Dirt and Destruction

I survived the week.

I started cleaning last weekend in preparation for my guests arriving for Thanksgiving. Somehow, my house managed to get filthy since the last time we cleaned it in earnest; places and things you generally tend to overlook during the day, or perhaps you might actually look at it every day, but the filth becomes sort of mundane instead of openly repulsive. Dust bunnies and smeary fingerprints, little crayola scribbles via the two small feral children you share your home with. All of these things must be hunted down and erradicated when company is coming, including the wild streak your children have cultured in their small beings.

Eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow you die.

It is said to be the philosophy of Epicureans; it is also an amalgamation of scriptures from The Bible. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die." Surely this quote is also an apt descriptor for America's first Thanksgiving Day, and every Thanksgiving Day that has followed, with much thanks to the joys of the dysfunctional family. We gather to break bread, and end up wanting to break someones neck; snap it like the wishbone on the turkey. Happy holidays! Well, that's another oxymoron for another time.

My squealing inner fangirl, let me show you it.

If you've read my profile, two random factoids you may know about me is that a] I am a photographer and b] that I am a music lover. I am not a musician because, even though I have heavily flirted with the piano since I was about 2 years old, I was gifted with short, stubby fingers and a basic lack of the ability to keep timing. I am intensely jealous of those who can play the way they're supposed to, but also thoroughly awed by their talent. I am always toying with the idea of learning guitar, but then I balk at the idea of calloused fingers. *shrug* I can't have my cake and eat it, too; I have come to accept it... for now.

We don't *do* F2F anymore.

My friend Kari recently made an entry in her blog about how people just aren't talking on the phone anymore, as in - the internet is the new all-encompassing social hub. I have to admit, I didn't really think about it much because I am not a phone person. I'm not even really a "face to face" person, to be honest; every relationship I've ever had outside of my husband and my kids, I have let slip through my fingers. It's not that I'm not interested [well, in lots of cases, I'm sure], but ... uhm, I don't have a therapist just for kicks. I have issues - probably more than your local magazine rack. I have them for valid reasons, but I have reached a point in my life where it is time to put those issues on a shelf and get on with things.

Where'd you get your driver's license, Kmart?

My mother put me behind the wheel of a Jeep Cherokee when I was 15. I'm not sure what year the Jeep was, but the peeling brown metalic paint allowed us to dub the thing "Coppertone." To a 15 year old girl, it was a massive behomoth to maneuver through the backwood roads of our county. Couple that with the impromptu tiny wooden bridges without railing, and well...a girl could imagine driving herself and her mother into the most convenient creek bed or cliff side. The radio cranked out whatever handy tune was snatched by the satellite, and this girl tried to keep the brown hulk of peeling metal between the lines.

I was temporarily out of order.

I used to be pretty good at saying the right thing when someone needed to hear it. I have been the go-to girl for advice, anecdotes, a shoulder to lean on. But, my friends, I saw all of that change last night. I sat, horrified, as I saw my fingers type all of the wrong words, incapable of shutting the fuck up. After I apologized, I ended up slinking off to bed, feeling like a giant asshole. I still feel like a giant asshole this morning over it, and hope that my friend will forgive me for scaring her worse instead of being the rational voice I usually am, or try to be.

I need to get a life.

I am the proud new owner, for the second time in my life, of the phrase "my therapist told me...." Actually, it's kind of the reverse; I sit in the chair and tell her everything for an hour every week. On the mornings of "therapy day," I wake up with a giant knot in the center of my stomach and an overwhelming urge to have a panic attack - the symptoms of a hardcore, long-term "do-it-yourselfer" that is coming to grips with the fact that I can no longer do-it-myself at this time. Someone who has awoken in the cold sweat nightmare of discovering that, despite my insightful and honest approach, I have become a victim of aimless existence rather than kicking ass and taking names. I have become accustomed to allowing things to happen instead of making them happen.

How did that happen?