I Want a Love

I want a love that doesn't need to be questioned, or analyzed, or discussed.

A love that simply is, and always will be.

One that needs no justification or convincing.

I want a love that is reciprocated easily.

One that looks for every reason to be near each other.

I want a love that is given, without doubt or question or fear of what anyone will think of you for it.

I want a love that grows wild in the sunlight.

I want a love that is allowed to extend into all areas of your life, and one that can, in time, bring our two lives together, eventually blurring the line between what is yours and what is mine.

I want a love that makes you proud to call me yours, that makes you want to show me off, tell everyone you know, and make sure I'm there for the big moments in your life.

I want a love that means we're best friends, a love that means we're soulmates, a love that means the past is the past and it's today, tomorrow and forever that matters.

I want a love that I can pour all of myself into.

I want a love that wants me to get close.

I want a love that forgives, a love that endures and a love that is ours.

Always, and forever. 

The Friday Diary: Too Legit to Quit

So. It's Friday.

This post is going to be entirely anticlimactic.

Just like this week was.

I did nothing special.

I took zero pictures.

I hurt my neck on Sunday and stayed in bed for two days.

Finally by Wednesday I was all better, but I was just not in the mood to cook and photograph and leave the house except to work and get food.

So I didn't.

I cleaned out my closet...I watched the 4th season of Grey's over again...I hung out with the kids...I laid on a heating pad and sometimes an ice pack, and I slept.

There you have it.

But I am glad it's Friday, and I am ready for the weekend.

I'm ready to put on my pajamas and order some Chinese food and hopefully find a good movie on Netflix, and lay on the couch eating egg rolls and Starbursts and being happy not to be in pain anymore.

It might be lame, for the weekend before Halloween, but it sounds perfect to me.

Now, just because I can't leave you with nothing, I will give you a shortened, condensed, and probably more legit version of the Friday Diary {aka just the letters portion}.

Letters:

Dear Kitchen, Why do you insist on dirty-ing yourself just after you've been cleaned? Why are you SO hard for me to keep up with, and why do I feel so depressed and defeated when you are cluttered and messy AGAIN? You must have some weird effect on my emotional equilibrium.

Dear 2012, You're almost over. Holy crap.

Dear Emotions, Get. It. Together. You were out of control this week. Not ok.

Dear Mad Hatter, Brilliant. Sweet. Surprising. Addicting. Home. Another 5 words for you, from me.

Dear Fall, You make me want to travel. You make me want to take late night drives with the windows down. You make me want Pumpkin Spiced coffee on a rainy day in Sedona. Why can't I quit you.

Happy Friday.

I Want This, I Want You

Sometimes when I spend the night at your house, I wander downstairs while you're shaving and fixing your hair, and I stand in your kitchen in my panties and your t-shirt, and I just look around.

Your things on the counters, your books on the shelves across the living room, your pans hanging from the ceiling.

The little, every day signs of you.

I think about cooking dinner with you in this kitchen when you get home from work, talking about our days and saying normal things like "Can you strain this for me?" or "Would you grab the butter from the fridge, babe?"

I want this. I want you.

Back upstairs I sit on your bed and watch you get ready in the bathroom.

It smells like your deodorant, your shampoo, your soap and your laundry.

I think about brushing our teeth together in the morning before work, at night before bed.

Slipping in and out of our pajamas, the choreographed dance of getting ready to wake up or go to sleep.

I want this. I want you.

When we sleep together, I wake up very early in the morning.

Sometimes the sun is barely straining peaches through the binds, sometimes it's still dark.

But I can tell it's morning because very early morning feels different from very late night.

It sound different, and if you pay attention you can feel the shift.

I lay beside you and listen to you breathe. I look at your face, sleep sodden and peaceful, your hair sticking up at the sides. I imagine falling asleep beside you every night. Whispering in the dark. Messing up the sheets.

I want this. I want you.

Sometimes my heart catches in my throat, and I fight back tears, because I love you in such a terrible way.
I love you in a way that living the most ordinary life would be extraordinary, as long as I was living it with you. Of course I want heart pounding adventure too (who doesn't?) but doesn't it mean something to want to love someone even in between adventures? To want to love someone when they're feverish, or tired. When life is just life and it's not particularly interesting at the moment, it would mean more still because it was ours.
I love you in such a way that I would be happy just to have both our things together on a window sill and a language only we understand.
I love you in such a way that I want to make spaghetti with you, brush my teeth with you, pet you before bedtime and hear you talk dreamily about the house you lived in when you were six. 

I want to know your favorite song, and who your first kiss was, and where you got the scar on your chin.

I want to collect all the seemingly unimportant details about you. I want to be there to adore you over morning coffee and eggs, admire you as you take out the trash, wake up in the middle of the night and kiss you because I love you in a way that just can't wait until morning.

I want this. 

I want you.

Being Alone

This park is near my office.

On days when I am responsible enough to remember to bring my lunch, I grab a book and my food and come here. I sit under this tree and eat, and read and watch the ducks waddle around.

They don't mind me and I don't mind them.

I people watch, making up stories about the people I see.

The couple meeting for lunch, the two old ladies walking around together, the women with their children, and the ones who, like me, are there alone.

It's a simple thing, but it makes me so happy. I come back to work in such a better mood. It's finally nice outside in the middle of the day, and sitting under a tree between two big beautiful fountains with a book and a sadwich is pretty perfect.

Not long ago, this is something that would have made me a little sad to do by myself.

Now, I don't think I would invite anyone to come along. At least not most days.

It's quiet and it's cool and I'm starting to like being alone. At least more than I used to.

I think for a long time I depended on other people for my own happiness quite a bit. I wanted people around me, I needed people to talk to, I wanted someone to spend the majority of my time with who wasn't a toddler.

But I'm learning to make myself happy on my own.

Not that I don't need anyone, that's ridiculous.

Everybody needs somebody sometimes and anyone who says they don't is a damn liar.

It's more that I'm alone more these days because I choose to be, not because there was no one to hang out with. And if there's something that will make me happy, I usually just go and do it, or think it or say it myself, rather than waiting and hoping someone else will come with me, or say what I need to hear.

So far, I'm pretty happy.

I still need to be held sometimes.

I still need to be told that everything will be OK sometimes.

But I'm trying to learn to make everything OK on my own, and make myself happy regardless of who's coming or going in my life at the time.

I've learned too many important people can be far too temporary.

Feelings change, needs change, people leave.

I'll always be here with myself though, so I'm learning to be OK with that during the times when that's all there is.

Just me.

Truth.

Did you ever play truth or dare as a kid?

At sleep overs, all your friends sitting in a circle, an empty soda bottle in the center, the building anxiety over who it would land on next, trying to decide ahead of time - just in case it landed on you - if you'd pick truth or dare.

When we were little, we all picked dare.

It was exciting, being dared to do something crazy. Run outside with no pants on and scream "I LOVE BUTTER!" at the top of your lungs. Put an ice cube in your bra and keep it there for 30 seconds. Call the boy you have a crush on and ask him something weird, or worse: tell him you like him.

Hearts pounding, hands sweating, hoping our friends would be kind and not make us do anything truly awful {which they never were}, we always picked dare.

I mean, what great truths did we have to reveal when we were 10 anyway?

I wet the bed once?

I steal cookies?

Sometimes I wonder if 5th grade is all it was cracked up to be?

No.

We had nothing.

As I got older, the game was still played, but usually between me and a girlfriend who was staying over, laying in bed in the dark talking until we fell asleep. And we always picked truth,

Maybe we played to pass the time.

Maybe we played because it was a good veil under which we could ask personal questions without being nosy.

Maybe we played because we had questions we secretly wanted to be asked. Truths we secretly wanted to share, but didn't know how.

So we opened the door. The rules were, after all, that they could ask anything and you had to answer honestly.

It's like what psychiatrists always say about having a journal: you're writing it because you want someone to read it. You want it to be found, read through and known about. You want to share yourself, you just don't know how to come out and do it.

Playing truth or dare did it for us.

Want to hear my truth?

Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing, here. I worry about how I'm raising the kids, if I'm doing a good enough job, what I'll be dealing with when they're 18. What issues they'll have that I know will be my fault. I don't know if I'm enough.

Sometimes I'm equal parts scared of, excited about and apathetic toward the future. It's very confusing.

Sometimes I wish mistakes were more easily forgotten. I wish that at some point people stopped seeing your poor choices when they looked at you. Like every day when we woke up, we forgot all the sins of the day before, and we only remembered what was good, what was real, what was intentional.

I fucking hate mopping.

I un-friended someone on Facebook the other day for posting too many political statuses and pictures of Obama. Judge me, I don't care. I don't feel bad about it at all. 

When I was little, I used to break the candy bars that are in those metal racks in the check out line. I wouldn't break the wrapper, so nobody would know until they bought it and opened it and saw their candy bar was fatally decapitated. I don't know why I did it. I'd just stand there and squeeze them until they snapped in half, then I'd move on to another one, seeing how many I could break before we were done checking out and paying for our groceries.

I still feel bad for all the people who got broken candy bars.

Anyway, your turn. Truth or Dare?

Video Blog Pt. 2

Alright alright alright, everybody.

The second {and last} installment of the video Q and A is up. 

Bill helped me film this one, because talking to the camera alone in my bedroom last time was just too weird, so thanks Bill.

Apologies in advance for how much I giggle and the weird way that I keep clearing my throat. I never realized I do that so much.

Enjoy.

Friday Diary: Soup, Books and Nonsense

Holy wow, guys, Friday already?!

I'm just kidding. This week went by so slow I thought it would literally kill me.

I thought it was Wednesday on Tuesday, and then I thought it was jeans day on Friday {WHICH IT WASN'T} and basically, I'm lucky I survived.

So let's wrap it up.

...

Letters:

Dear Kids Who Live Across The Street, please stop making me dislike you. I was so excited for the kids to have friends to play with, especially seemingly nice ones, right. across. the street. But your pension for breaking into my car to play in it while I'm making dinner, and the weird way you're always just blank staring at me when I ask you why Jackson is crying is really pissing me off. Stop it. Just stop it.

Dear Weird Guy at Wildflower Bread Co., I'm not sure what made you think it was ok to try to touch my hair just because you've "never seen a hair color quite like mine", but it wasn't ok. Try it again and I will be forced to Karate chop your ambiguously old neck.

Dear Lainie, you're losing teeth faster than you can grow new ones in. Currently you're missing 3, and while watching you try to eat makes me feel sad for you, I can't stop looking at you because you're just so freaking cute with your big toothless smile. I want you to stay like this forever. I'll just make soup every day.

...

This Time Last Year:

Our Love Story, Pt. 2

Yep. Awkward.

...

Pinterested:


...

Read:

Amazon
I don't usually read typical "girly" books, but this week I read two of them. Bridget Jones and The Notebook. As for Bridget Jones, I like the book better than the movie. As for The Notebook, sadly, I like the movie better than the book.
Sigh.

...

Made:

Recipe

Easiest baked potato soup in the history of ever. There was hardly any left....which seems to be getting pretty common lately. Either I'm an awesome cook, or my kids are just SUPER hungry these days. Or both.
Either way, the soup is still awesome.

...

1. Lunch date with Lainie on my last Friday off/2. 68 degrees!!! 68 degrees!! It's officially FALL in Phoenix! Woohoo!/3. A delicious solo lunch at Wildflower Bread Co. on Tuesday. I read, I ate soup, I was quite happy.

Little Things

Sometimes it's the little things.

Like going to bed knowing the kitchen is {for once} spotless and clean.

Wearing your favorite boots every day this week, because why not?

A song coming on unexpectedly that you haven't taken the time to listen to in years, and how it makes you stop what you're doing and just listen. How often do I do that anymore?

Stop, and just listen.

Fall creeping in slowly, and the mornings getting colder, which somehow makes me want to get up earlier to stand outside in thick socks with coffee, and enjoy the feeling of shivering.

I'm such a weird person...

Text messages that make you smile, books that make you cry, 4 year olds that make you laugh, 8-almost-9-year olds that still let you kiss them goodbye in front of their friends even though it's uncool.

Piping hot showers before bed, that cleanse the skin and the soul and turn my tense muscles to butter.

For the first time in my life, not over thinking everything.

Having a half day at work tomorrow and knowing that I'm using my extra free time to buy a dining room table {finally}.

Oh, and let's not forget: the beautiful picture of Mr. Dempsey at the top of the post.

Goddamn it I love dark haired smoldery men in trench coats and other general East Coast winter attire.

It's the little things y'all. 

Happy Thursday.

Bound

I don't know how you did it, 

And I've stayed up many nights beside you as you slept, 

Trying to figure it out.

All I know is that I met you, and without trying,

You captivated me completely.

And my wandering heart bound itself to you.

Even as my mind distracted itself with doubts,

Even as my feet lead me from one mistake to another,

My heart knew where it belonged.

And now it will be satisfied with no other home.

The Perks of Being a Wall Flower

This weekend I saw The Perks of Being a Wall Flower, and it was-in a word, amazing.

It was like living inside the pages of an old diary, or a love letter someone has cherished for years.

It captured the feeling of being an outsider in High School-something I know a little too much about-so perfectly. The feeling of fitting in with the people who don't fit in, the small victories, the soul crushing losses, the magic of hearing a song you've never heard as you drink freedom from the open window of a car full of your closest friends as it speeds down the highway. The feeling of seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show back when that was what you did-dressed in drag and went to an outlandish show with your friends, where you laughed at the awkwardness of it all. The feeling of knowing you're broken, deep down inside in some inexplicable way, but realizing that maybe there's hope for you yet. Back when you made mixed tapes for people, and you lived for late night conversations in diners, back when we all knew the answers to the Universe.

We all knew what our lives were going to be like, and we were so unashamed of how certain we were of it.

We knew things, we felt things, we weren't afraid to fall ridiculously in love and we didn't apologize for any of it.

It was a song from my Freshman year coming on the radio during a midnight drive.

It was looking through my yearbook one last time.

It was painful and magical and beautiful.

By far, the best movie of the year.

And remember, no matter how old you get, or what sad things happen to you in this life, the best songs are played with the windows down, in a car with the people you love most in the world, on nights when it seems so obvious

that we are infinite.

Worst YOLO Statuses Ever

I hate this YOLO trend. I have from the moment I first saw a YOLO meme, that probably said something about drinking an entire fifth of alcohol by yourself in one night and ending up on Girls Gone Wild, but then excusing it all by throwing YOLO at the end of your actions.
Because apparently only having one life makes it OK to waste it on stupid and potentially life threatening behavior.
I just don't get youngsters anymore.

So, my best friend and I decided to have a good old fashioned text message joke off, coming up with the worst YOLO things we could.
If you're not our friend yet, you probably want to be.

1. Told my Aunt that I only came to Uncle John's funeral for the bitches and the drinks. YOLO

2. Punched the Walmart greeter in the mouth for looking at me like he knows me. YOLO

3. Bought a windowless panel van and drove around the park real slow for hours. YOLO

4. Convinced Grandma I'm not actually real. YOLO

5. Spiked the coffee of my smug co-worker who's always talking about how he's been sober for over 8 years, with Vodka and Cocaine. YOLO

6. Asked the HR director at my office 3 questions in the same day about the company's policy on medicinal Marijuana. YOLO

7. Got my 4 year old nephew drunk on Jagermeister and Pixie Stix. YOLO

8. Made awkward noises during my Gyno exam. YOLO

9. Took a shit on my dad's bed for eating all the cereal, AGAIN. YOLO

10. Made intense and relentless eye contact with my boss while eating a banana. YOLO

11. Went to the gym locker room and stared intensely at anyone undressing. YOLO

12. Just punched Grandma in the throat for walking in on me masturbating. YOLO

13. Tried to bribe a police officer to taze me. YOLO

14. Asked my boss if I could go home early because I accidentally got drunk at breakfast. YOLO

15. Audibly farted in a job interview. Blamed it on the woman interviewing me. YOLO


In conclusion, you do only live once, kids. So make it count by being a person of value with a fucking amazing sense of humor, not by being a constantly intoxicated asshole who makes awful decisions and then brags about it, because the fact that they'll die someday makes everything OK.

And stop making obnoxious Meme's about your shitty decisions, or I'll cutabitch.
All one word.

VIDEO BLOG! I did it I did it I did it!!!!

Hey everybody!!!!
LOOK LOOK LOOK!
The video is up! Thanks to YouTube, and to A Small Player in God's Plan, for the advice. Don't know why I didn't think of this sooner!!!!
Hope you love it.
Because it almost made me kill myself.
No pressure though or anything.

P.S. I don't know why the video thumbnail shows me making this weird face, and looking like I'm gonna slap a bitch...but I don't know how to change that.

The Friday Diary: New Music and Old News

Happy Friday everybody.

Soooo....I'm an asshole. I recorded the questions video, I edited it, and.....it won't upload. At least not in any format that doesn't crash like half a second into the video. I've tried everything. I don't know how to fix it. But I promise I'll keep trying. I'm sorry. I am just the worst.
But today, let's resume normal Friday rambling recapping. Exciting right?....RIGHT?

Let's move on.

...

10 Songs for Your Broken Heart:

It doesn't matter why your heart is broken, music will help.

...

Letters:
Dear Fall, Goddamn it, I love you kid.
Dear Jackson, if you keep saying no EVERY SINGLE TIME I tell you to do something, we are going to have problems. And by "we" I mean you, and by "problems" I mean good luck making your own dinner for yourself from now on!
Dear Lainie, you lost your second front tooth and spent the night at a friend's house for the first time, both in the same 24 hours. I cried after you left. I just love you, little one.
Dear Dad, stop it. Just stop it.
Dear Sedona, I miss you.

...

Looking Back:

This time last year...

...

Obsessed:

Season 9 of Grey's Anatomy has started, and only two episodes in I am no less than completely obsessed-again. Time to get back on the emotional roller coaster that is this show, and ride.

...

Read:

Amazon

Sort of a memoir, sort of a series of rants about the differences between Southerners and Yankees. Through and through true and hilarious.
I snorted.

Favorite Quote-
Freak: Oh look, there's Joel! Yoo hoo! Joel! I'm so glad you could make it tonight. And who's your friend? She's absolutely stunning!
Normal Person: Look. There's Joel, that lying sack of shit. Who's the cheap Christmas trash hanging all over him? Wait a minute, I'll just say hello. Hi Joel. Have you told Lil' Kim here that you still wet the bed?

...

Eaten:

Recipe Here

These were delicious. I made 20 of them, and there were NO left overs. Even the kids ate like a bunch of them.
I added black beans and forgot to turn them. Still delicious.

...

And Now, Funny Shit from the Internet:


Happy Friday, everybody.

Go get weird this weekend.

An Update and A Poem

So I started working on the video blog last night, and holy wow guys, that ish is hard.

I basically feel like I'm sitting there talking to myself, which gives me these weird flashbacks to when I was little and tried to convince everyone it was my choice that my only friends were stuffed animals.

I've also learned I am terribly unfunny when there's no one else around.

Somehow my humor just doesn't come out when I'm home alone talking to my camera. I can practically hear the crickets.

Super unsettling.

In any case, the video will be up tomorrow, and I will most likely be curled up in the fetal position on my floor feeling far too vulnerable and sober.

I'm a surprisingly shy person sometimes.

Anyhow, I must leave you now to go finish this video thing, so in my absence I shall leave you with a poem, and the incredibly beautiful picture of Jon Hamm from Mad Men at the top of the post.

Because HOT.

...

Make me forget my heart was ever broken.
Take your words and press them into the soft parts of my chest and make them stay there.
Wrap me in your big arms, whisper in my ear
Tell me there's no place on Earth like here.
Make me forget that promises can break like glass.
Press your lips against mine and make them stay there.
Hold me til I fall asleep, kiss me on my tear stained cheek.
Tell me that I'm yours to keep.
Make me forget that people almost always leave.
Your hands feel good in my hair and they can stay there.
Look into my eyes, put your hand over my heart
Tell me you'll follow me into the dark.
Never let me go.

Listen to This: Of Monsters and Men



You've probably already heard this, but I've fallen so completely and irreperably in love with it, I couldn't not tell you all about it, just in case you hadn't.
If Florence + The Machine had a love child with Mumford and Sons, this would be it's band.

For those of you lyrics nerds {such as me}, I posted them below.

Enjoy.

Little Talks

I don't like walking around this cold and empty house
So hold my hand I'll walk with you my dear
The stairs creak as you sleep, it's keeping me awake
It's the house telling you to close your eyes
Some days I can't even trust myself
It's killing me to see you this way

Cuz though the truth may vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.

Theres an old voice in my head
Well tell her that I miss our little talks
Soon it will be over, and buried with our past
We used to play outside when we were young and full of life and full of love
Some days I don't know if I am wrong or right
Your mind is playing tricks on you, my dear

Though the truth may vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.

Don't listen to the words I say
The screams all sound the same

Though the truth may vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.

You're gone, gone, gone away, I watched you disappear.
All that's left is the ghost of you.
Now we're torn, torn, torn apart, there's nothing we can do.
Just let me go, we'll meet again soon.
No! Wait, wait, wait for me, I'll see you when I fall asleep.

Don't listen to the words I say
The screams all sound the same

Though the truth may vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.

A Brief History of Love

I fell in love hard when I was 18. It was my first time giving my heart away, to a boy with that loose hipped saunter and eyes that always seemed to be glaring at you even though his lips betrayed them with a smile. He smoked and he drank, old enough to buy alcohol, with a voice as dark as midnight. I remember when I met him thinking he’d be like all the others: someone I could charm and fascinate and hypnotize, until entertaining him got to be old, and then I’d vanish in a cloud of smoke and unanswered texts. How wrong I was still takes me by surprise when I look back on the vulnerability he brought out of me. Tenderness as thin as the skin of your cuticles, rubbed raw and left bleeding, constantly waiting for my phone to ring. That was the relationship that taught me you’re supposed to the one that cares a little less in order to have any power.

Then there was the boy I never wanted. But he pursued me and never left me waiting, and he was exactly the band aid I needed at the time. Sometimes when I think about his exasperated sighs and his forlorn expressions I feel the guilt wash through my stomach and I wish that I could say I’m sorry. I wish I could tell him he didn’t deserve what he got from me. But I don’t think it would matter anymore. The cannons have all been fired and betrayals have all been had. Hopefully he’s found someone who waits for him to come home, instead of the other way around.

When I was 17 there was the small time pot dealer with the car as low as my self esteem at the time. He used to stop at the gas station to buy me fruit snacks on his way back to my apartment at 2 a.m. after leaving to go do a run across town. I had just moved out on my own, feeling grown up and free and pretending to be dangerous. He was nice enough, but terribly stupid and fatally immature. I’m not sure now if I was any better at the time, or if I just wanted to be, and never saw myself getting there as long as I was on his arm. I saw a future of dollar store gifts and supped up hatchback cars stretched out before me like a lonely and empty highway that only leads one place, and it’s no place any girl with any sense wants to go. He was the one who made being dangerous seem less romantic. So I waited for him to get back one night and very inarticulately asked him not to come over anymore. It broke my heart a little, the way he just looked at the ground and nodded. Like he was always waiting for people to tell him to stop coming around. For a second I wanted to hug him, but instead I said goodbye and locked the door behind him, wondering for a moment if he’d come back to steal my stuff.

There was the friend, of course, who was tragically in love with me. The boy that I thought was my best friend (and in a lot of ways was) but who was sick in his heart over the impossibility of us ever being together. He was the one who watched as my heart was broken over and over. He was the one who picked me up off the bathroom floor when I was crushed and the phone wasn’t ringing. He was the one there at nighttime, when being alone is the hardest and the house was the quietest. Girls would fall for him and he would be unfazed. People would try to sway him and he would not be moved. In the end I couldn’t tell if it was me that broke his heart with my blindness, or him that broke his own with his determination, or a combination of both. Either way the blood and the wound and the hurt were there between us, which left very little room for friendship anymore.

And last but not least there was the man without a definition. The CPA with soft hands and kind eyes who left me no choice but to love him after the very first time called his t-shirt that he let me wear to bed mine. The one whose life was so inconceivably different than mine, but who’s soul seemed to understand me when I didn’t understand myself. There are a lot of ways to describe him, but none that paint a full picture or tell the whole story. Some stories can’t be told because they’re not the events that happened along a timeline, but instead the feelings that went along with them, the moments of silence where nothing happened at all except all the things that don’t have names or definitions, where something passes between two people that is only felt and understood, but never spoken. I guess in short he’s the one I will always secretly wish on every eye lash and every birthday candle for.

Sometimes I look back on all the men that have come in and out of my life, starting with my father, who was the very first man I met. I think about the men who have traversed the path from my bed to the door and never looked back. I think about the one who took my heart, the ones who left me cleaning up their messes, and the ones who I left cleaning up my own. I think about the boy I’m raising, who will someday be a man himself.

I wonder if I’ll ever get all of this right.

Someday. Maybe. Not yet.



Inspire Me: An Invitation for Uncensored Q&A

When I am uninspired, there used to be one place I could always go for an idea. For a spark of creativity in the form of a phrase or a look or a touch. Something random and excellent that made words flow forth from me as if all my insides were made up solely of beauty and inspiration.

That place is gone.

So I'm coming to you.

I am bored, and I am terribly uninspired.

Give me something to talk about.

Distract me.

Give me something to ponder.

How, you ask?

Well, I've never done a video blog before. Mainly I resisted because not only are they frighteningly trendy, but also because I have a manly voice and I never knew what the hell to talk about, and I secretly get grossed out when people call them "vlogs". Just say that word out loud with me, everyone: VLOG.

Shudder.

Anyway, I've never done one, and now that I am bored and out of words, I figured it's time.

What shall I vlog {gross} about, and how are you supposed to help me with it, you ask?

Ask me anything.

Yep. You read that right.

I am doing a no holds barred Q&A.

Ask me anything, and I will answer all of your dark, burning questions in my vlog {I need to rename that before I vomit}.

Please don't post questions in the comments below. I want everyone to be surprised by what's asked and how I answer, so email them to me at preciousbabybelly@gmail.com

No naked pictures of you though, please.

Send them to me all this week, and yes you can ask more than one question, and on Thursday night I will make the VIDEO BLOG and we will never ever call it a vlog, and then it will post up on Friday.

Deal?

Help me out here guys.

Unless you want to read more about what I do when I'm depressed.

{Hint: cry and write bad poetry}

Can't wait to see what you all ask!



Can We Still Sleep Together?

Can we still sleep together?

I don't necessarily mean have sex, I mean sleep.
It doesn't have to be a big deal. It can just be because I'm super warm, and you know exactly how to hold me. 

On the occasional Saturday night when neither of us have plans, when both of us are tired of pretending we don't miss each other, when there doesn't seem to be any reason not to, can we sleep together still?

Can we get Chinese food and meet at your house in our pajamas, and watch an old movie on Netflix in bed?

Can we fall asleep together at the exact same time, our bodies moving back into the familiar positions that we've trained each other to assume: me on my right side, you as the big spoon, your arm scooping me up and pulling me in, our fingers tangled together like the roots of Willow trees?
Slipping away, heavy and warm, the rhythm of our hearts tapping out the most familiar lullaby there is.
Like sailors who miss the smell of the sea even if they know they can no longer return to it, I will bury my face in your chest and feel sated.
It's probably my favorite thing to do with you; lying still in your arms and waiting for my mind to close it's doors.
When I'm in your bed I never have to wait very long for it to come.

In the morning we can go back to being broken up.

We can go back to being just friends who don't do things like sleep in the same bed, or ever admit they feel lost sometimes without the steady gaze of the other person.

We'll retreat away and privately put ourselves back together.
I won't tell anybody if you won't.

But just every once in a while, can we still sleep together?

When Watching Someone Die

When watching someone die, be very quiet.

Listen to the machines beep, her paper lantern lungs fill with air for the last few times.

Listen to the deafening silence as life slips quietly from the room.

Hold her hand, withered and grey with skin as thin as promises.

Hold the hand that used to hold yours.

Stroke the palm that used to stroke the side of your face.

The nurses will offer you water because you haven't left her side in two days, but whisper it because death is a quiet happening.

Step out into the hall to weep when the cries shake your shoulders and threaten to escape as a scream.

When you feel the loss and unfairness of it all jumping at the back of your throat, excuse yourself.

Keep the lights dim, and watch.

Wait.

Pretend your heart didn't stop and your stomach didn't sink every time the signs of life on the monitors hesitate for a moment too long.

Brush her hair for her, the way she used to brush yours.

Say thank you. For the lessons and the recipes and the wiped away tears. For the phone calls you should have returned sooner, the birthday cards with the five dollar bills and pictures of kittens that came every year, even after you were far too old for cards like that.

Tell her you love her, and you forgive her for her sins.

You forgive her for the scars she gave your father that resulted in the scars he gave to you.

Whisper that you love her even though she was complicated, damaged, lost.

Someone has to love all the broken people, all the lost and invisible people, she used to say.

When you'd ask why she'd wink and say they were the ones that deserved it the most.

Before it's too late, say goodbye.

You'll know the moment she's left you.

You'll know because everything will be the same, but all the sameness will be so amplified by how wrong it is for none of the rest of the world to have changed, that the simple fact that the sky is the same blue it always is will be blinding.

Idle conversation will be maddening.

The sound of people laughing outside this room will be heart breaking.

You'll know the moment she's gone, and you'll always know what time it is on the East coast.

20 Ways to Ruin Your Own Life Post Break Up

1. Forget to go grocery shopping. Then just put it off altogether. Do this for weeks until the take out boxes have piled up and you can no longer see your waist line.

2. Tell your friends repeatedly that you'd love to hang out. Blow them off repeatedly to see your boyfriend. Call them crying when he breaks up with you and expect them to be there for you.

3. Accidentally send a text you meant to send to your ex, to your dad.

4. Go to the grocery store in your pajamas without showering for a couple days, in the same shirt you've been wearing since Friday. Discover that several people you work with shop at the same store.

5. Go to a bar by yourself and spend the entire time on your phone so no one can talk to you. Wonder afterward why nobody talked to you.

6. Load your instant queue on Netflix with movies you know you shouldn't be watching. The Notebook. Sleepless in Seattle. We Don't Live Here Anymore. Call your ex 6 times whilst crying-after each movie. Wonder why he isn't holding up his end of the "let's be friends" deal.

7. Briefly consider the idea of arranged marriages and mail order husbands.

8. Yell at the guy at BevMo because he made a mean comment about his fiance and even though you don't know him you're pretty sure he's damn lucky to have her, and why do men always take good women for granted?! Don't resist when the police come.

9. Tell your girlfriend at work who just started seeing a new guy that relationships are pointless and life is empty and meaningless so why the hell bother? This makes for great lunch time conversation over the giant plate of nachos you're eating by yourself.

10. Blog obsessively about your breakup.

11. Facebook every emotion you have. Poeple want you to overshare. You're interesting and fascinating.

12. Come up with any plan ever at all that you think will win back your ex. Tell people about it like you really believe you're not insane.

13. Cry in front of your boss.

14. Cry in front of strangers.

15. Cry from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep and don't even try to hide it.

16. Actually look into mail order husbands and arranged marriages. Back out when you remember that you'll actually have to sleep with your purchased husband.

17. Put your headphones on at work and get really into a Celine Dion song. Start singing it out loud without realizing it. Loudly. On repeat.

18. Stop wearing make up, doing your hair trying at all.

19. Look at your ex's facebook.

20. Decide that you're pretty sure he's going to come back, and start turning down dates, asking your friends not to set you up, and even continuing to talk about him like you're still together. After all, good comes to those who wait, right?

Wrong.



A Drop in the Ocean

A drop in the ocean

A change in the weather

I was praying that you and I might end up together.

It's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert.

But I'm holding you closer than most, because you are my heaven.

I don't wanna waste the weekend, if you don't love me, pretend.

A few more hours, then it's time to go.

And as my train rolls down the East coast, I wonder how you keep warm.

Too late to cry, too broken to move on.

And still I can't let you be.

Most nights I hardly sleep.

Don't seek what you don't need from me.

Just a drop in the ocean, a change in the weather.

I was praying that you and me might end up together.

It's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert.

But I'm holding you closer than most, cuz you are heaven.

Misplaced trust and old friends

Never counting regrets

By the grace of God, I do not rest at all.

In New England as the leaves change, the last excuse that I'll claim is that I was a woman who loved a man like a little girl.

Just a drop in the ocean, a change in the weather.

I was praying that you and me might end up together.

It's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert.

But I'm holding you closer than most, cuz you are heaven.

Heaven doesn't seem far away anymore.

You are my heaven.

-Ron Pope

Monday Momisms: The Difference Between Boys and Girls

This is the most accurate picture of life with little boys that I could find.

When I was pregnant with Lainie, I wanted a girl depserately. I know that might sound terrible, because everyone always says "As long as it's healthy, I don't care!" but I did care.

Not that I wouldn't have loved the baby if she had been a he, but I truly wanted a little girl so bad I could taste it. And when she came along, I was so happy. And then, once I had decided for sure that I wanted at least one more baby, I knew I wanted my last one to be a boy.

Boys are easier, everyone said.

Boys are more attached to their mama, everyone said.

Boys are fun, everyone said.

Have a boy, they said.

It will be fun, they said.

They lied.

I mean, not that having a boy isn't awesome.

It is.

I love little Jack Attack with all my heart.

But they are in no way easier.

Maybe some people think they're easier because they're less emotional. I haven't found this to be all that true. I think they become less emotional with age, but as toddlers? Little boys are just as sensitive and needy as little girls.

But they also break shit.

And by 'shit' I mean fucking everything they can touch, whether they're left alone with it or not. Jackson will break something right in front of me. He gives zero fucks about it.

And they also have this strange need to see how much they can do before they kill themselves.

Climb that tree to the top in .3 seconds while no ones looking? Absolutely.

Stand on top of my pedal car and do jumping jacks? Sounds fun.

Get out of the tub soaking wet and go running at break neck speed through the house, in bare feet on the tile? Don't mind if I do!

Wonder off, hide from Mommy, pee on electrical things, pee on the tile and don't say anything until someone slips in it, pee in public, run with scissors, steal frozen fish sticks from the freezer and eat some but don't tell Mommy how many so she has to call the doctor and find out if that could give me Salmonila or not, climb bookshelves that would crush my tiny bones if they were to fall on me, lock myself in the bathroom so the door handle has to be taken off before I throw the hair dryer in the toilet whilst it's on.

It's endless.

They ways in which they seem determined to kill themselves is mind boggling.

How any boy every lived to be 18 is beyond me.

Sure, girls are sensitive, girls get emotional, girls have attitudes and they seem to hit puberty long before boys do, but girls just never even think to do half the shit little boys do.

Girls will wear you out mentally and emotionally.

Boys will wear you out physically from trying to save their life and stop them from burning your house down, and then once they've sensed that you're physically weakened and can't go on, they will ask you questions you didn't think were even possible to come up with, until your head explodes.

Why are dogs brown sometimes?

Can cats do magic?

What happens when the light turns off in the fridge?

Why do I have to eat dinner?

Do you want to see this trick I can do?

Why are you crying?

Is it ok to hit my sister if she called me a baby first and I told her not to?

Am I person shaped?

What does a dragon do for fun?

Can I have a motorcycle?

MOMMY WAKE UP I'M TALKING TO YOU.

I still haven't figured out if boys are harder than girls, or if they're equally exhausting.

I have definitely decided that boys are much more destructive than girls, and they don't seem to feel bad about it the way a girl would if she made the same messes or caused the same chaos.

Also I don't remember Lainie peeing on nearly as many things in the whole 8 years of her life, as I remember Jackson peeing on just this week.

So there's that.

My advice to you future parents?

Have a boy, it's fun.

But have a girl too.

They'll put out the fires your son sets, and there will be at least one room in the house that doesn't smell like dirt and urine.