Hi how are you I'm watching the first season of Teen Mom 2 because some beautiful angel put it on Netflix and I have a lot of thoughts, mainly about Corey & Leah. Please lmk if you're also traveling back in time to 2010 so we can discuss. 

Our Christmas was very nice, thank you for asking. Joe left Santa's plate of cookies on the floor underneath the tree - a bold move, and I applaud her for it. Her "big" gift this year was a Little People garage and we've played with it nonstop since Christmas morning AND she's tried to take it to bed with her every night so far SO I highly recommend it if you're in the market for a toddler toy. (Please don't let the very detailed negative reviews deter you. Just enjoy the fact that there are people writing and leaving them and maybe feel worried for their children, because if a piece of plastic is so disappointing to their parent then that kid is in for a rough life.) 

Santa also brought me an exercise bike because I had to look at pictures of myself in a tank top and the reality of how flavored coffee creamer has negatively impacted my life suddenly became very, very real. And honestly I can always use extra places to dry sweaters so no, I will not regret this impulse purchase [OF SANTA'S] by March. Anyway I disassembled the crate it arrived in at the bottom of our staircase, carried it up all three flights of that staircase piece by piece, and then put it all together myself THEREBY AND HENCEFORTHWITH I have already started burning calories and begun rocketing toward hotness. 

The cat is also on a diet. It's nice to have a buddy. He agrees he doesn't hate it everything is great.

I am "on vacation" until Monday, which I didn't think would be relaxing but it actually has been. It helps that my whole company closes for the week, so at least I don't have the anxiety of being unavailable if someone needs me. (LOL I'm literally like, the bathroom attendant where I work no one really ever needs me but I STILL WORRY SO MUCH.) I'm planning on working the weekend after New Year's if Diego is around then to entertain Baby Joe, and I know this all seems boring but I honestly fantasize about having a four-hour stretch to be left alone to get work done. That's my fantasy. I'm not even on a beach because I don't want the files to get sandy. 

one morning

5:00AM: I wake up to Elton John singing "Circle of Life." (Sometimes it's "Call Me Maybe" because those are the only two songs I have on my phone. I think. I really don't know what's on that thing besides cat pictures and the Target app.)

5:01AM: I realize that Diego is still in bed, too. I ask him if he's late for work because these days it's extremely rare that I wake up with anyone other than the cat next to me. He's not. He starts mumbling something in sleepy Spanglish and I tune him out and keep scratching the cat and start mentally organizing a to-do list.

5:30AM: I get out of bed to feed the cat because right on schedule he's gone from happy little purr bucket to attempted murderer. Diego beat me to the bathroom so I start a pot of coffee and then stand in the kitchen checking work emails on my phone until I feel like he's had enough privacy (approximately forty seconds) and burst in on him so I can wash my face and teeth.

5:45AM: Diego leaves and I plow through as much work as I can before Joe wakes up. It's a little bit like getting to work an hour before any of my coworkers, except that they don't need their diapers changed when they walk in. And if they do it's not technically my problem, so.

6:45AM: I bring a cup of coffee into the bathroom and listen to a podcast while I put on makeup because it's important to look SNATCHED even though the only person that sees your whole face most days is your daughter and she's biologically programmed to love you even if you're ugly.

7:10AM: I go into Joe's room, where she's in her crib chattering at her bear and some dolls. We "pick out" an outfit together, I scrape her hair as much into a ponytail as it will go, and we read books for a few minutes before she tears ass into the living room after the cat.

7:30AM: She immediately finds a bag of groceries that her dad left on the kitchen floor last night and insists on eating an apricot and a mango POST HASTE. Then she wakes up all her other dolls so they can watch her give Hello Kitty some face tattoos while I attempt to keep working a little bit before breakfast.

 7:45AM: While I'm pouring her milk I realize that we're out of eggs, which isn't the worst thing because I decide to treat us to bagels in the park. I order some breakfast delivery and turn on the TV, hoping that between the milk and Peppa Pig I can squeeze a few more tasks in before we head to the park.

8:00AM: LOL

8:15AM: We grab the stroller, stuff Joe's backpack full of water bottles and the bagel that has now been delivered, and head to the park while it's still early enough to avoid other people.

8:Something - 10AM: We eat breakfast while watching people run on the track, scare some birds, chase a tennis ball around and play with the marbles Joe has snuck into her pockets. At one point I lose my keys, but don't worry I found them. Exciting stuff, people. A real roller coaster.

10:Something: Come home, "work" some more.

12:Something: I feed Joe some leftover lentils and rice and then she goes down for a nap. I have a meeting. I eat my own lunch and consider taking my own nap.

I have no idea what time it really is, let's be serious: Joe wakes up and usually at the waking-up-from-nap point in the day I've abandoned work completely save for answering an email or two. We play with toys, we color, we go for a walk around the block. She throws an inexplicable temper tantrum that lasts fifteen minutes. One of the two women who run her daycare has been making her food and dropping it off, so we "visit" with her and her teenage daughter for a few minutes and Joe pokes at some ants on the steps. Diego comes home FREAKISHLY early, and I ask him to do bath time while I cook so we can all eat together and he does so we do and now she's asleep after many more books and when I'm finished with this I'm going to take a shower and rinse this face mask off and maybe drink a beer and play The Sims but probably I will just fall asleep because even though this day was relatively easy as far as the days have gone because Diego was here for some of it I'm just very tired. And grateful that I have running water in which to clean my hands, and food to put in front of my kid even if she won't always eat it, but also still really tired. As Daniel Tiger says, you can be more than one thing. I hope you're all doing okay out there, and if you feel like shit even though you know damn well that all things considered you personally are DOING OKAY, I feel that.

a path to the rainbow's end

It's hard not to write just about single days. "Tomorrow is Friday, and today is Thursday," I said into my computer screen a few hours ago. "Yes," the faces there said back at me, using their fingers to make sure. "Yes, and yesterday was Wednesday." 

Today a journalist interviewed Diego about His Life As An Essential Worker. Then he went back to putting tape on the floor so that the nurses and doctors (because no one else is out) (because there are so many staying at neighborhood hotels) know how far apart to stand while they wait for their breakfasts. (We're shipping them in. I don't know how to talk about it so I'll just tell you about the tape on the floor.) (One foot in front of the other.) Meanwhile back at the farm, Joe and I taped cardboard tubes to the wall and dropped pom poms through them. We updated lists of purchase orders and strung some wooden beads and sent approximately fifteen hundred emails. We organized toys and smashed Play-Doh. We snuggled a lot. We had a Fleetwood Mac dance party. I cried more than a little to "Sara" which hopefully signals the start of my menses because I cannot fucking imagine being pregnant right now. 

I forgot to feed Papi Choo Choo this morning because his tiny little baby meow isn't nearly as abrasive as Griffon's. (Too sad, can't.) Don't worry, I eventually remembered. We're all doing our best. 

(Joe is super good at stringing beads. Please let me know if you'd like a necklace and I'll ask her if she has time to make you one.)

We didn't take any "Christmas photos" this year but Joe sat in this basket this morning, so.

My office doesn't technically close for the holidays until Christmas Day and I sure as sugar plum fairies wasn't going to use vacation time on a day that is mostly just free lunch, champagne chugging, and leaving at two o'clock because who cares. So here I am. And here I will stay until Baby Joe wakes up from her nap, watching everyone else who didn't bring their baby to work walk out the door.

Here are some things I want to remember about this Christmas:

Zoë loves Christmas lights almost as much as the people in our neighborhood like stringing them up. There are some houses that go nuts and have dozens - literal dozens - of blow-up Christmas characters and light-up reindeer and music playing. There's also my personal favorite house, which has a single strand of lights hung halfheartedly over the top of a shrub. There's nothing to suggest that they did this in celebration of Christmas except that it didn't appear until December. I don't know who lives there but I love them. ANYWAY, our evening walk home from daycare is so delightful because Zoë says "OooooOOOH!" and points at things and scream laughs. Her very most favorite are the projector things that make red and green dots go everywhere. I don't know, like this:

Those are a very popular choice for some reason, and she could not be more pleased. 

The St. Nicholas Project. I wanted to participate in one of those programs where you choose a child's name from a tree or something and then you get them Christmas presents, but I didn't have a lot of extra money this year. (You know, as opposed to all the other years where I've had to flush money down the toilet because I just ran out of things to do with it.) So at the very last minute I reached out to my coworkers and asked if anyone would want to do it together, and between everyone's personal contributions and my very generous bosses' donations we were able to get toys and gifts and warm winter coats for three families. The whole process reminded me of how important it is to be involved and to be informed and to help when and where you can; for the last few years I've been extraordinarily preoccupied with myself and - to make this all about me - I needed a reminder.

I want to remember more things, like the salt dough ornaments we made and the baby angel Christmas tree decoration that doodle bug runs around with screaming "BABY!" but I also really want to leave because there aren't any mimosas left. So bye, Merry Christmas, I love you probably.



Edit, after Christmas actually happened: Every time Baby Joe opened a gift she said "Woww!" or "Ooh!" and something that sounded like it could be "Let's play!" One of the gifts was a teddy bear from a couple I know through work and the tag said "To Kira, Love Great Aunt Lynn XOXO." She also got a play broom and dustpan from her Grandma that I wound up sweeping our kitchen floor with because she still just wanted to walk around with the real one. 

merry and bright

2018

Ordinarily I don't love when "Christmas" starts before Thanksgiving - I used to think it was THE MOST obnoxious when winter holiday decorations appeared before the jack-o-lanterns had rotted into puddles. "They need to be at the point where one must scrape them off the porch," I firmly believed. "That's when it's okay to start thinking about unpacking the snowflakes and Santas." 

It doesn't bother me as much anymore because now I'm busy being irate about other things that don't really matter, but I still feel the need to write this rambling disclaimer to assure you that I'm not trying to rush Christmas. What I am trying to do is plan ever so slightly in advance because there are so many Christmas Things to do and with the nap/bedtime of a small child to consider in addition to the usual guests and trips, planning is more than ever of the UTMOST importance. 

Pluuus I've been going through the pictures on my phone because I haven't printed any since Joe was born, and looking at pictures of last Christmas has me all warm and fuzzy inside. OKAY GOSH. 

Anyway here is my ChRiSTMaS BuCkET LiST, please to enjoy. 

Still 2018

❄ Make a Christmas cocktail. I've never met a mule I didn't like, and this cranberry one is calling my name. 

❄ Drink said Christmas cocktail while watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" with Diego. Because it's our favorite and we may or may not sing the song all year round. 

❄ Visit Randall's Island for LuminoCity. It's the first year they're doing it and it isn't free, so this one is a bit of a risk. But like, it'd be pretty hard to make an island of Christmas lights not fun, right?

❄ Refrain from imbibing until the office Christmas party actually starts. Unless I get really thirsty. 

❄ Holiday Lights at the Bronx Zoo. Big cats AND hot cocoa AND sparkly lights? Yes, please, thank you. 

❄ Get an empanada from that Peruvian place under the train in Bensonhurst. Or is it in Bay Ridge? I can never remember, but listen, ever since Diego's brother moved we don't have a reason to go all the way down there and honestly they make a ham and cheese empanada that is just. MMM. It's every Christmas dream I ever had wrapped in dough and fried. Or are they baked? I can never remember, but listen, Dyker Heights is right next store so after the empanadas we can take a stroll through their famously extravagant light displays. 

❄ Pick a Christmas tree. Doodle was way more into trick-or-treating than I expected her to be; I wasn't sure if she'd understand what we were doing, and she probably didn't really, but she sure did understand that people were calling her cute and putting shiny things into her bucket. I'm looking forward to letting her "choose" our Christmas tree from the stand we always go to. 

❄ Enjoy the holiday window displays. I almost don't want to include this because most of the time we're able to see the traditionally decked-out ones while doing our regular things. And most of the time that happens on off hours and at random times, because if you try to "drink hot cocoa and walk down 5th Avenue to take in the holiday delights" or whatever, nine times out of ten there is a crowd of people mouth-breathing onto the glass and ANOTHER crowd of people trying to shove past those people. But even though it's not really An Activity We're Going to "Do", it is a particularly twinkly part of this season that makes me really happy. 

❄ Put out milk and cookies for Santa. GUYS I'M SO EXCITED FOR SANTA. When my brother and I were really little my dad stood outside under our window shaking jingle bells while my mom stood inside with us and pointed at the sky and said Santa was flying by in his sleigh and to this day we both remember seeing him. Santa is hands-down the best lie a parent can tell, and I am THRILLED that it's my turn to stuff stockings and write pretend letters telling Joe to help her parents fold the laundry. 

❄ Actually make an effort with the family Christmas puzzle this year. Unless I get really thirsty again.

2029

What are you all going to be up to the second Thanksgiving is over?

Once when I was waiting for Diego to be ready to leave work so that we could get on with our Saturday (ie, waiting for him and Zoe to finish playing “Baby Barista” and other fun games for children that involve hot milk and steam and labor violations) a woman asked me how I raised a baby in the city. She was sitting at the table next to mine and had already told me all about how she was visiting from Somewhere and had a daughter who was An Age and at the time I sighed inwardly and wished I didn’t have the kind of face that makes people want to talk to it and thought, “I don’t know, I’ve never done it anywhere else, idiot.” In retrospect she was a perfectly nice lady and was probably just bored waiting for someone to come out of the bathroom and I should be nicer or try to appear less interested, one of the two. (The second one, though.)

[Diego manages a café in midtown, I guess is relevant background information that may help those of you who struggle with context clues as much as I struggle with telling a cohesive story.]

You know what though, Past Lindsay, you need to calm down and not have rude thoughts about that lady’s chit chat questions because I (you) (I?) wonder “how” people “do” things, too. Like all the time. Only instead of asking those people how they do those things, you read their blogs or listen to their podcasts or watch their videos or sneak into their basements and stand quietly next to vents so that I (you?) can listen in. And her question wasn’t dumb; she probably meant like, how do you get anything done without a car to throw all the baby flotsam into? (On my end, I have questions for parents of babies with cars. Such as, how were you awake enough to operate a motor vehicle in those first few months? You drove yourself to the doctor/market/liquor store? How in the ever-loving fudge do you make it to any destination with a screaming child two feet away from you in a tin can? You have another space to keep clean!? In addition to your home!?) 

I myself am interested in what other people’s daily routines are, particularly (these days) other parents. What’s the first thing you do in the morning? What does your kid do while you do that? What do you do next? What things are clean? What do you clean the things with? How do you organize those other things? Do you ever just lie on the play mat with your eyes closed and let the kids and cats crawl all over you and pretend you’re at a fancy resort? Etc. And if those daily routines are neatly encapsulated in a blog post or a video that I am not required to have a conversation with, EVEN BETTER!

In case you haven’t noticed I’ve been bLoGigiNggG again. It’s free and I already know how to do it and there aren’t any needles or strings involved which makes it the perfect hobby given that I am surrounded by small curious persons and cats. I figure if I start writing posts about some of the Things that make my Life Easier, I will A) Have things to write posts about and B) I can say “Oh, just visit my blog, HTTP:!;CREEDTHOUGHTS.INTERNET!” the next time a stranger asks, “How do you do it?” (because I am glamorous and impressive and many strangers ask me that). Also in seriousness, I'm making a real effort to be consciously appreciative of good fortune; I think that describing the way I utilize some of the resources I'm privileged enough to have access to will be a meaningful exercise for me.

Stay tuned for fUn!

There’s a slice of pizza painted on the sidewalk in front of the bar on the corner of our street. The bar used to be a pizzeria, and I remember exactly what we ordered the one time we ate there the week we moved into our first apartment. I also remember the summer in between the pizzeria and the bar, when we used to sit on the steps of the empty building every Sunday while we waited for the laundry to dry and I would smoke and read my latest fifteen-cent paperback and Diego would complain about my smoking and read parts of articles out loud to me and we loved each other so, so much that even doing laundry was a date.

That little triangle fades a tiny bit every year, and it’s getting to be where people who don’t know to look for it won’t know it’s there.

—

I’ve got a lot to say about having a baby. There are exactly twelve other documents open on this computer right now containing disjointed thoughts on my pregnancy (can’t say anything about it without careening into a sermon on reproductive rights), childbirth (everything went according to plan, completely by accident), and the walking-into-walls exhaustion and hallelujah-praise-Aslan elation of transitioning from fetus-in-uterus to infant-in-arms.

If I could organize my thoughts, I’d tell you about why we (I) (we) switched to formula after less than a month of breastfeeding, why the real reasons nothing to do with latch or supply, why I feel next to no guilt about “not trying hard enough,” et cetera (absurd) and why I think the way anyone feeds their babies is so politically charged**; I’d tell you about choosing an OBGYN over a midwife (insurance and geographical convenience and uh that’s it) and about what it was like having a (mostly) natural childbirth in a hospital setting (challenging but not impossible) (but nearly impossible) (good grief). I’d discuss how helpful it was that I happened to be taking a class on eugenics during my first trimester (I know what you’re thinking: Full time work plus full time classes plus full time nausea and full-body exhaustion sure sounds like full time fun!! and you know what you’ve never been more right about anything I recommend it to anyone). I’d copy a little something from my previous complaints about street harassment and paste it into a shiny new complaint about the special harassment that pregnant ladies and moms face, e.g., men on the street or bus shouting “THAT’S A BOY!” whilst pointing to a woman’s belly and then arguing with that woman when she tells them it’s a girl (which she didn’t have to do because she’s under no obligation to engage with you or anyone especially since the thing she wants least to do at that or any moment is to have long discussions about the size and position of her increasingly large body) or the strangers at the store who loudly and insistently insist that her baby is in grave danger of freezing to death even though it’s fifty-nine degrees and sunny and the baby is literally strapped to its mother’s very warm and squishy body and not that it’s any of anyone’s business but the baby’s head fits very snugly inside the wrap for when it actually does get cold you know like when we’re outdoors and not inside a temperature-controlled store being harangued by cashiers and men who have nowhere better to loiter at two in the afternoon on a weekday thank you very much g’bye.

Maybe one of these days I’ll throw it back to 2011 and write a “My Labor and Delivery Story” on here. (And by saying things like “throw it back.”) Are people still doing that in blog form? Are people still doing anything in blog form besides asking if anyone else is still blogging?

—

Yesterday I made strawberry rhubarb pie filling during Zoe’s catnaps. This morning I got an email from Target informing me that they were cancelling most of my order, including the pie plate I bought specifically for said strawberry rhubarb pie. (Don’t worry, baby Christmas pajamas and a can opener are still en route.) I’m choosing to view this cancellation as an early Christmas gift from the universe (and Target) since honestly it’s been about six years since I last made a pie and it will probably be at least six more until I make another one; there’s really no place for a pie plate in this home. Anyway besides pie the only thing I really look forward to about Thanksgiving is that it’s the earliest Diego will tolerate me putting up the Christmas decorations and this year I’m putting our names on brand-new stockings to celebrate our brand-new family member so those five pie-plate dollars can be glitter-glue dollars instead. Nothing like the smell of fresh glitter glue to usher in the holiday season, am I right? (Glitter glue, and Mrs. Meyers peppermint everything. Tis the season for our apartment to smell like Santa’s house.)



** It seems like you’re going to get shit no matter how you feed your baby, which is about the dumbest damn thing I can think of. It’s so, so weird to me that there are people that get weird in an outraged way about a woman breastfeeding in, say, a restaurant. Everyone else is eating, what is the problem? And like, women in countries who breastfeed for longer periods of time and with overall higher breastfeeding “success rates” also typically get a shitload more maternity leave and have more postpartum support in general. Cave ladies had each other to rely on, and also weren’t subjected to a lot of the fuckery that we modern ladies are today - like how if you do breastfeed your baby you have to make sure you cut them off at an age that society deems appropriate instead of what feels right to you. Fuckery, honest to god. Additionally, “breast is best” is only true if you add “…unless breastfeeding is a threat to your mental health, your relationship with your baby or your partner or your other children, a physical impossibility, or if you can’t or just don’t want to for any reason in the world because you’re a living breathing human with access to healthy alternatives and the ability to make an informed decision.” Those three snotty words put so much unnecessary pressure on mamas who are already physically and emotionally vulnerable and create a dynamic wherein properly caring for your baby means putting your own needs last. Anyway, just wanted to clarify that I’m all about breastfeeding, I just didn’t want to keep doing it. Not advocating for anything except that women get support for whatever choices they make. I’ll sit next to anyone with my boobs out in solidarity at absolutely any time while my own baby tries to talk and drink milk from her bottle at the same time even though I keep patiently explaining to her that it doesn’t work that way. I’m serious. Call me. 

Mon petit bébé and I have settled into something resembling a rhythm and these late October, November days have been as golden as the leaves on the ground. Well, they’re more of a yellow actually. The leaves. But if I said “These days have been as yellow as the leaves on the ground” you would think “Oh does the baby have jaundice?” and she doesn’t. So I said golden and we won’t discuss it any further.) Thankful doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about what an easygoing two-month-old I’ve got; I can’t imagine how much more challenging this season would be if my little girl didn’t have a solid sense of humor about her mama.

Probably as challenging as reading through thousands of baby product reviews. Ba-doom tss. (WHAT A SEGUE WOW LINDSAY YOU’VE STILL GOT IT.) So okay, we didn’t buy very many things for the baby before she was born. The one and only major purchase we made was the crib which I was for some reason obsessed with getting and setting up before she came - well, Zoe’s two months old and the only one who’s slept in it so far is the cat. (Don’t give me any advice about how to keep him out of there. I have internet access too and I promise you none of it works.) Her changing table, for example, is a dresser that one guy at work gave me for twenty bucks because he was moving to the Bay Area like everyone seems to when they’ve had enough of this city and that another guy at work completely refinished for us for free. (Here’s a tip for having a baby on a budget: Make sure you know a lot of people with slightly older kids and tiny apartments. They’ll be really eager to gift you their kids’ old high chairs, diaper bags, and even a breast pump and it will all be way nicer than if you waited for them to buy you something brand-new at a shower because who spends real money on other people’s kids no one okay bye.) Well one of the things we were fortunate enough to receive was a stroller, which I actually really like. It’s the “travel system” (ooOooHHoOHh) kind with a carseat that pops on and off. The thing is that we don’t own a car so the carseat thing is a bit of a wasted perk, plus it makes it more cumbersome than I want for when I start needing to maneuver her around Manhattan. (“Enough about the stroller,” says Papi Chulo/Sonny/Dexter the tiny cat from his perch on top of the air conditioner that we still have not taken out of the window. “You’re losing them. Nobody cares.” “And take a nap, for the love of Aslan,” calls Griffon from the kitchen, where he’s watching Zoe sleep in the stroller we are currently discussing because I have to trick her into taking naps. “Cats don’t speak English. You’re hallucinating.”)

So I started looking at strollers and almost immediately threw up. The baby shower episode of The Office had prepared me for the price tags (and thanks to Dwight I knew what basic safety features to look for) so the cost wasn’t shocking, but the reviews on these things are out of control. If you ever want a reason to give up on humanity I suggest you visit BuyBuy Baby dot com and browse a little. “Voice on GPS feature grating. Diaper bag lost at coat check. Ladies’ room disappointingly small. Service at swim-up bar slow.” ALL I WANT IS FOR THE THING TO NOT FLIP OVER AND KILL US BOTH. And a cupholder would be nice. Who are these poor kids whose parents are nitpicking strollers that cost more than my rent and how can we save them? The things are meant to hold the children, not raise them, unless I missed a very vital chapter in “What to Expect.”

This is not what I meant to say. Stroller reviews, really. But I hear chubberina cherries waking up and I must, must must go kiss her feet now. I must.

wherein i tell you about the last three books i read because math gives me a headache and i want to go home and i also am still recovering from an emotional hangover mehrr

You probably can’t tell, but I stuck these tile stickers to the floor myself. Yeah, really! That’s why it looks so professional. Want me to come do yours? 

“Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance

Mm, okay. Didn’t actually finish this one. OFF TO A GREAT START. Fun fact, I only realized that this book was A Thing when I stopped reading it to google a picture of the face of the man who was boring me to death. The only reason I bought it is because I thought it was going to be a memoir a la “The Glass Castle” and it is not. It is not so hard. Supposedly what it is is this great explanation about why poor people in the middle of the country voted Trump, and like, first of all, I don’t need an explanation about why ANYONE voted Trump because I’ve had a uterus for almost thirty years now and I have to go outside with it, like, ALL the time. So, okay, my point is not WOE IS ME AND MY VAGINA because you’ve never seen a happier pair of clams than me and my vagina (lol vagina jokes). My point is that if I had known that this book was going to basically be this guy yarning on about “personal responsibility” and how people on welfare shouldn’t buy cell phones while making NARY A PEEP about the shit the richest people in the world buy (WARS), then I would have spent my $12.95 or however much it was on yarn instead. (More yarn, I mean. I was feeling spendy that day.) Next.

“The Practice House” by Laura McNeal

This one I chose because I thought it was going to be about polygamists. (Note to self: Read book descriptions more carefully, and maybe disable Amazon one-click.) However, even though it turned out to only have monogamous Mormons and even though THEY were only in it for like twenty pages – I enjoyed this one a lot. There’s a dusty schoolhouse. There’s betrayal. There’s smooching. Eventually there’s a dirty old man, and juuust enough consumption (nothing worse than too much consumption in a story, am I right?) to make it a satisfying read. 

This is definitely one of those books where the characters are the story, if you know what I mean, so if you need a plot where there are A Lot of Things that Happen then you probably won’t love this. BUT. If you like depression-era stories about family dynamics and the complexities of how humans make choices and relate to each other and if you don’t mind a little dust and sadness, then – recommend some books to me, cause me too. 

“Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley

A lot of people read this one in high school, right? Well, I didn’t. Was way, way too busy pretending to read The Iliad and The Inferno. Also plotting elaborate ruses to skip Spanish and math. And gym. Anyway this book was suggested to me by Amazon and since I do everything Amazon tells me to (this post sponsored by Amazon), I bought it. Also because I think it was 99c, and also because, as we’re all well aware, old age has found me morbidly preoccupied with the fate of our poor sweet doomed planet. If you’ve read Orwell’s ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ WHICH YOU SHOULD, the main gist of it is basically like that except it’s set in the future and instead of managing the masses by exhausting them with long hours at shitty jobs, they use literal happy pills. “They” being the invisible others in relative control. And, oh yeah, nobody has moms or dads because everyone gestates in a tube and is conditioned to be happy as a clam (I feel like no one says that anymore, I’m bringing it back) serving whatever function they were cooked up in their little tube to perform. It was fine, whatever. 

Next up: “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome” by Joy DeGruy, as soon as I finish reading the copy of “Shrill” by Lindy West that my mom sent me. And then one about a family of hoarders. Yes, ANOTHER one.

The first piece of makeup I bought that wasn’t from a pharmacy was a medium-fancy eyeshadow palette. (I still have it, six years later. Nowhere near finishing it. I also still have the blush brush that someone’s mom gave me for Christmas in like 2008. I justveryextremelyrecentlybecauseiamfilthpersonified got a new one, but she lives in the same jar as the old one. I know what you’re thinking – WHY, LINDSAY. WHY. ARE YOU SO FUCKING GROSS AND WEIRD. Well, friends. Isn’t it cool how I know what you’re thinking.) I bought it right before I moved to the city and way before I knew sheeeeeit about putting on makeup. (Now you’re thinking, YOU STILL DON’T KNOW ANYTHING and you’re right, but please. Stop interrupting.) So at first, I wanted to wear all of the colors. All of them. At once. And I did. And I looked amazing. Just kidding, I looked like an extra from American Horror Story. Like I got punched in both eyes by a fairy. Like someone who did know how to put on eyeshadow had done my makeup for me, and then I rubbed them with the vigor of a sleepy toddler.

Right. So, I’ve been thinking that boundaries are like that. When we’re excitable or vulnerable or some other –able and we find a new boundary, the brain throws up this massive fortress that requires an even more massive amount of psychic energy to hold up. A lot of our mental energy goes into keeping out whatever we’ve perceived as dangerous, is what I’m saying, is what I was trying to compare to the using of all the new eyeshadows at once. Which I’m now realizing doesn’t really make that much sense. Unless when you stumble upon a new boundary you like to test it out in a whole bunch of crazy ways that end up not being such a good look. So yeah maybe it does make sense. Great. It stays. So anyway, ideally, I guess, that shiny new boundary of yours eventually becomes a part of your emotional landscape and you’re able to go about your life without needing to keep constant vigil beside it. And hopefully if someone crosses it there’s a space to have a conversation about it, for you to say “Hey, this is what I need in order to feel safe” and for the other person to say “Cool man, I respect that, hey also this is what I need” and everyone can just be cool about each other’s boundaries.

But you know what? You don’t HAVE to have that conversation with someone if you don’t want to. I mean don’t like, get offended at Jane in sales because you think she looked at you kind of weird and then snub her then when she asks you if everything’s okay in a totally nice, normal tone say, “NO JANE I DON’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING TO YOU.” Don’t do that, poor Jane. And poor you, living that way. So exhausting. What I mean is, if someone has made you feel unsafe then you have the right to decide whether or not that person is deserving of calm discourse. You have the right to judge the integrity of the scaffolding of your own relationships, to gauge how they’ll react to a pointing-out of hurt they caused. And sometimes, especially when someone repeatedly crosses lines and disrespects boundaries, the wiser choice may be to disengage. Even if they aren’t doing it intentionally, or with hostility in their heart. Sometimes the best thing to do may be to batten the hatches, assign a sentry, and keep moving forward with or toward people who don’t send you running, feral, for cover.

From the balcony, open to the misty starlight,
A sad wind came, from invisible worlds …
And she, she asked me about things unknowable
And I answered her with unattainable things.
Juan Ramón Jiménez

Yesterday I spent a solid hour reading articles about the stupid Fyre festival. AN HOUR. In my defense, a large chunk of that time was spent working past the debilitating disappointment I felt at learning that the photos were not of cult scenery. (I just listened to like six different podcasts about Jonestown.) Then I thought, who would spend thousands of dollars to watch Blink-182 in a foreign country? My pre-teenage bedrooms were literally wallpapered with Travis Barker & co, yes. But like… Blink-182? Finally I thought, “Wow, I’m embarrassed to have allowed this to take up so much of my brain space” and ordered a copy of War and Peace online. I saw Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet a couple of weeks ago with some work people and it was so good! I followed most of the show without tuning out, which made me pretty confident about my ability to finally finish reading a Russian novel. I’ll let you know how that goes whenever I eventually start. I’m in the middle of The Stand right now, also some other one I forgot the name of that’s on the Kindle that I thought I lost but I didn’t. I am very very very a lot looking forward to the long weekend. We somehow wound up jam-packing all three days with plans despite my staunch refusal to Go Anywhere or Do Anything 98% of the time, but the first part of Sunday at least has been set aside for eating an entirely too-large breakfast and communing with the couch. (So like, what we do every Sunday.) One of the plans is to see this new play about immigration, so maybe after that I’ll order some law books. Or cook books. Who knows what I’ll convince myself I can do, next week on Lindsay’s Nonsense Life.

Where has this got to. What. Wh!

Cheap & Easy Storage DIY: Throw all that shit on the kitchen table, and then leave it there until you use it up! #pinit

I’ve been feeling for a while like my life needs some cleansing. I don’t mean my diet, necessarily, although, I mean, that IS sorely in need of some tidying. A lot of tidying. Also underneath the radiator in my bathroom. Also the one in the living room. Also, who is a real person and cleans baseboards? Anyone? Seriously?

What I really need (I have no idea what I really need, could I have chosen a more ironic literary device? Maybe, I’m not sure I’m using “ironic” correctly here or anywhere ever OH LOOK THERE’S A FLY IN MY CHARDONNAY) is some structure. The only real scaffolding I have is my job, and when I’m there I have Tasks so it’s not as easy to drift. I’m a great employee, omg. So great. Seriously.

And so, then, if time requirements and deadlines are what help me to successfully accomplish all things hideously dull for the benefit of others, doesn’t it stand to reason that those same things would help me to accomplish things that are pretty and fun and that benefit me? “Duh,” said everyone. “Duh.”

I think one of the reasons I am not a wealthy businessman is that if I asked someone to do something and then two days later they were like, “Well, I didn’t do the thing you asked me to do, but I did figure out how much of the Lorna Doone I need to bite off for optimal Nutella-jar-dipping WHILE watching forty-six and a half hours of Netflix,” I’d be like, “Wow. Amazing. That sounds way more fulfilling than whatever thing I asked you to do to that would generate more wealth for me. I’m exhausted from having this conversation, let’s take the rest of the week off.” It is bad news bears for my personal projects that I am the boss of them, LET. Me tell you.

My mental to-do list is fluid at its finest and when I do manage to get a line through something it spawns a thousand more tentacle-like tasks. It’s a lot like a video game monster, except I can’t call my brother to come kill it for me.

So I am being INTENTIONAL about the following things, or at least I am intending to:

Even though I’m far from a perfect performer in the housekeeping arena, I do make sure I maintain some semblance of a cleaning schedule because having a tranquil environment/some semblance of any routine is a huge part of what keeps me from collapsing inside myself. At the very least, the dishes are always done and things are put away. But! spring is in the air, and stuff, and so I’ve been itching to deep-clean my little home, like REALLY clean it, like dust the tops of the doorways and take to the grout with a toothbrush and re-organize my closet kind of clean it. I was (AM, okay, still really am) considering hiring a cleaning service to come in and do it for me, but I’m trying to practice being grounded and mindful (and uh, you know, budget-conscious) and I think a nice Zen day of working some Mary Poppins-level magic on my living space will be a good opportunity to do that.

As for my head space, I have the seeds of a new little personal project rattling around up there and I’m going to try to turn the fits and bursts of motivation into more of a steady(ish) stream. I think for me what that will mean is devoting half an hour every evening to just sit with it, even if all I end up doing for the entire time is just sit.

I am going to make a point to access my compassionate self, often, every day. Even if I have to push past my bitchy self to get to her. Even if she’s really, really mean. (She is.)

Finally, (did you REALLY think I could discuss cleansing without bringing food into it, I mean, have we met, have we actually ever met) I bought a juicer. And I’m not, like, “juice cleansing omg beach body lolz.” Because that’s a great way to start barreling down a very dark road, and the beast at the end of that road ruins my teeth and digestive system instead of turning into a prince and its castle isn’t even magic so there aren’t any sexy candlesticks. What I AM doing is replacing my evening bottle of Pinot with a gentle yoga routine, and for a few days I’ll be getting most of my calories from juice, because my poor baby stomach needs a breather. I’m trying to get away from the mentality of punishing my body into a shape that it isn’t. I’m really, really tired of that. I AM trying to remove some of the noise, so that I can hear her better.

I can hear her now, and she's saying, "I'm hungry. Let's go get pork buns."

I never really got into podcasts (it was only recently that I accepted electricity as a trend that’s here to stay, and I’m still clutching my wide-brimmed hat about it.) I vaguely recall listening to This American Life back when I hung around a lot of people who were a little older than me and very into being aware of things so that one could be indignant about the things over craft beers. Most of those people, to the best of my knowledge, are now doing important work to better the things they helped teach me to be indignant about – which reminds me, I should remember to try more. And do better. Anyway, so, podcasts. Someone recently suggested I listen to “My Favorite Murder” because they know I am a person who loves murdering. Actually why they suggested it is a little unclear – the suggestion was based on the fact that I share a space 45+ hours/week with a human who is extremely challenging to share space with and others, including the podcast-suggest-er, are sympathetic. But the part that’s unclear is exactly in which way stories about murders are supposed to be helpful. Is it in like a, “life could be worse” kind of way? Or in a “I think you are a person who probably identifies with murderers” kind of way? Either way, it’s GREAT. The setup is casual, so it just feels like you’re hanging out with friends (especially if your friends don’t respond to you or acknowledge your presence in any way, and if you can’t SEE your friends you just hear their voices and also if your friends like to talk about dead people a lot.) I’ve been playing it while I get ready in the morning, and I can’t tell you what a treat it is to hear about women running into oncoming traffic while I smile into the mirror and dot blush onto the apples of my rosy, rosy cheeks. Such a pleasant way to greet the day.

I’m also listening to one called Sword & Scale, which is way more fascinating/upsetting. I tried to play one today at work but it had to do with kids and the dark web and it just got way too gruesome. Like even thinking about it now is making me want to throw up the sugar-free Jell-O pudding cup I just ate without a spoon.

The books that I’m reading are more cheerful – for example, I got a Kindle one for .99 (you know I can’t not) and in it the little boy escapes! from the secret, walled-off basement that his family is living in because his older brother raped and murdered a girl from their town who fell off a cliff. And the baby that the older sister has with the older brother is healthy! Another recent one (worth about 1/10th of the .99 it cost) about a girl who kills her roommate, assumes her identity, and then stalks the child she gave away for adoption. And not ALL of the post-apocalyptic ones have also been dystopian, exactly, so. I just bought/started reading Station 11 upon the recommendation of one of the girls on the murder podcast, so I’ve got pretty high hopes for a happy ending.

Also have not made the slightest of dents in the wall of books I already own and have yet to read. And if I divide how much I’ve PAID for the gym this year by how many times I’ve GONE, well, you know, math is hard.

That was an update on what I've been listening to/reading. Brought to you by 5PM EST.