Guess What?

November 18th

I've basically decided that I'm keeping this space active until the safe arrival of my second child.
I know there are a handful of old friends lurking around that will be interested in knowing how I'm doing but at this point, that's the big event still to come.
The rest is just tears and poop and laughter and thoughts that should stay housed within the walls of my head.
I have other things I'd like to do with my time and I just don't have the willpower to keep this thing going any more.
It had its purpose at one time but that period of growth has long since come and gone.
There are people around who I look forward to keeping in touch with, and they know how to contact me, and vice-versa.
It has been fun.

The ETA of my child's flight is the title of this post. At minimum, I'll put up some photos at that time as well as some parting thoughts before I cast this flaming ship towards the horizon.

I've Lost Count

Dear Diary,

I can’t help but live in the present these days. My past feels more and more irrelevant than ever and my future is uncertain and full of things I’m not sure I want to see.

I am doing my best when it comes to strength of will. Do not post things that will piss people off. You have a habit of that. Do not post things that purposefully draw response just for the fuck of it. You have a habit of that. Do not say anything at all with any mettle because it may reveal a little too much. You definitely have a habit of that lately.

Do not care.
Care too much.

Dear Diary,

I have too many things to do. Too many projects, too many identities, too many sensitive areas to rub to a quiet acquiescence.

Too many hatchets to bury; too many passwords to remember; too many diaries to keep up.

Two is not a lonely number, but a difficult dance to keep going.

Dear Diary,

When I ignore you, do you think of me? When I fake it, do you know?

HE

is a Royal pain in my ass.
Not listening, and breaking stuff, and thinking he's so much smarter and funnier than me.
He is three.
And phenomenal.

A Lesson

I am not pretty.
Broken teeth and busted nose.
External scars and porous holes.
I spent the first 20 years of my life thinking that I was ugly and unworthy because of my skin and my appearance.
I spent the next ten building up my own fragile ego and validating my own need to succeed; competing; defeating; conquering and getting what I wanted.
There's no mistaking the fact that 30 was a big turning point for me. Probably the most significant period in my life thus far.
And I wish it had come sooner.
Self-realization, not just self-worth - discarding the impact of crooked teeth and thinning hair; a changing body and failing memory; and ultimately less reliance on external sources for self worth.
Fuck.
I have tried to take more control.
Less reliance on the needs and rewards.
Less external validation and more internal satiety.
Less need, less want.
Less competing; less defeating; less conquering and more sharing.
But old habits die hard. Cliches hold a morsel of truth. Old debts have a stubborn habit of never going away until they're faced.
I am worn down.
I am not pretty.
Yet I still attract attention, despite broken teeth and busted nose.
External scars and porous holes.
Something to be used for personal gain.

Lack of Money is the Root of All Evil?

Like most people, I imagine I am a litany of contradictions when it comes to appearances. I can be horribly awkward and useless in certain social situations and yet there are times when I’ve been told that I can be exceptionally charming and persuasive.

For the most part, I think I have the genetic makeup of a recluse. I have a strong desire to be left the hell alone and yet like most of us, there is an intrinsic desire to be valued and accepted as a fellow human being with something to offer.

I spend most of my day in a job that as much as I seek to deny it, serves as a kind of daily social community. We have our resident drunk, the nut who talks to herself (especially if someone’s listening), the clown and the power-hungry.

As much as I try to deny it, because there is so much dirt and evidence to abhor humanity around that I usually feel that I would simply rather not know, I am a student of sociology.

I have this maddening and useless desire to understand why people do the things they do. I can’t figure out why I have a boss who likes to tout her plethora of learned acronyms, her proud adoption of a yoga lifestyle combined with a need to head outside for a cigarette when the times get tough. I can’t figure out why there are women all around me who need to be told that they’re beautiful in order to feel good about themselves. I can’t understand why so many things in life are dealt with as a competition – a one-up-man-ship in order to get the things you need, you need to beat someone else to the rotting carcass.

And it’s probably a series of questions that will follow me to the grave. I can apply most of the questions that cross my mind to myself and still not come up with valid answers.

I like to imagine that I am an optimist; that I am somehow contributing to the benefit of this world and my fellow man but I simply can’t deny that I am playing the same self-serving games as the person beside me.

The old proverb is that the best way to beat someone is at their own game but that goes against popular but silent majority theory, in my mind. Partnerships are developed here and there for mutual benefit but the same old shit ends up being the rule: you prove your use or you prove yourself useless.

There are times when I know that I am priming my son for success in this world and I’m not sure I like the man that he will become.

I Pity the Fool 'Whose' Buying This