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i don't live here anymore. come to happinest: my new home.

come over!

i have moved to my new happinest. i hope you'll drop by for a visit.

something new is coming

okay, i officially have something new in the works (no, it won't pay me any money and no, it's not the book-length project i *should* be working on). anyway, very soon. i will keep you posted.

last day to enter the mama focus photo contest too! don't forget.

waiting for the lightbulb

well, i'm still waiting for some sort of inspiration for a new blog to drop down in my lap. and you know what that's like? when you go looking for it, it eludes you at every turn. however, when you drive there and back for thanksgiving, meaning from here to san diego with two kids and one of them, the one who eats more food, starts barfing in the backseat in the middle of l.a., you never think it's going to inspire you. and then it does...

poor dear, he said his tum hurt way back in the middle of nowhere on the five. we stopped. nothing came. we drove on. we stopped for lunch right before the grapevine. in the middle of l.a. and approximately right about the time the lunch hit the not-happy tum, barf happened. ed and i were a frantic mess of "it's okay, it's okay, you're okay, just hold on, just hold on, you're okay" madness in the front seat while we figured out how to get off the highway.

the smell was creeping forward. windows were buzzing down quickly.

so we pull over somewhere in the middle of l.a. ed's being a trooper, going all in and lifting the poor soaked kid out of the car. i'm gulping air, hoping i don't throw up and make everything worse. and just when i think i'm going to lose it while carefully removing clyde's clothes on the small patch of grass (in the middle of l.a.!!!), clyde plops down and kicks around a little. with just a little light tussle, the freshest, prettiest aroma is released. turns out he's laying in a tiny field of fresh spearmint (in the middle of l.a.!!!).

it's a wondrous moment and we get through—thank you, dear spearmint. and i'm inspired by this amazing and happy little turn of events. i love when life happens like that. when it gives you pure magic.

i mean, what are the odds really? a bed of spearmint? in l.a.? right amidst a stomach-turning episode?

of course, that doesn't help me in my blog dilemma. so, alas, i must wait (and you, too). the right thing will come. the zing of peppermint will burst again just when i'm about to lose it.

it's that time of year again

so sing it with me.

hope you and your families have a wonderful and relaxing holiday. and if you're cooking, bless you. if you're cooking for a big crowd, bless you even more. and will you sit down already and eat something!? jeez louise! and no, there's nothing wrong with hiding one of those pies away for yourself. it's "one week's breakfast." it's called good planning.

i'll be taking a few days away from blogging in hopes of being inspired to blog some more.

dear friends

i still don't know what i'm going to do. about the blogging. or the not blogging after this blog ends next month. of course, you'll continue be able to find me here and here for now.

in any case, i'm compiling a list of my zygote friends so i can contact you if and when i start something new. or different. or i build a commune on which we all can, well, commune... so send your email address to me at sheri(at)mamazine.com. okay?

no, i'm not crying. it's just foggy and misty out here today.

friday madness

i have a hundred friday things to share, a million it seems, but you'll have to settle for this bulleted list of mad little things from the week. i'm going to feel so free when i finally get them all out...

• i found my keys! in the couch, of course. deep, deep in the couch on my 167th search there. and now, because they have been found, i stand again by my tried and true belief: "if something is lost, it is NOT in the trash (unless you know it's in the trash, you know?)."
• i made this soup yesterday. pretty yummy.
• there is a mini squirrel in my backyard that i love. not sure if it's a child, a teen, or just a mini, but he's so cute. yesterday, you should've seen him trying to eat an orange on my neighbor's steeped garage. off it rolled with him/her tumbling down along after. cutecutecute.
• as you may or may not know, i covet clotheslines (especially the cool one my swiss auntie has that's collapsible, on rollers, waist high, and fits a full load of laundry). anyway, i think they're pretty and they're eco-friendly. so i loved reading this piece by rebecca balcarcel and hearing this bit on npr about our right to bear clothesline (just imagine this country if THAT had been the second amendment).
• on writing:
  • i loved this post.
  • in this post, there is a wonderful quote about setting free your creative work (and your children, if you need to read that message in it too)
• i so love this sheep market (via abstract the day)
• i want this book and i wanted one of these calendars but was too late...:(
• i really want to catch a plane to austin and to see the d!ck monologues. i think it would be highly therapeutic. i need it for the times i come upon spam that says, "Get a visit from the big d!ck fairy!" plus, i'm still trying to get over that one poem from grad school when she read "he lowered me onto his c@$%...blah...blah..." sorry, i can't even partially spell that one out (pwadj will be very glad, as she was there to be traumatized by this too).
• only 14 more days to enter the mama focus photo contest! i want to see your pretty mama mugs (or fingers or elbows or whatever pretty part of you that you feel like sharing). go here to see the entries so far.
• and last but certainly not least, i do have some important news to share. i just got word this morning that the little zygote that could will be ending at the end of the year. clubmom is being wrapped up, and the company's attention will be turned to cafemom. that means all the clubmom blogs will end on clubmom (the bloggers may choose to independently move their blogs elsewhere, of course). i am sad. i have met so many wonderful people through this blog; however, i'm trying to roll with the universe on this one. although i'd probably stay here writing about the little zygote until the little zygote is 35 years old, i have kind of been feeling a little confined here. so this news is just giving me the kick in the pants i need to move on in some other capacity, still to be determined (another blog? magazines? novel? memoir? it could be anything! and the idea of anything is fun, right?). but for now, i'm still here. for a little while longer. so don't leave me yet...

is that it? is that everything i have to give you? i think so! i feel so much lighter.

and just knowing you're hear and you've been here—some of you for so long—reading me (and even clicking over and looking at my pretties from time to time), commenting, taking it all in and showing me how we're the same and that i'm not alone, that makes me feel so much more like i can fly away from here (you won't be far away, will you?).

if you need me, i'll be here

and by here, i mean here in this house, with two rambunctious boys, forever and ever because the keys to my everything have gone missing. they are nowhere to be found.

now either 37 is going to be a rough year (as in the most senile year yet) or i need to get my crap together. today, as i was gearing up to go visit a friend on the way to take the barfing cat to the vet (his office is right by her house), i went to leave the house and could not find my keys. this is after i had to email my friend and say "oh my god. TODAY is wednesday!" because on tuesday, which i thought was monday, i planned a trip to the farmer's market with her for wednesday, which i thought was still another day away. and i had to take the barfing cat in today, whatever day that is—which turns out was farmer's market wednesday—because the cat didn't stop barfing, and i'm tired of cleaning up tiny red puddles of fun all day every day.

[once, like 10 years ago, when this cat first starting her barfing thing, ed and i were young and wild and free and living in a dinky little studio in midtown. in the middle of the night, i heard the wretch-wretch-wretching and for whatever reason it is my instinct to leap out of bed at this sound. i guess to make sure she's not barfing on anything important. like back then, it would've been the cute floral green chair i found in a thrift store for $7. anyway, i leapt up and went running. running right into slippery kitty barfings and flew up and then fell down on the wood floor flat on my back. not unlike those cartoons when some poor soul slips on a banana peel. except in barf.]

so anyway, my friend and i instead planned a quick visit at her place since it was on my way to the vet. but the keys. nowhere to be found. i mean, i looked everywhere. and this was after i had to chase down the cat who saw the cat carrier and bolted. i had to pull out our bed and drag her out. so needless to say, i was sweating like a banshee BEFORE i knew the keys were missing.

i retrace my steps. they were last seen saturday afternoon when i came home with the boys from ed's aunt's house. i don't drive that car too much.

i call ed frantically in hopes he has seen my keys. but he has never seen my keys. unfortunately, i'm a chronic misplacer of keys, however, never to this extent. never for this long. it never means searching under beds, in five jacket's pockets, one purse, three sweatshirts, beneath couch cushions, in and around the car, and so on. they're usually just under something or somewhere not too weird. this time. they're gone. i call my friend to breathlessly tell her my key problem.

luckily ed is working in town today and comes home so i can take his car and still squeeze in a quick visit with my friend  where we enjoyed the deceptively delicious chocolate chip cookies with garbanzo beans (wow jessica seinfeld, they are good!). she offers to watch leo while i run to the vet for my $50 five-minute visit (thanks, m!).

i get the cat her shot, pick up leo, come home, and continue to search. in boxes of animals and legos and playdough parts. in the front seats of tonka trucks. under furniture (found several kinda gross bottles!), in drawers, on the floor of the closet.

clyde is even searching. we are offering to give him entire bag of leftover halloween candy at once if he finds the keys. we are looking everywhere a baby might put keys if he were playing with them. i even went as far as to go out. into the big garbage. and pull out the horribly moist last bag of garbage (need i remind you what kind of fluid-filled week it's been around here?) and search through it. holy god, the horror in that bag!

and since leo has been known to drag my keys about, i start saying to him, "keys? keys? show mommy the keys. keys?" he responds with some pointy finger stuff that means nothing to me. i think of that poor narrator in the dogs of babel, so desperate he was to know how and why his wife fell (or jumped) out of a tree in their backyard that he goes to great lengths and a sick underground dog-talking society party to try to get his dog to talk. to tell him what happened to his wife. and as much as the whole thing bugged me when i heard about her on oprah, i toyed with the idea of hunting down that baby interpreter woman. could i email her? could she help me help leo find my keys?

anyway, as of right now, they're gone. i don't have another set. so the rest is to be determined. the rest of my life, as a person who ever leaves home, that is.

but just so you know, if you need me, i am here (zooming in on all of clyde's flickr photos to see if i can see the %$#@ keys anywhere; i feel just like nancy drew!).

the real girl

every time my writing gets blocks, it's for the same reason. i have lost hold of who i am.

after five full days where i couldn't really think about much but the kids and workstuff and keeping dishes out of the sink and cat oozings off the floor, i spent the afternoon alone yesterday and went to see lars and the real girl, which was heartwarming and wonderful and just what i needed to get the brain synapses moving again (oh, that lars and his little community melted my heart!). good, well-written movies always do that for me.

of course, then comes the angst. because i always want more! more release of the brain-flowing, heartwarming good stuff. more writing, more reading, more submitting, more photo-taking, more inspiration, more completion, more contact, more long, leisurely walks and talks and play. less of the tedium of life (making money, making meals, doing dishes, cleaning cattish bodily fluids). and i don't know how to get there. i mean, does everyone feel that constant need for inspiration and release? even the non-creatives out there? i'm sure you do.

i wrote about this struggle before (ed's IN IT bigtime too). i think i actually touch on it a lot. this incessant need to create and complete and hold onto it. however, today i don't feel like i'm trapped by parenthood but by my own devices, which is even scarier. i'm trapped by my own fear and unfocused procrastination. or more realistically, trapped by my inability to see success in what i have and to hold the small things dear. to stop wanting MOREMOREMORE!

understand this. everything in the round blue world stuffed deep inside me would still never be enough.

last night, after the movie and most the bag of candied ginger and one of those "we're too busy and too poor to keep this ship afloat" tiffs with ed, i sat at my desk, in some momentary second of silence. i was having one of those "who am i? what is the meaning of life?" head-in-hands experiences. then i lifted my head up to stare out the back windows into the same old backyard. that yard that is always full of something new for me. every day something new to see.

and just then a hummingbird flew right up to the window. this is not rare. they flit about here and there. lots of birds do. however, it hovered right at eye level. right in front of the window. right in front of me. and i realized i was holding my breath. i took in its ruby red throat. our eyes met. held. stopped. he hung there so long it actually made me uncomfortable. probably due to the breathing i was not doing.

and then he was gone.

and i was left to wonder some things. why did i need to hold my breath? be still? make total contact (and so simple) with that little someone for that moment?

i kept thinking about what lars's brother gus said in the movie when lars asked him when he knew he was a man. gus said, "you grow up when you decide to do what's right and not just what's right for you. what's right for everybody. even when it hurts." and, of course, he means this in the most non-martyr, non-codependent way, and i agree. when i'm doing what's right for everybody is when i feel the best. but especially when i'm doing right by me within all that everybodyness.

i like to think of that hummingbird's visit as a little reminder about what's best for me. stop. be still. make contact (with the real girl inside me, with ed, with the boys, with nature, my friends and family). and then flit off into that same old weed-ridden backyard, which essentially will always be enough.

i know. i should've stopped there, but i couldn't let you think i actually bought that pat little ending. not for a second, my friends. the struggle to find my "enough" persists, sails, soars tonight. the struggle to identify and know what i need while i take care of other people's needs is always hard to pinpoint. on the good days, i get a little bright light glimpse. but mostly, it goes on and on and on...

thanks for reading. i'm off to drown my sorrows in, you may have guessed from that last line, a nice old listening of journey. "just a small town girl! living in a lonely world..." (join me; oh my god, steve, those pants...)

there. it doesn't really matter that i haven't solved anything. i feel better. don't you? good night.

hold onto that feel-ay-yee-yang! {hang-banging air guitar...}

when life is pissy, barfy, poopy, screechy, and leaky

this is day FIVE of ed being gone on a work trip, and really, honestly and sincerely, i am done running this household on my own. so on top of the fact that i'm a bit blocked in the writing department, i am feeling whiny, and guess what that means for you, loyal readers!? come, walk with me, sit with me, and listen to my long list of reasons that last night was godawful and has brought me here—to the very frazzled end of my rope. *warning* lots of bodily fluids (mostly kitty) involved.

some household background for you...

problem #1: 15-year old calico cat named celie. celie has chronic picky litterbox syndrome. i blame my mom for the eight months she cared for celie and meticulously cleaned her pooplets out on the hour while i nanny'd for my baby cousin in switzerland. well, problem #2 also posed a problem because it meant catbox sharing. anyway, celie regularly poops right outside the box—sometimes even when it's clean! always. yes, it drives us crazy. makes us dream of slipping prozac (or *cough* rat poison) into her niblets, but what can we really do? we've tried everything. really. so we just live with it and turn into bitter bitter pet owners. so recently we tried to switch to the "green" cat litter, and surprise! she doesn't like it. so now she has, at least five times, peed outside her box. now this i cannot live with, but for some reason i think i can make this cat adapt.

problem #2: 12-year old black cat named teacake. teacake has a chronic intestinal problem that means she starts endlessly barfing every six to nine months and requires a $50 shot of cortisone shot at the vet to stop. in recent years, she has also developed a hair-licking problem. periodically, she licks her hair off. until she is completely bald underneath. obviously this leads to giant hairballs and can throw her into a barfing episode. she also bites innocent cat-loving victims.

[i know what you're thinking. my poor, poor children... what are they going to develop living here? well, just cast those thoughts aside. that's what i do.]

problem #3: leaky studio roof. ed's studio garage has had some leaking issues for a few years. we dealt with our house roof two years ago and have been meaning to get to this problem too. well, we haven't. and yes, now he has coffee-roasting equipment out there, not to mention stacks of paintings, guitar equipment, and such. did i mention it rained all day and night?

problem #4: 4.5-year old named clyde who gets up and says "i can't sleep!" in the middle of the night. his baby brother leo, on the other hand, sleeps and sleeps and would probably even sleep in if he didn't share a room with said 4.5-year old.

so here's how the night to end all nights went:

8:15pm: after kids are in bed, i go to bed. yes, at 8:15!!! and watch five minutes of an entourage episode and fall asleep.

3:00am: (i know i actually got a darn GOOD stretch of sleep). 4.5-year old comes in with the usual "i can't sleep!" and i ask him nicely 100 times to go back to bed before i yell and then he cries and goes back and is asleep in minutes.

3:45am: calico cat starts doing the pee pee dance around the house. i panic. can't have anymore pee incidents. i jump up and toss her outside, which, although she's an indoor cat, i've been doing periodically because she'll sometimes go out there and she won't leave the backyard (believe me, sometimes i've wished she would...)

i notice how rainy it is and start to panic about ed's studio. i go get shoes and thank goodness cause that poor snail...celie runs back in as i go out. i move everything around and off the ground in the studio cause the leaky roof is dripping pretty good. right onto the new coffee roasting machine and various other things. sigh. i come back in and get into bed. it sure was chilly out there. and scary.

i can't sleep.

i email ed that i really want him to come home, secretly hoping it will clang loudly into his blackberry inbox and wake him up in his quiet hotel room where he is, no doubt, sleeping soundly and happily. i watch the rest of the entourage episode. i try to go back to sleep.

4:15am: black cat jumps down off the bed and starts wretching over and over on the floor at the foot of the bed. i count five wretches so i know how many i have to clean up. and i do.

i get back into bed, and i can't sleep. just like clyde, i suppose EXCEPT I REALLY CAN'T SLEEP. i try and try.

6:00am: clyde gets up slams the toilet lid (my every-morning alarm) and starts talking to me like it's noon and he's been up for hours. i tell him, "you have to lay down and sleep or go back to your own bed. it's too early." i think he does. i don't know. i'm in a coma. i can't move.

7:00am: i wake up to leo's amazingly giant poopy diaper (and hey, we're out of wipes!) and celie's amazingly giant poop outside the box.

why god? i think it's going to be a long, long last day on my own.

gotta go now. leo's standing here with snot dripping down his face. anyone want a cat? or two? i'm keeping the 4.5-year old and his snotty underling.