The 411

Sleep...good solid complete sleep has been tricky since Williamsburg.  While we were there our bodies were crashing into bed after all the active delights of the days...but the beds were not as comfy as our own.  Then we had three nights at home (the first of which was an exhausted and late one after the day spent traveling home) followed by five nights with houseguests.  We gave them (a family of four) the big bed/room and Cap and I slept on the pullout in the living room.  The boys were not able to make their semi-regular migrations to the big bed.  Our guests left before dawn on Monday.  Four days later we four are struggling to find our sleep mojo.  It'll come, these things can take time.  In the meantime, I gaze upon this photo of a child sleeping soundly in broad daylight...and smile.

Interesting PMS this month.  Some sweet-n-salty type cravings (dinner tonight was a bowl of ruffle chips and homemade ranch-y dip...dessert will be what remains of my pint of Ben & Jerry's Pistachio Pistachio...an ice cream that renders all other ice cream irrelevant).  Some sleep difficulty.  Some mood stuff.  Some "crazy" internal/sensory stuff.  All very manageable and knowable.

But, there's a new sheriff in town and she has caught me off guard.  I bought Gillian Flynn's first novel, Sharp Objects, last week because I could not get it through the library and had been waiting for her third (and highly acclaimed) novel for awhile from the library.  It was a fast, intense and solid read.  And left me wanting more.  I requested her second novel before I finished the first one.  But, there is a wait for that one, too.  In a fit of PMS-y impulsivity, I bought the second novel yesterday.  Last night I sat down and read a page of it.

It was chilling.  And creepy.  And then the chilling, creepy protagonist sounded absolutely "normal"...and I freaked out.  Exponentially chilling and creepy!  I couldn't read anymore I was so freaked.  I can't remember the last time I felt this kind of emotional vulnerability reading a book.  One page of a book.

Oy.  My cycle.  You keep me on my toes.

My latest batch of crap to process is kicking my ass.  This is what it has looked like on the big table for a couple of days now.  Cap invited some gamers over to play Villains and Vigilantes with him and the kids tonight so I was bumping up against a deadline.  In the end, I moved most of this crap right back on top of my dresser (ie. hidden from company) because I spent much of the afternoon doing this...

This has been my jewelry box since elementary school.  It holds a lot.  I went through it today with determination and I am almost done (including the bunch of smaller boxes that contained a further assortment of random jewelry).  I think I reduced my collection by nearly 50%.  It was sweet remembering the (so) many stories that accompany the pieces.

A mood cross.  So funny.  I don't remember how this came in my possession, but I do remember loving it as a kid.  Very sixties, don't you think?  A keeper.

My parents gave this to me in grade school.  My name is engraved on the girl.  Keeper.

I am letting go of a lot of earrings.  I amassed quite a collection, mostly during college and my year in Hiroshima.  My mother has also given me many pairs from her various travels.  I am keeping maybe two dozen pair and getting rid of easily double that.  This lovely handmade pair I am keeping.  Diane made these for me in college.  I have always loved them dearly.

So I guess it could be said that I have a watch collection.  Surprise!  Again, each one has a story.  Each a souvenir of a specific time and/or place in my life (three of them were gifts).  I decided to keep all of them, for now.

Old jewelry/accessories.  Each object has its history...a story to tell.  Junk or treasure depending on the (be)holder.  

I am considering punching through my old pierced ear lobes.  I stopped wearing earrings altogether after Gem was born.  (His birth was preceded by a decade of working with very young kids with special needs where wearing dangle-y jewelry from ears, neck or wrist could invite yanks, twists and breaks...which precipitated a decline in my level of self-adornment.)  Realizing what a trove of pretties I have at my disposal...makes me want to wear them again.

I also made some food today.  I've been tired and PMS-y and I guess a tad overwhelmed.  Not much cooking has been happening.  But the CSA veggies keep coming!  The Jersey toms have been delectable.  Fresh, local mozzarella, red Hawaiian sea salt, a drizzle of olive oil...I barely missed the fresh basil.  (And loved the chives we got this week!)

Peace and love.

Story and dance

The day began with snow.

It then filled and filled and filled.  Cooking, cleaning the bathroom, folding laundry, cooking, washing the kitchen floor, minding the  kids, cooking.

My mom arrived after dinner and then we drove up to campus.  (We landed last minute complimentary tickets, shuffled plans and got my mom to come out to sit with the kids.)

Tonight we saw Bill T. Jones.  I loved seeing him.  The performance was enigmatic and resonant.  His stories were warbles and wails.  Words are failing me.  Here's a link to a NYT piece describing the show.  (Barbra, of course I thought of you.)

Here I am giddy with art and snow outside the theater post-performance.

Bill quoted the beginning of this song in one of his stories.  I did not know this artist till he mentioned her name tonight and I thought the lyrics might be from a rap.  (They had this prescient/precise feel to them that I associate with rap.)

When I was young I lived in a world of dreams,

of moods and myths and illusionary schemes.

Though now I'm much more grown up,

I fear that I must own up.

To the fact that I'm in doubt of,

what the modern cynics shout of.

They say it's Spring,

this feeling light as a feather.

They say this thing,

this magic we share together,

came with the weather, too.

As I was gathering my thoughts while writing this post, I remembered enough to find the song by Googling.  And, boy, was I ever wrong!  I am absolutely tickled...about having my mind expanded, about these different genres of music being bridged in my little corner of the world, and about being introduced to a new-to-me musical artist.

Big love

Big Love came to a close on Sunday night.  In a highly satisfying and pretty darn brilliant way, if you ask me.

I started watching it on Netflix discs when I lived in Sacramento.  We've begun paying for cable tv for the first time here in NJ and I have thoroughly enjoyed watching my HBO shows in real time.

The writing and acting on this show are solid with flashes of brilliance. I'll miss you Henricksons!

Numbers

Just to clarify.

I don't put much weight in numbers (no pun intended!)  I'm more qualitative.  I don't own a scale big enough to weigh people.  (Food and fiber?  Yes.)

(The reason I know how much I weigh is because my mother has a scale and I weigh myself whenever I go to her place.)

Numbers can be useful.  Take this story, for instance.  I highly recommend it.  Here's another piece from the same site about portion size/control which relates nicely.

But, numbers can be tricky.  Rather, we can allow numbers to play tricks, in our minds. 

When I shared the number of pounds I weigh, it was to give some a better idea, a more complete picture of the physicality I'm talking about and dealing with these days.  Whatever the number is at any given time, I do not dwell on it, personally.  I also do not attribute any positive or negative quality to it.  A number, in this case, is just a number.

Off and running

I enjoyed watching this moving documentary about a teenager who contacts her birth mother, the subsequent fallout on her and her family, and eventual outcome of her coming to terms with her situation.  There are some really lovely strands about family which are brought to life through Avery's story.

The documentary was followed by a few StoryCorps shorts.  This one, in particular, caught my attention.