Don’t forget you come from nothing

It’s been very busy at the office since, well, since the beginning of the new year. This is good busy. The kind that keeps me off the streets and the internet.

The projects are rolling in and I’m all…

We have a new leadership team and there are new faces and personalities in the office. It’s changed the dynamic and, truth be told, it’s livelier. There’s more give and take. More moments of levity.

Worry not. We’re all business when we have to be.

Surprisingly, even I am coming out of my shell, making friends, eating lunch in the break room with my coworkers instead of alone at my desk watching Netflix (and surfing the internet).

But then, who can be an introverted so and so when you’ve got a boss who declares a new office policy that should prove interesting and calorie-burning. From this point forward, all office conflicts will be resolved by Dance Off.

Which explains why I haven’t been here very much. A lack of cogent things to say combined with a compression of free time leave me bereft of words, but not in a sad way. I’m more hell, yeah, I’m going to be a taker instead of a maker. Watching TV,  goofing around on Tumblr and Pinterest, taking naps. So much entertainment, so little time.

Of courses, the commute is still a lot like this –

And

But that doesn’t stop me from being the consummate professional I so naturally am.

This post inspired by this.

I’ll bet they don’t have those on Gallifrey

A couple of things you will never hear me say.

1. Big girl panties

First of all, what an interesting thing to say. And by interesting, I mean bless your heart, that sounds ridiculous. I mean, are some of you still wearing your little girl panties with the ruffles on the butt? What gives?

Also, I may be bitter because all my panties are BIG GIRL panties.

P.S. If you know where I can get some big girl panties with the ruffles on the butt, I’d love to hear from you.

2. Happy dance

Honestly? I don’t dance when I’m happy. I don’t dance when I’m sad. I eat.

Come to think of it, I also eat when I’m bored, waiting to pick kids up from this or that, watching television, going to movies, driving in the car, lonely, horny, frightened and/or wistful. In fact, the only time I don’t eat is when I’m hungry and that’s because with all that eating, I don’t think I’m ever really, truly, physically experiencing hunger.

Maybe I should reconsider this dancing business.

See also: why do you want to make me think of Snoopy anyway?

3. This isn’t something said. Instead it’s something you’ll never see on my vehicles. What is up with those window stickers that show the family? 

Am I the only person who finds them odd? Maybe I’m too old now to appreciate the magic of having a window sticker depicting a nuclear family. I admit to a certain jadedness along with the sexy silver hair and need for bifocals.

I’m not entirely devoid of a soft side, however. I admit I got a chuckle out of the one I spied recently as I drove on I75. It had a Daddy Dalek, a Mommy Dalek,  two little Daleks and K9.

SOURCE

Grump over. Your turn.

How dry I am

When is a sneeze more than a sneeze?

When you’re forty-something, have carried three babies and are a miserable failure at remembering to practice your Kegels at stoplights because that’s when you check your text messages.

In which case, a sneeze is an adventure. A potentially embarrassing and damp adventure a little like juggling knives immediately after applying hand lotion. A slip could prove devastating, socially and otherwise.

Which is why I am home today. Coughing, sneezing, swallowing Ibuprofin.

I rarely got sick when I was unemployed. MathMan has kindly pointed out that it’s because I rarely left the house.

Now I’m out there among the germs, but at least I have paid sick time. So there’s that.

Now it’s a matter of managing and mitigating the symptoms. Drink lots of liquids, they say. Oh, sure. Easy for them to say. They’re not in danger of weeing themselves with each sneeze or cough.

I am unable to or refuse to take advantage of the ways the market has addressed the needs of the continence-challenged. I still can’t afford the co-pay for southern rehabilitation and I’m not at all ready to leave the house wearing something named for admirable traits. Have you eyeballed those things? I’ve received samples in the mail and they definitely look absorbent, as in they ought to be used instead of sandbags during flood preparation.

The problem is they look like they’d feel like a brick in one’s pants.

Imagine walking around making a sound like a toddler in a diaper. You know how it sounds when they run around in nothing but disposables, all bumble-bee butt and naked torso? Swish, swish. Someone might wonder why I sound as though I’m wearing corduroy when clearly I am not.

Then there’s the worry of odor. Let’s say I have a big sneeze in the middle of doing something like answering the phones. I can’t always excuse myself immediately. Will I smell like the Washington Street station of the CTA? How will I know? My nose is so stuffed up, the only way I could tell know is by assessing the distressed looks on colleagues’ faces?

By then it’s too late. I’ve become that woman who makes a vaguely swishing sound and smells faintly of pee. Sure, it’s a way to stand out, but I’d rather be known for my intelligence, competency, and ass-kicking problem-solving skills.

Which leaves me at home, watching old movies, counting Kegels, and dozing while at the mercy of the unsympathetic cats, who, by the way, have no compunction whatsoever about informing me when I’m making strange sounds or smell a bit off.

How are you avoiding the plague?

By years, by inches

Euharlee, Georgia
January 7, 2013
4:44 p.m.

Dear Sophia,

So now you are fourteen. As you reminded me this morning, this time next year you will be pestering Daddy and me to take you to the Department of Motor Vehicles to apply for your learner’s permit. But before we plunge into the future, please give me a minute to savor the past. Your past. My past as your mother.

When you were little – oh, three and four years old – I called you boots because you wore nothing but dresses and tights and cowgirl boots. I wasn ‘t working outside the home so we spent so much time together. You called them our Mommy/Sophie days.

I can still see you sitting at the dining room table in the tiny house in Illinois, eating chicken soup with rice. You insisted on it nearly every day because you loved the Maurice Sendak book. When  you finished, you jumped up and raced around the house singing “hoot hoot zoo pals” and laughing until you were ready for a nap. Or, more truthfully, when I was ready for you to nap.

Back then, we spent an extraordinary amount of time in our minivan where we listened to Jan Brett’s The Owl and the Pussycat, rewinding over and over when the piggy says “I will” over and over because it made you laugh. And that made me laugh.

And then when I wasn’t looking because I was distracted by cleaning or gardening or running away from home or working or, ahem, blogging, you grew up and up and up until you were taller than me.

And now you’re this person who asks tough questions and who makes me think about what it means to be creative and how it feels to find your place in the world. You are witty and draining and manipulative and gentle. Emotionally, you are far more demanding than your siblings. Chloe has a much larger personal bubble and Nathan is a guy. I should neither oversimplify nor compare the three of you, but there is the truth unvarnished and impossible to ignore.

The older you get, the more I go back to my memories of you as a little girl so that I can hold on while you move away to become your own person, independent and confident, intelligent, creative and beautiful.

Recently, we were working together in the kitchen.

“Remember how I used to have to stand on a chair to reach the counter?” You asked.

I remember.

Happy birthday, Sophia.

Love,

Mom

It feels more like an epiPHONY

For the last several months, writing has become something so difficult that I retreat instead of trying. Following my return to paid work, it’s harder to keep up – with writing, reading, eating things that aren’t scientifically engineered to make us grow a third nipple, exchanging a few words with my family, with everything. I spend in the neighborhood of twelve hours a day involved in work or getting to or from there so it’s hardly a surprise that my online life has evolved. Devolved?

Even though I can’t be online as much as I once was (that’s what I get for finding a job without an office where I could fool around online without anyone seeing), doesn’t mean I can’t write. Right? Someone back me up here.

But where to start? I feel rusty, stiff, at a loss for subjects, voiceless. The  horror!

Enter the 3A.M. Epiphany – Uncommon Writing Exercises That Transform Your Fiction by Brian Kitely. This book was a gift from Kirie back when I had all the time in the world to do nothing but write and of course, genius that I am, set it aside for a day when I felt I could dedicate myself to improving my craft.

I believe delusional is the appropriate word here.

So. I’m using the exercises in this book to get the wheels turning. Let me tell you, those brain squirrels are out of shape. Tubby from excess, wheezing with the smallest exertions..

Hard cheese. I’m flogging those lazy, lardy crybabies, insisting they pump their fat little legs until I my fingers move across the keys and produce the 500 words or more required to complete each exercise in Professor Kitely’s book.

In other words, I’m doing things differently and expecting different results. Better results? Maybe. The point is, I’m going to use my writing muscle until I can crack nuts with it. Which is more than I can say for most of my other muscles. Okaaaaay, all of my other muscles.

Kitely has a list of the exercises here. If you’re interested in joining me in this exercise, please let me know. I’m only on Exercise 2 and will do Exercise 3 on January 4th since I chose to write this post on the third instead of doing my book work If enough people are interested, perhaps we could do this as a sort of online writing group. Not being a natural joiner, I’m hesitant to suggest this, but one of the writing resolutions I’ve made for this month is to be more active in a writing community. Bob help me. Change is hard.

What are you doing differently?

It feels more like an epiPHONY

For the last several months, writing has become something so difficult that I retreat instead of trying. Following my return to paid work, it’s harder to keep up – with writing, reading, eating things that aren’t scientifically engineered to make us grow a third nipple, exchanging a few words with my family, with everything. I spend in the neighborhood of twelve hours a day involved in work or getting to or from there so it’s hardly a surprise that my online life has evolved. Devolved?

Even though I can’t be online as much as I once was (that’s what I get for finding a job without an office where I could fool around online without anyone seeing), doesn’t mean I can’t write. Right? Someone back me up here.

But where to start? I feel rusty, stiff, at a loss for subjects, voiceless. The  horror!

Enter the 3A.M. Epiphany – Uncommon Writing Exercises That Transform Your Fiction by Brian Kitely. This book was a gift from Kirie back when I had all the time in the world to do nothing but write and of course, genius that I am, set it aside for a day when I felt I could dedicate myself to improving my craft.

I believe delusional is the appropriate word here.

So. I’m using the exercises in this book to get the wheels turning. Let me tell you, those brain squirrels are out of shape. Tubby from excess, wheezing with the smallest exertions..

Hard cheese. I’m flogging those lazy, lardy crybabies, insisting they pump their fat little legs until I my fingers move across the keys and produce the 500 words or more required to complete each exercise in Professor Kitely’s book.

In other words, I’m doing things differently and expecting different results. Better results? Maybe. The point is, I’m going to use my writing muscle until I can crack nuts with it. Which is more than I can say for most of my other muscles. Okaaaaay, all of my other muscles.

Kitely has a list of the exercises here. If you’re interested in joining me in this exercise, please let me know. I’m only on Exercise 2 and will do Exercise 3 on January 4th since I chose to write this post on the third instead of doing my book work If enough people are interested, perhaps we could do this as a sort of online writing group. Not being a natural joiner, I’m hesitant to suggest this, but one of the writing resolutions I’ve made for this month is to be more active in a writing community. Bob help me. Change is hard.

What are you doing differently?