It was just a dream

(Green shoes and holy jeans)

I had a strange day yesterday. I didn't feel like myself. I tried to wake up to work on my project, or at least get online, but I couldn't move an inch of my body from the fluffy white biscuit, otherwise known as my bed.

It took too long to fall asleep Monday night. I read Huck Finn, and talked to a friend, and cried to a friend. He talked about his job. I talked about the contest. We talked for hours, and I finally fell asleep. Woke up and couldn’t move. Too tired. Too mentally exhausted 'cause I actually found time to do a bit of editing on Monday, but now it's Tuesday morning...I hear Baby Girl. I sip coffee. She fusses 'cause I’m sitting on the couch with the cup of coffee instead of playing with her, or going into the office, but Mommy has no work today. We're going shopping! Baby Girl is delighted. I finish my coffee and take another bath and she stands on the tub ledge and watches.

We get dressed and dance to Belle & Sebastian till it's time to leave, to go out to eat, and stuff ourselves silly on shrimp, French fries, ketchup, and root beer from a glass bottle so sweaty it nearly slips from my hand when I pour it.

We go to Wal-Mart. I push the buggy as fast as I can, and she squeals so happy, people look at us and smile.

I buy her a couple of cheap toys. Lots of groceries.

We come home. It's raining. We put everything away and lay around till it's time for her bath. I clean up her toys and her messes in a robotic blur. Finally, she's wrapped up in blankets, and falling asleep as I sing Twinkle, twinkle walking backwards from her room.

In my own room, I take another bath. Three in twenty-four hours doesn't make you crazy; it's a delayed reaction, and your stress is bubbling over. It's making you filthy. Better scrub. Better clean. Better wash and bathe again. Better go to bed so you can wake up and write or read or do something. ANYTHING! But first you got to sleep...

I wasn't sleepy. I wandered around, and wrote for two hours.

It was midnight when I finally crawled beneath the covers. The rain had started back; off and on all day, and into the night, which was now a new day, since it was midnight. I listened as it henpecked the tin of my trailer; the walls and the roof. It dripped down from the gutters onto my window beside me. I closed my eyes, and tried not to think of anything; of writing or reading, the project, contests, deadlines, Baby, outlines, plotlines, characters, overpasses, no sex, no supper, too much bathing, cleaning, no work tomorrow either, and what will I do? I could get online, and write the millions of emails I've been meaning to write. Get in touch with people I miss, and I know they're getting tired of me, always being distant or quiet or not here at all. And the rain gets heavy, and the rain lightens up. When it's light, the gutter sounds louder, and I'm cussing myself, I hate you Ash! Shut the puck up, and go to sleep, you little God damn child, and who cares about your writing, your blog, or what you're doing tomorrow? Why don't you go to a library in another town, look for that book you want to read, and stretch out on a couch and maybe your soul mate will come along and see you on the couch, and ask you what you're up to? Why you're all stretched out? You'll tell him how it was raining, and you couldn’t sleep...I'm pulled from this almost dream by the splish-splash on the window, so loudly now, like an old man's outside, tapping the glass, Please let me come in.

I tell the old man No for fear he'll sneak into my kitchen and steal all the spoons.

I walk into the bathroom and pace about the floor, contemplating another rub of soap on my hands, and no, I'll go to the kitchen and check on the spoons. I wash my hands three or four times. Make a bowl of soup. Sit on the couch and watch American Beauty till it’s four in the morning, and I still haven’t slept.

Swings, Slides, and Freewrites

Monday morning, eight am. Writing in the margins of what would be Serious Writing Day number one, but I slept too late, and if I start re-reading an entire story now (all re-reading of your own work should be done in one sitting when possible, given the length of the story, and not your ever-decreasing amount of time), Baby Girl will wake up, and that'll be it, until tonight, assuming I'd actually stay up and not stumble off to bed around ten o'clock, which I'm sure I will. So tomorrow. Tomorrow. There's always tomorrow. The sun will come out and shine on my prose, and that stack of handwritten, and hopefully crinkled up pages of ink and scribbles I haven't seen since last September, and won't that be fun? It's supposed to look foreign. As if you're reading someone else's work, then you won't mind cutting large chunks of it to let 'em lie rotting on thy office floor.

I cleaned in here yesterday. Cleaned the whole house. More preparation. Disinfecting. Dusting. I'm a germaphobic-cleanaholic. Nice to meet you. How do you do?

That was Sunday. Baby Girl was being a brat, so I sent her off to the Others. I cleaned for hours. Friday and Saturday were both great, so if they can be considered the weekend, and let Sunday be completely ignored, then Man, I had a wonderful weekend!

My state refund arrived. Two hundred and fifty dollars: I think I'll take it and go out tomorrow and buy Baby Girl a swing set.

I'm not sure if two hundred and fifty dollars will afford such a luxury, or where to go to find one, if they'll deliver it, set it up for us. I just know that I want one. I want her to have it because she wants it, and I also feel like I should provide her something nice ever so often, like all the other kids have; the ones in daycare and preschool. Plus, they have each other to play with. She has no kids to play with. Just a rusty old tractor. A little red swing, but it's a baby swing, and as much as I like to pretend otherwise, my child is no baby. She's three feet tall and thirty pounds. Will soon be surpassing me in Math, I assume. She can count to twenty in English, and to five or ten in Spanish, and God bless Dora the Explorer, despite the way it gets on my God damn nerves.

Shut the puck up, you stupid map! I know you're the map, you don't have to tell me five million times!!

I'm the map (he's the map!) I'm the map (he's the map!) I'm the map!!

I'm Ash. And if it wasn't for the news and weather, and the occasional classic film, I'd blow up my TV and not think twice about it. Unless I caught the house on fire. Then I would think twice about it...I suppose I'd have to take it outside, and then I might accidentally destroy Baby Girl's new swing set (see how I brought that back around? Clever little editor I shall become...)

She was watching Charlie and Lola the other day (a show I do approve of, and enjoy) and Lola and Charlie were playing at the park, and Baby Girl was mesmerized.

Later on, we went out to play, and while in the backyard, she looks over at the neighbor's backyard and sees a bright yellow slide, and starts screaming, Ladder!

I had no idea what she's talking about. Though soon she wasn't talking at all, just grunting and pointing and whining then crying.

Mommy, mommy, slide!

Oh, the slide...yes, they have a slide, but we have Mr. Junky, and a baby swing, the one you just started using this Spring despite my buying it for you on your first birthday, and you were always too scared of it, and how do I know if I do buy you a swing set, you won't be scared of that too? It'll just sit rusting in the yard. Why don't you play with your car, or your bucket, or your shovel, or your wheelbarrow. And soon we'll play with the hose.

Slide, slide, slide.

It's all I can hear.

I figure I'll pay off debt with the big fat federal check, and that'll allow my minimum payments to be smaller each month, so I'll have more money left over to actually re-start my savings account (the one I had to empty around the time she was born, imagine that) and after I have a nice little cushion to fall back on should I hit rock bottom again, then, and only then, will we borrow that money and build us that house.

For now though, a swing set's all we want.

I'll be sure to take her picture once we get it...in the one above: tis my sister and I, back in 1986. On our brand new swing set. I was two years and eight months old. The same exact age as Baby Girl.

I think I need a new heart

It's still March, and where have I been? Not posting to my blog, or doing much of anything else online. I'm worthless. Except in reality, where I'm busy times a million.

I've been working and cooking and cleaning the house from the blades of the ceiling fans to the stained up carpet and fake hardwood floor. I've been taking care of a certain Baby Girl who was the most monstrous little hellion she's ever been for a week and a half because we weren‘t going for our daily walks. My father had insisted on going with us one night, and Baby Girl got mad. She knows the walk is our special time, and who is he to intrude? She refused to go back out, so I‘m guessing it was pent up energy and a lack of sunshine that put her in such a foul mood that I spent a lot of time trying to cure, and calm her down, and make the best of whatever loud and fussy situation we were in, but she'd yell and cry and scream NO! and hit me and kick me and throw things till I ended up on the couch sobbing in a pathetic, curled-up ball.

A few days ago, it all got better and disappeared like a thick fog had lifted, and now we're all clear. Happy. Playing outside, and balancing our time between work, cook, clean, cartoons, toys, bath and bedtime, and ah yes, my writing.

I've been writing.

So far this year I've completed three short stories. The first one in February. It took me two weeks. The second was also in February, though it only took me half an hour. Two pages. I started it last spring, and never finished it, which I regretted, so while on a writerly high from finishing that first one, I thought, Well, I could at least give an ending to those long lost sixteen pages.

I did, and I liked it.

I wrote the third short story between March 2nd and March 18th, so hence my absence here. Not counting all that other stuff I've been up to, of course; we all know I'm (mostly) capable of balancing an internet life with a real life, but the truth is, this story was so distracting, and took so much of my writerly energy, that I actually felt mentally drained by the end of each day (I write my fiction by hand while Baby Girl eats breakfast).

So yes. Fiction, and lots of it. Writing stories. Not blogging.

My grand total now is two novels, and four short stories. I plan on writing another one after the weekend, editing them, tying the five stories together, and tossing them into a writerly contest, to which the deadline is the last day of May.

I've never given much thought to writing contest. I don't mean that in a bad way; I honestly was unaware of them. Yes, I'm an idiot. Oblivious to the profession I claim to be a part of, or WANT to be a part of...

In real life news:

I did my taxes. I'm getting twenty-five hundred dollars back!

My mom and my aunt and I are going to a festival tomorrow.

I think my sister's mad at me.

I told my father how much I've been writing and how I plan to enter that contest. He got quiet, and said, Best of luck with all that. As if I had just told him I'm growing wings, wrapping my head in tin foil, and flying to the Moon.

We might build a house soon. Talk of land, and borrowing money, and selling the shoebox have been in order. The Others will gladly deed me not only what I'm sitting on now, but a fairly big portion behind it. Though my father also has land to spare, should I want out of this cult-like village and move into town next to both my parents who are neighbors.

I'm not sure I want to live that close to them. Though mostly, I don't want to leave the dirtroads, the seclusion of the backwoods, the big yard, Mr. Junky and Mr. Shed.

A real house, though. No matter where. It'll still be a while, and that's fine. I've got time. Tis only March, and I have a well-behaved child (for now; knock on desktop), a collection of short stories to send out, and a blog I hope of nursing back to health.

Self Portrait Tuesdays

Since I'm through with Poetry Thursday, I thought it might be fun to join a different blogging group. I still want that nice, warm feeling of taking part in something, being amongst an artistic community, and having a weekly assignment so my blog is more than just A) long bits of writing, and B) long bouts of silence.

Introducing: Self Portrait Challenge.

It's a site dedicated to the photography of a most narcissistic kind. Which just so happens to be a favorite of mine! [Ash whispering: I'm only joking about the narcissistic part...]

I think self-portraits are hard to take, and damn brave, and if you can look your own self in the eye with a camera, and find what's in your heart and head, and think outwardly while thinking inwardly, and get more balance in your life because of it, then it's art, and not narcissistic at all.

It's life affirming.

But anyway, enough of my blabbering.

This month's assignment is Online Tools. To somehow "create or enhance your image" using different programs.

I use Picasa for all my editing, cropping, and other such pictorial needs.

The following image was brightened and shadowed a bit to help bring out my own reflection.


If I knew how, I would have also cropped out that empty bottle of Gatorade.

...

Self Portrait Challenge consists of a monthly assignment, and you post a different effort each week within that month to reflect said assignment.

The person/people who run it (I'm not acquainted with anyone just yet), pick their favorites, and in the sidebar, there's a bunch of links to everyone else.

My gorgeous friend Claire also participates.

Tis where I found out about SPC, so thank you lovely Claire. :)

Nothing you can't fix

Sunday, March 4th (My Two Year Blogging Anniversary):

It's been a long bad week, and thank God it's Sunday. Thank God it's March. I love March and all things Spring, green, and Saint Patrick's Day well on its way, and I suppose I'll celebrate, not by drinking, but by building some strange and secret shrine to my beloved Frank McCourt.

I'm watching the sunrise.

Life has been reduced to cleaning, bleaching, washing, disinfecting walls, sheets, crib slats, toys, clothes full of throw-up and "yuckiness", mattresses, toilet seats. Yesterday, I walked into the bathroom armed with an industrial-strength cleanser and sprayed till my little germaphobic heart's content.

It isn't me who's sick, or was sick. In fact, I was lucky not to ever catch it.

Baby Girl, though, she was sick all week, throwing up, and running fever, getting violently ill on herself, or in the bathroom with tears of pain, and Mommy, it's hurts! Tummy hurts!! And me, sitting on the tub ledge, crying myself, feeling her forehead, contemplating a trip to the clinic or the emergency room...I usually regret the latter. It's a forty minute drive, with a two hour wait, just to have someone poke and prod my child, tell me what I already assumed, and then stick me with a nine-hundred-dollar doctor bill my insurance may or may not cover, and if they DO, I always have to remind them of that fact long after the Creditors start calling 'cause God knows the Creditors love my name and number.

And the clinic. We just went the week before, when she was sick with a cold, and fever, and I was sick also, but I don't see doctors unless I have to.

We went to a new clinic. New to us. Out of town.

As I walked through the waiting room with those damn forms to fill out, one fat woman leaned over to remark to another fat woman: Heels shouldn't be that high.

Perhaps women shouldn’t be that fat.

I sat down next to a black man who teased my child by telling her all the chairs in the room were his, and she couldn't have one. She looked at him for a second, then smiled and climbed into all the empty chairs, which were scarce, and surely covered with germs.

He told me she was cute. I agreed.

The black man nodded off to sleep, and two hours later, a skinny white nurse appeared, shouting out a name that only somewhat resembled Baby Girl's. When no one else moved, I looked at the nurse, and repeated the name. She said, I guess that's it. You should spell it with a C.

Yes. Why don't I change my two-and-a-half year old's name so incompetent illiterates can pronounce it. No thank you.

We were sent to another room with other nurses. More patients lined up on the floor in the hallway, coughing. An older blonde woman sat next to me by the scales, and was friendly. I asked her, Does it always take this long?

She said it did.

Another twenty minutes, and skinny nurse reappeared to usher us into a small room with a wooden birdhouse Baby Girl adored. House! she cried, and tried to demolish it with her sweet little fist. The doctor walked in, and my God if he wasn't gorgeous!

He apologized for the wait. Asked me what was wrong. Made a couple of stirrup jokes as Baby Girl tried to play with them. She went back to hitting the birdhouse, and he said not to worry; all kids try to break it. He checked out my cleavage at least ten times.

I tried not to blush. That's the hard part about having a big chest and the fondness for displaying your cleavage: you can't let 'em know that you know they're looking. Otherwise, they'll get embarrassed, and they'll never look again. You won't feel attractive. You won't have the confidence to wear skin tight black shirts, and skirts, and three inch high heels that rival Lauren Bacall's in The Big Sleep.

He told me there was nothing he could do for her. It looked like she was feeling better, but is she got sick again, call him. Give her the medicine I was already giving her, and make sure she drank plenty of water. Did I have any questions? Are you sure??

That was too easy, he said.

We smiled, and shook hands, as his eyes slowly drifted southward.

As for Baby Girl: She was over her cold that very day.

This past Monday is when she came down with the stomach flu. She remained sick until Saturday when she awoke screaming for Cookies.

As any mother can tell you: that's a reassuring sign.

Baby Girl's really sick.

I'm exhausted.

I can't find any words to express the rest of it...I'm so tired and scared and stressed.