Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Day of Reflective Goals & Paper Notebooks

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I came in from sitting on the porch and thought, “I don’t ever write anything down anymore.”

My younger self came supplied with notebook and nice pens, ever ready in the bag of dreams, to whip out and.  I haven’t kept a serious notebook now in, what?  3 or 4 years.  I found myself immediately blaming the computer for making me a slave to it, and thinking the only suitable format for writing was kibbling on it’s square letters and symbols. 

But it’s not the computer’s fault I don’t write. It’s my own fault.  Or. It’s circumstances.  You know.  

I wish there were some form of magic where I could just say snap and everything be way way easier.  It’s nine o’clock and I am exhausted.  I want to write more.  

I’m challenging myself to write something. Anything for the next 5 days.  I am always so long winded I intimidate myself.  But. I need to practice 30 minute writing spells for the next five days to complete a goal for myself. I’m not really a goal maker, so this is a big deal. Because you’re supposed to set goals, right?  

I remember being taught that in elementary school, but it didn’t translate to real life for me.  

I need to start making goals and lists. Crossing things off gives you a buzz, right? Sure. I’ll believe that.  

But I’ll need a notebook for the lists and goals.  I need to start writing more. With a pen.  Like I did in my previous life. 

Before children and struggle.  

Anyways. That’s all for the night. 

 

Seriously, Dude. Blues & Cupcakes.

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I’m in the new house now in Greensboro. The house is finally settled. We’ve been here since September, mostly. I’ve been drowning in a great depression for a month now, a rather heavy one. I’d like to think I’ll be able to shake it off, but I haven’t been able.

The year always starts with a bang. A new place to start counting from, now’s the perfect time to do what you’ve been putting off, let’s get skinny again!

I’ve gotten fat this past month and a half of 2014. I’ve stuffed my face with pretzels dipped in sour cream, in sweetened condensed milk. I’ve squirted Hershey’s chocolate syrup into the carton of strawberry ice cream and finished off a quarter size box of Breyers. I’ve eaten my children’s leftovers, used two bags of oatmeal at breakfast, and sprinkled lots and lots of salt on my single serving microwave popcorn. I’ve drank orange soda and milk and juice straight out of the bottle and put it back in the fridge. I went out for a burger and fries at Hops Burger Bar and had the most tasty burgers I have ever tasted in my life (get The Big Truffle if its on special), three days in a row. I’ve eaten my children’s candy. Cookies have been made and I have been the monster.

I shower hardly ever. I cut all my hair off. I am slowly slinking into being a blob on the couch til I’m dead.

Who am I kidding, I’ve been depressed for a while. It’s easy to say it when you just say it instead of putting it off.

I’m depressed! Okay then? Yes. Yes you are. Depressed.

Reason’s I’ve been depressed:
1. Children’s father is a nightmare to deal with. I’ll keep that explanation short and simple for now. No details. Just the thought of a tangent makes me scour. GRRR SERIOUSLY, DUDE.  I see now why some mothers opt their children’s fathers out of their lives. And I don’t want to do it. But I am convinced you are a psychopath.  And I’m not using that word to be funny. SERIOUSLY, DUDE. Look up the definition and deny deny deny who you are some more

(oookay)(back to the lissst)

2. General lack of healthiness. Can’t find jeans that fit right.

3 Can’t seem to wake up at 6 a.m., which for some reason, I have equated waking at that time to achieving happiness.

4. There is no music going on in my life. Unless you count me singing to The Little Mermaid Soundtrack in the car and my daughter shushing me.

5. I don’t see my friends as much as I thought I would after I moved back. I fully accept some blame for that. Life happens, like a nail gun on repeat.

6. This house I’m renting is okay but the oven and the tub and the kitchen sink suck.

7. I haven’t been writing, and writing always helps. Always helps.

8. Children are difficult to take care of day in and day out and day in and day out and day in and day out and day in and day out and day in and day out. It’s one of the joys of single motherhood.

Yeahhhhhhhdepression. So what now?

I dunno. There’s this blog post I guess, which is something good come of it. I’m writing. #winning

heh.

Somebody give me a fucking cupcake.

SERIOUSLY. Need cupcakes. Gourmet with neat flavors.

CHOCOLATE-CUPCAKES

Maybe I should make my own cupcakes and apply that thought to life.  Make my own way, and do the things I need to do to get myself out of this got-dog depression. I started this blog saying I was going to get up at 6 a.m. the following day, and I never did. Maybe tomorrow I will.

Seriously doubt it.  Maybe. I’m depressed.  And it’s supposed to snow. Maybe I will start writing in this website I paid for more, though. Maybe. Hopefully.  Writing helps.

So do snacks. Snacking my way through the depression. Gotta stop doing that, too. But not tonight.

A Short Thought on Millions.

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If I had a million dollars I would buy a custom built house bus, paint it black and blues, hire my daughters a weirdo tutor genius, get a couple of dogs, and travel long roads with my band for as long as we could stand at a time.

We wouldn’t play shows every night, no.  We’d play maybe 3 or four shows some weeks, and other weeks we wouldn’t play at all.  We’d discover the land. We’d take the back roads, and stop at every swamp attraction we could. We’d visit museums. Eat ice cream. Wander cemeteries.  Stare out across mountain valleys, and shout to the other side. Some days we’d all get separate hotel rooms and unwind in Marriott beds and pools. I’d spoil my children with attention.

 

If I had a million dollars I would take my Mama on a trip to Europe, I would take her anywhere she wanted to go. She could come on the bus, she could have the biggest bed.

If I had a million dollars, I’d invest in renewable energy and tear free baby shampoo.

I’d give money to ALS and Parkinson’s Disease research. I’d help a family who really needed it.

I won’t ever have a million dollars, though, likely. So, I will go to bed, and live my normal life tomorrow.   Dreams are never drab.

Monday is forty-four minutes away.

What would you do with a million dollars?

Settling Myself

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I am moving soon, and it’s on my mind.  I traveled through the internet today looking for a ripe house for the right price. A place big enough for me and the girls and a band.

I moved away from the music scene abruptly, without too deep of forethought when Fern was born. I was embroiled in some really tangled relationship issues, and packed up the Glenwood house in a muddied rush. My hope was to either save my two parent family or escape the two person parental party all together.  I left with the girls and their Daddy, Greensboro blowing in the wind.  We settled 90 miles east to mend our tattered family tree.

Let it be said that demons follow where you let them.

My family fell apart on Valentine’s Day, 2012.  The girl’s Daddy left in the dark morning hours, drunk and confused, cold, silently while we slept. We woke up, he wasn’t there.  He was gone. Again.

If the angry devil leaves, listen, angel. Lock your door. When he calls to say he’s sorry, don’t go get him no more.

I’ve been working on my single, work at home mama kick for about 16 months or so now?  In my hometown, near my parents, 90 miles away from the emotional drag-pole drama of my double baby daddy.    But, dag on, do I ever miss my old life. I miss my friends.  I miss my band.  I miss the burgers.  I miss the ability to be able to walk in one direction down a sidewalk for more than 15 minutes without reaching the end of town.  This town I’m holed up in is small, ya’ll.  And I am itching to get back to the feeling of my complete self.  Self is what you make it. The self I’m living with here is seeking the parts it lost in a jumble of transition when I left Greensboro.  I shed a big old piece of soul when I motored away from that fine town.

So.  The house hunt has begun. I’m looking at a big, old, four bedroom place in my old neighborhood on Monday.

glenwoodhouse

I’ve got a thread to sew in that town, and I’ll be moving in a month. I’m feeling kinda proud.  I’m not putting it off.

I’ve been debating the move for about seven or eight months now.  I knew that if I was going to move, it was going to have to be before the start of kindergarten. The only thing keeping me tethered to this town is my parents. My Mama and Daddy are old.  My Daddy is sick, in the late stages of Parkinson’s Disease.  I’ve battled the guilt of leaving him, and the thought of it now makes me tear up.  My Daddy is a wonderful wonderful man, and Parkinson’s Disease is a fucking asshole. I don’t know how much longer he has to live.  Not long, is what my brother says.  I don’t know how much longer my Mama can take care of him by herself.  I feel ugly for taking myself and the girls away from them.

But I’m not happy here. I feel like my life is stalled.  It’s been a year and a half since I stumbled out of the city, and I’m about to sneak on back in.  Start me up!

Shleep Naked

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It’s 11:28 and I’m tired. All the good writing hours have escaped me and I am lying in bed unclothed, with a cold quilt to keep the summer sweats at bay. I feel like closing my eyes.

My brain is empty of subject, I just keep saying “write” over in my head. Write, write. I’m dead. My brain is dead. Still I continue, hoping to squeeze something from the effort.

Bah! My whole person is a sheep beh-eh-ehgging to slumber. Put me out to pasture, I will wallow in the silks until the sun rises.

Tidy Times

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I’ll race while Fern’s still sleeping.  How many thoughts can I type while the baby still naps?

The house is clean, I can breathe again. There is a wad of laundry to fold, the carpet needs a vacuum.  I could probably tidy up the bathroom a bit more, I think there are still some dishes in the sink. Ollie’s room has some blocks that need to be put away, my bed is not made. But the house is clean, and I can begin a quick unwind while my littlest youngin naps.

The kingdom is in a state of rest. It does not look as if the land has been at war.  There are a few casualties of the house, but none that require so urgent a care and need to be tended.

I am at quite a loss of what to think.

Perhaps I should play the guitar.  Did I tell you I play music? Maybe I should go write a song now.

There Are No Cartoon Birds To Pull My Blankets

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6

I didn’t get up at six, just in case you were wondering. I got up at half past eight with no shame on my plate. I ate a handful of regret come evening time when everything I had needed to get done during the day had not gotten done. I don’t know how people get up so early. I know that it is probably great, the feeling of rising with the sun. But how do people do it day after day after day after day? Dawn comes and I am still weary from the hours I could not sleep the night before. Before the second it takes me to shut off the alarm clock is over, I am already fast asleep. Pillow on the head, praising the cool sheets on my cheek.

My Daddy got up at the ass crack of dawn for years when I was growing up. By the time I was out of bed to get ready for school, he would have already been up, breakfasted, read a couple of newspapers, and headed out for his first job of the day, the morning talk show for WYRN 1480 AM. I would listen to him on the clock radio in my Mama’s room while getting dressed for school. If we weren’t listening to him on the radio, we were listening to MIX 101.5 play “Lady in Red” like it knew that was the best song ever to get your day going.

I am so much like my Daddy. Why then can I not find it in myself to get up when I tell myself I would like to get up? The time comes around, and sleep changes my mind. I want sleep as long as I can possibly get the sweet swaddling of it.

The thing is, I know that this ability to sleep in until after eight is ending soon. My daughter, Ollie is going to be going to kindergarten in the fall. For the next seventeen years I will be waking with the worms to find myself plucked out of bed too early for my retaliating sleep pattern to kick in. The task of sending my daughters off to the early start of the school bell rings a slow dull moan in my psyche. If feels as if sleep is about to elude me for the rest of my life.

Half of me bemoans the early morning. Half of me wishes for it to knot me up in it’s bright beams and shake me til I’m wide awake and sugary sweet with love for it.  At night I beg the sunrise to slap me.  Morning comes and I curse the light.

There is so much to do, there is never enough time. When will my will wake up and wheel in the sunrise?

Is there a way to set your clock radio to play “Lady In Red” for the rest of your mornings alive?

Official Reading of the Scroll

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I told myself this morning that I would go to bed at eleven tonight. It’s now two minutes past midnight. I told myself two hours ago that I would start writing this blog post, but I didn’t start til now. I told myself last night that I would get up at six this morning, but I got up at eight. I’ve told myself again tonight that I will get up at six in the morning. And I’m going to. It’s six minutes past midnight. This is my anti-procrastination writing blog. I am going to change my life for the better.