BlabberMouse

Back on My Meds

"So, that whole 'six weeks of writing* in the mornings instead of running' worked out well", she said, unlacing her sneakers after a six mile morning run.

It lasted nine days.

During that time I was doing some evening runs here, and some 30-Day Shred workouts there, and slamming back pizza slices like shots of tequila, and horking down Hershey Kisses (love those chocolatey little bastards) and other Valentine's affiliated items. The more slack my workouts, the more I want to curl up inside a tin of Christie Cookies.

I can't not run.

I mean, I can not run. It's quite easy, actually. Frighteningly easy. Just put one foot not in front of the other. What's difficult is buttoning my pants. And watching my thighs explode like two tins of Jiffy Pop. And feeling the life force draining from my body with every passing day (BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, beep, beep, beeeeep.) 

I do this every winter. Convince myself that I should just take it easy. Not push so hard. Focus on spending time with the boys and doing more of what I love. What I fail to remember is that one of the things I love is "not wanting to hurl my bloated body into oncoming traffic". 

Linda at Sundry Mourning captures this cycle so perfectly in her post, Infinite Loop. (If you aren't reading her blog, you must. Though I think everyone already is.)

So. I've been lacing up at 5:30 am again. And the difference I feel emotionally, even physically, in less than a week is pretty profound.

Running works. It just does.

That's why I started, and God knows why I ever stop.

 

*As for the writing, this post was cobbled together at lunchtimes and bedtimes and red lights, and that's just going to have to work for now. 

 

The Girls Night Out: Best Left to People Who Can Say "Panties" With a Straight Face

I love and value my friendships with women, I really do. But nothing sends my blood pressure squirting out my ears faster than the Girls Night Out. The name alone—regardless of the evening’s itinerary—is enough to keep me home on the couch, wrapped in an old familiar blanket of testosterone.

When five or more women refer to themselves as GIRLS simultaneously, the conversation is practically guaranteed to get ridiculous. No matter how civilized we start out, eventually the pajama party gene will begin to express itself. One “girl” will get tipsy and nosy and start conducting a competitive analysis of everyone’s sex life, while another scans my facial expressions like unmarked produce. Are you okay? Are you sure? Are you POSITIVE? You do NOT look happy. Are you not having fun? You really don’t look like you’re having fun.

I’m fine. I’m having my sexual appetites investigated by Colonel Mustard, so I’m enjoying myself immensely. In the parlor. With a rope.

I recently received an invitation that I’m still tempted to frame, because it contained not only the words “Girls Night Out” (with a black lacy border), but also  “Naughty Hotties” and “a Romance Consultant (AKA Sex Toy Expert) will be present”.

It might as well have said

YOU’RE INVITED!
To your worst nightmare, ever.
Mwahahahhahahaha.

If this makes me sound uptight, let me just tell you exactly how much of a fuck I do not give. Seriously. If “loosening up” and “having a good time” = “giggling over studded 'cock rings' with women I hardly know” than I will gladly stay home with my ass cinched up like a Silpada ring pouch.

Not one cell in my body considered going to this party.

And it has nothing to do with the host, or the guest list. In fact, I happen to really like the host, and we have friends in common, some of whom I'm sure were squeeing their little hearts out over this titillating shopportunity. 

Still. Not. Going.

Yuckyuckyuck.

Call me when the Spicy Dice and Pop’n Cherry Warming Gel are PUT AWAY. In your private place, wherever that is LALALALALALALALA. I DON'T WANT TO KNOW, I CAN'T HEAR YOU. 

It used to bother me how much I hated doing girly things. But the farther away from actual girlhood I get, the more I realize that one of the greatest freedoms of being a woman is that I can finally, unapologetically, react like an eight year old boy in the face of a girls night out.  

My New Career Counselor

I was terrible to the boys this morning. Huffy and impatient and mean.

They've been rehearsing their tails off, 4-8 every night, for their play that opens tomorrow. They are working so hard, and growing so much, I should be cutting them ribbons of slack, but for some reason, in the mornings, I just. Can’t. Stop. Being. Such a grumpy McBitcherson.

(I also can’t stop stepping on Legos. Or picking up clumps of garbage they leave strewn on the floor. Do your kids throw their garbage on the floor? It’s bizarre to me. My boys will tear open a popsicle and just chuck the wrapper over their shoulder while I glare at them from across the room, breathing into a paper bag.)

We’ve been late to school two days in a row.

Homework is not on time, if it’s getting done at all.

And a situation at work this week has added an additional layer of mental illness to the usual patchwork quilt of crazy I’m forced to use as a brain, and I am just generally amped up to eleven at all times.

Plus my hair looks like shit right now. And all my clothes are stupid and ugly. So.

This morning, I was trying to keep my cool, but when Gus called to me from his bed (25 minutes after I’d told him to get up and finish his homework) and said “I’m still waiting for you to bring me a piece of paper”, the hem on my brain fell out.

I started to mutter like a homeless person. 

Noonerespectsmeinthishouse ifeveryonewouldjustdowhatitellthemtodo whenitellthemtodoit everythingwouldbefine BUTNO NO! THATWOULDBETOOEASY. Noonelistens noonecares and wearelateagain alwaysalwaysalways fuckinglategoddamnsonofa EVERYONEEATYOURBREAKFAST WE’RE LATE.

I looked at little Patrick eating his oatmeal to the tune of my tirade, and I stopped to apologize.

"I'm sorry, buddy. This has been a hard week, and I'm a little stressed about going to work today. But you're a good boy, and you are listening and doing what you're supposed to be doing. I got upset because we're running behind schedule."

Next thing I know, Gus slides into the breakfast table, and gives me a thoughtful once over.

Then, in a very calm, very adult voice, he says, “Mom.”

“What is it, Gus?”

“Now, this is a compliment. You know how you always wear black clothes?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re like, so, so good at picking out black things that go with other black things? And you just have such great style with that? I was thinking, you could totally be a clothing designer. Like designing clothes for an evil person.”

 

I don't think I've ever loved Gus more than I did in that moment.

If you could have seen how kind and sincere he was being, trying to get me to hop off the crazy train for a minute and take inventory of my talents.

Like "picking out black things that go with other black things."  

He's right. 

I am so so good at that. 

The Next Eight Years

I’m giving my new schedule one month. One month to make writing a routine again. It’s a simple switch: write in the morning, exercise at night.

Of course the post-work workout is not ideal, susceptible as it is to the rearrangement of life’s furniture--dinner with friends, late afternoon conference calls, math problems or moon observation journals run-amok. But after a week of easing into consciousness fingers-first, I think it’s better this way for now. Better for my health and sanity, to not hit the ground running every morning. (And better yet to not hit the ground at all.)

For the past year, I’ve been writing when the spirit moves me, which according to the experts is not how it’s done. People keep asking me when I’m going to write a book, and I think awww, a book. That’s so CUTE. In order to write a book, I would first have to write some sentences, no? Like several of them together, all “relating” to one another? I think that’s how that works.

Then last night a friend asked me if I were secretly submitting work to McSweeney’s under a pen name. SHE IS SO CUTE. And while that’s all very flattering, it’s also haaaaabsurd. If I were submitting work to McSweeney’s I can assure you I wouldn’t be cowering behind a pseudonym. And if McSweeney’s were to publish my work, I’d be walking around with a name badge that said “HELLO my name is Amanda Recently-Published-in-McSweeney’s O’Brien (that’s O’Brien with an E)”.

McSweeney’s is some funny shit.

But getting published isn’t really my game at the moment. Getting clarity is. Blabbermouse turns eight years old this month, which means I’ve been writing this blog longer than I’ve held any one job.

I think it’s safe to say writing matters to me.

Okay. LALALALALALA. Stop. Gross. I feel a love circle coming on. A moist-pitted hippy named Sven is going to leap out of my screen and start giving me a back rub in a second. Nothing on earth makes me feel more ridiculous than PONDERING MY WRITING LIFE out loud. I'm like eight minutes away from raising my hand and asking Ann Patchett how to get an agent. Jesus.

BE COOL, AMANDA.

The point is this: writing this blog is the one thing that has made me consistently happy over the past eight years. I’ve never questioned it. Never considered calling it quits.

I can’t say that about anything else. Not singing. Or acting. Or drawing. Or playing the guitar. Or marketing. (Though I doubt there’s a living soul who could say that about marketing. And if there is, GOD BLESS US EVERY ONE.) I’ve thrown myself into a lot of things over the years, but writing is the only one that’s stuck.

And the only way to really know where it’s going is to follow it. Closely. Not just on the days when I’m feeling yippy and inspired. 

So much can happen in eight years,

 

 

I say, here's to at least eight more.

 

Damn You, Auto Correct! (It Can Happen To You)