!@*&

Fuck. I'm so mad at myself. Blogger autosaves but I had a craving for the familiar white on black background from my iWeb application so I started on what was shaping up to be a post I really liked. And then my mac froze for like the 2nd or third time ever. Had I saved it? Nope. Does it autosave? Nope. What program can you buy these days that does NOT have an autosave or recover feature? Probably just this one. Fudge nuggets. I'm friggin despondent over it. I couldn't even scroll up to write down what I had already written. Those words won't go back in that order ever again, the moment has passed and so is the headspace I was in to create it. Shit.

What the fuck ever.

So while I was reflective 5 minutes ago over the flurry of marriage, birth, and engagement announcements that have come over the last week, now I'm in the place I predicted I would be in the ghost post. I'm taking it as evidence of my inherent unlikability and resolving to engage in some really absorbing hobbies now to keep me company as I age. I swear that before that regrettable crash, I was reflective. I was walking the dog, absorbed in my new favorite song and confident it would all work out. I was insulated from the world and happy to be occupying the deserted street with the good company of my thoughts, wondering which one of them would grow into posts and which I would invariably keep to myself. It's been a weird time writing lately. I can't seem to string the words together into thoughts. I'm cutting patterns and finding the outfit not quite coming together. It's not draping well, the symmetry is off, it's just off enough to make me self conscious because I can't say what I mean, I don't mean what I say, it's not quite me. It's been a busy time in my soul but the synapse between my soul and my head isn't being bridged with words that I can convey here. It's like my soul has ADD. I am finding it hard to keep up.

Moving on to the song of the moment. Strange and Beautiful by Aqualung. Those who want to point it that the name of the group was first a song by Jethro Tull can save their breath. I know. I know because it came up on Google when I was looking for a clip to post here. My father thought I would like this song and I do. I have been trying to ration the amount of times I listen to it so I can always savor it.

Sing

I'm living the dream right now, fulfilling part one of my birthday wish, sitting in my underwear. I'm not sure how I'll top this moment today. I have a little twinge of sadness remembering that Grandma Margaret won't be calling today as she had faithfully done every single year for as long as I can remember. My father regularly forgets how old I am-I'm starting to forget as well, but she always knew exactly how old I was. It's hard to get really pumped up about celebrating the number of years I've been on the planet but I do like celebrating that I even arrived. I like to think of the actual day I was born and what that must have been like for my young parents. It's likely that my friends are going to hear some baby stories today as my parents simply can not help telling them even though they are really only interesting to people you are related to. Perhaps they tell the stories because they can't believe they actually made a baby who turned into an adult and have to keep reminding me and themselves that I'm not just some woman they know.

Being solidly 30-something (the specifics not withheld for vanity but for security) got me thinking about that old show 30-something that was all the rage when I was no where near 30. All those people looked so old. I like studying the faces of old people and searching for the face of their youth and looking at little kids and imagining the adults they are going to become. I've got no wishes this year but this song was on my mind.



And this is just funny

Birthday

I used to find the months, weeks, days, and hours before my birthday unbearable. It couldn't arrive quickly enough and ended far too soon. But that is how most kids are and that is part of the joyous torture of childhood. To say I find them unbearable as a full fledged adult would be a bit of hyperbole but I'm not terribly excited. I feel like they come too fast now, not because I'm down in the face about aging, I actually dig that part, but because I can't seem to find the time to spend the day in a way that feels celebratory. A day that doesn't place the burden on others to create happiness for me. I can't help myself but I always want something grand to happen on my birthday. I want some kind of unexpected loveliness, evidence of someone's planning and forethought to surprise me.

I e-mailed some friends at the next to the last minute and a few of them are going to join me for dinner with my parents in Virginia. Only now I don't really want to go anymore. I want to sit in my apartment in my underwear and work my way up to showering and running errands like getting a 40lb bag of dog food. I want to wander around alone, feel sorry for myself for about 30 seconds and then take myself and a good book somewhere for dinner that we haven't tried yet.

I know I'll have fun with my friends and it will be great to see them. But I really, really, really, REALLY don't want to drive down to VA and back. I'm over that trip completely, especially for an overnighter. I would take the train (and oh how I love the train) but my old neighbor and sometimes friend absolutely insisted I bring my dog with me if I came so her boys (also dogs) could see her because they miss her. There is drama in having Baloo stay with me at my parent's house that I'm just not willing to put up with on my birthday so I will leave her at my neighbor/friend's house and shuttle back and forth between the two houses to feed and walk my dog with her dogs. It's a lot for one night and I'm ready to skip it. It annoys the shit out of me that my dad's nose gets so out of joint over dog hair. I love him but he can be a jerk about some things. An unapologetic one at that. But it is his house so whatever. I just hate the look on my mom's face when I have to leave because my dog is being housed somewhere else, creating an obligation for me to spend time away from home, even if the purpose is to come visit them. And my dad realizes that he's being stupid about it but just keeps asking me if labradors can be shaved or he talks about inventing something that will statically charge Baloo's hair and then have her pass through some filter that snatches all the stray hairs from her coat. I should stop talking about it, it makes me even less enthused to drive 3 hours for a meal. I should have told the sometimes friend no. If she wants the boys to see Baloo, she can bring them up here. But now I'm too late to get a sitter so she's coming. So at least three trips back and forth to feed and walk her for barely an overnighter. I'm so annoyed with myself. No cards are going out on time, I haven't given myself the head space to consider what to do for others, and now I'm absolutely dreading both my birthday and the event I have created to celebrate it. Ugh.

I'm getting grumpier as I age. But I still like this song.

Drama Queen

Called my father today at work. He answered the phone in a tone of voice that conveyed all was not well. I asked him if it was a good time. He said, and I quote "the world is falling down around me" and that he would call me later. I hung up the phone and smiled. He can be so dramatic. My mother is the antithesis of drama. She described her contractions when she had my sister as simply "uncomfortable." And my father, surrounded by the trappings, deadlines, pressures and irritations present in every single line of work finds the world disintegrating at his feet. I sure do come by it honestly, this flair for drama.

A thought

Perhaps it's not a good idea to describe the way the fire licks my flesh and burns. Maybe the energy I devote to being mesmerized by the dance of the flames could be used in putting the fire out.

I don't know, it's just a thought.

Block of letters

Is it a writer's block if I can write about not being able to write?

My birthday twin is getting married. For years, our lives had this creepy parallel quality that kept us both interested in keeping up with one another even though we had more of a kinship than a friendship. The truth is, our paths diverged long before she met her future husband at a house party. It seems like I should hope that I'm not far behind her. I don't know if it is a chronic lack of sleep or just a pickling from the slow bitterness I've been steeping in, watching many friends pair off and begin lives together, but I'm not terribly envious. Being with someone is work. I think 3/4 of the pain in the loss of a relationship is the resetting of all of your habits. You're used to telling them about your day, you're used to something that always annoyed you about them but was familiar, you're used to the way they smell. They become as automatic as the involuntary kick of your leg when your knee is tapped. And we associate that familiarity and intimacy with love. And we miss that. Which is to say I'm not green with envy because I'm not having a ball by myself but I haven't found it better to have loved and lost, or to have loved and fought, or any of the other combinations of love and pain a relationship can produce. Perhaps I just haven't been in love.

Who knows.

Insomnia

I'm tired and I wish the worries of the day would not creep into my night. Would not make it hard to slip into rest. Would not make it so hard to be awake again.

In a related aside, the thought of a warm glass of milk before bed makes me want to hurl. Not only should milk never be warmed past the age of 1 or whenever you stop receiving nutrition from bottles, the thought of what my warm milk mouth would taste and smell like in the morning makes me want to run and brush my teeth again.

Sweet dreams or any dreams at all. I just want to sleep.