September 29 2009 packing day

He goes away and
I stay to wait
and we are getting better at
our brief times apart
but only in theory
in practice
it
sucks


________
My daughter's science photo for the day, auto

September 28 2009 school

Found it!
A way to get pumpkin number one to do her school work without me standing over her shoulder.
She even said she liked it!
and there were glaciers
and finger paints
and violin practice
and trail mix
and she still has plenty to do tomorrow

September 27 2009 clean

moved about a million things around
and
I call that clean
maybe one day
I'll get past organization and
actually clean something

September 26 2009 show

We went downtown to where his pieces were on display
and walked by all the cars that were on display
I'm selling my car
and the other car
(and throwing a third in with the first)
and I think I am going to buy that car that was in the show today

oh

it will be the oldest yet
1949
I'm going to buy it.
mine

September 25 2009 nada friday

I didn't take a picture
I didn't turn on the computer
I didn't do something every day

I still think I am a firm believer that time off is more important than time on
It's a writer's input time

I definitely put in my time on friday
Just not here
and not for this
and not for you

everything is not about you

September 24 2009 day

Today
lazy day
wore my new shirt today
something about my new shirt
I'm a dork

new levels of dorkness achieved every day

September 23 2009 education

She read the story
instead of telling me one
and that was the success of the day

After so many days on the task
so many weeks
she read the story

September 22 2009 spoons

Tomorrow the artist is offering up his work to the god of sales
Let's hope all goes well

My contribution: Finding spoons.

September 21 2009 free

Today was the one day I spend finding
things for free across the country
to teach with
or to make stuff from
or to ease my life--like shelving--
it's my version of shopping.

I don't buy stuff.
I get everything I need via some other method.

Well

Sometimes I buy stuff.
Because sometimes

a) stuff isn't free
b) stuff is worth it. Like art.



Also, I hope my tomatoes don't freeze.

September 20 2009 sick

September 19 2009 tea

September 18 2009 scream

It's that day
that day where you don't want to tick me off
say
kick me out of my library room because you are twenty-five minutes late to an event you didn't post a reservation for on the door of said room
when I only ask for five more minutes
Not cool.

I'm likely to get myself my own personal post on
passiveaggressivenotes.com
of course
I'm going to call first, and talk to public relations

don't offer a public space that you remove from public access without notice
It's discourteous
and barging in because someone else made a mistake in my favor and expecting me to move
Not cool.

September 17 2009 nothing to say

what then
do I do with the moments I have left in a minute where I've used more than half being unhappy or displeased or angry
where I finish crying and there's this moment where there is not what made me over-react nor is there anything that makes me act rational, just this in-between non-experiential moment
what do I do with those
as I sit and realize that I'm done with what I had been doing but moving on doesn't give the former the credence it deserved

I chant a bit of mantra where I say
"I love you
and I love that you are strong-willed
despite what I just said
and I love that you are strong-willed enough
to put up with me"

though all that comes out is
"I love you"

September 16 2009 made of time

wrote some today, an episode that happened a while ago and has been stewing for some time

enjoyed my first day of "living with a closet." It's been quite some time since I've had a real closet
This one is the best
the most functional
the most comfortable
and it was finished yesterday by my resident fixer-upper, via my design and about a million friends' opinions swept in

Since march I've been closetless
Today it took me about two minutes from "decide to dress" to "dressed"

totally awesome.

September 15 2009 remembering

No one will remember why I keep the things I keep
because I don't tell their stories
so their stories aren't shared
and the reason they're valuable to me
is not a reason any could figure
so I thought a bit of a photo album of where and who loved the things I have before I had them
because that's why I have them in the first place
history

September 14 2009 at the park

happy mommy day to me! went to the park. bummer they haven't repaired the ropes I complained about months ago and they'd said they'd fixed. here's the pic I'm sending them tomorrow so they can actually fix it.

September 13 2009 fancy

in one moment,
one small moment
I became a mother

Gold necklace from my grandmother on my mom's side
Butterfly from her great-grandmother on her dad's mom's side
Fingernail polish from nowhere in particular
A flower from last year's birthday
And a dress from mom

She is made of everything that was before her
and she is unique because she is the only one like her.


__________

photo cropped from auto+flash

September 12 2009 Katydid

September 11 2009 sober

I was asked tonight
if I ever got tired of being the only sober one in the group
and I had to answer
that all I had to do was look around to remember I was totally and completely happy to still be sober
drunken lectures
conversations in worlds I don't care about
in words I don't care to hear
and with words they don't hear at all

And all I want to do is enjoy myself, even if the company is alternately planar to myself

I find myself in company that I don't fit with often
I've written of this before, in previous years
It's a common theme
but for the most part there really is no company I fit with
never has been

It's all I can do to enjoy what I can
because it's all in my own attitude towards it all.

No, I will never get tired of being the only sober one.
I thank my stars that I have always been that way.

September 10 2009 Finding

My literal piles, as opposed to the figurative ones I mentioned the other day,
have been moved and sorted again. In the process
I found several bits of my jewelry.
I have very little jewelry
--and furthermore never wear any, even a wedding ring--
so it was quite a surprise to find them in the pile.
My bracelet from my sister
A hat pin from my grandmother-in-law's inheritance
A butterfly hair clip from Greece as a gift from that same grandmother-in-law
--one of the first things that ever made me feel like she accepted me in the family--
And here they are again in the same location and
later tonight I will put them in the box with the other jewelry I never wear
which I save
even though I do not expect I will ever grow into a fancy stage
a dress-up stage
and my children will find it in a box as my heirlooms and wonder what it was all about.
Maybe I should write a story about each piece
because I wouldn't keep them if they didn't have a story
so that when they find them
they will be as valuable to them as they are to me.
Maybe.

September 09, 2009 It was

Swift and true flew my lesson today
addressing the most basic of issues without so much as a hint that she might be learning something

The knitting needed cut down to size, by half in fact,
and the scones from yesterday were free

The jokes were funny
the mail line was long
--twice--
and the shirt made me seven minutes late

and it was just a day
like any other day

September 8 2009 friends

It's a relationship that includes a fair amount of exchange

like zippers and a car seat and a repaired sweater

for a broken lamp that works and some fresh eggs and one of the twins to hold

or lessons for lessons, which isn't as equal as it sounds but we make it work

or coffee for company

which is how most relationships seem to go

coffee for company

but I like a piece of the London bridge in exchange for being on call to help, as much as I can be anyway.

It seems to work out in both our favors to give as well as recieve.

September 07 2009 undone

everything in my life is in flux
in between later and now is a pile that needs to be done and by the time I get there
by that time there will be another pile because all they do is shift
shape shift
category shift
purpose shift

it's not that there's a lot around that I don't need
it's that there's not enough around of what I do need
and to construct what I need takes time
and my time is perpetually split

so all I can accomplish is moving stuff from one pile into another with some things
sifted
out and placed where they belong

...and that's just my novel.

September 06 2009 Sit

Hey everybody,

some days I get left
just sitting around, being around,
then everyone walks away one by one until I'm all alone
and stuck, usually, stuck watching my own kids and sometimes theirs too,
while everyone is off being social with the adults.

I'm never quite sure where the line between being a mom and being a babysitter gets crossed,
but I thinks it's somewhere perpendicular to
when others prioritize their being an adult with their fancy adult choices
over the result of a previous fancy adult choice that results in perpetual responsibility
how do I get to be the pendulum and when do I get my turn at being an adult?

Why does my personal fancy adult choice of
not choosing what those other fancy adults do
make me the one stuck in a seat by myself all alone ensuring the welfare of children?

Should I enumerate the times I was stuck alone tonight? Waiting? Stuck, unable to walk away and inspect the reason for my isolation, to find a way into the "adult crowd"?

signed,
doomed to always sit at the big-kid table, watching from a distance of age over a bunch of little kids

September 05 2009 a toss-up day

Arose to scout for missing personal belonging lost by the side of the road two hours away
Found said item
Dropped by to enter an alert on the delivery of second lost personal belonging to an empty building
And found someone there
Missed lunch with friends
But they were open for the afternoon so we went over anyway
Expected the arrival of long-time-no-see friends
Which ended up being unexpected until midnight so we stayed put
Played a game I tend to play hit-or-miss
And I won one game outright and nearly another, on purpose

September 04 2009 Expect

to sleep, perchance to dream
but all the dreams were militant and bitter like the last words spoken before bed in a state of mind that precludes the rule of not going to bed angry
and all the bitterness awoke in the darkness with a head full of clouds and a struggle for sleep
immunities start weak, especially against militant words
and waking with the sun is too soon or too late because you can't take anything back

tiny bits of pharmaceuticals and herbs as a combat aid
programmed chemicals against the ones you didn't expect
there are no drugs for the dreams I had last night
or the dreams you had
where we tore each other limb from limb in bitter hatred
no bitter bit of chemical to wash down with water

nothing to ward off what can't be explained

September 3 2009 And then there were peaches

The sun rose and waved at the earth in shades of yellow and shades of grey
The sun rose and colored the earth in skies of tarnished gold
The sun rose and warmed the earth with shadows and yellow spots
The sun rose and baked the earth and dried the tongue
The sun rose and teased the skin that walked below with dark stings and sharp reflections

and there were peaches and the peaches were unwanted except by me so I took them

and the sun set the rest of the day

September 02 2009 Offspring

being that intelligent life begets intelligent life
--or so I would like to think, as such implies I am intelligent life
based on the idea I have been given intelligent life to foster--
being that
I think there is a level at which I think I am outranked by the subsequent generation of intelligent life.

Who else will make me lunch?
or wear a fancy dress up costume all day instead of clothes
and wander around correcting my poor arithemetic skills
and in a sweet, innocent, condescending way assure me that said skills can be improved upon with practice?
Who else requires their speech to be translated via assembling bits of alphabet
thus creating an environment in which they cannot be brushed off?
(spelling as a fishhook for mother's attention)

Who else can define infinity so succinctly before they even have an opportunity to use it against you?

September 01 2009 I have rested

I have rested my mind and my responsibilities.
I have given my thoughts to other endeavors, and friendships.
I have accomplished, and traveled, and wandered.
I have contemplated and discussed and left thoughts by the way-side.

I have rested, and I have remembered.

I have been frayed.
I have been together.

I have been missing. I have lost my mind.
I have recovered. I have rested. I have asked for help.

I have looked ahead. I have looked behind. I have looked upon places I have never imagined.
I have heard, and I have played.

I have today, and tomorrow. I have many days I have not expected to have.
I have not generally expected to have much of anything.

I have wondered.
I have been happy.

_______________________________________
Photo: portrait, no flash, macro