Quick and easy.

Monday morning quick (right) post from the office. And no. I will not be answering the question of Are you really just procrastinating? so please don’t even bother.

I finally got out of circa 2001 and into Windows 10 with my home computer. Sure, I sell technology for a living, but regardless, it’s kind of a thing with me. I refuse to replace stuff solely on the basis of I think it should last forever in the first place. My former washer and dryer lasted 19 years before I relented and not even a laundry mat would take them as a charitable donation. Me versus the machine. Literally.

As I was setting up the new computer, I began to clean out additional clutter. Most of it was also at least circa 2001 – some even older.  It’s a cathartic feeling, doing that, saying goodbye and good riddance to bad decisions, bad hair, and bad car insurance. Suffice it to say, at the end of that process I had a bag full of “what the heck were you thinking” reminders that I could never deny given the evidence trail of documentation. Lucky for me, there is an industrial-size shredder at our office and I’m usually the first one here.

So I bounce towards the warehouse, bag in hand. Doug was actually sitting in his chair slaving away at what looked to be weekend football scores. We caught up a bit, and he informed me that the warehouse was also undergoing a cathartic clean out, so, if I wanted, he would take care of shredding my erstwhile life. Having worked with the guy for almost twenty-years, I only had a slight tinge of pause, wondering whether or not he’d want my identity. Nah, I deduced. He’s also been around long enough to know my last name has changed like, a hundred times, and that’s just too much work for him.

As we walked through the key-padded door, I saw it. A photo cube that used to be in my old office.

“Hey!  Those are my people!  Wait.  Did I leave that in my old office?”

“Um, not sure. Bob just told me to throw it away.”

“Awww…look at her! My baby girl! She was three years-old in that picture. I saw her over the weekend; she’s not three anymore.”

“Does she live in a dorm or an apartment this year?”

“Sorority house. I know. I wasn’t all that good with it initially, trust me, but it’s not your stereotypical house. They’re fun, but not that kind of fun. It’s why she loves living there and I can sleep at night.”

“Well, when my Mom went to college, that generation just went to find a husband. They went for a couple years then dropped out.”

What also dropped was my stomach as I tried to push down the puke that was working its way to my mouth.

It dawned on me in that instant how times have changed. Secondarily, it dawned on me how old I would have sounded if I would have said that out loud.

So I didn’t. I just got sad.

Maybe it’s because it’s Monday. Maybe it’s because my baby is almost twenty and living in a mini-Vegas-like environment that I’m paying for like an idiotic "don't do the crap I did" enabler. Maybe it’s because I am going to put myself through self-induced hell tonight by watching the debate (because you can’t not watch the debate) and additional self-induced hell on Saturday by running a marathon (because you can’t not run a marathon when it’s in your hometown and you call yourself a runner).

No idea, but I do know I you can choose to fix my your attitude. Tout de suite. 

Everything is a choice, in fact. Choices abound now, just like they did then. And before then-then.  Nothing is new under the sun accept the way in which we choose to see the sun. Some people will tell you it causes cancer while others will tell you it makes their flowers bloom.

And Al Gore will tell you he called it years ago…waayyyy before he even invented the interweb.

 

Choose whom you listen to wisely – above all else. Not everyone is selling the same thing. Said your favorite salesperson ever.

Post Scriptum: Next class starts soon and the new site is almost done. Yes, I know that will be helpful for us all in that there will be specific topic sections -  i.e. you don’t have to read my moods or my final theological papers and instead can just skip right on over to the dirt - and I won’t have to wonder how to stay on topic. I get to tell myself. ‘Cause hello…choose whom you listen to wisely...did you skip that part?

Repeat After Me.

I have fifteen minutes to write this post. It’s 4:30am and in exactly 30 minutes I will be running mile repeats to see if anything is in fact, repeatable. I’ve not run a full marathon since April of 2014, I’ve not trained properly for this one, and I’ve not put myself through such draining tumult since at least yesterday, so we’ll see. Nothing is impossible as we all know and as the ever-helpful cliché goes.

Speaking of all things clichédly repeatable, I was reminded yesterday just how much I love being a Mom. Of all the things I am or cop to being or have been, nothing will ever trump that role for me.  It is pure joy when my phone rings and an image of her face pops up. All it takes is one little “Hi” uttered by that familiar voice for me to know how she is, how she’s feeling, and how to respond.

I had just arrived home with take-out in hand after a day I’d like not to ever repeat itself. I had just sat down. I had just breathed an exhale of breath so loudly that Pete Best could hear it all the way from London, his former drumming and Ring-o-ringing in his head from being pink-slipped notwithstanding. 

“What is it, sweets?”

“Nothing.”

I knew immediately what that nothing was feeling like for her. I knew then, at that age, and I’ve known several times after. My only (fine, only-ish) advice to her was that no matter how she was feeling, it was allowed. Give yourself a break, I told her. There is no need to be so hard on yourself for trying to out-tough yourself and realizing you are actually not so tough after all.

Or at least in that moment.

And this moment will pass – trust me.

The slippery slope as a parent who loves their kid more than will ever be explainable, who has fought to stay alive to parent him or her both literally and metaphorically, and who has been through those same, repeatable life stages is this: how do you “allow” your kid to experience pain so they do not become some entitled little jerk who lives in your basement until they’re thirty and simultaneously assure them that this is not their fault? 

How do you convey the guarantee that someday, that little putz and all the others who were too self-absorbed, too immature, and too weak to realize they had struck pure gold amidst the shallow and loose bedrock will end up either begging for your understanding or as a head clown riding trikes in circles and throwing candy in local parades?

Yeah, no idea what you do, but in my case it involves making pasta salad and blondies and bringing it to her on Saturday. 

And also hanging up, smiling at cold take-out and the two-fold realization that, without even knowing it, she has once again made my life easier, better, more fulfilled – and Pete Best will tell you to this day that being dumped by John, Paul, and George was the best thing that ever happened to him.

It’s the disguise part of the blessings that’s always the hardest. Lucky for her, her Mom is like Nancy Drew over here.

 

…In fact, I think I should try to find someone who is not Kanye and is female to sing about gold diggers. Maybe that’d be a ‘lil more helpful to those poor, poor boys.

 

(Clearly I am not totally hating. His rendition coupled with thoughts like the above helped me to repeat miles in stellar fashion. While 100% NOT wearing Yeezy’s.)

Love Me Do.

Nothing Much

So my husband - yeah, you read that right - told me yesterday in his classic direct and awesome way that the most talented writers write 7 days a week for at least four hours per day.

Problem solved.

You guys know I love inspirational quotes, but I'll spare you from reading the ones about doing anything you put your mind to.  At present, I'm mad at my mind because it won't stop telling me to write; I'm more mad at the rest of myself for not doing it.  How can I go around spouting off about my disdain for all things hypocritical when hello....?  You can't actually say you love something and totally ignore it for twenty-eight hours a week.  Imagine if I ignored my husband - yeah, still reading it correctly - for twenty-eight hours a week.  My soon-to-be pseudonym would be Liz Taylor.

Someone with whom I have worked for many years once told me it's intriguing, weird, and inexplicable that I want everyone to like me.  Of course his unfounded diagnosis wasn't even fully completed in the form of a sentence before I began systematically outlining the reasons that was obviously ridiculous.  Remember that one nut job?  You know I didn't care about whether or not he/she liked me after...

He interrupted and said something about that being his exact point.  Me even allowing said nut jobs in proximity to my space, my time, my life was absurdity in and of itself, and in his non-qualified estimation, I allowed it so as to avoid people from not liking me or thinking I was mean.

Whatever about that and his point.  But let's pretend he may have had one and I finally admitted as much.  How does that relate to writing?

Well, as Aristotle would say:  "There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing."

Who trifles with Aristotle?  Not this chick.  And I'm pretty sure not even Amy Schumer whose book I could not put down.  All I kept thinking is, if she can be that transparent and share her own nut job stories in an effort to help assuage others of their guilt for past mistakes, so can I. Because let's be honest - real stuff is funnier than made up stuff and trust me, you cannot make up ANY of what I can tell you.

My new site is underway.  Hoping to have the direction, vibe, aesthetics, functionality, etc etc figured out by the end of the year and never look back.  If I can get through cancer, a couple divorces, raising a teenage daughter, battling constant religious struggles, other life-long internal demons and a guy who vacillated between wearing Batman masks and skull caps, I can find twenty-eight hours a week.