Dot Amy

2003-06-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

I am on a ferry, sitting on a wooden bench. My best friend from high school is sitting beside me.

There is supposed to be bad weather and rough waters, but the sky is only a little grey. We rock on the ferry and watch the pier inch forth.

While we are sitting, I get uneasy. Someone screams, "Here it comes!" as the ferry shudders forward and the pier disappears. The ferry slides upward and we can see only the sky and hear the water roaring around us. We are on the crest of a tremendous wave, and I picture a Japanese illustration of a tsunami wave and our little boat sitting squarely on top of it. The second the image completes itself, the ferry shoots forward as the wave rolls. The pier races towards us, faster and faster. We are screaming now, flying backwards in suspended animation, holding onto the benches, as the ferry blasts forward. The benches disintegrate in slow motion, turning into splinters sliding through our hands and in the space around our bodies. I can see my hands and arms and legs flailing wildly and I think, "I knew this would happen..." as we are plunged into the icy water only a few miles from the pier.

I wake up.

This dream has haunted me for days. It's clarity -- I could hear everything, felt the water rushing around me -- and it's detail have stuck with me in a way few dreams ever have. I woke up gasping and cold. I have no reason to question what this dream meant, or why it appeared as it did. I think it sends it's message loud and clear.

2003-06-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 4:30AM last night. I shot straight out of the sheets.

I hate that mating cats sound like crying children. I really, really do. Because I wake up and think "My child is dying!" and then I listen and realize that some kittens are gettin' their groove on. Sucks, it does.

I got out of bed anyway, needing to pee and hungryhungry, because I had a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles for dinner at 10:30 and Cocoa Pebbles is second only to chinese food in how long it lasts in your stomach (about 35.9 seconds, roughly). I checked on my children, snoring peacefully *in their own beds* and all was right in my little yellow house in the woods.

Except for the motherfucking fucking cats.

Damnit.

I think I was awake until 5:30. They just couldn't get enough.

Speaking of can't being able to get enough...my favorite delight as of late is gossip. I'm like fucking Joan Rivers, although it's like Joan Rivers hearing gossip about herself. Because apparently, unbeknownst to us, DH and I have been the center of controversy with our across-the-street neighbor!

Her name is Ann, and she hates our guts.

Ann is white trash; dark blue fading '95 Toyota Corolla; three kids (two all the time, one she rarely sees -- her ex-hus has custody over) bouncing on her dinette table; fake red hair; Wal-Mart outfit (our favorite is the aqua blue floral printed Edward Scissorhands pantsuit); smoking a cigarette, open-legged in her nightgown, on her front porch and throwing the waste on her front walk so that it's littered with three hundred fifty eight thousand seven-thirty used butts; "My husband made me get my tubes tied"; crack-smoking sister-in-law enabler kind of girl. (If I'm lyin' I'm dyin...) She's been to my son's birthday party and *made people leave* she was so irritating. Yeah.

And THIS hates my guts. This psycho who flicked her front porch lights off and on again as my guests were leaving my festive little fucking holiday party dislikes us tremendously, according to my other neighbor. Why? Because I didn't invite her to the aforementioned festive little holiday party! I kid you not. And because we can't possibley make "that much" money.

She also apparently dislikes us because: 1) We never let her watch our children. 2) We apparently are too "wealthy" for her taste. 3) We do not invite her to our parties. 4) When she came to our Halloween party, DH held up a piece of Saran Wrap up to her face and said, "Hey! What's this, Ann?" She laughs and says, "What?" He says, "It's your Gorilla Mask!!!" and he wasn't even a touch drunk. 4) My children don't escape my house on a regular basis. 5) DH has the *audacity* to *take his shirt off IN OUR HOUSE* while we are painting a room she can see from across the street!

We had no clue.

Isn't that amazing?

2003-05-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

So we went to marriage class last night. Hoo-boy. We were taught how to fight! Apparently, dishes breaking and fingers waggling and calling one another things like "Booty-Licker" are apparently decidedly un-OK. Who knew?

Actually, DH and I are probably model arguer's. When we *do* fuss at one another, we are models of decorum and respect. We listen. We share. We don't go to bed mad. I've always liked this arrangement. It's so undramatic. So refined and respectful and nice. It's one of those things where I grew up thinking one way (the thought: husbands and wives go to bed mad, drunk, off on a bender, dumping vats of sweet, sticky iced tea on one another heads because they can't control themselves) and it wound up a delicious surprise that husbands and wives can actually have adult discussions without the addition of scotch, straight up, on the rocks.

When we first came together, I would fight DH like my mother fought, bitter and name-calling. He would always look at me so baffled. The poor, confused boy. He'd just been through the ringer with his ex-wife who had her own deep emotional problems and then here's this crazy chick swinging her hair around and wild-eyed calling him a bastard for some slight. He was always on the other end of the fight, arms open, "now amy, why do you think that you feel this way?" and "amy, i'm going to apologize even though i don't understand..." and how it would *irritate* me, driving my skin right off my BODY, that he could be so sweet and loving and patient in the face of my assured idiocy. My being the girl that I am (some might say manipulative, others might say insightful), I learned to argue like him. My initial intent was to beat him at his own game -- to be MORE patient than him. To be more loving, more open, more constant in my attention -- to catch him in a potential discrepency, I'm ashamed to admit. (OK, only slightly. I was a coy girl. Was? ... Fess up, ames, still am...)

What I really enjoyed more than our minor discussion was watching the body language of the other participants, restrained voices above the distracting Yanni music (played to muffle other couple's discussions) and the real lives being hashed out (the woman and her husband at the table behind us were discussing the need to buy "nice" clothing) in a brightly lit room with half-eaten peach cobblers forgotten on the tiny table-tops. Like I've mentioned, most couples are older than us -- they're in their 40s, at least. They might have kids in middle school. There's only one other couple like us in the room, in their mid-late 20s, and they don't have kids. Taking this class when you're in your mid-40s has got to be like trying to have reconstructive surgery after a disfiguring car accident. Yeah, your eye might be put back in the acceptable location, but it's lopsided, saggy, a clownish interpretation of it's former appearance. I can't imagine, after 20 years of marriage instead of our 3.5 years of marriage (short, sweet, full with two kids, a mortgage and a business) how many unsaid things, how many times the wife fights like her mom, how many things both partners have just learned to accept about one another, how a little 8-week class could fix things...

2003-05-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

Freak-a-deekie recipe cards, posted fresh from my dear [dw] list. I sent these to my best girl pal, and she and I started to talk about the creepy old Betty Crocker ones we have hanging around. She's decided to frame hers and hang them in her kitchen to scare off any attempts her husband might make to persuade her to cook. I think this is a smart move. Cooking? Who has time for such a silly little domestic tradition?

2003-05-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

This Memorial Day was an official gardening holiday. Milkweed, hydrangea, a funky spikey purple prairie plant and some echinacea. I think I like gardening most for the weird words. I can easily see myself, having mellowed in the last couple of years, mellowing only more and being an old gardening granny with wild vines curling around my hands. My biggest fear right now, other than, say, losing my children in the local white-trash big box, parasailing and suddenly losing my hairbrush when I need it most, is moving from my little Perfect House and loosing my precious little plants I've helped grow up.

But really, snap back to reality. I got a big massive sunburn on my back gardening this weekend. Bad .amy. DH said I should blame the forgetfulness on Woman's Troubles. But I was probably just being Stupid Me. She does exist, Stupid Me. I don't like her very much, but she doesn't seem to listen to me. She's busy rolling her eyes and wanting to curl up in a ball in the middle of the backyard and sleep in a mud puddle. She's the type that would wear a halter-top and short-shorts in 40degree weather because no one else is. She would'nt really survive well in this Conservative Christian Republican suburb. (For now, she does take walks in her Nader 2000 t-shirt, though, just to see the reactions from the stay-at-home moms.)

I have to go. My Dear Son is zooming a metal 1/16th scale Jaguar around in the air like a space shuttle, periously close to Little Girl's head. Glad to see his Stupid Me is alive and well. ;)

2003-05-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

I found a really great bracelet that I want. I think DH should be so kind as to surprise me with it, don't you? Over, say, the crunchy rolls that I horde to myself on the little corner of the table at the little pink sushi restaurant that we frequent across the street. Yes. That would be precious.

DH is no longer on the dot.amy shit list. His crunchy spikey hair last night resolved any pissy-girl residue I may have harbored. Yes, as I look back, it was most definitely his spikey hair that closed the door on the final tang of anger. We're going to marriage classes lately too, and while we've only been to one so far, I think it might be what we need. Apparently, we're in the "summer" of our relationship (and 80s memory me wonders if that means I should be wearing lots of fushia and lime? Lest I look like an Autumn or Winter.). Summer being where you're harried with children and responsibilities and making sure the cat didn't shit in the bathtub because you forgot to change his litterbox again. We went over our "needs" last week. They didn't have check-boxes for "Peeing Without Interruption", "Potty Training Your 3 Year Old" and "Slimmer Hips" on the checklist of Needs, though. But those are MY needs. OK. Maybe I do need a little encouragement some days, some extra hugs and a good dollop of sweet talk. But jeez, people, priorities.

I think parts of the class are going to wind up truly uncomfortable, like discussing our sex life in the room with 120 OTHER people each quietly discussing their sex life with their partners. I don't know if I can get my mouth to move around the words in that weird place, much less watching others do the same. I mean, lots of these people aren't hot. They are the farthest THING from hot. Not even lukewarm. (OK, I think probably.0000003 of the world's population would fall into my Hot Category. To be fair.) It gives me the heebiegeebies to think of the pudgy lady (who used to be my boss while I was working at a daycare in high school) and her husband talking about snatch. There are lots of people with bad perms in there too. It's actually a funny hobby of DH's and mine to wonder what Couple X looks like while they're having sex. What they do, how they sound, where they do it. Sometimes we say little but giggle alot. Other times, we go into grotesque detail, and have had some memorable discussions about the Neighbor's habits. (EEEWWW...) Not to mention, I've become bizarrely prudish in public lately. I act like a, well, I probably act like a tired, burnt-out mom.

.a: "OHGOD -- Get your hand OFF my butt."
DH: "But it's MY butt. I paid $27.50* for it."
.a: "We are in public. That man is watching you!"
DH: But he didn't pay $27.50* for it!"

This, from a former mirrored-ceiling and open-windows-are-better! trash queenie. It's depressing. I'm proud he's still so madly, undoubtedly in love with me. He knows what I am under tired eyes, wiggling baby writhing to get out of my arms, sweet potatoes caked on my black t-shirt at 3PM. It's really kind of redeeming.

* $27.50 is how much our marriage liscense cost.

2003-05-22T15:47:00.000-07:00

Baby Brain.

it's what happens when you start to babble incessantly, forget what you wer talking about, and then wipe an unknown strangers mouth with a folded napkin from the depths of your diaper bag. it also gives you the odd desire to kiss everyone in the house before you leave, thus the nanny has gotten kissed on more than one occasion. (ok, only once. and it was *almost kissed.* sweet british chick with so much eye makeup it looks like the local clown college tried to put it on in the dark for her.)

i remember names pretty well; my head gets filled with all sorts of facts like that, but i never remember what day is garbage day, what time i need to pick up Dear Son from school and to not put cat food in a sippy cup. (because i have.)

i'm too young for this. i need to be out drinking. Vodka and Kool-aid cocktails. With some sliced bread and kraft singles, because moms don't have loafs of crusty bread, nor do we have any decent cheese.

2003-05-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday and this is Dear Son's last day of "school." This fall, he will be in bonafide preschool. There will be a preschooler at my house! It's almost like the word 'teenager' to me, for some reason. Morose, curious, demanding. Dear Son is all those things all ready, but it seems like it's been so long since his birth. When I open my eyes in the morning and I see his blue eyes peering from over the bundle of white sheets at the edge of the bed, it's a snap thought, "How did he get here? Where did he come from?" I'm always so happy to see him in the morning, before the day comes on like a wrecking ball and he gets pissed off at breakfast because he can't have an orange popsicle or he has to climb up The Giant Mom-Truck 'allby(him)self' and I get frustrated watching him, all elbows and knees envisioning him falling to the rock driveway and skinning every visible dash of skin on his body. And of course, I wouldn't have enough band-aids.

He's trying to eat my salad from lunch right now. He loves salad. He says he can't open the lid "because I have little tiny hands. You open it, mommy. I'm just a little boy. Your hands are bigger!" He couldnt speak this well at the beginning of the year; his speech was mixed with weird words like "freetousand!" which he'd use whenever he didn't know the proper word. Now he chides us for say "Damn!" ("MOMMY! Did you say damn mommy? Did you say damn? You go in time out!!) and asks us, when we say "creative," for instance, what the word means?

Motherhood is at once constant and fleeting. I wonder if I did as good as I could today, if I was as balanced and as attentive as I could be; I know that I have tomorrow to try again, though, if I feel I failed. I wonder if I should have asked questions about his development at school this year, but I know that he is smarter than DH and I and I really don't have any need to worry. I wonder if he'll grow up too anal-retentive and a perfectionist because DH and I are often just too fast-paced for him and his speed, so he always has to catch up. I wonder if he'll be a 6yr old blogger.

I wonder if I'll be a parent to an adult child the way my mother is to me. I wonder if my kids will ever feel like I don't know them, or that I know them alot, or if it will even matter to them. I don't know what to do to ensure that my kids know that I will be as fair as I can, as attentive as I can, as loving as I can. It's one foot in front of the other on good days, a step into a dark wild on bad days.

But I keep plodding.

2003-05-19T13:56:00.000-07:00

Hands in dirt all weekend, playing in the baby pool with Little Girl, eating hot dogs under a pine tree. Dear Son got his foot bitten and swollen by a spider but all is peaceful. All if right, if I can shut my head up. If I can turn my ears off and just let my eyes focus on every second of beauty.

Despite my alternator busting. Despite some just, well, gaps all over the place. Despite my mom and brother attempting to create at every opportunity a chance for a scream-fest about what they think is rightfully theirs from my fathers estate. Rightfully, but not legally. I'm really attempting to avoid discussing this, writing about it, because it just sends me into overdrive. It seems too personal. Too ugly and selfish of them, and right now, I'm ashamed that regardless of all we've been through in the last few weeks and months, it comes down to what they think is owed them. My father was buried just last week, and the fighting (sorry, screaming) has been so intense I'm appalled. I've avoided discussing them taking the car (nearly paid for), avoided discussing the house (which they think they have every right to live in for as long as they wish), and avoided discussing funds (which they seem to forget is mostly owed to another family member and potential taxes.) with the lawyer. I don't want this to get ugly, and yet I'm not sure what to do. I know what I want, but they aren't after what's right or best. They want to take things without any consequence. And I'm not going to go any further, because I'm already pissed off all over again. Needless to say, I hatehatehate people who think they are entitled to everything. I hate people who don't work for what they have. I hate people who think that things are just OWED them.

I forgot how much I despised my mother and brother for their laziness; their grotesque sense of entitlement; of their inability to make their own life rather than feed off of another's life.

Shit. I'm all pissed off all over again. I need to relax.

2003-05-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

Things that I love, because you really don't know me beyond my drama of the last few weeks:

Chicano Pop Art for all your festive Chicano needs. I could decorate my whole house with this, but were you to see my house, you would frown and wonder where it all is?

I love to sew. I learned last year when my mother in law and I made Little Girl's crib bumper, curtains, and crib skirt. (Wait, doesn't .amy use the family bed?) When I'm feeling funky with the presser-foot, my favorite site for great fabric is Reprodepot.

And I love pajamas.

2003-05-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

Crazy, daizy day. My Dear Son is frankenstein-stompin' around my office (frankenstein-stompin' = clomping around with pants around the ankles) and sneaking my iced coffee. He's 3 ferchrissakes. He's too little to have tastebuds alight on the delicacies of espresso before noon. We're trying to potty train him, hence pants around his ankles. But the Train seems to be leaving the station, Dear Son missing his ride.

I'm desperate to leave, lately. I need a beach trip, some time spent with my babies. Some time spent with my husband. We went here last year while I was huge pregnant with Little Girl. I remember the town when it was a few streets, some empty beach. My parents and brother and I would go there when we were little. It was really wonderful.

2003-05-14T15:16:00.000-07:00

so i'm trying to decide if our son is gifted right now. it's truly hard for me to determine, because everything i think he does is normal. so i go to this bbs run by a popular parenting website (hmmm...) and these parents definitions of advanced are so varied, and yet feel so familiar. dear son knows what the letter A is, how it sounds; he has a sarcastic sense of humor and makes perfect metaphors. (my brother was smoking a cigarette on the front porch yesterday and dear son says, "Hey Apple! You're smoking like a train!" both DH and I were classified as extremely gifted and talented as children, and frankly, it was a load of bothersome shit for me. it was always trotted out when i did poorly on a test, and my dear loving mother (so sarcastic it would bite your head off were you to hear it) would always say, "you have an IQ of xxx. what is wrong with you? cousin y can do better than this and his IQ is lower than yours!" i don't want to be That Kind of mom. i want our son to be happy. intelligent, of course, and capable of thoughtful and carefully metered decision-making skills, full of compassion and with a quick mind, but really? just happy.

my father's funeral was yesterday. it was actually a very peaceful, calm event. the flowers were beautiful, more people came than we had expected and the preacher, so very baptist, tried to save everyone in the room. the pictures were sweet and painful. funerals where the body has been cremated seem so much easier. there is a nice little urn that you can cup your hands around to say goodbye, there is no "creepy" factor...just an urn. when the ceremony was over, i stood over his urn to say goodbye. it was cool to the touch, a beautiful large black marble piece, but not cold. you could feel density inside it, and strangely, it made me feel good. that he was happy, content, contained. the funeral director and staff opened the vault where his ashes would be kept, they placed him in the cubby, and the door was closed.

unfortunately, another drama begins. that of his estate. i did not want to discuss it after the funeral, but discuss they did. it turned into a brutal, ugly screamfest. they bring out the worst in me, especially when my advice to rent the house and split the gains three ways to benefit everyone, was accused of being greedy. my brother told me today that the term "financial gain" to him, means "money hungry and greedy." he and my mother want me to *give* them the house, the house of the father he hated, the house of my mother's ex-husband. they want me to sign it over, end of story, and if i request anything, then i'm being "controlling." he is downright ignorant about money and how to use it so that they will have something for the long-term. they've squandered so much as it is, with definite un-said things here, and ugh. i could continue, but i won't.

i hate this. i hate trying to do something good and it being seen as something mean. classic.

2003-05-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

i've been gone for four days.

my dad very peacefully passed away friday morning at around 11:25, with my mother and my dad's best friend in the room.

little girl and i had been in lafayette (la) since wednesday. the days before his death, he was unable to speak very much, but the last words he said to us (on wednesday night) was "i love you too" as we left.

i did not know i had such love, such compassion, such kindness, in me, but i have found in the last few days that i have more than i ever thought possible.

i told my father everything i loved about him; everything i could remember, down to him carrying us on his shoulders and making us pancakes for breakfast on saturday mornings; how his aftershave still smelled the same bottled up in the medicine cabinet in his house after 15 years. that he shouldn't be scared, that there was all the peace, love, quiet and relief in the universe right there in his room.

we kept the tv in his room on to this channel that had really soothing classical music and repeating nature scenes. it kept reminding us of stories, and i went over and over summer vacations at the beach with him, down to the smallest detail.

i fed him ice cream, and he seemed to really enjoy the strawberry. we had to be careful feeding him because he had forgotten how to swallow, or even how to open his mouth very well. it was like feeding an infant or a baby bird. a tablespoon, given in the smallest increments, was a huge accomplishment.

he loved for me to rub his back. even after he lost his speech, when i came into the room, he would roll as much as he could over towards his stomach. i would remove my rings and stroke his back, from the top of his head down. i would hold his arm with my other hand, and his hand would always find it's way on top of it. he would press his index finger into the webbing of my thumb, and it would plunge me into this sadness. it always appeared that he was so sick, so unaware, and then he would do something like that, so human, so in need of love, and ... i would just get lost in this weird state of love and sadness and relief.

the night before he died, my brother, my mom, little girl and i stayed in his room late into the night, rubbing his back, giving him hugs and always being near. he was so ill...when we had to eventually leave, i didn't want to, but i knew it was time. the last words i said to him was "sweet dreams..." i had told him earlier in the day that it was OK to let go, that i didn't want him to die but knew that he had to, and that it would be such a relief for him to. i couldn't get over the feeling that we were his doula, in a way, helping him to his death.

i knew that when we left that night, we wouldn't see him again.

the next morning, the nurse called to say that his breathing pattern and coloring had changed. my mother left right away, but it seemed that something was always stopping adam and i from getting out the front door.

my brother had put the wrong shoes on (but had set the right ones out, right in front of him) and the 5th element, the goofy bruce willis/chris tucker/milla jovovich film was on in the background. i was feeding ava and half-watching. there is a scene in the movie where this beautiful blue alien opera singer sings the most heart-breaking song. as i was watching it, waiting for adam to put the right shoes on, this sense of peace;sadness;love;relief slipped over me, like someone had placed a sheet over my head and pulled it down to the floor.

not a minute later, the phone rang. it was my mother. she said that my father had just passed.

after the tears of the day, there have been no more. just peace. sure, some sadness, and i feel *weird* for not crying as much as i'd expected, but i've done so much in the weeks previous. there is not a thing i wish i had said, not a thing i wish i could undo. i feel so blessed to have that feeling.

his funeral is tomorrow at 3PM. if you could, please light us a candle so he can find his way home.

2003-05-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

>From Nelson Mandela's 1994 Inaugual Speech

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented,
and fabulous?
Actually, who are you NOT to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people
won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within
us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others.

2003-05-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

I've just been dumped in a vat of ice water. Ice cubes are bobbing near my earlobes.

I spoke with my mom...the end is drawing near to my fathers life. He has slipped in and out of conciousness all day today. She and my father's best friend and the hospital minister stood over my dad and prayed with/for him. My mom says she isn't sure if he knew what was going on. Hospice has now taken over his care.

She wants me to drive up tomorrow morning so we can take care of funeral arrangements before his death. He wants to be cremated. I feel like I'm swimming right now. I don't know quite what to think, or how I will do these things...I am scared to see him on the edge of life. I am bringing Little Girl with me because she is still too tiny to be left with DH and our son. I don't know how long I will be gone. I don't know what the next few days hold. I wish I could crawl under the covers and hide and not come out. But I cannot, I just can't.

I am sad in the strangest sense...I guess it's acceptance that the time is near. I can't sigh enough. It seems I can't get through a full breathwithout being tempted to let out a big, long sigh.

2003-05-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

First, according to this article, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. How angry this makes me, how truly unjustifiable all this was. How devastating... How wrong; how hawkish; how greedy our government is. How I figured as much. I'm in no place to blog properly about how I feel, except that I am angered beyond words. Which is probably fairly obvious.

But on compassion...when my mother was angry at me as a teenager, she would slap me in the face with the line, "You have no compassion! You have no heart, no love." Granted, she'd say this hurtful shit out of some sure justification for her own actions, but damn if it always left a bruising mark. So I just started to believe that I was incapable of compassion. That it would be my lot to kick puppies, throw a penny at bums, be mean to my mother the rest of my life. =) I haven't done any of those things. Instead, I find myself growing increasingly compassionate now, as if to make up for lost time. We even stop to save turtles huddled in their shells in the middle of the street. I'm no Mother Theresa. I'm not out passing bagged lunches to the homeless or volunteering to comfort sick people, because on lots of levels, I still have growing to do. But I'm moving in that direction. I can feel, in what I can only imagine is the tender Mom in me, growing octopus arms to hug lost souls, to right things, to want to make things better, to fix injustices.

Right now, I'm feeling like I've got my own injustices to care for, though. My friend says that someone has lit black voodoo candles on both of us. I think she's right. I'm making mistakes, missing deadlines (although no one seems to mind...), my sentences are all choppy and not very well spoken. But despite it all, I'm still feeling laid back at times, which I am thankful for. Yesterday, I was on the phone handing a project off to a corporate automaton and I think I surprised him with my casualness. But you know, it's only this life I have to be breezy, to be comfortable, to be happy. Not every event has to be dealt with in the corporate tone; I'm allowed to say, "okie dokie." This business is MY business, DH and I are fighting for success, and it will be on our terms.

This blog is really random this morning. I don't usually feel this random. But my head is in a million places. Thinking about a beeferroneous joke from this morning; feeling weird in my body; thinking about having sushi with my girlfriend on Friday; thinking about taking a yoga class about myself and am I brave enough?; my dad lying in a hospital room; being stuck on a project with four others screaming my name after it's completion; randomness, all of it.

Sigh.

2003-05-05T09:12:00.000-07:00

My daughter is sleeping crooked in my elbow, heavy head bobbing back and forth on my forearm. These six months of her life she has been party to a dizzying array of love and confusion, bewilderment and compassion. I know she won't remember anything, not even emotional impressions, but to me, I wonder if it won't imprint on her somehow.

This weekend was a working one to make up for lost time, to catch up in case something happens this week with my father. For now, I speak to my mother by phone twice a day, morning and evening, to check up on him. To know that he is still breathing, emaciated but alive in his hospital room that looks like a Catholic high-school girls history class. (Pink walls, mauve accents, sky blue ceiling, wallpaper border of English country tudor homes with wild fields of daffodil and allium.)

I made baby food last night and thought of him, watching avocado spin in the food processor. Wondering if my dad would eat avocado and banana puree like Little Girl does. Like that would make a difference, really, at this point. People with esophageal cancer wind up dying, like my father is, from malnutrition. The radiation burns their throat. He refuses to eat, but says he is not in pain. I wonder if he is and won't admit it, somewhere. But my bet is that he is not aware enough to notice it, if the pain is there at all. My mother is trying again to retain power of attorney today, with my dad's lawyer who is a friend from college. I can't imagine being friends with someone for so long, long enough to know them through their youth to adulthood and all the way to death. I think of my girlfriends and wonder if I will be a voice in their final days as well.

I am snapping fierce at DH. He lets loose with these bizarre and meant-to-amuse-me one-liners and I take the bait as it is not intended. He looks at me with this face of confusion and doubt, pity and amusement. There are days I wish he wouldn't say a word to me about things, just patiently sitting beside me and not saying anything that could set me over the edge, but that's not his nature. He wants to get under my skin and make me laugh. He wants things to be like they were. He is trying to push my old buttons. He is successful at getting under my skin, but I want to yell. He is successful at making me remember how things were, but I want to tell him that I have changed, temporarily in some aspects, permanent in others. He is finding my old buttons, but they are just rusty and aggravated and sad.

I meditated in the garden yesterday, pulling weeds from the rose bed and around the dying bulbs. Leaves were rotting in one small part of the bed and I cleared them away. I need to plant new flowers in bright pots. I need to fill out the beds, in more ways than one.

2003-05-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

My mom had lifted her quarantine early Thursday, so I spent that day getting prepared...

We drove up yesterday, had lunch, and went to the hospital. It broke my heart on impact to see him, curled in bed, new hair, so sick, so very very very sick. He recognized me immediately and then squinted, noticing I'd cut my hair. I spoke with his doctor, who just 5 minutes previously had unhooked him from fluids and everything that was making his body fight. She told me that she had tried everything, but that God was ready for him and she could do no more. ...

My brother, had shaved him the day before for my visit.

Adam, DH and I stood there and talked to him. He was glad we were there. He was hallucinating sometimes, thinking he was in Ireland. We went along with it. ;)

Adam and DH left to get my mom and the kids. I stayed with my dad as he went in and out of sleep. I sang, "You Can't Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd" -- this funny kids song, to him. I prayed. And prayed more. Peace. Comfort. Love. Ridding Fear. I dug up the Lord's Prayer from a 3rd grade memory. As he slept, I told him outloud everything good I could remember -- making pancakes with him every mother's day; him helping get a fishing hook out of my thumb; riding on his shoulders to bed...him meeting my children...everything I could think of. I spent time in the quiet, watching him breath and fidget, knowing that his doctor had finally let him go and that I had to too.

But my most gleaming, proud, unforgettable memory of yesterday? My beautiful, amazing 3yr old son, marching into my dad's hospital room with a look of utter seriousness, plastic Fisher-Price stethoscope around his neck, play doctor kit in hand. I nearly broke down in tears right there seeing my little boy trying to make everything better.

The lawyer came, and my dad was coherent enough to stubbornly insist he was OK, that he was busting out of this joint if only someone would hand him his leg (LOL, he's only got one...) and that no one would have power of attorney.

We went back to his house, and with my mother, I picked out what I would take home with me...we figured it would be easier now than after he died. (Oh, God, it made my heart just splinter...all the cards and pictures and things I haven't seen since I was little bitty...)

This has been so long. Agonizing. It has left me with a constant knot in my stomach. An aching sensitivity that won't go away. I feel like I'm riding a fishing line reeling far out into the water.

2003-05-01T10:32:00.000-07:00

Today is a good day. I didn't need to use my A-K.

Ok, no, really. Let me start by saying, I'm a proponent of the family bed. It's just holy-hell -- in a queen sized bed, there is the smallest mini-me, our daughter who is 6mos old. She is very used to sleeping between DH and I now, as we are used to sleeping with her, and her scratches and snorts and bed-hogging in the middle of the night. But then there's our son, who is 3, who has decided that all is scary and perpetually frightening in the dark, who insisted on sleeping at the foot of our bed last night.

Riiiight.

I'm 5'7" -- I *need* that foot space so I don't wake with pins and needles. My bed space last night was roughly a 2x3 space. Try it and tell me how you like it...fuck the family bed. (Or buy me a plushy pillow-top king sized bed...hint hint...) I need my sleep right now. I need quiet time, just me, just a pillow, just some drool seeping out of the corner of my mouth, just some space to myself. I seriously thought about going out and unfurling the AeroBed, but fell asleep trying to decide if it was worth the effort or not.

In other news, my father is getting better. He's still hanging on by a thread, the thread is just wider, a little stronger. He sat up in bed yesterday and asked my mother how did she get there? and asked for coke and water. He said thank you...and heartbreakingly enough, told her, "I'm not crazy..." She assured him that he most certainly wasn't. Because he's talking occasionally (although not recognizing everyone or coherent most of the time...), and because he is being rehydrated, she has lifted her quarantine. DH and I are driving up tomorrow morning to visit him. I don't know what this visit holds -- if this is good-bye or another chapter beginning. I don't think anyone knows at this point...I cannot say I am scared -- frankly, it's more like relieved. I certainly didn't think, standing in my closet crying on Monday night, 95% sure he would die the following day, that I would ever get to see him again. I prefer not to think of this visit as good-bye, so I won't. I'm acutely aware it might be, but I refuse to go emotional right in front of him when he might be aware...but I don't know for sure.

This has been a huge lesson in forgiveness. Forgiving this sick, dying man for the injustices he wrought on my mother, brother and I in the past; forgiving him for bing an abusive alcoholic fuck for so long; for destroying the great life that we had. I have forgiven him for all of it. I have forgiven him for being absent and making me pay for my braces while I was in high school, for having to pay for the rest of my private HS education because I wanted to stay with my friends (it sounds plush, it was not). Forgive, forgive, forgive.

It is all smallish in retrospect, and frankly, had it not been for those hard lessons, I wouldn't be where I am.

Then again, I have to believe that.

2003-04-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

To let you in on things...

Today is really, I think, the first "normal" day I've had in a few weeks.

My father is dying of esophageal cancer.

He was diagnosed in August of last year. I have kept up with him, helped educate him, helped allay his fears, hugged him, loved him...He lives a few hours from me. We were estranged for years for various reasons I'm sure I'll post in the future, but for now, they aren't the point. The point is that my mother (his ex-wife) and my brother are there, caring for him. My mother has made me swear not to come, because she feels it's too much for me to see, that I won't be able to take it all in. That my heart and head might just burst with it All. She and my brother have shared enough with me to scare me. They know my life and the stresses and strains in it. I know she thinks she is doing the right thing by telling me not to come. A few days ago, I did too. Now, I'm not so sure.

I think that, on one had, I admire that she is attempting to protect me from his death. On the other hand, I think that's fucking bullshit.

It was expected that he would die last night. The grisly stories from the front certainly led me to believe it yesterday.

Instead, he recognized two people, stopped trying to jump out of the bed (with only one leg, mind you) and asked for water and a coke. Baffling, miraculous, yes. He is still dying. His calcium levels are so high (high calcium levels indicate that his bones are breaking down and dissolving because of malnutrition due to the cancer...) that it has made him out of his head. He does not recognize anyone...he is ohgod. I just can't type it all. It just seems too MUCH. And this is why I admire that my mother is attempting to protect me.

I feel like a deflated balloon. I feel like I can't concentrate. I feel so alone. DH and my children are doing as best they can to leave me be, no fusses at cereal and milk for dinner AGAIN...I've been cleaning like mad for some reason -- the toilet seat in the bathroom is so clean you could eat a four-course dinner off of it, if you so chose.

I think it's fucking bullshit that my mother is trying to protect me because 1) I'm a grown woman 2) I'm fearful of their potential sense of entitlement and GOD do I not want a lawsuit over inheiritance with my brother (and deeply guided by my mother) and 3) I think that I should see him (although everything in me makes me feel sick and wants to stay right here in my chair...), especially after our repaired relationship and how things have improved in the last 2.5 years that we have been close again.

Oh, hell. There is too much. I need to go hide under a rock.

2003-04-28T13:47:00.000-07:00

You'd think, after eight-plus years online and it being my career and all, meawmeawmeaw, that i would have started a blog before today.

But you'd be wrong.

I'm .amy. I'm the center of three, make that four, people's universe. A little biosterous, a little too cerebral, a little too retentive, a little too self-absorbed. A little too heart-filled. A little too fiercely motherly. A little too smart for my own good.

Now being overheard in my office, said by my husband, DH:
"If yu're going to poo in my office, that's fine! Just don't bite my cables while you do it!"
( This was said to my son. )