Nothing Changes

We did move to Michigan.

It sucks.

My mother lives less than a quarter mile away, and when she has any free time or energy she spends it examining my life and telling me what to do. When I don't do what she wants, she frequently comes over and does things "for" me, often when I'm not home so she doesn't have to argue with me.

The best news on that front is that my grandfather is very ill, and she has no time left to molest me and mine.  The worst news on that front is that he is liable to die, and then she will have free time again.

The people here are, in fact, the kind who vote for Trump. They are ignorant fucksticks, like as unto our president himself. I wish I could say something like "But they have big hearts!" but they don't. They're racist and zenophobic and miserly. They take and they don't give. They're proud to be bigots in public again. To be fair, even if I didn't live here where it's all up in my face, I would probably find the political happenings equally horrific.

It is cold. We do have a stove, and we ARE warmer here. The house IS smaller and easier to clean. I have yet to mow the lawn here, and I never will, as grod is my witness. We are raising our own meat, our goats are off getting some loving as I type, and chickens will happen this year. Hopefully gardening will too.

Depression is my buddy here. I have been doing a lot to try and learn my way out of it. You might be able to tell I haven't met with complete success.

I have no job. The man I am married to has no job. I do volunteer tutor at the local library, volunteer as a 4-H art club leader, and I'm always taking the girls places. I keep busy. Somehow I never manage to get enough done on the house and yard, so nothing new there really.

My health has sort of plateaued. It is not as good as I need it to be, so nothing new there either.

We've been here a year now. I feel no need to celebrate. In fact, every holiday feels like a slap in the face. I don't feel like I have anything to celebrate, and much to mourn. Then I feel guilty because so many have so much more to mourn. This is how depression works.

I suppose this is this year's post. A year of living in what mom calls "my little piece of heaven" (FUCKING HA! AS IF) can be summed up as "That sucked".

See you next year, assuming we haven't gone to war with China and had the interwebs EMPed out of existence.

Sigh.

Something New

I'm meant to be working on the house, getting it ready to sell, but I've hit a hump so  I'm going to blog instead. HA! Procrastinating like the pros....

I was just reading my old posts, and I'm struck by how many times I thought I'd figured something out and was going to get better. Well here's something new- I've finally accepted that I get what I get and I can throw fits but it won't change anything. For whatever reason my body is not as energetic as my brain wants it to be. I can skip wheat and dairy (I do) and take supplements (I do) and prescription meds (I do) and all I get is some easing of symptoms. It just doesn't get better, and I appear to be on a sort of slow slide. That's that.

It makes me very, very, very angry.

And that's ok. I have been robbed. It's right to be angry. Then I put on my big girl panties and get things done for as long as I can. I still manage to get a fair amount of things done, just never as much as I'd like.

The good news is that we're moving to Michigan. Mom is having us move into her trailer, which sits on the family property. There will be much less square footage to clean in the house. There will be no mortgage there. No fluoride or chlorine in the water. No rules about mowing the lawn. No prohibitions on chickens or bees or goats or gardening the hell out of native plants (aka weeds, in the city. Oh the fun we had with that). Although the winters are grob awful, there's a wood stove meaning we'll actually be warmer there- we kept the heat set at 55 here. One winter we kept the house warm with a kerosene heater in the living room. We all wore coats inside. It was nasty. Interestingly, we didn't catch any colds that winter, but I digress.

OF course, it's no Shangri-La there. Lots of people of the sort who would vote for Trump are there. Lots. When you meet new people, it's "What church do you go to?" and "What sport do your kids play?" . I will not fit in now any better than I did when I went to high school there.

There are no good jobs there. I hope to get a job subbing at the schools a few days a week, but that would mean Wayne would have to have some kind of job that allowed him to watch the girls on those days.

And of course, I'm moving in with my Mom. A lady I barely know, because she's been in Russia for most of my life. A lady with whom I have issues. I refuse to even ponder how that's going to go down, because it terrifies and tires me, and I'm working so hard on getting this house done. The rest of the family is already there, huddled between piles of boxes. Apparently Simon spend his days on the computer, the girls poke at rocks in the driveway, and Mom fusses a lot. This is the impression I get from here, and it drives me dotty. I need to get up there and put things to rights.  I have to finish here first, which involves a hella lot of painting. I cannot communicate how much painting me and my friends have done. Also electrical work. Also caulking. Also getting rid of things.

I say we, but I really mean my friends. The Loon came all the way out from Michigan and busted hump to get all the drywall stuff done, as well as paint and paint and caulk and paint. My other dear friend (that I haven't named here yet) made this project her new nine to five, and has been out here painting and painting and keeping me going. Other friends drop by and paint when they have spare time, or watch children for us, or lend us tools. I absolutely couldn't do this without them. I really don't want to leave them behind. It feels like every five years I leave my people and start over. This is also why we're choosing Michigan- because we've decided to quit doing that. We're tired of pulling up stakes and starting over.

I suppose that's enough of that. Gotta go get some more paint in my hair.

Wish me luck,
Ephelba

FB Status Updates I never posted, but really wanted to.

The children's favorite bathtub toy is the mildew that gets flushed out of the inside of their other bathtub toys. Best. Mom. Ever.

I think religion says "This is the right thing to do.  That is the wrong thing to do.  You must do whatever it takes to do the right things and not do the wrong things.  Hurt yourself, the people you love, don't be true to yourself if it means that the right things get done".  I don't have religion, so I think you should not hurt yourself or anybody else, and you should be true to yourself, and if something meets those requirements, that's how you know it's the right thing.

My dog is scared of My farts.

You're all being pwned by like-farmers.  STOP IT!  BAD FACEBOOKER!  BADBADBAD!!!!1!

The best part about sleeping in your clothes is that you can go to work in your pajamas.

Really, the only people who are capable of cutting you to the bone are the ones that you love.  

Sometimes FB make me feel lonelier than ever, because when no one responds to my posts I know it's because FB hasn't shown them to anyone, because no one has interest in me.  It's the FB catch 22.

Sometimes FB makes me feel the love more than ever, because I post a comment and someone I didn't even know hits the like button.  In a set of more than six billion people, there exists at least one other person who agrees with me.

Someone is wrong on the internet again.  Make them stop.

I actually DO find your pictures of lunch interesting.

The Bug: "Let's get a Christmas tree."
Me: "We can't afford one.  We'll have to make something like one."
The Bug: "PLEEEEEESE"
Me: "It's not like it's an option and I'm holding out on you.  Do you want breakfasts, or do you want a Christmas tree?"
The Bug: " A Christmas tree."

(Which I can't post because people will think I'm whiny, but honestly I thought it was funny...)

What a weekend I had......

Ever have one of those days when you miss a dose of Pristique and you're possibly premenstrual anyways, and you lose how handfuls of your sanity but somehow the loss escapes your perception because it's all apeshit up in there anyways, and really, if you've got a room full to bursting with monkeys, and then 30 of them run off, you notice the volumes been reduced, but you really couldn't be bothered with an exact number.  There were more, there are now less, but you're still dodging poo so you best get on with it, not counting monkeys.  Which is all to say I knew I was having A BAD DAY, but it wasn't really until today that I look back on this weekend and say "Who does that?".  I will tell you.  A crazy lady does that.  I thank Science for my meds, and am glad they make such an apparent difference, but am also now Dubious of my ability to assess my perception.  I feel a need to go get my mental "temperature" taken.  

Which is not to say I'm seeing pink elephants or hearing them talk.  Nor was I then.  It's just that it seemed very real to me that my husband had kicked me out.  And I spent sevenish hours setting in a parking lot thinking about what that meant, and seriously being confused about what had just happened.  I would think that he was mad but hadn't really kicked me out- he wouldn't do that because he's my husband and he loves me (The actual truth).  Then I would think I was right to leave, and good luck to him trying to do what I do on top of what he does. That'll learn him. Then I would think I was right to leave, but it was because I am so awful.  All the awful things (I thought) he had said were true.   I married a smart, sweet man.  If he thinks I's an ass, I probably is. I must be a huge flaming anus, and I should never go back.  For my family's sake.  Rinse and repeat.  A lot.  

Today, it's all so clear.  And the difference between the reality and my perception is all so vast.  And the power of this drug so scary- I take the smallest dose, and I missed one dose for sure- possibly two, but no more.  I had asked my doctor about trying to get off of it, but she said I should just go down to every other day, etc.  I can not imagine what my life would look like after a month of cycling through sanity windows.  

ASIDE-

There are no titrated dosing strengths for weaning off with.  There is no liquid version.  You can't chop one up because it's made like an onion, with enteric coatings preventing the good stuff from hitting you all at once.  You can't dissolve one to make a  liquid dose for that reason- it would all dump in and get used up in one spurt- you'd have to take sips of it day and night.  I'd need some sort of life style that would allow me to spend every other day ALONE, or in a drug induced stupor, or something.  I would go so far as to say it makes one wish one hadn't taken it, only damn, it works better than anything else I've tried.  

ALL DONE-

The ratio of letters typed to mistakes made is becoming verrrr leedle, so Imma say good night. 

Night,

ephelba

PS

The girls have been hunting weasles in our yard.  They made a weasle trap with a nest and a fake wooden egg.  I can't tell if they seriously believe there will be weasles, or could be weasles, or are already weasles lurking in our yard just out of view.  I will not let them use a real egg.  

The trouble with diary gaps is that you feel like you need to fill them.   You can't.

I tutor math for 12 hours a week.  Somehow the thought of offering my services outside of a school setting didn't occur to me until just now.  Anyways, I really enjoy the mother fucking hell out of it.  I think it may be a little like being an adrenaline junkie- you only have one student, and you make up problems and show examples in this massive effort to get the kiddo to have an Aha! moment.  Watching things make sense to someone and then having them go on to getting problems right is an amazing high.

Which is not to say that's what always happens, but the search for the next fix is nicely satisfying in its own right.

Been doing the dairy/wheat free thing for about a month now.  The difference is incredible.  Yesterday and today I didn't even think about taking a nap- life was happening and I was doing things and I got to the end of the day and realized I hadn't spent any effort at all trying not to nap.  Since I'm rolling with the addiction metaphors today, this change of events is akin to a heroin addict not thinking of the lovely glow at all for an entire day.  I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to test whether it's the wheat or the dairy.  I'd like one of them back, but not enough to go back to feeling as poorly as I did.

I put together a clothes rack for the girls yesterday.  Whenever I put their clothes in their dresser they end up pulling them all out to see what they have.  I HATE (!!!!11!1!) washing clothes that haven't been worn since their last washing.  I'm hoping that if the clothes are on hangers then they'll be able to decide what to wear without casting everything to the four corners of their room.

The Boy has cleaned his room! On his own! Of his own volition! Which is not to say I hadn't asked him to, but he decided enough was enough without me delivering an ultimatum.  Also, this may be the very first time he cleaned the entire room without any help from me.  Which is not to say I clean his room.  Usually he requires some sort of encouragement or assistance when he realizes what a Large Chore he has made for himself, but htis time he got himself over the hump.  I finally feel like he might have absorbed some of the things I've been trying for 16 years to teach him :)

Alright then.  Lots to do.  I'm off to do it!
ephelba

Poppy and I tell the girls at every available opportunity that smart people are the kind of people who make mistakes and then learn from them.

This Christmas I made a great mistake.  The children were all going to be home every day, and I had a ton of Christmas things to do, so I thought I would take one of my magic pills (Nuvigil) every day for a week, then crash on Christmas.  I didn't even make it three days.  If you don't have it to give, no amount of uppers will create it.  The result was that I crashed in a very real way on the Thursday before Christmas.  I threw a fit, I think it was on Friday, which involved me feeling more than a little suicidal, because, really, what's the fucking point of sleeping through your life?  This is a Stage.  I go through this Stage, then typically I pull my bootstraps up and Consult the Oracle.  Not that it has ever really helped my symptoms, but if you're looking for the latest research then you're Doing Something to try to fix things, and that means Hope.  Also, you can research on the couch.

This time the latest research mentioned they thing mast cells are involved.  I also read an interesting paper that suggested Quercetin and Chondroitin could be used to sort of muffle the mast cells, but quercetin is difficult to absorb.

Armed with this info, I slept as much as I could for, like, four days.  Then I bought some new goods. And now, after week of trying my new regimen, I can say that it's made a measurable huge difference.  I'm not cured.  Things are still off and weird, but I can truly say that I feel like I might be healing, and that next week I might feel better than I do this week.

Nothing very witty or insightful to say.  I just wanted to mark the point at which Thing Got Better, in case  it turns out to be true.

Love,
ephelba

PS
If you have chronic fatigue syndrome and wonder what my regimen is, I'll share:) Just email me.

In which I consider apologizing in advance, then don't.

Wow. So I've been stewing hard on this for some days now, and I think I'm ready to serve it up.

I have a unique view of xianity, having been raised in that camp and made to study the bible hard. I've been listening to some xians have their say in their own space for a while now, and I've decided that this, being my space, is an appropriate place to have my say.

Right now I'm thinking about Jesus, and what he'd do. Methinks he'd go out and do what needed doing. If he didn't want mothers murdering babies, maybe he could ask his sweet omnipotent dadoo to quit imparting the spark of life to the wombs of mothers who aren't in a good place for child rearing. You know the type, those neer-do well floozies that get raped by their fathers, or the un-wed 14 year olds in favelas, or that most evil of beings, a woman who couldn't keep her knees together and has decided things are so bad that she'll accept the possible shame, the risk of the procedure and pay the not inconsiderable financial cost to murder a child she thinks she shouldn't have. At the very least, maybe his dad could use his grace to allow women's wombs to reabsorb their young in stressful times, like rabbits.

Since his dad seems prone to ignoring good sense*, I'm betting Jesus would go out and create safe environments for mothers to raise their children, complete with meaningful work and safe, supportive, nourishing environs to raise their kids in. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd even hand out condoms in high schools and city streets. I sincerely and utterly doubt that he would ever shoulder a sign that looked like (trigger warning - graphic images of murdered babies, complete with bloody severed limbs) these. He certainly wouldn't shoulder the burden of pointing out to other people (with penises, who already agreed with him) how much sense he made while real breathing women were deciding whether murdering their baby really wasn't the best option. And "I know that I know" that he'd certainly sit in utter silence while those who had already murdered told their story, whether they felt sweet relief or sadness or guilt or all three or none of the above, because he was cool like that.

In fact, when the bible mentions Jesus hanging out with the kinds of people who pontificate about god, he ends up kicking their asses. Like, physically and on the church steps.

Of course, I'm assuming he'd even give a damn. I mean, I find it interesting that although women have been sticking twigs up their hoohas since they figured out what was going on up there, Jesus didn't bother mentioning it. I mean, the bible gets pretty specific on what kind of sleeping with men is not cool, and whether it's ok to eat four legged insects** and how evil cheese burgers are, but murdering children, and (again, trigger warning, graphic coroner's photo of a n4ked w0man) frequently their moms, doesn't warrant a mention.

Maybe he just figured he ought to mind his own business.

Feeling much better now,

ephelba***

* Also, quite possibly, because he's imaginary. But that's just my certainty. Your milage may vary.

** You gotta love you some Leviticus.

*** Comments turned off. This is my space, and I don't feel like sharing with xians today, so I'm going to pull a Cartman and not share with anybody.

Huh.

It would seem that health things are still improving. I'm not sure if it's real or not. Sometimes when you want something very badly you can make yourself believe in things that aren't there.

I dreamed that Simon called a family meeting to tell me I was pudgy. I told Simon about this when I woke up, and he asked, "Was it a happy dream?".

Ummmm, that would be "No".

Yesterday was a marathon day. Simon and I are sharing a car, so I drove him into work at 4:30, then came home and took a little nap, and then got up and made lunches for everybody, breakfasts for everybody, got everybody up and into the car and drove to Baltimore. Dropped the Boy off, drove back, stopped at Trader Joe's on the way, stopped to let a friend's dogs out, stopped at home to let my dogs out, went to pick Wayne up, came home, showered, went to work, then came home to take care of chores and kill a bunny.

See, we've acquired a Jack Russel sometime between that post I didn't write about moving into our new house and that other post I did write about not posting posts. He's a hoot. He does all the Jack Russelly things, like hunt, dig, and chew things that squeek. This has enabled him to find a rabbit's nest in our neighbor's yard, dig under the fence to steal a bunny, then, umm, damage it. Damage it, but not kill it. You should know, baby bunnies are notoriously difficult to raise because you have to have a grown up rabbit available to provide poops to feed the baby so you can culture their stomachs with the bugs they need to digest grass. Gross, but true. So not having a grown rabbit, or a way of treating the damage that Bingo did to it, I decided a quick death would be better than a slow one.

It is remarkably difficult to dispatch a cute, helpless animal. I don't mean difficult as in tricky to manage, I mean heartbreaking. Disturbing. I'll spare you the details and hope that you never find yourself in the same situation. That said, I found myself in the throes of inappropriate humor last night, humming "Kill the rabbit" and imagining new nicknames for myself. A dear friend who moved away used to call me Amy the Atheist, but I suppose I can expand the moniker to Amy the Atheist Bunny Killer, which makes me seems fearsome.

The latest good news is that I seem to have found Simon a granny car. It's a 96 toyota with only 78000 miles on it. Woohoo! We'll see if that pans out.

Boy is now at his other family's house, playing with his other sisters and brother, getting to know another set of parents. I'll have to devote a post to this subject soon. In the meantime, we miss him already and can't wait to have him back.

Workin hard or hardly workin,

ephelba

Changes

I haven't even looked at how long it's been since I've written. It doesn't matter. I've spent what seems like a couple of years eeking out a life between naps and more naps. It has been rough.

I have seen Doctors. Very few abnormal lab results, and none of them really helpful. Most frustrating is Doctors telling you that most people who have chronic fatigue feel better within 5 years. In five years the Bean will be 10 and the Bug will be 8. This is not encouraging.

I have been trying to raise children. It is a hard job when you're in the best of health, and when you crave sleep like a hoople head craves whiskey, it's really hard. You do not do the best of jobs.

I have been trying to be a wife. I have not been doing enough of any of the wifely duties, and it breaks my heart to know I'm breaking Poppy's heart.

I have not had nearly enough energy to even try being myself. Do men experience this? I don't know. Maybe men just don't talk about it. I only ever hear women describe it.

I have always been trying to find relief. When we couldn't find a cause, I resorted to just finding relief and began using Nuvigil. It's the latest and greatest medical answer to amphetamines. It has been of limited use to me, because whatever resources I'm low on get used up when I take it, and I have to recover, but it did give me a day or two at a time of normalcy.

Lately I've been trying something new that seems to be working. This week I have gotten so much more done, so much easier than I have in ages. I have enjoyed the company of my children. Their cute-ittude and preciosity are completely overwhelming. I had no idea that teenagers were cute, but the Boy is every bit as cute in his own way.

It tears me up. I keep missing out on things because I'm sleeping. I watch the life I wish I was living pass me by.

I wish with all my heart that this is the end of this nightmare.

ephelba

Packing like a mad woman

or re-packing. Opening lots of boxes and getting rid of half the contents which means I have to fill it back up by opening another box and look! I haven't seen that book in ages and then I start reading my old journals and

Holy

Shit

Can I just say I have the most amazing mind ever? I mean, I'm reading events in these journals and saying to myself, Wow! That was a Big! Upsetting! Event! and I can't remember jack shit about any of it. Sometimes I might remember the feeling I had, but by and large I can't remember bubkiss in the way of details.

Which just goes to show you should update your blogs more often;) Except Z, who is amazing.

Signing off without really updating her own blog in a meaningful way,

ephelba

Sandals of Death

I would wander around barefoot all day everywhere if I had my druthers, and flip-flops are the closest thing to my ideal. However, there's something about wearing foam shoes that makes me feel trashy. Then one day I was in to the Salvation Army and found a pair of leather flip-flops. Ah ha! I thought, Here's the ideal shoe in a material that isn't trashy, and the pair costs less than $3! (For me- they're j-crew, so they cost more than that for the original owner, which made the sandals that much happier.)

Round 1- I win.

And then I discovered why they were un-loved. First off, the original owner had stretched them out, and they fell off at every step. No prob, I just cut and sewed the leather straps and Voila! Good as new!

Round 2- The Sandals Strike Back

And as I ran out the house and down the back stairs I discovered the second reason they'd been abandoned- leather soles are slick. I went ass over applecart, bruised my butt, bent my leg all funny and ripped the strap right out of the sole of one sandal.

Round 3 - Minor kerfuffles with no clear winner

So I glued the strap back in and wore them around the house for a while, slipping on the steps now and then when I forgot I was wearing assassin shoes, until the day the glue gave and I was back to square, ummm, two. At which point I left them on the floor in a corner in the kitchen where they prompted me to feel shame that I couldn't fix them. And more shame that I couldn't just throw them away. And sadness that my shoe-love was unrequited.

Round 4 - And then another fixing method dawned on me and I took them to the basement and poked some more holes and sewed some more and have the straps back on and the sole patched. Ready for round 5.

Which is a silly thing to write a whole post about, except that I felt inordinately proud that I had beaten the damn things, and had no one to tell at the moment.

Thanks for listening,

ephelba

Getting rid of stuff

There's a hump you have to get over when de-cluttering, but I find that once I'm over it there's almost nothing I want to keep. Especially now that we're moving into a space all our own, I feel like I should get rid of all our furniture and focus my efforts on getting "new" furniture that works there.

I say "new" because I've never bought furniture before. There's enough awesome stuff people put to the curb that I've never needed to. Like our very solid wood couch, or our oak dressers, or our precious little pie safe, or our radio cabinet. Actually, I think I'm going to keep all that stuff, but I'm hoping to change shelving. We've got a lot of books. We used to have crappy particle board shelves, but we left those in MI. We haven't unpacked all our books since we've lived in NY, but we did put up shelves. Crappy steel shelving that my former boss was throwing out. Well, the shelving is nice, the "finish" on the shelving is what's crappy. Anywho, I'm going to relegate it to the basement where it belongs, and make/find something awesome to put our books on. Can't wait.

In the process of packing up to move I'm realizing how wonderful computers are. Music and books and art and recipes, all manner of things can go into the computer and thereby take up much less room than they do in the real world.

I found my old planner that I used to use all the time. Now my addresses, calendars, even book lists and pictures are all on my iPod. The only thing that was in my planner that isn't in my ipod are poems I used to carry around. Apparently I had the annoying habit of writing down poems without bothering to write down the author. Thank goodness for google, because now I know the following was written by Feyyaz Fergar. I don't know who the hell he is or why I was reading Turkish poetry.

DIVISION OF LABOR

I have problems
I know them well
They know me well
We get on nicely together
I let them worry me rent-free
Sometimes when I am reading a book
I lift my head to give them
The look of sustained recognition.
Sometimes when I’m eating my heart out
They lift their heads
To look at me and relax.

One day, during a class on Linear Algebra, I was sitting next to a man who decided to flip through my planner. He did ask first. I think he was keen on me. Anywho... After reading my to-do lists, and my lists of movies to watch, and my lists of groceries, and my lists of life goals, he wrote the following list himself:

My name is Karl!

I am "this many" years old.

I am tall enough.

I like to sleep, but being

awake is nice, too.

I like to eat.

I like to talk, but

listening is better.

If a person is nice to you

but mean to the waiter,

he is not a nice person.

I am cold right now.

Good thing I have clothes.

I park far away because

I can walk.

I take the stairs because

I can walk.

(a + 2, b + 3)

That's not a linear transformation

But I don't care!

Ha, yes I do.

I've kept that in my planner for years. Time for the planner to go, but I just had to put that down somewhere. As poetry goes, it ain't much, but I think it was sweet for him to open himself up and put that down for me. I think it was his payment for looking at all my personal lists.

Having posted that for posterity, I suppose it's time to get back to packing.

TTFN

ephelba

Unprecedented Mayhem

Right now, right this minute, my husband is in Pennsylvania working at his new job. I am still back here in New York. My son is dutifully trying to better his grades at the local High School, and the girls are feeding their toys to our new pet rabbit.

Also?

We're trying to buy a house. We always always rented. This is big and scary and wonderful, and I thought it suitable to note on the blog.

The house is currently occupied by three men who are either developmentally disabled, or mentally ill. Not my business really. All I know is that they all have caseworkers. Also, they all have a lot of stuff. Also, they aren't that great at keeping house. The upshot of the whole thing is that we will be purchasing a lot of house for a little price in the best neighborhood we've ever lived in.

I'm all excited about guest bedrooms and paint colors and who knows what all. Simon is looking forward to a garden. The Boy is looking forward to picking a bedroom.

Of course, Simon and I worry about his future job security. If you rent, it doesn't take that much to pull up stakes and move to where the new jobs are. This house is supposed to be worth more than we're paying for it, and (unlike here) it's in an area that has many diverse job markets, so if something happens to his company we should theoretically be able to sell and leave rather quickly. Just makes us nervous.

Now all I have to do is pack.

When we moved out here it took the largest truck that Uhaul had. Since then we've had another kid. I'm trying to be ruthless whilst packing- my goal is to get rid of half our stuff- but I don't know if I can fit back into that truck.

I should go get back to it now.

Heigh ho, heigh ho,

ephelba

Reading books for children.

I am a fast reader. I think most people, most Americans anyway, feed their families, wash the dishes, then settle down for a couple of hours of TV. In the same amount of time that the average bear takes to catch up on 30 Rock and American Idol, I can finish a book. If it's terribly thick, maybe it'll take me a night and a half. I know the librarian thinks I'm nuts for checking out 10 books at a time, but if I only checked them out one at a time I'd have to come back everyday.

Have you heard of Goodreads? It's a site that lets you keep track of what you've read, and then you friends your friends and you can see what they're reading too. Slightly Orwellian, but honestly very handy. I can't count the times I've known I read a book on a subject but couldn't remember what the hell the book was called. Our library system refuses to keep a list of what you've checked out in the past, so Goodreads is what I've been using.

Yesterday Laurie King friends-ded* me. I know this is a marketing move, that her publisher or agent said, "Hey, you should join Goodreads and friends your fans", but a little part of me squeed with delight all the same.

Then, right after the woot, I realized if I friends-ded her she'd be able to see what I read. I read a lot of books meant for children: young adult, juvenile and picture books. True, the picture books I usually check out for the girls, but not always. Young adult fiction is my favorite. It's heavy on the story, easy on the introspection. You rarely have to wonder what the hell the author's point is.

Modern adult literature, on the other hand, wears me out. I get seriously annoyed when the author obscures their point in flowery or random language. Is not the point of writing to communicate? Dear James Joyce, if it takes a group of people 13 years to read your book, doesn't that indicate you've failed? There's a difference between tickling someone's brain with the possibilities inherent in a subtle grouping of words and bludgeoning their lobes with a purposefully obtuse tangle of them.

Adult novels also wear me out with their grimosity. How does fiction serve as an escape when it's some fun-house view of your own troubles and angst? When I read The Story of Edgar Sawtell the ending broke my heart. I had come to the book prepared, because everyone compared it to Hamlet, and we all know how that ended, but since it was an American author** I expected him to pull out the happy in the end. Nope. I still get angry when I think of that book. I'll readily admit the value of such things, and credit the artistry involved, but when it's all over it doesn't matter how masterfully the piece rendered me to despair, I'm still despairing. Yuch.

This is one of those areas in which I'm trying to grow. I try to check out at least one grup book when I get my weekly stack o books, but the truth is it's always the last book to be read. I also frequently cheat by reading adult fiction that possesses my fave qualities: a good yarn and a happy ending. Baby steps, I suppose. Appropriate for one who delights in reading baby books.

Send me an email if you're on Goodreads too,

ephelba

*This post is full of made-up words. That's how I roll, especially with the problems I'm having word-finding. Be glad you don't live with me, as the requests for "things" and "thingies" are driving my family mad.

**ephelba's law of movie endings goes like this: If the movie was made in America, the ending will be happy. If the movie was made in France, the movie will end in tragedy for all. If the movie was made in China everyone will die except for one character, who is left to contemplate the balance of tragedy and justice. If the movie was made in England the ending is a crap shoot. I fully credit Loon and Simon for contributing to the discovery of these laws. Haven't watched enough Italian, German or Spanish movies to be able to offer an opinion there, and although I have enough data to come up with a Japanese law, I haven't yet synthesized it. And yes, I realize I was talking about books, but in the example given I was hoping the law could be expanded to include movies.

Why I don't post

I remember this blog. It is important to me. I've spoken about its purpose in several other posts, so I won't carry on about it again. My point is that I don't want this blog to turn into a place where all I post about is how tired I am and how messy my house is. It's been said, and since my life is so small and mean right now I have little else to say.

I have high hopes though. I keep hoping I can beat this Thing and get on with my life. Treatment options are on their way. In the meantime I'm still learning to get a handle on how much I can get done without it being too much. Focusing on living life in small bites.

So, I guess I'll be back when I've got more to say.

Hope it's soon,

ephelba

Worse than I thought.

And I thought it would be bad.

Raising a teenager, that is. I thought it would be hard, that there would be yelling and carrying on and much rolling of the eyes. I hadn't counted on the sheer terror.

The Boy scares me. Often. Badly. He comes home late, or disappears out of his bed in the middle of the night, or doesn't show up to school. True, it's a been a month now since the last of these shenanigans, so maybe I have brought home the magnitude of the Scary that happens when we don't know where he is.

He always thinks he's got it covered. There's always a misunderstanding or innocent mistake in there somewhere. The thing is, when it's all going down you, as parent, don't know this, and you imagine horrible accidents, trouble in great boiling clouds, worse trouble that grows from subtle and seductive beginnings. You imagine the million little things that could send a kid down a path that fucks their life up for years. For always. You imagine big unstoppable things bearing down on someone small and clueless. You imagine blood and bones. You imagine not being able to stop screaming when someone gives you the god awful news. And even though he's always come home before, you can't stop imagining it all over again because he's not home now.

He's got it bad too, of course. I'm sure he could write you a paragraph that would make you wonder why he ever stayed home, and why, if he made it out, he would come back home at all. That's what it is to be a teenager.

He is right to think he is misunderstood and unknown. I am right to think that he's fragile and naive. I am right to think he's selfish and just plain wrong, he's right to think I'm overreacting and unhinged. We can't help it.

Don't you remember this?

Wishing remembering helped,

ephelba

ps

I know it's all temporary, and we'll both grow out of it, and we do a remarkable job of talking things through, actually. I just needed to vent a little.

For posterity's sake

Item the first: Let it be know that Oct 2008-Oct 2009 was the year of the suck, in terms of my health. I have Something. The Doctors have tested me eight ways to Sunday and have discovered nothing. In the meantime, I get worse. Simon and I think Chronic Fatigue syndrome. Nuff said, I suppose, because I don't want this blog to turn into a record of how good I am at whinging.

Item the second: We are going to move. Don't know where, don't know when, but they don't really have the hours for Simon to work, and things don't look like they're getting better, so we're going to try to get out while the getting's good.

Item the third: Boy has started High School, and is celebrating by flunking three classes, suddenly becoming unable to get himself out of bed in the mornings, and generally making dumb decisions with the best of intentions.

Sigh.

I hope he lives long enough to outgrow this phase.

Someday when I have more energy this blog will become more than a kind of time line, but right now daily living is too much, so it will have to get in line.

Hope you and yours are weathering the recession well,

ephelba

Well hello to you too!

At the park there's a bar that sits waist high (a grownup's waist, that is) that the little ones like to hang from. I was sitting next to this watching the girls. A little boy came up and starting swinging from it. The Bug came up, stretched, and just got ahold of it enough to start swinging too. I said "Look at you guys! You're professional swingers!" Then I looked at his mom, started laughing, and said "I totally didn't mean that the way it sounded!". That's me, the queen of playground innuendo.

Boy and I were in an "Anything but a Boat Race". This is the sort of thing where you build a floating thing and race it. We raced on a box spring. Came in fourth or fifth ish. Boat held up remarkably well- no leaks whatsoever. I loved being on a device of my own making, surprising people with its success, rowing in front of an audience. I learned that I am a ham, which is something I didn't know about myself.

As for Boy, my partner in crime, he was less than thrilled with the whole thing. Didn't want to do it, didn't think it would work (even though we'd had a successful test run), thought we'd come in last (who cares?), didn't want to be in front of a hundred or so people. He did it anyways though, for which I am proud of him.

Had my birthday. I got a box of homemade truffles (YUMMY!) and my very own ukulele, which Simon decorated in lovely fashion. I had never so much as held one before, and had no idea they were so tiny. They are the most tiny of precious cute little guitar-like things you have ever seen. I can't play it yet, but it's only a matter of time. I have grand plans. I want to learn to play the blues on it, or learn to finger pick it, or both.

I also got ahold of a trike and Simon and I put a seat on the back for the girls. Now I can toodle around town to just about any place I could need to go even when Simon has the van. The girls love it, the Bean especially. If the ride isn't long enough she cries when we get home.

Maybe I'll post some pics.

Hope your summer is warmer and drier than mine, although I kinda like it,

ephelba

Probly won't.

Post much for a while. I'm just not in that kind of a space, but I wanted to share some articles I found to be very thought provoking:

This on changing the performance of schools by 1.3/1.4 standard deviations. For those who could care less about the maths, that's a lot. Most charter schools brag when they hit .3.

This on eating marshmallows. I have thought about this article very very often lately, and in regards to many aspects of parenting. Good read.

Count on me returning sooner or later. I always do:) In the meantime, I'm still posting pics on flickr...

Miss you guys,

ephelba

From my inbox:

From: Malcolm Holder*

Subject: I saw you about a month ago,

God had told you exactly when

blahblahblah@blahblah.com **

and so it shall be,,five fingers in pussy!, ***

SPAM! Tasty and endorsed by God!

!!!111!!!1!

Wondering what special missives you've gotten lately,

ephelba

* Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. 

** Obviously, I changed this bit. Don't want to accidentally promote the wanger.

*** sic.  I love the extra punctuation. Like, if you use more, everything's covered.