…

I can tell I’m on the brink of an energy fizzle. This always happens when I get all uber ambitious and knock out a bunch of tasks in a short period of time and then wonder why I can’t be that way all the time. It would be so easy! And it keeps one energized, to be so energized! But then I never factor in downtime, or enough downtime, or underestimate its absolute necessariness and boom. So I get that you wouldn’t necessarily want to *be* a teacher because of the go-go-go requirement. We need to breathe. But maybe the teachers who need it find a way to breathe; surely they must?

Things accomplished today: Job application, sent. Church library wish list, transferred. Library troops, notified. Bed sheets, laundered and changed. Dinner, planned. Pool water, drained, refilled. Etc. Etc. And more.

I can also tell I’m about to crash when I feel overly optimistic in the midst of all that Doing. And wonder why I can’t be that way all the time. Doesn’t it come naturally! I think it does, but I also think pessimism comes just as naturally. It’s a battle of dark and light and when I am caught in the light I think I can stay there forever, why couldn’t I, why shouldn’t I. Is that a weak thought? The dark seems to see it that way, takes the moment of that thought as its cue to appear and extinguish all light.

Is a mix of light and dark at all times safer, or wiser? Can those levels be controlled? Should they? Shouldn’t they? Can I be any more abstract. I totally didn’t intend on spiraling down Philosophy Lane at the outset of this post and yet. I await your pondering response.

xo

blank pages/things i’ve learned 2011

I feel like I’ve managed to talk myself out of the importance of writing it down. Kind of like how I’ve managed to convince myself that exercise is completely unnecessary. Oh, silly human mind. But now that I’ve crossed over to those dark sides, even if they don’t make any sense, it’s a struggle to talk myself back over to truth. Like every single time. I’ve made more work for myself without really doing anything at all.

But I was thinking about things I’ve learned over the course of 2011. Good things. So not everything was bad. It never is.

• I can cut hair. Without much fear.
• I like this quote, a lot. Through to my core. “When one loves, one does not measure.”
• I like school. Not going myself, anymore. When the children go. Me + Structure = Less Floundering
• I want to learn to use a sewing machine. Officially.
• We really are not in control. Cue: unseen deer hurtling into vehicle, leaving fur and cracked/dented everything in its wake. Repeat: never saw it, not once.
• Me + Fewer Options (things to buy, things to do, people to see, movies to watch) also = Less Floundering
• I require firm deadlines. For anything.
• Libraries are the best places ever. (Already knew this, but know it even more.)
• I learned how to can. Specifically tomatoes. Next year: jam, possibly pickles?
• Relationships can often be mapped as a Venn diagram. Best not to forget that whole area-of-overlap. It really does exist. I think. Even if we’re talking about boys + girls.
• I do not enjoy the genres of “camp” or “noir.” See: “Modelland” and “Ringer,” respectively.
• I like peppers. Nearly as much as horseradish.

Um, I can’t think of anything else right now. But maybe we can keep brainstorming this.

you guys ROCK. (for heaven's sake!)

So, like every time I do a negative friendship post, I seem to inspire feelings of paranoia in my dear, lovely, sweet, cool friends? It's so sad! I'm only philosophizing out loud, and trust me, if it were you, you would totally know. Wouldn't you? No, you would totally pick up on the cues, because you are not oblivious. I hope I show enough that I'm appreciative of our friendship. I hope I'm not so passive aggressive that we would break up over a blog post. The person or persons I speak of don't even read this blog. And anyway, in spite of my snarky shell, I am just not a Mean Girl! And I love and appreciate my friends. My blogger pals, my playgroup cohorts, my writers' group, my email buddies, my fellow neighborhood mamas. My girls who live here in Wilmy, and those who have moved away but have kept in touch. My mendacious out in Cali. The gals I've never even met in person. I love you all! You are absolutely invaluable to me and my everyday experience. The humor, the snark, the sweetness, the advice, the idea exchange, the support, the stories, the outings, the endeavors, the (mis)adventures. I'm totally giving a sickly-sweet pseudo Oscar speech here, but I totally mean it. Invaluable! Love you! Would never break up with you through a blog post! That is all. xoxo, pen.

Penelope Pussycat

Mendacious is always going on about friends and friendships, and though she is an uncompromising Taurus and I a gentle Pisces fish, I am apparently not so kind in certain friendship-related matters. Mendacious can forgive, look past major faults in some instances, and I can be so merciless.

By nature, I look for the good in people, almost to a fault, like I will excuse a person's behavior and defend them to the last when they are criticized by another. I'll be like, "Well maybe she...," or "But I don't think he meant..." Even when she totally did do it, and he totally meant it. It crushes me to see formerly good friendships die. I'll mediate wherever possible, until I remember that it's not my business or place to clear the air between two parties, it's totally up to them, their choice to make or not make. And sometimes friendships need to die, or even just rest for a little while.

As forgiving as I am, though, as open as I am to the bond of friendship, as willing as I am to meet a person halfway in a relationship, when I'm done, I'm done. If I see something so inherently broken with the person, or the friendship, or the energy between us that it can't possibly be fixed, I move on, and that's it. There are just some people I don't mesh as well with, and no amount of conversation or effort will alter that fact.

What I really can't stand, though, is when the other person cannot see that it's over. Or at the very least, that they should back off. I mean, probably that's part of what's so broken about the energy between us to begin with, what turns me off so much. I don't respond well to smothering. All bribery attempts will be shunned. Burying me in sugary compliments will only make me gag. Requests for more/any time together? Denied. I truly am Penelope Pussycat, and the more you chase me, the more I will try and hide.

See, I'm merciless. Probably I should at least extend to the offending party the courtesy of full disclosure, tell them why exactly it's over. But if it's an unsolvable problem, I don't see the point? I'd rather us both just wordlessly acknowledge that it's not working out, and then we can be civil in spite of the necessary detachment. Sometimes, you have to deal with the person regardless, even if you can't be friends, so why instigate drama and strife, when in the end you'll be left with the same set of circumstances.

I fear that this is all very bad friendship karma, and that perhaps I've been just as much the offending party in certain relationships. Although, I would hope that I am not that oblivious to those social cues, the ones that clearly say, Um, yeah, it's just not going to work out, between me and you.

Certainly we've all been in and/or will be in relationships where what you give is not what you receive in return. And it sucks, really. But when as a friend, I'm just not that into you, is not telling you to your face the kinder thing to do?

nature vs. energy

Now that I have children (yes mendacious, you must accept it finally), I find myself thinking a lot about the issue of patience. I think that possibly I am a very impatient person by nature, and that it takes a certain level of energy and conscious (and conscientious) choice to act patient, which I am trying to do as much as possible, for the children. And me. And society. But I find it all very unfair that I have to try so hard. Why can't it just come naturally? Or why can't the person I really am, the person I am without trying, be good enough. I guess it's all about showing your kids you have a choice on how to act, which of course I'm very big on, and that in life they're going to be faced with negative emotions, and they must choose how they will handle them, blah blah blah. But it just makes me tired, keeping up that front, modeling all that annoyingly Good Behavior. Pretending that the moods and tantrums of other people don't phase or affect me. Remaining all upbeat. Why wasn't I born chipper? Why can't that be me.

filters

Not Enough: It seems that one my favorite blogger/life activities is pondering/cataloguing personal pet peeves. Well, here is another: People who lack any ability to edit themselves when speaking. Speech (unless you're giving one) is not by nature a perfect form, and we all have moments where we wish we could have said more, or less, or simply said it better. And, you know, I suppose the people who cannot edit themselves at all may not be aware of the problem, or that it is a problem... but it is. My eyes glaze over and my mind insantly numbs up in the presence of a person who cannot exclude each and every uninteresting mundanity from each and every conversation. Blah. (Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.) I have a sort-of friend that I have been hanging out with less and less and am considering--all right, I'll be honest, I am decided--that I simply cannot hang out with the individual anymore, and this Lack of Filtering is a big factor. That, and the fact that not much else makes up for the time-killing burble to redeem the friendship. Sad, but true. (Again, dear readers: It's Not You.)

Let's Hope So: My parents' neighbors are quite crunchy and in many ways over-the-top with the lifestyle. Of diet, of occupation, the stories are alternately intriguing and apalling. Anyway, my mom relayed to me that R. takes an old 40-gallon pickle barrel to a spring and fills it for his drinking water. The black barrel sits out on his porch, covered, yes, but festering in this god-forsaken heat. Allegedly, R. runs the water through some sort of filter before drinking it, but seriously? Does it take a scientist to know that a dark container of untreated water sitting out in the heat is a veritable breeding ground for heaven knows what? No, no it does not. E.Coli, dysentary, and mosquito larvae immediately spring to my own mind, before I become completely ill and must move on. Oh, and the water, according to R., does taste vaguely of pickles. I guess as long as it's natural.

Undecided: Pick up any parenting book or magazine dealing with the topic of little ones, and you will probably read that so far as language development goes, it helps your baby from the very get-go to "narrate" your day. I mean... I just think you have to do what you are comfortable with, and not feel guilty about it. I am not a Big Talker. Of course I talk to K.Lo and show her things, let her know what I'm doing if she's interested, but it's as it comes up. And especially now that she is actually walking around, picking up new words every day, and generally acting more and more like a little person, the "narration" naturally comes more into play. Do I feel like she is behind the learning curve, though, because from Day 1 I didn't barrage the little lump of baby flesh in my arms with all the, um, mundanites (see: "Not Enough," above) of Mommy's existence? Hell, no. I listen to other mommies in stores, at story hour, etc, and as they prattle on about walking up the stairs and sitting down in their chairs, I kind of feel like jamming kabob skewers into my eardrums just so I don't have to listen to the sing-song anymore. Some people, it comes natural to, and if you're a Chatty Cathy and that's just the way you are, hey, you do how you do. But I feel like there is a lot of neurotic tension underlying much of the extraneous baby babble out there, an internal hand-wringing that says, OMG, if I don't tell the baby all of what's happening every moment of the day, then she won't learn her words fast enough, and she'll be behind the curve, and her Baby Resume will be spare and she won't get into the right preschool, much less the right college, and everyone'll think I'm a Bad Mommy, and, and, and... Relax, Chicken Little. I'm pretty sure it will be all right.

Too much: Again, speech is not perfect, and not being a Big Talker, I simply don't have as much practice, so maybe the woulda-coulda-shoulda-said-it feeling hits harder, festers with me longer. I'm also Tres Sensitivo, so that could be it as well. As I get older and allegedly wiser, I've gotten better at avoiding the Fester. I mean, who cares, right? Let them say what they will, because they will regardless. I guess I just wish, after all, that I weren't so easily disarmed, so almost too quick to filter. K.Lo had her 18-month checkup last week, for instance, and when the doctor asked what kinds of foods she's eating, I told him, vegetables, but not fruit. Milk. And... not much else. Meat? Not really, it's kind of hard for her to chew. And so then he says, while making A Note in K.Lo's chart, So she's basically just eating vegetables and carbs? Well geez, when you put it that way. It didn't sound quite right when he said it, and ever since, I've been thinking about all the foods I coulda-shoulda have mentioned, but didn't. I always leave out hot dogs, because society seems to consider them foul, but actually, hello, they are, for better or worse, meat. Also, while not consistently, she has eaten: bacon, chicken, a little bit of hamburger here and there. Not to mention eggs, and fish. The kid's even had lobster bisque a few times, oddly enough, and shrimp. Anyway, speaking of extraneous, boring information... I guess I just wish I were more okay with what the doctor recorded, because I live with the kid, I feed her, I know she eats more than veggies and carbs, and oh yeah, who cares. Talk about neurotic internal hand-wringing; I'd like to slap my own wrists to cease it, and move on.

for the ladies

Obviously, I'm a mom, so it might seem strange at first that I'm posting this link. But I have to say, this Newsweek article from a few weeks ago just rocked. To me, it not only defends women against impertinent childbearing inquiries, but it also takes a terrific stab at some abhorrent trends these days in mommyhood. It made me laugh, and reinforced such an important personal philosophy, which is, if and when you do ever become a parent, for everyone's sake (you, spouse, children, family, friends, the world), don't lose yourself.

My Turn: Stop Setting Alarms on My Biological Clock, by Carrie Friedman

heartbeats

When I say I have an overactive imagination, I mean that I tend to imagine the very specifics of a hypothetical situation. It's not all bad, not all excessive worrywarting; in many ways it keeps me from trouble, keeps me appreciative of the moment. When my mind really gets into it, though, really goes there, it can be quite arresting. If I were less inclined to think of this worrying as one of those "prayers in advance" we've talked about in Blogland, and more inclined to convince myself that these imaginings will be reality, I might just panic. Like, really panic.

Last night we (J.Lo, me) were up for an hour or two pondering heart palpitations. Instead of beating regularly and unnoticeably like it should, J.Lo's heart was racing for several moments, then coming back down again. He was a little dizzy, but no pain. A knocking sort of arrythmia, very scary and weird. With a family history of heart attacks, this is not an appealing symtpom, and if one thinks about it too much, it could just make your heart behave even wackier.

Then there is me, the wife. My job is to be supportive, helpful the best way I can. Calming. Remaining calm. Not minding a bit that we'll both be more tired tomorrow for the added stress of these moments and the missing sleep time. Not worried when we use the phone to call the ER that K.Lo will wake, because frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing her now. She doesn't wake. The ER phone operator, after running through a list of questions, says to wait it out, see the doctor in the morning. Call again or come in if this XYZ list of symptoms occurs. We both try to put it out of our heads as much as humanly possible, and go back to sleep.


I've talked about choices before, and here again I know I have them. Choices. How to be, how to act, what to think. Except that I don't know what to think. And then there are a lot of thoughts I'm having that I'd very much like to press the "pause/rewind" buttons on, but the buttons are apparently broken. I know we both just need to take one step at a time. Just, heart palpitations: isn't that serious? Worrisome? It feels serious, worrisome.

Later today, he goes to the ER anyway, as the doctor does not have specialized equipment to diagnose heart issues. The end result is that it was just heart palpitations, nothing more, possibly due to: stress, cold medicine, high blood pressure medicine, migraine medicine, caffeine in general, or some random combination of any of these things. I'm skeptical, still, because we're talking about a heart here. And hearts are not supposed to beat like that. But what other choice is there than to accept the diagnosis, forgo the histrionics, and move on. Obviously be vigilant if it happens again (and hope to hell that it doesn't).

I feel like I'm pretty laid-back as a person these days, including as a parent and spouse, and I like being that way. And again, choices--I am cognizant that pretty much the only thing you can control in this world is your own behavior, but that fact is so hard to truly swallow, over and over again. I think we must all struggle with it, on some level, every single day. Is that just a human instinct, to try and control one's environment and make it go our way? Here is what I want: to live a long, healthy life, and for all of my family and friends to live a long and healthy life as well. It's not too much to ask, is it? I think about any slip-up in that perfect little formula, particularly with my husband and children, and it's an easy way to quickly spiral. To start imagining horrible little details about The Way it Would All Go. I don't like visiting that mental space.

So I make the choice not to, at least not very often. I don't think it's healthy to deny its existence, either, but you cannot live there. As magnetic as its pull might be.

...All this is to say that really we're fine. J.Lo, me, Bug. I didn't mean for this post to be overly dramatic, more just reflective on a particularly stressful set of hours. Hearts are a serious business, to me.

philosophize

At some point in life, it occurred to me that a person has choices in virtually all circumstances. You have choices, you make choices, there are consequences (good or bad), and it's on you. No one else can or should assume responsibility, just you. I don't know whether this occurred to me in a series of steps, or one giant "aha" moment, it doesn't really matter. Once you realize this fact, though, it seems like the world becomes divided between the people who "get it," and the people who don't. And I mean, it's not always the person's fault--most kids, I don't think, understand this, and won't for a very long time. The only thing you can do (if they're yours, anyway) is point the fact out to them at appropriate turns and hope to hell one day the little light bulb pops on.

I'm not meaning to sound at all hoity-toity in this discussion, or superior in that I think I do "get it." It's just so obvious, after awhile, who doesn't get it. They are less enjoyable to hang out with, their tirades less tolerable to bear. The world is against them, nothing they choose to do is a choice, they are not responsible, life is something that happens to them, they are not an active participant but merely a bystander. When something bad happens, they wallow in it, feel persecuted, and let it beat them down forever, rather than picking themselves back up and growing stronger for it. It's so tedious after awhile. I hate to say that, but it's true.

It's especially tedious to witness and endure along with the people who should know better. Everyone learns the fact of ownership at a different age, a different life stage, a different set of circumstances. But some people just never get it. They could be, like, in their seventies, and still not get it. It's like they become permanently arrested in an adolescent way of thinking, for whatever reason--maybe some unfulfilled, long-ago desire for proper attention? and they never move beyond that way of being. I feel like it is the difference between growing up, and not.

And what do you do with the people who haven't grown up yet? Exercise patience, offer your view, yes. Show love, yes, and empathy. Bad things do happen, of course, they affect everyone the world over, but in your response to that badness lies the choice. And no one's perfect, and you might not always and instantly "get it," maybe you'll slip up now again. I feel like I sound so harsh. But damn, there are just some people. After a certain age, a certain batch of life experiences--shouldn't they get it, by now? Shouldn't they move beyond the junior high mentality? Stop playing the victim, stop vying for negative attention? Won't it ever occur to them that if they just stopped acting like an asshole, they might actually get what they want?

And maybe we could even be friends!

Sigh, I'm so mean. I just don't know how to react sometimes, how to deal with Crazy. I think about kudzu's discussion regarding inate personality quirks or flaws that you just want to shake out of a person--or are you just supposed to live and let live, because "that's the way they are." I want to keep the peace, but I want to stand up for myself. I want to be true to who I am, and protect what I have, but for as mean as I sound today, mostly I'm just too nice. My initial reaction to most situations and conversations tends to be pleasant, or simply very measured, because I don't want to be the one who's out of control in my response. Maybe diplomacy is what I need, and more patience, more perspective? What I want is to have a little more instant perspective and diplomacy, so I can respond the way I should/want to at the moment, rather than looking back on the conversation later and feeling all coulda-woulda-shoulda, with a dash of enraged. I want to guard against letting a person rot a hole in my stomach, and driving me as crazy as I see them.

I just want to have the right to eradicate certain negative energy from my life, and I think herein is where I myself am missing the choice: It's not about controlling the other person, shaking from them (until their teeth rattle) all their petulance, manipulativeness, and misguided ploys for attention and guilt tripping, but it's how I myself choose to respond to it.

Argh.

the need

I'm reading White Oleander, and while my feelings are very mixed up at the moment toward Ingrid (the mother), I can't get this one idea of hers out of my head:

...nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.

I've pondered before, probably somewhere on this blog, the idea of not being interesting and/or tragic enough to be a writer. It's not that I don't have "a story"; maybe I just outgrew that story, or for one reason or another cannot, will not write about it anymore. I could maybe write a whole book for you just about the why not. It did lead me there, though, to writing, I can't disown that.

And I'd like now to be a bigger person who is so filled with the pain of the world, because lord knows there is enough of it, and that would keep me in art. More art, deeper art. But when it's not your pain, even if you can imagine the pain on so many levels, how can you really speak to it. It can't have the weight of your own, you can't know it through and through.

There are people, I guess, with that particular gift or set of talents that enables them to discover others' stories and write them. They are the interviewers, the probers, with a dash of the charismatic and the extrovert. I am not one of those people.

I guess I just wonder sometimes, what's the point: do I need to? Not so much as some people. The things that led me here, even if outgrown and/or no longer mentioned, are still part of me, though, so. And each voice, no matter where it lands on the spectrum, can have its own value.

This is all keeping in mind that I fully consider the blog, this blog, our blog, to be art. Or at the very least, considering the more vapid, reality TV-related posts (all mine, I know), I feel it's important. And yes, needed. Even if it doesn't fully reflect my bleeding soul.

Ha ha ha.

Anyone else, thoughts?