The Wildest Ride in the Park

Hey, you.

First of all, because I'm mortified that I didn't know kind/kinds in my last post, let's just get this out there: it's these kinds.

Thank you so much for my flowers! Those are what I thought they were. I did stop and browse the flowers at the store yesterday, but didn't find any that were calling to me, so what a lovely treat when I logged in!

I woke up with all good intentions of blogging for awhile this morning, but I'm sitting here and my brain is all over the place. I can't seem to focus at all. I suppose I want to say "I had such a good day yesterday, after all" but I'm afraid to drag you onto the J&A Rollercoaster with me. Seems every day is either up, up, up, or way, way down with us. I am trying so hard to put myself into his head and imagine what it feels like to have had this whole thing happen to him. How his self-esteem and self-worth and confidence...how all of it is probably shattered. How, if this were me, I'd be curled up in the fetal position at the bottom of a bottle of Merlot, for sure. (Jesus, my baseline self-confidence is going through the McDonald's drive-through drunk on a Friday night and thinking the state should come take my kids away.) So I try to think how hard it must be to just do every day things, especially to go to work and pretend this is all ok. I'm trying not to be selfish; it's a battle every day.

But yesterday, when I was at JJ's tryouts, he texted me (extremely unusual) to ask how they were going. I texted back and asked him how the interviews were going, and he actually answered me. B, this is totally not normal for us, chit-chatting during the day. It's one of my biggest issues with him; and there he was, initiating a mid-afternoon conversation. By the time we met up at the science fair, I was about 98% less angry, simply because of that. Although JJ didn't win or place, he had a good time participating and we were so proud of him for following through with it. When we got home we ran some errands together then picked up Chinese for the family on the way home. M invited S over and the five of us sat around the dinner table talking and laughing....my own little version of the perfect family. Afterwards, M & S did the dishes and I curled up with J on the couch and endured the rest of the Nascar race (which, normally, I would never do - I'd go blog or read or clean lint out of my toenails). I dozed on and off and we talked on and off, then finally went to bed at 9:30...as if nothing had ever been wrong with us in the first place.

This morning I was bold enough to tell him that it was nice to feel needed, that that's the one thing I really miss. I miss being necessary. He responded nicely and that began our day. He's off washing his car and I'm here with my coffee (f***ed up the formula again, so it's not very good) and my iPod playing quietly so as not to wake the teenagers who probably went to bed about the time I got up. If they're not smoking pot, I don't know what's going on, because in the garbage this morning, I found an empty box of 24 Donettes, two empty bags of chocolate chip cookies, about four empty energy drink cans and various other wrappings of junk. There are only two of them, for Pete's sake.

Today I'll finish cleaning the kitchen from my party (a sinkful of wine glasses - whose idea was it not to use plastic??) and then we're off to Bellevue for dinner with D&M. I'm thinking maybe we'll leave a little early and hit Nordstrom on the way in, to return some jeans I bought the other day. I'm actually now looking forward to dinner, and the drive up, and the evening together.

And...we talked about summer vacation - I told him you wanted to come in August and he was excited about that. So, let's pick a week and start giving ourselves something solid to look forward to!

Honestly, I'm so scattered. I can't even think to write intelligently. Oh, yeah. K wasn't mad at me at all. (Really?) Neither was S. (You think?) I'm a freakin' basket case poster child for MTMD.

One last thing before I go...I got my "business" cards yesterday and I was so excited I couldn't get the box open fast enough. But I'm so disappointed!!! For one thing, the print is tiny...you can barely read it. It didn't look that small on line! And even though I paid extra to get all the colors right, the finish is a matte finish, which I guess means something different to them than it does to me. I thought it would be like a matte photograph; it's not. It's like construction paper. They look like the cheapest homemade business cards I've ever seen, and they cost me $25!!!! So I'm not sure if I'm going to call them in the morning and see if there is some return policy, or if I can get them fixed. I'll have to decide if it's worth the argument, even though it's really not their fault.

And that's my Sunday so far. I'm going to go catch up on all my friend's blogs now, hoping to glean (or, as S says, "gleam") some inspiration.

Hope you have a great day too,
Love, A