Airplanes

"Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?  I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now..."--"Airplanes", B.O.B. with Hayley Williams

Clarity is a bitch.

Sorry.  I had a rough day.  I worked eleven hours, work was super busy, I got nothing done, and I am tired.  I found out that my friend with benefits (who I wrestle feelings for off and on) is maybe seeing someone.  Probably seeing someone.  And how did I find out?  Did he tell me?  No.  So how did I find out, you ask?  Oh...She got her car serviced at the dealership today.  And she called him right in front of me, and she sounded like they were more than just friends.  And he came up front and went outside with her, and just somehow that really sucked.

Like really, really sucked.  And it shouldn't have, but shit...it did.  And I was hurt for a moment, then it went away like nothing.  But I kept thinking about it.  And it bugged me.

Gah...why does life have to be so complicated?  I'm sort of hurt, a little pissed at myself because I shouldn't be hurt at all...He's not my boyfriend, but this is all so complicated.  We have been messing around, off and on, for two years and I started out liking him, he liked me...and then we started seeing each other and then life got all stupid and something just happened between us and now we are what we are.  And now I am where I am.  I am hurt and pissed at myself and just trying to evaluate things, because he's a good friend of mine and he's there when I want him to be, and I don't want to lose that.  And the sex is pretty good too.

Stupid sex.  Sex always ruins things.  And damn him and his stupid mixed messages and actions.  Damn me for falling for him and then trying to fall out of whatever this is with him.  Damn me for being an idiot.  Damn me for letting this get so far.  Damn this for getting all tangled up and complicated.  Damn me for letting this make me kind of sad.  Damndamndamndamndamndamndamn.

And why, oh why, do I freeze up at the thought of telling him how I feel?  Goddamn it.  I hate boys and I hate romance and the stupid complexities of it that I just can't seem to grasp.

So, I could really use a wish right now.  Or some good vodka.  Or a good trip away from my head.

Looking In

Maybe life has a different perspective when viewed through slightly blurry lenses.

I currently am sitting on my porch, wearing a jacket because I am freezing, and I have one contact in my left eye. I think I scratched my right eye taking out my lenses Monday night because my eye has hurt like crazy when I put my lens in since. Damn scratched cornea.


But anyway, life looks a little different when one looks at the world with one good eye and one pretty shitty nearsighted astigmatized eye. Obviously there is the distinct blurriness, but perhaps I could look at things in shades of gray instead of just plain, clear cut black and white.  Things could be easier, I suppose, if I allowed them to blur together in a cohesive tangle instead of hoping for a straight answer.


Perhaps not.  Perhaps the only thing I am getting out of this one contact thing is a strained right eye, but shit, it never hurts to wax philosophical.  My favorite philosopher, Soren Kirkegaard once said, "Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."  How true he was.  The hardest thing in life might be to swallow the bubble of fear that forms in your stomach and blurs the distinction between the obvious and the delusion of uncertainty.  I have often suffered from that fear, that anxious tumble of butterflies and deluded reason that has the ability to freeze a perfectly rational person in their tracks.  I hate feeling as if someone poured ice into my veins, that sense of doubt one gets when fear steps in.


Oh, but the feeling you get when you pop that bubble and slap fear in the smug face!  It's such a heady, delicious feeling.  I imagine that perhaps the pursuit of freedom takes a bit of blurring, of smudging the charcoal lines on the stark white paper...Nothing in life is truly clear, perfectly sharp.  Nothing transcends the line of 20/20.  Perhaps one has to scratch their cornea to understand that.


I think that perhaps emotions work like that too.  Take for instance, matters of the heart.  I suppose we would all like love to be sharp and clear, charcoal and snow...but honestly, in all reality, it is a smeared compilation of anguished grays and delighted cream.  The heart kind of views things in a complicated Venn diagram, analyzing and overanalyzing things until they become a meaningless babble. 


I'm sure this unfocused clarity won't make sense the next time I read this post, but it makes perfect sense now:  We have to blur the edges of life in order to get the entire picture.  We can't always expect life to hand us a straightforward answer...we have to go searching through the mottled mess of our everyday lives to figure out the answers ourselves.

Boys Boys Boys

Nicky.  Is.  Driving.  Me.  Insane.

Oh, the joys of motherhood. 

He "graduated" from Head Start today and is officially a Kindergartner.  He starts in August. 

He is, however, currently being the biggest pain in my ass.  He discovered that scissors can be used for more than cutting just paper, and has currently cut a hole in his shirt, a huge chunk out of my dad's recliner, and cut wires to one of my brother's electronic devices, among other things, I'm sure.  He also decided that he doesn't have to listen to me, which is the latest on the long list of things that he has discovered infuriates me.  I, on the other hand, have discovered that patience is overrated.

Perhaps I might look into yoga. 

Do-Wah-Doo

Ahh…Summer is on its way. Hallelujah.



The air smells like flowers and stuffs up my nose. Pollen is every-freaking-where, but that doesn’t pale the beauty of the bright greens and the vivid colors of the flowers. Spring in Cleveland could be compared to a blind man seeing for the first time in his life--after a world of gray and drab from November to mid-March, the city looks as though it was run through the washer with Tide. Colors are brighter, the sun is warmer, the air feels amazing, pollen aside. You wake up feeling amazing. The world is anew, and you feel as though you can do anything. Mother Nature decided to wash away the bad and present us all with a clean slate.


May has been a great month, seriously. I finished school two weeks ago, and I got As in both my classes (I dropped Sociology and Ethics due to conflicts between balancing mommydom and work and school and Lashawn). I also decided to change my major from Pre-Law to Anthropology. I love history and studying different cultures, and I am researching Socio Cultural Anthroplogy--for the first time in a while, I am excited about my career choice. I suppose that says a lot about how I really felt about Law--I love it in conceptual theory, but I think I would be miserable if I actually practiced it. I am more happy moving around instead of being in an office all day long. I also don’t think I could handle the cases I would handle--I wanted to go into Child Advocacy, and I think all the different stories would kill me, in the most metaphorical sense. I want to be able to watch my son grow up and not always be away from him, and I would love to be able to do something I love as a career.


Nicky started tee ball, and he is the Tee Ball King. I am so proud! They had their first practice scrimmage game yesterday, and his team won. I missed it, but my brother said that Nicky hit the ball on the first try the two times he was up at bat, and he hits the ball deep into outer field. He really enjoys the game, and I am hoping a few of his tee ball friends will be in his class in Kindergarten in the fall.


Speaking of Kindergarten, he had his screening last Friday, and he is all set for the fall. I already got his school supply list and his uniform order form. He is psyched to be starting Kindergarten and going to “big boy school”.


I am also starting a diet. School and the stress of the past semester sort of derailed my exercise routine, and I gained like 6 pounds over the past four months. I am tired of feeling sluggish and worn down, and I have noticed that I went up a dress size, and those pants are starting to get tight. I will, however, miss the little oomph the weight added to my cleavage! I aiming to lose some of the extra weight I hadn’t lost from last year, so about ten to fifteen pounds. I figure that I should be able to do it over the summer. I am also trying to put some WD-40 in my old creative part of my noggin, and am toying with the idea of attempting a novel this summer. I have a few ideas running around in my head, and if I get anything going, I will share it with you guys via blog.


That is the run down for now. I promise another awesome post soon. XO

Chasing Pavements

My love affair with you, oh city of disparaging dreams,
Began on a Tuesday morning in December 1985
That snowy 17th you cradled me in your gritty arms
And I called you Home

I know there are some who prefer the country
Who delight in the vast expanses of hill and vale
But I prefer the dirt and the concrete
The crush of people and the incessant pulse of the city
I love the busyness of it all, the start and stop of things
The vivacious rhythm that one can only find in the urban oasis
I can’t be without it, the hushed sound of the streets calling my name
Without you, my humbled city, I am lost

I grew up in awe of your stoic presence
In the shadow that your brick and stucco edifice cast
I navigated the throng of the metropolitan playground
My hand safely tucked in my mother’s as I adventured about town
There was a great deal to see in my glittering world of you
And I tried to drink you in as much as I could, my shimmering jewel of a city
I was immersed in the wide eyed infatuation of a child

I lay in bed at night, lulled to sleep by the sound of traffic
Of airplanes flying low overhead
I could hear the hustlers making their money on the corner
The whispered lyrics of the inner city song
Noisy mufflers and women shouting provided the music
Breaking bottles and distant gunshots were the refrain


As I grew older I took you for granted
My dingy, dirty ramshackle city of broken dreams
The glittering gems of my youth were now, in my eyes of lost innocence
Nothing more than cracked and lackluster shards of poorly painted glass
I turned up my nose at your boarded up window fronts
When I should have lamented at your crumbling plaster shame
I scoffed at your downtrodden children, dirty and astray
Who slept in your doorframes and street grates
When I should have wept for your former glory instead
I turned my back on you in your most dire hour


I didn’t know your pain at the time
I was only focused on my immediate moment
Suburban daydreams, green grasses and strip malls
White picket fences and the empty lies of a charlatan fool
When I should have listened to your concrete whispers
Calling me back to the ones who truly loved me instead
It took a broken heart and shattered dreams
To make me find my love for you again
I promised you, my aching city, that I would never turn my back again


So I teach my son the illustrious history of your youth
The shining glory of your golden age
I show him your proud buildings from an era long since past
I tell him that through your tarnish there still is beauty
Though many see it and are confused
They fail to realize that in your dimmed magnificence there is a promising future
That in your veins runs the possibility of change anew
They fail to see that you still breathe, my damaged city
They choose instead to give up on themselves and on you
And thus, in their ignorance they blatantly abuse you


They break your heart with a sudden blast
Violently and instantaneously snuffing out the life
Of another of your bright and promising children
With a cowardly leaden bullet
And they seem to forget that when your rough concrete skin is splashed
With their innocent blood you die a little too, my fading city
A hundred thousand tiny crimson deaths
Beading and congealing in your cemented pores


And your people, they cry out in pain
They scream and bemoan their anguish to the skies
They cry out and leave vestiges of their sorrow
In the teddy bears and flowers they leave on the side of the pavement
The dates painted on windows in memoriam of those they loved
Ribbons tied to utility poles, silent reminders of those who left one day
And never came home
Makeshift memorials in a guerrilla war on a deteriorating city
Where the right and wrong sides were never truly made clear


And it hurts you too, though you cannot cry
For no mother should have to stand idly by
And helplessly watch her children die
Especially over something so meaningless and insignificant
As cars or clothes or foolish, fragile pride


But you raise your head, Cleveland
For although they have beaten you down,
The dreamless assassin has not yet won
You are beautiful yet, and still strong and proud
And through all the tears and dirt and blood
Amid the crumbling concrete and shattered glass, I still hear your music
In the voices of the ones who refuse to back down
The song of the city continues to be sung
You shall carry on, Cleveland.
You shall carry on.
                                             --"Words of Hope for My City"
                                                            04/26/2010

Teeth

Gahhh.

I had another wisdom tooth pulled Saturday morning, plus I had some root tips removed from a missing tooth.  My face is swollen, I look like a chipmunk, which is slightly better than yesterday (Sunday, I am still pretending it is Monday night), when I woke up looking like I had shoved a baseball in my jaw.  Ugh.  I took some Vicodin, but I am currently in pain and am not in the usual blogtastic mood.  I should be on when I am feeling fabulous and in tip-top shape.

Til then,
Me XO

Beautiful World

It is absolutely beautiful outside. The sun is shining, it's warm, and there's a slight breeze coming in off the lake. I can see this all from my tiny window in my office.

What is it with me and beautiful Spring days? I always seem to miss them. I did, however, get to enjoy a taste of the niceness this morning as I strolled to work. It was warm, smelled vaguely of flowers and gasoline, and no one was out and about yet. I felt like crap, but it was still a pretty morning.

I am still pretty sick, though I look much better than I did yesterday. I am drugged up on Tylenol Cold, but I have a nagging cough and my throat still hurts--and my awesome headache from yesterday is deciding to make a repeat performance. I am currently drinking warm Sprite from a red plastic cup that makes me wish that I was drinking Jameson and Coke instead. Red plastic cups make me think of parties, which makes me kind of sad because I am at work and in no mood to party.

I am, however, in the mood to compose crappy Spring poetry. Here we go:

The sun shines

Outside my window

The wind blows

Caressing the bare branches

On which

New buds just beginning to form

The grass looks somewhat lush and green

And the daffodils are almost ready to bloom

I sit here

Listening to Vampire Weekend

Sipping warm Sprite from a red plastic cup

Lamenting that I am sick and that today is not my day off