and we all recognize each other's worth and value to the organization as a whole.

But anyway. The phone rang, I picked it up. "Hi, this is me with my company." "Hi, this is Randall with somethingsomething Maps calling about getting you involved in our service." I said "Oh, I'm sorry, we're not interested. Thank you! Bye." And I hung up, because we get a lot of telemarketer calls, or we used to before we got this new phone system, and if you keep them on the line they'll keep talking. Plus since all of our clients are out of state, we don't need to advertise locally, which is what most of them want from us. 

Two seconds later the phone rings again. Here's the way this conversation went.

me: "Hi, this is me with my company."

Randall: "I just want you to know that I think it's very rude to hang up on someone like that."

me: "I'm sorry but this is a place of business and I don't have time to talk to telemarketers"

R: "I'm not a telemarketer. I'm a city official."

me: "Oh, well I'm sorry. How can I help you?"

R: "Are you in charge of advertising? You're not in charge of anything. You shouldn't make the decision about who gets to talk to who ever is in charge."

me: "Excuse me, but you don't know what I'm in charge of. I'm the Office Manager."

R: "Well obviously you're not in charge of anything because you answer the phones. I will never let your company advertise with us at all."

me: "Excuse me??"

R: "This might be rude to say, but you just need to learn your place."

me: "Learn my place? What do you mean, learn my place?"

R: "You just answer the phones, you're not in charge of anything so you shouldn't act like you are."

me: "This might be rude, but I'm hanging up again." Slam.

Know my place. What the hell. Is this someone's idea of a joke? And if it is, they have a terrible sense of humor. How is ruining someone's afternoon a joke? Damn thing came up unknown on the caller id too. They haven't called back, so maybe this asshole was for real. I wish I had caught the name of his company or something. But why is a "city official" wanting us to advertise our company in a map something-or-other?

Why do people do that? I can't stand when people are rude to waiters or sales clerks or secretaries. They lead such unappreciated, underpaid lives. I can't even be mean to telemarketers-- yes, I hung up, but I said thank you and bye. I am by no means a secretary, not that there's anything even wrong with that, but I manage this office from top to bottom, and it wouldn't function without me. But I get confused with "just a phone answering girl" so often it's starting to get under my skin. Which leads me to believe that I knew the person who called, but none of my friends or my husband's friends know the work number. We have a few clients who might try to pull this, but I doubt it, and I think they would have called back right away to yell that annoying "April Fool's!"

So, yay, I get to annoy myself thinking about this all night because I've never been one to just let it go. I hate not knowing an answer, and I want to know who this idiot was so I can call him up at his place of work and harass him too.