Wednesday, August 30, 2006

All New People

I just finished off another Anne Lamott book (number 6 and counting) called All New People. It's one of her early novels and as the name implies its kind of a before and after deal, where you follow a family and see them transform. its a nice thought, becoming a new person. kind of romantic, but not impossible. sometimes i think that God has taken me back to high school where i met slick (the ex) and started attending cult to start my transformation into a real person from that time. mind you, i was a complete ass in high school, as most of us are, and completely self absorbed. i think i am still an ass and self absorbed and since i'd most like to jsut erase the time i met slick to about a year ago completely from memory, i decided that i get to start over from high school and learn to grow up. i believe God loves me because he doesnt want me to stay a self absorbed jerk. but i'm not entirely sure he likes me all that much as i am right now. i'm not sure i even like myself that much as i am. so i'm trying to grow up. its hard. mostly becuase if i follow the idea that i'm starting where i was in high school, i've got a lot of work with two little girls in tow. most days i'm pretty selfish where they are concerned. i dont want to get up every morning to the sound of children fighting over a toy and screaming at each other. i dont want to feed them, i want to sleep in and get up when i feel like it. as a result i get crabby real fast. and that crabbiness generally sets the tone for the day. its pretty hard to live outside of my own wants. i'm also learning not to live outside my own needs, and taking an honest look at what my needs really are and then trying not to be a martyr. i still think i have a pretty juvenile picture as to what my real needs are as opposed to what i want. but i think God gently tells me at the end of everyday where i have been a jerk and that i can try to do better tomorrow. in that respect, i really ascribe to the notion that we get to start each day fresh. it somehow makes living through the day a little easier without the weight of yesterday on you. and if i let it, yesterday can be really heavy. i have also learned that i am extended grace from my kids who let me tell them that i messed up and forgive me. its pretty humbling when your five year old says "i forgive you mommy." so if you see me being an asshole you can tell me to grow up, because after all this time i still need to hear it.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Driving Etiquette

If emily post were alive today and could drive, i'm sure she would comment on the proper way to operate a vehicle and suggest some wholesome manner of sharing the road with your fellow drivers. It's too bad she's dead, because now it appears as if the gruesome task is left to me and i'm mean. i personally think that everyone except me and a few close friends should not be allowed to drive....ever. i love living in the city but i hate city drivers/driving. which if i feel like remaining in the city i have to put up with it but really, that is crap. people should just know how to drive like a reasonable human with other reasonable humans on the road (such as myself). *Note-if you are faint of heart and do not like reading angry posts containing swears, please stop reading-end note*
On Tailgaiting: if you are a rich white suburbanite SAHM driving a vehicle much to big for you to obviously handle with any sort of aptitude just get the hell off the road. then i would not have to be assaulted by your asinine ways whilst driving to and from work. at least once in every trip to and from webster i am tailgaited to the point of not even being able to see the headlights of the SUV behind me because they are riding my ass. And when i finally get over as slow as i can possibly manage i look over with a deadly glare to see a rich white suburban mom glaring back. then they pass and i see a retarded window decal of their rich white kids sports team. It fills me with rage. i lose all sense of comapssion and Christ like love for these people at that point and wish they would mercilessly be trapped under their SUV watching the massive bag of soccer balls rolling away from the flaming wreckage. if you tailgate people.....stop.
On Parking: i feel the need to make a small addition to the people who fall into the category of ass parkers. I'm amending the post to include the jerks who park their cars in lanes of traffic that are designed to be used for driving on, not so some lazy assed bum can park there to go into some convenient store for a 40. these people are indeed lazy because the convenient store is almost always located on the corner of a side street where there is ample parking. why? why is it so flipping hard to park a few more feet away so that you dont block rush hour traffic on freaking LAKE AVE? not only are these people offensively lazy they are also self absorbed and think that the rest of the world should just have to get out of their way dammit becuase they have to get their 40 and a pack of freakin lucky strikes. if you are going to be that self absorbed do it in the privacy of your own home so you dont piss off the rest of the world, or find some other way to be self absorbed so that you arent an inconvenience to everyone. if you are an ass parker....stop.
i'm so glad i have an online journal so that i can post the inner workings of my head. now i dont have to worry that people think i'm really just a sweet girl. i am most of the time. but dont get me angry...you wont like me when i'm angry. as a completely unrelated sidenote, i have finally learned how to link things. hopefully the links work...if not, oh well.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

time's fun when you're having flies

it just occurred to me that my five year old is starting kindergarden this year. somehow this has caught me by surprise. you'd think i would have seen it coming seeing as how i've gone through all the paperwork to get her registered and she got a nifty tin school house rock lunchbox, and even has a pretty dress for her first school picture. this morning i find myself bewildered at where the time went. kiddo's a big girl now...reading at a first to second grade level, adding and subtracting numbers, taking dance classes, getting much better at being nice to her sister, playing my little pony on piano by ear and singing along with herself. i so clearly remember her being born and how i was a bawly mess when i first got to hold her and then had to scream "get her off me i'm going to puke" (side effect of too much epidural). she looked like a little alien as all babies do, but of course she was perfect in every way. i remember her eating and ralphing and getting bit by bugs and swelling up like crazy, walking (January 4, 2002-3 days shy of her 10 month birthday), halloween costumes, greeting trick or treaters at the door by saying "Hi kids!! I'm a COW" and so many other memories that are too numerous to lay down in one post. but now she's 5 and kindly reminds me to be nice to people when i'm driving and that i shouldnt say mean things to other drivers....she says that those other drivers just dont know how to drive better and that they need to go to school to learn to drive. damn. she's an amazing kid and i'm more proud than i could ever have words to express it. i can't imagine how i will be on september 7th at 8.15 in the morning when i will take her to her first day at school. school officials will have to scoop me up off the floor with a shovel and dump me out onto the sidewalk. so cheers to Cara Marie who is the best five year old on the planet!

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

forgiveness

two weeks ago i gave a little speech in church about a nasty experince that i had at my previous church. at the end of it i said that even though the crap that went down happened over two years ago i still struggle with feelings of anger and unforgiveness toward these people...really its just a few choice people. so last night i finally prayed about it. one would think i might have gotten on this a little sooner, but better late than never i suppose. it was actually really good because i haven't prayed in a long time. i've been wondering how to just let go of what these people did. tonight i was thinking of what i might actually say to these people in the act of forgiving them. i thought that i'd start out with the record i have kept of their wrongs (similar to the record that God doesnt keep), of course remembering the sometimes pat answer that love keeps no record of wrongs. but i dont love these people. so i have my list. other scriptures come to mind about loving ones enemies and such. i guess that if i saw one of them stuck under the wheel of a semi that was about to explode i'd call 911 and such, but i don't have to like them after doing so. and i dont. i'm not sure i ever will like them again. and if they were all stuck under the wheel i might think of it as divine intervention and leave them there. i just remembered a conversation with mike where he posed the idea that maybe Jesus doesnt actually like everyone...he loved everyone for sure, but its not the same as liking them. he definitely had choice people he surrounded himself with and there was John, the disciple that he loved...i'm still thinking on that, and if that were indeed true it would certainly make my not liking the people i dont like easier.so, i'm actively working on letting go of the past and hoping that helps me not be so freakin angry all the time. if you have tips (whoever you are that has actually read to the bottom) on forgiveness or thoughts on the concept please post a comment. and thanks in advance.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

honesty

i wish my kids didn't piss me off so much. then i could walk around always feeling like i do when they aren't around and i miss them terribly. whenever i'm away from the girls, even if its a few short hours at the music store, my children are perfect and it makes me feel bad for other kids and their parents for not having my kids. my kids are a complete mystery to me. i don't get how in one moment i am filled with such pride and love that it seeps out of every orifice (seriously...yesterday i was shitting pride when cara took her first dance class and then later on did her german folk dancing at the fest, even though she kept spinning herself into the other dancers and getting lost). Then like three seconds later i'm filled with more rage than even i am comfortable with because the two retardo twins have been beating each other up with the stupid fairy wand again. often i just look at the girls in all their retarded glory and think "what the fuck?" i don't get them. some of you may be reading and thinking....did she just say what the f**k? i did. it's because i've been reading anne lamott again. this time it was her journal of her son's first year of life. dang. anne says everything i think about being a single mom. i've really been struggling with this role ever since cara was born (even though i was married at the time....big story for another time). her book has been therapeutic. and i think that if i just say the things i wish i could say but instead suppress so that people dont mistake me for a crappy mom, that i will find a more healthy way to release all this pent up anger and resentment that kind of lives inside me like one of those little dinosaur caplets that melt to release the dinosaur inside now 50 times bigger. that was a run-on sentence. i dont care either. i think i'm going to start a new blog called the honesty blog and write all about my kids and what they do to me.