New Adventures Of The Old MODERN MOMMY

True Dat. The One Where I Get All Serious And Decide On A Career.

I am not completely confident how yet - the details are a little fuzzy, but I suspect I could make a clever career out of some form of memeology.  (It's Time To Build A Word! Let's Build It's, Let's Build It Now!)  Like I could be a Memeologist.  Not sure, but I might wear a long white lab coat. Basically I hope to get paid for roughly what I do now (not much), except with bigger words, some scientific equipment and colorful cubicle walls around my kitchen table. Maybe a potted plant. Also, I will SO be able to claim and iPad 2 umm 3 as a tax deduction. Fo Shizzle. There will also be lots of frosted animal cookies at my desk work station.  Plus Casual Fridays.

Stay Tuned...

P.S. Here's my favorite part.

P.P.S I totally know all these words.

Meme
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Proponents theorize that memes may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution. Memes do this through the processes of variation, mutation, competition and inheritance, each of which influence a meme's reproductive success. Memes spread through the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread and (for better or for worse) mutate. Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success, and some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts."

Be Gentle, The One Where I Wax A Little More Serious Than Usual.

I have posted this link before, multiple times actually. Every time, and for whatever reason that is tugging at my heart that day, when I struggle with something that I cannot broadcast, post or otherwise publish - I read this. I am reminded I am lucky, blessed and loved. I feel less lost, less alone, less afraid I that am completely misunderstood. I am so very grateful for how much love and joy that is in my life, and for those who create and sustain it. To the few of you (you know who you are) who I know are struggling in some of the ways I am or in ways I cannot comprehend: You are not lost, not alone, not misunderstood... To everyone else, be gentle with those around you. We can never tell what they may be carrying today.

We Must See Past What It Seems...

Glass or Crystal, The One Where I Have to Blog Because Facebook Status Updates Can Only Be 500 Characters

So, I know it's Tuesday. Period. I actually had bigger plans for that sentence but it just felt right to stop there. I know it's Tuesday for several reasons... Some of you thought I was going to say because it sure was one heck of a Monday yesterday!  But that is just obvious pandering and I won't stand for it. First, there is lots of trash in my garage to go out to the raccoons curb tonight. Honestly, there is always trash in there but you know... for argument's sake and all that. Second, I feel an overwhelming amt of disdain and apathy towards today, thus my original thesis that today is in fact Tuesday.  Also, and equally as disturbing, has anyone else spent their entire life up until this point thinking disdain was really spelled with a T? I was so confused by that squiggly little red line under my "version" of the word today and would like to give yet another shout out to the good people over at Dictionary dot com for having my back yet again.  The alarming admission that I just discovered this well known spelling truth should really only seal the Tuesdayness of today. This day is already quite disconcerting and it's only 10am.

In other uncomfortable news, Ex-Modern Husband and I have reached yet another inevitable milestone. Was it the sad passing of the 3rd anniversary of our divorce becoming final you ask? Ummm, seriously no. Nothing says, "I would divorce you all over again!" like a small but dignified celebration each year on Sept 17th. Wikipedia says that crystal or glass is the traditional 3rd anniversary gift.  Although surely they must have been referring to people who did not accomplish epic marital fail, twice as Modern Ex-Husband has... I must tell you, if you are recently divorced or considering divorce, possibly more important than a good lawyer, is your sense of humor. Keep it alive, nurture it regularly. Let off steam in slanderous ways with malicious and defamatory statements.

Now, I on the other hand, have only one defeat notched into my belt so I purchased a fine glass frame with which to encapsulate the aforementioned court documentation. I tucked it into my hope chest next to a handmade baby blanket and my head gear from Jr. High.

Wikipedia also mentions leather as a more traditional 3rd anniversary gift but I think we can all agree that would take us in a blogging direction we would regret.

No, the unavoidable moment I am describing is the unlikely September coincidence where we finally have a mutual friend on Facebook. Truthfully, I am kinda surprised it did not happen sooner what with all the nonsense and goings on in this small community of people who cannot figure out how to act around us. Thankfully the mutual friend we share this bond with is a sharp person who has always seemed fairly unimpressed with any drama. I am confident this will go off without a hitch... If not, the post-mortem on where it all went horribly wrong will indeed generate another thrilling blog post if not at least provide much entertainment for my inner circle of family and friends who regularly share my disdain for the state of our dissolved union.

I just feel like using that word in a sentence again! It's like I just can't believe I had it so wrong. You know the way you felt when you finally knew all the right words to The Pina Colada Song? Which is actually a stellar example in and of itself since the real title of that song is "Escape" It's a lot like that.

You know you have to go download that song now, right? Or at least move it into a current playlist, because who are we kidding... We all own this song whether we fess up to it or not. So, by no fault of your own, it will be rattling around in your head all day. My gift to you. Hey, it's not glass or crystal, but I think you appreciate the thought behind the gesture.

 

I Just Procrastinate

So mostly I am just avoiding doing the dishes. 

Recently I have noticed a shocking disintegration of some of my loftier life goals.  I used to entertain this fantasy of being a great writer.  Hell, I would settle for being an average writer pulling in more than the loyal 7 of you who stop by quarterly to see if the time honored tradition of managing to get one pathetic blog post up in a whole month of laziness and procrastination has yielded any fruit.  That dream was laid to rest with a small but dignified memorial service several months ago and now I consider myself some sort of creative genius if I post on the blog, FB and Twitter in the same calendar year.  I have gone from pursuits of real writing, to blogging (since no one has yet thought to regulate the free crap speech that flows on blogs) to Facebook and Twitter and text messaging.  Clearly these are the lowest forms of intelligence and communication and we have all decided that we only have time for brief intervals of information.  Headline news only please, no time for in-depth reporting (as if..) and no long blog posts either, I can only squeeze in the Starbucks drive thru, a FB post, some Tweets and a txt or two - then I am spent.

I am sure that the natural evolution (fine... ok or the natural creation) of things is for mediocre people to do mediocre things and to leave the major accomplishments to the people who have mastered attention spans longer than the average half hour sitcom (with the commercials on fast fwd).  Everywhere I look goals and plans are dropping like flies.  Do I set too many?  Do I set them too high?  Do I have to care more about success than I do about that extra 20 minutes of sleep?  

The only comfort I find is that you all seem to fail as often as I do.  Bloggers I used to read every day to gain inspiration (steel content ideas) are now posting less and less often.  Other people's houses are a train wreck too and how many of you seriously floss?  I have always championed mediocrity and been relatively proud of it.  Sarcastic and bitter, those are my people.  And while I have no impressive plans to change (see how I have lowered expectations already even more?) I do find myself longing wistfully for the desire to do more...

Buzzer on the dryer just went off and the dryer is all the way upstairs. Geeze.

The Affair I Am Already Having...

So I am reading the latest over at my good friend Corky's Log and I got to thinking about how I am spending the lonely nights these days.  As are the rest of my civilized friends, I am greatly concerned about the writer's guild and their strike.  This may not have filtered down into all of your lives yet, but no writer's guild means no network TV.  Let me lay this out for you.  A few months back when things had already begun to sour around the Modern household, I became ever more dependent on the TV and my beloved, the DVR digital cable box.  You see the truth is that I was having an affair of sorts.  I came to rely more and more on TV and movies to take my mind away from the drama and pain of a relationship in it's sad final months.  As with any slow death, it was devastating and heart breaking.  The only escape I found was in the plot of each sitcom, drama or comedy that came across the screen. 

I could get lost in someone else's problems, someone else's life.  Yes.  It is fiction.  But when a character you have known for many seasons and episodes goes through a divorce, or childbirth...  love and love lost or any kind of drama of the heart I feel like I am not alone.  In the hours i share lost in story after story, gradually the noise in my head stops and I can focus on something or someone else.  Sweet release. 

The DVR is my new spouse, and the programming our quality time together.  We laugh, and cry.  We fast fwd the commercials and eat unhealthy foods.  We are totally bonded.  I watch almost anything as long as it is written well and frequently includes people who feel the same as i do... if I am lucky it is much worse and then I can actually feel some gratitude that my own situation is not nearly "that bad".   Grey's Anatomy, a plate full of pizza rolls and a comfy pillow.  For that hour I am not sad, not desperately lonely for human connection, not just a single mom (I still can barely say that last one out loud).  So writer's guild, write on and write fast.  May God speed your talents, may you strike no more.  Go forth and create the must see TV that I cannot escape without. 

Frosted Animal Cookies Would Make The Crow Taste Better

Things went a little haywire in the Modern household tonight.  The confusing thing about relationships is how a simple, ordinary but happy marriage turns into analyizing the meaning, agenda, motive and/or baggage behind each word, action event etc...  At the beginning there are some games and everyone is on their "please love me" best behavior.  A wedding, a honeymoon then little by little we settle in to the real honesty.  That incredible feeling that you want to share everything, intimacy.  But before you know it, things can revert back to the games, agendas and oh yes, the baggage. 

What I feel all tangled up in tonight is the ever living baggage.  No spoken word can be taken at face value, no act, be it malicious or good intentioned, can be seen without first filtering it through the crap buffer.  The crap buffer is the kind of like the x-ray machine we send our carry-on luggage through at the airport.  This machine looks for what people try to hide, it was designed to detect crap.  So is the crap buffer in the relationship brain.  Internet, sometimes a hair dryer is actually a hair dryer.  For drying hair.  That's wet.  And requires drying.  Plain. Simple.  And, sometimes a hair dryer is a loaded weapon.  I cannot say with any scientific certainty what the good hair dryer to bad hair dryer ratio is exactly.  I imagine the actual drying of hair might slightly out number of times a hair dryer has been determined to in fact be loaded.  So the crap buffer actually reassigns the definition or meaning of the words it is buffering.  You might say it literally changes the purpose of the hair dryer.  Convincing the opposing team that the Game is On, and you better be prepared to bring it and bring it hard. 

When this all started there was only one team, the family.  But good intentions fail, they may have been destined to anyway, and words fly and then the crap buffer hits the fan.  Or hair dryer.  I have lost track of all my metaphors.  Obviously this comes from a real place for me, and is a little less story telling, and a little more about purging runaway thoughts.  But I think the long winded point I am driving at is this:  How does a worthy marriage navigate around all the baggage and return to a point when words and actions do not require approval from the surgeon general?  When do we let go of hurt feelings, broken promises, and past mistakes?  How does one truly reach that moment when you choose to only look forward?  No more looking over our shoulders for past events that can be used as ammunition to make a point, or to win a battle?  What is the exit "stategery" for the battle of hard headed, stubborn and selfish married people?  When is sorry, sorry enough? 

Does anyone else hear Sarah Jessica Parker's voice in their head right now?  If someone were narrating my life, I would not mess around, I would call out the big guns.

Internet, I cannot answer any of these questions.  I feel helpless and ashamed and lost.  Also the afore mentioned frosted animal cookies (thus the blog post category) are gone.  And the spoonful of sugar that was supposed to help me choke down the humility is predictably unavailable.  I am an emotional eater.  The chicken we had dinner was awesome, as to be expected cause Modern Hubby is a force to be reckoned with in the kitchen.  But the inclination to OD on sugar has been tragically cut short. 

Have I ever mentioned the stupid buffer?  Maybe tomorrow.

Remembering What I Have Forgotten

My mother would say that I should be doing some more of my "assigned reading and a little light behavior modification to put me into a calm state of relaxation" reading than blogging tonight, but I am 31 yrs old and if i want to stay up past a reasonable bedtime, eating frosted animal cookies and blogging to validate my self-worth, I will. Let the crumbs fall where they may.

What can I say, I am in to workbooks. Odd since I despise real work. But I digress.

So today I was served a steaming dish, a culinary masterpiece, a perfect pie. So flawless in it's execution, so razor sharp in it's accuracy that I was quite literally left flailing about in search of an adequate compliment to satisfy the chef. Instead I went off in a huff and spent the following hours pouting, blaming everyone else and feeling generally sorry for my poor misunderstood self. As you may have recognized, it was more of a metaphorical pie with which I was gifted, specifically the deepest cutting, truest ringing reality check in humility i have ever known. Only the ones we hold close can deliver such blows and i am literally still dizzy. I am pretty new to this whole humility, taking responsibility for yourself thing, must have been a class I ditched in school. Change does not happen over night, and obviously change does not happen tonight either. So, again, I am choosing hope. Hope I can remember what really matters, what I was taught. Hope that the message was recv'd and hope that I can forgive the messenger.

On a much lighter note, I happened upon (followed a link from a fav blog) some of the most amazing and touching photography. Tara Whitney Photography to be exact. How amazing her talent, the light, the eye with which she sees the world, and how powerfully she transmits this to film. She made me remember how I feel when I see the world through a camera lens. She moved me to reconnect with that love. Like Ali Edwards, (more blog-name dropping) I feel inspired to do with my daily life, as these terrific women do. Now, I have often fancied myself an amateur photographer, you know me and my zoom capture some incredible shots of the ginormous sleeping rhinos at the zoo every summer, seriously I've got game. Get it, wild game? Seriously. Ok anyway, so please check out Tara's (like how we are on the first name basis already?) new site here and her blog, here. I am not sure what she would charge to fly on out to the midwest, shoot beautiful photos of my family, then win awards for them, plastering them all over the internet, but I am looking into it.

Internet, bear with me here. It seems I am occasionally the last to know what you know. The best blogs, the talented new artists, the Mac keyboard shortcuts. I am playing a lot of catch up. Just keep on pointing out the "must see's" and I will keep linking them on my blog to look well informed, classy, educated and modern, because after all...