Desi's Sense of Self

You know what? I think that  takes to be a world-class blogger is a total willingness to destroy the pride of those you love.

I have so many fantastic anecdotes for this blog that i just CANNOT post. Because I love the people I love enough to respect their privacy and not destroy their pride by telling the stories.

And that right there is completely why you're not hearing from me so much anymore - actually I have tons of draft posts I just deleted today because I simply couldn't post them.

The stories I most want to post are completely  unpostable without hurting other people's feelings. I feel like I'm three again, trying to choose between friends...

Anyway, even if this won't make sense, I'm posting it here because I need to start talking more.  I've been stalled out on the blog and it's time to get over it.

I don't hurt the people I love, so my blog will never make the huge audience I see at sites where gals will air everything out for the world to see... I need to deal with that. I'm too kind for modern social media.

Argh.

I'm on my way to Costa Rica in a few days again.

I have so much family, spread across ten or so states, all within the country. I so rarely get t see most of them.

We've all spread out so much over the last 20-30 years.

The funny thing is, it looks like I'll finally get to see some of my favorite cousins, but not HERE in the states. No, while I'm in Costa Rica. Turns out they're gonna be there, too.

How weird is that?!?

Yesterday, I was laughing at the jokes in "The Big Lebowski" which had the most swear words EVER (or close to it) and I peeked up to hear Aurora looking at me through her loft window and shaking her head. She looked so disapproving.

I've also been saying things out loud I used to not. You know, zingers, pointing out innuendos with my sister, laughing over and discussing candidly the sex jokes in movies.


Apparently, I'm starting to return to the lusty, bawdy, raunchy sense of humor I had before I had kids. Before "mommy mode" clamped a lid on the stuff it's inappropriate to discuss around little ones.

But it's startling my children. My kids are a little weirded out that I can define/explain pretty much any sex act or innuendo mentioned in any movie. The seem to disapprove of my laughter at the jokes they now get.

Maybe I'm just raising little squares. Uncool cats, to square to be hip to my jive.Or maybe I'm just a little too well schooled for my children's sensibilities.

I feel less in "mommy mode" than I used to. Always so careful to avoid curse words, always having to find interesting euphemisms for things that most people would simply say plainly.

I'm kind of glad my children don't have to be quite so protected from the universe anymore, but the mental dexterity it used to take to discuss "the act"  with my little sister, when around my kids, well - it will be missed. Like mental gymnastics, it kept me on my toes.

I mean, they've both read Pride and Prejudice. We all enjoy dressing up in antique clothes, and the girls are definitely growing up into sensible, precocious, yet innocent little women. Most of the time, everything is still as it was when they were younger. But there are hints, obvious signs the girls are on that wild, overwhelming cusp of adulthood everyone calls "teenage" these days.

So, what's your thinking? Should I clamp the lid back down on my dirty jokes and occasional expletives, so as not to spoil that innocence a moment early? Or should I try to  make my children accept me along with my off-color  jokes in preparation for the harsher reality of the real world?

I can't help but wonder whether the word "snack"  comes from some form of "sneak"

Such as ...

I sneak, you snuck, he snacks

maybe?

Seems to eb a sneaked bit of food between meals, doesn't it?

Or is it snuck food?

Yesterday, I saw an album in a second hand shop; embossed, engraved, embellished, with an ivory front cover.

"Floral Album" it was called, hand-painted flowers on most pages.

Carefully preserved photos of a family - tintypes through 1930s.

Absolutely lovely.

I was struck with sadness at an entire family history sitting in a second hand shop, no way to discover the identities of portraits or surviving kin.

Someone dearly loved these people, these memories. Now, I think it likely that this someone is dead. Probably their family moved away, no longer caring, or didn't collect their grandmother's treasured things from the old-folks home after they died or some other such.  Why do we even stuff our old people away now? When did that become acceptable?

This was like finding someone's family Bible in the library. It is a symptom of a lost culture of treasuring family. It is why places like facebook need to allow you to own your intellectual property, archive all photos and your own profile locally for safekeeping, or archive the dead's profiles instead of deleting. A sort of online gravemarker.

 There needs to be a preservation society for these pioneer days online. I don't want to think how important it might be to my grandkids to have access to my ramblings on this blog, or to the descendants of miley cyrus to read her famously-deleted tweets later on.

Just thoughts.

I've decided to stop using my camera's automatic features. Manual as a digital camera can get.

Here are two shots.

One is the neat flowers coming off my Isabella plant.


Another is the cute as a button Clementine sleeping below the rubber tree on my desk. I love that she won't sleep unless its on a piece of paper or her favorite - the grocery store shopping bag.

I want to matter so much to someone that it hurts them when I hurt, my absence is felt as a keening loss, and my hopes are his hopes. I want to have every breath I take matter, every smile I make lighten his heart. I want to matter that much to someone else, and I want to care that much for someone.

I just felt like maybe saying it out loud would help.

I jump readily into caring about people. I'd have no trouble upholding my end of that deal.

I simply have never had anyone care about me as much as I'm willing to care about him, as much as I was happy to throw myself into it.

If I've ever said that I jump into things too quickly, I wasn't saying that I thought that was a bad thing. I think it's a positive, not a negative.

You cannot live or love too deeply.

Random non-sequitur thought:
I recently learned a brand new phrase for my monthly cycle - "A visit from my Aunt Flo" - oddly annoying and circumspect. Why not simply say "on my period"? Or "monthly cycle"? or anything. It's very antiquated, as though one must avoid such delicate subjects in any kind of company still in today's world. We no longer live in Victorian pristine envelopes of perfume and silk. This is the world of Jackass and WTF and avoiding meth-heads at the supermarket. But still, the longer I mull this new idiomatic darling around in my lexicon, the less I hate it. "Aunt Flo" - I don't hate at as long as it's Aunt-rhymes-with-taunt not ant-rhymes-with-pant - calling your parent's sister an insect just chafes my hide - I hate it.

Back to the point, and what I was planning to write about.

I have never had as packed a schedule as I've lately had.

Since the beginning of August, my schedule has been so packed as to literally require writing it out on a planner.

I've got things to take the girls to, such as martial arts lessons and horseback riding lessons and the Library (add at least 1.5 hours for travel time), I've got trips planned, I've got cats to get fixed, and even a hair appointment. And I think November looks to be no different. Or December. Come to think of it. January's packed, too. I think things only will start to calm down in February. Maybe.

I know this seems like a normal thing to all of y'all who live by your day planner, but I've never been this organized or busy in my life. I'm working just as much as usual, but I'm slowly cutting out my everything else.

Hence the 'no time to blog' problem.

I feel even more like a grown up than usual. And I'm gonna miss you, but I have a book to start writing and work to do and children to educate/entertain.

It's crazy but I actually like it. I like being this busy, this productive, having this much happening. I thrive in highly random environments. I'm more productive. Remember last year when I complained that my life is too static here? Well I've been adding more into it little by little to make it more interesting and I honestly don't think I can stuff in even one more thing right now.

Maybe I'm starting to bring the city out to me?

On yet another tangential aside, having no relationship to anything previously said, Miranda was petting the kitten in front of the fireplace yesterday, after just starting the fire going. She put the kitten down and said "Off you trot!" just so. It was so very old fashioned. She didn't learn it from me. And I felt a stinging burst of pride for raising a child so obviously fond of disappearing culture. She definitely gets that from me.

It reminds me of Libs' "Oh-Dear" stage. Everything my little sister said that others would have used a cuss for, Libs just said "Oh, Dear!" - must have been eight years or so of it. She got it from somewhere else - I'm not one to say that. I say "For the Love of Pete" or "For Pete's Sake". Always have. Not in honor of my regular commenter Mr.Pete - just cause I have. Had to come up with something when the girls were little... Other than "the FUCK word" (as Aurora accidentally called it the other day while complaining about movies), of course.

I think I killed it by being so very fond of the times I overheard it. One has to be careful not to tread to heavily - either fondly or in reproach - on the things you hold most dear that children choose to do. Especially if your reaction is not quite the one that was desired. I think that is what happened to the "Oh-Dear" stage.

All right, enough for now.

Miranda: Mom, do you know what happened to the other fire iron, the one for picking up pieces of wood?

Me: Are you sure we own one? I don't think I remember that one.

Miranda: Yes, I remember it, it's rounded, and clamps on to the wood, with two handles.

Me: No, I don't know where it went. I don't remember it.

Miranda: Well, I can't find it. I know we own one because I was playing with it before.

Me: Well, that'd be what happened to it then, goose.

Miranda: Oh. (giggles)

Apparently, I've got a wayward fire iron somewhere. And a kid who probably is using it as a Barbie escalator or something.

This last weekend I got to spend some time with my neighbor's kid's wife and her best friend. Long story short, the person I wrote about is a friend of the family of my neighbor, and her name is Joleen, like the song.

So Joleen is a sweet young blond, a few years younger than me, probably, with an eight year old boy and three girls all younger than that. Those three girls all look exactly like their momma.

My girls and her kids played together all weekend.

When I was down there, I got sick of listening to Joleen's husband Will cracking horribly crass jokes with one of the relatives who kept saying things like "who smelt it dealt it" and "boy, I oughta crack you upside the head" and the like. Neither Will nor the other guy are awful, but I wanted my solitude more than I wanted company that irritated me.

Joleen has been married twice, straight from high school on the first one. This one seems happy enough. They obviously love each other, even if Will is less than poetic with his words.

So, I started walking back home, and Joleen offered to come up with me.

Wel, OK. So up the hill we went. She cracked a joke about my hill being the perfect way for her to lose the baby weight, all she's gotta do is get one just like it and climb up it a few times a day.

When we arrived, I made coffee and we sat a bit.

She was watching me oddly, and so I got a bit uncomfortable.

She asked me plainly why I lived out here all alone. Wasn't I lonely?

I said yes, explained about the husband-thing not working out, but then I pointed out to her how much I loved it here, and that I was happy in my own skin, happy alone or with others.

I looked out the window and said "Look at all this. I have such a wonderful place to be."

I looked over to her looking for her response, and she was wiping tears away.

I left her alone with her tears and went to clean up a few things.

Why was she sad over my solitude?

I think it was either of two things, and I cannot for the life of me figure which of them is more likely...

Firstly, she might have felt sad for me being alone. Pity for me seems a bit harsh, but I could see why someone who has never been alone a day in their lives might feel it.

Secondly, she wishes she could say that she is happy in her own skin. Perhaps something in my life reminded her of something wrong with hers.

I have no idea which is correct.

On the one hand, I hope there is nothing wrong in Joleen's life that a simple conversation would bring up tears. But on the other hand, I find I'm not bothered at the idea that someone might not find my life to be enjoyable.

Joleen doesn't have to live it, I do.