I spent $22 on one lipgloss today. A really incredible lipgloss. A lipgloss that I deserve and that I didn't realize the price of till I got to the counter and handed it over along with the $12 lip balm I impulse purchased while waiting on-line.

This is very much what some of my life is like. I was in NYC for a few hours and I got a coffee at Starbucks, got a birthday gift for my friend's kid. I also saw my therapist.

For fucks-sake it is so hard. So bloody painful. Today I thought I had a story to tell that I believed would convey a certain set of emotional conventions that would explain how well I'd been ingesting the sage advice I'd been receiving over the past month or so. That's when he told me that my vocabulary, though impressive, wasn't worth much in my therapy space. That all my fancy words were keeping me from, from... from FUCKING WHAT?!?

From my emotions. Those bastardy things again. While I kept driving to tell my story he kept stopping me to try to get me to dig in on myself and get dirty. But I won! Ha! I only cried a teeny, tiny leeetle bit. Guess what? Turns out that means I Lost. I lost at therapy today. Good thing I had already won at lipgloss or I would have been really pissed.

Xmas 2011 is in the books, people

So. The past 24 hours have been intense. I am one rusty emotive machine.

The good news is that I can certainly whip up some pretty tasty passion. The bad news is that I can spread the moldy leavings all over people that I love.

In the past 24 hours I have called my husband terrible names. I have cried (sobbed, really) in a post-coital heap that would make Kubrick blush. I worked my santa magic and had my babies eating out of the palm of my hand. I've napped & had too much too drink. I've snuggled deeply and hopelessly with my son and been the grateful recipient of more 'I love you's' than I can count from my daughters.

Christmas is cool. I really liked Christmas this year and I think as my shedding becomes less difficult, more subtle and manageable, I'll like the plain old regular days ahead of me more and more, too.

Home Sweet Home

Life does not suck here at 7 Stepehn Smith. The fire roars, the Christmas tree glows, the
Sauvignon blanc glistens and the WNYC enlightens.

I mostly feel pretty good. I mostly actively delight in every piece of this new life. However, no matter how far, how drastically, how vigorously I move, I still live with a monster.

Several weeks ago I started seeing a very smart, very aggressive, very tender, very motivated therapist. The good news? Apparently I can be fixed. The bad news? I am so jammed up, so tight and controlled that I have no idea how to start. I'm 41 and creeping right up on 42's ass... I don't have years and years to do this. I have shit to do and children to tend to.

Fuck! Is anyone else listening to the radio right now? The carols they are playing are playing right into my cerebellum... 'Tis the season, indeed.

2011 was all about us ingesting, digesting the lusciousness of Lincoln and moving our life and family closer to... to... to more tangible things. And it was a bitch of a whore to navigate. 2011 fucked like a pro.

And here I sit, on the precipice of 2012 terrified of the work before me once again.

It was my son's birthday last month. He turned three. I couldn't write about it though. He and his 7 year old sister have so destroyed and mangled my macbook that it's impossible to sit at my (ha!) desk and use my (ha!) computer. Add it to the list.

What else is on the list? Which category should we start in? Things destroyed by dog? Things destroyed by dog of significant value or low value? Things destroyed by children? Things co-opted by children? I really feel like I am facilitating squatters around here.

Wasn't my womb enough?

And the fuckinmuthafucker of a dog. Fuck. That. Shit. Look, I love him and I wanted him but he most certainly did not get the "They saved you, don't devour their shit and leave it in ribbons all over the porch/tv room/dining room/hallway" memo. He must have missed the "If you jump on and nibble at small people, they will hate you" memo, too.

I wrote that about 5 weeks ago. The dog has a new (loving?) home and I'm still without a computer. Oh, woe is me. I'm writing this on an iPad. Feel sorry for me yet?

Tempest in a teapot

Hell hath no fury like an 11 year old girl going through puberty and ain't no heart big enough to love the crap out of her.

Ruby. A gift.

She stuns me with her thoughts, articulations, moods, ideas, expressions of love & fits of passion.

The other night I said "I'm not the fucking maid!" in response to finding that she had (artfully) painted strokes of nail polish on the downstairs shower stall, soggy towels on the bathroom floor and perfect curls of eyeliner pencil frosted with the merest slips of melty, deep blue color smeared into the vanity.

I was pissed and she was stolid. She didn't waver till I uttered the obscenity and then she crumbled. I apologized for the word, but not the sentiment, for the anger but not the message and then I left it alone.

Later, when she was fresh out of tears, I told her that I really was sorry for swearing. And she said, that's ok. And then she said, when I'm all upset all I want is you, mom. I act like I don't, but I do. She closed with a kiss and an I love you.

I asked her to try to be patient with me in a few years if (when) she says that foul word to me. I told her I hope I'd have as much grace and presence of mind as her.

Minus the F-bomb. This shit goes down in my house EVERY DAY. The kid blows my mind like Mikey with the pop-rocks & coca cola. She asks me hypothetical questions (and she prefaces with: This is hypothetical, mom). She tells me she knows it's weird she's addicted to love songs even though she has NO IDEA what it feels like to have an unevenly broken heart that's deeply rolling. She asks me to buy her meringue cookies simply on the basis of their appearance.

Two days ago, she said she's considering vegetarianism again not because of the moral conflict of humans eating meat (we're not the only mammals who do, you know. Animals eat each other. It happens) but because of the filthy practice of turning the sweet hog into savory bacon. Yes, she said "savory".

I'm not kidding. She's extraordinary. And she's changing. Evolving into a most stormy and delectable thing. I don't wish her one second older or younger. I want to eat her alive and rub my tummy. And for now, she wants me to, too.

Motivation is Everywhere

Since we moved, I've been poking into my brains for the perfect first post in the new digs. Plenty of inspiration. PLENTY. But those trifles will have to wait because tonight I was pulled to the keyboard to officially record a most troubling find:

While I was in the bathroom (on the toilet) cleaning up from a rogue peeing episode by Lincoln all over my lap, pants, undies, legs (more on that later. maybe), I discovered TO MY FUCKING HORROR a grey pubic hair. A G R E Y P U B I C H A I R

Ask and ye shall get a really long answer

At the pool the other day, a woman made her way over to where Link and I were yucking it up/making out and asked me what his "disorder" was.

Her face was warm, motherly. Her own son really cute & playful with a huge mop of brown curls that he'd lick pool water off every once in a while.

It was the first time that a total stranger had the nuts to ask about Lincoln in public. He was super pumped up that day, twisting his arms up and twirling his hands like a Deadhead all the while saying "gheeeeeeeeee" with the biggest shit-eating, drooling grin. In between sets, he'd maul me with hugs and kisses (read: HEAVEN).

My boy don't come off like other boys. He acts the way we all want to act and it shows. I know it shows and this woman kindly, gently asked me what was up.

What a relief to have someone FINALLY FUCKING TALK TO ME ABOUT IT! I am a bit of a braggart (this point perfectly, dryly pointed out by Ruby mid-conversation). I love to be interviewed. I'm kinda a show off.

And the other day I got the really fantastic opportunity to show off my child's light and spread it around like the swirling whirls of fireflies.