Glossolaliac

Found

Found in a little box in the bedroom, under a mini-polaroid picture of me and hubs from 10 years ago, next to a roll of commemorative Washington state quarters, a couple thumbtacks, some quartz crystals and a leather friendship pouch made by my college roommate, was this quote cut out of a magazine:

What I liked when I was young was liberty, and I was willing to draw rigid lines in the protection of that somewhat narcissistic liberty. What I like now is responsibility. What I like now is being able to show up, to the best of my ability, and being able to create some lasting sense of what I did with myself here on earth, even if all I did for those around me was listen. Even if that's the only lasting part of it, that's still good, and that's a kind of creativity. So here goes.

Dunno who said that or where it came from or when I cut it out, but yeah.

Going to put it back in the box now so I can find it again later.

New Year's Resolutions

Happy 2010 people, let's hope it kicks 2009's ass.

I mean 2009 was alright, what with the baby and all, but I'm thinking generally and for the world at large, 2010 ought to be better.

Which brings me to resolutions.

Yeah, I don't make them. Because if I want to do something for the betterment of self or society, I do it, regardless of the time of year. So should you.

Christmas is for family

And we probably all need therapy because of it.

In the songs about "baby please come home" and "all I want for christmas is you" there is very rarely a verse about "oh and bring your extended family." I guess that's what the eggnog is for. And by "eggnog" I mean straight pulls directly from the rum bottle.

Here's the thing.

Hubs has no idea what it's like to be the child of divorced parents and I have no idea what it's like to be the child of married ones.

Every member of my family has spent their entire lives trying to get away from their family. His cleaves with regular updates detailing each cousin's whereabouts and everyday doings.

Mine places few demands, space is the default option and years might pass before paths crossing. His insists on holidays, birthdays and times in between. We, each of us, think our own way is normal and preferred.

I thought I was starting my own family. He thought he was adding on to an existing one. I feel diminished by being just an addition.

When we say that Christmas is for family, we mean completely different things.

Giving thanks

For babies that are talkative and curious and beautiful and funny and who sometimes, but not always (and certainly not last night) sleep for a decent stretch.

For husbands who put up with their sometimes neurotic significant others and who benignly suggest a pottery class as the cure to a full-on freak out over annoying mothers and how to pack for a baby which occurs five days in advance of the flight. For husbands who make me laugh at myself, and also at them. For husbands who give hugs regularly.

For coffee shops that are kid-friendly.

For friends in Brooklyn who tell it like it is. Emphatically.

For friends who kick me some work that I can do from home, and not because they feel sorry for me or want to help me out, but because they know that I'm good at it.

For friends who are like family.

For nights out. With grown-ups. And alcohol.

For more people like me having more babies. For super cool parents to share our adventures in parenting. For that three-martini playdate.

For my own parents who have done their share of putting up with and advising and helping and redirecting and suggesting and all sorts of other thing over the years and yet who still help every time they're asked.

For the automatic cat door that lets our cat out but doesn't let stranger cats in.

For an extra long, extra hot shower. Even if it only happens every three days (or so).

For not wanting for anything, really. Pretty much all of my needs are met.

For the compassion to see people who's needs aren't met, for the willingness to do something about it.

For words with meaning, and meaning our words.

For hot chocolate. With a touch of irish cream.

For music and art and beauty, trees and sunsets and ocean waves, and the way they all make me feel.

For faith in the system. Not that system. The universal, chi, energy flow system. The one that makes everything happen for a reason (never when or why you think it ought to, but a reason nonetheless). The one that keeps my cynicism in check even without a pottery class. The one that says love happens and it's totally ok.

Thanks for that.

Have you seen my credentials

I don't wear the class ring. I don't use the "forever" forwarding email address. I think it's pretentious.

I don't have the paper hanging on my office wall. I don't have an office wall to hang it on. Hell, I don't even know what it says - damn thing is in Latin.

I don't practice. I don't wish I did. I love knowing the stuff, but the practice wasn't for me.

I have one T-shirt that I rarely wear. And I have a Nalgene bottle that I carried around fairly religiously that was my only outward sign that I went to law school.

Not some schmuck law school either. My Nalgene bottle said Georgetown Law. Bitches.

Today I gave that water bottle away, to Goodwill, because it's made of the chemical-du-jour that does all sorts of bad things and we shouldn't have it in a house with children lest the child drink BPA-tainted water and start puberty at eight. Or something like that.

(But it's ok to give toxic chemicals to poor people who shop at Goodwill. Better that than the landfill?)

And it killed me. Because sometimes I feel like shouting, at car dealerships and real estate agents and store managers and customer service representatives and political consultants and doctors (especially doctors) and people on the street, YES I KNOW MORONS, I WENT TO LAW SCHOOL, I PASSED THE BAR IN TWO STATES, I'M NOT AN IDIOT.

But nobody cares.

For a friend

There's a person I don't know, but I feel a connection to her through her virtual voice - or her real voice, virtually. She writes like I'd like to write, honestly and often, and she does stuff that I'd like to do. I'd call her a friend, but we've never met.

And isn't that just so new media, so two-thousand-and-something.

She wrote this post about depression, and it stuck with me. Not because I thought she was going to do anything tragic, she's not that kind, but because it sounded very much like depression as I've known it. I've felt depression voyeuristically and flirtatiously, sometimes willingly or willfully, frequently peripherally, not exactly directly.

What I mean to say is not that she didn't feel it directly, because I do believe she did/does. What I mean to say was that in reading her depression, it felt to me like it has felt so many times before, which is not quite direct. Because my mom was depressed a lot. And I have been there. And I know that when people say such things, you can only think but not like this.

Somehow, reading her depression left me grounded, and fortunate. Which makes me appreciate her so much more.

Shameless plug #2

My friend's new company, Mindbloom, just launched.

You should check it out, it's all positive thinky without being overly cheesey. Living intentionally, that sort of thing. Their site is super fun to play with, so go, you, be an early adopter and make pretty pictures of what your world could be.

Meditate

Seeing it for the first time through baby's new eyes really makes me appreciate just sitting in the backyard, listening to the wind, watching the grass ripple.

Dreams

Not the wispy goals and wishes kind, the actual in-your-sleep kind.

I've been having these anxiety dreams lately, always set in school. My attendance in these dream classes is abysmal, and I show up shortly before the final only to learn that we will be tested on several thick books that I haven't read. I freak out, and develop a plan for fast reading, cramming, super studying, which I then blow off. I wake up before the test happens.

What's interesting is that in real life school, I was always one of the few people who did all of the reading.

I'm sure this has something to do with learning or teaching and of course the baby, I just don't know what.

About that baby...

Remember when I used to write about politics? Yeah, me neither.

So. Gender roles rear their (remarkably well-coiffed) head and I write about the baby. Because that's what I do now. Such is life.