I need to think like an 11 year old more often.

Last night I took Tommy, my 11 year old son, Xmas* shopping for his dad. I wasn't feeling well so I just threw on a long sleeve tee and the jeans I'd worn the day before and grabbed my coat to leave. I had no bra on and believe me, it's not a good look, and I didn't even have real shoes on, just a pair of dirty black Uggs. I just didn't care what I looked like, frankly. 

Then Tommy saw me and looked me up and down and furrowed his brow. He put his hands on my muffin top (which I'm kind of sensitive about, anyway) and told me to suck it in. I told him I can only suck in my belly, not my sides. (!!!) He looked at my chest and sighed, then told me to turn to the side and looked at my mama belly and my ratty old jeans. The look on his face said he did not approve of what he saw. I started to get defensive because I was not about to be told I was too embarrassing to to go shopping with at 7pm at a Walmart, and I wasn't very happy with him thinking he got preapproval of my outfits anyway.

Then he did something strange. He grabbed my left hand and checked my wedding ring and said, "I guess it's okay since you have that on. I was worried you'd leave it at home." And then I realized that he thought I looked too sexy to go out in public! I even asked him, "Are you saying that I might attract men and they need to be able to see that I'm married?" He looked at me like he thought I was crazy. "You sound like you're taking that as a compliment. Okay then, but I dont see how it's a good thing."

He saw me, whom he apparently thinks is pretty, in clothes he saw as flaunting my figure, and got concerned that I might attract too much male attention.

I know it sounds weird, but when he thought I looked dangerously good all dressed like a schlub, it made me feel really good. I need to stop thinking I look okay despite my flaws, and start thinking that they're not flaws and that I just look good, period.

*Did you know that when you write it with an X, you "take the Christ out of Christmas" and it becomes a secular holiday?

A few of my favorite things

Long flannel nightgowns with lace at the collar
Thick heavy books that feel like you're eating them as you read
Poems by people who don't care what you think of them
Men who demand intelligence
Soft socks that don't dig in at the top
Crinkly quilts that get softer the more you use them
Cats that sleep next to you on the bed
Sleeping curled up like puppies
Thick hearty soup that warms to the core
Hot coffee/tea/cocoa/cider sipped slowly
Shoes that go with everything
Hot showers that never run cold
Big hugs from small children
Woodburning fireplaces
Pajamas with feet
Underwear that stays on the outside
Small chocolates while menstruating
Rainy weather
A soft chair
An oversized cardigan

Footy pajamas

Heavy blankets

A cat on my lap

Blowing my nose with tissues that have lotion in them

Cleaning my glasses with tissues that don't have lotion in them

Being able to tell the difference before smearing my glasses with lotion.

Crinkly beards

My tattoos

My tattoos were born when I was 13 years old.
A child with a pin and purloined ink, stabbing in secret for days, until I had . . .
a dot.

My tattoos came from different places, different people, different Mes.
My tattoos say "What was I thinking?"
Say "There was no purpose,"
Say teenage rebellion on permanent display.
My tattoos remind me "That was the boy I loved when I loved the wrong boy," 
"Don't wait to sober up in a shop of buzzing needles on your 21st birthday,"
"And never celebrate psych ward release with a haircut OR tattoo."

My tattoos are a scrapbook of bad decisions but also of who I was when I made them.
Of a hurt little girl trying to paint herself bad ass,
Of a death that never happened but still I mourned,
Of who I was and who I wanted to be.

My tattoos illustrate my life in chronological order.
The birth of my children,
the loves of my life,
the death of a parent.

So much ink stabbed into me,
violently engraved by sterile strangers' hands,
graffiti that will not wash off.

My tattoos are aging poorly, drooping, stretching, wrinkling, folding in upon themselves.
A dragon with cellulite,
a butterfly with shaving scars,
a fairy with stretch marks and all with a story or lesson I lived. 

No meaningful sleeves or spiritual back pieces,
just disconnected images from art books,
from flash posters,
from google
image
search.
None of them match because I was never the same person twice and still I'll get more
Because my scrapbook is not finished yet.

More children born,
more loves in my life,
more dead parents to immortalize on mortal canvas.
Ink will be my memory when my memory fades.
Pictures will remind me of my life when I forget my own name
and I have lived so much life to remember.

Who needs Borneo, anyway?

Beautiful, delicious, too much, not enough, those are opinions, not objective terms. I hate wine and lots of people love it. Neither they nor I are wrong because it's all a matter of personal taste. So the next time you want to start a sentence with, "I know I'm not beautiful but," or, "I'm not the sexiest but," just don't. Because for one thing, if you say that to people, they'll take your word for it, but also because you are beautiful and you are the sexiest. People find all kinds of things personally attractive and you are no less likely than anyone else to have attributes that will drive a percentage of the population crazy. There are folks who love weight, folks who don't give a shit about perfect skin, folks who hate thick hair because it gets all over everything. And their tastes are not invalid or abnormal, and they're not fetishes either. A guy who loves armpit hair, a round belly, or  frizzy hair is not a freak. He is a person with personal tastes just like anyone else. So say, "I know I'm not everyone's cup of tea but," and realize that no one is. Everyone looks hideous to someone and beautiful to someone else. Hell, I know I'm hot af because my husband tells me. Am I hot to everyone? Not by a long shot. I'm sure there are a few people in Borneo or wherever who would swipe left, but I don't have the time to worry about them. And neither do you!

Normality

I used to want to be normal but I could never quite pull it off. Too many subtleties to pick up on, nuances of accepted behavior I never really got. When I was really young and idealistic I thought that someday I'd meet someone with whom I could be normal. Where all of my coping skills like humor and hyperactivity and false affectations would just go away. And I did meet that guy, a couple times, but they didnt like an unfunny Chuck. They wanted someone who would entertain them, not depend on them. But when I met this last guy, he found me entertaining when I wasn't trying. All my social mistakes were just endearing quirks to him. So now we're abnormal together. And it doesn't suck anymore.

Dad's Porch

When I was 16 I moved out of my mom's house and in with my absentee father the next town over. He didn't really know me so we got along well without any of the baggage that would have come from him still thinking of me as a kid. He'd basically just met me as a teenager.  He was a drinker, usually passed out around 6:30 and then up again at 4:00 for work, and he spent most of his weekends either at the VFW where he taught me how to play pool, or sitting on his back porch listening to the local AM radio channel. Dad was also a nudist, so he would be sitting naked on the steps up to the kitchen door, facing the alley behind the house. I often sat with him, just smoking and listening to livestock prices, watching the weather in the back yard.
I sit on my own front stoop now, on the steps up to the door, listening to the radio on my phone and watching the weather in the front yard. I don't smoke and I'm not naked, but I feel a little closer to Dad sitting in the quiet, drinking a beer or a cup of black coffee, doing nothing but thinking. I miss that drunken, naked, old bastard. He was a decent guy when you met him as a teenager without the baggage that would have come with thinking of him as the daddy who ran out on his family. Not much more than decent, though. He was a great guy to know and hang out with, but a terrible person to count on for anything. 

For When I Die

Just a post where I'll plan my own inevitable death and funeral.

A happy morning

I went to the farmer's market this morning with Danny. I'm trying something new this summer where I keep my alarms on even with no plans or appointments.  I like having a day in which to do things so I hope this lasts. I also set the alarms to go off Monday through Saturday so I can hit the farmer's market every week. So far there's not a lot of farmers there, but we hit up the pie lady, bought radishes from the booth that had asparagus last week, and Danny bought a handmade wooden toy from the old couple who sell their woodwork there. The toy cost enough that we couldn't buy a muffin from the rhubarb stand, but the pie lady sells big chocolate chip cookies for a dollar so we gave her more money instead.  It was a great morning and I hope Tommy comes next week.

Don't Fear The Reaper

I think about death a lot, mostly my own. I know I'll die with regrets because I don't think it's possible not to, but my goal is to die with respect for myself. I want to be able to look myself in the eye and feel that I did the best I could, that I was a good person, and that I brought happiness to people, without explanation or rationalization or deliberate avoidance of the ways and times in which I fell short.

I know some people say not to regret anything because at one point it was the best decision you could make with the knowledge you had at the time. I don't think that will work for me because for most of the 90s I expressed zero interest in making good decisions. (Although I do remember one time I was curious about trying acid and then decided not to, even though Chris Lowery offered to give me some for free and sit with me through the trip. Looking back, that was a really good decision considering that he now has to tell the police whenever he moves and he can no longer go within 500 feet of a school. But still, I didn't make the decision out of any wise concern for my own safety, only because I didn't trust him not to say, "Oh look, spiders!" while I was out of it.)

I also know some people who say that they're not going to waste anymore time on negative people, because they don't need any more negativity in their lives. I don't get that one either, because I don't understand how time spent on a person can be wasted. I mean, you can waste time on impossible goals, on worrying when it can't prevent the thing you're worrying about, and on attempting to master things you don't really care if you succeed at or not. I'm talking about you, Words with Friends! But you can never waste your time on a person. People aren't goals or hobbies. People aren't things. If you put energy into being nice or helpful or supportive to someone who isn't grateful for it you haven't wasted your time; you've been kind, and you've gone good, and you've played a positive role in someone's life and someday they may recognize that or they may not but either way their reaction to you being a good person does not make being a good person a waste of time. Being a good person is never a waste of time.  Sitting around judging people and deciding whether or not they are worthy of you, however, is a waste of time. And I know that wasting that time, and being a judgmental jerk during it, is something that I most definitely would regret.

I regret mistakes that never taught me anything. I regret being mean or hurtful to people. I regret not buying that book that totally reminded me of a casual acquaintance because I thought it would be awkward to give it to them, and I regret throwing away a gift from an ex because I thought I was supposed to put him behind me once we broke up.  And I regret, more than anything else, all of the thousands of hours I spent trying to define myself, to fill different roles, to do things the way other people did them or thought they should be done. I regret trying to decide what to be rather than just being and then deciding what to do. I don't regret my past loves because I can't find it within me to regret loving. I don't regret ended friendships because I can't regret being a friend to someone.  And I don't regret my past journeys because they all led me to where I am today and where I am today is content. Content with my family, with my marriage, with myself, and content enough to consider myself happy with my life. In this way, I've met my life's goal.

I think about death a lot, but I don't fear it or dread it. I don't feel that I need more time than I have and if I were given a terminal diagnosis tomorrow I would feel sadness for my children because parental death is so traumatic, but not for a life cut short.  I certainly don't want to die now; I'm just saying that I'm not afraid of it when it comes.

Shapely

She is a sphere.
Sexy curves, lights and shadows. Rolling, dancing, twirling.
I am a cube. Still and squat, sharp corners and harsh lines.
Sitting, safe, still.
Her curves and her freedoms are everything I ever wished I could be but could not.
I am a cube, and to have her curves I would have to file away parts of myself and lose my edge.
She is the sphere that i can never be.
And as it turns out, some people prefer cubes after all.

The 4 pm Bar Crowd

The four p.m. bar crowd are tired folks, mostly men, hiding in a dark tavern from wives, long-term girlfriends, and employers they've told they were sick.
They drink flat tap beer from clear plastic cups and ignore the old woman who painstakingly makes her way down the bar, leaning heavily on her thumping cane, begging money for the jukebox. I give her a dollar and am rewarded with a mix of old country twang and Dave Matthews classics.
The four p.m. bar crowd keeps to themselves, greet strangers like me with side-eye glances, and overtip the mostly bored bartender.

"Adulting"

I am over 40 years old and my friends are either my age or older. I have friends who have never owned a new vehicle. Some who've never bought a brand new piece of furniture. And some who have no idea who to call if a washing machine or fridge breaks down. I have friends who have never successfully kept a plant alive, who don't know their own blood type (or their kids), or who can't find a vagina on a gynecologist's  chart.

So could the generation after us PLEASE stop fucking whining about how they don't know how to adult and it's all our fault for not teaching them. Where the fuck did they get the idea that you're even supposed to have everything figured out at 20?! WTF!  I've been a mom for 19 years and I still turn the socks pink sometimes, and can't always read a thermometer, and forget to set the coffee maker the night before.  Every couple of weeks I have to feel to see if a kid's nose is broken and I don't know what a broken nose feels like! But I imagine it feels different that it did before so I still check, every time. Nobody ever became an adult already knowing how to be an adult. You suck it up, quit posting memes that use adult as a verb, and go out there and figure that shit out for yourself. Because as parent, we can only teach you from our own mistakes. And when you turn 18, you get to learn from your own so make them count. And after a while you should look around and realize that you are totally in over your head and that's when you learn. You learn that dirty clothes won't stink if you freeze them and that's how you stretch it til the next Friday you can buy more detergent.  You learn that if you buy the right cut of underwear the legs are the same size as the waist and you can spin them like a pinwheel and get a few more days out of them and that you can wear the same bra for days and days. And one I had to learn the hard way, that a box of powdered RIT dye is cheaper than a whole new dress.

tl/dr.  Grow the fuck up and quit blaming your folks for not doing it for you.

Dances with Linda

My dad used to "date" a lady named Linda who was head over heels for him. They'd lived together but she'd been clingy and he ended it. He'd never been above the random hook-up though, so she still came around. And she was at every VFW dance, sidling up to our table in her bright red lipstick, smiling at him while he checked for other single ladies to pursue. Sometimes she'd end up at the house, other nights she wouldn't. And then I'd inherit her, and every time it was the same. She'd end up crying into her glass of Miller Lite, snorting her runny nose and chewing off the bright red lipstick, telling herself and me that she was strong. "I'm strong," she'd wail. "I've been through a lot worse than this and survived. I'm a survivor! I'm a strong woman who deserves better than him.He just can't handle me.  I won't settle. My man will treat me like a queen!" She'd spend half an hour on her little pep talk before she'd drink her now-salty beer and walk out the door.  She was a good lady, but she was desperate and needy. All she wanted was a man, really any man. She had all of her hopes pinned on love and once she found a boyfriend, THEN she'd be happy.
I see a lot of memes that sound a lot like Linda crying into her beer. Like sad desperate women giving themselves pep talks about the kind of man they'll sometimes get, about how guys are just scared of them for being strong. The thing is, once Linda actually stopped waiting for someone else to make her happy, she quit talking about how strong she was. She didn't need to anymore. She was being strong rather than just talking about it.

Rampant Paranoia Strikes Again

This is a HORRIBLE FACEBOOK POST.  What happened to her? Nothing. What happened to Emma? Nothing. This is a story of a woman getting scared on her way to her car. The combination of large black strangers, close proximity, and her own preconceived fears thereof caused her to knock a child's ice cream to the ground and run into a store like a crazy woman and violate the personal space, IN CLOSE PROXIMITY, of a  completely uninvolved stranger. 

"But they were following her, looking at Emma, TARGETING them!". Targeting them for what? Approximately 20 children nationwide, are kidnapped by strangers every year. Within the entirety of the U.S., less than 2 stranger abductions a month. Add to that that this was a supervised child, in a public place, and it becomes clear that that this girl was in more danger of being hurt alone in the car with her mother(?) than from this situation in the parking lot. Many more children are injured in car accidents than by personal attacks.

And what of the attack? The woman specifically said that the men were following them, one RIGHT BEHIND her and the other next to Emma. Yes she spun around and ran back into the restaurant. So she ran right past these guys, probably right between them. And NOTHING HAPPENED. They didn't grab her or Emma. They didn't panic at being caught on to and flee before she could tell the employees what had happened. They probably just walked to their car and shook their heads at how sad it is that 2 guys can't hold the door open for a white lady and her daughter (?) without being repaid with suspicion and fear. And now posted about on Facebook.  This shouldn't be a normal thing. Being tall, black, and male while walking near white people should not be seen as a threat. Certainly not in 2017.

He's Smarter Than Me. It's Over.

Yesterday in the van after school.
Danny: Thank you for picking me up today. It's was cold.
Me: You're welcome. I'll pick you up whenever it's in the 40s.
D: What 40s?
Me: It was only in the 40s today. When it's in the 40s you don't have to walk home from school.
D: But that's a long time from now.
Me: What do you mean.
D: I won't be 40 for a long time.
Me: Not in YOUR 40s!
D: Your 40s?
Me: No, not in my 40s. I'm in my 40s. When IT'S in THE 40s. Outside.
D: That's like 20 years away.

This is why I sometimes drink on Tuesday night.

Smoking

Anyone trying to quit smoking?
Niacin, or vitamin B3 pills, are made of niacinamide, also called nicotinamide. Taking B3 supplements daily can ease nicotine withdrawal.
Ever heard that the leaves and stems of the potato plant are poisonous? It's because of high nicotine levels in the plant. Raw potatoes are excellent snacks while quitting smoking, and are unpalatable enough to give up eating after you've kicked the habit.
Don't fall for the myth that you should chew gum or suck suckers while quitting. Oral replacements only reinforce the idea that you'd rather be smoking, and if you want to squit then by definition you don't want to smoke anymore. This is also why you need to recognize that your addiction, the literal enemy, is causing your cravings. It is NOT that your body wants a cigarette, it's that your addiction wants one.
Physical nicotine withdrawal hits it's peak at 1.5 hours post tobacco and only lasts for 3 weeks maximum. If you can sleep for 2 hours in a row, then you can make it for 3 weeks. The addiction lies dormant but causes no symptoms after 3 weeks. The reason people start smoking after that time is because they've either confused cravings with desire and still believe that they're denying themselves something they truly want (a person can only deny them self something they truly want for so long), or they remember the stress relief that comes with smoking a cigarette and believe it will happen again.
You know the feeling that comes with taking off a necktie or a bra after a long day? Smoking after the withdrawal has ended is like wearing a tie, or too tight shoes, just to feel relief when you take them off. The only stress a cigarette can cure is the stress of withdrawal. And remember, withdrawal peaks after an hour of a half. So the cigarette you grab after a death or divorce or job loss can only create more stress, not relieve the current stress.
Crying during withdrawal is not a sign of worsening withdrawal. Tears contain cortisol, a stress hormone. Crying during withdrawal is your body's way of helping you kick the habit. Your amazing body is actually relieving the stress of nicotine withdrawal by itself. So if you're somewhere where you're free to cry, let go and let out as many tears as you can and count down to 3 weeks

Now all I need is the money

I found ten feet of 4 1/2 foot wide marble on craigslist and let me tell you, this stuff is GORGEOUS. No boring white carerra shit, this has reds and browns and veining and cloud-like areas, and it's only $200. I guess it was on someone's ten foot kitchen island. Unfortunately, I have more than ten feet of counterspace in my kitchen. BUT, if I bought the $300 porcelain covered cast iron drainboard sink I found, it could work. All new countertops for $500. I want this to happen. So, now I only need to find $500.

New profile pic

I changed my profile picture. This is my absolute favoritest picture ever, because it is too ridiculous for me to even wish it were attractive. I want this to be in my obituary. Hell, I want this on my driver's license. And then if I get pulled over, I will simply look up at the police officer with the same smile, and he will instantly know that it is me. What could be wrong with that?

My baby grewed up

Ryan graduated. And turned 18. And got a tattoo. And started college. All in the past 2 weeks.This has been too much for me. I am appreciating Xanax and alcohol. Also, I appreciate my friends. The ones who give me free beer and play Cards Against Humanity with me, and show me their envy-hate worthy sewing rooms and then turn off all of their outside lights so that I can walk straight off a retaining wall on my way to their driveway and break my foot.

gnarly broken foot

Also, as much as I hate my anxiety/panic disorder, it does serve a purpose at times. For instance, when faced with my baby girl growing up, moving on, possibly not needing me anymore and moving in with a shady musician (not that she's dating anyone, but it could happen), my brain chose instead to focus on the graduation party. And with pinterest in front of me, I had plenty of reasons to panic. Decorations! Invitations! Pun filled candy bars in expensive and otherwise useless apothecary jars! But, no. My brain decided that the party would have bowls of mixed nuts, and that some of these bowls would sit upon the coffee table in the sitting room.  The problem? We didn't have a coffee table in the sitting room. And the party was in one week. So my brain passed go, didn't collect shit, and went straight to "OH MY GOD, I HAVE TO BUILD A COFFEE TABLE!"  From scratch! With no woodworking experience at all! And not just any table. I wanted an antique map-maker's cupboard to use as a coffee table. Like this one.

antique map-maker's cabinet

And after days of sawing and nailing and glueing and screwing and sanding and staining and two thirty mile round trip visits to Menards, this is what I ended up with.

ignore the mess and focus on the table

And nuts were placed upon it, and people were seated near it, and it did not collapse and it served its purpose and the party went off without a hitch.  

One tip that I have for any graduate is this; acknowledge those who helped you get there. Not just your parents, but those few special teachers who made a difference.  We ordered these trophies for less than $10 each from Crownawards.com and had them engraved for 4 of the teachers who really made a difference, who took Ryan under their wing in some way or another. And I can tell you that all of them teared up. She'd graduated, there were no suck-up points to be earned, and none of them were even her teacher her senior year, but a student had thanked them from the heart for doing a thankless job.  It was nice, and more kids need to do that shit.

I'm almost 40

I'm almost 40, my daughter just graduated high school, turned 18, and got her first (only?) tattoo all in the same week, and I've been reflecting on life because of all of it. And you know what I've decided?  Life is too short to match your bra to your panties. Here's a small key to happiness; find panties that you love, buy 20 pairs of them, and shove them all in the same drawer. Don't fold your underwear- that's a waste of time.  Now, find a bra you like and buy 5 of it. In a color close to your skin tone so it doesn't stand out against a white blouse. Then, shove them in a drawer. Now, when you want to get dressed, put on your bra without looking, grab a pair of panties, and then spend your time on the clothes people will see. "But what if I meet Johnny Depp and he wants to hook up? Won't I wish I was wearing cute and uncomfortable underwear?" No. You're not going to happen upon Johnny Depp today; he's not going to abandon his plans for the day because you fill him with uncontrollable lust, and if you do possess that kind of lusty power over men, your underwear isn't going to kryptonite it all to hell. You can slip them off with your pants, anyway.  If a man is lucky enough to see you in your bra and panties, he is in no position to judge them. He should thank his lucky stars and toss them to the floor.