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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Rock and Roll

I'm up at five this morning, thought I'd spring into some yoga and the kids and hubsJ would find me all sweaty and blessedly smug upon their rising.  but I couldn't find the video, made myself a cup of tea and sat down to browse pinterest and fabric stores online.  It was just as good, I tell you but no sweat and no real smugness... and as for the smugness, ask me why i'm completely hysterical at 4:30 pm and i'll point through the fog of the day to this lovely lightening time.... ah...
Its supposed to snow this afternoon and into the morning of tomorrow, a second big snow of the winter, if it happens.  I do love the snow, so I hope it comes...
I'm quilting/piecing blocks a lot lately and I am so thrilled to be doing it and eventually, once i take my dvd lessons on how to use my new camera, I'll even show some of my work.  This is a great camera, but one of those things in the world which drive me insane.  I spent a large chunk of change, even with its sale price, waited, went to pick up the thing... whippeeee... so happy... dreams of photo logs, documentation of beauty and playthings! dreams!! ..and then needed to go back after dinner to buy a memory card to make it work.  Why in the world would you spend such change on an object that is not even functional without yet another piece?  Why do they do that? Why is it allowed?  Why do we stand for it?
oh, the man, the man.  and the waste we allow as well.  In order to get back out of the house, I took (along with HubsJ) the boys to a new burger joint which is not a fastfood mecca but is pretty good for burgers and fries only... and couldn't handle the waste! holy smokes.. each person got 52 paper napkins.  a sandwich wrapped in tinfoil, a cup of fries and cups for drinks... all in a paper bag, staying or taking out... I suppose the fact that there were no plastic was a pretty good one.  (not utensil food, too...) and there weren't anything to do with all that but to throw it in the bin at the end. 
This was after struggling to remove the memory card from its heavyduty plastic case, wrapped in cardboard, the card itself is roughly an inch square... the plastic/cardboard mix was the size of the family photo on the wall at grammies. 
oh.
is this whole conservation of resources thing just for damn show? is it just in the documentaries? really?  I feel sort of the fool, my purchasing of used toys, dressing my boys in Salvation Army everythings.... all the damn composting and recycling... there is so much waste out there.  How many times do I see people throwing sodacans in the trash? how many?! 
Am I going to become a Brazilian garbage picker? am i , really?
If I could blend the sexy Brazilian curvaceous body with the 'garbage' picker jobtitle, maybe i would.
well, maybe I need a new dream, that one seems a bit conflicted.  not to mention, sort of laborious, possibly unsanitary, and very very far away.
I need to get local, man.
maybe I need to stay home.  that might not help my social isolation very much though... but i'll certainly be environmentally smug.  and you know how much thats worth.  . . . heh

Sunday, February 26, 2012

PMS would end the world if men had it..don't you think?

its true. imagine the redbuttons pressed all over the world every month? kablooey Denmark, I hate your smug attitude! 
take that, you damned Spaniards, how can you stand your own smoldering ?

and as easy as that, kablooey.

I had a good week with the kids.  the rest of it? holy mackerel.  an exploding relationship, a dinnerparty shrinkage, lost dollars, very suckworthy marital strife.  and we lost another cat! the wind blew open the door and one got out and hasn't come back yet.  Her sister is here, eerily calm, so I am trying to follow her lead, whether it be hope or acceptance.  I don't think I'm going to get anymore animals for awhile.  It is clearly not how I am meant to fill the house.  So the vacation went well, was full of go-fish and mostly happy kids, but now?
If I had a red button, I'd have locked myself in the bathroom to keep from blowing up Denmark.
Because I've been through this, I know I will come out on the other side. It doesn't mean it doesn't suck, I just know there is an end.

I need bath after bath and a nap and some very quiet alone time. I am flooded with sadness.  Look for a list soon, i tell you.  and macaroni and cheese .... chocolate. . . bath bath bathe...
onions, mushrooms, some sort of gravy.  chocolate. 

(not all at once, mind you... just in stages, served to me slowly while i bathe... think of it as saving the world.... ) dig?

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Crackerjack.

I'm all over this vacation.  We've done crayon art, we've ordered takeout, we've seen friends, we've played go-fish, we had a sleepover with kids at their grandparents and all were well-behaved and grownups got cashmere at Salvation Army! and we will even fit in some more before it all ends.  The boys have played well, inside and outside and watched a lot of television in betweens... but it is good.  The weather here has turned to spring... and while its a sick joke on us all, because we will probably be smacked by a blizzard next week... the seed has been sown.  I have made plans to garden... we have pruned hacked mercilessly at the bittersweet in hopes of reclaiming the stonewall, which the boys have both, already, been maimed by,  as in, actively maimed by the wall falling.  rah rah for the active maiming. 
I cooked one dinner all week, a rocking lasagna with tons of veg so as to combat the crud they've been cruising through/ordering the rest of the days.... although I assume my mom made them something quasi-healthy... and over there? they ALWAYS have dessert...
plus, frankly, i think ordering out all week has been the one item which makes this a real 'vacation' for me... the amount of dishwashing has been decimated and THAT is a wonderful thing, almost equalling the takeback of the junky eating.
I've been organizing my fabrics, there's a new baby coming in my family (not in my belly, thank you) and I need to jump on that project.  The whole quitting facebook thing has been pretty nice so far, I've spent a lot less time on the laptop, hence all the frenetic organizing, child-rearing-playing-crafting... it has been fabulous! and its only THURSDAY!!

whoop! whoop! dats the sound of da police!!!  - old school, seriously. its my fight song...

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Without my children.

Where would I be if I were childless?  I've been thinking of it solidly for two days, Maven.  My instantaneous response was a feeling... I've had this feeling so many times, so many days, and it would be restlessness.  I'd be restless... seeking.   (maybe i'd be missing my kids, in their corporal forms... ?)  It surprised me, I tell you. 

Things that would be different?  I'd be living in a large city with my husband, if we were still together... without children, all those difficulties that we've shuffled through, might have been too much... or would there have been fewer difficulties? oh, i don't know. 
I'd be teaching children somewhere and getting paid for it...!...I'd be a professional, carping about vacations and hours worked and wacko parents and administrations.... we'd have a too-big cool place, with delicate beautiful things inside...maybe even candles...!  and we'd be traveling...maybe I would have seen Spain by now... its the Gaudi, see.  I'd have gone back to Scotland, to see if any of my old flatmates were still around... I'd certainly know where my passport was.  My relationship with my family would be more distant as we'd be literally more distant as well.   We moved here to have our children be near to grandparents, after all.  We would have probably missed my grandmother's death, her funeral as we would have been too far... possibly.  Its hard to imagine that I wouldn't have cut off my own arm to get there but perhaps, with so much distance....? I certainly wouldn't have had the time to clean out her fabric room, and what would I be 'making'?

I'd have really great clothing, I think. it might depend on which city I lived in...I'd love to copy Audrey Hepburn or Kate of the African Queen fame. Hepburn... have those two really always shared a last name and I've only just now noticed?! .. but I imagine my body would handle more 'normal' physique clothes...  I sort of think I'd be on the West Coast, northern style. . . or maybe we'd be traveling Europe for a while. 
We'd have too much money. an excess. . .
I think I'd be more self-centered.  Learning how much of life can be spent giving to others is one of the astonishing things we do as parents... the curve is steep. 
I'd go see foreign movies all the time.  I'd eat at restaurants where children never go...
I might not eat on blankets as often. 
I would never eat chicken nuggets, ever.  My child-pleasing cheesymeatybake would never have come to life.  no, it wouldn't and I wouldn't even know how sad a thing that is...
I'd read poetry.  My brain needs a certain space to concentrate on such imagery and rythmn and I haven't been able to do that for 6 years or so. 
I'd wonder why parents are always so stressed. I would judge them.  I wouldn't hang out at playgrounds. 
I would not know who DJ Lance was, or why the Mickey Clubhouse song was so irrational and peppy.
I'd still like the same music, Jen, which is pretty much everything... with a leaning towards old school hiphop, reggae and Spearhead... and Adele. . . smattering of 10,000 Maniacs and the Cranberries and the Sundays... I'm a girl of my 90's, I tell you.... I might even know more punk music, as I imagine I'd be doing 'exercise' of some sort ...bleagh. . . and you need to be pumped and punched in the gut to do that.... I'd probably know more about pop culture, and I'd watch more tv...although maybe we wouldn't have one at all, as we didn't during our earliest marriage? hmm.  I'd probably be able to handle more violence and scary stuff because I'd be desensitized. My God, Maybe I'd even watch the News!

Its amazing to think about, and also amazing? that instant recognition that I'd still be so deeply restless and seeking.... I'm so glad I have the life I do... Maybe in my sixties I will look like Katherine Hepburn! For Today, Its more Martha Plimpton than anything else.... and dats the truth, Ruth.

Thinking about it the past couple of days has been eye-opening a little bit.  Might be time to let go of those dreamings, it has been six years after all, of this child-presence in my life... what I do have is pretty astonishing in and of itself. 
and I can get some pretty awesome trouser pants (ala k.hepburn) anytime I choose.  okay, maybe they'll just sit in the closet or maybe they'll rip when i sit on a lego, but aye? ANYTIME I CHOOSE.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Give me something to talk about...

really, i'm sitting here drawing a big blank in terms of my own interest in writing.  give me something. anything.
i'm getting a new camera soon so hopefully i'll begin an awesome and eyeopening travelogue of toyplay in the next few days.
but please, give me something to talk about that doesn't involve politics or birthcontrol.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Rip it.

My kids have been playing blessedly well together this morning, my husband and I are unifying beautifully over a subject or two and I am living a spottily wonderful life.  Rip it, baby.
I'm getting geared up to give up the facebook for Lent again, going off into the darkness to find my light.  It'll be more challenging this year as I readily use the fb to make appointments with friends or let the Meeting schoolmistress know if our boys will be arriving or not.  (only slightly more challenging, really, and if someone sent me a message it'll still go through to my email... sheesh. connectivity!)  I'm looking forward to having more time to myself because of this, although i may just trade up to spending time looking at pretties on pinterest.  I did get a book of Scripture to use as a guide this month, and our 'wreath of wretchedness' will be placed on the table.  Its definitely a joke I just made there but its a wooden spiral/wreath-like-thing with a cross-carrying Jesus taking the walk to Good Friday.  Its probably quite sacrilegious the joke i just made, but oye? i mean no harm. sounds terrible but is lovely.
hm.

before I hop myself off into the shade at the edge of the woods, there are things you should know: a meme, if you will... me, me.
1. I am a compulsive defender.  Meaning: ANYONE, ANYTIME...you, yes, you.  I can find reasons and supports for their actions, their depressions, their hurtful things, their anythings... it annoys the hell out of my husband, and others before him... because, like i said, it is compulsive, I can't stop myself, and sometimes that, in and of itself, can be hurtful... some people really do make mistakes, bad choices, terrible ones.
2. I am sometimes proud of being the compulsive defender.  I like the good opinion I have of almost everyone.  I assume the best... and that there is a world of misunderstandings, and that if people just slowed down and had charity, all would be at peace.
3. I like clarity, think that it does exist... alongside its famous brothers, opaqueness and vaguery.
4. I am extremely lucky in my life, to have had such a solidly good experience thus far.
5. I believe in angels and Jesus and God, and sometimes it all rolls up into great golly Goodness.
6. I will always love onions, even when they make me cry.  (as you may know)
7. I'm extremely thrilled by the kids that I have.
8. Its vacation week here and I've got playdates all lined up and I'm just really looking forward to meeting more of my kids' friends on an intimate playing field... i love having the beasties here.
9. 9 is the best number, after 4....
10. I'm making all sorts of fabric-y things with my grandmother's fabrics and everytime I iron it, I can smell her house and sometimes it rockets me to sadness but most of the time it rockets me to memory, which is completely awesome.

love love, running into the dark to get to the light...
working on it,
wmx

Friday, February 17, 2012

The cats are on the table

and I'm going to write anyhow.
so be it.
I went to see Chakra Carol, the therapist with the magic hands... like jazz hands only quiet and contemplative and full of very good love.   It was my Valentine's gift of love to myself, and i realized that my difficulties with Valentine's DO stem from ridiculous teenaged girl fantasies of what romance is, can be, 'should' be... and perhaps my difficulties stem from the ridiculousness of my own heart and its struggles with releasing its tight-fisted grip on the love within.  some might even call it walnut heart, which should probably become a category i write under.  perhaps.
I think my stance on Valentine's is fine, really, but wonder if the whole ' I refuse this day of manufactured candybuying crazy' might stem from a larger refusal than I first believe.  perhaps.
the cats are on the table, something just fell. hold on. i left the iron on. thank HEaven for the cats! holy smokes! (could have been)
whoosh.
what was i saying?
oh.

so anyhow, love.. and all that. i am done talking about it.  I've got some work to do on it still and i'm not feeling very 'funny' today.  the sideways glances at the hilarity of life aren't cutting it.  the night before last i didn't sleep at all and last night it was upset sleep, and was no good... hubsJ even let me have the whole bed so to ensure I got my sleep back! but no.  oh well. its Friday. only one has to go to school, the preschooler can watch television or build legos and I can figure out what to do with what my heart IS telling me.  because this morning, it is shouting.
SHOUTING.

loud damn walnut.

Monday, February 13, 2012

A Valentine's Decision

I love my husband, I do.  He wants me to write a post about our sex life and I won't, and he sortof understands but would love to be the subject of an unadulteratedly passionate post. well.   The first sentence of the post is pretty much how far thats going to go. 
Valentine's is tomorrow, and I do believe the holiday is a hoax of sorts and I, for one, still suffer from some of the adolescent angst that ends with me being disappointed at the end of the day, and I am tired of it.  tired. I am 37 years old and I declare myself done with Valentine's Day. I love shows of affection, I do.  I like tulips in the spring.  I love chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven.  I do.  but I don't like the pressure to squeeze in 'purchased' affection on a day that someone else has chosen... facebook is awash right now with people showing off rings and if thats what you like, than fabu for you.  But I am done. I want no jewelry. I want nothing. well,  I like my husband, I'd like him to come home for dinner that night. I'd like the kids to eat their food, I'd like to get by without any yelling. . . and then I want to watch a movie and go to bed.  or maybe watch Glee, if I can... and mostly, I want to not pay attention to the makebelieve hysteria of society that tells me I need John Cusack to show, or some shadowguy from the jewelry box company.... because they mean nothing at all to me, and the real hubs means it all to me.
so there.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Boomboxes are Vintage...


or, What Color is Your Tea?

SO, heads up. this is an early Valentine's Day issue-fest. early. just like we like it... so we have lots of warning time before the big big day. I'm a whole six days early in case you wondered.  the titles, you ask?
I'm giving myself a whole littled week before I express my disappointment that my husband didn't John Cusack himself up in the driveway and serenade my persnickety windowstuck ass.  No, he didn't, hasn't, won't.  There are also the two dead bunches of carnations somewhere in vases around the house testifying to the dead-love we have growing here. And these are not fighting words here, just appropriate to the flowers and the reality that while once pretty in their grotesquely-overdyed slightly-neon-scary fashion, they are now the walking dead, and such is the love i have for Valentine's.  get that?

i know that many of my single ladies have a hard time with this coming holiday and part of the reason for writing is the acknowledgement that it sucks for just about everyone, even the 'coupled'.. except for maybe the newly-engaged, and for them, mostly for the relief of not really having to 'do-it' (gift giving whahoo-not 'it'.. perv) .
there was a superbowl commercial with an incredibly beautiful woman suggesting that if you give her flowers that you order from an 800 number that she'll put out.  i just want to tell the world, uh,... no she won't. its a lie. the whole thing.  lets pretend just for a second that  a young woman, looking like that  has a man who matches her beauty or youth or 'wealth'... Do you think for a second that if he has flowers delivered to her office/coffee shop/dress boutique   ... it'll flip the coin in her head and she'll run out and ...

oh brother, i can't even complete my thoughts on this one, its just too stupid.  and has nothing to do with love. and i don't know what love is, really. .... I don't think it has capital letters, for one thing.  I think it has small ones, all the little details in the curvatures and the angles.  i have suspicions that it is much more quiet than a superbowl ad could handle... and it may have to do with familiarity and choosing to notice the color of someone's tea. how do you take it?
and so . . . familiarity.  really?  I guess its not so cute and there's no symbol for it to use in the marketing campaign ... so its probably not going to catch on.  But I know how Hubs takes his tea.  I know which cereal is the true favorite of the 4.  I know how to read the flushed cheek of the 6.  
i do.
and as scary as all this vulnerability in love is, i'd probably do it all again this way... especially if i could read the script ahead. especially. you know, no leaping off the boat without a lifejacket and such...
phaw.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Is that what the question MEANT?

I always do self-checks on myself:  wicked important things like this, to myself... (and by always, i mean once in a while. )

BIG, OMNISCENT NARRATOR VOICE: Are you loved?

yeah, yeah, of course. i mean, the kids do... they can't help it, i'm the mother here. they have no choice.

and this...

B, Om..Narr..Voice :  Do you love?
yeah, oye, of course.  I mean, i'm the mother here. I have sex! with my husband, i clean underwears all the time... I feed the cats and the birds. I cook chickennuggets and hotdogs even though I hate them so..Yeh, Love.

and then there is this...
lower, closer...VOICE:  okay, kate, is that what the question meant? have you answered?
in the fullest of answers? meanings?

and then I get all stymied.  Do I really think the boys love me because they have no choice? really? Is there a reason I don't mention my husband who loves me, probably most of all the people in the world, most of the time?
and then again, with my own love for others... why is it mixed so deeply in with necessary things? things which honestly- except for the sex- I feel resentment for in the first place?

why is the vulnerability of admitting love, real love, so damn scary for me? I mean, my god, i am married! with children! one could just assume saying love exists for me to be a no-brainer.  but no.   
so what happens to me if i admit this vulnerability? is the universe going to test me within 5 minutes of my admission? will i be alone and bereft? so what is my attention focused ON all this time? am i avoiding real honest expressions of love because it may at some point not exist? is that really the way these things go?

and if i think i know the answer and don't know how to move, then what?

THEN WHAT?

Friday, February 3, 2012

Things Lost, Things Found, no relation to Seuss

In the past week we have lost a disc of DuckTales, which will cost me and my friend Netflix a lot of money... and the kids never even got to watch it as it was pilfered from its nifty envelope by sticky fingers #4 and G-d knows where it is now, but it has been looked for and declared 'lost'. I haven't told Netflix yet, I hate disapproval and fear I will sense it through these internets.
In a larger realm, it doesn't even matter, because we have ALSO lost the clicker which operates the dvd player. And I have looked.  AND I'm talking, every chair has a clean underpinning, the rugs were lifted for the dvd search.. even the toy bins have been emptied, bitch.  I checked the fridge, eyep, and all the trashcans and the bathroom cabinets, and the boys beds were stripped in the search... All I can figure is that it got recycled or pilfered by that sticky bastard #4.  (in yesterday and today's childrearing episodes I have the feeling that my kids are out to get me and are busy turning themselves into hoodlums. I recognize that this is MY perspective and that i am SKEWED this week, waiting around for some sort of change... and that they are just regular old kids busy exploring all the things of the world.  i love them, don't think they are liars or bastards most of the time... sometimes i think they are very thick brickladen children, other times they are brilliant stars of the galaxy... such is motherme.)  We have also lost a Mario DS chiplet thing, the camera temporarily, multiple measuring tapes, oil pastels, and my marbles. (no pun. just insane.)The temporary loss of the wallet yesterday made me itch.
I lost my opportunity to go to a cool meeting nearby, because I didn't act on finding childcare. I just didn't take action. what is that?
I COULD have gone out yesterday without the wallet, would have been fine.  What is that?
And what has been found?  not much.
I sat in meditation today and found my brain running through places to look for things... the normally staid and aloof cats were downright whorish in their need for my attention at that moment and I could not look away from that opportunity... so I tried to sit again after they had their way with me... same list of lookspots. . . I'm thinking that maybe I'm searching for the wrong things lately, and its niggling at my spirit.  what to do with that though?
I'm going to read today, and clean, and do some writing.. and that is all I can do today.  what will i find?

**! GAH!! found a karate outfit thats been missing for TWO weeks. !! aha!! whats next?!!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Days of Staying Home

we're home today, all day... we WERE going to go out, spur of the moment, to an ikea with a ball pit and free babysitting... i need a new wallclock that teaches time... but then discovered that the wallet had been mislaid.  And by mislaid, i mean that the 6 was having a fit last night and was seen by his father with said wallet heading out into the house... and the 4 this morning told me the wallet was in the trash.  These tales were discovered after a panicked call to the HubsJ to assess situation before cancelling all the cards and applying anew for health insurance cards, social, etc. and all that. all that has left me all weepy on the inside and convinced that in fact this whole situation IS A TRAP, and I cannot get out from under the 'doing for others' ... and today it is not feeling that good.
I suppose you could check in tomorrow and all will be well.  I'm looking forward to that too.  Maybe I'll even have a list.
whine whine snuffle.
*- the wallet was found BEFORE the trash was searched, randomly placed on a chair in a hallway. . . cash intact. little punks.

sometimes what is more difficult is not the parenting constantly, or the hardworking marriage or the isolation of being a stayathomer... its the combination of them all and the utterly unceasing nature of it all. 
I have lots of moments of bliss, and a husband who is really actively involved with the kids and the marriage.  but today, i am tired, and the healthy food and tea are not cutting it away from me just yet.
hanging in...
wmx

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

I'm tired of myself, man.

Boy, I have some whamdingggy loops that I like to cycle through... loop, loop, loop.  I'm so very tired of most of the people who live in my house.  yes I am, and I typed it out loud, I did. 
I'm tired of kids waiting barefoot for the bus.  YES, it did.  and hello, FEBRUARY 1st, NEW ENGLAND... not Mali, or an island I can't pronounce, but here, New England, home of the wooden houses. and the weirdly wrong temperatures today...but still FEBRUARY.
I'm tired of laundry, sort of. I mean, I still like how it smells. BUT I am kvetching about the plain old amount of it and the no thanking that I get for providing EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the home with clean underwear.  yes, i do. and they need it. yes, they do.
I'm tired of washing pee sheets.  When I was a camp counselor and had to do the loads of pee-soaked little girl laundry, I remember feeling so happy when the summer finally ended... no more, no more... what a silly young thing i was.

Man, I wish I could tell you I was bigger on the inside, and so, able to see all this crud as an act of love.  I wish my bigger-on-the-inside self wasn't just on a fullout lie-down-and-cradle-my-head on this one...
I don't want my wishes to be horses.
I'm going to spend the morning looking into retreats for me to go on this summer.
I'm going to read some of my book.
I'm going to make some tea with honey from my new honeypot.
I'm going to fold more laundry. Much of it is MINE today. MUCH.
I'm going to smell my laundry, maybe even put my face into a pile of socks and underwear that I have cleaned, that are not MINE.

I'm getting off the computer.