Gloomy

Ugh. Things around here and in general (outside of here) have been really foul. I hope the universe rights itself soon. Without going into too much detail I'll just say that there has been pressure for Matt at work (out of no where) and a lot of weird stress. The kids have been off and it's something I don't have a lot of patience for. My hair is at least fixed, so that isn't a contributing factor anymore (and if it were I probably would have been certifiably insane by now) but I'm having annoying skin breakouts.

blah, blah, blah. These things are minor, but they add up. I HATE being in a worrysome state of mind. I hate not just having my normal flow around here, at work, and in general. I am trying to just maintain this sense of normalcy in the face of unpleasantries, but it's hard sometimes. The kids actually are helpful to me in this situation because they seem so carefree (for the most part) and accepting.

I always remind myself that if worse comes to worse, I would be absolutely fine with packing up, moving back to Olivia and working for the newspaper or something, and having a house payment for about half the amount that we're dealing with now. Safe schools, safe neighborhoods, and so much less busy stuff. I've wondered many times if it would be better to live in Olivia with a Minneapolis sort of perspective or to live in Minneapolis with an Olivia perspective. I don't think I have to verbalize which of these are the easier option, but some days I really think the alternate is the better one (for us).

I am enjoying the few little creative outlets I've been allowing myself lately, reading, writing, reading about writing, doing my pitfall cross stitch, blogging, keeping track of my blogs (!) and conceptualizing a new little pitfall project (felt landscape). If I didn't have to worry about family health insurance I would totally get a job and JoAnn and do little art projects, scrapbook, and do a total craft-y blog in addition to my others. In the future, and as they get finished, I plan on posting my completed projects on here and also putting downloads of the cross stitch patterns on too, in case anyone else out there thinks they might want to cross stitch themselves a nice little piece of atari art history.

The writing thing is really haphazard and not at all organized. I started the short story "Friends in her Pockets" last week and had a total overhaul in terms of the way the story goes and is told. All I've had time to do is an outline and a page and a half of crap. Getting time to mess with this is difficult but it at least gives me the feeling like I've taken so long thinking about it, sorting through it, and rewriting it over and over in my head that I don't think that any of these ideas I have are random whims anymore. Inside Republica Airlines is the (I guess) beginning of a novel I started as a screenplay when I was in school in 2003. This spring I revisited it and decided I wanted to flesh it out into a bigger, grander story and started writing it that way. I hit a wall this summer and had to reorganized some things, eliminate others, but I am starting to get excited about it again. Of course this is a very self-centered mapping of events much like the ones I experienced at Northwest Airlines, but a story worth telling, I think.

This is all the time I'll get. . . naps and chaos!

my short story debut.

starts tonight.

I am beginning small, adapting something from a dream I had when I was about 8.
Friends in Her Pockets.

Small child. Being ignored. Ends up at this creepy old lady's house for dinner.

rationalizing

i have not been very productive this week so far. i have not gotten up early to write. i have not done any denise austin. i have not
restrained from using my credit cards (my most recent and excitable purchase being THE MONSTER 1200 STEAMER, but i am justifying it because i am paranoid about germs, bugs, bed bugs, and germs from bed bugs after the maggot situation going on outside in the dumpster).

i have been eating a bunch of utter SHIT and all of these things I am telling myself are because A. "Her monthly bill came early,"
and B. Beebins has not been sleeping. Like, AT ALL. Waking an average of 4 times per night. her cold is much better now and on its way out, but seriously. snotty nose, developmental achievements and . . . i don't know what else do not make for a restful baby. today when i tried to put her down for her nap she literally FLAILED and WRITHED IN MY ARMS for the entire time the bottle was being given in effort to keep herself from falling asleep and submitting. annoying.

so really, i'm just blabbing and declaring to myself that i get some passes when it comes to being efficient in my misguided effort to try and be some sort of writer. i have set of short stories i am going to work on, bit by bit (bird by bird), but they haven't "sat" long enough in my mind for me to know them. so many of the things i write are kind of born on their own, coming to life and mutating a million different ways each day i spend with them. . . i just can't force this stuff. so in the meantime, i will be cross stitching, playing guitar hero, and waiting for inspiration.

and my baby to sleep.

rally round the family

I bested Tom Morello on expert battle mode yesterday. It was very VERy gratifying. I kept on with the next few songs, and wouldn't you know it, I'm onto some of my favorite ones now, Scorpions, Rock You Like A Hurricane, ZZ TOp, La Grange, and Pearl Jam, Even Flow. I am not actually playing these songs **well** when I do them, but I'm getting past them all the same. Even though I cursed him many times, the battles with Tom Morello really really improved my. . . technique, if you could call it that.

I was flipping through Facebook's pieces of flair application yesterday and doing a search for guitar hero flare, and most of the buttons that were on there were negative ones, as in, circle with cross through (guitar hero in the middle), or I PLAY REAL GUITAR. seriously. why people gotta hate? and if it's the musicians doing the hating of this game, well, GET OVER YOURSELVES. it's fricking fun. maybe it's not actual musicianship, but you definitely get a better score for being able to perform little rhythm things correctly, you have to memorize all kinds of patterns, be able to gauge where your hand needs to be, when to move it, invent finger board patterns to get a better score and do things faster, etc.

When kids do suzuki violin method (proper), they are supposed to spend the first year practicing ONLY on a little cardboard faux-violin contraption before they can get their real 1/10 size violin. this supposedly prepares them for the weight of the instrument, where to put their hands, and just hanging onto it in general. granted, every single guitar hero nerd out there is not going to run out and buy themselves an ibenez just so they can do it for real, but i know at least one guy who did it that way because he apparently enjoyed the game so much he wanted to rock out an ACTUAL GUITAR. i think that is cool. I probably won't ever be a real guitar hero, but i may just try fiddling around on an electric someday to pretend.

2. by practicing a little guitar hero each day, i seem to get better and better. I am going to try to do the same with writing, it's gotta have the same effect, eventually, right?

3. caramel frappucino last night. i was sooooooo bad. but it was very delicious. matt thought it was wretched. MORE FOR ME!!!

4. i got the brangelina twins people magazine yesterday at lund's on penn ave (thanks for the tip, lisha). i hauled ass up to walgreens 3 different times this week trying to get it only to find that they either weren't carrying it or they weren't putting it out until the other people magazines (about some abducted girl?) were gone. i got it home and looked at it outside on the deck and pretty much bawled at how cute they all are and how much I love those beautiful kids. So many people I know really hate angelina (and pitt), and honestly, i suppose i can say she's not my favorite person ever (pitt even less so) but that one shot, with the whole family lined up, sitting down, pax flinging his foot out towards the camera, and maddox holding shiloh laying down? That was the best, true, chaotic picture of a family, ever. suddenly 4 kids doesn't seem like too many (!) :)

(none of this can be breathed to my mother, who literally would SLIT MY THROAT if/when I ever get pregnant again.)

5. i am pretty much dashing the entire idea with this small short story i started and taking a completely different approach with it. that anne lamott book (bird by bird) really is a great inspiration. i enjoy her very much. now, if only she wasn't so damned negative and depressive.

6. i bought a star trib yesterday just to have something to buy at walgreens (when they didn't have people). I get the dumb thing home, glance slightly at the twin cities section, of course see something about PEOPLE BEING BEATEN WITH BASEBALL BATS AROUND SOME GODDAMNED LAKE PHALEN IN ST. PAUL and promptly pitch the fucker into the garbage. well, to be fair, i let beebins play with the sports and business section, but i definitely shit-canned the news sections.
what is going on? i haven't been able to read a paper for probably a good year, because every time i do, i read about some death or child abuse situation. ENOUGH!!!

moving on

1. we went to see THE DARK KNIGHT the other night. it was GLORIOUS. i am full on in love with christian bale as bruce wayne.
i said it before on my media rants blog, but if it were possible to get impregnated by a film, this one would have done it. whoOt!

2. i am taking the shakespeare class at the U this fall. dove in and registered.

3. in order of preference, my new list of celebrities to have sexual dreams about is: CHRISTIAN BALE, GEORGE CLOONEY, and BAM MARGERA.

4. i miss the old olivia. things are just different now and every time i go back i am hoping for it to be "my olivia" not the real one it currently is. i think rod serling was very much onto something with all of his nostalgic twilight zone episodes about old men wanting to go back to their hometowns and realizing it was impossible and that they'd gotten old, things had changed. maybe people who just can't ignore nostalgia become writers or professional scrapbookers.

5. bubby is onto sharks now. i don't know what the hell i was doing when I was 4, but i can be sure i wasn't memorizing insect and shark books and telling anyone who would listen about their properties/characteristics/eating habits, etc. for all the work this child was as a baby (not sleeping, EVER) i hope this is an indication of things to come. he never slept because in the future he will be researching scientific items with which he will CURE CANCER OR HIV or something significant like that.