nina turns 40

future bloggers of america

just shoot me

Every single parent is familiar with the feeling of being overwhelmed. It goes with the territority, you've already come to terms with it long ago, or you'd have checked out already. Most of the time you can keep it more or less at bay. You take deep breaths, you deal with everything one day at a time, you enlist all the support you can get your hands on. It may always feel like "I can't do this", but hey, the evidence is there, you're doing it, the kidlet is alive and well, you have a place to live, and food on the table, and a fair amount of fun in your lives. Then there are the times when you are sure that you just can't keep going on, that the obstacles have finally amassed in such a way that you are ready to claim defeat. Like now. At work, our department has been reduced from three to two, and the work load is increasing. I have been given all the responsibilites of my former supervisor, but none of the perks. With the kidlet starting kindergarten, there are several early school closures and inservice days and strange new routines to be learned. He will have to take a bus from kindergarten to his after school care and he's very afraid of taking the bus alone. I can handle just about everything except when he starts crying to me about being afraid. Then I just lose it. Oh, and he informed me yesterday that he doesn't like the shape of my bottom. Great. Despite all my efforts, I'm somehow living with a male who doesn't dig my butt. Don't even get me started on the utter despair I felt that it seems he's already integrated into his psyche the culture's tendency to judge women's bodies as all wrong. Sorry for the extended whine, folks, but a girl can only do, and take, so much.

the hope and the hopelessness

Recently I lamented the fact that I didn't have Hejira. Well, that's now been remedied, and I must say, I am so blown away by Ms. Mitchell. Like everyone who grew up in the 70's, I was aware of her music, I was aware of her deserved status as a huge pop influence, I respected her immensely. But only recently have I really begun to listen to her. Wow. Wow. I love Court and Spark, it's one of those must-have albums, but Hejira is another animal entirely. It's so beautiful and complex, it evokes the lonliness and longing of travel like nobody's business, but of course what really hits me right in the solar plexus is the way she so perfectly captures what it's like to be an intelligent, complicated, independent woman looking for love.

sucky

Just when I was completely bored with the brand, these smart folks come out with a ginger flavor, and I'm in teeth rotting, candy sucking heaven! They hurt! And I mean that in the best way possible.

and I say that with the utmost affection

Been perusing this blog quite a bit lately (via a link from The Obvious? ). It's in turns fascinating, inspiring, enraging, and downright funny. One of my favorite cartoons? This one.

It has ocurred to me that getting over heartbreak is rather like the mirror-image of what it's like giving birth. Instead of the long slow build from the first contraction to the last ferocious effort and joy of the baby being born, you instead begin at the height of the emotion and toil and work your way backwards to peace. The pain, like contractions, comes in waves, at first so intense and pounding that you don't think you can bear it, and then, gradually, over time, the distance between each volley lengthens, the power of the grief diminishes, until you aren't even pregnant with the memory of your lost beloved, you are just aware of something powerful that has gone by.

punctuation rant

What's up with the latest trend in business emails these days to put a question mark after something when you are making a statement? People, when you start a sentence with "I think", whether or not you're sure about the veracity of what you're thinking about, you end the sentence with a period, NOT a question mark. Otherwise you are questioning your own ability to think. And so am I.

This rant brought to you courtesy of eVil corporation, and my fine colleagues herein. Thank you, and have a nice day.

and it's good for you, too!

Mango has to be the sexiest fruit of all--that silky, sweet, juicy, lucious flesh just makes me wish I were eating it with a friend, and we were licking it off each other's fingers. Next time I make dinner for someone I have the hots for, we are definitely having mango for dessert.

Watched "21 Grams" last night. In order to avoid the overwhelming emotional impact of the the story line--whose non-linear form didn't work as well here as it did in "Amores Perros" by the same director--I found myself instead mulling over how much Benicio Del Toro looks like the kidlet's dad.

In other news, I'm totally jazzed, cuz I'm going dancing here tonight.

sex and the single mom

OK, boys and girls, here's your warning. I'm gonna write about sex. I've done it before, and I'm gonna do it now, at length and with some (but not too much) detail. I've always wanted to write about and talk about sex more openly in my life, and if blogging ain't the perfect way to do that, I don't know what is. I've struggled somewhat with finding the best way for me to do that. For awhile I kept a sex blog, but I came to the conclusion that I don't want my sexual self kept separate from the rest of me, nor from the rest of my blog. So if, for whatever reason, you're not comfortable with reading what I have to say about sex and the single mom, here's your chance to skip this post. For the rest of y'all, cue up the Salt n Pepa, and let's talk about...