worry

i worry about some people. i can't do anything about their situation, and if i tell them i'm worried without offering to help (because really, in this situation, there really is nothing i can personally do for them), they would resent me. it may just be my perception of a situation i know nothing about (i have lost much contact and haven't seen them in over eight years), but said person really does not seem...lucid anymore.

i miss you, friend, and i hope your situation turns around. i hope people stop praying for you and do something that actually yields results. i will not pray for you, but you are in my thoughts. i know that really doesn't help you, though.

happy fucking holiday

i'm an atheist. i also LOVE christmas. i don't celebrate it as the birth of jesus, because it isn't. the celebration is much older than christianity and pulls from other cultures and religions (largely from pagans). but whatever, that's a well known fact and i'm sure i'm not the first person you've heard this from.

whatever the origins, i love it. it's a good time to be with family, watch corny movies, eat cookies and buy shit for people. it's the happy warm place during a time when it's cold and dark and depressing outside (i'm not a huge fan of winter weather). it's a good excuse to celebrate and drink (not that i need an excuse for that), and it makes my kids happy.

but if i have to continue to endure this, "he's the reason for the season," or, "keep CHRIST in christmas," or worse yet, the idea that saying, "Happy Holidays," is somehow offensive and part of a war on christmas, i might just snap. it's almost funny that people who have no problem with telling me that i'm going to burn in hell can't handle the words, "happy holidays." i have very little patience for religious people, especially that annoying habit that most of them have of trying to shove their make-believe god down everyone else's throats. so if one more of these flag waving ultra-american redneck bible lovers that think they own this holiday try to impose their ridiculous beliefs on me or my family, i'm afraid i may have to tell them where they can shove their god.

BOOM!

too much wine = silly nonsense blog post

i'm still the same girl that projected herself into the future when she was 9. i remember vividly, standing at the top of the street by myself waiting for the school bus, trying to picture it. i wondered then if i would be the same person when i was a teenager...in college...a mom. and yes, it's still me. i have had a very definite sense of ME for my entire life, and i am proud and appalled to say i don't change much. i have the same imagination and insecurities as i had when i was a kid, yet i now seem to hide...both. the imagination comes out a lot when i'm drinking, though. like now. but i try to hide that hope that someday i will be "very important." as in famous for something. i suppose i am important to my kids and family. that's enough. i guess.

fruit fly holocaust

look at the little bastards. muahaha!

i had a problem. i refuse to stop buying bananas and apples, but a tribe of fruit flies have begun to make our kitchen their home. not just a few. for some reason, they've been really thick. i've searched around to make sure something hadn't gone bad, and removed some things (a bag of potatoes, some tomatoes from my cousin's garden), but we've always had bananas and apples on the counter and have never had this bad a problem with the fruit flies.

i had tried clapping them in my hands or smacking them on the walls and kitchen counters. didn't work. i tried following them around the kitchen with lysol (i don't want to taint everything in the kitchen with Raid). didn't work. i got the vacuum out and sucked up a whole bunch of them, but that was more fun than effective, as i just temporarily scared most of them away. so i googled a solution. and i found it.

i got a clear cup and put a little apple cider vinegar in the bottom. then i made a paper cone with a tiny opening at the tip a little larger than a fruit fly. then, i put the cone into the cup with the tip pointing down (making sure it didn't dip into the vinegar) and taped the top to the cup to seal it. i left the room for about 5 minutes, came back and BOOM! i had caught exactly six. it's now been about an hour and there's a bunch.

yesssss.

sunday night

it's never okay to mix cheap wine with jenny at 2am. or feed the mogwai after midnight.

it's one of those nights where i know i need to get things done and i know i need to wake up early and be coherent, yet at the same time, the notion of sleep seems absurd. sleep?? i'm too busy drinking and listening to moody music, man! i'm the only person awake in the world right now. never mind time zones, i am IT. me, myself and i. the rest of the human race will not exist until...say...about 7am.

i want to go sleep and have one of those very consuming dreams that will set my mood for the rest of the day. the sort that has me pissing and moaning about having to wake up and interrupt it. normally they are extremely bizarre, so if i happen to have that dream and remember it tomorrow, i'll be sure and post the details.

good night, all you nonexistent people.

after watching Walking and Talking. by myself.

i'm a little...drunk? maybe. but i just finished a romantic comedy from...i suppose from the mid 90's, i dunno. there's nothing like drinking and being absorbed into a movie. living someone else's life for a change. not that i don't like my own (i do), but it feels so fresh, feeling someone else's feelings. mine feel so stale and predictable. i miss newness and skinny dipping. i need some shaking up is all. it's all become monotonous. i think charlie and i need a vacation. just us. i adore our kids, but i feel i'm becoming boring. that is the thing i have always feared most. that and clowns. and spiders.

antsies in me pantsies

it's the day before easter. i'm restless. want to do something. i feel like i'm getting too comfortable with doing my boring ordinary things and i need to do something loud and obnoxious. i can't sit still. i find myself pacing. i need a little more messiness in my life. the good kind. the kind that leaves me happy and out of breath and looking around for more shit to get into. maybe today. i think i'll go ghost hunting.

dreaming

had a weird dream last night about a diseased pregnant woman, the housewares section of JC Penney, beautiful old friends, used lord of the rings books, an old movie theater...i can't remember anything but snippets of it. and locations. but there was part of it that seemed, when i woke up, to be of great importance. it was imperative that i remember it.

it probably just felt that way in the dream. everything in dreams seems like a big deal until i wake up. but sometimes that feeling bleeds out into my awake mind and i struggle to remember what was so meaningful about it. last night's dream was so wonderful and horrible and heavy. i want it back.

back to school. for ME.

okay, so i've signed up for community college. again. regrettably, the first time around (ten years ago, O.M.G.) i took classes that i was interested in, sure, but with no plan to work toward anything but a general associates degree (which i got) and some half assed notion that i would transfer to university...later. what did i want to major in? i had no idea, but i just said psychology, because that sounded nice and smart.

so, yeah. i took ZERO computer or higher math classes, so i've got that to look forward to now. and funny, NOW i actually AM looking forward to it. i am a lot smarter now than i was ten years ago, and a lot more focused and determined. i am no longer that clueless girl that threw away all that opportunity just because it was too haaaaaard. haha. i put my education on hold to raise david with every intention of finishing when he started school, but that never happened. now david is 10 and i've got yet another rugrat (a sweet, lovable rugrat, yes -- but lucy does not like me to do anything unless it involves her). i can't keep procrastinating. this needs to happen now.

in a way, though, i'm glad that i didn't waste all that time and money working toward a degree and career that i don't even want now. i KNOW what i want now, and that makes this a lot easier. i'm going to start at community college, transfer to university and have my bachelors FINALLY. it will be slow going, but hopefully i'll be done before david starts college.

now i've just got to figure out how to juggle work, school and two kids. ghaaaaa. what am i DOING??

it's high time i get off my ass

things are changing. seasons, situations, attitudes, and it's time to get off my chunky ass and lose another 30 lbs. i lost 30 lbs in late spring/early summer and then i kind of slacked off. but i maintained the same weight and haven't gained (a miracle, there) so now is a good time to pick up where i left off. green smoothie for breakfast, salad for lunch, light dinner and crazy hula hooping, baby. it's stuff i like eating and doing anyway, so what's the hold up?

full. speed. ahead. bitches.

hitler vs. a dinosaur

as strange and dark as this dream was, i woke up from it refreshed and happy.

:: jenny's dream sequence ::


the circus was in town, or so we thought. it turned out to be a concentration camp, and it was mostly for children. david and lucy went missing, along with half of the other kids in town. no one knew where all the children had gone, and apparently never questioned the mysterious circus.


years passed and finally parents started to figure out what had happened. charlie and i broke into the camp and found that it was hitler running it. hitler was alive and well (well, physically. not mentally) and had not aged at all. we had to run around hiding from soldiers and found rooms of paper-thin children hanging from clotheslines. somehow we spoke to one of the guards (i think we told him we were nazi reporters or something) and he was bragging how they were able to get the kids so thin and still keep them alive.


charlie's mom was suddenly with us, and she had a plan where we would just tell hitler we were going to take david and lucy to the zoo. then we would just never bring them back. charlie and i had a better idea, and formed a plan to steal hitlers jeep and stow david and lucy in the back, then haul ass out of camp.

 when we found david and lucy, they were older (about 8 and 16) and david had been training in the martial arts in secret, so he ended up fighting off all the nazis and helped us escape in the jeep. as we were leaving the camp/circus, we saw a face-off between hitler and a t-rex, but i never got to see how it ended.


:: end of dream sequence ::

after seeing hitler fighting a dinosaur, it's hard not to have a good day.

experiment

trying to cut meat and dairy out of my diet. so far, i'm still eating eggs and fish. still having cool whip, too, and i guess that's technically dairy. trying out green smoothies for breakfast. i made a nasty smoothie this morning, so i will try honey and more fruit in tomorrow's. so tired i can't even think in full sentences. i suppose i'll write more on this when i'm a little more conscious.

my dreams

decided to sift through years worth of my blog posts for my "dream sequences," copied and pasted them all into Word for a whopping 17 pages worth of pure nonsensical bliss. they're interesting to me, at least. especially the one where i dreamed of giving birth to lucy...almost 3 years BEFORE i actually gave birth to her. i never really realized how many dreams i had written down until i searched my blog for "dream sequence." it's unbelievable, since i only remember little bits of my dreams now.

so this is what i'll try to do. as soon as i wake up, i plan to write down every detail of every dream i can remember having that night (i used to remember several, sometimes 4 or 5) and post it here. i think the more i write down my dreams (or attempt to recall them each morning), the better my chances are at remembering more of my dreams the next morning. i've only remembered a few dreams in the last few months. what makes it hard is waking up every few hours most nights to lucy fussing. maybe she doesn't give me the chance to dream. maybe i wake up too often to get into a deep sleep.

well, anyways, i hope not.

hooping update

so i've managed to learn to keep the hoop on my hips. YAY! what helped? getting hoops that were actually big and heavy enough for an adult. i'm learning (slowly) a few tricks, very basic right now, but i hope to have a bunch of really cool ones mastered in a few months, and (crossing fingers) lose some weight in the process. but now, the exercise part isn't as important. i'm having so much fun that i never want to put my hoop down (despite the wicked bruises on my hips).

i've found out there's a lot of benefits of hooping (for me):

1. in december of '08, i had surgery on an umbilical hernia, which was a result of my pregnancy. the doctor told me that there would be a higher chance of recurrance for me because of my weight. and indeed, about a year later, i began to feel very sore around my belly button again and feared having to undergo another surgery (that i couldn't afford). only a week or so after i started hooping (with the bigger adult hoop, one about 42" across) i noticed i was no longer sore around that area, and i can only assume that my "core" muscles have stregthened enough to hold everything in as it should.

2. my head clears when i hoop. i always thought i should try yoga or something, but never had the patience for it. so many awkward looking poses. i'd be too embarrassed to do it in front of anyone, and in my house, i have to do nearly everything in front of everyone. besides, yoga is charlie's thing (or will be...when he decides to stop just ordering a bunch of books and dvd's about it and starts actually DOING IT). when i'm hooping, it's like i've found my own little happy place where i can tune out and just relax. it feels like the hoop is hugging me on all sides and i'm in this safe little bubble.

3. david likes hooping, too. i had come to the point where i was losing things i had in common with him (other than blood). wasn't i surprised to learn that the munchkin actually LIKES to hoop with his mom. i'm not cool enough to play Nerf guns or Playstation with him, but he's not too embarrassed to hoop it up with his mommy. aww, he still loves me.

4. the stomach aches that i used to have daily for nearly 10 years have all but gone away completely. something about this hoop providing a constant massage for my tummy must've done wonders for my digestion. i mean, i still get them once in awhile, but it feels nice not to have that pain all the time.

5. last but not least, the word "hoop" constantly gets misunderstood for the word "poop," so when i say things like, "sorry i'm so sweaty and out of breath, i was just hooping, " or, "mind if i hoop?" i get really funny reactions. BOOM!

what's all the hoop-la

i don't remember ever having a hula hoop when i was a kid. my dad swears i did, so whatever. but i think not. i know i always wanted one. it looked so fun. and easy. it probably would have been easy had i tried learning then, when i was 10. but no. i tried at the ripe old age of 30.
charlie saw the hoops in walmart while we in the toy section fulfilling our end of the bribe (kids act sane, get toys). i remember saying something...sometime to him about the childhood trauma of never having a hula hoop. so he stuck one in the cart. and bought it. and brought it home and...
...found out i suck at it. it still LOOKS fun, when i see other people doing it the right way. but it sure as shit isn't easy at all, especially considering all my roundness. but i'm determined to learn to hoop. it seems like good exercise, and if i can get the fucking thing to stay on my hips, it would be really fun. it seems like the ideal way to lose weight, if i could only stop inhaling so much junk food, alcohol and sugar. :D

Hound Dog Books

so i redesigned charlie's web site, Hound Dog Books. anyone who reads this blog, jog on over there and check it out. he's my boyfriend/fiancé/father of my daughter, a wicked poet and possibly even more random than i am. most of his poetry is stream of thought and free verse (my favorite kind). very random, very cool. not trying to be overcomplicated or pseudo-intellectual. he's real. and rather adorable, if you ask me.

this blog and me

i noticed something...that probably no one else has noticed because no one is reading anymore. i, for the most part, have abandoned this blog. if my 24 year old self could see this, she'd be sick. however, i am coolly indifferent.

i started this thing in 2003. it is now 2010. i feel like a different person than the girl who started a weird new thing called a blog when she was 24 because some guy had one and she wanted to feel important like that. i haven't talked to that guy SINCE i was 24, yet this blog lives on. neat.

if i'm online anymore, i live on facebook. this is because the people i know in real life have figured out how to type (some just barely). all my creative ideas manifest themselves as 2 sentence blurbs which i use as a profile status. i will try to update my beloved spitnoodle, because i refuse to let her die. but my life and priorities have changed in monumental ways this past six years. i have too many distractions (good distractions, but ones that keep me from forming a thought). right now all i hear is, "mom....mom....hey, mom..," and fingernails impatiently tapping on the table as david asks me where are the oreos.

i do what i can, and that's all i can do.

rotten mood

whaaat is going on with me, i can't focus on anything and i'm constantly irritated unless i'm drinking. i don't get out and do enough, but when i'm off work, i'll make any excuse not to go out and do something. i'm paranoid about driving because i need to get my car inspected and i've already been ticketed once for it. everytime i get the time to do that, i either don't have the money or the place is closed (i need to go to the place that originally did my inspection -- which is like an hour away, but i know any other place will fail it, and i can't afford to get my brakes totally fixed right now).

it's october, the weather is beautiful and i feel this antsy feeling when i'm just sitting around, like i'm a caged animal. charlie is normally at work all day (on my days off). i want to get out of the house, but then getting all of us ready (lucy, david and myself) is normally a pain in the ass and just doesn't seem worth it since i don't have money to do anything other than go to the park and last time i was there the gnats were so thick, i was inhaling them. plus not every place i feel like going is kid friendly.

i need more adult company. charlie and i don't get out enough, just the two of us. i only see mandy once in awhile, and then the neighbor across the street chitchats me when i go check the mail. other than that and family, i've got nonstop baby-crying and children's programming and toys that play the same song over and over and mom-look-at-this and mom-can-i-?? it's part of being a mother, so just suck it up and deal with it. if that's all the advice i get from people, who do i even have to talk to anymore. aaaaurgh.

want to cry and scream and pull my hair out and drink and start smoking again and throw things and eat an entire tub of ice cream and kick people in the eye just for looking at me funny. dammit dammit dammit.

these people are damn assholes

i work at a hotel. i'm there right now, actually. it would be a great job if i could avoid all contact with the customers. i like the work, i like all of my coworkers, i'm treated well and, though it doesn't pay as much as i'd like, i'm comfortable here. but FUUUUCK, i want to punch every self absorbed asshole that comes in here or calls demanding the moon on a silver fucking platter for 50 bucks less than the going rate. rude, arrogent, condescending pricks that think that they can bully me into doing something against what i'm told and risk my getting fired just so they can save twenty bucks. FUCK YOU, ASSHOLES. the more you try pushing me around, the less likely i am to cut you a break. i'm not some teenage kid that you can intimidate with your gross old-man breath and beer gut. if you want something for nothing, go to the filthy motel down the hill, because that's where the fucking cockroaches belong.

ok, i think i'm done.

what a day for a daydream

i used to daydream a lot. in school, at home, on mass transit, while showering, while doing pretty much anything. i would imagine what i would be like 10 years in the future. i would think about how i would die and what my funeral would be like. i would daydream about what other people might be doing behind closed doors. i would sit around and stare into space and go into this spaced out coma, oblivious to anything around me. i was physically on autopilot.

this is something i had assumed i had grown out of.

i went to a parent-teacher conference at dave's school last week. for the most part, my son is a genius. he gets all A's and B's and is in the advanced reading group. however, it was mentioned that he sometimes zones out and doesn't finish his classwork on time. i could certainly relate to that, but i still had to have a talk with dave about staying on task. it's good to have an active imagination, but there are times when it's not appropriate to crawl back comfortably in your mind and daydream. i gave this talk thinking that this is something he's going to grow out of. because hey, i did.

no. no, i didn't.

i'm here at work right now and realized after not hearing a damn word that my boss was saying to me that i was off in my own little world. come to think of it, i hear myself saying, "i'm sorry, what? i wasn't listening," a lot. just about every day, in fact. i'm a space cadet.

i stay focused for short bursts of time. if i'm at work, give me 20 minutes and i can finish almost anything with intense concentration and speed. but after 20 minutes, distraction sets in. i think that the only reason i've learned to work so fast is to make more time to daydream. as soon as i have any down time, i tune out at least 50% of what is going on around me and start imagining what is going on at home or conjuring up the beginning to my epic novel. i'll people watch and think, "boxers of briefs," or "i wonder what they're doing once their door closes?" what i imagine people doing after i check them in is probably much juicier than what actually goes on, but i can't help but picture the strangest scenarios.

i think i've worked at a hotel so long because it keeps my sick imagination working overdrive. inspiration for a novel, maybe?

but now i feel like a hypocrite for telling dave to FOCUS.