This And That

These past few days I keep feeling like someone is tapping me on the shoulder.

I’m so annoyed that this kid is still awake at 9 p.m.!

*tap tap*

I wish she could be quiet for 10 minutes.

*tap tap*

Why can’t we go just one night without an extra body in our bed?

*tap tap*

The person tapping my shoulder is Susan, Susan whose husband and sons celebrated Valentine’s Day without their sweetie. Every time she taps me, I hug the people who live in my house a little too hard and too long and snuggle up to small, wiggly bodies that want to burrow close to my heart.

I let them.

*tap tap*

***

I cut my hair all off.

Yes, my hair. The hair that so plagues me. The hair I lost for almost two years. Right now, my hair looks precisely as it did during the first few months of its regrowth after nearly total loss.

I did it on purpose, and I’m going to write about it soon, but not here. I’m saving that for a wider audience (not that you, my best audience, don’t deserve to hear the story).

I wanted to take a risk. Now, I’m walking around with my face hanging out and every time I look in the mirror I’m startled, as if someone has entered my home without permission.

It’s weird.

I think I look weird. I’m trying to not feel that way, but I kind of do.

I’ll probably grow it all back.

***

I’m up for a new job, and part of me is reluctant to do the “edit test.”

And, just as an aside, why do I have to keep taking all these tests? Doesn’t 20 years of professional writing count? Yes, I sometimes confuse its and it’s. But cut me some slack! I can write the shit you want me to write.

The money is good. The flexibility is so-so. I’m so much enjoying controlling my work instead of my work controlling me. If I pass it up, I’m a dummy. If I audition and get the gig, I’ll be hemmed in again in some ways.

Fun!

***

I’ve heard “American Pie” a whole bunch of times lately, in the car.

I took Henry to the doctor this week and sang it while we bumped over the country-road shortcut. It was Valentine’s Day.

“Hey, Dad,” I said.

I smiled.

***

I want to buy new things.

I hate how shabby my house looks. My house does not look like I feel. It looks tired and poor. I feel fresher and more energetic than I have in 10 years. I feel like the sun is about to come out. I feel like summer vacation is coming. I feel like Christmas Eve and Easter morning.

I want yellow pants and bright blue ballet flats and glossy lipstick.

I want fresh, sateen sheets and new sofas.

I want pear-green walls and dark-brown wood floors.

I can’t have these things, but that’s OK. I think about them, and I feel like someday, I might get some of what I want.

Here comes the sun, little darling. It’s been a long cold lonely winter.

I don’t know if it will last, but I like it.

***

I regret reading so much post-apocalyptic fiction.

At night I make my way down the dark stairwell and use my iPhone as a flashlight. The flickering blue beam feels like a premonition. Like I’ll take a walk like that with a weak light in a terrifying situation.

I don’t know why, maybe because I read “The Road,” but that was years ago.

I hug my littlest baby extra tight and briefly flirt with learning to can food.

The membranes between life and death seem to get thinner every day. Daddies who kill their babies. Governments that murder their citizens. Mothers who die despite desperately wanting to live.

I need to read more chick lit, I think.

***

The days are getting longer. Soon, I’ll see the ocean.