Random thoughts

These things catch my eye from the side and I turn, always turn, to see the toddler in a stroller smiling and grabbing at things, or the infant laid back half sleeping in a hand carried package.

In Barnes and Noble today, at my corner a metal edge that might have been a satchel of child somehow but proved only to be a hand-pulled cart;
Let the babies go, I told myself. They aren't going to be yours. You haven't led the kind of life that leads to babies.


Tonight I realized my there is such a thing as too much ice cream, two nights of little sleep with a concert in between knocks me flat on my ass, and I don't want the bed all to myself anymore.

Happy Vacuum Day to me

I wasn't sure what you get when you think you are thirty-four, but find out you are still thirty-two, and your birthday comes along. Apparently in this situation, you get thirty-three with the sensation of receiving the life-long gift of two retroactive years. So I am officially thirty-three years old as of 5:35PM today, but feel like I'm thirty-five and getting away with the mother of all youth-fountain tricks. Ponce de Leon, take that!!

What I firmly believe is that March 2006 through late December 2006 was so harrowingly stressful and full of depression and warped changes I emotionally aged two years. At some point during those nine roller coaster months, I began to mentally feel two years older.


I've never had as much fun in a doctor's office (umm, never had fun in a doctor's office ever) like I had this morning with Boyfriend. Needing someone to drive him, he let me be the one. Granted, up until we heard his doctor yell in reference to the facility that still hadn't sent over Boyfriend's MRI results, "I want to talk to their manager! They (meaning us) have been in there (the exam room) since eight o' clock this morning!" -
up until this point there were times we thought me might die forgotten in there and at one point I got slaphappy (neither of us slept well the night before) and started to laugh the kind of laughter that always leads Boyfriend to say, "Will you stop that? You're freaking me out!" (only today he let me go :)
...that kind of laughter that comes for no reason obvious to the non-laughing, but goes on and on and on... . the kind I love to laugh and will lead myself back into if it starts to go away, simply because it's free laughter and feels glue-sniffing good :)

-and at one point I said, "Why don't I take my pants off or give you a blow job because then someone will definitely come in - you never get away with those kinds of things!"

-and at one point we thought about playing darts with the used syringes from the Sharps container on the wall, but neither of us wanted to be the dartboard first.

Several times he apologized for making me sit in a doctor's office on my birthday, and thanked me more often for taking him; but frankly, I had a very good time.

All day I had a very good time.

Thank you Boyfriend; for all you do for me and with me every single day, for loving me so much and so well and wanting my love so much in return, for loving to get my massages because I truly love to give them, for wanting to talk to me and to hear from me each morning and night, for the hugs and the kisses and the snuggles and almost seven months of better life and fabulous days since the moment we met.

I love you ;)

joining the village

It struck me oddly to hear myself calling teenagers 'kids'.
It struck me very strangely when traditional college students became 'kids' to me.

Now when I look at children the residual trauma at the hands of my classmates is gone, and I see small people who will one day be adult men and women, people who need structure and great role models now so they can be their best and their strongest all life long.

And I find myself stepping out instinctually to guide and protect, to stop rolling balls, to keep them from traffic, to save them from waves or other strangers if need be.

We've all heard, "It takes a village to raise a child." Most of us have heard that doesn't happen any more. But I think it does. Maybe not as overtly with neighbor women calling mothers and hanging out the window, but I know I'm not the only non-parent watching out for the younger ones.

Born Again

Sometimes all I need to remember who I am and to get my head screwed back straight is to be beaten by the ocean for a while and watch my sweatpants float around my legs.

Today was one of those days when my head turned my world inside out and by 7PM I was certain Boyfriend and I were doomed to ruin one another's life, and I wanted the world and every stranger in it to go away. Not knowing what awaited me but certain the fix was lying in wait, I headed to the inlet- my old haven where down among the rocks and wave-bathing barnacles I could be a mermaid in paradise and solitude, just another piece of the sea.
I climbed out once last year but my 30-ish self was unsure and afraid of climbing. Tonight though, the fearless climber was back. So, however, was everyone else- and more graffiti than ever; and a teenaged couple making out in the daylight. The castle had been over-run.
Having climbed back to the surf line I stomped through the sand knowing I'll never return to Maine and leave my family behind again, but wishing and dreaming my self the Hell out of here all the same- houses on my left, people talking behind, and no where truly to run and hide.
Shortly I sunk my hind end into the sand and my back followed quickly, arms crossed beneath my head. If there's one thing I excel at, it's getting sand into every crevice even when fully clothed on a windless day. An ex, and later friend, of mine was convinced my body made sand. He'd find the stuff left behind in his sheets when I hadn't been near the beach for days.
This water has its way and the pools of gathering high tide collecting between rocks lured me out-I didn't mind my tushie getting wet if I sat to dangle my feet, but wouldn't it be more fun to stand in the water pits, and Remember when I used to jump in on a whim fully clothed?- Ah, now where might this be headed?
I grew up at the sea, and I know with my ears when to get away from an incoming wave, and I know how to turn my body to minimize the knock and the splash- and I know damn well how to get soaking wet only in up to my knees.
I could feel the smile on my face, and in my head, walking back to the car, sopping sweat pants sliding down my ass, sand gold and black stuck to my feet and calves.
And then the voicemail came from Boyfriend who hurt his knee playing softball and was in the ER, "Don't panic."-
and all that mattered was that he was okay, and I am so glad to be his Woman, and I can not wait to go spoil him on Thursday- the visit I almost canceled earlier, so blindly certain I was becoming his ball and chain.
Over my bed is a greeting card I bought myself, and framed and matted, of a young girl leaving her roof in flight, jacketed arms outstretched, to join the birds. I stuck a seagull feather under the nail in the wall, and every so often I look at her and quietly fly away myself.