My sister, like me, had really curly hair as a kid. My cousins and I made merciless fun of her. She cried. Lots. Those were good times.
I have created a Flickr set of pictures of her as a kid when she was rocking the lion’s mane. I call it The Lionhead Files.
The identity of the Lionhead has been revealed.
So. 35. I kind of thought it would feel different, but it doesn’t. It feels like any other day. I guess when I was 15 or 20, 35 sounded really old to me. The reality of 35, though, is that I feel 25, with all of the insecurities and fears about the future that I always had. I don’t feel like I have some kind of wisdom that I didn’t have ten years ago. What i do have is one great husband (although I am thinking he may not be so into me lately – what is with “losing” the wedding ring?) and two awesome kids. Those are three things that I never imagined would be so fulfilling, or even a part of me at 35.
I am one lucky 35-year old hot mom, people.
You will have to take my word for it. I was going to put a picture of me up from today, but geez, i just feel fat – inside, where it counts, i am 25. The outside? Not so twentyish anymore. . . .
Instead, look at me on birthdays past! Or, at least the ones that I have photos scanned in for. And then there are a few birthdays where I was too poor to have pictures made, and then there was that one . . . well, let’s just say that it is better that there were no cameras for that one.
Happy birthday, me!
p.s. This post would be so much better, if Todd wasn’t walking around sighing and asking when I was going to finish up so that we can watch Battlestar. As if it’s his birthday or something.
Mom and I the day I was born.
My first birthday: Me with Daddy.
My second birthday.
My fourth birthday: Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor.
My fifth birthday, with Scott Gage.
Sixth birthday, with the neighborhood kids and my cousins. I am also wearing a homemade crown that they gave me at school. The dress I am wearing was long and I thought it made me look like Laura Ingalls, which totally rocked my world.
I don’t really like to feel sorry for myself, but I would be lying if I said i didn’t feel like a complete fucking loser sitting at home on the Saturday night before my birthday, sipping on my fifth beer, waiting for Saturday Night Live to come on, while my husband is out drinking beer with the guys at The Local and my sister and parents are living it up in Vegas.
This kind of sucks.
For those of you who don’t know Todd and I in person, we have both been on a years-long mission to lose weight. We have made an effort to eat healthy and to exercise more. It has paid off for both of us: I have lost over 35 pounds (still have more to go) and Todd has lost. . . well, I don’t know how much weight he has lost, but he has gone down quite a few sizes. He looks great, and I am very proud of him. I am not proud of him because he looks good, but because he is healthy, and I think I might want to keep him around for a few more years. I say, “I think” because yesterday morning, Todd came downstairs wearing this:
He came down the stairs with a cat-ate-the-canary look on his face, with a touch of sheepishness, and would not meet my eye. You may see nothing amiss. That is because the shirt fits him just fine. What is wrong with this picture? The shirt is mine.
It is my Hank Williams Disgraceland shirt, by Yee-Haw-Industries. Sure, it is way too big for me and I wear it with flannel pajamas around the house, or with shorts while working out in the yard, but it is mine. No husband of mine should be wearing my clothes. As my sister and I said over dinner at the EARL last night, where the fashionable and young hang out in their skinny jeans and Flock of Seagulls hair: I don’t want to be with a man who is skinnier than I am.
Todd, I still can’t fit into skinny jeans, but if I ever do, you better stay the hell away from them. I do not sleep with boys whose thighs are smaller than mine.
I am a procrastinator. I am a failed perfectionist. I cannot finish things, because finishing them means putting them out for review, and review deals with stuff that freaks me out like approval, disapproval, praise and criticism. In addition to coming from wild women, I also come from a line of people who are nearly incapable of praise, and downright professional at criticism. Even the slightest bit of approval must come with a dab of “but you didn’t.” To be fair, the last generation is making a concerted effort to focus more on the positive, but it is obvious by the strained and stilted manner in which this new praise is given that this tack goes against the grain of the wood from which my family is made. We are knotty pine, not tiger maple.
All of this is my way of saying that while I do not give a shit what the public say about me as a whole, I care very much what a select few people say about what I choose to create.
I mentioned that one of my new year’s resolutions was to write more, but what I didn’t say was that by “writing more” I meant: Write and finish more fiction, and then let someone who isn’t me read it. It is that “finishing” part that has always been tricky for me. I have countless files laying around my computer unfinished. Snippets of dialog that I overheard, ideas for stories left only as placeholders, half-stories written but never gone back to out of fear of. . . what?
That is the question: What am I scared of? That my fingers will type something on a blank page, thereby making it no longer blank, and that someone will ridicule me for that? Which is funny, because I have so much respect for those who put forth the effort in the first place to create something out of thin air.
I told Todd over beers a few weeks ago that I was actually enjoying writing again, and that I felt so much more confident because of what I had written on Dogwood Girl, and on Metblogs, and by merely clicking Publish and putting my words out into the ether for all to see. It has been freeing. Very rarely have I received a negative word about my writing and in a few instances, I have received praise that has done wonders for my confidence in my ability to string a few words together. I am eternally grateful to those who have bothered to say, “I liked that” or “well-said.”
All of this has worked to give me the push I needed to start writing again, and to really try to finish things. Then what? Well, I haven’t figured that part out yet, and really, I will just be happy to finish a project and let those few whose opinions I value see what I have been up to lately.
I just sent Todd a short story I have been working on the last month or so. His instructions: To print it out, without reading it, so that I can see my work in print. (We have a printer, but right now, we are too poor to buy new print cartridges for it, so we are mooching from his office. Cue King Missile’s Take Stuff From Work here.) I want to do an edit, and then I am going to start having some people look at what I’ve written. I am a little nervous about that, in the same way that I get nervous when I get a new haircut, or wear something that I wouldn’t normally wear.
I think I know what the problem with my work is, or at least what I fear the problem with my work is: I am a decent writer with nothing much interesting to say.
There. I have said it, so maybe when I hear that from others, it won’t sting quite as much. Or maybe since they have read it here, they won’t be scared to tell me the truth. Either way, this fear of finishing is something that I am conquering.
To do: Find new fear. I know I had one around here somewhere. What did I do with it? I just had it. . . .
I come from some wild women. . .
This was in my mom’s family photos. The photo says “Mother 1870,” but that seems a little early for this one, especially since the sign says something about auto insurance. Would love to be able to research the clothing to date it more accurately. We are also not sure who “Mother” is (she is the one third from the right), but have it narrowed down to one of the following:
Confused yet? Anyway, I love the picture and think it is just the coolest thing ever. They look like trouble. I think they are holding instruments, too. Nice twist.
This is my mom (right), with her best friend Judy in Daytona Beach.
Then there’s Grandma and Aunt Dot. My cousin remarked that he thought this picture was staged. I don’t think so. This is what family gatherings in my childhood looked like. Seriously.
I’ll leave the wild woman pictures of myself for Matilda to blog. Plus, I ain’t finished. Grandma and Aunt Dot were still doin’ it in their 80’s. I’m not even 35 yet.
To be broken. My new year’s resolution was: Drink less. Eat less. Run more. Write more. I’ve done pretty well with the eating less, writing more. Drinking less and running more? Not so much.
I forgot to document the girl’s fifteen-month stats:
Weighing in at 26 pounds, 14.4 ounces (90-95%), measuring a lengthy 32 inches (90-95%), and with a noggin circumference of 46 1/2 centimeters (75-90%) . . .
Welcome, the Tillah . . . the Thrillah-from-Manila . . .
Matilda the Hon!!!!
Wake up. Wake Todd up to feed kids so I can clean blood that stained my inner thighs during the night. Jump in lukewarm bath to rinse, then dry off and throw on clothes. Run downstairs. Make coffee, then pack backpack and diaper bag. Drink cup of coffee, poop (I mean, shit) and then put jackets on everyone, get them to car, strap in carseats, and drive 30 minutes to Rollie’s school. Drop Rollie off. Go to local coffee shop. Drink cup of coffee. Get back in car with Tiller. 10 am meeting with todd to look at house. Leave there to go to grocery store. Go pick up Rollie, and then drive 30 minutes back home. Take kids inside, where todd serves them lunch. Unload groceries. Choke down microwave lunch. Put kids back in car. Drive to Sandy Springs for matilda’s 15 month checkup. Dr. Jeff checks her ears. Ear infection. I ask him to re-check Rollie’s ears. Ear infection. Drive back to East Atlanta, drop prescriptions off, take kids home, give them snacks. Do dishes from breakfast and lunch. Start planning dinner. Blog.
How on earth is it 5:39?
They know when to cut their losses. When things are going kinda crappy with the offspring, they just go ahead and eat the little fuckers.
My day started with hunger, because I am dieting, and then I am not allowed to eat anything until the lady gets here to take my blood and urine for the life insurance policy we are taking out on me in case (duh) I die, which of course doesn’t give one a whole lot of incentive to fast, because what the hell are you going to get out of it, anyway. Todd is a sweetheart and got up with the kids so that I could sleep as long as possible and not have to sit around hungry. I got up at 9 a.m. (the high point of the day). I started my period.
I proceeded to drink black coffee until the nurse arrived at 10. The kids cried and whined and bugged the crap out of the nurse while she asked me about every runny nose I have ever had, and the name, number, and address of the doctor for which I saw each runny nose. She then tried to take blood from one arm, then the other, then my hand. It was awesome. I peed in a cup and there was blood in it and i had to explain to her that I was on the rag. Lovely. Did I mention she brought her own scale? It said I was 9 pounds heavier than my scale says I am. Fucking great.
Todd called to say that he wouldn’t be home for lunch. By the time the nurse left it was noon. I put lunch on for the kids. I ate my crap diet lunch. I tried to watch Antiques Roadshow while the kids ran around pushing their cars and shopping cart and couldn’t hear a thing. I shut off the t.v. and finished eating while staring out the window at a squirrel. I did the breakfast and lunch dishes, and put on dinner. I changed two poopy diapers.
Went upstairs, read to the kids, and then put them down for their naps. This consists of putting down Matilda, and then tucking Rollie in, shutting the gate, blowing kisses, asking him to please, please, please not wake Tiller because Mama will be mad, and please stay in bed, and don’t make any noise, and maybe when we get up we will watch Curious George and eat snacks, Yes, raisins, and please? And then i hope for the best.
I laid down for an hour, and I could tell Rollie wasn’t asleep, because he was talking the whole time, but it never occurred to me that he was up there taking off his diaper, putting the poop into the back of the remote control truck, and then taking little pieces and running them over with the treads of his monster truck and smushing them into the carpet, and running the truck roughshod over the books he had pulled off his shelves, which were now empty.
When I finally went up to check on him, he was standing naked at the gate, smiling at me. He went over and picked up two little pieces of poop, one in each hand, and held them out to me, palm up, as if in offering. When I opened the gate, he cheerfully walked around the corner and turned his palms over above the toilet, neatly depositing them into the bowl, then turning to me in expectation of approval.
I think he may be slightly retarded.
After that, I gave him a bath, put Batman underwear on him, and with the exception of the times when we are out, at school, napping, or sleeping, he will Goddamn be wearing them, until he is potty trained. So help me God, amen.
