Just wanted to remind you all that I am still a mother. Those two heart breakers above would be the proof, along with the growing crop of grays at my temples and the bags beneath my eyes. They are 13, approaching 14 months, and yeah. Big. Beautiful. New and wondrous every day. Magic in their own right.
What the hell do kids this age eat? Anyone? I mean besides Cheerios. My kids eat anything and everything, it’s not that, it’s just that I’m in a rut, and I don’t know how small I have to cut their food up anymore. I read other parents do crazy things like give their toddlers a whole strawberry. Madness. Mine get strawberries cut into Cheerio sized pieces. It’s time consuming as hell, and plus I just don’t want to be one of those parents cutting their son’s chicken fingers up for them when they’re in high school, you know? I’m kidding. My kids don’t eat chicken fingers. Unless they’re pureed.
We do give them whatever we eat ourselves, aside from things with nuts or sesame seeds because I don’t know, everybody says if you feed a child a peanut before they’re 23 years old they’ll turn to stone. Or something incredibly scary like that. Yes, allergies. My understanding is that all the research on allergies now says that waiting to introduce foods doesn’t do shit. I find more and more I don’t trust a damned thing doctors tell us to do, but I’m not paranoid. Much.
On the fanfic all I can tell you is I didn’t finish it on 2/26, like I promised. I did hit the 50,000 word mark by then, but it wasn’t done. I finished it, or so I thought, last week at around 80,000 words, but then the ending wasn’t quite right, so I had to go add another chapter. Now I’m doing a once-through read, and then I think it may find a home somewhere in Twilblog world. I am not going to post the damned thing to fanfic.net because for some reason they just don’t like pr0n there anymore, and my fanfic has some parts to it that are for 18+ eyes and sensibilities. Really, it’s written for that intensely interesting class of Twilight fans who are women over 30, of which I am a member.
Did I tell you that I am a Twilight fan? It’s their fault. I don’t know how this could be, because the writing is fucking horrible, I’m sorry. The stories are fairly lame as well. And you know what? The characters can suck it, as well, with the exception of Edward Cullen, who is largely written like a tool, but who has so much potential you could write about him forever and ever and ever. Poor Robert Pattinson. He’ll never be rid of the Edward Cullen aura. Cedric who?
On the new Eclipse trailer, I don’t want to be a wench, but I am really sort of dreading the movie. That’s because a) the book was fucking horrible and b) the trailer points to the fact that 1. the book is lame as shit and 2. there is far, far too much murmuring by the characters. Watch that trailer and all you can think is, what the hell is wrong with Edward and Jacob? These guys fucking murmur every line in the damned movie trailer, and I sure as shit hope they don’t murmur their asses all the way through Eclipse.
Damn you straight to hell, Stephenie Meyer.
We played another show at Maxwell’s in Hoboken (Jersey for those of you who aren’t from around here) and it kicked ass. I’m not saying we kicked ass, but I am saying it kicked ass. It was really great to be on the Maxwell’s stage again. First time in 8 years ftw. I don’t know what any of it means in terms of some kind of musical future, only that the future looms large and we’re stepping forward into it.
Other things in life are really ass kicking these days. I’ll talk more about that later. Trust me, you can wait.
My birthday is Sunday. If anyone would like to send me large sums of cash, now is as good a time as any.
So, I would have a lot to tell you about what’s been going on since the boys turned 1, but that would require that I actually be somewhat coherent and observant and present in my own life, and that’s just not been the case.
Since January 26, four days after their birthday, I’ve been obsessively writing something that was starting out as a silly story about a certain teen saga, and it has sort of turned into a novel in progress. And now I am really mad at myself that I didn’t just write an all original novel with all original characters that I can sell and instead had to borrow some heavily used and abused characters from someone who, let’s face it, can’t even fucking write. Lesson learned.
This thing has a drop dead date. I’m going to have a first draft done by 2/26 and I’m not going to dedicate the time to do a rewrite. I can’t allow it. Instead I’m allowing myself to make the story go from one end to the other just to prove to myself I can actually write a novel.
I have always, forever and ever, wanted to write a novel. I knew that I could write. Not just blog posts, song lyrics, progress notes or training curriculum, either. I can actually write fiction. I am no literary marvel (that would be Mr. Myg/Wisermom/aka Alex). But I can put words together in a way that might interest you and motivate you to keep reading. I just haven’t done it in a very long time.
Writing this thing (oh Jesus, let’s just call it what it is already, a fucking fan fic) is embarrassing in its all encompassing hold on my attention. My poor children. I am near them when I am with them, but all the while my mind is working on this scene or that plot detail or this exchange. If I was writing something not a fucking fan fic, this might seem not so bad, like, I was really absorbed in the creation of something worthwhile. As it is, it feels a lot like sneaking twinkies into your lunch bag, eating them at your desk with the door closed, hoping nobody comes in to chat.
It would make no difference if I wasn’t busy, you see. But I. Am. So. Fucking. Busy. I have two babies. I have a job with work that has to get done. I am training to become faculty at University of Phoenix. I have a show to play on March 5th. And yet, my mind is always, always working on this fucking thing.
Such it is when you’re damned with obsessive/compulsive traits. So pass the crack pipe. It’s no sleep until 2/26.
No, that is not a euphemism for anything scandalous, get your mind out of the sewer.
On the occasion of my breakfast and my need to add protein to my diet, I offer the following recipe for perfect hard boiled eggs, not over cooked and no icky green/grey tint around the yolk.
Put your eggs in a saucepan and cover with 2 inches of cold water.
Bring them to a boil over medium heat.
When the water begins to boil, remove from heat, cover and let stand 20 minutes.
Rinse under cold water until cool, then peel.
For tips on peeling, I refer you to Tim Ferriss. The only superhero that I currently know of.
I’d like to tell you that Tim Ferriss and I go way back, but we don’t. In fact, we don’t know each other at all. But he did go to Princeton, and I live near Princeton, and I was the first person I know who bought and read the Four Hour Work Week, and even though I haven’t put any of it into practice I believe it’s brilliant and do-able if you’re, say, not me (read: not befuddled and disorganized and, um, lazy).
And the guy has interesting ideas about egg blowing, don’t you think? Get your mind out of the sewer.
Today you’ve officially ended your first turn around the sun. Good for you! That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Every time I think of you two being “one” and your time on this rock measured in the length of years, I just choke up. I know deep down that the next twelve years will sneak by me as fast as the last twelve months did and all I’ll be able to say is, well, heck. That was fast, wasn’t it?
I wonder sometimes how it all looks from your perspective, this being born thing, this growing up business. For months you were tucked safely away inside me, then one day, BLAM! You were thrust into the blaring light of day amidst screaming and crying and adoration and elation. And then swept up in this constant rhythm of doing, first breathing, eating, pooing, sleeping, crying then cooing, smiling, laughing, rolling over, holding your bottle, sitting up, and then babbling, crawling, eating finger foods, standing, using a cup, climbing, talking. It’s all happened so fast, it seems to me. But probably not to you. Nor will the next 12 years. They’ll feel like a lifetime to you and you will do so much in those years. And it will be a breath, a blink, to me.
Guys, I really don’t even know what I’m trying to say here. All I know is that last night, nearly all day yesterday, I cried at the thought of this day. I know, I know, you’re probably wondering what’s wrong with your mother, and I don’t have a simple answer for that. Everyone tells me it’s normal for mothers to cry when their babies have a birthday. I guess it’s just part of being a mom.
I want you to know that the tears don’t mean anything bad, though. Nothing is wrong. Everything, in fact, is just as it ought to be. You’re here. We all survived the first year of your twindom, and I’m sorry but there were days during those first months of your life when I just didn’t know how we were going to make it. But we did, and here you are – growing, doing, becoming the people you were born to be, right in front of my very eyes. At least, when I can get the tears out of them I can see that. And that is as it should be. I wouldn’t, couldn’t ask for anything else.
Except maybe this.
As you continue to grow and explore this crazy rock on which we dwell, never forget that no matter what you do or who you become, I love you. You won’t always be my babies. In fact, you’re almost not that now. But you will always be the center of my everything, my hope for humanity projected forward into time.
This is likely my last pregnancy entry, as I’m going to be induced in a couple of hours.
I am feeling quite an eclectic mix of things right now. Scared, yeah. Excited too. Like I’m about to walk off a cliff, too.
I’m not focused on the pain as much as the unknowns. I know it will hurt. I have no idea how much or how I’ll tolerate it. Hopefully I’ll tolerate it just fine with a few pharmaceuticals.
My biggest fear is how the boys are doing and how’ they’ll do during the process. I pray that they tolerate it well and that their bodies are developed enough to have a good start to life.
I am very excited hold them in my arms.
I am a little sad that this very, very sacred time of carrying life inside me is coming to a close now.
I’m having one of those, Wait a minute, what the fuck? Kind of evenings. Because I’ve gotten myself totally obsessed over a story. Just a story. A teen love story, no less. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It involves the Pacific northwest, vampires, high schoolers and a pack of indigenous wolves. You know the one, right?
I went with my friends from over at Twitarded to see New Moon today. LOVED. IT. More than I dared to hope I would, after reading it. And yeah, sheesh, there are some moments in that movie where an extremely well built underaged male is running around shirtless and I had to shake off the awkward, all the while, JJ (aka @JennyJerkface) is sitting to my right half muttering, half chanting “He’s not 18, he’s not 18, he’s not 18!” We snickered, and I remembered neither am I, not by a long shot.
I don’t care, really, about all the feminist controversy surrounding Twilight™ etc. Maybe I should, I haven’t really gotten that deep into my analysis of my reaction to it yet. All I can tell you is I love it, despite the fact that, (and I’m sorry, but, really) Stephanie Meyer is a mediocre writer at best (and I’m being generous here, silencing my inner literary critic altogether). But Meyer really does get something about girls and about the kind of love girls crave.
That would be the all consuming kind.
And you know what? Maybe the yearning for an all consuming passionate love does fade when girls grow into strong, independent women and hit marriage and motherhood and middle age.
Or maybe it doesn’t.
Maybe instead of fade, it just gets buried under all that stuff, like your keys in the growing pile of undone laundry, and then maybe a story like Twilight comes along and just sort of blows the pile away, uncovering what was always there.
All kinds of awesome. All kinds of thinking going on.
Do you know how many drafts of unfinished blog posts I have sitting in my wordpress dash? Three hundred fourty eleven. Truth be told, I don’t even know, but it’s a lot. I’ve had a lot to say, but as yet have been unable to say it. Therefore, a bullets post.
Dude, you have no idea how busy I’ve been, what with the show, the holidays, a crazy amount of work to finish by year’s end and all that parenting stuff. You probably do know, but you may not know what an added layer of insanity the show was. I’m talking about being up every night until 1am or so practicing my guitar through headphones so I could possibly not suck after not playing for so long. The sleep deprivation reminded me of how much I need sleep to not just be an asshole to everyone. Up until 1am is not so bad until you remember your kids are up at 7am every day, NO MATTER WHAT, unless it’s today and they’re up at 6 for no god damned reason. And I know – we are lucky that our kids sleep like this. The question is, are we stupid for playing a show when we have no time to play our guitars?
Stupid or not, here we come.
I don’t know what that means in terms of us playing future shows. Don’t read into it.
…
Do you see that picture above? Those monsters are my sons, Doot and Bing. They will be a year old on the 22nd of this month. I cringe when I think of it. They are SO BIG (\0/).
Every day I whisper quietly into their soft hair, “Can you stay my baby just a little while longer? Please?” I try not to say it audibly most of the time because I don’t want them to grow up with a complex. I don’t *really* want a 35 year old Doot and/or Bing living with me or off me. Okay, that’s a lie. I secretly dream of having my kids live with me forever and that at least one of them will get some girl pregnant in high school so I can marvel at a grandbaby while I can still walk without a cane. I’m actually not even sure if I’m kidding about that.
That’s fucked up.
Doot has 8 teeth. Bing has 2 and a half.
They eat EVERYTHING. They are great eaters. Messy as shit though.
This post is so ”eh” right now I’m going blind.
Fuck it, I’m posting it anyway.
It was nice to see you again. Thanks for reading.
Oh, and a little PS bullet, that has nothing to do with this post.
To my friend, Ms. Snarkier Than You over at Twitarded, OH MY GOD. I’m incredulously doped up on Twilight (the book). I made Alex (Mr. Wisermom) go out and buy me New Moon last night (which I haven’t seen yet, even though some innocent yet asshatish youngster told me the ending yesterday when she saw I was reading Twilight. Doh!) because I was getting too close to the end and, ugh, how can I be sagaless? As soon as I post this, I’m closing my office door and busting out New Moon. I need some “me” time.
That’s not to say there’s any kind of real problem here, just that my head is confused and this cold virus isn’t helping me at all.
Have you ever sat on a cusp, like a major teetering point in what could be construed as the very essence of the meaning of your existence?
That’s what I’m doing right about now.
There’s just so much to think about, and all I *really* want to do is crawl into bed with a trashy novel (I’m waiting, Ms. StY, for my copy of Twilight. I may just have Mr. Wisermom go out and buy it for me.) Since I don’t have a trashy novel, or rather THE trashy novel I want, I’ll just go off a bit.
See, I had this dream when I was young and then I killed it dead. And then years passed and I became a Mom and all was well excepting the fact that I had to keep working in a career I no longer felt committed to, but I could do that because my kids needed diapers and a roof over their heads.
And then I got asked to go back in time, and I did, and I didn’t have that dream again, not the same way, but, then, well, I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back to this present, just the way it is. I didn’t want to stop doing the thing that had always kept me who I was. Because without doing that thing, I was somehow a more hollow version of who I am. I thought maybe that was just age, and I don’t know – maybe it is. But I’m not having it, either way.
So now I’ve got all this other shit to figure out, like, what on earth does it mean? How can I keep a roof over our heads, be present with my kids when I’m not out trying to earn money, and then have anything left over to create something out of nothing, and what will I do with it then?
And on and so on, there are more paths for the future that are beginning to look viable, and I am utterly unsure which one to push forward on.
Well, you think those dreams are dead, anyway, and then one day you discover that they are very much alive in you. And you can’t say that’s good, and you can’t say it’s bad. It just IS. Like the fact that you have green eyes or a hot temper or a certain weakness for guys doing yard work.
You thought it was over. Been there. Done that. You were Wrong. Very, very wrong.
Prosolar Mechanics, WE Fest Wilmington NC 2000
It’s not over at all. But you have no idea what that means.
