I found another bit of time, hiding behind the desk, near the mousetrap.
I had a birthday recently. It came and went quickly without leaving any scars and no one went to jail in the midst of it. It was just as I wanted. There were grand plans (aren’t there always grand plans) for a party themed by the musicians we know and love that have all died at the age of twenty-seven and there would even be a tattoo artist setting up shop in my dining room to ink up all my hooligan friends. Within two or three weeks of the party, I simply couldn’t fathom it occuring. I couldn’t have company over, I couldn’t prepare for people, I couldn’t make food or clear off surfaces on which to serve it, I couldn’t force myself to be excited or happy and what in the hell kind of party should be hosted by someone who can’t even muster pretend glee over her own celebration? Ew. I cancelled it.
On my actual birthday, a Monday, Josh asked that “his ladies” be ready to go by 6:30 to make a reservation for three at a teppan restaurant where we ate enough fried rice to satiate our appetites until next February. Mm.
The following weekend I was treated to drinks and loud, animated conversation with Ree and Sue at a few different bars around their neighborhood. It’d been far too long since I’d spent some time with just the girls, all acting a fool and not giving any shits about it. If this doesn’t happen with regularity, I’ll bottle up the unspent energy and end up cheering and shout-singing Journey in the office.
Twenty-seven is fitting alright. It goes to bed a little earlier, drinks a little less and quite likes wide open weekends during which there is lots of time for staying home and reading books, thank you very much.
By thirty, I intend to have mastered quilting which I’d do from a comfortable chair, wearing sensible shoes.
-CJ
The left side of this photo is my job and my chores and my bill paying and my physical activity and my caretaking of the things and people in my life that require caretaking.
The right side of this photo is my brain and my mind under the influence of untreated depression and the reactions to all of the things the one does not necessarily make public, even in their teeny, tiny, personal little world.
This metaphor only works if those two subways are going in opposite directions. I’ve never been on a subway, so let’s assume they are in direct oppositon to one another, opposite everything one thinks is right, moral and sensical. Good.
On some days, it is so overwhelmingly hard but according to some remote corner of my head, I am not allowed to give up and none of this is even enough to allow the entertainment of the thought of giving up. I fight with myself about whether or not I am allowed to cry, whether or not it all warrants such a reaction, and I will most often lose because that remote corner of my mind likes to make me feel very, very weak.
In recent months and weeks, a few things have tumbled down and shattered. I’m slowly rebuilding those things and my confidence. One night a week I’m going to another court mandated class because I just can’t keep out of trouble. Another night a week I’m in another community college course, inching a microscopic bit closer to a degree. And for two others, or as often as my schedule allows, I’m rollerskating. I have a lot to say about my still fresh experience with roller derby but it’s for a future post. I sincerely hope there are future posts. Between the things I force myself to get done in order to not be considered a failure there is little time for expelling the overflow of thoughts and mindfucks. I want to keep trying to find that time.
-CJ
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 08:45:12
From: Jill
To: Josh
I dreamt we took an elephant to Coachella…
And that you fought with my dad because, “He thinks Chelsea Handler is hot and he doesn’t like Radiohead!”
From: Josh
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2011 9:05 AM
To: Jill
Subject: RE:
That would be sweet. we could sit on top of him to see over the crowds, or we can sit under him for shade. theres lots of benefits in taking an elephant to coachella.
your dad’s a dick if he likes chelsea handler.
It was just a hiatus, turns out.
Try as I might I can’t stay away from the call of the blank page and I need as many formats as I can get, apparently, so I can:
And there’s just something so un-Wordpress about Tumblr.
In true calamity fashion, I’ve just completed a seven page paper for tomorrow night’s class. Don’t let it seem like I might even be ahead of myself. That shit would wait for tomorrow afternoon if I didn’t have to work. Just pending some printing drama and the absence of every stapler in the world, I’m exactly where I always find myself twenty-four hours before a paper or project of any magnitude is due.
I caught myself thinking it really wouldn’t matter so much if I got a C or a D in my Cultural Anthropology class, so I long as I collected another three units toward the 5482482148239712 remaining.
In two days we end the five month stay in the smallest room of my parents’ house and unload our storage unit into a sparkly new condo. To summarize what it’s been like living with seven others plus two Jack Russells, two cats, a turtle and a Beta fish, I’ll keep it light:
…in all honesty, the Beta totally didn’t deserve that.
-CJ
Filed under: Uncategorized
With my 470th post, I bid farewell. I’m not going to keep up this website anymore. I’m not as comfortable as I once was with having personal information, thickly coated in sarcasm and over dramatic though it may be, so readily available. I’m not motivated to take the content I experience everyday and put it into words for just about anyone to come across. I’m still hammering on the keys pretty consistently but keeping mum on my less than intriguing every day existence. Love to anyone who took a moment to read a sentence here or read lots of posts consistently. Many, many thanks, y’all. I’ll still be annoying as ever on Twitter, @prettylush.
An exasperated call came in last week from Kiddo’s teacher to Josh. He said she could hardly take a breath as she quickly expelled every instance of misbehavior that any child had ever pulled on her wait I mean only ours. Ms. ThirdGrade spent a solid twenty or so minutes on the adventures of having Kiddo in her classroom and then Josh repeated this by calling me to recap. I was on my way to a midterm. We aren’t surprised so much by the problems our kid faces with authority (it’s been since kindergarten) but we are struck by how bold she has become. Outright refusal – arms crossed, leaning back in her chair – ain’t gonna kind of attitude. Drawing on her desk mere seconds after being scolded about that very thing. Waiting until someone’s back is turned to run off from the bench she’s supposed to be parked on during recess. The list goes on but too deep and I lose my shit so we’ll stop there.
I arrived to my midterm flushed, blood shot and shaking. I can get as mad as I want to but when someone else is mad at my kid, well. It hurts, man.
This is going to take some research and maybe a therapist or something to get to the bottom of because Kiddo is painfully, sickeningly sweet and mild tempered at home. She listens and does what she’s told. The problem lies in us having to repeat ourselves over and over and over and over because her attention span is approximately three and three quarter seconds. (TEXTBOOK ADD, my kid.) But refusing to do something? Deliberate, stone cold defiance? I haven’t met that kid.
Daily progress reports are coming home now. When it was missing last Friday she insisted that the reports aren’t sent home on Fridays. For some absolutely ridiculous reason, we believed her. Come Monday afternoon, the Friday report is in her folder with a note or two about “refusing to listen to directions” and “did not turn in homework.” But Friday leads to Saturday and Sunday and do you even know how much bike riding there is to be done on those days? She’s crafty and I know she didn’t bring that paper home for a reason.
School kid and home kid are two different sets of practices and behaviors.
I asked Josh when he thinks one is going to catch up to the other. I think that’s when we’ll be in for it.
In four months, she’ll be nine. In seven years, I’ll be locked away in a padded room. Will you come visit? Bring mojitos?
-CJ
The other day at the office I was doing my civic feminist duty by listening to the Bitch Radio podcast when one of the gals mentioned her personal favorite podcast, How Was Your Week with Julie Klausner. She raved a bit and moved on but I wrote down the title for investigation later. Having since investigated three or four episodes, it’s new my favorite thing. I want to hang out with Julie in a snack nest for a weekend.
I should write a post where I recap everything I’ve called “my new favorite” since I started writing here. I could even go back further to my now defunct and almost embarrassingly bad blog and pull from there too. I use “favorite” all too often. I swear I have some solid, unchanging favorite things. That might be another post in a world where I write steadily.
So, a flash mob happened. And the video will not embed itself lovingly into this post under any circumstances so here’s the link: http://youtu.be/vrrmeECJzoo
As a political statement a group of dancers to an unknowing audience isn’t the strongest move but the Courage Campaign got a lot of exposure and it was a really fucking cool thing to see up close. I was involved to the extent of holding half of a sign with a stranger that said, “YOU CAN’T PRAY THE GAY AWAY,” and waving a purple piece of fabric in the back row at the end. It wasn’t exactly volunteer work in the name of equality but I’m thrilled to have been there, goosebumps prickling up my arms, tears welling in my eyes, watching so many people of so many ages and backgrounds come together and do something wildly fun and bold to make a point.
-CJ
Filed under: just sayin'
If you’re going to give me this many choices, why don’t you just ship my order to Captain Beatrix Von Beaverhausen III?
Reverend Pretty Kitty Von WhiskerTickles, MD?
Lieutenant Glittercrotch of the First Battalion Transvestite Brigade?
Rabbi Moses “Mo’ Dollaz” Mortensen?
For the first week anyway, third grade is looking better than second. I hope second grade goes down as the hard year (what with the almost total lack of shit-giving when it came to homework and not goofing off in class) and it’s all pencil shavings and stickers from here on out.
Pencil shavings and stickers being good things. Simple. Requiring little to no parent/teacher conferencing that begins with the teacher sighing heavily at you.
A week or so ago, Josh encouraged Kiddo to take her bike down the cul-de-sac and make conversation with some kids around her age that had been playing. It was an un-Kiddo-like thing to do. She is independent, maybe a little awkward and not comfortable in social settings. She would certainly not be the type to initiate conversation with a group of a strange kids, I thought.
And yet all week she has been with this little clique of local boys and girls keeping her outside, pedaling around the block, streamers flying. There’s a quota for hours spent outside and scabs earned on knees and elbows before one can act all grown up and ask for a Facebook account or a cell phone. I’m glad she racking up those hours. I might be more excited than she is that she finds herself with all these new friends instead of clinging closely to only one, as she’s done previously. And they’re all so damn sweet. I don’t say this of many kids. More often I speak fondly of wanting to elbow drop on other peoples’ kids.
On the first day of school Kiddo made a friend that showed her the ropes of the morning daycare place and the short ride to the school and where to go and when, etc. A little elementary tour guide. I asked her to tell me about her.
“She has yellow hair and she wears pink everyday.”
“But you’ve never seen her before today.”
“I know.”
Good point.
-CJ
new supplies and new shoes and a new style to rock at the new daycare and the new school
I can’t get over this picture. It halts me in the middle of whatever I’m doing at work as the background on my desktop.
-CJ
