My Sixth Toe

Yesterday my son fell asleep in the middle of the day. This doesn't happen often, and I'd usually try with all my power to prevent it, because if he nods off for just 5 minutes, say in the car, he will be awake till after 9 pm. Constantly getting out of bed and walking down the hall to me, and I keep having to put him back in bed.
I let him sleep because he went full tilt psycho right before crashing. When I picked him up from school he was being defiant and not picking up his lunch that spilled all over the floor. He kept crying, "I can't do it. I need your help. Mommy do it!"
His preschool is montessori, so the entire philosophy hinges on teaching the kids to do things themselves. His teacher was warning me about kids who are lazy and expect everyone else to do stuff for them. After he finally cleaned his shit up, we could leave, but he whined the entire time, sounding like Veruca Salt, for me to "go buy him a present."
I tried scolding him, "You sound so spoiled right now." But he could give a shit, and kept insisting. I knew he was probably in an exhaustive state because when we got home he threw a wicked tantrum, and I brought him to his room. I was rocking him, and he just fell asleep, like a baby, in my arms.

I was thinking about these cycles of my kids' behavior. For the most part they don't act like unruly demanding spoiled brats but yesterday and this morning they've been unbearable. George has been up all night, and waking up super early, so it compounded into his complete lack of self-control. I'm probably PMSing, so I have the added feelings that I have no control over this.

Data shows hospitals experience higher volume around the full moon, that people are just more likely to act reckless, and I wonder if kids become more wild around Mommy's moon cycle. Like, does my PMS make the kids go berserk.  I think it does, and should start charting this data. I think it makes George sleep way less, and Kiki whine about EVERYTHING. Yesterday while I was chatting with another mom outside of Kiki's dance class, I said, "Usually George sleeps ok, but not lately. This is all cyclical though. I'm just due for a good stretch of sleep soon." She felt the same happens with her kids.

The last couple days George has been waking up all night long, and then at 5 am spry. It's more torturous to me because Ive been staying up till midnight the last couple days, caught up on a reality TV bender. I turned on Bravo Tuesday for the first time in 6 months, and realized I've missed an entire season of Real housewives of New York, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Ladies of London. I've watched four episodes of Ladies of London a night, and after going to bed at midnight, I am woken up three times by George and have to get up for good at 5 am. Needless to say, tonight after I finish the season, I will not watch realty TV for another six months.

I like the Ladies of London because they all smoke and really enjoy having conversations to heal. Jules wasn't a regular in the first season that I watched, and now she is, and comes off as the most unstoppable gossip ever. If anything, the show does a great job of making the case, that gossip is poison making all talkers and listeners sick.
Caroline Stanbury is my favorite. She is stressed about uprooting her entire family and moving to the Dubai, and this makes her get in fights with all her friends, which is so me. I honestly can't talk to anyone of my siblings when I feel overwhelmed because they will say something that irritates me, and I'll turn it into something that allows me to blow out all my stress, like a fire breathing dragon.

Most of the ladies have kids and all of them have nannies. When I watch the show, and with my heightened sensitivity and obvious lack of control over my children, I think about how my kids might have been better off if I didn't quit my job, but stayed working and let a professional raise them. A nanny probably would have taught them how to make their bed by now, or that they need to pick up their toys,  and how to sweep up their plate of spilled food. But they had me, who really felt so overwhelmed most of the time, I took the approach that it is just easier to do things myself, and now I feel I've stunted them into being spoiled and a million miles from self sufficient.

Last night, when Kingsley started crying because I wouldn't give her the last pineapple juice since she didn't eat any of her dinner yet, I said, "I'm about one day away from packing up my suit case and hopping on a plane to Hawaii. I think I'll go sleep in a tent on the beach until you two figure out how to have some bloody respect for me!" (In addition to normalizing smoking, the Ladies of London, have reintroduced "bloody" and "sodding" into my vocab.)
I told them, "Super nanny is coming, and I'm going."
They needed to know more about this super nanny, and the story started spiraling out of control where super nanny can sometimes be a wicked witch, and while moms away on vacation, the wicked witch will eat people's toes who don't listen to her.
Kiki was chewing on her blanket, and I reassured her for the tenth time, "Were just making this up. There is no such person as the Super Nanny. I am not going to go live on the beach without my gummy bears."

On Monday night, I had the silliest dream that I had six toes on my feet. The sixth toe that sprouted under the pinky toe on each foot, looked gross, like an oversized wart, but I showed my sister the toes and neither of us were alarmed. After researching what this means, I think it represents that I have been doing well with my purpose, and this toe is a gift, given for extra support.

I wonder if it has to do with the needed patience and rebuilding of confidence in my parenting, now that I reflect on the week. Or it could be regarding my job, because this week I was given a new class to teach the second half of the term. Or it could relate to my writing, since I've been revising my screenplay.
One of my greatest friends who lives abroad and I email each other our writing projects to discuss them, and when I wrote her a couple weeks ago, I felt rather sad after diving back into my screenplay,  having not looked at it for months. I was cringing and embarrassed with how shitty it was at times.
I thought, it's 80% garbage, but after spending more time on it, and developing a better artistic vision for where I want it to go, I am not railing on myself anymore for thinking I had been sitting on an Oscar winning screenplay that was actually not even ready to be considered for an Unauthorized Lifetime movie.

I'm reading an autobiography called, You Knew That Already, by a celebrity psychic. It's definitely trashy, conversational lit, but very engaging, and I like it. My husband was laughing at me for choosing it at the library, but I've only read the first couple chapters (the reality TV bender derailed my nighttime reading as well) and have some great take aways regarding meditation and visualization. Dougall Fraser talks about his anger throughout highschool, and how he started these exercises where he'd visualize himself surrounded by a brick wall (his brick wall represented his anger) and he'd throw the bricks away from him, one-by-one, till the wall was gone. Before my mind got polluted by the nonsense of the TV show, it felt clear enough for me to go through this, and it felt great, in fact that was the night I had the dream about the extra toes. But after watching TV for four hours, when I close my eyes I'm being inundated with images from the TV shows, so its impossible for me to focus on throwing my bricks.

Ive got a some irons in the fire, and in the next couple days, two of them will be finished, so I really have to turn the TV off in order to get my shit taken care of with the clearest mind, and intentions. The extra toe is a comfort, but with my kids' PMS-by-proxy, I need possibly a second or third extra toe on each foot, as well as a good eight hour stretch of sleep.

Rare Sighting

After watching the coverage of Winona Ryder at the SAG awards I decided to watch Stranger Things. Last night we watched the end of the first season, and as I was jumping up and down, pacing the room, compulsively eating cough drops, I looked at my husband and said, "What the fuck did we start watching this for? You're probably going to be called away on a work trip tomorrow, and I'll spend all night staring at the wall, praying a monster doesn't come out of it."

I'm a scaredy cat, so it's better if I just live in a world where I don't think of freaky shit and monsters. Honestly, this keeps me from even wanting to read the newspaper. Being afraid of the dark was possibly a driving force for getting married. Definitely a good reason to make things serious after just a couple months of knowing someone. On the surface I'll say, "Oh, yes we decided to move in together. Sure I don't know what his mother's name is or his credit score, but lets just say were doing it because it's nice to split rent and utilities, and not because I'm comforted by the presence of a warm body."

You know when you're about to fall asleep, and then in your head, hear someone scream your name really loud (this is normal, I Googled it to show you!) and then you jump from drifting off to sleep to wide awake? Well, I need someone next to me after that happens. Otherwise, I'll lay there and break out in a cold sweat.

Im happy to finished the season, and in the end it was good, but still freaky. I don't need to be thinking about the dangers that live amongst us in alternate dimensions. The other week I was on Amazon Prime, and came across some videos on Astral Projection. While I was watching, I thought it was interesting how the host was giving guidance on how to astral project, but never once said why one would astral project. Thats what I would like to know, what do you gain from astral projection? (My next Google adventure). The host did say, you should be educated before making the mental trek out-of-body because you can come across dangerous things in the astral plane. I took that as my, you-can-just-sit-this-out-honey.

In real life scary news, my daughter woke up Sunday with a rash, that turned into terrifying full-body hives by Monday. After going to the doctor and getting medication, she went from my pink leopard, to a girl with spots, and today she just has a couple bumps left.

On Monday, after we got back from the doctor, I was overcome with adrenaline from all the stress, mainly, what the hell is going on with my kid, and is she ever going to be normal again. I used this energy to clean the house. While I cleaned, I checked on her every couple minutes and ate all the candy I bought to give out as Valentine's gifts. After counting the calories of the pile of trash, I needed a tissue to cry into because I stress ate like 2000 calories of chocolate. She didn't really have an appetite, but I kept making her food, and as she'd reject it, I'd eat it that too.

The body is a fucking crazy thing. She was put on a steroid which made her sleep and eat patterns a bit off. Yesterday morning, at 4 am, wide awake, she started asking me about Queen Elizabeth. She wanted to know, "Does the queen live forever, like Santa Claus?"
"Nope, she doesn't Kiki. Can we go back to sleep?"
"But I'm starving!"
After 30 minutes of her telling me how she is starving, and asking why her mother would want her to starve, I got out of bed to bring her back a short stack of salami.

My husband was also taken out, but by a vicious cold. When he is sick I actually have to give myself morning pep talks not to be mean to him because it does get me a bit raw that he indulges in "bed rest," and I will never understand the luxury. So when I pass the room and see him "resting" I shoot daggers at him with my eyes. However, this time it was his birthday, so I really made an effort to be compassionate, and it worked! Mind over matter! Maybe I'm more equipped for this visit to the astral plane than I'm giving myself credit for. And I can surely handle some nights by myself. After this week, and the bed rest, it'd probably do me some good.

Wild Thing

I like to read George “Where the Wild Things Are” because he is Max. Especially in the picture where Max chases his frightened dog with a fork, then his mom calls him “wild thing,” and he threatens to eat her up, so she sends him to his room.

This is why our dog is currently staying with Mimi because George wouldn’t stop charging the 12 pound dog like a fucking rhinoceros. My mom fell in love with my dog so, if George becomes a tad more civilized, she’ll be willing to grant us joint custody, although I think this would be to the dog’s chagrin, since he currently spends most of the day on her warm lap.

George’s behavior, although psychotic if done by an adult, is within the realm of hyper little boys. That’s even what his teacher told me once after he got in trouble at preschool, “This can be common for boys.” Because of his energy, we can only give him the teeniest bits of sugar. If he gets too much he’ll go bonkers. His body is in tune with this disastrous combination because he has the weakest sweet tooth. He is the type of kid who will hold his ice cream cone till it melts, or hoard his Easter candy, just petting the foil and talking to it, as we all look upon waiting for him to wander away to steal a piece or two.

Comparing George to my daughter who is not violent, unless provoked by him, we move from conventional barbarianism to nonclassified. People don’t say, “That girl, she’s a thinker!” I tend to get the off comments, “Have you spoken with her doctor about…”

And it gets me stressed out, although I’m sure she is fine, and I’ve spoken with her doctors and they don’t believe there is any problem either. She is just a little different. She thinks about things deeply, and it causes her to have bad anxiety at times, or just seem to be “head in the clouds.” This year I see her out growing the most peculiar of her behavior, spinning to music in her head, getting centimeters from someone’s face to talk with them, and needing to be in complete control.

She was a huge zoo fan as a toddler. We went all the time. She knew all the different duck breeds and could point them out; North American wood duck, Red Head, various mergansers. It was pretty fucking impressive how she’d remember this shit, but one day, she just decided she wouldn’t walk one foot further into the zoo, and made us leave. She thought the lion was going to attack us, and had a full blown panic attack, where her body was frozen in fear, but her mouth and voice were in high operation, screaming in warning. So we left, and didn’t go back until two days ago.

After three weeks of heavy rain we needed to do something outdoors, and easy, so we thought, lets give the zoo another go. The Sacramento zoo is pretty cool. I get emails from them since we used to have a membership. It’s gone through a bout of bad luck lately. The very publicized giraffe’s baby was a stillbirth, after getting a new tiger it was killed by another male tiger, and an otter from the very cute otter duo died. When we were frequenting the zoo, the lions had babies, and we’d see the three cubs. Now the cubs are grown and need to be separated from dad because he’ll kill them for getting in the way of his dinner.

After getting in the zoo my son had to use the toilet. My daughter and I wandered the zoo while George and dad were in the bathroom. After twenty minutes I sent a “what in the blazes tarnation is going on in there?” text. George likes to take his time, if you know what I mean, and apparently he doesn’t feel the need to rush even when in an uncomfortable cement bathroom with no heating.

My daughter and I spent most of this time by the otter exhibit. There was a docent there, and she answered some of Kiki’s questions, and told me that the lion cubs will probably be shipped to other zoos within the year.

Then I brought up the New Yorker article from a week ago, The Culling. The article talks about Denmark publicly culling (it’s not called killing, but that’s just what it is) zoo animals. Denmark decided to remove any shame from the act of killing the animals to control the population, by being vocally unashamed of doing these acts. The kill is then turned into a learning opportunity because the animal is dismembered and dissected in front of a viewing audience, the first row saved for pacifier sucking three-year olds.

After telling the docent, I received the type of reaction you’d expect from someone who voluntarily gives up her time to stand around the zoo unpaid and answering questions in order to promote animal awareness, she was appalled. Her solution, these zoos should stop breeding if they don’t intend to keep the animals, follow the normal model, keep the animals on birth control.

The article said that the Danish zoos allow animals to mate since it’s one of their few pleasures being that they have to live in a zoo (really this is why birth control was invented), and that birthing a child is a natural right of the animals, one they ought to have the pleasure of experiencing.

What convoluted, considerably anti-abortion, thinking. Let the animals fuck without birth control because it would go against their nature to not birth a child, and we’ll abort it 7 years from now.

Mostly male animals are culled because they don’t play well with each other, an opposite to the Chinese gender-genocide. Females are needed to birth, and well, with the man, just a dab’ll do.

This article, and the article The Death Treatment, makes Northern Europe look extremely emotionally detached, the latter being a brain sticking article on euthanizing non-terminally ill humans. Maybe it's a smear campaign to offset the Frozen effect and keep American tourists at bay.

On the way home from the zoo we stopped by the deli to pick up sandwiches and fruit for dinner. My husband went into the store and the kids and I stayed in the car. They were playing video games when my daughter shouted, “I have to poop!”
She is on antibiotics, and has the touchiest stomach, so when she makes this announcement, it means it’s time to haul-ass to the ladies room. We rushed into the store, and the ladies room was locked, so we ran into the men’s. She thought this was funny. I didn’t because it had the stink of a men’s room. Everything appears to be coated in a thin layer of dried pee. After trying not to breath in any airborne urine, and constantly reminding her not to touch anything, we returned to the store. I took a deep breath and looked upon the long butcher counter, all the meat displayed behind clean glass windows.

Plenty of Rain and TV

Cyber Detox in Paradise

We are having some weather lately! The power went out Wednesday evening, and didn’t turn back on till 14 hours later. I thought the campus would be closed, but couldn’t be certain. I quickly realized after leaving my neighborhood that we are last on the priority list, since the rest of the city was bustling with its normal life.

The wind is doing the most damage, and at times sounds like a jet hovering over our house. When I’m laying in bed at night the thought that keeps going around in my mind is what if a tall tree crashes into the house.

Then I wonder if these thoughts are some type of paranormal warning. In an episode of Unsolved Mysteries I watched a hundred years ago, one of the segments was about an older sister being visited by a spirit, and told to move her bed to the opposite wall. She moved the bed, and went to sleep, and during the night a car crashed into her house, right into the wall the bed had been. So her moving the bed saved her life.

Although, my constantly thinking the tree in our front yard might crash into the house is not the same as a spirit visiting me and delivering the verbal warning, “Go sleep with your kids in the back bedroom,” what if the spirit world is just reading the audience? They won’t send a spirit to warn me because they know I’d have a heart attack when I first saw it, and then there’d be no one to save anyone.

I heard back from a job I applied to in November, and sadly, it was a pass. I applied to be the principal’s admin at the top school in Sacramento, figuring the kids would get free tuition, so it’d be a job that benefited everyone beyond financially. If you add up the 50K for 13 years, well were talking Indecent Proposal kind of money, except it’s not liquid, and paid in installments. So I wouldn’t get the pleasure of the act or rolling around in cash afterward.

I took it as a good sign that the principal emailed me with the rejection, meaning I was actually under consideration. But, I don’t have to question the meaning of my rejection, which was, “Alicia you (and husband) can make enough money to pay for this school without compromising your goals; doing really self-indulgent work, which wouldn't be the case if you're busy doing someone else’s paperwork.”

If I end up on a late night talk show, and get asked about my life’s work, I won’t say, “Success occurs when luck meets preparedness,” I’ll lament, “I worked my ass off, and it eventually paid off, that’s the only thing I was sure of.”

I once heard Sofia Vergara give an interview and she said she didn’t exercise, and ate whatever she wanted. I felt like a citizen’s arrest was in order, or at least initiate a massive fine by the FCC because it’s dangerous to disseminate this false persona; I just stuff myself with gluttonous abandon, and still look like a top ten stunner, take up your complaints with God.

Maybe it’s because my definition of “eat whatever I want” would be much more detrimental, everyday I’d start with a cheeseburger, IPA and box of See’s chocolates and then see where I go from there, squeezing in a green juice somewhere.

I follow JLo on Instagram, and she is also a top ten stunner, however, half of her posts are pictures of her working out. She is a serious gym rat, and isn’t embarrassed to acknowledge her excessively healthy lifestyle, not drinking and sleeping her 8 hours a night. I applaud her self-control, and willingness to keep it real. We all know it is not easy to fit into a teeny sequin body suit, a huge component of her work, and in her case, it’s work she loves.

Lena Dunham also pulls this false persona shade during interviews. I love her work, but I find the so riddled by anxiety, and barely able to function in the world, a tad too much, and actually quite unbelievable because the question would be, if you’re a top writer-business bitch but also combatting your verbal incontinent, awkward, anti-social, pill-popping, hot mess self, well then who is driving your multimillion dollar ship?

When I was in college I took up Cardio Kick Boxing. I did Billly Blanks’ Advanced Tae-Bo video video so much I memorized it word for word. In one part “Michael” demonstrates the modified version of an exercise, and after showing it, Billy yells at him, “Micheal, you a top basketball player, now get up. I’m not gonna let you get away with that.”

That’s what I yell at Vergara, “You’re a top celebrity, stop acting like you don’t work your ass of for it. I know you don’t eat carbs, and I don’t judge you for it, look how well it pays off!” and to Dunham, “Girl, we all now you aren’t a puppet and have a strong sense of who you are and what you want your work to be.”

I watched the pilot episode of “I Love Dick” on Amazon. It’s another show that celebrates the self-hating woman, and although Kevin Bacon is a hot piece I don’t give the show my seal of approval, its too sad; the heroine’s desire for approval is depressing and there is not a single redeeming quality about her. Who knows though, it’s the pilot, so perhaps she comes back and has something to offer other than wanting to impress a man, albeit a very sexy man.

But I can now connect the dots of some covert PR taking place in the past couple months, since I read about the author of “I Love Dick” in the New Yorker a month or so ago, and there was some Instagram buzz over Dunham giving this book to one of her gal pals, some conspicuous product placement at the time.

I veered over to One Mississippi, a FANTASTIC show about a self-loving woman. It’s an emotional roller coaster, while being genuinely funny. One Mississippi is renewed for a second season, and has a billion great reviews. It’s only six episodes long, so I was happy and bummed watching the last episode, the timeline on the bottom of my screen counting down to the end of my enjoying this great show, like an hourglass. The last episode was a tearjerker, and since I watch TV while I’m running on the treadmill, I usually avoid shows where my throat gets constricted from being emotional. But I fought through it, and nose breathed during this part.

The following day, I stood on the treadmill thinking, “What the hell am I going to watch now. The light in the world has dimmed with my current favorite show ending.”

And then Amazon proved their algorithms effectiveness because I saw Schitts Creek in my Recommended-For-You. I’ve been waiting eons for the second season to become part of Amazon Prime, and it finally happened. Trying not to cry while running is a challenge but the laugh-out-loud jokes in Schitts Creek offer another challenge because I can't put a cap on my embarrassingly uncontrollable laughter, breaking the silence at my relatively calm gym by loudly cackling, maintaining eye contact with my tiny phone to diffuse any confusion.

I need to just own it, the same way I expect others. I am not ashamed to almost trip over my feet on a machine that could cause me severe dental damage because I love to be entertained. I suffer for my TV, and that doesn’t mean watching shows that are less than amusing because even those shows offer insight into content trends and why I read certain stories in the New Yorker. Intel I figured out on my own, without the help of a spirit ghost.

The rain, and TV watching, are seeping a little too deep in my mind because last night I dreamt I met Titus Burgess while I was getting ready for one of my sister’s wedding. We were anxious because all the plans were confusing and it wasn’t clear how we’d get to the wedding. My hair looked the best it has in years, and at one point a turkey ran right passed my feet and out the door.

The week before last I went on a cyber detox, and I dived back into the Internet world with gusto. It was good to realize much of my pull toward being online is self-constructed. I decided to do a cyber detox over my winter break after reading a quote by Pascal, “All of humanity’s problems come from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Because I had worked myself up to compulsively checking my email, leading me to get caught up in frequent wasteful cyber loops.

I broke the detox once, when I felt certain my boss emailed me. After I checked my work email, I saw nothing from him, and then realty hit, he never emails me initially. He is one of the last “phone-first” kinds of people.

I should think about this at night, when I grow increasingly concerned about my concerns over the tall tree crashing into my house. Unless there is a ghost talking to me about this tree, there is nothing I should do but go to sleep; I have TV stars to talk to, weddings to get stressed out about, and turkeys that need to scurry at my feet.

Sharky Night Hag

Add photoshop to the 2017 resolutions...

The other night I dreamt about sharks swimming in the sky. They were swimming through the air, and I watched from high on a hill, overlooking a valley. Like ocean currents, there were layers of the wind. Leaves were blowing in one layer, and sharks swimming above.
This is the third time in the last month I dreamt of shark swimming (or flying) in the sky. I'm having a hard time understanding what the message is, and based on the reoccurrence of it, I'm assuming I haven't reached the correct conclusion. From what I've been reading, the meaning of these shark dreams aren't so great. A looming threat about a person who, like a shark, takes whatever they want, or expecting the worst in someone, or an omen about "dangerous water." However, in the dream I'm not scared, but rather impressed and captivated. The best I've come up with is some sort of message about coexisting with fear.

I read a post about Mugwort Body Oil as a way to enhance dreaming, and I ordered some, hoping to gain insight into whatever the universe is trying to tell me. The oil can be used to promote lucid dreaming, as well. I'm going to avoid lucid dreaming, hoping the dream will unfold without putting in that kind of work. The reason I'm hesitant about lucid dreaming is due to a period in high school where I became terrified of falling asleep because of sleep paralysis, also known as the Night Hag. To this day, I don't sleep on my back because I realized this brought on the horror of becoming wide awake in the mind, but still having my body asleep, so I'd lay in bed paralyzed, yelling at myself to open my eyes.
During this time, I read "freaking out" (the internal yelling) is the worst reaction, and remaining calm will allow one to use these moments as an opportunity to go on a celestial exploration. I was a bit too wounded by my past experiences to turn my poop into poop juice, but by practicing a calm state of being, I was able to ease myself back to sleep the next time I came into this night terror, and it was an extreme comfort.
To say I smoked weed throughout high school is an understatement, and if there is one thing I'd go back and change it'd be not to fall into the peer pressure of obliterating my afternoons with mindlessness when I could have been getting a head start on life, but alas, everything is a learning experience, even years of lackluster inactivity, for if it weren't for them, I'd probably not realize how important it is for me to live life passionately. The Night Hag and extremely potent NorCal ganja were most likely correlated because after going to college and completely stopping marijuana, I don't have anymore occurrences of sleep paralysis.

I took a nonfiction narrative writing class when George was around 1 year old. The professor advised us students not to write about dreams. It was a bizarre instruction, since she assigned Terry Tempest Williams' Refuge as one of the course texts, a book that is filled with the author's dreams. The teacher said Terry is the exception, and for the most part, reading people's dreams is not interesting. Then she said, "Besides, who has dreams that are so vivid?"Me and a handful of other students raised our hands, and I had an aha moment. It hadn't occurred to me that some people go to bed, and just get a couple blips of their dreamtime escapades, and then wake up. I figured everyone got to ride the nighttime roller coaster I'd find myself on frequently.

Just last night I dreamed I was on a train, looking at a couple maps with various routes. Eventually, I was at a long dinner table with an underwater jungle in the backdrop. At one point a person from the table grabbed a giant snake from there, and as it was about to bite the mans head off, the man ripped out the snake's teeth, killing it and splaying blood all over the people at the table. The blood contained something like tiny razor blades because everyone started complaining about their mouths having tiny cuts in them.
I woke up to George shouting for me to walk him to the toilet and then back to bed. I laid with him till he fell back asleep, and at 2:30 in the morning, I was too tired to write the dream down, and needed to focus on getting back to sleep because who knows when the other kid will wake up shouting for my servitude.
One of my goals in 2017 is to keep a dream journal (err, not off to a good start). I feel like I better keep good documentation. It will be eye opening to come back and read the dreams after some time passes, since there is usually clarity looking back on things.  Another one of my 2017 resolutions is to let go of paranoia, which is especially hard after reading shark interpretations since "a shark indicates deception, do not trust anyone at this time," is a common theme.

I plan on getting to the bottom of this. It might not be pretty, but rather, oily with the Mugwort help. I'll let you know how the dreams turn out!

Light the Corners of My Mind

I heard a comedian once say, "Did you ever do something awkward, and then think about it for the next seven years?"
I laughed, and thought, "All the fucking time."
Today as I was cleaning up the kitchen, when I was sweeping, I remembered a couple years back going to a San Francisco Giants game with my family. George was two and Kiki four. For that particular game, all kids were given a wiffle ball set as a gift. Kiki and George, paraded around with their bats till we got to the bleachers, and we had to confiscate them because, being young children, they were oblivious to the cramp quarters, and swatting people surrounding us. George wouldn't just fucking let it go, and started to throw a terrible tantrum. We anxiously tried to distract him, but he tunnel visioned on the bat, and after I took it from him again, he hit me in the face. My reaction should have been to keep calm, but I hit him upside the head. Usually, I wouldn't think this is so awful, because he really can't act like such a brat, but what happened right after I hit him on the head is the worse part. The people behind us started cheering, and then I felt fucking terrible.
They were congratulating me for not being a parent-doormat, and taking charge of the situation, but George noticed the you-go-girl spectatorship, and he put his head in my neck and cried. I still pray there isn't some psyche damage from being publicly shamed for acting like an inconsolable two-year-old.
I picked him up, and we walked out of the bleachers and cruised around the park, but on my walk from our seat to the stairs, a woman with an infant in an ergo pouch glared at me like I punched my child in the eye, and I was privately shamed.
He was fine as we ventured thru AT&T Park. My number one goal when attending sporting events is to eat, so he was my comrade on the foodie exploration that included a Ghiradelli booth, we parked outside of most of the game.

The other day I  received my monthly newsletter from the physic healer I saw in October and she gave some mediation advice on how to feel cheerful in the post holiday slump. She said to think of a time where you were so completely happy. Focus on that moment, think of what it feels like to be so happy, how it made your body and mind feel. This practice helps stimulate dopamine in your mind.
I immediately thought of the day I went into labor with my daughter. It was a wonderful chance that my mom and little sister were in LA when I went into labor. After going to the doctor in the morning, I was told to go home until the labor intensified later in the afternoon. So we picked up philly cheesesteaks (of all things!) and went back to my house where I tried to take a nap but was so fucking excited, couldn't close my eyes for a second.
My mom came to town with The Kennedys Miniseries on DVD, and was hellbent on watching it that day. I tried to protest as much as I could, but I was also very much in my head, it was a surreal time, I knew I was about to give birth to my baby who I walked around with in my belly the last ten months, so I just hung out. My mom, is an extrovert trapped inside of an introvert, so to people who know her, she is the most wildly funny person. Jim Carey (on Oprah) said that he thinks all comedians get their gift from their mothers. Humor passes on through the mom, which makes sense since she is likely the one who is sitting down at the table with you breakfast, lunch and dinner, so her quirky weirdness becomes the normal.
My mom said something, I don't even remember what, but I started laughing so hard, my enormous eighty pound baby (she was actually only 9) started laughing too, and squished my bladder (yeah, that must have been why) and I laughed so hard I peed my pants. Then I ran to the bathroom, laughing harder because my gigantic pregnant self, was pissing on the floor from laughing so hard.

This week Mark Zuckerberg announced that he is not an atheist anymore. This revelation comes after the birth of his child, and Priscilla Chan and him pledging 99% of their Facebook shares to human advancement. I found this to be the most important news of the week. It makes me think how it's  probably much easier for women to feel connected to God through our suffering. We are born the second sex, and it's through this marginalization we understand suffering. The act of birthing a child demonstrates the heights of women's pain and divinity.
Then, through our children, we understand love. This is wide sweeping, there are probably people who feel this love earlier in their life, perhaps through romance or a soulmate, but if those opportunities don't happen, then through children we gain an understanding of love, and a deeper connection to God.

Love is birthed from a moment, but stays with us forever, through memories that fuel our heart throughout life, even after doing shitty stupid things, like hitting your kid upside the head in front of an audience. Tonight, I walked into the living room, and found George, standing ontop of the TV stand in his underwear, with his duck blanket draped over his head. As I lunged toward him shouting, "Get down from there, you could faaaaaaaaa...."
He bent his knees and jumped into the air, and then fell to the floor. He is just wild, and doesn't like to follow rules.
I bought him a new game for his LeapPad, and was working on my laptop next to him as he played it. I got distracted because I heard the game keep saying, "Thats incorrect. Select the number three."
And, still typing on my keyboard, I said to him, "You know what the number three looks like. Pick the number three." The game again said, "Sorry, that's incorrect. Pick the number three."
Then I looked over, and saw his face. He was absolutely giddy, red-faced and smiling, repeatedly selecting the wrong answer, on purpose. He threw his head back, laughing so hard he almost peed his pants.

Quit Being an LB

When Phyllis Nefler calls a parent meeting for Troop Beverly Hills to concoct a plan for selling cookies, her best friend, a glamorous romance novel writer, laments, "If all you're looking for is money, then why don't we all just buy a thousand boxes of cookies."
Phyllis says, she thought of that too, but realized it defeats the purpose, which is much more than raising money, but teaching your kids not be an LB.

Thats a term my brother taught me, "LB" which stands for "lil' bitch," and is generally used to explain someone who is acting like a whiney asshole, and is bringing everyone down. When I was young, my brothers, sisters and me would lounge in front of the TV for hours. We'd rise from our state of rest only for fresh-from-the-oven bagel bites. When my dad would come in the house after work, we'd all go tense because we knew he would never get on board with this scene of inactivity.

And he wouldn't. He'd usually look upon his fleet of lazy children, silently scowl, walk into the other room, and we would get the false impression that he is totally cool with us spending our Saturday on an eight hour TV bender. Minutes later, he'd walk in the room and command, "Turn the TV off. You need to move the wood from the front of the house to the side of the house."

Then we'd all moan under our breath, taking out our frustration on each other, with a shove and "get out of my way" shout, and then start a work line where we'd spend the next two hours walking chopped wood from the front of the house to the side of the house, for no reason except my dad doesn't want his kids to grow up and be LBs. Weeks later, he'd come home and ask us to move all the wood back to where it was stacked in the front of the house. And so on.

I'm with my parents this week, sleeping on a blow up mattress with my two kids. A fourth of the mattress' air escapes when I put the cap on it, and there is a slight leak somewhere because after a couple hours, we are all sleeping on the floor. George wakes up frequently throughout the night screaming for no apparent reason then to test my strength in containing any involuntary reaction to be abusive. I practice visualizing us back at home, where he is in his bed, and I am in mine, sleeping soundly. But waking up in the dry Carson City desert, after sleeping a couple hours on the floor of a room that's last seen a vacuum in 2012, my throat and nose clogged with dust bunnies, I guzzle eight cups of water and then onto coffee and take on a day which has become much less active now that my kids are old enough to keep themselves busy, running around like a pack of wolves with their four cousins.

Last Christmas there was always something to do; snacks to make, potty mess to clean up, something to organize, or a tantrum to extinguish. Yesterday I was so hapless, I spent eight hours laying around and eating. I went to bed traumatized by the dud of a day I had, and said, "Im going to read a book tomorrow. I can't go on doing nothing!"
Yesterday I took two long ass walks. The first was with my brother and sister's families. The second was an emergency walk, I initiated after watching George waywardly wander through the room, leaping on furniture, looking like he was going to climb the TV stand with the hope of body slamming the coffee table. I could have carried on, eating a dozen more mini powdered donuts while staring at the ceiling, but he needed to run.

As we started down the path I chatted with my sister on the phone. We hung up, and then George and I walked, looking for rabbits. When we reached the end of the path, I reached in my pocket for my phone so I could get a picture of him with the city background. I put my hand in the deep pocket and pulled out a knitted cap, two sets of gloves, three little kids socks, and Starbucks napkins, but no phone.
I knew I had the phone when we started on the walk, so it fell out somewhere in between here and where I hung up. I regretted buying the camouflage otter box case because it was only fourteen dollars on Amazon, knowing if it were case side up, it'd blend into the brush and dirt. I found the phone glistening in the dirt right around where I hung up. George and I high-fived, then I went to take his picture, but the phone died as I opened the camera.
We then came upon a family of deer. There was about eight of them, and they looked huge, motionless, staring at us. I picked up George, and was a little frightened, as we said, "Hi deeeer," creeping away. I couldn't shake the image of them walking towards us, then quickly charging, a short distance stampede. The path soon turned to cement, and we entered the neighborhood. I turned around and saw a little deer peek its head out from behind a stone wall to look at us.

This morning, after George woke me up, we joined the bustling part of our family thats on East Coast time, I grabbed a book from the shelf, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Harletts seem to be the most useful tool of the time, and proclaimed, "I will not eat any of those fucking corn syrup donuts, or guzzle diet coke like it's water." A couple hours later my mom came out of her room singing, and I reiterated how I couldn't be a glutinous couch dwelling jabba the hut sloth today. She shook her head at me, dismayed, and said, "You stop being a complainer, and lay down on that couch and relax."

I know what she meant by "complainer" so I sucked it up, grabbed some donuts and fell into an armchair, tossing the book to the side and started watching rain drops hit the window and ground.