nevermind

i probably should've known but in my optimistic way i expected more. as it turns out, todd's other parent isn't quite as proud as i am of todd's confidence and sense of humor. it seems that the potential embarassment of having a son dressed as a girl outweighs his pride in having a son with balls enough to express himself in such a creative and courageous way.

disappointing.

i challenged him with the question as to whether or not a daughter who wanted to dress up as a football player would elicit the same reaction. i was told that wasn't comparable. (umm, really?)

so, my pride weekend is off to an auspicious start.

i ache for todd. not just because his halloween will be different than he planned it. that happens all the time. but because he's starting to see his father's limitations. i know that's part of life and i know we all go through it. but it's still sad to me, because i hate to hear the pain in his voice when he calls in fear of non-acceptance. fear realized.

we're about to get ready for the first pride party of the weekend. it's a party for women, really the only dance party of the weekend dedicated to the women. back when i partied more, i partied with the fags. i loved those weekends spent in the boy bars bouncing to an electronic beat but the annual women's dance party of pride was the highlight of the year.

i'm excited. haley is playing rolls on the snare drum as i write and my heart is racing in anticipation of a good time in store.

and i guess that's how it goes. that's how the scales balance, as my libran love would attest. on the one side, my oldest son's personal expression is squashed by fear and prejudice. and on the other side, i'm enjoying a weekend dedicated to the expression of diversity.

one step forward and one step back? disappointing indeed.

d: more forward steps.
b: todd's evolution exceeds his parents'.
g: more forward steps than back.

PRIDE

so todd is telling everyone that he's going as a werewolf for halloween. and that would be a great costume, of course. but the reality is that his costume is even better.

he and i have discussed halloween costumes for weeks now. we visited a store early in the season and did some window-shopping for ideas, but nothing caught his eye. i started to hear things like, 'do i have to dress up if i want to trick-or-treat?'

i should go ahead and note that yes, i am one of those candy-givers who requires a costume. no school clothes wearing kids on my doorstep, please. i'm paying to be entertained, for crying out loud.

so, i replied an emphatic, 'YES' to todd's plea for apathy.

last week, haley, the boys and i drove outside our normal suburban shopping zone (to another suburban shopping zone, of course) to visit the mack daddy of halloween stores. we were looking for bits and pieces, but of course wound up with much more. even luke, whose costume was entirely complete, identified a number of 'essential' additions, such as a bullet wound. essential.

but todd, amid hundreds of costumes found nothing. haley and i each offered to walk the aisles with him and he grudgingly agreed. half the costumes that haley picked out, todd had worn in a previous year. and the other half, he shrugged at, 'maybe...'

until she joked, 'you should go as a cheerleader! put your hair in pig-tails and go as a girl!' and todd immediately perked up and said, 'i'll do it! that's what i want!'

whew.. lots of options for that idea, at least. of course, he chose the most expensive one. (haley was helping him, after all. and we all know that libras have the most expensive taste. yes, the most.) but oh my goodness, it's so perfect.

if it weren't for his bony knees and hairy legs, he may have parents thinking he's the one not in costume!

the day after we bought the costume todd and i got to spend a lot of time together, alone. and he told me that he's more comfortable around gay people than straight people. adults at least. he's tuned up his gaydar and is constantly demonstrating it to me.

earlier this year he hesitated about including that his mom is gay in his autobiography for english class. when the teacher gave him a perfect grade and asked if she could hang it in the hallway, i asked him what he had decided. he said, 'i put it in there. i'm not worried about it. i want her to put it up.' he says his friends all know anyway and they don't care.

and so, halloween night.. my 12 year old son is dressing up in a pink and white cheerleader uniform and delivering a little token of atlanta's pride celebration to the remote suburbs of dacula.

i couldn't be prouder.

d: open doors and candy bowls for my sweet son.
b: we have an open and accepting home.
g: todd's open mind and open expression.

waking

today i made my debut at the sleep center and met a hilarious, older south african doctor. it must be fun to wake people up, as he was well past the age of retirement, but obviously enjoys what's doing enough to stick around.

and let me tell you, i'm wide awake today. after answering no less than a dozen pages of questions about my sleep and wakefulness and a lengthy conversation, dr. south-africa diagnosed me with narcolepsy. it seems that what i'd deemed as poor management of my carb balance or a constant punishment for sleeping 6 or 7 hours instead of 8 really turns out to be something clinical.

i'm queued up for a sleep study, where i get to sleep all night and all day for the people behind the glass. i'm not sure how i'll manage to go to bed at 11, hours before my bedtime, and then spend the entire next day taking 20 minute naps. maybe i'll bring a jump rope.

but i digress. today, i'm awake. dr. south-africa gave me samples of a medicine designed for wakefulness. i took half a pill this morning and an hour or so later, i woke up. i mean, really woke up.

[sidenote: this medicine is not an amphetamine or ghb. those are second and third-line treatment options and clearly i'm on my first.]

it feels sort of like too much coffee, though no racing heart. and sort of like coke, though i've had a side-effect headache, so it's decidedly less blissful. i felt like talking a lot - more than usual, if you can believe that; and i had lots of energy to get things done. so, sort of like an amphetamine but without the perk of appetite suppression?

but the best bit of all is that on my commute home.. without the benefit of great music or my cell phone, i was wide awake. i found myself noticing things that i don't usually. like the other cars. new businesses. billboards. (who is the cake boss anyway? a new tv show?) and when i got home, to get ready for the gym, when i'd usually be overcome with sleepiness and need a 15 minute crash; i loaded up clothes for goodwill. (two bags delivered and five more in my car, for the record.)

i remember when i was 12 years old and went to the eye doctor for the first time. after the rigmarole of '1 or 2?', '3 or 4?', 'better here.. or here?', i remember the shock i felt when the doctor moved the lenses away and said 'this is how you've been seeing things'.

'and this is how you'll see them now.'

i've had a similar sensation today. i can't really imagine what it will be like to be awake all the time. lifting the veil of continual sleepiness. removing the need to occupy my hands, eyes and mouth at all times to stay awake. having the ability to sit still and just be. but today i got a glimpse of it.

i've been reading a couple of books about the mind-body connection and diseases as expressions of what's happening in our psyches. it makes me wonder why this is in my body. why am i suddenly sleeping? when did it start and from what was i escaping? a characteristic of narcolepsy that i have experienced is immediate vivid dreams. often before i'm fully asleep or fully awake. why are these dreams penetrating my waking hours? why are they so close to the surface?

and so on.

i briefly took anxiety medicine a number of years ago. and at a couple of intervals in my life i've taken preventative headache medicine to mitigate daily tension headaches. in both of those cases i identified inner medicine for the pains and let the prescriptions fall by the wayside.

so for the time being, i'm going to try this wakefulness medicine. i'm going to take advantage of my new awareness. i'm going to focus my attention on what it is i'm trying to sleep through. and when i identify that, i will be awake without dr. south-africa's interventions. of that i am certain.

d: wakeful attention on my intentions.
b: i have the power to heal this.
g: i'm awake.

promised

well, i survived the 24 hour pee collection. and i think it was probably the driest 24 hours of my life. every sip of water was carefully considered. and though i spent about half my day away from home, i did not grace the restroom of any destination - which included the gym, the farmer's market, a tennis court and some stops in between - because this seemed a procedure best conducted in the privacy of my home bathroom. i fully expect the cortisol test to come back fine and the doctor to be primarily concerned with my water intake.

but anyway, tonight i'm sitting on my couch in varying degrees of undress and costume-dress while haley sews and repairs and revamps our halloween costumes and a stack of jeans that needed hemming. and i really can't think of a single burning desire to write about.

today at costco, i found cesar millan's new book on puppies. it's called 'how to raise the perfect dog', which i definitely have, so i thought i'd better study up. speaking of which, my perfect puppy missed me so much while i was in the grocery store for 20 minutes that when i returned to her and luke in the car, she climbed me like a ladder and perched on my shoulder for the ride home.

haley and i had a heart to heart today in which i promised her i'd stop using my cell phone's computer and texting capacity when my car is in motion. despite my protests that it's the only thing keeping me awake, her arguments about the inherent danger of driving all the way home and admitting i never really saw the road won out. she said, 'find something else to keep you awake.'

i think this will do it.

d: a parrot costume for mega's mega-ween.
b: i keep my promises.. which means...
g: i'll be much safer in traffic, from here on out. (and slower to respond to emails. sorry in advance.)

patience

so i read a book about metabolism and the hormones that control it. and then i started wondering if my acknowledged whacked out hormones have been impacting my metabolism as well.. and so, i figured while i'm still in the category of cobra-insured, i'd make an appointment with an endocrinologist and see what i can learn about my body.

i'm very healthy, i know that. it's something i can put in all three categories of dbg in fact. so, though i have some reasons for being curious about what's going on, i don't have any significant issues to correct. or none that affect my life on a daily basis, at least. but in the endless pursuit of knowledge, i happily handed over 8 vials of blood from my left arm.

and then they handed me a red biohazard jug. and informed me they wanted a 24-hour sample of urine.

umm. ok. just when i thought this process would be most difficult in the waiting. because truly, waiting is one of the hardest things for me.

last night when i was refreshing on the law of attraction, i was reminded that waiting periods are really allowing periods. allowing the universe to manifest that which my attention is focused on and allowing it to come to me in ways i'm too narrow to imagine myself.

so, while my test results from the endocrinologist are low on the list of things i'm allowing as i don't expect much; there are other things that are weighing heavily on me these days. things i desire and am impatient for.

i will allow these desires to come to me. i will expect these desires to manifest. i will center myself in abundance and receive.

and next time i will think twice about medical exploration when a take-home lab test is involved.

d: patience and positivity in my allowing.
b: i'm a master manifester.
g: and i'm an infrequent urinator.

possibility

newsflash: i found my perfume! lost-tally is down to 1 item. that's right - only 1 item. and i'm quite certain, well, sort of certain, that it will still turn up. (though as the smallest item.. and one that went missing when i was doing back to back traveling, the odds are slimmer, i do admit.)

anything is possible.

today a drain set down on top of my energy and eventually haley's too. i tried not to be too burdened by figuring it out, i just observed it.. and it abated. or perhaps it relocated from me to her. it was quite nearly visible though and i wanted to stick a wad of silly putty in the end of the siphon, but couldn't get my hands on an egg big enough.

sometimes it seems that despite our best efforts at attracting that which we want and need... we just get the opposite. i pulled a favorite book, the law of attraction, out from under a stack of others and i'm going to speed-reread it. i think i need a crash course this weekend because my patience has been sucked down the aforementioned drain and if the universe really does love speed, now is the time to show me.

anything is possible.

tonight i cleaned out my closet. a pile of clothes the size of a small recliner is sitting in my bathroom floor, waiting to go to goodwill. this time i'm really taking it. and i suppose on the way to the car, i should pick up the three (or maybe more?) industrial size trashbags of give-away clothes in the closet under the stairs. too often my clean-outs simply result in a relocation.

maybe that's what happened today. energy is contagious. so it makes sense that the evaporation of it would be too. or maybe the low pressure system that's descended on atlanta is having a similar effect on us.

anything is possible.

today at the gym we decided to switch up an exercise.. use a barbell instead of two dumbbells. haley reached for the 40 and i picked up the 30. (less than we'd usually use, but we were gauging the difference before increasing, right?) after completing a set of walking lunges that felt like a mile each way, we opted for dumbbells.

haley put her bar up. and i stood there looking at the rack and wondering how the hell i'd get the bar off my shoulders. i'd had a hard enough time getting it up there. of course, haley rescued me and when she put it on the rack she said, 'how much was that bar?' i replied, '30 pounds.' and she said, 'uh no..' and checked the label on the end... 'it's 60!' the weight sticker was missing from the end i looked at and the weight was misplaced in the 30 slot. haley said, 'that shows you how much of it is mind over matter, i guess.' tonight my legs feel like cement.

anything is possible.

i've picked up a lot of bars that i thought were 30 but turned out to be 60, when i really think about it. nothing is quite as you expect it to be and when you drop that weight off, you're often surprised to see how heavy it really was.

d: attachment to the possibilities.
b: i can carry more than i think i can.
g: lost-tally nearly to zero!

nap

today my phone rang and it was enterprise. not the enterprise, but enterprise, the car rental people. to my utter amazement a full 5 days after i returned my econo-box rental they called and said they found my workout journal. i'd called to ask if it was, by chance, in a garbage can there, on monday. i had little hope that a spiral bound index card notepad would warrant the lost and found, but i gave it a shot. they didn't have it. until today. simply amazing. i don't often name names but i have to give credit where credit's due and those folks at enterprise in duluth are due.

now the lost-tally is down to my precious earrings and my favorite perfume. i'm still holding out hope on both items.

but that's not really what i want to write about.

today i saw a doctor that suggested i may have narcolepsy. i'm off to the sleep center next week for a consultation. i think i laughed out loud when he brought it up and said something like, 'oh, i just figured that happened because of too many carbs at lunch or something..' but maybe not.

here i was thinking that my ability to fall asleep before the plane is fully boarded or before the credits roll or before i am fully home was a special super-power. but maybe not.

i'm not sure if it relates to my forgetfulness. in fact, i'm fairly certain it doesn't, as i've been dozing off at any available minute for at least the past 10 years and forgetting things for only the past 10 weeks. but regardless, it is something amusing to consider. i told the doctor i wasn't keen on taking medication for it, even if it qualify for the diagnosis. but i will take any special napping provisions i can get for work. oh yes, sign me up for those.

before i moved into the office building i currently work out of, our offices had a 'quiet room' with a recliner and dim lights. i made a daily, and sometimes multiple daily, visits there to take naps. not that i wasn't resting at night, but those catnaps were essential.

when i moved to the new building, i was tremendously disappointed to find no quiet room. however, we do have a supply closet. with a key lock. and only one key. so i figured if i went in, with the key, and napped on the floor, nobody could come in and wake me. sorry, there's no punchline. it did work. although i must say the office floor is a far cry from a recliner.

so, yes, sign me up for the special sleep provisions. but no thanks to the amphetamines or the ghb. (yes, both are lines of treatment for narcolepsy. go figure, there's a rave at the sleep center. vicki is spinning. who knew??)

d: take the lost-tally down to zero.
b: insomnia isn't in my vocabulary.
g: working at home allows for naps as needed.

panic

so, by now i think i should be fairly used to this new way of life where i can't find shit or remember shit. but i'm not. or maybe i expected it to pass when my hormones swang back the other way. sadly, that hasn't been the case.

most recent losses are the perfume i wear every day - and never move off my dresser. and a notebook i very carefully transcribed my workouts into, just last week. and then the next day - gone.

poof.

vanished.

maybe it's in the rental car i drove while my mustang was being drained? maybe it's in the vortex that's eaten the rest of my things over the past couple of months? i've even contemplated if the boys had the cahoonas to try and orchestrate this grand staging of my memory loss. (i decided they don't. or even if they did, they haven't, because they aren't getting enough - or maybe any - glee from my misery.)

and then i had a slight reprieve from the losses. (only two things in a week, that's a reprieve by my standards.) but every time i found myself sitting in traffic, my gas gauge would be resting on E. every time.

there are three things that immediately set off my panic button:

1. losing things
2. rushing to beat a clock
3. my gas gauge on E*

when those three things occur together they create the perfect storm. (and that's happened many times lately.) but any one of them can send me off the deep end, never mind combining them.

so, for the past month or more i've found myself living in this state of panic and it's exhausting me.

i don't know what to learn from it. i don't know what to do to resolve it. (i did fill my gas tank this evening, before the light came on. so maybe that's a start?)

i just don't know.

d: my brain back. please?
b: though the devil is in the details, the big picture is feeling very good.
g: i fall asleep easily.

*background note: this is a new addition to my panic list, added when i got my current vehicle. prior to this car, i was pretty comfortable running the tank until the red arrow was a centimeter or so below E. but i learned in the first month i owned this car that i don't have that luxury. the arrow hits E and i'll be on the side of the road. there's no reserve. not even a hair past the line.

megaween

it's two weeks till halloween, which coincidentally is pride weekend here in atlanta. with that in mind, haley and i are hard at work constructing (read: brainstorming) the perfect costumes. because we will be in attendance at the "it" parties of the weekend. (wherever they may be. i'm sure our invitations are in the mail, i'm sure of it.)

and considering how much deliberation goes into any outfits we put together, you must understand the import of an event like halloween and pride on the same night!

mega on the other hand is wearing her new fall wardrobe with pride, including a cape.

d: a costume as amazing as my company.
b: my costume will be homemade!
g: a four day, fall weekend with haley off work, a huge festival AND halloween: megaween!

flood

so, yes, it's officially the rainy season here in atlanta. we're on what, our third continuous week of rain? something like that. and while my car is professionally dried out, to the tune of $1000 give or take, i just noticed a leak in luke's bedroom ceiling.

when it rains, it pours? cliche, but umm...

yesterday i had one of those days.. i failed at every role in my life. truly. homeowner, carowner, mother, trainer, trainee, girlfriend, writer, budgeter, contractor and general coping skills, as well. haley pointed out that i was doing fine with pet-owner. (what a relief.)

but after that little joke, she said something that really rang true. (because i wasn't even buying the pet-owner success since my cats act so neglected when i see them) she said, 'so what?'

and i like that. i have plenty of days where i feel on top of the world. where everything is falling in line and basically i rock. so why can't i have a day where i suck? sometimes things just don't fit together and that should be ok too.

i can blame it on hormones, and that sort of makes it bearable, but then again when i'm having a full blown panic in my car because the gas gauge is on E, there are no stations to be seen, and i'm in gridlock for two hours straight - the 'reason' doesn't abate the hysteria.

but that was yesterday. and today i'm ok. i'm driving a tiny econo-box until my car is de-molded. and i'm putting the roof leak in the 'deal with it in the springtime' category, provided the monsoons roll on out of here as predicted. and i think that in most other categories i'm on the positive side of middle today.

or at least on the way up. after all, the sun is coming out tomorrow and sticking around through the weekend. at which point i'll have my car back. a new fall scarf.

and the top down.

d: sun, shine down on me.
b: i still love having a convertible and plan to keep it after it's paid for, provided the floorboard doesn't rust out.
g: on the other side of the flood, emotionally at least.

motherload

so, remember when i wrote that my forgetfulness didn't cost me my car yet? and how grateful i was for that? well, umm...

this morning i was cuddled up with mega, deep under my comforter and blanket listening to the rain.. mostly asleep. i was semi-planning my morning, thinking it's going to rain all week and i needed to go get a taillight fixed and that i'd check petsmart for a rain coat for mega, because she really hates the rain. really. and then..

OH MY GOD

i jumped out of bed, grabbed my robe and frantically ran around downstairs, without glasses or contacts, searching by feel for my car keys. ran out the front door. and was greeted by 4", and that's a conservative estimate, of rainwater in the floorboard of my car.

yes, i left the top down. (mistake number 1) and i left it in the drive-way. (mistake number 2) of course neither would be a mistake without the other.. but... alas.. i hit the mother load of convertible mishaps.

so today i tried everything i could think of to remove the monsoon that hit my car. i bailed, yes bailed, out umpteen buckets of water.. and then shop-vac'ed another 5 gallons or so. and then i drove around and when the water moved, i did it all again.

my favorite part though is the leather seats. they may appear watertight. oh yes, 'they clean up well' the salesman says. but what he leaves out is how they trap water like a whoopee cushion. it goes in and leaves not a trace, but oh the embarrassing wet spot when it comes out.

sigh

i've left it with a fan on it and a prayer that i'll wake up tomorrow and it will be only monday morning. my car dry and unflooded in the garage.

d: my "mold-tang" to be simply a dream
b: my sense of humor was not flooded with my car
g: it's fully operational - even the stereo. whew...

mail

sometimes i try to remember before we had instant written communication, such as e-mail and text messaging. never mind my first office jobs where the fax machine was the most critical piece of equipment and i left with black fingertips from sheets of carbon paper, never mind those memories - i'm referring to personal communication.

i do remember my first cell phone, but i don't remember my first text. (the two were far, far apart.) and i do remember my first email account; it's the one that daily receives over a hundred spam items, still to this day. (not the one i use for personal communication, obviously.)

even after i opened that account though, in '93 i think, i was a letter writer. a paper and pencil type of letter writer. i wrote letters that covered sheets and sheets of notebook paper - (stationary size sheets are a joke) - front and back. and i wrote them weekly to my best friend from college, when i left montreat. the volumes that they could fill are boggling; and probably quite tedious, but the stamps were always carefully selected and the words laboriously chosen.

the transition from paper to email never really worked for me. though i use email for personal communication, it's never felt truly personal and as such, i've only rarely used it in a significant way. and those intervals were short lived.

so, predictably the transition from a long-hand paper letter writing to text messaging of 160 characters or less (as the early phones stipulated) was painful and nearly impossible for me. think of john irving suddenly restricted to haiku. yep. and i simply didn't do it much until that restriction loosened.

i remember the glee i felt when phones could send your lengthy text in multiple messages - finally i could get a whole thought out! of course, the order in which the text fragments arrived was anybody's guess. but i didn't mind that as i do love a good puzzle. i'd try to limit myself to a two, or at worst three, part message.

and that brings me to now.. when i can type on ad infinitum and my iphone won't tell me to stop or inform me of how many messages it's turning into. and frankly i don't care.. i've abandoned all the handy text shorthand i've accumulated over the years (and where i try to use it, the iphone's 'brain' converts it to a word. occasionally the one i want.) and i've come to rely on text messaging as my primary form of communication with some people.

but although i've surrendered my pencil and paper and accepted electronic communication's place in my life, i find myself nostalgic for long-hand at times. i find myself missing the texture of paper and the hand writing study and the smell of where it came from and where it passed through... and quite simply i find myself missing the expression it permitted and contained.

but.. maybe there's a silver lining. i am sure there is. environmentally friendly. that's it. and think of all the time i've freed up. those multi-page handwritten letters took hours. and blogging - there's a writing advent of the 21st century.

tonight i'm nostalgic for sharpened pencils; but as i look around my house i see more computers than pointed lead.. and more cell phones than envelopes. and still i write. still i am long-hand in a shorthand world.

d: a letter in the mail
b: i'll write back, i promise!
g: though the medium evolves, words remain steady.

imagine

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.

-imagine by john lennon

'imagine' has always been one of my favorite songs.. or at least since i was a teen when i swiped some beatles albums from my dad. i remember going to see a beatles cover band and thinking they hung the moon.

before i fell in love with 'imagine' my favorite inherited music from mom or dad's collection was 'you're no good' by linda ronstadt. i picked that one because it had a little red heart on the spine of the album cover.

the juxtaposition of those two songs in the music biography of my life is curious, i admit. i think 'imagine' was an upgrade though, at least in messaging.

speaking of musical retrospectives, tonight todd and i went to see 'fame'. i must be hormonal because i was teary-eyed from opening credits to closing credits. and although i'm going to credit my dreamer status; really, there's no other logical justification.

i am a dreamer. and when i dream, i attach my heart to it. it's more than a mind-wandering type of moment for me.. i can totally leave my current reality when i'm lost in a dream. (i know it sounds like denial.. but really this is the glass-half-full way to look at it.)

but then i have moments where reality crashes in and i have to refocus myself. (on the dream, i mean.) and 'fame' was a bit like that too, i guess.

dreamers dreaming, dreamers crashing, dreamers dreaming again.

sign me up, i have the imagination to support it.

d: living the dream.
b: living the dream!
g: living the dream...

swimming

tonight i turned over an old pill bottle labeled as muscle relaxers and found two different types of pills in the bottom. one was labeled as an over-the-counter pill and the other was presumably the original prescription. it was cut in half (maybe i only took half last time?) but there were two halves left. since i've totally whacked my back this week, i figured 'what the hell' and took both halves. unfortunately, i've whittled my pain med supply down to nothing more than midol, so now i'm loose as a goose and still in crazy pain.

back pain is the worst in my opinion. nothing happens that you don't feel it. no movement, no breath, no position sitting or laying. and to make matters worse, i can't identify a single cause.. more like a cumulative effect of several things i suppose. oh well. all that to say, writing on (a double dose?) of muscle relaxers is its own special challenge.

bouncing from one thought to another, i can't settle on just one to write about. rather than fight it, i'll just babble on. today felt like two days in one. first a day spent with todd. and then a day (evening?) spent with luke. it's a gift to have so much of this long weekend with the boys individually, owing to their emerging social lives, and rather than doubly exhausting, i'm finding it doubly fun.

tonight luke ate twice as much food as i did. he has the appetite of a person twice his age. and then he told me that even when he's an adult he wants to sleep in a bunk bed. he is still only 10 after all.

he and i cleaned his room. and i do mean cleaned. it was a tribute to the local landfill in there, the floor entirely buried and collections upon collections piled on every surface. i want to rearrange and redecorate it; but probably best done when he's away. he loves the bunk beds turned loft - with desks and book cases below.. and i'm thinking of doing it myself to his current set. remove the fourth side from the bottom bunk and ta-da! loft! (better wait till the muscle relaxers wear off to make that decision.)

yesterday i bought a scratch off lottery ticket. my first one in a couple of weeks for no reason in particular. won $50. bought two mega millions tickets too. standing by for the drawing. i'm the luckiest person i know. i have high hopes.

i have the fan in my room turned on high, because i refuse to close all the windows in the house when it's supposed to drop to 60 tonight. but, for the record, it's hot in here. i'm stumped by this weather. i thought fall was here... i even let haley talk me into a hoodie for mega (i know, i know.) and now it's too hot to wear it.

oh wow.. i need to go to bed. head is swimming and back is perhaps even worse - i blame the soft couch.

d: pain free when i wake
b: i'm lucky, lucky, lucky.
g: double time with the boys was doubly fulfilling

libra

today my favorite libran celebrates a birthday. i'm not superstitious at all, but i do buy into the astrological sign traits. i've just seen them played out in too many people to not believe they have some credibility.

that being said, before i met haley i didn't know any other libras. and when i started reading about them and their scales of justice and balance i didn't really know what that would look like. as it turns out, where some people may call them fickle, i find my libra to be steady. it seems like the scales always have a way of balancing.

and today as i spend most of my day with haley, painting her stairs in between work emails and calls, i am taking note of the balance she's brought to my life. as a pisces, i don't generally do that very well. i ebb and flow and rarely stay still long enough to feel the calm; but in many ways i've learned a new sense of balance over the past eight months.

my home is now both my responsibility and my choice. my days are both work and play. my time is spent in town and out of town...going out and chilling out...talking and listening...reading and writing... family time and adult time.. happy time and umm, more happy time.

i think perhaps the unbelievable joy and ease with which i find myself now living, ie 'happy time', is in balance to the pain and difficulty i lived in once.. self-inflicted then and self-manifested now; for both i take ownership.

today i read a quote that i like..

If you are willing to do only what's easy, life will be hard.
But if you are willing to do what's hard, life will be easy.
-t. harv eker

it lies in direct opposition to a motto i've heard often spoken by people i love, 'everything is always so hard,' and i think this quote is absolutely true. changing my willingness, openness, has changed my life.

d: open to receive
b: living is easy..
g: my libra that taught me about balance.

here

on the way to work today, a landscaping truck passed me. i probably see a dozen trucks with company names, slogans and phone numbers for various businesses every single day and very few catch my eye. but this truck's tagline really made an impact on me.

"We actually show up!" it said on the rear window, in white letters.

hmm. is that really a calling card? i wondered. and yet, i've hired landscapers, who didn't show up. i've waited hours and hours for cable servicemen, who didn't show up. i've waited for furniture deliveries, that didn't show up.

and so maybe it is a calling card, i figured. at least among home service tradesmen.

this morning i got up early, after not enough sleep, leaving haley warm and cuddly in the bed.. to get to a meeting at the office. it was a meeting of only four people; but an important meeting. two of us are contractors; setting our own schedules and in the office when needed. the other two people are full time employees and though both have busy travel schedules; they are office-based.

both accepted the meeting invites. neither showed up. (nor canceled, incidentally.)

apparently this is an epidemic among white collar as well as blue.

annoying.

possible new tagline for dbgfitness: i show up.

d: accountability.
b: "here", present and accounted for.
g: billable hours.

found

tonight i found my watch. it's been gone for 5 days or more. but today i had a niggling feeling that i'd find it soon. i even said to haley, 'i wonder when i'm going to find my watch.' and she said, 'maybe you need a new one.' but, although i am happily ushering out the old when appropriate, i sort of knew this particular item's loss was more of a parable than a literal directive.

when my watch was missing, i wore my heart rate monitor as a watch. typically i only put it on for the gym or tennis.. but for almost the past week i've worn it around the clock. and, though perhaps a fashion faux pas in its pastel pink, it's served as a visible reminder of where i want to focus my attention and intention. an effective visible reminder, i might add.

just a week or so ago i said that i was frustrated because though obviously i'm a marketer, i haven't done any marketing for myself. and i felt stalled. haley reassured me that it's a matter of time.. and pointed out what i had done.. and for a minute there it soothed me. but i still had that feeling that there was something i should be, could be doing and i wasn't.

sort of like the laundry. or the grocery shopping.

oh wait, no, nothing like that. more like bulbs that are sitting in the freezer waiting to be planted and a beautiful crisp fall day.

so over the past five days - while forced to style around a pink plastic watch, and missing my silver kenneth cole timepiece - i've found my mind absorbed with marketing ideas for my fitness business.

and not just ideas swimming around, but ideas that have woken me up at night. ideas that have me sending myself emails. ideas that have taken me to the office supply store twice in five days. ideas that have me burning out my printer. ideas that have me playing mailman in a targeted neighborhood close to mine. ideas that have me excited and manifesting opportunity and income.

i don't believe it's any sort of coincidence that only hours after i complete my first real marketing efforts for myself, i find my old watch. but i believe i'll keep wearing my pink polar, and leave the kenneth cole on the dresser. it seems to be good for business.

d: may the phone start ringing!
b: 200 more households know about dbgfitness today than yesterday.
g: no need to replace my watch.. another ten years will be just fine.

forget

i've been on a radical streak of losing things and forgetting things lately. i generally am the go-to 'find it' person, so this has me wondering if i've officially hit the wall or if someone slipped something into my drink. er, all my drinks, i guess.

for example, in the past month i've lost both my watch and my everyday earrings - both of which i've had for years. (nearly ten years for the watch!) i've forgotten my car keys, including my spares, in town at haley's. i've left my driver's license and check card at home - at least twice in the past month. i've left my atm card in a machine and driven off. (only to have it both stolen and abused. that'll teach me, eh?) and this weekend, i even left half of the clothes i'd set out to pack for haley's, at home. yes, i forgot my clothes.

but perhaps the icing on the cake was yesterday when mega and i parked on a dirt road in ormewood park and left the car to go for a run. the top was down, so i carefully put my purse, camera, and car keys in the trunk. i removed the door remote to get back into the trunk, attached it to the leash, and jogged off down the street. when we returned to the car, i was only half-surprised to see that i'd left the trunk wide open.

yes, with the keys in plain view. yes, with my purse in plain view.

only half-surprised because this new phase of my memory, or lack thereof, is starting to feel normal. it's a little adventure. everywhere i go, i can feel relatively certain i'll be missing something essential. and then i have to hope the trusty MacGyver gene shows up.

last night i asked haley what she thought it meant. i feel certain there's something either to blame or to learn from this absenteeism of my temporal lobe. she said, 'maybe it's mega? she is quite distracting...'

but i don't think she's to blame. or rather, even if she is, i still think i'm queued up for a lesson and bound to keep losing things until i take heed. so today it occurred to me that perhaps losing these things that i consider so essential is meant to prove just the opposite. in much the same way that i became less and less attached to my old job in the months preceding my lay-off, perhaps this is a demonstration that my attachment to the old is best set aside.

haley and i are regulars at a yogurt shop in the highlands. we actually have line items in our budgets for near daily trips to yoforia. mega loves the plain yogurt and i credit it with her healthy spaniel ears. every day that we're there we sit on the restaurant's little orange stools, on their sidewalk patio, and watch the cars and people stroll by.

yesterday when we left the shop and looked for a place to sit everything was taken. but across the street there were two empty gliders in front of a restaurant we've been wanting to try. so, for the first time ever, we crossed the street. as we ate our yogurt, we watched people and cars go by...down the same road we watch almost every day.

but it looked different. from across the street, the perspective was different. more colorful. busier. the building cast a shadow on our seat and the sun illuminated the glass-front shops across.

different is good. a new perspective is good.

i've been reading a book over the past couple of weeks about a new perspective. i've forced myself to read it slowly; only a chapter or so a day; because i want to incorporate the principles. haley and i are changing our blueprints, so to speak, in the area this book speaks to. and so, when we sat across from our usual perch, and enjoyed our simple indulgence, we committed to crossing the street in as many ways as possible. looking at things from a different viewpoint as oft as possible.

i believe that my recent losses and forgetting'isms are perhaps part of this exercise. i believe they are meant to be reminders that i'm on a mission to forget some misguided ideas and let go of some habits from the past. i do believe this.

and so as i forget, i'm reminded.

d: remember to forget.
b: i crossed the street.
g: my car was spared in this education.