So, after the meeting I'm putting something away and I overhear this priceless tidbit:

A: "I can't believe we gave that project such a good sendoff."

B: "But—Holy Crap!—what a lot of work. I told Ms. Subcomittee Chair that after that many months of us busting our butts, she owes me either a dry martini, or one really big joint."

A: "Get her to cough up both. I'll meet you two at your place next Friday; you take the joint, and I'll have the martini. With a little luck, she can pay it all off in one night."

They say that if you really want to get to know yourself, you should work in a nonprofit for a while . . .

As for me, I think I wasted my time on the wrong subcommittee.

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I'm in San Diego, where the people are nice but the internet connections can be spotty.

Having a great time nerd-watching, socializing, and (let's be honest) reading the last Harry Potter book.

This, of course, is all exhausting. There's little time to blog.

Furthermore, one cannot write brilliant entries from the lobby of a Holiday Inn—I saw that written down somewhere, but I've forgotten where.

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"Yes," I respond. "When I got my first account and asked you how to keep it straight, you replied that the secret was to have two accounts, and use them alternately.

But I never had trouble with the 'running balance' thing. It was trying to reconcile them against the statements that always made me crazy."

"I can't even spell 'reconcile,'" my father replies.

This is the same guy who criticized me in college for not taking enough courses in "the natural sciences." (I used to wonder what unnatural sciences would be, but I never bothered to ask.)

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I dreamt that as a sort of surprise, my husband had decided to create another funny little indie movie.

The problem was, I could not decide whether or not I was dreaming, and I did feel that if it were the real thing, I ought to be on my best behavior. After all, his friends were around—and one was never certain when the cameras were rolling.

Certainly there were things that appeared dreamlike about the experience, but I just wasn't certain. I kept trying to reason it out, though I believe I was aware that one's analytical abilities are never quite up to snuff in these situations.

But I tried. For instance, I looked at my watch, and was able to determine that we had been shooting all day. Dreams, I knew, are over very quickly, so that seemed to argue for it being real. Also, who thinks to check their watch in a dream? It had to be real, which was a shame, because I was having a good time, and there were all kinds of things I could have done (besides taking a bath, on-camera, with people coming in and talking to me as part of the setup) that I could have done, had I known for sure.

I was a tad skeptical about the trip to Ireland, because I rather doubted we could afford that right now, but who knows? It hardly seemed like a deal-breaker: perhaps A the H had made a calculated risk, and felt that the income from the film would make it worth the investment. After all, there's a lot of free publicity available in The Age of YouTube. Also, the fact that we were going to the Emerald Isle cut in the other direction: if this were my brainchild to begin with, it would have been England.

Above all, the whole thing was terribly funny, and my dreams never feature humor. So it seemed authentic.

I tried to smile a lot, be pleasant, do something funny when it was my turn, and take it easy on the gin. (Gin was available in those fountains one gets Coca-Cola from in fast-food joints. In retrospect, this strikes me as a bit suspicious, but it felt natural enough at the time.)

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. . . when Hell Week in my volunteer life corresponds with paid assignments from my clients. Because I'm not in a position to turn down paying jobs, but of course I can't let my brethren down in the nonprofit.

So sleep is sometimes the first thing to go.

Thank goodness my mother is starting to feel capable of taking on little tasks around the house: I'll stay there tomorrow night, but I'm not going to be much good around the house. I'll probably arrive late, and then leave early Saturday morning for double-meeting day.

Please remember the take-home lessons, here: 1) don't have mothers; their backs may give out on them at some point. If this approach to life is unwieldy, then 2) don't have volunteer commitments. You'll just end up working your butt off, and people will be there to "helpfully" tell you how you could have done everything so much better.

Stick with clients. We like clients, because we send them these things called "invoices," and then later on they give us "checks," which make life better.

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But just barely. It isn't just maintaining a household along with 2-3 jobs. It's also this business with my mother.

One doesn't just go over and fetch her mail and do her shopping. One also hears sort of a lot of, um, verbalizing. It's more or less nonstop, except when she's in so much pain she can't speak, which is even more stressful, though in a different way.

In between muscle spasms, though, there's this wall of advice. And anecdotes. And specific directions on how to do the things I'm doing for her. And helpful guidance when I'm doing it incorrectly. And admonitions that I shouldn't do more than is absolutely necessary. And polite requests to do one more teensy little thing, please.

I was all set to come home and eat my gun, but it turns out my check showed up from the premier client today, so I'll leave the firearms alone and read myself to sleep instead. Because what's more full of good cheer than money?

At some point, however, I do plan to once more become an Actual Blogger. I (almost) promise.

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My mother still needs lots of help, so I'll have to stop over there tomorrow and at least walk the dog.

Federal Express and/or our landlords messed up a shipment, so there's nothing to sell in my nonprofit/retail/office management job. And the Treasurer there is creating various pressures that I don't think I need.

My cousins were nice about staying here in Paper City, but one always feels icky about having been a poor hostess. They're young, though: they might not have noticed.

Someone damaged my car very slightly yesterday, and I went off on him. Very thoroughly. I know this person, so I probably owe him an amends, but . . . it can probably wait a bit. It was my car.

I remain imperfect.

There's a lot to be said for food and sleep.

I've decided that I should probably balance my checking account and work on my budget about as often as I do laundry—which means almost every day. Therefore, having just performed this grisly task, I am now aware that (my clients being late with my payments), I have $70 to get through next week with.

So: who votes for food? And who thinks it should be gasoline?

But I have plenty of leftovers in the fridge, and two billable assignments to get through the week. And for my birthday the husband got me books and copper pearl earrings.

I got myself two Ellery Queen mysteries and a John Coltrane album. All in all, quite a good haul.

So, you know: nothing to complain about, really.

I've decided that I deserve an iTunes binge. And—possibly a little gin.

I need external speakers for my Mac notebook, though. (I have ex-boyfriend who used to maintain that I blur the want/need distinction. This is not correct: I simply do not admit that it exists whatsoever.)

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The bad news:

1) Urgent Care was closed last night, and we couldn't get an appointment with her regular doctor until after 2:00 p.m. today. I went ahead and crashed there last night, not knowing when she'd be able to go—and wanting to make sure she got a ride there.

2) Because she's unable to host our out-of-town cousins due to this illness, I'm doing it;

3) I have the messiest, dirtiest house in the history of cluttered houses, and only had about an hour today to try to fix that;

4) I only slept 2-3 hours last night, and got in maybe a 45-minute nap today;

5) Did I mention that our house is dirty and messy?

The adrenaline is wearing off (or maybe the tranqs are kicking in). And yet I'm almost afraid to go to sleep: there's this fear that I won't wake up for days.

Also, I need to go clean some spoons off; what if everyone wants cereal for breakfast this morning? Jeez; I must be insane.

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But all I want to do this weekend is sleep. I'm not depressed; I'm just tired. Though I do intend to do a bit of laundry tonight, and we will be going to church.

One of my supervisors at work asked me specifically whether I'd be reading this weekend, to unwind, and I laughed and said "no." The truth, of course, is much sicker: of course I read myself to sleep last night.

Though I didn't analyze the grammar, or look for typos.

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. . . until I turn thirty-fifteen (the person from whom I stole this numbering system may drop by and claim credit, if she wishes).

I do, of course, have an Amazon wish list, as every good subscriber-supported chick must. (If you do decide to check that out, please adjust the list to display my desired presents in order of priority. It seems to want to default to a date-based "stack system," which is not helpful to any of us.)

Money always works, of course (see my PayPal button on the left sidebar): that helps me to go to blogging conferences, market my proofreading/writing, and fill in a few business wardrobe gaps before the Big Assignment this September/October. Or, you know: I might buy gin and get a birthday tattoo. Those aren't really business expenses, but they are fun.

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I'm feeling quite a bit bitchier than usual tonight. I wonder what it is. Let's consider the possibilities:

1) Joy, it's just that you're tired. Go to bed. Like, now.

2) Either give up volunteering, or go somewhere where it'll be appreciated, rather than working with those slack-jawed, dimwitted ingrates you're hanging out with these days.

3) Men. It's their doing. All of them. They collude.

4) Welcome to menopause.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:17 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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. . . comes this picture of me in West Los Angeles, taken when I was in my mid-twenties or something like that.

Note the bad hair dye: that was on purpose. I was doing this trailer-trash thing around then, for whatever reason. (I mean, I was wearing it on my cut-off, 80s-style sleeve . . . . )

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What if I told you there were a handful of individuals in whom I have trouble seeing the face of God?

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My mom needs a little deck or patio in her yard. Since her budget for this is pretty close to zero, I'm trying to figure out whether it would be easier/cheaper to build a little wooden platform there (something sturdy enough to last a few years), or simply level it out and use brick/sand to make a patio in between the "dog runs" and people paths.

Thoughts?

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. . . who was pushing 45, and had dry, sensitive skin even in her youth. This person's hands are beginning to look like she wears crocodile gloves, and her face is covered in fine lines.

But she's breaking out. As in, acne.

Whom would you blame for this phenomenon?

I'm going to go with the tried-and-true—George W. Bush—unless someone has a better idea. I'm certainly open to suggestions.

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We had drifted a bit in the past 20 years. Perhaps when I expected her to be warm and grandmotherly, she was cold and practical. And, perhaps, vice versa: when she wanted a devoted granddaughter, she was presented with the cynical thinking machine.

But something changed this time around. And I don't know why. Or maybe I do, but I don't want to dissect it quite yet. Not here. Not now.

Her mind is of course still razor-sharp, but the body has been betraying her for a few years. She's frail, and she knows that her bones are weak, so she does everything she can to avoid falling: she understands the stakes, and takes hold of anything that will help her to keep her balance. (And let us remember that our vices can be blessings. I've been addicted to milk since childhood. I tend to run the gamut from skim to 2% and back again, but I still consume plenty of dairy. If I live as long as I intend to, that might turn into a Damn Fine Thing.)

Naturally, I ask her about the years she lived in Phoenix. She tells me a little, but I don't press the issue when it becomes clear that she was miserable for the four years she lived there with her parents, from the age of 18 to 22.

She gave up crafts ten or 15 years ago, but she was an expert knitter back in middle age and her early senior years (and an expert seamstress, crocheter, weaver, and general craftswoman to boot).

I tell her I keep trying to go back to knitting. I explain that my mood swings have too strong an influence on how tight I pull the yarn, and my rows come out uneven, like a child's work. (I am exaggerating as I say this, but not by much.)

She leans forward and confides: "those mood swings come from your mother."

It wasn't said maliciously, though I doubt my mother would take kindly to the remark (and I'm very happy she doesn't read my blog). Of course it's mostly correct.

My father continues to insist that his mother once came to blows with his first wife (my own mom), several years before I was born. My mother has always denied this, but this doesn't happen to be one of the arenas in which my father makes up his own facts. It's exactly the sort of issue wherein his memory would be superior to hers.

I should have asked grandma about that today. "So, who laid on the first bitch-slap, huh?"

Well, you know: I didn't. It is Easter, after all.

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Another link over at Glenn's place. This one is about ambitious teenagers and the strange signals they are sent.

I could only read the first page: the messages sent to young women today sound too much like the ones I grew up with. All of the "you can have it all" stuff eventually transmutes into "you can do it all." It's a lie, of course.

"Why," I once asked my mother, "did you tell me grades didn't matter, that you just wanted me to learn? Why did you say that when it was so patently untrue?"

"It didn't occur to me that you'd actually get bad grades," she told me. "It just that I thought the 'A' level was down here"—she brought her hand to her waist—"and I really wanted you to achieve up here." She raised her right hand high above her head.

She laughed. My aunt and my cousins were there, watching us. They've spent 44 years watching us; we must be fascinating, like a cock fight. Or, I suppose, a hen fight.

I said nothing that day, because I couldn't trust myself not to say or do something awful. But later on I figured out what she had really meant by "don't worry about grades, just concentrate on learning." She had wanted me to get very good grades, but make it look effortless.

On some level, I got the message: I manage to hold the idea of housework, for example, in complete contempt as a total waste of my time. And yet at the very same instance I'm deeply ashamed that my house isn't perfectly neat and totally spotless. I should do it perfectly without looking like I do it at all.

I require myself to be completely yin, and yet totally yang. At any given moment.

And I carry the hen fight within me, every day.

Today I had dinner with my mother. I drove her where she needed to go, and let her buy me dinner, and listened to her criticize my driving—relentlessly, and in a thoroughly illogical, inconsistent fashion. And when she got around to apologizing, I told her it was fine.

"I'm not insecure about my driving," I explained.

I'm a human bonsai: twisted by nature, and made more grotesque/beautiful by strange nurture.

But what I will do is endure. And endurance is triumph.

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It's just that they are noisy, self-indulgent, lazy creatures who appear to think of nothing other than computer games and watching videos.

Of course, being in a cabin with with five children, four computers and three large-screen televisions is going to lead to media overload.

I'm a curmudgeon: I put a piece of paper on my laptop proclaiming it's "Joy's computer--do not use."

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Please note that although roast beef takes around the same amount of time to cook at 6000 feet as it does at 2000 feet, quiches take twice as long.

Fortunately, there was plenty of salad, and almost enough roast beef to go around while we waited.

And when the quiches did show up, they were much appreciated.

But two different quiche recipes is a bit much; I need to figure out what the best approach is, and make double of that—then I'll just add the extras at the last minute: bacon for the quiche lorraine, and onion for the vegetarian one.

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I'm in the mountains north of Los Angeles, where I'm spending the three-day weekend with friends I've known since high school. We used to do this once or twice a year—get away from the city for a weekend, or several days, or a whole week.

We kept doing it when we were in college, and then when we started working. The modality continued to evolve, but we never stayed away from it for more than a few years.

I'm mostly here, of course, to see Little Blonde Bitch, M.D. and her family, since it's been a good long time since I've even laid eyes on them.

But I'm here with three other "single" people (folks whose spouses or sig others are too smart to want to come along), and two complete families, including a total of five children. (It would have been seven, except that my roommate from fifteen years ago had a family mishap and couldn't make it.)

This is completely insane: in four or six hours, the noise level may well be intolerable.

The difference from my youth? I'm not crashed on a couch, or sharing a bedroom with two other couples. I'm tucked safely away in a bedroom, behind a door that I will desperately need tomorrow morning.

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