better late than never

God, I miss this blog sometimes.  I think about it and tell myself, just post something.  Just do it.  Who cares if months have gone by, if you’ve forgotten how to write anymore, if you have nothing to say.  If you miss it, do it.  But I get scared and embarassed and lazy and put things off and more time goes by and the burden of not-writing gets heavier and heavier and I push it off to the side, where it gets covered with dust, and my analogy got really messed up there.  Suffice to say, I miss my blog, I miss my little piece of the internet, I miss my own words.

Oddly enough, I am back because we are getting kicked out of yet another apartment.  Like once wasn’t enough, yet again we are being removed for no reason.  There’s not even an excuse this time, like the loudness last time.  Now it’s just this sudden “you have a month to be out” – no explanation, just an argument between our landlord’s evil mother and my husband (one-sided – hers) and some unfixed windows and now we’re out of another home.  We’re going to end up living with my parents.  I feel like an utter, complete failure and keep tearing up, because I’m 29, I have a six and a half year old son, I am almost done with my bachelor’s degree, I have a steady job, my husband is almost 30, and we’re still doing this shit, we’re still having to take over excess parental bedrooms and …. I just can’t handle it.  I mean, yes, there is the plus of being able to save money and buy a  house, finally, and never deal with asshole landlords again.  My mom and I can take yoga together again.  My son gets to see a LOT more of his grandparents and auntie.  There will be a dog and a yard and a pool and space for much more garden.  But the failure is always looming there.  The wost is E’s extreme guilt because he can’t work, he’s applying for disability (and rightly so, I’ve been trying to get him to do so for  years now)  – but he feels like he is The Worst Husband and Father Ever.  Despite the fact that he is 100% doing the right thing.  Despite the fact that he is an amazing husband and father.

We came back from our Grizzly Bear and beer filled weekend in NYC to the landlord fight phone call, so at least we had this last nice rosy weekend.  New York is amazing.  And we both got new tattoos.  I now have a pink cartoon octopus named Emile on my left wrist, which is so utterly awesome.  I couldn’t be more thrilled with him, and he makes me smile every time I look at my arm.  This is the best time for smiley cartoon creatures, because he is talking me down off the ledge with his cute eyes.

Anyway…. I should be in bed.  It’s so late.  I had to write something, though, I feel so scattered and squished and weird and hollow and full and all these odd, disjointed things at once.   I feel slightly better now, though.  More smoothed out, less rough-edged, less on the verge of tears and more like I can sleep.  Hopefully.  Last night I lay awake thinking of Things To Say to Our Useless Asshole Landlord and couldn’t sleep because I was so enraged.  I did yoga tonight, though Rainbeau Mars is not as good as my new favorite Kabbalah Yoga.  I feel not so blissed out, but I will stare hard at my octo-wrist and drink some milk now, then get to bed.  Husband is there and warm and I will tuck my hands around his thighs to help me sleep, and another day is gone and hopefully tomorrow will bring something really awesome.

Stuck inside myself

I don’t know what’s wrong with me – I had fully planned to participate in NaBloPoMo, and I managed all 30 days last year, and yet every time I thought about it this year, I freaked out a little bit and invented an excuse to not post.  Or just pretended that I’d forgotten I signed up or that I even had a blog.  I have no real excuse, actually.  But I do have things I wanted to write, and blog avoidance is keeping me from writing them down (using the internet to help me organize my thoughts).  So I have to just get over myself and clickety-clack away, or else I’ll never work through my stuff.  Maybe part of my problem is that my blog is a little like therapy, and therapy involves looking closer at the deep dark stuff inside myself that I really prefer not to look at most of the time.  Not that things are terrible (read: last year this same time, when life totally sucked).  Things are actually pretty good, I’m happy; I just dyed my hair red and cut myself cute sideswept bangs and I’m whittling away at those college credits, about to do the credit for lifelong learning thing which should shave 21 more credits off and get me that much closer that much faster… 

But my weight is, to be punny, a weight upon myself.  Still.  I haven’t managed to drop anything beyond the 25 or so pounds I lost almost a year ago.  I can feel that I’m stronger and more flexible, I can do things I couldn’t do a year or two ago (like a successful, if very short, crow pose, which I was incredibly proud of).  My waist curves inward ridiculously, very hourglassy, and would be utterly sexy if I didn’t have a big ol’ Buddha belly still hanging off the front, and I have these great big biceps which you can’t actually see because they are buried under a layer of chub.  I know that I want to lose weight for all the right reasons, I know that it’s not that I think weight loss will make me happier or something unrealistic like that.  I am happy, and I’ve been thin, and I was in one of my most depressed phases when I was thin.  But I know that losing weight will make me more confident, will help me feel better about myself, will open up a whole wealth of clothing opportunities that are closed to me now.  Even when I was all weepy and mopey and thin, I knew I looked hot and I dressed to accentuate that, and I had major body confidence because of that.  Now, I just can’t feel that same way – I’m cute, but I’m fat.  I have a great new hairdo, but I have chins.  I can’t separate the two things – the way I look has to do with the way I look, and my face and my body can’t be split apart, my chub and my muscles are both in the same package as my eyes and my chins, or my (niceish) boobs and my big butt.

The truth is, I have been lazy.  I have backslid.  And yet, in some ways, I haven’t.  I stopped walking every lunch, but I do yoga every day.  Or else I don’t, I skip a few days because life is so busy, and then I feel so guilty.  I eat healthy meals, but Halloween candy and I were far too intimate.  And last night I ate a pint of ice cream.  But in general I am still on track, I am still doing the right things – just not enough of them.  It’s so freaking hard and I get so down on myself, and then I remind myself that I really have made those lifestyle changes you’re “supposed to” make, I just need to make more of them, which sucks because I am happy with my lifestyle right now.  It’s so confusing, because I want to accept HAES and remind myself that my weight doesn’t define me and do right by myself and all the body acceptance blogs I read… but I also want to wear a cute dress sometimes and feel awesome about it, not all self-conscious about fat folds or how huge my calves look without jeans over them. 

So I had expected to feel somehow refreshed after writing all this – like I’d conquered something in myself, the block to the writing or the weight loss block, or the part of me that hates the way I look sometimes.  But, honestly, I feel just as confused as I did when I started.   Just as unsure and tangled up and wishing someone would hand me Jillian Michaels on a platter and just force me to change my body, instead of leaving it up to me.

the power of positive thinking

Today I found myself lecturing E about how “we make our own happiness” and “you are so much better than you think you are” and “you are selling yourself short, you can’t succeed if you don’t believe in yourself”.  It was pretty sickening and cliche, and yet, I realized that I believe all these things.  They are all true, and we create our own happiness, and we own our own lives.  It was weird.  I’ve spent so many years thinking about how if only life had been handed to me on a silver platter, if only my parents were rich, if only this and that had happened…  and suddenly I am grown-up enough to realize that life is what we make it, that how you look at things is so much more than half the battle, that all the positive thinking crap my mom fed to me for so  many years really is true?  Wow.  I was pretty impressed with myself.

I signed up for NaBloPoMo today, and I’m scared.  I’m out of practice.  I feel like I should have a cache of posts stored up, like a squirrel with a shitload of nuts, because I’ve been out of the game for so long – but i don’t.  My mind is not working right.  I had a few weeks of being pretty depressed last month (yeah, there goes the “positive thinking” shit right there) and coming out of it now, I still feel a little fragile, a little nervous, a little more on the edge of tears.  I’m vulnerable and I don’t want to just go bleeding that all over the place, letting all that stuff out and emo’ing up the internet.  I think November will involve a lot of recipes, since I have been healthy cooking girl lately and I’ve got some things to share with the internet – healthy food that doesn’t taste ass or involve seaweed! (more on the seaweed thing later, my kitchen is currently full of weird foods no one will eat).

Ummm… I just lost my train of thought.  There was stuff to say in this paragraph, but it’s lost now.  See what I mean about brains and the atrophy of?  I … shit, that sentence is gone, now, too.  Wow.  This blogging thing is harder than I remember.

Phoning it in**

Ring, ring, ring…

“Hello?”
”Oh, hai, it’s the internets.  Where are you?  Are you dead?”
”Well, no, if I were dead, I couldn’t answer the phone.  I’m just lazy.”
”LAZY???  Too lazy to type some WORDS once in a while?”
”Ummm…. yeah?  I mean, it’s hard work, with the fingers on the keys and all that…”

“Oh, shut up.  No one even reads your blog anymore, and you had a whole TWO readers before.  Now it’s just like a tiny black hole on the internet.  You should be ashamed of yourself.  At least write something for your own enjoyment.”
”Okay, okay, how about I write about this conversation?”

“Fine.  But I expect to see some real writing up here tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir!” (saluting)

 

Sorry, internet, I have been ignoring your calls, sending them right to voicemail.  But I will start answering them, even if you are only calling to yell at me or sell me Cialis.  Next month is NaBloPoMo and I need to get my fingers back in shape, because I will do it again this year.  So there will be real words tomorrow.  Also, I have some recipes I want to share, because they are awesome.  Stay tuned – tomorrow, same bat time*, same bat channel!

 

*Tomorrow is Saturday.  No way will I be posting at 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday.  The bat time will actually be totally different, but don’t tell anyone, okay?  Because that ruins the whole Batman quote if it’s a different bat time.  Thanks..

**Yes, everyone has a post titled this.  I think I  already have a post with this title.  So sue me, my brain is atrophied from not writing for so long.

Scatterbrained

I keep opening “new post” and staring at it and closing it.  Le sigh.  You’d think that blogging wouldn’t be an activity fraught with dramtic sighing and hand-wringing over what to write.  I mean, I could probably post my grocery list (TP, unbleached white flour, yogurt, coffee, skim milk, ground beef… so far, if you’re interested).  At least then I’d be filling the page.  But to save the internet from boredom, let’s do some relevant and topical listing!!

1. I sort of want to write about the presedential race but I also don’t because 1) I am just not educated enough about the candidates to really get up good arguments, 2) I am not down withe either major party and so, since I am probably going to vote 3rd party again, I think my opinion is pretty biased, 3) I don’t want to get into any kind of brouhaha (not likely, but also not a can of worms I want to open).  So, basically, go Nader?  Maybe?  Or go McKinney?  I don’t know yet, but I’m much more likely to vote for one of those two than Obama or McCain.

2. Right now I’m reading two very different books.  Well, one I’m listening to from this awesome downloadable audiobook website that my library subscribes to, so I”m not really reading it, I’m listening to it.  Anyway, that one is Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, and it is phenomenal – the woman reading it, first of all, is just fantastic.  She does all these different voices without sounding fake or forced, and she reads beautifully – I’ve had some that really took away from the book due to throat clearing noises, bad awkward pauses, men’s voices that sounded like children with head colds.  The story itself is great, too (so far).  It’s weird; because I know I started the book a while ago, when it was newer, and because it is so freaking long I ended up having to return it to the library before I was done (or got distracted and never picked it up again, which happens to me a lot, too); and hearing it again is kind of like rereading and kind of like hearing something totally different.  I like it, though, and I recommend it.

The second book I’m reading is Karma Girl, by Jennifer Estep – opposite end of the spectrum, this one is chick lit, only it’s about superheroes!!  How fucking cool is that?  There are tights and capes and all of that, but with the fun snarky 20-something chick lit thing going on.  I am having so much fun with it.  She is pretty hilarious about the whole putting on a mask and being unrecognizable thing, and she has some great superheroes, too (a purse-snatcher avenging Grandma hero, for one).  So go read that, too, if it sounds like your kind of thing.  Or not – I mean, you can always expand your horizons, right?

3. Musically, I just (as in about 30 minutes ago) downloaded some stuff from Angus and Julia Stone, which I found in the roundabout way of going from Mighty Girl to her linked blog for today, Loobylu (one of those blogs I sigh over when I’m in my covetous crafty moods), and which I am really enjoying (his voice more than hers).  Thanks for the music, internet!!  I’ve also had the new(ish) Mountain Goats album on repeat, we all know I love, love, love him; and Grizzly Bear, who I love so much I spent the weekend after we saw their show talking about them and only listening to them and repeating how they were so cute I just wanted to put them in my pocket and carry them around with me.  Seriously, watch this and don’t just fall in love with them.  (Also listen to “While You Wait For The Others” from this page, because it is gorgeous.)

Also this, which is so adorable because you can tell they put on their dress-up shirts to go on the TV, how can you not love a band that does that?

And also they are so. fucking. awesome.  Mind-blowingly so.

4.  Did I mention that I Love Money is NOT GOING TO BE ON THIS SUNDAY???  That’s a crime against humanity and E and I have been fretting about it all week.  Cry for us.  Email VH1 to complain.  Start a revolution!!!

5.  I have been exploring the internet today like a crazy woman and have found approx. 8000 new blogs to read, which is great except that on Monday it will make me cry when I am at work and supposed to be, I don’t know, working and I won’t be able to because of all the blogs I’ll need to stay up-to-date with.  I’m already behind, actually.  I should be in google reader right now, keeping up.

6.  I am sewing myself a tote bag from old T-shirts and I vow to knit something that is not a scarf this fall/winter.   I will also figure out how to make my camera hook up to the computer and put up some pictures of my crafty stuff, along with the world’s best video ever that E took of W.  It will rock your socks.  Which reminds me- which is more horrible to say: “rock out with your cock out” or “raw-dogging it”?  Because I’m curious, that’s all.

Thought Process During Savasana

Okay, finally, Denise shut up. Sometimes I want to slap her smiling face. No offense, Denise. Not that you can hear me, this is my own head. Ugh, Denise. Her eyes really freak me out, I’m glad my eyes are closed. Why would someone with such huge eyes wear so much eyeliner? It just draws attention to the fact that she’s some sort of weird praying mantis. Like Callan Pinckney (aside, not thought while meditating: watch the preview, it shows her crazy self in action). Why are exercise ladies so insect-like? Ew, is there a mosquito on my arm? No, that’s just sweat. And you shouldn’t have just wiped that sweat off, you’re supposed to be lying still. Let’s try this again… breathe in, breathe out, focus on… nothing. How the hell do you focus on nothing? You have to think about something, I gues unless you’re asleep, in which case it’s different. Though dreams must be thinking, right? Shut up, self. We’ll do the Ujjayi breath thing instead, focus on that…. cool, the ocean, think about the ocean, that works…. footprints in the sand, waves wash them away…. this totally better not turn into a porno thing, self. That would be really unmeditation-y. Probably thinking about not thinking about porn is defeating the purpose here. Okay, waves, we can get back to waves, ocean… my lips feel weird when I breathe like this. And if I close my throat up too much, that feels weird, too. Maybe no more Ujjayi breath, just go back to ocean, no porn, no reprimanding yourself for even considering thinking porn-y thoughts. Just ocean, waves… oh, shit, this is so not working. I think I’ll go blog about my lack of serenity instead.

All Zen and Shit

I try hard not to stress out, to sweat the small stuff, to get overwhelmed.  I’m not very good at it, but I try, because stress sucks – it sucks out your energy, makes you feel awful, research shows it’s bad for this that and the other part of your body – and because, when you are married to a bipolar person, that person stresses enough for both of you.  And for your whole neighborhood, too.

Case in point – last weekend, we went on a work-sponsored (read: free!) whale watch in Boston.  (Which, BTW, if you ever go on a whale watch – and you should, they are awesome, whales are huge and cool and “oh hai, I’m a WHALE, I’m like TEN FEET FROM YOUR BOAT, just swimming upside down, seagulls are sitting on my head, DOODS.” – if you do go on a whale watch, bring cash, because the snack bar will serve beer and will not take debit cards and the one Heineken that someone gives you will make you wish you had the $5 to go purchase something more beerily to your liking.  Also, sit outside, where your stomach feels more settled, but not in the back, where it smells like diesel (only in the back will be where the party people are at, yo.  There was a group of annoying people smoking joints at the back of our whale watch.  If you can handle the annoying factor and you are down with getting high on a whale watch, the back could be the place for you, diesel smell or not). 

Okay, so, anyway, whale watch, husband, stress.  So we’re driving to work, where we will board the bus to be whisked away to Boston, and E is freaking out about how we’re going to be late, and the bus will leave without us, or maybe it will be leaving and then will have to turn around for us and everyone will glare at us dolefully for holding them up, and if we miss the bus it will be the end of the world and we will never ever get to go to Boston again, so if we don’t drive 90 miles an hour we might as well just drive right off the bridge because how will we live if we are late to the bus?  Etc. etc. (another aside here – when I was in junior high/high school, I kept journals, and when I wrote the word “etcetera”, which I’m not sure why I did, it’s not a very diary-y sort of word, is it?, I would write “ect”.  When E helped me clean out my room before we moved in together, he found and read those and was horrified by my improper abbreviation of “etcetera” and still teases me sometimes about it.  It’s my secret (not anymore!) shame.)

Whew, the asides are starting to take over, huh?  So he’s stressing out, and I’m all zen “oh, don’t worry, if we miss the bus, we’ll just go do something else, no big deal”.  I was so impressed with myself and my calmness – hey, self, pat on the back, the yoga breathing and the meditation you keep vaguely attempting and all that cognitive behavioral therapy are actually working!!  But then, we got ice cream in Boston and the guy messed up my order and the ice cream fell off my cone and I turned into a raving, near-tears lunatic and yelled at E for not making it better and then we ignored each other the whole drive home, and when I fell asleep he let me snore and drool in front of my coworkers (hopefully no one was looking at me or listening to me).  And then I realized that all this trying to not stress out isn’t working, because it’s the little stuff that bugs me out and sends me over the edge.  I can deal with missed buses to work trips, I can manage to stretch the groceries another few days when there’s no money, I can usually figure that things will start looking up and not worry about having no money… but if my coffee spills on me or some guy sends packing peanuts in his damn box even though the paperwork clearly says “no packing peanuts”, or someone says something to me in the wrong tone of voice; that’s when I start freaking out and have to go hide and do my alternate nostril breathing and take some Rescue Remedy.  And sometimes I just turn into a raving bitch anyway, and snap at people and think unkind things about them and just generally lurk in my cubicle, hating the world.  I was sitting in that sort of morass of meanness the other day and realized, all zen-like again, that hey, the person I’m really affecting with all this nasty feeling is ME.  And so it would benefit me to stop hating everyone and lurking and sulking and being all toad-like.  So, internets, as of right now, before you and you and you, I am deciding to stop being so hateful.  To be more zen and to let little shit roll off my back.  To stop thinking awful things about people, especially, because feeling all superior, or at least feeling all nasty, is just fucking draining, and I really need that energy for other stuff.  Like… I don’t know, naps?

Sweating to the Perkies

I have to admit this: I own two Denise Austin yoga videos.   I pop up from my sun salutations to see her vaguely frightening grin and her really frightening HUGE over eyelined eyes, and every time she says “Let me see that smiling face!” only I’m never smiling, because this shit is hard, bitch, stop smiling and close your eyes or something, because you’re freaking me out.  But I also love her a little bit – I love all those videos with the really peppy! happy! bouncy! trainers, even though I’m not a particularly peppy, happy, bouncy person myself a lot of the time.  Especially if I’m contorting myself into weird yoga positions and sweating all over my mat or trying to walk in place in the middle of my living room at 10:00 p.m.

I also have to admit: I am so tired of this exercise, eat right, nothing happens bullshit.  I am trying, I really am, and are the pounds just melting away?  Oh, hells, no.  They are sticking stubbornly to where they’ve been stuck for a long time now, and they seem pretty freaking happy there, with no plans to move on to someone else who needs them more than me.  It. Is. So. Frustrating.  And it’s not like I’m asking to lose 50 pounds in a week or anything ridiculous, I just want a pound or two a week.  Nothing big, just something simple and small.  And nada.  It’s not like it’s not there to lose, because it is, as you can see by my arms in this picture.  URGH.  It’s enough to make me give up again (because I did for a while there, I will also admit that while I’m admitting stuff).  I keep reminding myself that if I quit, though, all these hours of terrible living room floor torment will be for naught.  And all this lifting weights or walking in place or downward dogging or whatever, it’s with purpose, and I need to remember that it has made a difference and will do so again, eventually, if I preserve.  This is so unlike me, though, the persevering.  Usually I’m a give up if it’s hard kind of girl.  Someone who, if life gives her lemons, sends them back to be made into lemonade and brought out to her on a silver tray by someone else.  I am not a perserverer.  So I am fucking proud of myself for this.  Also for being almost done with school FINALLY, PRAISE JEBUS.  I should graduate in May, and if you are thinking party, think kegger.  It’s going to be amazing, 10 years later, to finally graduate from college.  I think that makes me a real grown-up now, right?

Cable- I has it!

I am becoming one of those people who schedules her life around her TV shows.  I mean, it started off innocently, because how can you not be watching I Love Money?  Wait… you’re not?  Go, go watch it now.  It’s the ultimate culmination of all reality TV.  Seriously.  There’s no pretend “oh, I’m in love” bullshit - they are there for money and 15 minutes of fame and to show off their taut, interchangeable bodies (seriously, if you can tell the 5 blond chicks or the 5 beefy white dudes apart, you win a prize.  E and I are always confused and spend forever discussing which one that actually was who just did/said that thing that was hilarious)  There are hats – maybe not Flavor of Love horned hats, but lots of hats!  And also ridiculous nonsensical competitions and lots of Intrigue! and Deception! and the word “Alliance”!  And they are all really not very smart, so it’s even more hilarious.  Oh, god, I wish it was on RIGHT NOW.

Anyway, so E and I watch I Love Money every Sunday evening at 9:00 and then discuss I Love Money and its awesomeness for a while, and are sure to be home for it to come on.  We have even kicked people out of the house because “Our show?  It comes on at 9:00.  You have to leave now.”  But then, I realized (this is where you once again see my total blondeness coming out, and yes, it is real blonde, this proves it) that Project Runway, which I love, is on TV and since I have a TV, and it has cable on it, I can watch Project Runway!  It was like a brick fell from the sky and hit me on the head – I was sitting here feeling sad that I can’t watch Project Runway, and then I realized that I could!  Because the TV?  It has Project Runway ON IT!  So now on Wednesdays at 9:00 I need to be home. 

Only this week, we have a “band night” at work, because when you work in the music industry, everyone is in a band or wants to be in a band or used to be in a band or with the band.  Or else, like me, you think “cocktail hour?  free dinner?  FISH?  I am so there!”.  Either way, band night is on Wednesday, and that causes a dilemma, because I want free drinks with the fishes, but I also need to watch my show (go back and read that with a sort of old person voice, because that is how I just typed it).  I told E that I had to make sure I left band night at 8:30 so as not to miss Project Runway, because I need to hear Suede refer to himself in the third person (I totally think he’s going to win because he is gay-ish and has a shtick, and those are the dudes who always win.  Plus he’s really, really good, though the 50s chick whose name I forget is my favorite) and he told me that I am dork and that they re-run it all the time.  But what if I can’t figure out when the reruns are?  Or if they’re all on while I’m at work?  I mean, I could stay home from work, but that would show a serious problem, calling in sick to watch a TV show.  Then there would have to be an intervention.  I think I just have to leave band night early, unless I am too drunk to drive, in which case I am using that as an excuse to jump in the sea lion tank, or maybe the beluga tank.  Because I want to kiss one of those suckers.

My couch! It’s exciting!

It is 11:30 at night, and I am awake, and I am feeling guilty.  I’m awake partly because I love nighttime and wish I could stay up til 1 or 2 every night and then sleep til 10, and partly because I decided that if I had to do the dishes, goshdarnit, I would also make zucchini bread, so I felt doubly productive!  Despite the fact that the dishes take 15 minutes and zucchini bread takes an hour to bake, this made sense to me.  After all, it’s summer, and of course we turn on our ovens at 11 pm and make our tiny kitchens into slightly larger-than-oven-sized ovens.  Though, if it comes out as planned, this should be the Be-All, End-All of zucchini breads.  I just have a feeling.  So there’s that, and there’s the guilt, which is because I know I have to work in the morning and I hate waking up even after 10 hours of sleep, so after 6 (which is what it will be post-zucchini), I’ll feel super cranky.  And I don’t even have Starbucks money, because I treated myself to an exorbitantly expensive grande iced mocha this afternoon and now have $1 to my name for coffee funds.  My stupid debit card still wasn’t mailed to me, after 3 bank visits to mention how it was supposed to be here, oh, IN JUNE.  Anyway, the most guilt is because my brother-in-law is sleeping on our couch – or he would be, if I wasn’t in here baking and doing laundry (productive!!) and typing.  Right now he is sleeping on the floor of my bedroom, and my husband is sleeping in the bed, because they were in there watching TV (the A/C is in there) and both fell asleep during whatever Real! Life! Danger! the Discovery Channel is currently broadcasting (crabs or oil or cops or something, they eat that shit up).

Now, my brother-in-law (who I will refer to after this as BIL, like they do on message boards), is not some 40 year old dude who is crashing on our couch post marital breakup or something.  He’s 15, which makes him about 11ty billion years younger than my husband.  But he has spent 5 nights a week on our couch (which, by the way, I have a good story about.  And which is also a really nice red.) is that my husband, who is a dear, sweet man in his own way, though if you meet him you would wonder how I live with him (and vice versa, I am awful to live with, too)…. This sentence is getting too long.  So my husband got this photography job (yay!) and despite a history of getting these jobs that sound fabulous, where he is told that he will be making more money than god, etc. and then ending up working in a hellhole making less money than this guy, he decided to try again.  So, since the job was supposed to be So Good, he got my sister and his brother both jobs there.  But his brother lives in the woods about an hour and a half from us, so his mother drives him here for 5 days, picks him up for the weekend, then drives him back here after the weekend.  So there is a teenager on our couch.  This is weird because a lot of times I feel like I’m a teenager,  and I end up being unsure whether to be mom-ish with him to make up for feeling like I’m his age, or to just act like myself and end up looking desperate and unhip.  I usually go for unhip because not being myself is just too much work.

Sooo… I had a point to all this.  There was something earlier about how I wanted to post about my garden and I was like “nah, how much does the internet need to hear about my garden?” and then I realized – this was a real “ah-ha!” moment for me – that all those posts I wrote about my garden?  I wrote them in my head.  They never went on the internet. The internet probably has no freaking CLUE that I even HAVE a garden. Then I felt stupid for thinking the internet could read my mind.