31 Days to 'Change Your Life' - 2 - "Ten Things About Me" in Dancing on a Blade (September 2019)

Omg, what. What even. What the fuck.

Fine.
10 - I need to go buy the twins new shoes. One twin wore my shoes today. They were not too big. What. I remember when their feet were shorter than my index finger. It was like two seconds, but I remember.

9 - on the topic of memory: I don’t have one. You know how people say “happiest childhood memory?” I have a jumble of stuff crammed up together. I have to use clues in the memories to guess what age I was. This is horribly disturbing, because my mother is always telling “remember when you did” stories and I don’t remember. And sometimes, they’re whole cloth. She saw that on TV. Do you know how disconcerting it is to watch an old movie and see something happen just the way your mother swore you did it? Shit. Be. Freaky.

8 - On the topic of shit: I have an irritable bowel that isn’t irritated enough to be IBS, but is just irritable enough to rule my fucking existence. I spend about an hour in the jakes a day. Some of this is because of the word-search puzzles, I admit it, but frequently, I’m just fucking shitting. So irritating.

7 - Irritating: My temper has been over the top lately. Everything grates on it. Loud people: I want to eat them. My husband’s BO: I just keep putting more and more space between us. He hasn’t asked why. Daughter’s constant verbal diarrhea: I have to make her be quiet in the car, because I cannot guess what kind of plane that is and also drive. I just can’t. I feel terrible about that.

6 - Terrible: I am a failed kitty rescuer. Most of these guys were supposed to go on “to good homes.” They just happened to mostly have decided they are there. If I were responsible, I would have four less than I do, but…uh, which four need to be homeless? Right…They’re my kitties now. I should probably be responsible, but they’re a huge comfort and anyway, they’re the only people who are always right there when I call them. (Almost all of them come when called. I named none of them, so it’s great to know other people are crack cat namers.)

5 - Good homes: I sometimes fantasize that CPS would swoop in and remove the kids. It’s wrong, I know, and I would want them back in fifteen seconds, but oh God, what I’d do for a real vacation. Every time they’re not in school or being handled by medical personnel, I am literally holding about 54 different paid positions, none of which pays me, and I’m being judged for how “well” I do them. Don’t forget to add in the huge list of “free” mom jobs - I’m only counting shit you need a degree to do for other people’s kids in that list of 54 jobs. (It’s about 18 jobs a kid, times three, as all three children are special-ed.)

4 - I want to live in a clean space. However, I cannot clean out even my own office-slash-bedroom. Partially this is because there is no space to put in the furniture that was stuck in here when it broke in other rooms. And a lot of the shit in here isn’t mine and didn’t come from me. But I do need to get on top of it all. I used to think I didn’t like organized space or routines, but now I fucking crave both. It’s very disturbing to think that a pair of curtains could improve your mood about 50% right now. (They’d block out light from the kitchen.)

3 - I really resent when people don’t eat the food I make for them. Case in point: roomie’s child didn’t eat her packed lunch today. (I wasn’t sure if free lunch would work for her, as I filled out the form - it came to our address…) I packed that lunch especially. I remembered she likes sweet tea, not apple juice. She doesn’t like olives, which the twins had as a snack. I bought her fruit cups with peaches and strawberries. Crackers be crackers, and cheese and sliced turkey are a fucking lunchable (the store was out of premade ones.) And she threw that away. I am angry. Mine ate theirs. I have almost completely quit cooking at home right now, because I hate finding the entree in the trash.

2 - I wish I had better teeth. Mine are a Superfund site. Of course, this means I’ll never date again, because people don’t want people with the teeth of a career meth user. Thanks for all those dental visits and years spent coaching me to brush my teeth, parental units. (And that was sarcasm. I didn’t see a dentist until I was 23 and had a monster abscess from rotting, broken molars.)

1 - I still want to publish, but I also don’t want to get judged off one book while I don’t know shit. Maybe they all do suck. I do suspect some of them have the potential to be good, in the right hands, but are those mine?

Bonus: I fantasize frequently about fictional characters. It’s a bad thing, I do suppose.