Michelle's Madness

Thanksgiving is upon us yet again. The feast always seems to be the main focus, so I try to remind myself to think of all the things in my life that I am thankful for.

I am thankful for my wonderful husband, who loves and understands me like no other. I can’t imagine my life without him and am thankful every day that I’m lucky enough to have him.

I am thankful for my sons. They are two of the brightest little spirits I have ever met and I am very lucky to be their mother. They are healthy, happy and smart little boys with vivid imaginations and I love watching them discover the world around them.

I am thankful for my family, with whom we plan to share our Thanksgiving feast. I am thankful for all the things they have done for us over the years, and that we have a loving family to spend the holidays with. I’m also thankful that our parents live close enough to us that the boys can have wonderful relationships with them all.

I am thankful for my job. I don’t always like it, and my early shift is both a blessing and a curse, but I am lucky to have gainful employment in this bad economy.

I am thankful for having a roof over my head. So many people don’t have basic necessities such as a home and I am thankful that we have the means to provide for our family, even if it is a struggle at times. Many people are worse off than we are on our worst day.

I am thankful for being healthy. Sure, I have to see my shrink and take my meds, but I am happy that I have no major health issues to speak of.

Maybe all that I am thankful for is a cliché, the things one is supposed to be thankful for. But it can be easy to take those things for granted, so it’s good to remind myself of all that I have, especially in this busy, stressful season.

Have you ever just been weary with life? Not depressed, just weary. Like, I’m weary of getting up, every single day, showering, shaving and doing my hair every single day. Weary of driving to and from work, every single day. Weary of making dinner, every single day. Lather, rinse, repeat. Every single day. It just feels tedious.

Maybe part of it is because I’ve been not liking my job lately. I hate the phones, hate them hate them hate them, and I don’t want to talk to people. Maybe part of it is my super early shift that’s got me so darn tired all the time. Maybe part of it is that I’m totally stuck in a rut when it comes to making dinner. It’s basically been narrowed down to 4 or 5 things that I know the boys will eat, so we have those every week. I need to make more chicken dishes and make them deal with it. I just feel so bad when they don’t end up eating much and I know they’re hungry. I know I can’t force them to eat what they don’t want, so I end up making something I know they’ll like.

My bright spot, that isn't tedious, is coming home every day and spending time wtih my family. Plus, next week Brian and I go on our anniversary trip and I’m so excited. I’m just trudging through the days until I get to the fun stuff. Actually, I do that Monday through Friday, until I get to the weekend, so I can live my personal life and be with my loved ones. Trudging through the days is no way to live. I need to find a way to make peace with my job and with my daily routine. Maybe then the tedium will disappear.

I'm at work on this lovely Sunday, just killing time until I get to go home. Stupid me volunteered to work overtime, and now I'm stuck working 6 days in a row. So I get it in my head that I want McDonald's for lunch, dammit, since it's easy and close, and what I really wanted was a sausage mcmuffin with egg. I was totally jonesing for one, along with a caramel iced coffee. So I went to McD's on my first break, since by my lunchtime they wouldn't be serving breakfast anymore. Oh my god it tasted so good! The mcmuffin was divine and the iced coffee was just what I needed to help perk me up. Well, after eating healthier for weeks, my body simply isn't used to eating such grease-laden treats. Now my head is spinning and I feel kind of nauseous. So fuck you McDonalds, for tasting so yummy but then wreaking havoc on my poor body. Now I remember why I avoid fast food in the first place.

Is it just me, or are people wussies? Why is it that the bitchiest and/or least approachable people are the ones who complain about someone else when they feel like that other person is rude or standoffish? And why am I usually that someone else? Seriously, I’m not completely unapproachable. But if you come over to get a status check on a project I’m completely engrossed in, be prepared for the straight, blunt answer. You want to know where I’m at, here ya go. What more do you want? Do I really need to sugarcoat things and make it all smell like roses so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of the hypocrites? Newsflash: I don’t do sugarcoated. Sorry, if you want that, go see someone who is completely into being PC so they don’t offend anyone. Or a politician. If you want to know where I am in the project, ask and I’ll tell you. I really don’t see what the issue is. Now bugger off!

Monday, back at work
Oh where did the weekend go?
Banging head on desk

When did I get old? Okay, so I’m not really old, I’m only 31, but sometimes I feel old, like when I’m skimming through a People or an Us magazine. I look at the stories, the scandals and the fashion and I wonder, “Who the hell is this person?” Seriously, who is Ashley Tisdale? I have no idea who Shenae Grimes and Taylor Momsen are. And Adrian Grenier? No clue who he is, but he’s fuck ugly. I read these names and see their pictures and just wonder why anyone gives a damn.

As I try to figure out what these random people could possibly be famous for I am reminded of the stereotype of parents hating their kids’ music and the phrase “If it’s too loud, you’re too old” or something of that nature. And I wonder, “Am I a real-life grown up now?” Well, maybe I am, but I still love Green Day, dammit!

I’ve been doing my 90 mile round trip commute for over 2 years, so I can do it in my sleep (but don’t worry, I won’t try that) so I’m used to crazies and traffic and whatnot and I don’t tend to freak out. But this morning I had one of the weirdest commute experiences. I’m not going to say it was the most terrifying, but it was pretty scary.



So I’m driving along on 99, which is still only 2 lanes at this point, minding my own business in the left lane, when the pickup truck in front of me suddenly starts pumping his brakes and slowing waaaaaay down, like from 70ish to 50ish. There was nobody in front of him, and I wasn’t anywhere near tailgating, so I have no idea why he did that. He then puts on his blinker to change to the right lane, gets halfway there then swerves violently back into the left lane. Seconds later he puts his blinker on again then changes lanes all the way, stays in the right lane for about 30 seconds (during which time I’m hanging back thinking that this dude is a total lunatic) then swerves back into the left lane again. Lather, rinse and repeat this whole scenario. Twice.

By this time I’m thinking this dude is either drunk or I offended his delicate sensibilities somehow. Finally he ends up in the right lane and is driving cool and I pass him because though he’s driving okay at the moment, he’s now doing about 55 behind a semi. I was hesitant to pass but there was someone behind me and I sure as hell didn’t want to get back behind this freak. So I pass and all seems well for about 30 seconds when he again violently whips into the left lane and comes up behind me with his foot to the floor, flashing his lights. I move into the right lane in front of the semi and the weirdo passes me, then swerves in front of me. He does his swervy driving for a while, and just when I’ve got my Bluetooth on to call CHP and report his ass, he swerves onto an exit and disappears. No point in calling the cops at that point; what would I tell them? “Hey, some guy was driving erratically and he exited at this exit and turned right?” Yeah, they’ll put a priority on that call.

The moral of the story is: Just because it’s 4:30 in the morning, that doesn’t mean your commute will be psycho-free. Because clearly this guy was fucking crazy.

How in the world can people enjoy being spun? Seriously. My stupid medications (legal prescription ones, in case you are wondering) are making me feel all spun and woohoo and shit and it sucks. I feel all weird and restless and crawly. Blah! I can’t think straight and just existing is difficult. And I’m not freakin’ productive at all. So there’s no way I’m going to get a block of wood and whittle it down to a baseball bat or organize a collection of dust bunnies or try to build an ark out of Legos. And I won’t be deciding anytime soon that my washing machine looks better on the front lawn, or that my house should have cat ears on the roof.

I miss reading. I have always loved to read, but now I either lack the time or the attention span. When I do have the time, I never know what to read because I never have time to search for books, either to buy or to get from the library.

How could I lose touch with this simple pleasure? I learned to read super early, like when I was 2. I don’t remember a time in my life when I could not read. In fact, I can’t remember an adult reading to me at all because once I learned to read it was basically just left to me to entertain myself with books. No stories read to me before bed, at least not that I can remember. I also skipped part of kindergarten because of my literacy. Apparently I was running around and doing somersaults during class and I was labeled as a discipline problem (nowadays, I’d be labeled ADHD and force-fed drugs). Finally my parents asked what we were learning and the teacher informed them, “We are learning the alphabet, one letter per week. We are up to R”, or some such nonsense. They told the teacher to give me a book. It turns out I was bored and already reading at a fourth grade level. In junior high, I would constantly get in trouble (in Language Arts class, no less) for reading my own books and not paying attention to the lessons. The difference between there, their and they’re… okay, check, got it, now leave me alone. In high school, when the class was taking turns reading a book aloud, I would get bored while some people struggled and I would read ahead. Then when it was my turn, I would be so far ahead that I had no clue where the rest of the class left off and I would get in trouble for not paying attention. I always hated when they would have us take turns reading aloud; I would get bored, and I prefer to read at my own pace. That’s not to say that I’m any better than the people who struggled; it’s just something I excelled at and didn’t need the extra assistance that some students required. Some people in my classes would talk about how uncool reading was; I’d just ignore them, book in hand. Reading was an escape. It was an adventure and way to stimulate my brain.

Even when I was out of school, I was always reading. I’ve always liked suspenseful books, but I’m not married to one particular genre. In fact, when asked what kind of books I prefer, I really can’t answer that question. One of my favorite books is “Icebound” by Dr. Jerri Nielsen, which is her account of the year she spent “wintering over” in the South Pole, where she discovered she had breast cancer. I also loved “I’m Eve”, about one woman’s multiple personality disorder, which is the basis for the movie “The Three Faces of Eve”. Another good one is “The Nanny Diaries”, which isn’t actually a true story, but is fiction based on the real-life experiences of two former New York nannies. But I wouldn’t say that I love the entire genre of memoirs, because there are some that are booooooring. “An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness” for instance, was pretty lame and repetitive. Since it’s a memoir of a bipolar woman (who also happens to be a psychiatrist) I thought I would be able to relate to it better, but it was a letdown in the same sense as “The Blair Witch Project”; it would build and build and there would be suspense and then… nothing. Totally anticlimactic.

Besides some memoirs and some suspense books, I also like the “chick lit” genre: some drama, humor and romance, but not over the top like a Harlequin Romance novel. These are fun “no-brainer” reads that are great for reading on vacation or a sick day. But I certainly don’t want to make that the staple of my reading material. I just don’t always have the attention span or brain power to process a heavy book like I used to, mostly from just having way too much on my plate on a daily basis, which is compounded by my unholy weekday waking hour. So when I go to the bookstore or the library, I generally have no clue where to even begin looking. Some books sound decent, but I always want to be really sure so I don’t waste my time on something that turns out to be lame. Of course, how will I know unless I try? I think the wanting to be absolutely sure about a book before committing is a throwback from hours spent standing in Barnes & Noble, trying to narrow down my choices and get the best options for my money; otherwise I would have always ended up spending a small fortune on books because there are so many that are interesting.

So, I need to get reading on a regular basis back into my life. Seriously. I need to make use of websites such as What Should I Read Next and reacquaint myself with the library. Intellectually I know that just because someone doesn’t read much it doesn’t mean they are dumb. But because reading was always such a big part of my life, I personally feel somewhat dumber for not reading books more often like I used to. Most days all my poor brain can handle is an article from Glamour or Reader’s Digest. Sometimes I can barely read that because of all the interruptions (my boys talk constantly during movies so about every other sentence I read is interrupted with chatter by a little person who expects some sort of response to a rhetorical statement). And I go to bed early (due to the aforementioned unholy waking hour) so I can’t spend a lot of time with a book in the evenings before bed, though I really ought to try.

Today I have started a new book called “Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure”, given to me by a friend at work (thanks Brook!). It is also a memoir, and though I’m only a couple of chapters in, I really like it so far. And I’m feeling inspired to find a book to read next. So, what should I read next?

...that when I finally have a day to myself, I end up just doing nothing? I have tons of stuff to do around the house, but of course I don't want to spend my day doing chores. But there are many projects and hobby-type stuff that I would like to do, and I dream about doing but never have time for, and then when I have time I just want to sit on my ass and do nothing.

Ah, the plight of the working mom.

FUCK!

The boys are at Camp Gramma's and Brian went to a friend's house last night to stay and watch the game today (his friend lives an hour away). So I've been alone since about 5 PM yesterday evening. I had all these things planned to do while I was alone: work on some play lists for my Zune, pick some pictures to have printed at Longs, do laundry, clean the kitchen, make some stuff for lunches this week and some chicken for salads, watch a movie, work out. Yeah, so much for plans. I loaded the dishwasher and threw in some laundry. I forced myself to work out this morning because I really need to get back on track after being sick. I am not at 100% yet, which was quickly realized when I was trying to do crunches and could barely manage 10 because I'm still so tired. I suppose I should really work on the food for the week. What I actually got done: watched a bunch of episodes of Untold Stories of the E.R. on TLC, plus a couple of movies, played on the computer for a while, and took a nice long nap. Hey, who the hell wants to actually do something when the kids are away and you have quiet time to yourself???