lonely tonight

That sensation that you are lonely when you're not actually alone really sucks.

In a sense, I am alone tonight.  Kidlet has been in bed since 8:30 - and Hubby has been snoring on the couch since 9:15. 

But it's Friday night!  I worked my ass off this week - it was crazy stressful and, while I am emotionally and mentally fried, I'm not physically tired.  It bugs me that I'm alone.  I don't begrudge Hubby his sleep - he works out so damn much I'm amazed he's ever awake - and my kid NEEDS to be sleeping.  But if I'm the only one awake, why am I sitting here watching "House Hunters" feeling antsy and fidgety when I probably could be out having a glass of wine with a girlfriend?  Because I feel guilty?  Because every time I go out, there is some sort of drama or mess I have to clean up afterwards?  Who the hell knows.  Maybe I need to stop feeling sorry for myself.  I am such a self-indulgent dork sometimes.

In other news - I have turned the heel on my sock and am working on the foot.  HOORAY!  I was thinking about THE SOCK today on my way home from work (again with the dorkiness) and I realized that, while I seem to have been working on the damn thing FOREVER, after all my stops and starts, it's only been a couple of months.  Considering I definitely do not work on it every night, and didn't even turn the heel until after our vacation 2 weeks ago - not too shabby.  I hope to finish it soon.  But whether or not I'll make the mate - who knows?  One of my knitting friends said that the 2 socks at one thing isn't too hard - but this is my first sock!!  So I told Kidlet that I'd make him a pair to go wih his tie-dyed socks as his "wierd socks" for school - at least his socks will be a little smaller.  Plus, they won't be tall socks like this one is. 

I have been listening to music like a crazy person recently - I always do but I have a huge Excel mess I have to work on at work right now, and I'm really NOT supposed to be interrupted (or get distracted), so I've been plugging my iPod all day.  One of the artists I'm really enjoying right now is Damien Rice.  The piano in his songs is beautiful and his lyrics are phenomenal.

I wish I could write lyrics like this - I could never come with the music behind it, I don't think, but I could play it.  I miss music.  How the hell does an old, tired, 36 year old mother reconnect with that 14 year old who couldn't practice her flute enough, and wanted to learn other instruments?  I miss that immensely - I started learning piano when I got pregnant, but there just aren't enough hours in the day.  See above - I can't even get myself enough time to exercise regularly or knit a freakin' sock - let alone play piano.  Maybe I'll come back as a musician in my next life.

One of the songs I really like, for reasons I can't even begin to think about, let alone explain at this time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELTVP4aqWAI

Another amazing one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ1_RhaJznc

And if you're pissed - this is a good one.  LOL.  It came on at quite the appropriate time at work today, and saved my incompetent co-worker from losing a limb - or his life.  Obviously, this song is certainly not about some jackass who can't figure out that when someone emails you for a status on an outstanding issue, they don't want you to tell them it's outstanding (REALLY???) - it's about hurting and ending - but nevertheless, the force of his f-bombs is quite fabulous for any sort of angst or frustration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rndltmm3oE

lines can't cross

We all end in the same place
Where that is I do not know
But there it is
Vaguely looming
And life
Life is the journey
That takes us to that - the end.

How we get there
The paths we travel
The intersections we stumble upon
Or seek
The turns we take or avoid
Make us who we are

On those paths
Or on their parallels
Journey the people
In and out of our lives
We grab hands and walk together
Or shove them out
To another path, away from us.

The unknown is
How and when and why
They share a path or two
With us

Sometimes, they don't
The paths are alongside each other
But you can't quite share
The road

Their presence
Who they are
What they could mean to you
Are a mystery

Will they share that road with you
In that journey that is life?
Maybe
Maybe they can
Maybe they want to but won't choose
That sunny path

Will we meet them
Again
Or once
Before the end?

--------

Thanks to my son for bringing home a classic graph theory puzzle - one I knew the answer to and amazingly was right on - considering it's been 15 years since I took that class! - for inspiring yet another shitty Andrea poem.  :-)

post-vacation backlash and other crap

Hubby, G and I just spent a week in Virginia Beach - this I would recommend as a decent family vacation, especially if you are willing to make the 50 minute run up to Williamsburg a few times.  It was hot as haedes but we had a good time - less the bickering that my two boys did whenever they attempted to play cards or swim together amicably (NOT happening).

Unfortunately, despite only returning on Saturday, it feels like I never left.  Maybe it was the 553 unread emails waiting for me on Monday morning.  Maybe it was the intervention I had to make with Problem Child at work at 9:45am on Monday when he decided sending an email to a client asking him "who are you, do you really work with us?" because he doesn't know how to perform a wildcard search (how the hell did he become a Business Analyst?!?!?) was appropriate.  Maybe it's the never-ever-ending family bullshit and drama. 

In any event, vacation feels a million years ago and, frankly, I'd like my next vacation to be me.  ALONE.  QUIET.  With lots of booze and books and my sock - which is NEARLY DONE!!!

So back to reality I am for now.  Our new pool is in - with a slightly split liner - oh boy.  Thankfully it's under warantee!!  Work is work, and I am back to walking for exercise for the moment.  That is, if the damn weather will cooperate!  Today there was a tornado - or at least a funnel cloud - spotted within 1 mile of my work.  It took me 1/2 hour to get out of the town, and just over an hour to get home.  Of course...I was nearly out of gas...my cell phone was beeping red because it had no charge....oh my....

Needless to say, I am eagerly anticipating a boring, low-key, average day.  Somehow I suspect that these ARE my average days now.

And while I'm bitching...I am so sick of having IBS.  I have moments where it is a non-issue but the summer seems to make it, well, worse.  Without any disgusting details, suffice it to say that while I love the fresh local fruits and veggies of the season...sometimes they hate me.

CURSES to my dad and his genetics for this blessed affliction.  UGH!!!!!!

Ok, enough of my bitching for the evening.  For now.  ;-)

not again - and some shitty poetry

Please excuse my sorry excuses for poetry.  I have been very turned inside myself again lately and that crap just comes out - it's really just for myself but if it turns out to touch a nerve in someone else then - hey, that's a complete bonus.

I say not again because I had another one of those "my baby is simply NOT a baby" moments again today.  It was during a totally benign and somewhat annoying situation.

My sister and I and my mom had plans today to go shopping for bridesmaids dresses - sis's wedding is now just 4 months away and with the shortness of her engagement combined with the chaos of her finishing her residency, taking her boards, moving, and starting her fellowship, that task has sort of fallen by the wayside.

I got up this morning hung over like nobody's business, which was my own damn stupid fault because in an impromptu visit to the neighbor's house last night, my neighbor and I polished off 2 bottles (gahhhhh) of wine.  LOL.  OOPS.

Needless to say I was attempting to wake up and rid myself of said hangover so as to be a productive participant in this shopping excursion when Hubby got home from D&D and said "I have a migraine - I'm sorry, I have to go to bed."  I knew what this meant - I now had the pleasure of taking myt son with me on the trip (because it was 10 minutes before I had to leave and both sets of neighbors, who would normallhy have taken him, were leaving on trips...).  Hung over.  Oh boy.

I told G and he was not exactly thrilled until I told him he could bring 2 books and his DS.  Magic words.  ;-)

We got to the first place and he was not a happy camper until he found a nice little spot to sit underneath a collection of knee-length dresses.  He was so damn cute, reading under there and flirting with the girls as they checked out the dresses, often surprising them with his presence and always flirting.  SO CUTE!

We wound up going to a second (larger) store and overall the entire excursion, plus lunch, took about 4 hours.  As I was driving us home, it dawned on me.

In those 4 hours, I really only had to speak to him once, towards the end, at lunch, when he laid down in the booth.  Considering he had been the benefactor of my wine-induced stupidity and got to hang with his "girls" until MIDNIGHT, he was tired - so he wasn't really being bad.

I was in awe.  Here I had tortured him because, let's face it, I'm not a huge fan of bridesmaid dress shopping, but he's 8 - this was torture for him!!  Yet he had been poised, mature, and had listened and been respectful.

My kid.  Not my baby.  Not my little boy.  My kid - who still struggles to behave at times but who, I must admit AND remember, has come a long way.

He's up to my armpit and sports a whole front mouthful of permanent teeth.  He's going into 3rd grade and just about polished off his "expected minimum" reading amount for the summer.

Damn.  How the hell did I become the mom of a kid?!?!?!

Mirrored Perfection

Set a good example
Do the right thing
Good grades
Straight lines
Perfect girl

Lose yourself
In everyone's expectations
Who are you?
Do you even know?

Time marches on
Seasons change and pass
You wake up one day
And the person in the mirror
Is that really who you've become?

Inside yourself
You're someone else
Not so far from that perfect girl
But still flawed, confused
Not perfect - not at all

But all those years
All that time
The perfection has been expected
Rewarded - it's who you seem to be

If you know you're not
Where does that put you?
That reflection
It's the person you've become
Not who you are.

How do you reconcile
The difference between you
and the mirror you?
Do you?
Do you succumb
Or is who you've made yourself
Who you really are?

What happens when pieces of you
Are so far from perfection
They remind you that you are just
You

Life crisis
Or revelation and clarity
What you do
How you approach and embrace it
It's what determines
Who you will be
What you will become.

I'd rather not know

You told me
For reasons I don't understand
Probably to heal your own ache
And now I know

It's right there
Staring me in the face
Challenging me
And calling into question
All that I am, all that I will be.

I'd like to say
I'd rather not know
That in my ignorance
I was blissful or content

The problem is
There is no reality to that
For there is some power
Some comfort
Some peace
In knowing

At the time time
I know
I can never not know again
It's right there
It taunts me and teases me
And makes me wonder
And question my own life
My own decisions.

What has it done for you?
Is there clarity?
Did you trade my confusion, pain and, yes, happiness
For some sense of peace.

I wish I didn't know
And yet
Now that I do know.
I can't imagine not knowing.

So here I sit.
And what I do with this information.
All this time.
I still don't know.