joeyfullystated

Sweet, Sweet Gossip

Posted on June 9, 2015 by joey

Yes, I can keep a secret. I’m super good at keepin secrets. No one has ever accused me of bein a blabbermouth.
On rare occasion, I realize something I’ve said was not supposed to be said and I apologize and wonder why on earth that’s a secret, but generally, I am the soul of discretion. I told you I’m a safe place to put wayward emotions.

But I love gossip.

I mean, the other day, Sammy D. wrote that she hates gossip, and I almost took away her woman card. Say what?!?
I turned to The Mister, “Gossip, love it or hate it?”
“Depends.”
“Gossip about someone you don’t like?”
“OH!” His eyes lit up as the smile spread across his face, “Yes!” He clapped his hands.
Then he was sad I didn’t have any.

I am the antithesis of those people who tell everyone everything. I mean, if I mention my heavy cramping and a desire to eat my weight in burritos to Mrs. So-and-So at 9am, by 4pm, half the people I know will know for sure that I am a woman of childbearing age, although by the time that many games of Telephone are played, I may well have had a miscarriage or an abortion or my husband has beaten the uterus out of me for cheating on him with the pretty waiter at Los Rancheros. You just never can tell.

I’m not saying it’s nice to spread gossip, and it’s definitely a virtue to stop lies, but it’s delightful to hear things through the grapevine.

Source is crucial. Gossip is best when it’s from a reliable source and has substance.

Scenario #1
I usta order soaps from a friend of a friend, and one time, the new soap didn’t smell like the old soap and I wanted her to send another soap, but all she was willing to do was refund my soap purchase. She said often times hormones make things smell different. I said my husband and kids smelled the old soap vs. the new soap and it’s not a hormone issue. Still, no new soap for me. I stopped buying her soaps.
Then about two weeks later, because of our mutual friend, I found out the soap lady was expecting.
“Whose sense of smell is outta whack?”
Mmhm, whatever, Soap Cunt.

Scenario #2
I never understood why Jane was so paranoid about her husband, Dick. Could Dick never speak to any female ever? Why so jealous, Jane? Not every woman who speaks to Dick wants him, you know. Some of us already had him…and although we still love him, we have moved on.
Over a decade passed before I found out, via Dick and Dick’s mother, that both Dick and Jane had had affairs. Of course, as soon as Dick told me about it, Jane wrote me an email in which she called me a “hone-wreaker” and threatened to expose me to my husband.

Scenario #3
Those moments when you find out certain people, who are regarded as pillars of self-proclaimed, for-the-Bible-tells-me-so morality, have in fact, been married to others previously, and are actually married to their current spouse because of an unexpected pregnancy.
But don’t marry a divorced person, don’t get a divorce, and under no circumstances should you have sex before marriage.

Hypocrisy is so delicious.

Secrets are the missing puzzle pieces. Once you hear the secrets, everything else falls into place.

Now, without a credible source, new information is just a rumor. Rumors are a lot of fun, but they’re just rumors.

My favorite rumors about myself are that I invented my husband for online purposes and he’s not real, that I’m a lesbian, and that I slept with my male EdPsych professor. (Obviously these rumors were generated and spread by different groups of people at different times.) None of these things are true, but they’re exciting, aren’t they? My Gawd, I’m a brilliant, fascinating, complicated person!

Do you love gossip? Are you the keeper of secrets? What rumors have been spread about you?

Posted in Uncategorized | 35 Comments

Word Writin, Mood Swingin Freak

Posted on June 8, 2015 by joey

The great thing about NaNoWriMo is that you just write and write and write, damn the structure, just keep writing.

The terrible thing about NaNoWriMo is that you just write and write and write, damn the structure, just keep writing.

Free-writing is good for my creativity. The imagery pours in and the words pour out, and sometimes I feel I am not really writing so much as I am channeling. That’s a high.

Free-writing is bad for my project, because I can’t find anything in the mess of words I’ve written.
Formatting, what? Why is it no tab or tab over half the page? Why?!?
Also, Fuck You Word Template! I hate you!

Yesterday, I said to my work in progress, “I’m serious! You will be organized! Your chapters will flow in chronological order and you will like it!”
My loving, supportive husband put the kettle on and brought me my glasses. He even cleaned them. I broke out my big red notebook and I opened my novel and I flipped and fiddled and wrote for several hours.

I was pleased, except, why can’t I move things around with ease? I mean, you scroll and you skim and you know it’s there, but you’re so sick of looking at it you really wanna scream.

Writers are always talking about Scrivener. As usual, I’m over here under my large rock all, “Huh? Is that like math?” But, when LindaGHill told me her novel, which I read several months ago, was written in Scrivener, well, you know how ~~I do anything she tells me to~~ she inspires me, so I got Scrivener.

And then I spent several hours trying not to break my laptop in two and slit my wrists. I swore. I read instructions that made no sense. I got a beer. I watched tutorials on YouTube. I struggled. I huffed and puffed. My eyes burned. Fury overtook me. I counted my breaths. I forgot Game of Thrones was coming on. I ignored and then yelled at everyone. Why can’t the world be quiet while I think?!? I almost died.

Then my loving, supportive husband, who watched me have at least ten meltdowns an hour, said to me, “You can do this. You do this all the time. You start something new and you figure it out.”
Contrary me said, “But this is too hard!”
“Did you ever think you’d write code?”
“Well no, and I don’t really, I dabble in it.”
“Still, you figured it out.”

AND I DID! I FIGURED IT OUT!

I have transferred my entire novel into Scrivener, and now I can easily find any chapter, any scene, any ol time I want!
Yes, it did take me about six hours.
I do not doubt those six hours will save me sixty, either.

Now I experience the cork board joy that Boyack showed me! CORK BOARD FTW! Y’all, the note cards correspond to the text and you can rearrange them in a matter of seconds! It is a dream, like dishes that put themselves away or children who follow directions!

All those scribbles in my notepad? Now on the cork board. Fleeting thoughts and jots of inspiration? Cork board. Character names and settings? Cork board.

What new thing have you learned lately? Are you a quieter, more patient learner, or do you sputter and scream like I do?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged NaNoWriMo, neurotic, The Mister, writing | 46 Comments

The Booms

Posted on June 6, 2015 by joey

Yesterday, I wrote about the noise of the groundskeepers on post, but nothing beats the din of artillery on a military base.

The good news is, compared to the mower guys, blower guys, and weed-whacker guys, artillery noise was not constant.
It only happened when we had people in the field. And it depended which part of the field they were in.
Different soldiers went different places to do different things on different days.

Yes, it was often enough to make me ill-at-ease. It probably wasn’t good for my nerves.
I am not…gun-friendly.

One morning I dropped The Mister off at work, and as I left the motorpool, some snipers appeared as if from nowhere. From a ditch to the right, they simply manifested. I was going less than 10mph, and had not seen them, but slowly, little by little, they emerged before my very eyes, standing up to cross the road before me.
Like these guys:

That was an enlightening, frightening experience. I don’t know how to quantify it, really, but it was awesome in the literal sense.

I lived half of my life a few miles from Ft. Benjamin Harrison, as I do now. I was familiar with military personnel out and about in public places, but the fort wasn’t much on booms, so all the racket from field training was new to me.

There were Bradleys.

There were M1 Abrams tanks.

And Paladins. Paladins are like tanks, but louder. Can you imagine?

I arrived at the base in June, and my husband went to the field in September. Some of those September days shook my house like an earthquake. Specifically, it sounded like men landing on the roof and rappelling down the siding. Windows rattled. Cups of coffee stirred.
As strange as it may sound, after a few days, I got accustomed to the sound of artillery. It became common and could often be ignored.
If a mortar woke me in the night, I could relax, knowing that the mortars were not incoming.

this is a mortar thingy

I could not say the same as I spoke on the telephone with The Mister during deployment. I could hear their incoming mortars, which scared me, but for him, I guess it was the norm.
So yeah, artillery in Georgia, not dangerous to Joeys. Seemingly comforting at times.

Until this one day, around noon.
I went to get my mail. Out the door, to the right, round the corner. I was about halfway home, maybe 50 feet from my door, when a new sound scared the shit out of me. The new sound was so loud and so close, I literally rushed to the ground and lay flat until it stopped. Yes, it’s true. I took cover, using my mail to protect my head.
Funniest Army Wife Ever.

I ran home, and from the corner of my eye, I could see the smoke in the field close to my home. Really close. Like, open my front door, turn right, and walk about 400ft to live small arms artillery.
I called a nearby soldier who wasn’t in the field, “What the fuck is that noise?”
“What’s it sound like?”
“Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!”
“Lemme see if I can hear it. Oh, that’s a 50 cal.”
“Well that’s too close!”
He laughed.

021108-N-4374S-063 – Central Command AOR – LCpl. Paul Rodas assigned to 22 Weapons Company, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), mans a .50 caliber machine gun as part of the security force during an exercise in the Central Command AOR. The 24th MEU is on their six-month deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
Official U.S. Navy Photograph by PH2(SW) Michael Sandberg; Fleet Combat Camera, Atlantic.
Photograph cleared for release by CDR. Jeff Alderson, COMUSNAVCENT/ 5TH Fleet PAO.

(This photo came with a caption. I think it’d be nice if all of Google had photo credits, don’t you?)

Anyway, that was the day I discovered how close I was to the field, and when I realized this would be a steady part of my life.
The rifle ranges were most active in the early hours.
Mornings began with groundskeepers and “Reveille,” followed by the song of the Dog-Faced Soldier.

Apparently my husband does not miss singing that song and wishes he’d stayed a “fancy-pants Marine.”

Almost every afternoon, Chinook helicopters flew over my yard, causing my dog to drag her bones to the door before those big, scary birds could get em. Most afternoons, still with the groundskeeper noise.
Later in the day, the cannon was fired at 5, with “Retreat.” I don’t care how many times you take visitors to see the cannon fire, it still rattles you, even when you know it’s coming!
“Taps” played at 10. I miss “Taps.” I actually miss it.

But I don’t miss the sound of artillery. Not even a little bit.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged lifestyle, The Mister | 48 Comments

I Can’t Hear Myself Hear!

Posted on June 5, 2015 by joey

Pursuant to Sammy’s complaints about the sounds of motorized lawn equipment, I thought I’d share with you the madness that was my life.

When we lived in Georgia, we rented base housing. This meant we had a small fenced-in backyard. I mean small, like a lot of people rolled out plastic grass and called it a day. We sold our lawnmower and either The Mister or Bubba used a weed-whacker on it or Housing mowed it during deployment.

There was a mulched bed in the front, where you could plant something to make your house your own. This is someone’s picture of a house that looks like our old one. We were the right side of a duplex.

That mulch bed was my small section of nature. Over the years, I planted many plants that claimed to be drought tolerant, but there were only four things that stood up to the constant heat and western sun: juniper, ground phlox, Mexican petunias, and zinnias. Fortunately, those last two brought butterflies and bumblebees.

In addition to these tiny spaces of our own, we had vast green spaces that were public. We had a lot of roundabouts and a few medians, but basically, it was newly-constructed, without shade, in the middle of a pine forest.
Sound reverb is real.

The houses were arranged in rectangles and within the block of homes, there was either a playground, or a field.
All public green spaces were tended by a variety of groundskeepers.
ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, CONSTANTLY, or so it seemed.

i don’t even know how these pictures were taken without showing groundskeepers…

We had mower guys, blower guys, and weed-whacker guys ALL THE TIME.
Add those guys to the trash and recycle collection noise, the motorcycle noise, and the ruckus of artillery. Hell, artillery is its own post. Maybe I’ll write about the booms tomorrow.

It was a loud place to live.

“That’s okay, Weed-Whacker Guy, my toddlers don’t really need a nap. I would love to listen to them fight and cry for the rest of the day.”
“Oh sure, 5am is the perfect time to blow sand to more desirable places!”
“I will never sleep-in, EVER!”
“Yes, I would love to watch television with the volume on 54!”
“I swear they just mowed this same place yesterday!”
“Hey, that’s great, they’re power-washing the house and mowing at the same time!”

And I’ll tell you what, I do believe they enjoyed making the noise. They smugly smiled, with their earplugs and their big trucks, towing their rattling equipment. Vroom, clang, clang, clang, “Here we come to wake the dead! AHAHAHA!”

Here, I hear the interstate. I’m citified, so it may as well be the sound of the ocean. So no, now that I live here in my nice, quiet, largely wooded neighborhood, I don’t get bothered when my neighbors mow. They all wait until mid-morning and they never, ever look happy to be doing it.

Have you ever lived where it’s excessively loud?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged gardening, lifestyle, The Mister | 47 Comments

On the Floor

Posted on June 4, 2015 by joey

Robin at witlessdatingafterfifty shared this lovely post today, with the prompt of “Are there any similar paths you have taken or places you have chosen to be cuddling up to your loved one? Any memories of dangerous situations which may be written without much embarrassment, to share?”
Since Robin wrote about a steamy summer night, she roused these memories from my brain, and I thank her for inspiring me to write them.

Long ago, when we were kids, The Mister’s big blue house was where I spent much time with his sister, now my sister-in-law, Drew. When we were kids, The Big Blue House wasn’t air-conditioned. It was built in the late 1800’s and it would be the late 1900’s before air-conditioning would be added.
Now, Drew loves the heat, (I dunno, I love her despite her obvious flaws) so she never struggled to sleep in her attic bedroom, which could have been heated by Hell itself for the stagnant inferno that it was. Like me, The Mister did not love heat, and many a summer night, we sneaked down to the living room and lay under the fan. We’d fall asleep there, secretly, until we heard FIL’s alarm and then I’d creep upstairs to Drew’s room, walking on the edges of the steps, the way The Mister taught me. The Mister would go to the bathroom, and my now in-laws were none the wiser.

We often wonder if they ever suspected anything, but they never seemed to.

Now, we did not, as teenagers, fool around. We just didn’t. We loved one another dearly, and were good friends, but we didn’t do anything. We wanted to at times. On my end, I’d never make the first move, and on his end, well, he is three years older than me, and even as a kid, he was made with honor and integrity.

Years passed, things changed, we came and went. We still slept on the floor a lot. Truth be known, we spent a lot of nights in beds together, too. The timing was always off. We always seemed to be involved with other people, or we were worried that we’d ruin our friendship. It was sort of our thing to stay up talking in the dark, cuddling, and even stroking one another, but he didn’t kiss me until we were adults.

September 1997
I was 23, so he would have been 27.
We still took the floor in the living room, because it was still at least ten degrees cooler than the attic.
FIL said something about appropriate behavior, but The Mister laughed and said stuff about how we’d slept together a hundred times. Parenting adults is hard.

I had been kissed plenty well and good. I was no stranger to sparks, weak knees, tingly feelings, butterflies — all that good stuff.
But I am here to tell you, that when he kissed me, I nearly burst from the inability to describe how it felt. We almost set fire to the house. If we had set fire to the house, we probably wouldn’t have stopped.

At some point, we had to stop, because intensity. Neither of us wanted to be discovered going at it. Sexing in the floor of The Big Blue House was not appropriate behavior.

The events after this remain blurry to me. He’s better with the details. I did a walk-a-thon, there was a pig roast, I think I had a date? He left roses for me at The Big Blue House.

I was me, lacking romantic notions, thinking it was good we got that out of our systems. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it.

Letters continued to be written.

Months later, around Christmas, my girlfriends accused me of being in love with him. I continued to live in denial for a really long time.

I should be clear.
I had no intention of getting involved with this gorgeous man, my friend I loved, whose body I knew intimately. I was a commitment-phobe. I was an expert at withholding. I gold-medaled in withholding. I came close a few times, but inevitably, I freaked-out and found a way to ruin any promising relationship.

Letters continued to be written.

It was obvious to everyone that we were inevitable. How long can a person be your person without your own realization of it?

It would be another year before I realized I wanted nothing more than I wanted him, and almost another year before we married. I still don’t know how this happened to me.

And that kiss on the floor…it lingers still.

I wrote about kissing two days in a row, are you completely repulsed? Have you ever read anything more disgusting? Have you ever caught fire from a kiss?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Drew, FIL, happiness, marriage, MIL, The Mister | 30 Comments

Popcorn and Kisses

Posted on June 3, 2015 by joey

The Mister said we should have date night, and I said yes we should, and so I called his parents, because they’re HIS parents, and set it up.
It did occur to me to take the children to my in-laws at o’dark-thirty, but it was noon when we gleefully departed.

We went to see Aloha.
We love movies. We don’t go to movies so much as we watch movies, but we love movies. Generally, we love the same movies, although I admit The Mister loves more movies than I do, or more movies he likes are aired with more frequency, or somethin. Gawd, how that man loves Braveheart. I think he’s watched all the action movies, all the westerns, and all the horror flicks. But before you peg him, lemme tell you he loves romances and he will watch The Notebook every single time it’s on.
“Aww, Jeez, again?!” I ask.
“What? Baby, it’s so good!”
“Yes, it’s very good, but it’s also torture. No one should watch this more than once a year, if only for the dehydration concerns,” I say.

Sure, we love some blockbusters, of course we do, but we’re also fans of less popular films, even ones that bomb at the box office. Big Fish, Enchanted April, The Way, The Astronaut’s Wife, Liberty Heights, Better Off Dead, Office Space — all movies we love despite their lowly statuses.

And Elizabethtown. Oh do we love Elizabethtown. We’ve probably watched that movie ninety-kajillion times and when we’re not watching it, seldom a day passes without listening to music from its soundtrack.

My love for Elizabethtown is large, y’all.
Big Love.

So, when the critics said Aloha was as bad as Elizabethtown, we were like, “HURRAH!” Some critics even said Aloha is Elizabethtown in another setting. Someone said Cameron Crowe can only do the same film over and over, and I was all, “Well, perhaps as much as anyone, since everyone has a style and there are only so many types of conflict…” Is Fast Times at Ridgemont High like Vanilla Sky? And then I wondered if that critic had ever taken a narrative media class, and what made him a critic…

Anyway, we liked Aloha, but it was no Elizabethtown. It was cute. Yes, the editing was abrupt, absolutely. Did it scream Cameron Crowe? Yes.
I’d watch it again. I wouldn’t buy it and watch it over and over, but it was not a bad film.

I saw it took some flak for casting Emma Stone and not a more Hawaiian looking woman, but then I thought about some of the surprising palettes of real people in my own life, and decided that was a battle with no end. A person can be one-fourth anything and look like anything but.

We were not disappointed, because sharing popcorn and kisses in the dark is always a good time.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged The Mister | 32 Comments

Love-Hate Challenge

Posted on June 2, 2015 by joey

Judy from Edwina’s Episodes nominated me to take part in the Love-Hate Challenge, 10 things I love, 10 things I hate, 10 nominees — seems simple enough. I can easily do this with random things from the last few days. I’m not really into hate, and love seems a bit extreme at times, but nonetheless…

Things I Love:

1. the way my cat pushes her face into my neck
2. cool, breezy days
3. the taste of my husband’s lips
4. the light in my living room
5. bookstores
6. sleeping late
7. Flonase
8. fountain Coke
9. the burn of a spicy sauce
10. my kids reading books I love

Things I Hate:

1. dangerous drivers
2. receipts
3. phone calls that wake me up
4. the prices at concessions stands
5. bras
6. shoes
7. junk mail
8. when my dog eats gross things
9. new freckles and moles
10. cleaning a tiled shower

Nominees:

1. Holly
2. Mark
3. Megan
4. Christina
5. Josh
6. Anxious Mom
7. Manee
8. Prajakta
9. Cheryl
10. Sammy

It was very simple, in fact!

Posted in Uncategorized | 33 Comments

For Best Results, Give

Posted on May 31, 2015 by joey

Last week, I sat down to pay some bills, and the bank was all, “Not right now, hit me up later,” or whatever. I haven’t gone back to pay them. They’re not due, and I’ll probably pay them today, or tomorrow, or maybe Tuesday…
Do you have any idea what a blessing it is to be able to pay your bills? Or to be able to pay them on time? Or to not even worry that after you pay them, you’ll be broke?
I do.
I’ve been broke plenty in my life. Most often after paying bills, but sometimes the bills were a joke, like, “Haha! Oh Hospital Bill, you’re so hysterical! Honey, Moo somehow survived after taking $35 worth of Motrin!”

There are plenty of people who struggle daily with things I don’t even think about. I like to think I think about those things more than other people think about those things, because I live in gratitude as a way of combating anxiety, and I have been without some of those things.

Money is relative. Everyone earns, saves, and spends differently, but I think we can all agree that any version of our ideal lives involves having what we need and then having a good time.
A good time is also relative, but a good time can be free or cost thousands of dollars. In fact, you can spend thousands of dollars and still have a shitty time.

I’m always telling my kids that lack of money is absolutely the best problem anyone can have. Money can’t create peace, undo betrayal, cure every illness, fix a broken relationship, mend a broken heart, or bring back the dead. You can throw money at any problem, but inevitably, money only fixes money problems.
When things go wrong, and they always do, it’s nice when they’re problems that can be solved with money.

Without money enough to buy solutions, life is desperate, and people despair accordingly. They get beaten down, worn-out, because the world says no, all the time.
No, they can’t buy a single stamp.
No, they can’t buy their kids an ice cream cone.
No, they can’t get a loan.
No, they can’t make payment arrangements at the dentist.
No, there are no second helpings.
No, there is no money for a field trip.
No, they can’t miss work when they’re sick.
No, they don’t have gloves or mittens.
No, they can’t take a job where the buses don’t run.
No, they don’t have the money for the medicine prescribed.
No, they can’t afford to run the heat.
No, they can’t afford a uniform.
No, they can’t pay a traffic ticket.
No, they don’t have a computer at home.
No, they don’t have any canned goods to donate…

Life isn’t fair in any aspect, but those problems SUCK in the land of plenty, and they do get in the way of having a good time.

So my job, as a human being who lives in abundance, is to give.
We give with kindness and compassion.
We will buy a book of stamps for the lady who only needs one and can’t afford twenty.
We will put gas in a stranger’s car.
We will never stand idly by in the check-out and watch as another human being tries to decide whether to put the juice or the paper towels back.
And I don’t mean we GoFundEveryFuckingThing. It doesn’t cost anything to hold a door, or to help push a car out of the road, to shovel a walk, or to unload someone’s groceries.

Oh we could do more, fersure.
My gramma usta say that you gotta give. What the person does with the money is between him and God, but when you give, you’re right with God.
But there are some people schemin, and I don’t trust those people hangin out with their signs in suburban shopping centers…
If my gramma was right, I hope God understands.

We were given so much when we needed help. So much. Over the years, people have sheltered us, babysat for us, fed us, paid a bill for us, helped find us jobs, helped us sell things, bought groceries for us, gave us useful things, like someone sold us a minivan for $50 — and I don’t just mean family and friends; one time, we received five-hundred anonymous dollars. Besides, I’ll never know who put the fresh loaves of bread or bags of apples in the WIC office…

I’ve long delayed writing a post on giving, for fear it would seem like bragging, so I won’t go into specifics, except to say that if you look for ways to help people, you will find it’s quite easy.

It’s even easier with strangers, because it’s indiscriminate. Sometimes humans don’t want to help others because we feel people aren’t deserving. We know what they do with their money, don’t we? But with strangers, you can give easily, because you don’t know what assholes they really are, or any of those judgmental things that keep us from helping people when we should. Even better, giving to strangers allows the advantage of avoiding that awkward tension that ekes its way in when you give to someone you know and they feel like they need to pay you back. No strings attached giving is JOYOUS.

Can you imagine your life if no one thought you ever deserved help? Can you imagine your life without any acts of kindness?

Grace is real. It cannot be bought, it can only be given.

Has being the recipient of charity ever changed your life? Do you practice Random Acts of Kindness or Pay It Forward? Do you know where your local food bank is?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged gratitude, happiness | 49 Comments

Contrary to My Desires

Posted on May 30, 2015 by joey

I thought I’d tell you the bad news first, so the good news seems even better after. That’s how I do, so let’s plunge in, shall we?

I’ve been puny this week. I got one of my infamous cold sores last weekend and the on-call doctor never called me back, so no meds for me. The pharmacist recommended some cold sore medication which worked amazingly. I’m really impressed.
I never got the fever or the deformity that comes with these sores, and for that, I am truly grateful.

Of course, I have anxiety disorder, so without fail, I spent the week worrying about and waiting for the fever and deformity to arrive.
In the meantime, I’ve had low energy, which makes me worry even more. Isn’t that fun?
Now, I didn’t sleep well all week, even though I went to bed early and even took a nap on Wednesday.

For an unknown reason, I got up at 4:40 on Thursday, then I received one of those automated calls that the bus would be 25-30 minutes late, and had 3 panic attacks before 7am.
All that left me in anxiety hangover state, which is where I lived for years and years, so I cleaned the coffee pot, dusted, swept, got laundry done, finished a book, played Mario Kart, and wrote a substantial amount before the girls came home. I’m glad I didn’t have any caffeine in the house, or I coulda easily had 3 more panic attacks by 7pm.

Being sick in any way brings me the worst bouts of anxiety. No matter how well I’ve been functioning, anxiety has a way of convincing me that my arthritis is bone cancer and my weather headache is a brain tumor.

The weather conspired with my energy levels, meaning I didn’t get to what I planned this week, which was planting Sassy’s giant cabbage, cutting back the clematis, and pruning the roses.

The Mister says I’m battling exhaustion, and thinks I’ll feel much better in the coming weeks, since school is out and I can sleep longer. I want to believe him. I’ve had fitful sleep lately, which means I wriggle out of my hairband and spend half the night killing the imaginary spiders that eat my face while I sleep.
Here I am, upon awakening, realizing there’s not a spider circus on my face and that I had every right to scratch.

But — Look at these roses! Just look at em!

I haven’t done a thing with them yet this year. (Over the winter, I toss them some compost.) When we moved in they were overgrown, without bloom, and there are hibiscus interwoven with them, so JLW told me to hack that sucker back and I did. Last year, I got maybe 20 blooms all season, and I pruned carefully. Wow have I ever been rewarded!
Rewarded for ignoring them, me thinks.

The clematis doesn’t care, either.

That giant cabbage will not plant itself, though.

Do you suspect my death is imminent? What does your anxiety lie to you about? Do spiders eat your face while you sleep? Are you impressed by my roses and clematis? Do you believe in giant cabbage?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged anxiety, anxiety disorder, gardening, JLW, nature, Sassy, sleep, The Mister | 94 Comments

Nonsense

Posted on May 29, 2015 by joey

My mother had this way of speaking with me at home:
“Guess what I drew today?”
“I don’t know, what did you drawded?”

If that hurts your ears, stop here.

We went heels after our toes and we minded our Ps and Qs and other assorted nonsense.

We had made up words, which I still use, and now my kids use, but I grew up with a lot of intentionally incorrect verbing. Over the years, all the children have added words to this extended vexing vocabulary. Manipulation of language is fun, and fun with language is my favorite!

Surely you have made up words at your house, too?

I dunno, do you actually call your remote control a remote control? We call it a clickie. All the clickies live together in the remote boat, on my table, with the keenex, yes, I mean keenex, and a basket fulla fings. But if you’re lookin for the tiny scissors, they’re in the chicken.
You’re not really a grandma unless you keep sewing stuffs in a chicken, now are you?

We love fings. Some of our favorite fings are squishy fings and comfy fings.

Maybe everything is pluralized at your house, too? Toeses, for one? Do you give glomps?

Do you have granny bowls and myow kitties? Don’t even get me started on the whatchamacallits and doohickeys.

The Mister and I walk around the house, “Dat you hairband? Dat you snotty keenex? You so gross like that?”
“Dis you tea from three days ago? So hard carry to kitchen? So heavy cup? You grow special mold in bedroom? Grow special next to open lotion? Make mold smell like nilla?”
“Why you so gross like that?”

Ells and esses are often silent here. DID YOU CATCH THAT? Haha!
So we use yipgoss, yip balm, and yiptick, and we use poons to eat ice cream, pecially Moo, who needs orange pastic poons, cause sensory issues, or we assume, as she screams at her siblings, “Stop craping your fork!”

Some words are just too long or are easier in another language.
Why say flashlight when you can say torch?
Why say you’re on your way when you can say en route?
Why type tomorrow when you can type demain?
We go out for shushi and get carry out Chinois.
We eat brunch, and also linner, but never in the same day.
Who would choose to say down-filled comforter when duvet is so easy?

My gramma always said, “Let’s get the boat on the show!”
My mother says, “Let’s shall, shall we?”
FIL says, “Get a move on!”
I say, “Allons!”
The Mister says, “Hurry the fuck up!”

Drew says the children run around all lakka lakka. And whereas you might clean a child’s pacifier because it gets a build-up of muck or gunk, she says ya gotta clean the ming-mings because mung.
I hadda have a ming-ming fairy come take away Sassy’s ming-mings. Hadda put em on the window sill so other just borned babies could have ming-mings. I never could get Sissy to put her fumb on the window sill…

We say fanks, because fanks is the sound of baby Simon sayin thanks with a ming-ming in his mouth. Sometimes we say gratzi, merci, danke, or gracias, but mostly fanks.

True and I text like this:
no one eat oatmeals in blue bowls, now always lello bowls. too big for blue bowls. not too big to sleep with glowworm.
here two packs. with stuffs and fruit on it. don’t slice my nana cause last time you slice it i throwed up. but peel my apple, cause the red poke my teeth.

Maybe your kids get diarrhea, but my kids get slidy poo and True’s kids get hot poops.

Sassy and I have entire conversations which would be hard for anyone outside the house to follow. I like that. Another generation of nonsense.
Sassy is great with language.
She can even read Moo’s mind.
I mean really, as much as I love words, they aren’t always necessary.