The World According to EDW

My mom called on Friday, and for a minute I thought it was because she'd read my blog.  She hadn't, yet, but she did, and she called back to say that she didn't like what I wrote about her daughter, because her daughter is a fabulous mother.  So thank you, Mom.  And thank you, Debbie and Patrick and Christine and Joyce and Karen and Amy and Stephanie and Jodi and Jackie and Kat and Lyz and Erika and Lisa and Kelly and everyone else who called me or emailed me or left me a comment. 

Thank you.

I wasn't super excited about Halloween, as you might imagine, from the blog and the tears.  Friday night I left at about 10pm to go run and vent to my girlfriends via cell phone, and that helped a whole lot.  I was so super stressed, even after the crying, that I just needed air and movement.

Saturday dawned brighter and warmer, and I started to get happier.  Emily and Nick went off on their merry way, to soccer games and such, and I went off in search of a costume for myself.  Months ago, before school even started, I'd bought Emily the entire Cinderella regalia from the Disney Store.  It was a fit of Mothering Guilt that compelled me to purchase not only the dress but also the shoes, tiara, and wand.  I know, insanity.  I soon realized that, and spent a good hour in Target last week trying to convince her to jettison Cinderella for the $10 generic fairy costume she had her eye on.  I even offered her the Witch Barbie one, and you know how I feel about Barbie.  But Cinderella won out, and so she had the top-of-the-line little girl fantasy costume to wear.  Which, as it turns out, helped with my moment on Friday.  I might have gotten everything else wrong, but she did have the nicest costume possible.



As for me, I had a date with my two best friends and nothing to wear.  But then Jodi came up with this brilliant idea, so brilliant and so fun that I couldn't stop telling her that.  Nick and I took Emily trick or treating at his parents' house, because they have a much better neighborhood for it. And then his mom and dad took Emily to church, because they are good Catholics in the way that I am distinctly not, and Nick went off to hang out with his friend and I went off to get scary.



The inspiration was Pink's Funhouse Tour.  Jodi's a little anime, but basically, we're circus performer clowns, sort of Cirque du Soleil.  It was SO much fun to wear.  I was just skipping and bouncing the whole night.  Jodi and I were the only ones dressed up - Jackie and her friend Colleen and our high school friend Karen were all dressed like normal people out for the night, but I didn't care.  I was thrilled to be out, thrilled to be dancing the night away.  We didn't even get close to winning the costume contest, but we had a blast.



I cannot tell you how many songs we danced to and sang along to or how many times we laughed.  It was Girlfriend Central.  That was exactly the sort of night I needed.  As for Nick and his night...well, it's my blog so I only tell tales on myself.  But he had his own story, to be sure. 

And how was your Halloween?


The rest of the picture are here.

Today is one of thoe days when I feel like a failure as a mother.

Remember all those weeks of dropping my child off early at school, getting her ready and out the door with nary a raised voice and happy domestic bliss? My house was orderly and clean, my meals were whole grain and nutritious, my days were spent productively.  Well, no more.  My house is a mess. I hate a mess.  I am rushing to get myself and Em out the door and I am super proud when I manage it, even though it is ugly and there are threats.  The minute I get into work, the morning rush is forgotten, and I feel good and happy, but it starts again when I book it to get to Red Bank and park and pick Em up on time.  I make it there, but I'm not early and calm and centered.

The reality is that my days feel better, because instead of being discouraged and depressed by looking for work, I'm working and enjoying it.  But my mornings and nights don't.  I have no patience for Emily - I had a dream last night that I yelled at her and slapped her and I when I woke up this morning I was horrified but I wasn't sure if it was real or not.  And as I sit here and type these words, the tears pour down my face.   She runs over to hug me, and I apologize for my lack of patience, my lack of kindness.  I want to say sorry for being imperfect, for this house looking like it does, for meals slapped together.  But she doesn't care about those things.  It's the way I treat her that matters most.

Today we got to school just a minute late, and the principal walked her inside.  I felt bad.  Then I went to work and it was good and busy and I left a minute too late, caught up in what I was doing, and made it to town just in time to park and see her Halloween parade.  But there were no free spaces, and I drove around and nearly got into an accident, and finally found a place to park but I didn't have enough change for the meter, only 25 cents in my car or purse.  I ran to get to the parade, but as I walked up, my father-in-law spotted me and said "You missed her".  I knew it wasn't true, knew the parade route from preschool, but I wanted to cry nonetheless.  I saw her come out of the convent, where the nuns hand them candy.  I saw her at the last possible moment, but I saw her.   I took a breath.  I chatted with other parents. 

I knew the party, the only classroom party I get to attend all year, the reason I left work early in my second week, was at 1:20pm. So I had time.  I begged some quarters, filled my meter, got coffee.  And went in.  But the party was over, they'd started it right after the parade, despite the note home yesterday.  Again, I'd failed.  I'd gotten it wrong.

I had bought a carpet sweeper for the classroom, back when I was a SAHM and could volunteer once a week for lunch and recess time. I brought that in and set it up, but the cuteness of the party was over, all the fun, all the things they do.  And did I mention that when I went to take a picture of Emily, back at the parade, the camera said it was full?  Oh, yes.  So no pictures, no party, not one note hit right. 

I wanted to cry.

Instead, I drank my coffee, I chatted with the teachers and other moms, I told my sad story to one mom who was sympathetic.  I stayed until it was almost time for school to be over, and then I took Emily and signed her out.  We stopped by the nurse's office, a colleague and friend of my mother-in-law's, and that warmed my heart a bit.  I got blown off by a friend of a friend on the way out, some dad let the door slam right on my kid's face, and I finally got one picture with my iPhone which was broadcasting low battery.

But as we walked back to the car, Emily seemed okay; not too damaged by her absent mother, the door that hit her, and the general sense of failure I felt.  The nice lady we pass every day at the local bath store offered us candy and smiled, and I felt good again about my town, my choice of school.  I got us home in one piece, and let her watch TV.  There's a huge amount of work ahead of me, laundry and cleaning and organizing and just everything to make this house look like it's not occupied by someone with a serious mental illness.

But I feel that maybe I can cope a bit better, that maybe this day will be over, that maybe I can shake some of the guilt and sadness and yes, failure, I feel.  I don't need to be perfect, but it would have been nice to get one thing right.  Maybe I did - the apology to my daughter is worth something, I know. 

So. How's your day going?

I love my new job.  That's the biggest news on my front.  And I spend every weekday there, so any time I spent online is pretty much sucked up by work.  I can't believe that I'm up and out so early in the morning and hustling my child and moving moving moving every minute.  It's the second week, so I'm still coming home tired and my rhythm of life isn't set yet.  I'm in total transition, but the good side of it.  They love me where I am and I love them and it's just good.

I've been the recipient of some good radio mojo, and some songs that are stalking me, but this is the one that's killing me now.  It makes me want to lie down in the woods, in the afternoon, and just breathe.  In a totally good and sad way.  The words are here.  If this makes sense to you, the sentiment if not the particulars, thank you from the bottom of my heart for getting it.

I've got some weird little things I do and one of them is writing things down.  Many things. I take notes on conversations, I document a job when I start it, I jot down the funny little things my friends say.  I write things down, sometimes the important stuff and sometimes the small stuff.  I've been writing my life into being, which is what I call that list of dream stuff.  How I imagine my life. I've put some things on there, and left some things off.  But the hard part is not the writing, the hard part is the dreaming.

You can call it processing or thinking or sorting shit out, but it's all the same.  The new job, one little piece of the puzzle, is taking up a lot of time, and I'm trying to get back to those dreams.  Because one day it will be three months from now, and then six months, and then a year.  And I don't want to be somewhere I haven't charted, to be someone I'm not sure about being.  I want to be me, fully, and I want to see all this stuff that's swirling around me through.  But my way.  Consciously.  Not by default.

 Wish me luck.

It's Friday night and I'm knackered.  Just simply beat.  Another busy weekend, although not as busy as last weekend, is on the horizon. I'm working tomorrow - I know! a job! - but even that I'm looking forward to.   

And this week, during certain days of particularly good radio programming, I was happy.

News flash?  Maybe.  But it's true.  The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and I felt happy.

I owe you guys some stories, and a funny little anecdote on how not to save money - but not tonight.  Instead, let me leave you with this new Weezer video, for the song I mentioned earlier.  The video makes no sense, but I love the song.

What's on tap for your weekend?

I've turned into one of those coupon ladies, the kind of woman who cares a ridiculously large purse stuffed with small pieces of paper promising 20% off.  A flyer came yesterday with a lot of text and pictures and as I dutifully cut along the dotted lines, I read the advertisement.  They claimed that their new sweater, which looks suspiciously like every other sweater they've ever sold, was "the best thing to happen to rugby since your college boyfriend".

Um, my college boyfriend, while being a nice guy, did not play rugby.  You had to have money to play rugby, and besides, this is Jersey.  My college boyfriend dropped out of Rutgers and worked overnights at UPS.  Rugby?  Wasn't that the sport those Benetton shirts were about?  Yeah, I don't know so much from that.  Now, if you want to sell me a flannel shirt and mention that it's softer than the ones I used to steal from my boyfriend, that I could get next to.

Today was a better day, although incredibly busy.  Non-stop, really, and yet I'm sitting here writing instead of sleeping because it was also one of those days where I had 57 ideas for blog posts and wanted to call everyone up and tell them stories.  And I have proof that sometimes the radio is out to get you and sometimes it's holding your hand.  Today I heard "Mary Jane's Last Dance" by Tom Petty, then "I Want You To" by Weezer, and then "Authority Song" by John Mellencamp.  See?  The songs feel bad and they're trying to cheer me up.  I get pumped by the end of the Tom Petty one, and jazzed by Weezer, and the Mellencamp song makes me want to jump up and down.  Which I do very ungracefully every time I see him in concert.

Today is Tom Petty's birthday, though, so I'm going to refrain from gushing over each song, all three of which are promptly going on a mix, in that order, and instead gush over Mr Petty. 

I've been on a total Tom Petty kick lately, and the album Into the Great Wide Open is just saving my soul.  Tom Petty, as someone pointed out to me, was kind of like wallpaper.  Always there, but you don't think about him.  Yet, can you imagine your life without "American Girl"?  Even if you're not the "screaming it at the top of your lungs with girlfriends" type - or gender - that lyric up at the top of this post is killer.  There are so many others, so many songs that make me want to dance and cry and sing and laugh and write.  They knock me out again and again as I listen to his music, really for the first time properly.

So go give him a listen.  And tell me what music is saving your soul, or what has recently turned your day or week around, from eh to yeah. 

Oh, Good God.  I've got a little rant about why every music show I go to lately is eh instead of OMG, and I'm talking about shows that should be OMG and that everyone there with me agrees should be but aren't.  I've got a story - with pictures - about Saturday night aka my friend Kathy's bachelorette party.   I've also got some Rutgers pictures to put up, from last weekend.

But today was one of those days when every song on the radio was sad, even the fist-pumping ones I spun on my iPhone.  It's a day where you could feed me popcorn and ice cream and dark chocolate and it wouldn't make one bit of difference.  I'm wrapped in fleece, finally back home after two nights away, but I don't feel settled yet. Maybe I won't, and this is truly the new world order, for now.

I can't stop listening to this band, even if every song makes me sad.  Especially this one, which makes me want to jump up and down and cry at the same time.



By the way, the second boy in the video...tall, dark hair, white t-shirt?  LOVE him.  I made a complete fool of myself over him on Sunday night, too.  And he saw me doing that.  Hilarious.

Before I get into all the things swirling in my head, can I beseech you, my darlings?  Please, please, please attach your email to your profile, so when you leave comments I can reply to you directly.  Sometimes I suck at replying to comments, but I like to have the option to suck at that.  Thanks!!!

As I've mentioned, I'm on a job hunt and applying to grad school.  I find each of those totally exhausting.  Job searching takes up far more time than you might imagine, sending out tons of resumes and making calls and not getting any replies - or at least not a lot of replies.   I find it all so tiring and hard and it totally knocks my confidence down levels upon levels.  Nothing shakes me to my core like being unemployed and trying to change that.  Then there's stressing about the actual interviews.  Oy vey.  It's no wonder that I kind of want to pull the covers over my head. The grad school thing is just another stressor - I'm sure it will be fine, but I'm finding it hard to get my head around both of these things at once.

And then there's those other things.  The rest of my life, some of which is about the Rest of My Life.  Did you capitalize that in college, or were you one of the lucky ones who always knew what you wanted and where you belonged?  Me, I never have.  Not once did I know where I belonged or what I wanted to be when I grew up.

It's why I fell in love with NJ, because I finally felt like I belonged here.  It's why I am so attached to my friends, and the little groups and traditions and things we do.  It's what I loved most about every TV show I got into, or book series I read, or movie I called my favorite - that sense of belonging, a world I'd love to step into, if just for a while.  It's why I embrace not only those loves, but the fandoms that come with them, why I fell so hard and stayed so in love with Marah.  Belonging.

It might be funny to hear, if you know me offline.  I hate the term in real life, by the way.  This is real life.  Anyhoo, if you know me offline you might find that interesting.  Or maybe you don't because it's so freaking obvious.  But it's no coincidence that someone like me, who now spends so much time on the inside of things, felt most her life like she didn't quite have a place. 

I try like hell to give other people that place.

If you happen to walk into my life, I'm more apt than not to open my arms wide to you, and ask you to stay. I joke that it's my "hi, do you want to be best friends" play, but it's not that much of a joke.  I don't love everyone I meet, and I don't want everyone to be my best friend, but if you're in, you're holy hell in.  There are plenty of times when I'm a shitty friend, but I'm never a half-way one.  I might not answer that email very promptly, or call you back the same day, but you are so welcome at Christmas dinner.

Laurie Berkner, whose music I know solely because sometimes I let TV parent my daughter, sings this song about family and the lyric is "If you're in my heart, you're in my family".  Emily is pretty into this song, and I've made sure to tell her that the people you love get to be your family - look at Mommy, and her friends.  I love that concept, as much as I love the idea that love is a choice we make every day.  It's radical, and it just rocks.   

I'm 35, and some days I still don't know where I belong.  I don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up, or even where I'm going to be in a year - the question that always terrified me at 22, by the way, what Where do you see yourself in five years?  Alive, I'd think.  

There are  lot of things in flux in my life right now.  I'm busy trying to settle one, then another, and then another - leaving room, I hope, for the rest to be sorted out.  I see huge changes ahead - mammoth changes - and it's exciting and terrifying and yes, confidence rattling and messing with my safe little world.  But I know that wherever I end up, I will find my place.

I'm loving this song, by the way.