Suburban Goddess

And that’s all I have to say about that.

D: http://www.savagechickens.com/2009/02/why.html

Me: How? How do you find this stuff?

D: I am magic

Me: You must waste RIDICULOUS amounts of time on the Internet. You should have a time-wasting blog. You could be famous. Just post this kind of stuff all day

D: Didn’t we talk about this before?

Me: Yes… why haven’t you done it yet?
       Wait… I think I might know
       TOO BUSY PLAYING ON THE INTERNET

D: Um, do i need to explain?  As the president of the procratinators club, I waste all my time running it.

I’ve been in a “relationship” for over a year now… I’d consider it more than that, personally, but it’s been complicated for a while.

My insecurities constantly weigh on me; I wish I could erase my past and start over with a blissful sense of naivite. To make matters more complicated, his past is as equally as difficult as mine. Judging him on the past mistakes of others is not fair… but after being through it so many times, certain behavior triggers both fear and distrust in me.  The funny thing is, I exhibit those exact same behaviors with no malicious intent, yet I cannot seem to let go and trust that he is the same.

I keep thinking of that movie “Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.” Part of me wishes I could erase all those insecurities, all those fears, all that distrust… but those experiences made me what I am today, and lead me down the path to this very person.

I pray he has more patience with me than I have with myself. I’ve got to get over this.

Me: If you don’t post a link, I’m not typing

D: I did post the link, you ignored it

Me: (sigh) I was speaking in the general sense, genius

D: At least you acknowledge my genius

Me: How do we remain friends?

D: You are hopelessly in love with me… and I can see thought your bullshit

Me: Ahhh… that explains it… you’re delusional.

D: I LIEK POTATOWS!!!

I have a somewhat competitive nature.

STOP LAUGHING.

I’m not quite sure where it came from, I’m not sure what drives it (other than the inherent need to be right), and I’m not very good at controlling it. Most men in my life have avoided it, knowing better than to try to prove me wrong.

Except this one.

He’s brave. Or stupid. I haven’t figured it out yet.

But perhaps the most annoying thing about him is… he’s constantly RIGHT.

I do not know how to deal with this, other than resorting to the most childish of reactions; his wit is faster, his logic is more sound, and as I said before, he’s right most of the time.

I just want to smack him. Not quite the way I pictured “love.”

But I love it.

Friday night was “Alex’s night,” where she gets to choose the agenda for the evening. It’s no surprise that we usually end up somewhere with fast food, which is perfectly fine by me as long as she’s happy. We loaded up the Jeep and headed out to McDonald’s.  Alex is in a phase now where she has to bring one of her “animals” for comfort and security, so I didn’t mind that she wanted to bring her “lion.”

This lion has been around over 10 years; it has history. I used to work in a mom & pop printer shop many years ago, and the second part of their business included a trade show division. Half of my friends got to travel the country to food shows, while the rest of us were chained to a desk sniffing acetone from the horrible ventilation in the production area. It was no secret that I was jealous, so my friend Randy would try to make up for it by bringing back various marketing items from the shows. That’s how Lion came into my possession. For a while, he had a shirt that said “Sysco Syracuse.” So Lion is from New York. That means he’s a bad ass lion.

Anyway, Lion stayed in my possession for years; first at the bottom of a box, then as a reminder of where I came from (right next to Herschel, the Cracker Barrel bear), and then somehow, Alex came across him after we moved. She was immediately attached to him.

I’m always wary of letting her bring her toys in places she might leave them behind. It’s not the fact that toys are expensive; any parent knows that the meltdown that ensues when a kid loses something is far worse. But against my better judgement, I allowed her to bring lion in with her. After all, she had a captive audience. What else does one do at a McDonald’s playground but watch your child and pray for duct tupe?

We were in no hurry, so Alex played close to an hour. I watched Lion on the ledge, down the slide, over the padded whirly things… Lion was getting quite a workout. But as we were getting ready to leave, Lion disappeared.  And so the meltdown ensued.

There’s nothing that breaks a mother’s heart more than watching her child cry for something out of love. It’s one thing for them to have a brat meltdown, but it’s something entirely different when they are genuinely distraught because they can’t find something important to them (just ask Pixar. They made millions). So, as a mother, you feel obligated to help them look for it.

Which means you may have to climb to the top of a three story playground, despite the fact that you have a raging case of claustrophobia and you are praying that the flimsy plastic will not notice that extra “baby weight” you still have no excuse for not losing four years later.

The nice thing about those pre-fab playgrounds is that there are few places something can hide.  Lion was no where to be found, which left only one alternative… Lion had been abducted. Alex didn’t understand that an Amber alert is not appropriate for a 8 inch plush lion, so she began the heartbreaking wail that tugs at my mother bear heart… if I found the kid who stole her Lion, there would be consequences.

As we prepared to leave, Alex still crying in my arms, my mother pointed across the room.  A small girl was banging the Lion against the table in front of her father. When I followed her finger to turn to look, he took the lion and put it in his newborn’s carrier. Our eyes met for a minute, and he quickly looked down.

Do you not HEAR my child crying for her toy? Do you not KNOW that it does not belong to you? Do you realize that you are teaching your child that taking something that does not belong to her is OKAY?

I was livid.

Meanwhile, Alex had caught on to what my mother was pointing at, and immediately recognized her toy. “Mommy, that’s my lion!”  For a moment I was torn; did I do it for her, or did I teach her to fight her own battle? I tried the first approach.

“Alex, just go ask the little girl for your lion back.”

“But Mommy, she STOLE IT.”

I tried to convince her to do it, but she couldn’t find the courage. I knew what I had to do. I walked over to the man and pointed to the lion.

“That belongs to my daughter,” I said, pointing to Lion. He looked down sheepishly.

“Oops. Sorry.”

And that simple sentiment, that insincere apology, made me furious at all the irresponsible parents in this country today. Perhaps because the police assume that it was a kid who broke into my house, who is probably flaunting a 17″ Powerbook and a $2000 camera at school without any recourse. I personally know parents who have looked the other way when their child comes home with high-dollar items with no possible way to pay for them.

Where do you think this stuff comes from? And why aren’t you asking your kid?

It starts with a Lion. It ends up as felony.

In this case, we had a happy ending. But it made me very aware of the fact that there are parents who will not teach their children right and wrong. It’s one thing for you to end up with something that doesn’t belong to your kid… it happens to all of us. But when a kid is having a complete meltdown in front of you because something is missing, and your child is standing right in front of you with it in your hands… damn people!  Do the RIGHT THING.

I weep for the future.

“You are forbidden to listen to that talk radio crap anymore.”

“Why is that?”

“You’re becoming REPUBLICAN.”

Sometimes people never fail to amaze me… the things they will say or do to get on your good side, only to whole-heartedly disappoint you in the end.  So many times I’ve hung my hopes on people with such bright futures, people I thought worthy, intelligent, and thoughtful.

It seems that people are never what I think they are.

I’m so jaded at this point, that it’s hard for me to see the good right in front of me… and there’s so much of it! Maybe it’s the extended hours of listening to conservative talk radio and reading CNN.com that has lowered my ability to see the bright side. Heaven knows that mainstream media never has anything positive to say anymore, and bombarding yourself with all this negativity will eventually lead you down the same path… add a series of unfortunate events on top of that, and you have yourself a perfect recipe for a Pity Sandwich.

I keep waiting for someone to come along and kick me in the rear, to get me out of this funk, but perhaps that’s the problem; it has to come from within. I’ve started looking for inspiration; I mean, it’s not like I got mauled by a chimpanzee today. That’s a positive. I didn’t wake up in a pool of my own vomit with strange paraphanalia lying next to the bed this morning. That’s a positive. I wasn’t dead this morning. That’s a positive.

The sarcasm that usually lies at the tip of my tongue escapes me these days. No witty comebacks. No social commentary. No inspiration. I know all of this comes with being comfortable with your surroundings, and I’m still in an “adjustment” phase. Add the miserable, soggy grey winter on top of that, and honestly… if I were suicidal I’d have slit my wrists by now.  But I’m not (and I really don’t understand how anyone could be, but that’s a different blog altogether.)

The oak tree in my backyard has the tiniest green buds on its branches… I pray for springtime, with blue skies, green leaves, colorful flowers, and the scent of jasmine… and the first warm day that I can return to the lake and find myself again.  I feel like I’m wasting precious time, and I desperately want to return to my old self. But that girl is gone, changed yet again into something wiser, something deeper, something different…

I’ve disappeared again… I know, I know. There a couple of factors that keep me from writing lately. One is a horrible lack of inspiration. My life has settled into a new routine, one that involves early hours, more driving than I’d like, and a simple sort of monotony that dulls the senses.

The other thing is that I still don’t have an acceptable computer to blog from. The insurance company is not cooperating (go figure), and my only two links to an outside world are an ancient G3 laptop that requires an ethernet cord (and I’m just to lazy to go plug it in at home) and an iPhone, which, if you have one, you know typing anything more than a Twitter tweet can be excruciating.

Not having a camera has left a big grey void in my life as well. I finally understand my calling; I was so close to the dream, and this minor setback has made it perfectly obvious what I should be doing.

I’ll be better soon. I promise.  Just a little funky right now. I need to open a box of crayons.

D:    I suspect his new wife is really a dude
Me:  Her mouth is big enough to wrap around his head…
D:    That is kinda freaky
Me: Seriously… like a pit viper… I half expect her jaw to unhinge