A serious downside of NaBloPoMo is having to write on Sundays like these, during which nothing happens. I’m nursing a sore neck after having a spasm yesterday morning while sneezing (just go ahead and let the stupidity of such an event wash over you), watching The Godfather II with way too many commercial breaks, and drinking a Mexican Coke. Aren’t you glad I shared?
You know what you should definitely not do if you’re fighting some sadness? You should definitely not read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The husband saw me starting to read it the other night and said, “Uh, didn’t you say that you were feeling depressed? Then you really shouldn’t read that book.”
“Yeah, I know. I kind of feel like wallowing in it, though.”
“I’m just saying, I started reading that right around the same time that I started reading a book about the troubles in Belfast and I chose to stop reading The Road because it was so much more depressing than the Belfast book.”
I didn’t listen, though. It was a fairly quick read, but the past couple of nights, I would put the book down and try to go to sleep and think, “Well, yes, this may have been a terrible idea.”
I finished it last night and freaked the baby out a little by bursting into tears after closing it. Interestingly, I feel a little bit better today. Even if I could kind of relate to some of the panic that the father feels about taking care of a child in a broken world, I’m obviously not facing the horrific bleakness that they were.
I’m actually in between coats of polyurethaning the stain in the baby’s bedroom-to-be (which we’ve been working on, on and off, for four years). So, you know, I’m just sitting here, waiting for the pink elephants and the birdies and stars to dissipate. Fumes are fun!
Sometimes, when I’m sad like I’ve been, my sadness becomes more of me than I am. Like in Ghost when Whoopi Goldberg’s character lets spirits use her body. Sadness, with its bad posture and shitty clothes, jumps in and sometimes it’s like it gets really drunk and decides to go for a drive. (Note: I am not actually drinking away my sadness.) While it’s driving, it veers off to some unpaved road called Rage. Sadness gets tired of sleeping and sitting around and trying to think positively and goes completely batshit with rage.
I get so angry and every stupid or uncaring thing that people do, to me or to anyone, just makes me angrier. Hearing about people going insane and taking it upon themselves to go on shooting sprees doesn’t make me sad, it just makes me angry.
“We’re all miserable in some way, you prick. Let us decide how we might want to wreak destruction on ourselves,” I think.
I’m sorry to be such a downer on an otherwise beautiful Friday afternoon. But that’s what’s going on in my head.
Does your sadness ever veer off into rage?
My great-uncle brought it back from Italy after World War II and gave it to my grandmother. I wore it on our wedding day.
When I was at the grocery store on Sunday, I was paused at the tea section, hunting for a certain kind of iced tea bags that the husband uses. I couldn’t find the iced tea, but my eye stopped on the boxes of Constant Comment.
In my informal observations, the varieties of teas available to the general public have greatly increased over the past 10 or 15 years, with popularized versions of things like green and chai teas becoming commonplace.
I go through periods of being really into tea and will buy many different flavors, though I remain a devoted coffee drinker as part of my morning ritual.*
My mom drank tea all the time when I was little and one of her favorites was Constant Comment. Seeing the familiar red and black box at the store, I suddenly craved the spicy orange flavor. I bought a box and last night, I drank my first cup in years while thumbing through the JC Penney Christmas catalog and scratching my head over some of their jewelry items. (Ahem.)
Did you know that Ruth Campbell Bigelow created Constant Comment in 1945 and was so named because the recipe received nothing but “constant comments?”
*I make it sound so peaceful, when my “ritual” involves gulping 3 or so cups in a most crackheaded and fiendish fashion after stumbling out of bed and before shoving my kid out the door with a hearty, “LET’S GO! COME ON!”
We were standing at the bus stop yesterday morning, staring at the shattered glass in the street that must have been from an earlier traffic accident, and cringing every time a car drove over it.
Daylight Savings had made the morning just a bit more bearable, gifting us with light and an extra hour the day before.
At our house a block away, an obscenely large pile of Halloween candy sat, waiting to be slowly devoured.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I said.
“Yeah,” replied the baby.
“I’m kind of excited for Christmas already.”
“Is that really a secret?”
“Well, kinda. When you’re a grown-up you’re not really supposed to get that excited for Christmas, and you’re definitely not supposed to get excited for it at the very beginning of November.”
“Oh. Well, I’m excited, too.”
I feel kind of weird not joining in with the groaning about the holiday season and the shamelessly early marketing. But that stuff’s not even really on my mind. Since money will most likely be extraordinarily tight this year, the stress of shopping isn’t even an issue.
I’m just so looking forward to having some time off and being with my guys. I hope it snows and is so cold that hot chocolate becomes an hourly necessity.
I can’t wait to bake a ton of cookies. I’ve been somewhat accidentally stockpiling flour, buying a few sacks at a time whenever I spot a sale, and have signed up to receive the Cookie Countdown emails from MyRecipes. Seriously, starting around mid-December, if you’re anywhere near my house, stop in and grab a dozen or two. It’ll be silly.
I think it’s notable that before I even turned 30, I already owned two pairs of Easy Spirits and one pair of Aerosoles. (They’re cute, though. Honest. Not so orthopedic-looking.)
On Saturday, I turned 31, and I think my footwear is now totally age-appropriate, especially since I was ready to take to my bed after trick-or-treating with the baby.
I normally announce my birthday and this year I didn’t because I was too mopey. It wasn’t my age getting me down, but that lingering sadness from things not totally going our way. If you know me, you know that when I get sad, I get REALLY sad, and as my birthday approached, I panicked at the thought of random outbursts of tears whenever someone asked me how we were doing.
Early last week, I called my mom and told her that I just didn’t feel like celebrating my birthday and that I really wasn’t trying to be dramatic. And while my family wouldn’t let me get away with completely ignoring my birthday, things were very low-key this year, and I was so glad to put all of my energy into helping my kid celebrate Halloween.
The baby went as Zombie Troy Polamalu and his costume turned out pretty fantastic.
The only stuff that we had to buy were the wig (Troy’s luscious locks are almost more famous than he is, so there was no getting around it) and the makeup. The wig was actually one of those ridiculous dreadlock wigs from the costume store that we just combed out, trimmed, and tied in a ponytail. I was wildly insecure about this because I had read at least a dozen posts leading up to Halloween about racist costumes. Then when nobody noticed the zombie part of his costume until after we pointed it out, I became even more worried that people were glancing at his painted face and assuming it was blackface. My white guilt. Let me show you it.
Anyway, we went to our neighborhood’s annual Halloween parade and the baby took home the prize for scariest costume. The parade was thankfully very brief this year, but I managed to snap a picture of zombie Troy with the baby mayor.
My mom came over to dole out candy while the husband and I went trick-or-treating with the baby. This was the first year that the baby really got into it and we managed to cover quite a few blocks. His haul weighed in at 14.5 pounds. And we had a ton of candy left over because our side of the boulevard is apparently not where it’s at when it comes to trick-or-treating. (One block was so anemic that I proposed an outreach program where people from other candy-deprived neighborhoods come in and hand out their goodies.)
On Sunday we had to be at the soccer field at 7:45 a.m. for a playoff game. The baby’s team won but he got an earful from us for goofing off the whole time and not trying whatsoever and then getting pissed when he screwed up. For the second playoff game at 12, he was fired up and played wonderfully, scoring his first-ever goal. So they get to play for the championship on Saturday. At 8 a.m. (*quiet weeping*)
I’m going to attempt NaBloPoMo this year, after taking last year off. I am in between pee-wee soccer games right now, the first one being at 8 a.m., so you’ll have to forgive this obvious, “post for posting’s sake.” Sunday is when we also squeeze in laundry and grocery shopping, so I can’t offer much in the way of content. I’ll see yinz tomorrow.
I’m a big sucker for gadgets, which is why I try to avoid watching shows like this. However, I did end up watching an episode the other night and they featured this espresso/cappuccino machine from DeLonghi and this morning I realized I was daydreaming about it. Even though I get pretty annoyed when I see these being used in a coffee shop, I wouldn’t mind having one at home…because I am not (or am no longer) a professional barista so I think I get to have the dummy, push-button version.
So, yeah, as soon as I have $1,500 to spend on a coffeemaker, it’s mine.
Today, I have to knock out at least some of my final projects. Saturday, I need to get last-minute stuff for the baby’s birthday party and maybe a gift or two for my spawn. Sunday is his birthday party. It’s 1 – 3 p.m. so I imagine from 2:30 on I will be nursing a migraine. Monday, the husband goes to court for the hearing of our burglar, but I’m almost positive that they will postpone again. Apparently they can postpone the hearing three times and the tactic involved there is to discourage the witnesses/victims from continuing to show up. I don’t know. The last time I was there everyone seemed pretty indignant. I think the dude will be going down eventually. If he postpones this time, that will be the third time. So I think we’ll definitely be having a hearing in January.
Other than that…classes (last 4!) Monday through Thursday. User testing on Monday and Tuesday for my software documentation. Final paper for Style due on Wednesday. Baby’s birthday on Thursday. Software documentation due on Friday. Final portfolio for Prof & Tech due on the 14th.
Then: drinks.
I just remembered that I had promised a picture of the totally rad garage door that was across the street from the church in Akron where we attended a wedding. Check it:
Nice, huh? In my opinion there aren’t nearly enough garage door murals in the world. I’m going to commission an artist to paint these pictures on our garage doors (that we don’t ever use): (more…)
