journeys of a restless mind

no, I'm not supposed to be packing and cleaning instead of blogging, why do you ask?

There are so many damn fine blogs out there.  As a certain friend of mine would say, I'm astounded.  I've added a couple more to the very tippy top of my "detours" list over there.  Go read 'em.

la mesa

Yesterday I drove up the hill to sign the lease for my new apartment.  I parked the car, and noticed that Paul was out in their garden weeding.  It was still chilly, but the sun had come out; the air crackled with brightness.  I said hello to Paul, expressed my excitement at the task ahead.  I admired the rockery plants that Paul's weed trimming had revealed.  My landlord appeared, and I ran across the street to meet him.  We walked in the door and up the stairs, and once again it hit me as we turned the corner--this place feels like home.  I think I am a bit enamored of the emptiness of it, the clean white walls, the bare floors, the light everywhere.  No clutter of school papers, no dust, no stack of books 20 volumes high on the table by the bed, no legos or crumbs or crumpled clothing or anything at all that I have to take care of or clean or fix. 

The first thing I did after I got the keys was to go back across the street to Paul and Kimberly's house and invite them over.  We stood in the naked dining room looking out. The view Southwest towards Elliott bay is better than I'd remembered it.  There is a fine expanse of water and distant islands to gaze upon.  The table where the kidlet and I will eat, the place where I will gather with my friends to share wine and conversation and food will be brought across the street from Kimberly and Paul's basement.  A tangible artifact from their life together will now become the center of an important part of mine. 

We go back across the street.  Kimberly is sitting in the sun on their porch drinking diet Coke with lime and listening to me talk out my excitement.  She looks so beautiful there, framed by her house, the sun falling across her face.  It was she who expressed a wish that the kidlet and I could find an apartment in the building across from them.  Almost immediately that wish came true.  That's some powerful mojo my friend has.  My friend, who is not moving away from Seattle at all.

multiple choice

When your friendly neighborhood single-mom is feeling rather overwhelmed by the tasks that face her, how does she handle it?  Does she make lists and enlist help and get her butt organized?  Does she cave in to the pressure?  Does she drink ever more coffee?  Or does she call up Alaska Airlines and get a reservation for her flight to BlogHer, her free flight that she earned simply by being willing to get bumped on her way home from BlogHer last year?  I'm leaning towards all of the above.

friday iPod random ten, me da gueva edition

Scotch & Chocolate~Nickel Creek
Too Darn Hot~Ella Fitzgerald
Not Pretty Enough~Kasey Chambers
Banana Pancakes~Jack Johnson
Soy Callejero~Los Mocosos
Let's Get It On~Marvin [duh] Gaye
Inside~Moby
Amarraditos~Maria Dolores Pradera
Candela~Buena Vista Social Club
Miniature Disasters~KT Tunstall

I'm just sayin'

I love Violet Socks

las cosas cambian

Nothing is final with the kidlet's dad, and I probably shouldn't get myself freaked out over it just yet.  If he goes, it will be one of those major life changes over which I have no control.  Never much fun, but always full of opportunities for growth.  And I asked the universe to help me grow, I decided I wanted to evolve consciously, all that rot. I think my exact words were, "bring it on!" so I have only myself to blame.

Vicente is not really a parent to the kidlet anyway, not in the active sense.  I'm the parent.  He's the guy that the kidlet hangs out with most weekends.  I do all the hard dirty work.  He takes him to Game Works.  Even so, Vicente has been there, been a steady regular part of the kidlet's life for the duration.  The kidlet knows his dad is there, even if he'd rather hang out with me (or best of all, Grandma) sometimes.  And then there's that adolescence thing that I hear kids go through.  That's coming up, and then mom won't be nearly so important.

There are some positive aspects to the possibility of Vicente moving away.  I would get to hand-pick the male role models in the kidlet's life, for one.  Vicente is not exactly a paragon of feminist thought, nor would one be out of line to call him a homophobe.  When we were together, I cut him a lot of slack for being the product of his culture, but the slack ran out, the rope grew taut, and then it snapped. 

So there will be no feaking out, no sir. I'll just be over here chanting the serenity prayer, aligning my chakras, focusing on my breath, and trying to just lean into all this chaos I'm feeling inside.

If you were going to lose your job (through no fault of your own) in the city where your young son and his mom lived, would you try and find another job in that city, or would you go 2000 miles across the country where you'd have a sure job with the same company?

Looks like the kidlet's dad is opting for the latter and my heart is shattering. 

the more things change...

Apparently, I will never learn.  Part of why I wanted a new apartment, aside from the bedroom issue, was because I would really really like to have a dishwasher.  Yet another sign of my failure to be properly girly enough is the fact that I'm a lousy housekeeper.  Partly from rebellion, partly from the way I was raised, and largely because I find a million other more fascinating things to occupy my time with, I've neglected this important life skill.  Having a dishwasher would make hiding this fact so much easier.   

Does my new (expensive) apartment have a dishwasher?  No, I confess, it does not.  It doesn't even have a beautiful claw-foot tub, which, as you might remember, was what got me into my present predicament.  What was it, then, that seduced me into happily signing a lease for yet another place with less than up-to-date mod cons?  It was the light.  You see, I've been living in ground- or sub-ground level apartments for the last several years, and while they have their advantages (cool in the summer comes foremost to my mind), luminosity isn't one of them.  And yesterday was one of those perfectly gorgeous Seattle days with clear bright light, and we happened to be visiting the apartment in the morning, and it faces South and East, and I just knew when we walked into the place that I wanted it. 

The laundry room is far away and must be shared with plenty of other folks.  I'll still be parking on the street in a densely populated urban neighborhood.  I'll still be keeping a sink full of dirty dishes washing my dishes by hand, but the budding visual artist in me craves that light, and don't forget about the bedroom.  Of my own.  With a door.  Can you blame me?

 

important domestic announcement

For the first time since the kidlet was born, I am about to have my own bedroom.

(Did I mention this bedroom comes attached to an apartment that is a mere two blocks from the kidlet's school?  And even closer than that to some famous Seattle bloggers' house.)

finding my voice (blocked II)

It seems that much of the writing done on my blogs over the years has been done to impress one boy or another.  nina turns 40, in the early days, was largely a love letter to Jerry.  Even after he broke my heart, a lot of what I wrote was influenced by him.  More recently there have been blatant and perhaps obvious attempts to catch the attention of at least a couple of other men.  Knowing who I was writing for, whose approval, and yes, love I was trying to gain made it easy to find my voice.  Now that I've decided I want to write for myself, as myself, I can't find anything to say.  Well, no, not exactly.  It's more that I can't find how to say it.  I thought the issue was one of nina vs. Janeen, but it goes deeper than that.

I'm an excellent mimic.  It's true when I sing, and it's becoming more and more apparent to me that it's true when I write.  I can copy--even incorporate--someone else's style fairly easily.  This is a useful skill to have, but it doesn't help you when it's time to speak out for yourself.  I feel like water, so fluid and responsive to my environment that I have no shape of my own.  And right now, I'm frozen.