miscellany, from the past two years

I’ve always kept a paper journal in addition to my blogs. I just finished filling up one of these, so upon starting a fresh one, I thought I would take a peek through the old one and share some things that never made it into the blog. It seems it takes me about two years to make it through one paper journal. That’s probably only interesting to me, lol.

So, some random thoughts on motherhood, writing, and life in general…

6/7/07: Dylan was about 11 months old.

Where did you come from? How did you get here? I ask him this and he smiles back – he answers back sometimes to whatever question he thought I was asking in his Dylan-language.

I can hardly remember being pregnant now. There was vomiting and then there was swelling, and that was nine months. Then he was here, and his birth to me now is nothing more than a surreal dream. If someone tried to convince me that the stork really does drop off babies at the hospital, I might be inclined to believe it.

This is how women manage to have more than one baby, lol!

6/25/07:

What the hell kind of word is “inasmuch,” and how is it any different than “in as much?” It looks ridiculous, and I promise myself I will never, EVER, use it!

LOL, literary rant?

10 favorite short stories (in no particular order):

1. “Snow,” by Julia Alvarez
2. “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Hemingway
3. “Mines,” by Susan Straight
4. “Screenwriter,” by Charles D’Ambrosio
5. “People Like That Are The Only People Here,” by Lorrie Moore
6. “What You Pawn I Will Redeem,” by Sherman Alexie
7. “Greasy Lake,” by T.C. Boyle
8. “A Small Good Thing,” by Raymond Carver
9. “The Only Signal on the Reservation…” by Sherman Alexie
10. “How Far She Went,” by Mary Hood

These still stand!

11/21/07: (Dylan would have been about 16 months old)

Dear anyone who ever wrote me an e-mail,

If I didn’t reply to you, please know that it’s not because I wasn’t interested, or don’t like you, or think you smell kind of funky. You all smell just fine. It is just this thing called “mommy brain.” The baby happens, and when he does, every thought I had processing is thrown immediatley into the toilet! This is especially problematic if I happened to be reading an e-mail, which is then marked as “already read,” and new e-mails are piled on top of it. And before I know it, it’s pushed off the page, not to be found for weeks, and then when I do find it, I think it’s been too long to reply, so I don’t, or do, with some lame and whiny explanation of how the baby happened. Babies happen, like headaches, like accidents, like shit. They happen, people, they do.

*Insert the obligatory mom disclaimer: but oh, how I love him, my little bundle of joy!*

11/22/07: (I can’t believe I never posted this one!)

A post for Thanksgiving

– This is an eating holiday, so wear something comfortable and stretchy. Not your hot pre-preggo jeans that you can finally fit into. No one will notice that you lost 15 lbs anyway.
– Try to think up some witty comebacks, even though you can’t even imagine the kinds of wrath-inducing things that will be said yet. This is the price you pay for living across the globe from your in-laws, you get a step-family. Nobody gets off that easy.
– It’s 10 a.m. and you’ve already had three fights with your husband.
– It’s 12:30 when you realize that even vegetarian turkeys need to be defrosted over night.
– Eat some pie and try not to feel too guilty about it. Don’t eat the whole pie.
– Holidays are stressful, drink some wine.
– After you’ve got a buzz going, you might be able to relax enough to think about what you’re thankful for.
– Before you get stressed again, take a moment to give hubby a hug and tell him you are thankful for him, because you are.
– You are also thankful the baby is still napping.
– You are thankful for your second glass of wine.
– At 4:30 p.m., your step-mother really does try to tell you what your dead actual mother would have wanted in regards to how you should raise your child. Oh yes, she really does! These were the kinds of unimaginable things that you were trying to imagine earlier. And no, you never managed to come up with any witty comebacks.
– Start a third glass of wine, and you realize, this Thanksgiving, you are thankful for wine.

2/6/09:

When I have a Sim I don’t like, I kill them off. Maybe storytelling isn’t any different.

I could never deal with Danny’s father – I could never get a hold of him. So in this new version, I killed him off. He’s dead from the very start of the novel. I gave him a horrible cancer and he died.

I’ve since considered that maybe it was Danny I couldn’t relate to having two live parents. Death issues much? 😉