Accomplished

I feel very accomplished so far today.

It's seven thirty-five a.m. and already I've been to the gym and ran a mile (well, .7, with the other .3 walked -- let's call it a mile, made husband pre-work smoothie, taken a shower, put on a pot of coffee, and put some eggs on to hard boil.

I'm going to the arboretum later.

For now, I'm at home in my pajamas...typing this blog.

I hope I don't hate myself too much for getting up so early later.

Maybe I can go get a few rows of knitting done before Adrien wakes up.

I feel accomplished already.

So, here's to you Mr. Buff-and-Cocky-Check-Out-Guy a the gym: I'm fully aware that when I was leaving I had just gotten there. No need to remind me of that. But I am just fine with my 30 minute work out. So eat it. :-P

Purl -- like the necklace?

So, ya know, all of my bitching and pissing and whining the other day about not having a hobby? Well, I took matters into my own hands. And damn it, I'm going to learn to knit.

It's supposed to be relaxing, right? HA!

So the whole thing started with a trip to the local library. I picked up the easiest looking how-to book on knitting I could find. Learn to knit VISUALLY, it touts. Okay, visual I can do. Then I picked up some other book about like The Seven Steps of Motherhood...but whatever. Next stop: the craft store. I browsed the wall of yarns for the prettiest looking ones I could find. I got one marled purple and blue type yarn and another green yarn. I bought the respective needle sizes recommended for each yarn type. I was very excited. They also had canvases 2 for $5.99. Those went in the cart too. I need to paint, right?

I journeyed home where I put Adrien to nap and did the dishes. I could hardly wait to try my hand at knitting. I'd done a bit of it in textiles class in college. I sucked at it then. Maybe, I'd be better this time: I was really out on a limb here. Hopefull, even. The green yarn, that's what I tried first. It was too small and my cast-on stitches were to tight. I moved to a bigger needle. Trying over and over again, I could never get past the cast-on stitches. An hour later, I'd cast-on countless times and still had no rows to count. The purple yarn would be better. Yes. And indeed, it wasn't. Please note that just because yarn is pretty, that does not necessarily mean it's suitable for beginners. Quite the contrary, actually. This purple yarn has multiple widths to it. It looks a bit wonky, very erratically spun indeed. Back to the green yarn. Then Adrien woke up from his nap. I'd made no knitting headway.

Later that night, I could hardly wait for Adrien to go to bed for the night. I was (and am) determined to learn how to knit. If it kills me (which it might -- a friend of mine suggested I get a hobby not involving sharp objects). Two hours later, I had 5 rows complete. It was time to learn to purl, which seems to me like knitting -- but backwards. Anyway, it's supposed to be the opposite of knitting, whereby the stitches show on the opposite side of whatever you'd doing (henceforth, making patterns within the knit). One try and that and it was back to knitting. Better not press my luck.

So why knitting? Well, as stated previously, I had heard it was relaxing. I need to relax. I mean, haven't you gotten that I'm high strung already? Slightly stressed. I mean, who isn't? And then, I was on Etsy the other day and saw these wonderfully gorgeous way over the knee scrunchy sock/leggings. I thought they were too cute, indeed. Must have -- and they were something like $11.99 to boot. Had. To. Have. So I clicked, only to find out it was a knit pattern. I must learn to knit these wonderful creations, methinks. And alas, I did not bookmark these great leggings, and now I cannot find them...or I'd link you to them. But take my word -- they are amazingly eccentric and perfectly B. [Update! I found them! YAY! Here are the magnificent scrunchy stockings!]

So that was how it started. And it's going.

Please wish me luck and if you have any suggestions, let me in. I have to get past my fear of purling. Otherwise, I'll just be making nothing but flat, long, scarves.

Yay for hobbies, indeed.

The Pregnancy Police

Fuck.

Well, I mean, fuckin' a, man. Ya know? I think I'm getting better and then it all goes down the fucking shitter.

Am I the fucking pregnancy police or something? I mean, have the balls to tell me yourself. I'm not that horrible of a person am I? I understand completely, I mean, I wouldn't want to face me either: horrible bitch that I am. But come on. Have some sympathy and don't send someone else to do it. I thought the two of us were better off than that.

And then...

And then, when I thought it was all over and I was better, yet someone else in my life is carrying the spawn of their fucking husband. Someone with actual fertility problems. Not that I'm not happy. I can take that. I get that you are appreciative of your situation. You do not tread lightly with your current situation. Having lost a child before, you know full well it was fragile territory to let me in on your little 5 week secret. And at least I heard it from your mouth.

I just don't get how some people are pregnant with their third kid and whine about it...can hardly drag themselves out of the house. I mean, you know you're fucking fertile, woman! God damn it, just keep your legs together if you didn't want to have your third so fucking close to the last fat piece of baby you shot of your vagina. Don't cry about it to me. Do not pretend to come up to me and in hushed tones say "I'm pregnant" and expect me to share your surprise. Why the fuck are you surprised anyway? I mean, no birth control, three kids later...you know you're fertile! I'm not really a friend to you anyway, so I could have done without it. Anger was there. Sure, I wanted to slap you for whining to me about pregnancy like two weeks after I was forced to flush my beautiful baby down multiple toilets and have intra-uterine probes pushed around my vagina all day just to tell me that I wasn't lucky enough to have a viable pregnancy. But, like I said, I'm fine with that. I'm over it. I don't see you constantly. And your post on our message board about borrowing maternity clothes? I could have done with that too. But I can see where you're coming from with the "I've had the same clothes for three pregnancies now, and I'm tired of wearing the same thing" bit. I get that: but come on. Are ya' fucking serious? It is not a tragedy that you're pregnant. Be happy that you are able.

So I guess that's it. I have a friend who can't say it to my face, because apparently I'm a bitch and I don't deserve to hear it from her own mouth. I have a friend who tells me but is afraid I'll hate her (which I don't, more just that I'm upset she thought I'd be pissed off), and then I know countless others who are all magically with effin' child.

Everyone's fucking pregnant. Don't tell the pregnancy police! For God's sake! She's not stable and she's mean and bitchy, and oh poor her, she had a fucking miscarriage. She can't deal. Shhhhhh. I do have some level of poise. Give me fucking credit.

Back to me

Suffice it to say that we had tons of fun at the Renaissance festival! I mean, ass loads of fun. It was fun. However, that post is put on hold: husband has the camera cable in his car at work...so there will be no Renaissance report today. That is saved for later, possibly tomorrow.

But that's cool; I've got other things to blog about.

So Andi and I were havin' a little chat in the car on the way back home yesterday. I brought up a subject; however sore it may be. It's something I realized the other day -- an epiphany, if you will. I don't remember who I was talking to, or if I was talking at all. I could have been typing. Either way, I was asked about hobbies. Mine, specifically. And to my astonishment, I could not list anything but blogging. I have a huge list of things that I used to do, or things I would like to do. Nothing I actually do.

Andi thought it was sort of preposterous that I think I have no hobbies; even further that I'm upset by it...but just imagine: you have nothing that defines you. It's an awful feeling. In the spot where you'd generally fill out "about me" you have a blank. Sure, I could list ass wiping, couch potato, procrastinator, dish maid, personal chef. What service is that to me? I do not enjoy those things, and hobbies, I assume, should be enjoyed.

You paint, he insisted.

No, I like to paint, but do I actually paint? No. I have nothing to paint about.

You like to cook, he says.

I love to cook, but I have to cook.

He went on and on, insisting until finally, in desperation, he asked what it is I think I like to do.

Well, I like to paint...when I have something to paint about (which I don't). I like to cook...but is it a hobby? Cooking is not something you can just do. It has to be for a purpose; a meal. So that moves cooking from hobby to interest. I can sew, but I do not like to. I chose seamstress and fashion as a career, and how many people do you know that come home from a long day of their job and do yet more of it because they enjoy it so? None. So, I'm not a sewer. I hate scrapbooking...don't have the patience for it.

What do I like?

Well I know what I used to like.

I used to like painting. Getting lost in the canvas. Going to concerts; small venues even...staring up at the artist until I got lost in the sea of music. Analyzing every lyric to the fullest. Lying in bed with a loved one for hours on end; CDs on rotation. Contemplating the meaning of life and lyric. I used to love the runway...the shows, the art. Real life artwork being poured into apparel. The designer's creativity and eccentricity oozing out of every stitch and seam. Poetry; small fragments of my reality boiled down into exquisitely eloquent and off beat stanzas...holed up in a notebook and kept for my eyes only. Boys wearing eyeliner. Boys wearing skirts. That exquisite median between anarchy and conformity. Watching indie flicks late at night; alone at the cinema. Deep conversations. Deep. Not the sort I find myself having these days. Making music; my guitar in hand...strumming aimlessly for my own benefit.

I like to make things, I tell him. I never make anything anymore. My music is silent, my canvases empty...I have no ocean of lyrics to be lost in. No one who cares to be lost with me. Spending some time in the fashion industry jaded me slightly. I hate fashion. I have nothing to write about in full stanza, nor broken prose. No notebook to keep it all holed up in. No deep conversations; my lips are silenced. And alas, I do not care to swoon for any other boys besides the one I've already captured: my husband. My creativity is drained. My livelihood is gone.

I do not care to define myself merely as mother or wife. The thought of that bores the shit out of me. Lately, I seem to find myself among a hoard of women who have no further aspiration than this. They have no self. They are mom. They are wife. They are nothing more; they are boring. Somewhere along the road of life, they've lost their own ambitions...replacing them with what they should want or do. But that is nothing for me. I do not want that. I don't want that life. I never wanted to be called mother; never wife. And here I am: I am called both. It's fine with me, but I refuse to let those labels rule me. Neither are definitions I want to truly define me.

If that is all I have, I do not have much, for I have no self.

I need myself back. I'm so far from what I used to be, that I'm not even sure I can get back. What is self? What are you? What defines you? I'm not sure what defines me now. But it sure as hell is not solely mother or wife.

I am better than those titles alone. I belong to my soul. I refuse to let those labels decide my day to day actions. And I refuse to let anyone contain my spirit.

Now, if I could only live by my own words...and not in fear of them.

I'm still trying to figure out how to be mom and myself at the same time.

To the Renaissance Festival!

This evening, our family will be heading to my Mom's house...actually my Grandpa's, but I digress. We're heading down to my Mom's house, as a belated birthday gift to my Mom. Adrien and I were supposed to travel there a few weeks ago, but I had the stomach problem and Adrien had the upper respiratory/double ear infection problem. Needless to say, neither of us was in the best of shape to be up for a four hour car trip.

Yes, you read right: four hours. I don't live in one of those tiny New England states whereby it takes only a few hours to cross the entire state. Oh no. I live in Texas. You could drive for 10 hours and still be in Texas. It's expansive. The second largest state. I digress, again.

So anyway, we're gonna saddle up and head for my Mom's house so that we can go to the Renaissance Festival tomorrow. It's very exciting for me. Up until I was 19, I was able to say that I'd been to this festival every year since I'd been born. My parents loved this place, and took me accordingly. When I was younger, I'd get all excited to go and I even saved up my allowance so I could buy a costume to wear. I love it there -- the gynormous turkey legs, the merriment, the costumes, the shows. All of it. It's also safe to say that my childhood trips to this place are some of the only happy memories I have of my parents when they were still together. Even still, after my parents divorced, I was still taken every year...generally either by one parent or the other, or on the happy occasion that I'd get to go twice that year; once with each parent. Maybe that's part of the reason I cherish this place so. Happy memories from my childhood are not abundant.

I remember waking up early one morning when I was five or so and springing into my parents bedroom to wake them up. Let's go to the Renaissance Festival, I begged. I really wanted to go. My parents tried to explain to me that it wasn't yet the time of year for the festival, and alas, I'd have to wait. I remember pleading with them that I'd pay for the whole thing, so long as we could go. I even remember getting my piggy bank -- it was full of pennies, of course. Yes, I loved this place then, and still do a great deal.

I supposed it's the magic of it all. As a child, you see the fairies in their costumes, and to you, they're real. You see the jousting tournament taking place and get caught up in the action. I'm sure I wanted to be the Princess the knights were jousting for...and to me, the Princess wasn't an actress in a costume: She was real. I think I've always felt as though I don't belong in this modern age. The Renaissance Festival was the perfect place for me to pretend (just for a day) that I wasn't in this day and time. It was an escape from reality, and I always hated to leave at the end of the day...but even Cinderella's magic wore off eventually, and she was forced back to her reality. After I'd gone each year, I remember hardly being able to wait for the next. And the next year came, the excitement and revelry were there again...no matter how fleeting the day was. For that one day I was at the Renaissance Festival took me out of whatever crap I was really having to deal with back in the real world. Just as I thought as a young child that I wasn't cut out for this modern society, I knew entirely too much about what went on in the lives of adults. The Renaissance Festival was my place to be a kid. No wonder I wanted it all the time.

I still see this place as magical. Even now, I can't wait to enter the gates there tomorrow, because it remains mostly the same as it was in my childhood. I remember all of the excitement and magic, and now I can't wait to share that with Adrien. I've told him about all the dragons and fairies he'll see there...all the fun he'll have. I know he doesn't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about, but I can't wait to share this wonderful childhood experience with him.

I hope it's as magical a journey to him as it is to me.

The cheese analogy

The people came. They stayed. They left.

Amazing, isn't it? The last one left around 2pm, and that ain't bad considering I was being more than just the happy hostess.

Remember the one I mentioned that had camped out at my friend's play date? Well she left around 1:30pm. She even eluded to "staying a while" at the last play date (in which instance I looked away from her and averted conversation). I was quite relieved when she'd left. I took in a deep breath and proceeded to tell the last girl there that I was carrying a lighter load with her absence. Indeed, I was. We'll call her Camper. Camper is strange. Nice, but strange. Her teeth are muddled with white and grey. Swirled, I'm sure, from either a lifetime of bad oral hygiene or lack of fluoride. She beckons from Missouri. Her husband works for a pool supply company. She's strange. Not someone I'd become best friends forever with.

The woman who left at 2, however? Well she's a new addition to our group, and someone I could (maybe) see myself being friends with. The problem with this mommy group thing is that it leaves little to no room for friendships. It's all about the kids. Every mom there says that. But is it really true? I know, for sure, that I didn't join the group when my son was a spry 6 month old so that he could go romp around. No. I joined for an excuse to get out of the house and socialize with other humans who did more than just coo and poop. It's not to say that I haven't made a few friends and many acquaintances through this group. I have. In fact, I'd venture to say I'd have no friends at all if it weren't for our meet ups. I just have to wonder to myself: How many friends is enough? And what defines friend from acquaintance?

Well, I tell you, a lot determines whether you are called friend or acquaintence in my book. I'm still not quite sure I have any true friends. I do. I know. Some of you reading this may balk at what I've just written. Hear me out.

Friends, to me, are people who you can go to with your darkest secrets. You tell them everything without fear of judgment. Moms? Well there's always fear of judgment from other moms. I mean, it's the nature of the beast. When you're a mom yourself, it leaves your personal life and parenting skills open season for judgmental fodder. So can you really, truly, befriend someone who could be judging your every movement? I don't know. But I try. Why? Because I'm lonely, I guess.

I miss friendships. Those ones where you are just flat out bored so you put in a phone call for some good talkin'. I miss sleep overs most, I think. Those get togethers of yesteryear, whereby you and a few other friends get together, stay up entirely too late and can hardly fall asleep due to the amount of gabbering. Boys, gossip; everything is talked about in full circles. Over and over again. It's a smattering of girlish nonsense. And I miss it. I really miss the friends I had to partake in those sort of things with. Can we just be honest with each other? Not when there's this motherly facade to keep. It's all about saving face...not reality.

Friendships these days seem to orbit around our own family lives: talk of boys has turned to talk of husbands...gossiping is relinquished to "can you believe so and so's kid acts like that?" It's really shallow, and more so than ever, you're left wondering what the others would say about you if you weren't present. The friendships of my today are framed in and ruled by the trappings of family life. Family is front and center, and somehow that leaves friendship to the fringes of personal socialization. I'm not saying that family shouldn't be the most important thing...it should. But why is it seemingly impossible to also hold friendships that cater to my needs? I need friends. Close friends.

This little matchstick edifice of a social circle I've gotten myself into bores the shit out of me. Bores me.

So, when the 2pm-er was lingering, I was happy. I recently found out that she was a painter. Or she calls herself that. OH my brain screamed...someone that shares something with me!!! I must latch on now. Friend alert! Friend alert! I was screaming full force at myself like that robot from that show. But the latch-on-nows soon turned to DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!

As desperate as I am for friends that I can have deep conversations with (outside of the, "so...how many times does little Evie poop every day?"), I offered nearly everything up to my possible new BFF.

Does your little one like chicken nuggets? I can cook some! So I did...eventually. But only after I was backhandedly asked "So...when's Adrien going to eat lunch". Apparently I wasn't preparing said mechanically separated chicken soon enough. Oh, I thought you'd be gone by now, I don't really want to cook any, I was just being nice.

Oh it is late, I replied. I want you as a friend, but I want you to leave right now.

And I promptly shoved some in the microwave...along with some peas and carrots. At this point Camper was still lurking. Her little one is too young for chicken nuggets -- I didn't offer any. Camper and 2pm-er sat at my kitchen table feeding their little ones. As if my scones and pumpkin biscuits hadn't been enough, 2pm-er starts to rummage through my pantry and fridge. I offered some pinto beans from the night before. Not to mention the fact that you just ate 2 of the nuggets I cooked for my own son.

Do you have any cheese, asked 2pm-er.

You can have some of this...I explained. And before I could offer a sensible portion, she'd cut off a 3 inch by 3 inch chunk of cheddar and was downing that...all the while her beans were heating up in the microwave.

Then she left the ziplock of uneaten cheese on my kitchen island.

I ate beans too.

Midway through this meal, Camper said it was time to go. And that's when my load lightened...slightly. I saw Camper off, and 2pm-er was still around.

After she'd finished with her beans, she was still rummaging about my kitchen. My fucking kitchen's not your personal grocery store, get your own food, bitch. I kept my smile going. I was really fishing for some friendship here. My nerves were being tested; my hospitality over extended.

If it's something sweet you want you've already eaten a million scones, fatass I have ice cream sandwiches.

I saw those. I never keeps snacks around like you do. I have no self control.

Oh really, I thought you had boat loads of control Miss Beans and nuggets and scones and biscuits and scones and I don't drink coffee, and I don't keep snacks, blah blah blah.

Oh, I said...I like snacks.

It went on and on. 2pm-er turned from possible friend to someone to stay away from.

If you eat half of the block of cheese I have left, what would you do with my friendship? I can't have someone as a friend who will constantly take more than their share...because, you see, I'm the one who will keep giving and giving. I'm like that. I hate takers. And you, Miss 2pm-er, are a full fledged taker.

2pm-er also kept commenting on how small her house was compared to mine (I only live in 1800 square feet, it's not a mansion, or FANCY as you called it).

She reveled at how my fridge has the freezer on bottom. She'd never seen one of those before. And that must be why she took half of my cheese.

I have purportedly fancy things, as she says. I suppose she thinks I'm all up for the taking.

I'm not all up for the taking.

Why's it so fucking hard to find real friends who don't want more of you than you're willing to give who eat you out of house and home, yet don't take the coffee that you offered?

And I supposed that's the cheese analogy. If you find yourself in the same boat with someone who is more than willing to see what all they can get out of you, then get out of that boat as soon as possible: it's going down.

No one drank any of my coffee but me. It wasn't gourmet coffee. It wasn't fancy. It was just a pinnacle of social offering, and no one partook. I should keep that as rule: those who do not drink my coffee will always take half of my cheese.

Don't touch the cheese, bitch.

The people are coming, The people are coming!

I have people coming over tomorrow. Real. People.

I mean, people that I'm not all too familiar with. Our play group has these snazzy little Mini-est Member Play Dates, and tomorrow is my day to host at my home. I don't want to clean my house, but I have to. I mean, a girl can't really have people over to a dump, can she?

I want my house to smell nice and I want it to be nice in general.

But let's get this straight: I'm not cleanin' it to the bones. That will only serve to ensure that I have to tidy beyond the fullest before the next get together. And we don't want that, do we? No.

I resolve, today, to clean my home to the point of normalcy and not beyond it. I don't want these moms I barely know to think too much of me. I want them to see what I've got, not despise it, but not feel pleasant enough about the situation to want to stay all day.

At the last Mini Play date -- held at my friend Erin's home -- two of the members made it their mission to camp out all day long. They stayed from 10am to a little after 4pm...which is, in fact, ridiculous. I will have it be known that no one will be staying past 1:30pm, whereby Adrien needs his nap and Momma needs some breathin' room.

I don't have a perfect house to present. It's not decorated just so. In fact, I'd hardly count it "decorated". I have a few random things hung on the wall...a wrought iron cross on the wall in the living room, a painting done by Andi's grandmother above the mantle. I do have my mantle haphazardly decorated with various Willow Tree knick knacks and candles. But my house is not model by any means. The carpet has stains. The furniture is all hand-me-down (except our bedroom suite, which no one will see). My walls are all (for the most part, save the blue office) the same color off-white the builder slapped up on every surface. The landscaping that is out front has weeds and grass growing throughout it...but the grass is freshly cut and the sidewalk edged. My home is rough around the edges just like me: relatively new, but not all dawled up for the everyday event.

So I want to send the right message to these moms I hardly know (save one, Erin, who's a good friend): I am not perfect, my house is not either...and that's a perfectly planned affair.

I will be the happy hostess and serve pumpkin biscuits and cranberry-almond scones (yes, I'm ripping a Starbucks recipe off -- but better, of course). I'm not doing it to be June Cleaver. I'm doing it so they'll realize just how much culinary talent I have.

I want them to swoon.

And then promptly leave.