April 2006 Archives

I suck. And I'm exhausted. That pretty much sums up how I feel right now. There's so much I feel like I've failed at: I haven't written in the blog like I said I would (and like I wanted to), I haven't written diddly squat on the next novel chapter like I said I would (and like I wanted to). I'm not getting enough done at work, even though these last few weeks I'm running around like a crazy chicken (you know, the kind that gets its head cut off and still rushes around without realizing it's dead) as we ramp up to our busy season and I try to pack 5 days work into 4 and somehow reverse the slow drip drip drip of disappointment from my boss for letting things fall through the cracks. I'm tired and cranky and I somehow screwed up the corner of my pinky fingernail so typing is weirdly painful every time I type a "p" (or a quotation mark, now that I think about it). Josh is gone on a business trip until Tuesday night and just my luck, the kids have both been whiny and demanding--Isaac is teething or something and won't eat and has been really fussy and clingy, and Eli has alternated back and forth between super cuteness and "go to your room and stay there forever" defiant button-pusher. I've spent the weekend trying to do all sorts of house chores while simultaneously keeping my kids entertained and hanging out with extended family (which in my overly rosy anticipation of it always seems like it's going to be fun and fulfilling but winds up being complicated and at least several shades of annoying).

I've miles to go before I sleep and I'm strongly contemplating just giving up now and getting up at the ass crack of dawn to get it all done instead (since I have to get up before the baby in order to give Oreo kitty her fluids--can't really keep an eye on a lurching, touch-tempted toddler while poking a cat with a needle for 5 minutes…and 5 minutes is all those little people need to make biiiiiig trouble). It's already after 10 and if I'm going to be able to get up early and face a solo parenting day (with extra bonus work crunch stress!) I'd better quit whining and go to bed, or even coffee won't help tomorrow.

But at least I blogged.

Yeah, it's been busy here in J-land, and there has been nowhere near enough blogging. I find myself wanting to write about lots of things that have been going on; I think about clever ways to frame a blog entry and what I'll put in it; I fool myself into thinking that today will be the day where it slows down enough at work for me to be able to sneak some time away and dash out a quick blog entry. But then by the time that well deserved mental break time comes around, it's all I can do to just stare mindlessly at the internet, let alone write anything. And at night, after the kids are in bed, in my precious 90 minutes of adult time before my own bedtime? Puhleeze. The only reason I'm actually posting tonight is that it seems marginally less overwhelming than trying to clean the kitchen or do dishes, neither of which I got to earlier this evening and neither of which has the least bit of appeal right now whatsoever, despite the general sense of chaos that descends upon me whenever the clutter hits a certain level (which let me tell you, oh internet, it hits rather easily and regularly).

But regardless of whether or not anyone else misses my metaphor-strewn parenthetical ramblings, *I* miss them. It's a good outlet, and good writerly practice, and I need both right now. (I also need more leftover Easter candy, but I'm trying to resist. Help meeeeeee!) So I'm once again just I'm learning to just let go of that weird constipated compulsion to not blog unless and until I can do a full catch-up/journal-like accounting of what's been going on and what I've been meaning to blog about--just lay that burden down, mama (and back away slowly with my hands in the air so no one gets hurt). I'm trying to not be bowed down by what I thought I was going to write, and just write what I want to write here at the time I'm writing.

Is that enough meta-blogging for ya? Sheesh, it is for me. On to the actual blogging before it gets too late and I get too tired to get any further.

So Passover has come and gone, and for some reason it was hard for me to pay close attention to it this time around, so this year's observance was mostly Passover Lite (with, however, just as many cholesterol laden calories as always. Damn.) I managed the basics--had family over for a couple of Seders based on the Haggadah I put together some years ago (but didn't manage to update this year), prepared and ate the ritual foods (but failed pretty miserably with the NOT eating of chametz), thought some Deep Thoughts about big capital letter concepts like Freedom and Oppression--but didn't go any deeper or more complicated than that. I think some years I'm more in a reflective/attentive mode, and some years I just go through the motions.

But even during those years where I go through the motions, the acknowledgement and enactment of the ritual itself is still important. That regular re-enactment of whatever particular things I've chosen (or was given by my childhood) becomes the tentpole that holds up my life, keeps it from collapsing all around me. Or to put it another way, these ritual observances (no matter how half hearted they are in a particular instance) are the rhythm, the backbeat, the bass line of life's song, providing structure and order and a sense of predictability to what otherwise can feel at times like unbearable chaos and noise.

Hmmm, maybe the observance of rituals (whatever they may be) needs fallow time too, just like creative pursuits (or blogging!) do. Some years' observances are light so that the next year's can be heavy(er)…ebb and flow, ebb and flow.

I know I said I'd blog more. And I will. But not tonight. Just finished a long holiday weekend of hosting family and events and am strongly considering getting a full night's sleep. So forthwith, a couple of head-explodingly cute picture to tide you over:

^Isaac in the bathtub with snail and Ed Grimley-like hairdo.

^Eli goofing around with an orange slice. Ok, I admit it, I showed him this particular trick.