On Effort

Do you catch yourself doing the most to do the absolute least? My special recipe for crazy involves putting capital 'E' Effort into problems with very simple solutions. I'm on a spiritual quest for the perfect dry shampoo that makes my hair look clean and shiny and not at all like I burn the shit out of it every day to make it curly, but not like it curls naturally, and straight, but not straight straight. I could wash my hair. I've carefully curated at least three pairs of quirky, but cute blue light blocking glasses to wear so I don't get headaches. I could stop watching the tv, phone and computer all at the same time for 91 hours a day. I like to take long soaks in the tub and spiral out worrying about whether my kids will think I was a good mother or too distant or too critical or too doting or...or...or. I have clear visions of their therapists' offices and the autobiographies they'll write. It's my very own Mommie Dearest/Psycho mashup. I could let the water out and go watch a Youtube video with them about where to get the best french fries. I take measurable time to carefully fold all of my underwear and socks, ninety percent of which are black. Then, I blindly root through them while I'm half awake stirring up a tornado of cotton blend and satin. I could skip a step and just throw it all in there to begin with. I wouldn't really call this lazy. My lazy looks like letting something go a second time through the dishwasher as if a new level will be unlocked that can get day old scrambled eggs off better than the first run. Never say I don't believe in miracles. No, this lives somewhere between type A personality and undiagnosed fill in the blank.

     Hello from the future. This old relic has been on my mind and I'll be damned if it doesn't still exist in these outer reaches of the internet. I won't share it on Facebook and no one will see it, but here it is like a moldy old year book. I'm still her, but what a laugh and a heartbreak to read my old words. I'm not a recent law school graduate or a new mom. My mother died. I'm not in the same house or the house we bought next. I had another kid. I got divorced and remarried. I have three stepdaughters. I got another job, but Max is still pooting next to me on the couch and I'm still my own favorite audience for dumb jokes.

    I'm 37. I'm middle management and quickly approaching middle age. I'm pretty sure I've got a fair amount of grey hair, but highlights keep my secrets. I have a 401k and a 20th high school reunion right around the corner. I have children that know more about pop culture (and everything else) than I do. 

   

    Speaking of culture. I can't think of anything less cool than a blog in 2022, but I think that might be what's drawing me back in. One of my favorite things about getting older and knocked down a few good times is that I am so much freer from caring about doing it right. I can still worry a hole through the wall, though. My changing face and not being the youngest in the meeting anymore has a grip on me right now, but I know its just this stage. I know I'll come out on the other side like we always do, with new wisdom and fewer fears. 

    All of this to say, I think I'll visit again soon. 

Window Shopping

Do you remember 67 years ago when I made an online window shopping dream list?  Here's another one.  Unlike that list, I won't end up buying any of these. I've developed an all new affliction in the years since then called mother guilt, which means I would never spend this much money on something for myself.  Unfortunately, I hear its incurable.  Fortunately, a zillion trips to Target at $40 piece don't seem to cause flair ups.

We have the Braising Pan already.  I used to think these were overpriced status symbols, but it really is awesome. We, and by 'we' I mean Craig, use ours all the time. Link.

I love all the offerings that Great Courses has, especially this one and one on Creative Writing.  It's like getting to go back to college, but with no pressure.  And none of the fun.  Link.

Who buys CDs anymore?  Not this girl, but if I did, I'd buy this. Link.

Do you know what this is?  Do you?  It's only the answer to a secret wish I made two years ago when I had an ornery infant that didn't seem to fully appreciate how wonderfully soft his Aden and Anais swaddling blankets were.  That wish was for an adult size version and here it is. Bliss. Link.

I love this chair.  I love all chairs.  My mom has a similar thing for lamps. I get weak in the knees over cool clocks and chairs.  I love the combination of low profile modern with a rocker. Link

For my thirtieth birthday (who said that?) my mom got me a beautiful slide bracelet.  I love to look at different options to add to it and I think this one is particularly pretty.  Link.

These have to be the perfect pair of earrings.  They're two toned, which I love, and have enough sparkle to be dressy, but they're studs so they could be worn anytime.  I might would draw from the boy's plastic animal fund for these if I could. Link.

Scented candles have to be one of the most useless luxury items.  The  tiny amount of return for the price is a little embarrassing.  Even still, I absolutely love these and burn mine with Scrooge-like greediness.  If I could save all the smell for my own nose I would. Link.

Speaking of smells, have you smelled this?  Smell. This. Link.

Do I eat soft boiled eggs?  No, but neither do I have whimsical egg cups. Link.

I also want every single thing at Sephora, a lifetime supplies of white camisoles, new jammies, and I want an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle...with the thing which tells time.

Hiding in My Office

I've lost my ability to hold a thought for more than a minute.  Hopefully its just temporarily suspended.  Because of this, I don't call.  I don't write.  Sorry.  The best I have is a few stray nuggets typed while I try to breathe quietly so a coworker/raptor won't know that I'm in my office/kitchen and try to complain about work/eat me.  Please excuse the extended Jurassic Park reference. What I mean to say is, I'm eating lunch in my office and am using my own personal electronic device to type these words, which are totally unrelated to my place of employment.

....When I'm still wearing pajamas and haven't yet put on makeup and tell Craig I'm almost ready he looks at me with a look that belies doubt.  I don't get defensive, though, because he obviously just lacks imagination.

...Where is the line between complaining and commiseration?  We know an individual that cannot commiserate.  If one of us brings up something going on in our life, this person always plays devil's advocate or points out the wrongness of our perspective as if conversations have to have a point/counterpoint format.  I don't need my friends to always agree with me, or feel like they can't offer insight, but sometimes a "me too," "that's tough," or "I hear you" can go really far.  I have a feeling that said friend thinks they're being helpful, but really, its exhausting.  Discussing the difficulties of parenting/work/life in general with friends makes your burden lighter.  I'm all for being positive, but knee-jerk positivity isn't a character asset.  Its a tic.

...I want to applaud people that look good with bangs. Like, out loud.

...I always play with the idea of trying to write a book.  Not publish, just write.  The chances that I'll follow through are so very slim that I won't even consider the astronomical odds that it would ever be worthy of publication.  I like to read articles on fiction writing and how to get started writing a book.  I've read so many that I think I could have a successful career in writing how-tos on the subject.  From what I've seen, there are two main pieces of advice floating around.  The first is to write what you know.  I know a good chunk of the Tennessee Criminal Code.  I know and celebrate all of Jay Z and The Shins catalogs.  I know how right and just it is to put on pajamas the moment one gets home from work.  The other suggestion is to write what you'd like to read.  The books I'm currently reading include Fifty Shades Freed, The Upanishads, The Centaur, The Hindu-Yogi Science of Breath, Most Talkative by Andy Cohen, and one about Christian and Sufi mystics.  So, I guess that would be a sort of post modern pervy/gossipy text centered on Eastern religion and mysticism.  Sounds like a bestseller.

...Can you really say you "don't like the taste of water" and still be considered a human?

...Are they hotdogs or are they legs (http://hot-dog-legs.tumblr.com/)?  Thank you, Craig, for sharing this. Also, if you like laughter:  http://www.toddlercouncil.org/.  Please read the "About" and "Press Release" sections.

When did this happen?

I'm not especially bothered by the passage of time. At least, not yet.  I had some good times in the first few years of this past decade, but most of it I was busting my hump trying to get where I am now.   I don't love that I'm getting grey hair and it does feel weird to not be the target demographic for pretty much anything but strollers, but at least I have stuff.  Stuff is something I definitely lacked nine years ago--legit furniture, pots and pans that match, health insurance, whatnot.

The things I miss about being younger are cultural things that have just gone out of style.  What I'm basically telling you is that 1999 was my jam and I'm not ready to accept that it's over.  Does everyone pine for the time they were fifteen? What happened to 1990s J. Crew?  By the time I was old enough to afford any of it, it was a totally different thing. But I loved layering?!  Ally McBeal, my prophetess, where have you gone?  My law firm doesn't have unisex bathrooms, but I think of you any time my skirt is a little short.  I haven't thrown away my old cordless phone.  I'm just not there yet.

I didn't fully realize that I had passed the mark from young adulthood into full blown people-call-me-ma'am adulthood until I had a baby.  Getting a babysitter and not being the babysitter was a mind trip I cannot describe.  I feel like it was just yesterday (...said the old lady)  that I was watching someone's expensive cable while their kid slept and stressing about finals and wishing I could skip to the part where I had a nice house and didn't have to worry about mapping out my future.  Hello, 2005, it's me from the future. Hi!  Ease up on the eyebrow plucking.  

I've got expensive cable now.  I know now that parents have it because they don't ever get to go anywhere and it helps them feel less sad. HBO is the opiate of the people.  I don't have the freedom that I used to, but I do have stability.  Having had both, I'd take the stability every time.  That's what approaching thirty means to me.  Craig and were talking last Saturday night about that feeling we used to get in our early twenties around eight o'clock on Saturday.  That excitement that anything could happen and anyone could be there and ohmygod the stories we'll tell tomorrow.  Except, by eleven you realized it was the same people doing the same things and telling the same stories.  We still have nights like that, but they're fewer and farther between and end a whole lot earlier and less fuzzy, because the babysitter has to go home and we can't miss CBS Sunday Morning.  Fortunately, Charles Osgood is a confirmed robot and hasn't changed at all since the 90s.

How is it Tuesday?

     I’ve come to accept that there are things in life that I’ll never understand, like anything over eleventh grade math and how salmon know where and when to go upstream to have their salmon babies and if any salmon ladies are like, “No thanks.  I’ll just stay down here and not die.”  I can deal with the fact that some of life’s mysteries will stay that way, but some things must have answers.  Like, why do young girls make that face in pictures?  You know what I’m talking about.  That face.  The one where they raise both of their eyebrows and sort of smile like you just snuck up on them talking to themselves.  Sometimes they don’t even look at the camera.  What is that?  It’s probably the surest sign that I’m rapidly approaching the end of my youth, but I just don’t get it. I never did that.  I either smiled or I didn’t.  I can only assume it’s the dark side of having a camera phone and that wonderful teenage combination of self-absorption and disdain.  Even their fresh faces are over it.  Also, the skinny arm lean thing is out of control.  Now, every pair of young women in a photo looks like Chang and Eng.  They were connected, ladies, not being sassy. 

This has quickly gone from rambling to incoherent, but here are a few other things I’d like to address.  There should be such thing as night time daycare.  Craig and I worked this out.  A bus comes and gets you and your kid.  Your baby goes to daycare and has a wonderful time and maybe a snooze. You leave a substantial down payment.  You get taken downtown with a set pick-up time of, say, eleven.  Don’t judge. Eleven is plenty late for people with babies because babies don’t sleep in.  Ever.  Also, someone has got to do something about these baby socks.  I know, I know.  The debt ceiling and gun control, but seriously, this is a crisis that must be stopped.  Baby garters?  Spandex socks?  An end to cold weather?  Here’s a question.  It was actually directed at me from Craig, but I don’t know the answer.  Is there a way that a man with thick, mostly straight hair can have anything longer than a crew cut? He says to me, he says, Laura, I like the length, but not the puffiness.  Just kidding, he’s doesn't sound like a bootlegger.  I've told him his hair looks like Liza Minelli’s when it gets too long, but apparently that’s not helpful or supportive.  And lastly, do we or do we not like Jodi Foster’s speech from the Golden Globes? 

Food for thought.

Food for lunch. 

I’m out.

Resolute 2013

I haven't made a New Year's Resolution, but I'm gonna try to do a few little things in the New Year.  First on the list is trying not to go inwardly postal about gun control/anti-gun control memes.  Try, that's all I can do.  Second, I'm gonna try to resist feeling patronized about my parenting.  On my own, I feel pretty confident and calm about how things are going, even when they're tough.  He's been teething and not sleeping as well, etc., and I lose my confidence and become a nervous wreck about it around other people.  Why?  Because of the two responses from daycare workers, people in waiting rooms, mimes, general contractors, acrobats, and oral surgeons.  I made a few of those up.  It's either(1) he's fine.  Stop worrying and being a hysterical first time parent or (2), here's what you should do because I've been around him for forty-nine seconds and am, therefore, qualified to comment on his personality, habits, and preferences.  It's enough to rattle my confidence, for sure.  One woman, who shall remain on my personal prayer list forever, saw us at daycare and said.  "What a happy baby.  You're must doing a great job with him."   She should be lauded.  There should be a paid holiday in her honor.  I'm also going to eat less cheese because, come on, no one needs that much cheese.  I'm going to  make an effort to keep my (new!) house more organized than our current one.  I'm going to celebrate little victories, even if they seem insignificant.  For example, I've managed to avoid formula for the first six months of his life.  I feel guilty saying how proud that makes me, because I know how many people would feel some implied criticism of formula, but in reality, I'm just proud that I've achieved a personal goal.  I'm sure that sounds nutty to anyone without children, but it's cause for celebration in my life.  I'm going to cook more.  I'm going to take more pictures of the baby with the real camera instead of my phone.  I'm going to walk the dog more and, perhaps, give him a bath.  Currently, he gets a bath around the beginning and the end of the fiscal year.  He stinks.  2013 shall be The Year of Less Dog Stink.  Let it be written.  Let it be done.