Unplugging

I am not the sort who needs a lot of alone time. When I do have alone time I tend to get… lonely. And I end up on the phone or IM. But since the arrival of my son I have started to finally feel the need to unplug. Gone are the days where I can check out and read a book in peace for hours on end. I no longer even go to the bathroom in privacy. I have started to feel this acute pressure of people being ON me 24/7. It has been suggested that I need to get out and have some time to myself. But this suggestion is always in the context of happy hours and girls nights. These scenarios haven’t felt right to me. Yes, it would be a fun time but it hasn’t struck me as the alone time I really want… And then I had an epiphany… MY version of unplugging… And it is GENIUS.

I am going to see Sex and the City by myself. One of my friends thought this sounded sad. But I couldn’t be more excited!!!!! There is a brand new AMC theatre less than 5 minutes from my house. This theatre is near a sandwich shop that I have been dying to try. I am going to leave at 6:30, go and get a sandwich, buy some small bottles of flavored vodka, and head to the 7:05 showing of SATC. I will buy a Sprite at the theatre and sneak my contraband in. I will spike my drink, snag a great seat, and settle in for 2 hours of mindless entertainment. UNPLUGGING AT ITS BEST.

When I devised this plan something clicked. THIS is the alone time I need. Yes, happy hours are fun. But right now I need to not have people on me. I need to 100% check out from life. That’s why all the girls night out suggestions haven’t sounded fulfilling to me. I need a no pressure night. I don’t have to be social. I don’t have to bend to anyone’s schedule. It’s just me and three of my favorite things– food, booze, and a movie. I am giddy!!!! And I get to be home by 9:30 for a good night’s sleep and no hangover. Yay me!

I think I might actually make this a regular thing. Everyone can get off my back about having no life outside my family! My husband can have a little alone time himself with the TV or his music. I love win-wins. I love finally discovering an outlet that doesn’t involve a bar, a huge bill, and a possible DUI. All this time, I have needed to get out– just not by other people’s definition. Problem solved. Samantha, Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda– here I come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Those Who Are Doomed to Walk the Earth Forever Restless

What is happiness? I’m sure there are some who have a ready answer for that. Some who claim to be, and may even actually BE, happy. I applaud these people, deluded or not. But I am not sure I have found the answer to the happiness question. I am not an UNHAPPY person. A smile from my son, a good chat with a friend, a great political debate, and foodfoodfood are some of the things that make me happy. I am aware of, and thankful for, the good days I have. I know the bad ones will pass. But for as long as I can remember there has been an underlying restlessness to my life. A feeling that keeps me just off-balance enough to never achieve 100% happiness. And I think that may just be the way I am designed.

I rarely live in the moment. I wish I could. But my mind is always racing ahead. To what’s for dinner, to the errands I have to do tomorrow, to 5 years from now when my son is in school and I am back at work full time. My mind never rests. This makes happiness rather unattainable. I question my actions in the past– years, months, days, weeks, or hours ago. I question if I took my son outside to play long enough that day. I question if I did enough work to make my boss happy. I question if I gave enough attention to my friends. And then I question if I have taken enough time for myself. It’s a never-ending cycle. Maybe I am not even seeking true happiness but true contentment. True relaxation. True peace.

I see people who seem to secure in themselves and where they are at in life. Often I do not even envy the life they have but rather their comfort in it. I picture myself in my dream life and feel that even that fulfillment would fail to quell the person that paces constantly in my mind. The person inside that never rests. Even as I blog now I know I should be working. There are a couple people I am dying to chat with. And I am also aware that the quiet moments which I steal to type this will end all too soon at the whim of my son’s nap. I am not even in the moment as I carefully craft these words.

Sometimes it is simply too tiring to be me. I jump from thought to thought and from want to want. There are a million things I WANT or NEED to do but I know as I do them I will be moving on to the next frantic thought pattern, the next frenzy of action. I picture stealing away for a spa day. Every women’s dream, right? It would be nice. But I feel perpetually out of place at a spa with all the quiet and Zen relaxation. I picture sneaking away to see a movie. But I know that I will sit there and think of all the other things I could be doing. I am too wound up to even enjoy getting my nails done. I sit and wish they would hurry up.

I am destined to walk this earth forever restless. And, in that restlessness, never quite achieve happiness. I have a good life. It could be worse. I just wish my mind could quiet once in awhile and I could honestly enjoy exactly where I am at for one delectable moment of peace.

My Secret Shame

I know everyone has a junk drawer that random things get shoved into and forgotten about. Some have junk closets that serve the same purpose. I have a drawer and a cupboard and a closet or two where all my unnecessary items get put. But I carry this hiding of crap one step further. And this is my secret shame…

I shove things under the couch when I am too lazy to put them away or throw them away. Mine you, this is not food or other things that will start smelling. But wrappers, those magazine inserts, fake nails that I pull off, all go under or behind the couch. Some of the things that I squirrel away are things I don’t want my son playing with or seeing– bubbles, my hair clips, the remote, etc…

I realized that this may be a weird and more ecompassing habit when I was scooping dog poop in the yard. For a moment I had the urge to just throw it over the fence and forget about it. That got me thinking about the odd way in which I use my couch to hide things. And how, on a much lesser scale, I put things into closets when I cannot decide where else they should go.

I think a good part of this habit is sheer laziness. I rip one fake fingernail off and simply do not feel like getting off my ass to go and throw it away. Why make the long trek to the kitchen?

The good news, though, is that when I moved my couch to paint the living room there wasn’t anywhere near as much junk around it as I thought. Maybe there is hope for me yet. Maybe my secret shame isn’t quite as heinous as I think. Still, please do not look under my couch when you visit. It’s better for both of us.

Jam Bands Make My Ears Bleed

First off, let me clear up two points. One, I like the Steve Miller Band. Two, I do not consider the Steve Miller Band a jam band… But last night my husband got a hold of the remote (the horror) and turned on this show with these geezers playing music. I realized it was the Steve Miller Band and thought “hey, maybe this won’t suck as much as the usual music shows he turns on”. I was so terribly, terribly wrong.

I own a Steve Miller Band Greatest Hits CD. I listen to it often. But last night I realized that the band is not what I thought it was. The first song of this show went on for 10 minutes. How long can you fly like a freaking eagle to the sea??? Where were the lyrics???? It was just a bunch of fogies getting off on rad guitar riffs. I thought my screaming son made me want to go deaf. Nope, bands that jam endlessly are worse. I started to tug on my ear in hopes I could rip it off and end the boring notes that never ended. This whole experience made me think of my musical tastes in general.

I am honestly not sure I am a fan of music… I don’t drool and wax poetic over this band versus that band. I think bootleg tapes are stupid. I have some music that I like and my favorites are quite varied, often influenced by ex’s from the past and my old theatre friends. I genuinely have no strong musical opinions except knowing what I DON’T like.

I do enjoy a good CD now and then, however. I wear an iPod at work. It’s not as if I want to burn down radio stations or blow up music studios. But my music needs to have a point! I want a beginning, a middle, and an end. I want a few verses and a very catchy chorus. Something I can sing along with. In fact, I most often focus on the lyrics and the singer, rather than the rocking drum solo or the slamming guitar playing. The only instrumental music that I don’t mind is the piano. I love Eminem and Bob Dylan because of their way with words. And this is why jam bands, or any jamming for that matter, not only bores me– it ANNOYS me. I do not have the luxury of being on acid 24/7 so the zone out, spacey music genre is simply wasted on me. That sort if music would make me fall asleep if it didn’t piss me off so much.  If jam bands are a sign of taste and interest in music then declare me tone deaf and I will walk away from the joys of music altogether.

Falling Off the Moderation Wagon

This weekend, for the second time in 7 years, my husband is leaving town without me. I will be… alone… This is so rare that I am all atwitter trying to figure out how best to use my time. My aloneness, however, includes my toddler. This limits my options. So, I have decided the best plan of action is to embrace my inner glutton. Recently I have been trying to be more moderate in what I eat. I deny myself nothing but I don’t go hog wild. Well, that ends this weekend, my friends. I intend to indulge in an orgy of food.

With my first night of ME time, I am putting the baby to bed at 7pm on the dot and making an old classic. Pesto pizza bagels. These will be followed by almost obsessive eating of chips with sour cream and onion dip. No one will be there to judge how much of this goodness I shove into my mouth. This is my version of Heaven. I don’t want to float on puffy clouds. I want to swim in vats of dip.

Saturday involves my carbonarra recipe. The recipe calls for heavy cream and a pound of bacon. How can you go wrong???? I imagine that I will eat 3 servings throughout the evening. As I have some girlfriends coming over, I will probably double the recipe to be sure there is enough for me. It’s not good hosting to selfishly hide half the meal for personal leftovers after everyone leaves. Make no mistake, this dish is so good that I WOULD do that if I had to.

Sunday starts with breakfast out. I haven’t decided where yet but I intend to get the biggest omelette the world has ever seen. And eat it with sour cream and hot sauce. And lots and lots of hashbrowns. My lunch and dinner choices are many. Buffalo chicken wraps, burgers, chicken enchiladas. The world in my menu at this point. I may even eat America’s #1 Worst Food– Outback’s Aussie Cheese Fries. Men’s Health condemned these fries but I am not a man nor am I interested in health. I am interested in the crack that they sneak into the recipe that makes these fries SO addicting. Sunday night will end with another food binge on the couch– most likely devouring all the evidence, I mean leftovers, of my weekend activities.

When I wake up from my food coma on Monday morning life will be back to normal. Sure, I may be 5 or 20 pounds heavier and I may have guaranteed myself a future bypass but it will have been worth it. If this is my last blog, you know what happened to me. Death by grease and salt. The way I have always wanted to make my exit.

A Little Mommy Ranting

I love my son a bunch. But nobody warned me that just about the time I started to get 8 hours of sleep again at night, a new, equally exhausting, stage would commence. The “active toddler” stage. The “won’t listen to no” stage. The “make Mommy a jungle gym” stage. If it’s forbidden my son is playing with it– toilets, miniblinds, pissed off cats, etc… When he is told “no” he yells and cries like I just beat him. There are days when I feel like I say nothing BUT “no” and hear nothing but screams in reply. I have to shut my windows lest the neighbors report me… or at least judge my mothering skills. Lacking Supernanny on speed dial, I pray often to the God of Motherly Patience. I have yet, however, to feel any divine intervention. This forces me to channel Helen Keller and feign deafness.

One particularly bad day, I almost stopped a pregnant woman in Wal-Mart to tell her not to go through with it. I wanted to throw myself at her feet and warn her. “Lady! Adoption is the answer! Take it from me!” I half hoped that doing so would result in my arrest and I would spend a few days in the sweet solitude of a prison cell.

I go into the office two days per week. It’s not a vacation or a day at the spa but it IS an oasis of adult chit chat and iTunes. (In case you are thinking that I was lying about loving my child, I want you to know that by the end of the work day I miss my son so much that I look at pictures of him… He looks so innocent in pictures…)

Last night, my son had a meltdown due to lack of napping. It was 4:40pm and he could not be consoled. There was a very intense battle between my hatred of late afternoon naps and the desire to make the lambs stop screaming. The silence of the lambs won and off my son went to his crib. I cleaned up the mess from my bleeding ears and sat down to read for a few minutes. One of the biggest lessons motherhood has taught me is that silence is golden.

But also golden is the garbled “I love you” I heard from my son’s lips yesterday. I just wished he didn’t normally communicate his love and regard with high-pitched shrieks and wails. Thems the breaks.

Intro to Brook’s Blog

While not an official blog as of yet, this is my blog intro. Some of the things I intend to write about are: motherhood, food, politics (Obama 08!), the eternal struggle between men and women, food, the latest news, food, what I ate recently… I think you get the drift. Wish me luck!