Tuesday, May 20, 2008

heredity

It's late right now, too late for me to be writing. (I'm old now, and I need to be asleep before 10.) In any case, I've been thinking a lot about my parents, my biological mom and my dad. I always say that I am like my dad--we lose things, forget things, get angry and impulsive and put our feet in our respective mouths. I can't say I am like my mom because she is dead but the rumors of her extreme temper and her inability to handle stress...that I can relate to. When I think about my parents, a sense of dread comes over me. I think about all of the awful things that I don't want to be and how those things are lying in wait to take over my body and make me do things I don't want to do. Like make selfish decisions or close myself off or die at age 36 and not be there for my children at all. I love my dad, but I hate the way I was raised and I hate that he won't acknowledge all of the bad things and try to change them so he doesn't make the same mistakes with my little brother and sister. I find myself thinking only negative things about him and fearful that I will make these same mistakes. This isn't nice of me, but I don't know what else to do. I'm always on the defensive, trying to protect what I have as though someone is out there trying to take it away from me. I think about my own kids and hope they never feel this way about me, that when they think about me, it won't be with a mixture of dread and stress and sadness and anger. This is how I know existentialism isn't true, not purely. Because it is impossible to cut those ties, to not feel, no matter how much we wish we could.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

can't think...too tired

My life right now is grading papers with the occasional episode of American Idol tossed in. And that's what I think explains this: last night I dreamt I was a singing instructor at a community college, and David Archuletta was in my class. After class, he asked me to listen to his audition for our college production of Cats, and while he sang, I smiled to myself, savoring the sweet tenor of his voice, taking notes of constructive criticism. He looked at me and smiled, and I noticed that he had catlike theatrical makeup around his eyes. All of a sudden, a baby started crying. I realized it was my baby. I woke up.

You see? You see how crazy I am?

David, please don't ever say "boo" again. It hurt my soul.

Monday, May 05, 2008

armoire

Last night, Ryan and Michael tried to shove an armoire up our stupidly narrow, low-ceilinged old stairwell. I left them alone for awhile only to return and find them stuck on the stairs, sweating, straining, and asking for help. I dropped the kids off next door and we spent another twenty minutes trying jam that thing around the corner. I could not accept that it wouldn't fit. I'm still having a hard time with it. When it was all over, we had knocked a hole in the ceiling all the way down to the beam and pulled a stair completely off. Did we stop at this point? No. I got a hammer and I tried to make more room on the ceiling so that we could slip the armoire around the corner. I know it was stupid. But it was a crime of passion, passion for this armoire. In the end, Michael and Ryan had to haul the thing back down, and with each step, I feared for both of their lives. No one died, thankfully. Did I stop there? No. I tried to take the armoire apart by removing about 15 screws from it. Did this work? No. So I tried to saw the feet off of it. Did this work? Well, let's just say the bastard is sitting in our living room right now. In the end, I accepted defeat. And nailed my stair back down. I'm looking forward to spackling the ceiling this weekend. Next time, I guess I'll use my measuring tape.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

pastimes

Ben enjoys using my name like punctuation in his sentences. And these are run on sentences, with lots of commas and semicolons and dashes. It is to the point where I no longer respond because he isn't really asking me anything. He just wants to say my name again and again. Sometimes I say, "What?" And he pauses and looks at me thoughtfully and says, "Mommy." And I sigh and try to avoid cutting one of my fingers off because he won't stop saying my name.

Elliott can say daddy, mommy, kitty, and--oddly--monkey now. But only when he feels like it. He'd much prefer tearing up paper into shreds or opening up photos of himself on the computer and saving them as the desktop background. Really.

Friday, May 02, 2008