Smoke and Mirrors

I mentioned to my friend Aerie, a loyal blog reader, that in my dreams, I'm almost always smoking, or at least holding a cigarette. This is particularly odd, since I don't smoke and really never smoked. Yes, I tried a puff, mostly out of curiosity in 9th grade. I almost gagged and asked the person who had let me have a drag off her cigarette - "Ugh, that tastes so bad, why would you ever put it in your mouth AGAIN?" When intoxicated, I have occasionally attempted to smoke, though my sober compatriots inform me that I mostly wave the cigarettes around and occasionally take a very shallow hit off of it. But, about a month ago, I woke up after a dream that ended with me unsuccessfully trying to light (another) cigarette. When I thought about it and subsequently began to pay attention, I realized that more often than not, when I'm dreaming, Dream Me is smoking. It's never the plot or focus of the dream, but just a normal part of what I'm doing. Or in the dream, I slip outside to have a smoke. Or will be talking to someone while I'm lighting one. I don't know why. Some of the dream interpretation websites say that smoking a cigarette is a lucky omen. Some say it's a way of establishing or wishing for independence or being cool. One says that it's a sign that my subconscious knows there is some illness in my body. One suggested that they are phallic symbols OR indicate a destruction of resources. Hmm, seems the Internet won't be that much help on this one. Maybe my subconscious is trying to kill me by encouraging me to smoke. Another recurring oddity is the inability to see myself in the mirror in my dreams. It's never something scary or weird, it's more just like I'm never positioned right, I see other things in the mirror, even what's behind me, but my reflection is not in sight. Not even going to try the web on that one...

Where No One Knows Your Name

Remember the theme song to Cheers? "You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same, you wanna go where everybody knows your name." Sure, that's great, you definitely need that sometimes. We have a pub near our house we used to frequent in our BE (before Eddie) days. We knew the bartenders and the cooks and a few of the other regulars. Like Cheers, but with less snappy comebacks. However, I often wish for the opposite. I get the urge to flee to the airport, get on the first plane going somewhere interesting and/or warm and go where no one knows me or my troubles. I'll be someone else for awhile. Someone without a house, dog, baby and husband. Maybe I'll tell people I'm a performance artist looking for inspiration and see what I can get them to do for my amusement. I'll set up an easel and paints and stare out at the scenery, and maybe splash some paint around (don't worry, even if I tried it wouldn't look like the landscape). I could wear a bad wig and large sunglasses, look around furtively and see if people take my picture. Vacations are great, but in general,you take them with at least one other person who does know you. That person may or may not be game for being someone else for awhile, but even if they play along, they still know. I think I need a vacation from me for awhile.

Friday Feast

Whoo hoo - early this time . . Feast One Hundred Thirty-Two Appetizer Where on your body do you have a scar, and what caused it? I have a scar above my right eye, from when I was five and decided I wanted to be a trapeze artist in the circus. I attempted a stunt on my swing set which I had seen somewhere - circus, TV, who knows? - and the swing shot out from under me and came back and hit me. Stupid swing, obviously hadn't seen the trick. Soup What is something that has happened to you that you would consider a miracle? I found my son from thousands of miles away. Salad Name a television personality who really gets on your nerves. Ken Rice (local TV anchor) - personal grudge. Stewie from family guy, even if he isn't real. Main Course What was a funny word you said as a child (such as "pasketti" for "spaghetti")? Me? I never mispronounced anything, I'm sure. My brother said "emeny" and "aminal" - switching the M's and N's. Dessert Fill in the blank: I have always thought ______ was ______. I have always thought my fame was assured.

I'm a Fighter Because I'm a Lover

I know that I'm a fighter, a scrapper even. Not physically - I've never been in a "real" fistfight (I'm not counting the pushy-shovy stuff with my kid brother when we were little). But I'll debate you 'til one of us runs out of air. And if I think someone is hurting, disrespecting or taking advantage of someone I love, I'll jump to my loved one's defense like a mama bear. Sometimes, I argue for fun. I have one friend in particular who particularly enjoys this, too, and we have a great time finding completely pointless topics that neither of us has any real vested interest in, and arguing about them for hours at a time. the fun is in thinking on your feet, taking the other person's position and finding the holes in it and sometimes in defending a completely illogical idea as though your life depended on it. Other times, though I fight with you because I love you. Foolish? Yes, and I know it. It happens when I care about your opinion, and I feel like you aren't understanding where I am coming from. I can't help it. I get more stringent and farther to the side I'm arguing - sometimes until I sound nutty even to myself, maybe thinking that you'll have to concede my original position was actually logical and reasonable, especially compared to the insanity I'm spouting. I'm trying not to do that, I am. But if you're the victim of it, it's because I need to know you think my position is valid, even if you don't agree. If you want to stop me, because I just can't seem to stop myself, all you'll need to do is say "You have a point" or "You're right, that does seem wrong" or just nod and sympathize with me. Sometimes, even a fighter needs someone to just listen

It's All in My Head

I had a post idea. I did. But now it's gone and the only thing to blame is: Mommy Brain. Hadn't heard of Mommy Brain? It's a common ailment afflicting women with children, especially little ones. Caused by a combination of lack of sleep, talking to infants/toddlers all day and listening to kiddie music,which sticks in your head worse than any 80s One Hit Wonder ever could, Mommy Brain makes otherwise normal intelligent women do stuff like fill sippy cups with coffee or forget their own phone numbers. Plenty of people claim there's no such thing. These people have no children, or pay large armies of nannies to care for them. Think I'm making it all up? Try reading this actual conversation I had with my son aloud: Eddie: "Ball!" Me:"Yup, that's a ball." Eddie: "Ball!" Me:"Yes, can you roll the ball?" Eddie: "Ball!" Me:"Or throw the ball - throw the ball to Mommy" Eddie: "Ball!" Me:"Who's on that ball? Is that Spiderman on the ball?" Eddie: "Ball!" Me:"Yes, I see the ball." Eddie: "Ball!" Now, read that out loud over and over for the next 2 hours, then try to do simple math problems. Do it for 6ish hours a day (allowing pauses for eating and occasional naps - for the baby, not you) 7 days a week. And, let's talk about kiddie music, briefly. The more cheerful and stupid it is, the more likely it is to get permanently stuck in your head. If you don't think singing the "Let's Get On the Bus" song for hours a day messes with your sanity, you haven't tried it. Also, toddlers find things to do that you'd never have thought of. I find myself saying things like "Stop trying to feed the dog a crayon!" The poor fish were starving this morning because Eddie insisted that their food should NOT go into the aquarium, but instead must be carefully displayed in a very certain formation like some sort of art project. Right now, as I type this, my son is applying chapstick to his toes and making yummy noises. With all the benefit concerts, why hasn't there been one for Mommy Brain? There's no cure, but there IS treatment, If we raies enough, each mommy suffering from this dread ailment would be provided an at-risk teenage girl (who has been subjected to training). Several days and/or nights a week, this girl would be a Mommy Helper, changing the 15th poopy diaper of the day, getting up when the baby screams at 3 am for no apparent reason, cleaning the applesauce off the TV. It would cut down on teenage pregnancies AND help reduce Mommy Brain. Now I have to go, Eddie is trying to apply the chapstick to the dog, who doesn't even have lips.

Friday Feast

Feast One Hundred Thirty-One Appetizer What sound, other than the normal ringing, would you like your telephone to make? I think I'd like it go to say "Psst, Jami, phone. It's (name of person)." Soup Describe your usual disposition in meteorological terms (partly cloudy, sunny, stormy, etc.). I'd have to say I'm as unpredictable as the weather :D Salad What specific subject do you feel you know better than any other subjects? Hmm, well, certainly I'm the queen of Jami-ology. Subject like in school? Probably English. Main Course Imagine you were given the ability to remember everything you read for one entire day. Which books/magazines/newspapers would you choose to read? The dictionary, and as many encyclopedias as I could get through. Dessert If a popular candy maker contacted you to create their next confection, what would it be like and what would you name it? Hmm, I probably make something with caramel, dark chocolate and maybe peanut butter. I'd call it "Buy This For Jami"

Jami Gets a Woobie

I never had a blankey, or a teddy I couldn't sleep with out. Never sucked my thumb or had a binky. However, several nights ago Eddie started hollering in the middle of the night. Now, he's been warned against this, as Mommy is not really pleasant when she first wakes up, and unless there are dingos or a fire, he should just go back to sleep quietly, but he hasn't mastered that concept yet. So, around 3 am, I was stumbling blindly into his room. It was chilly (by my standards) so I grabbed one of his baby blankets and threw it around my shoulders while I rocked my little screamer back to sleep. I crawled back into my bed and drifted off, too. In the morning, when I woke up, my head was on the softest, fuzziest pillow I could imagine. I'd inadvertently worn the blanket to bed, and it had pooled around my head. It's some sort of ultra-soft fleece and boy-oh-boy was it great! I got up and went about my day, forgetting about the blanket. That night when I dragged my weary self back to bed, the blanket still covered by pillow. I wondered - could it be as nice as my half-awake self recalled? I snuggled into bed and lo and behold - it was! Fuzzy and warm and perfect for covering my head (yes, I sleep with my head under the blankets, so what?) and when I use it as my "head blanket" I don't have to worry about been strangled when the Husband steals my covers. It blocks the light. It smells like baby. So now, here we are, three or four nights into me sleeping with a baby blanket. Actively looking for it before I get into bed. The Husband noticed; he's the one who started calling it my Woobie (the blanket in Mr. Mom). Soon, though, I'll have a dilemma. It'll be time to wash the bedding and I'll have a couple choices. I can wash it with the bedding and put it back on the bed, making me the oldest person in history to START having a blanket. I can wash it and put it back in the baby's room like any normal person would do. Or, I can "accidentally" leave it on the bed, and put the decision off until NEXT laundry day. Of course, there's really nothing wrong with me having a special blanket that I just happen to like to have in the bed, right? RIGHT?

Eddie the Problem Solver

I worry and I hope that Eddie takes after me in certain regards. There are plenty of things about myself that I love. I do worry, however, that his impressionable brain might begin to function in the very-special-but-not-entirely-normal way that mine does. Don't get me wrong, I sort of enjoy knowing that my mind doesn't always fire up the same way other people's do, but it also makes life a little odd sometimes. A few days ago we were at the Seesaw Center where we go to play. Eddie had discovered the felt-covered section of wall, with the felt figures to stick to it. Having never seen it before, he expressed delight when the cut-out shapes of animals and people stuck where he put them. I think most children might think "Ah, these things stick to this wall." Eddie, however, in a Jami-esque burst of brilliance concluded "MAGIC WALL!!" and dashed off to another toy box where he selected several choice toys to stick to the Magic Wall. He scurried back with his arms full, dropped the toys beside me and attempted to stick the first one to the felt. It did not stay. He tried another - it also fell. Eddie picked it up and examined it. He looked at the wall. He shoved the toy in the direction of the wall with a forceful "Da!" (which I translate to "you're supposed to stick THERE!") Then he carefully pressed it to the wall and let go. Again it tumbled to the ground. He checked a few more toys, showing them the wall, pressing them firmly against it and gingerly letting go. All hit the floor. Eddie looked up at me with an expression of confusion and consternation. These toys were not listening - did I have any ideas? I pointed to the small plastic bin with the rest of the felt figures in it. "Here, honey, use these. The toys in here will stick." The light bulb went off over his head. Now, he had it. He grabbed the bin full of felt figures . . . And dumped it out so he could load the uncooperative toys in. The problem was clearly that the toys needed to be in that bin to work! It's a magic bin! Needless to say that the bin did not assist the toys in sticking to the wall. After a few fruitless tries, Eddie gave up and wandered off, a look of vague disgust on his face for the toys which would not respond to the magic. But there are plenty of toys and soon the magic wall had been forgotten. Can't wait to see how he reacts to it next time.

It Means More Than You Know

I had a semi-clever, semi-funny idea for today's post rattling around in the old noggin when something else happened. It's kind of too long and too personal for me to go into, but I got a little note from someone. Just a few lines, and one of them was "I wish you could be here." And it made my day. Brought me to happy tears - not just because someone wishes I could be with her, but because the note meant, to me, that I'd had an impact on her life, for the better. We all want to know that our lives have some meaning. That we have reached beyond ourselves to make the world a little better, touched someone's life, reached one person's heart. If I do nothing else in this life, if I never manage to do anything else worthwhile, even if I breathe my last tonight, I know that it was not in vain. That's what that little note meant.

Surprising Sadness

You might be surprised to find out that I am actually rather sad at the untimely death of Anna Nicole Smith. We certainly didn't have much in common, and in general, I kind of thought of her as a punchline. But when I heard that she'd passed away, I felt an unexpected sense of loss and grief. Not because I admired or even approved or her or her choices, not because I knew her or followed her career or anything like that. It's because it's a tragic end to the life of a person who, I really believe, spent her 40 years looking for meaning, for purpose, for love - and not ever really finding any happiness. A small town stripper, single mom, courted and married by a billionaire - she probably thought her prince had arrived. Regardless of if they were in love as we would know it, I believe they probably understood each other - if she brought her octogenarian husband some happiness in his later years and he wanted to will her some of his vast fortunes - what's wrong with that? Decades later, she still was still litigating it, having been broke and shilling clothes for fat people on a home shopping network. She's been beautiful and desired, she's been fat and a laughing stock. She tried acting and modeling, with limited success, and I'd say it was pretty obvious she never loved herself. Whether she and her son were estranged is something only they really know, but he was with her when she bore his half-sister - and when he died. Even if they hadn't been as tight as they could have been, does that make it less painful for a mother to lose her child? And then paternity battles for her new daughter? I wondered if she'd gotten pregnant "accidentally on purpose" in the hopes that one of the men currently claiming the baby would marry her - was it the lawyer who did step up? Or maybe the prince who has come forward - did she hope to finally be a princess and maybe, maybe feel like a princess? I'm sad for Anna Nicole because I think hers was a life of loud and public desperation. I do not consider her evil or even a bad person, I don't really think she was greedy in the way her former step-son suggests. I feel that she, like so many other people in this world, ached for love and hope and significance and worth; she just didn't know better than to look for it in money and fame. And that's why I'm sad.

Friday Feast

Feast One-Hundred Thirty Appetizer Have you been sick yet this winter? If so, what did you come down with? Eddie and I both have had this weird very slight congestion for a while. His doctor just told us to take some decogengestents but that there's no infection Soup What colors dominate your closet? Black, navy blue, brown Salad How would you describe your personal "comfort zone"? I'm not sure what that means. My personal space is about three feet for strangers, practically nothing for friends and family. I'm happiest in my bed in the dark with a good movie or book, a cup of tea, a pile of blankets and Madrid the Body Pillow. I'm not comfortable with touchy-feely strangers or driving alone to places I'm not familiar with. Main Course On which reality show would you really like to be a contestant? Celebrity Fit Club? Okay, I am not technically a celebrity but that's not my fault. Dessert Which holiday would you consider to be your favorite? Probably Christmas. Or my Birthday. It may not be a nationally recognized holiday yet, but I have high hopes.

Naming Ourselves, Part 2

Yesterday I mentioned that at the tender age of 4, I attempted to rename myself Cindy. The continuing part of this story is that as I got older, I practiced using the name Cynthia Jones as a psuedonym, in the event I had to flee and use a different name. That's right, as far back as Junior High, I had a name in reserve, just in case. I'm a big contingency planner. If you think it's a bad thing that I've told you my "secret" emergency name, don't worry, I changed that shortly after high school, out of concern that someone might remember that I went by Cindy and that could endanger me or them should I have to use it. Therefore, I can assure you that if I disappear, you won't find me living under the name Cindy Jones. My emergency name is common, but not too common. It's a normal spelling of a normal name, and no one, no one knows it, not the Husband, not M, not my parents (never know who I'll be hiding from). It's not a name that any one who knows me would make a connection to me, like a former pet's name or a favorite actor/author/character name. I think I'd be safe. I was going to ask what kind of thoughts went into chosing your emergency name when I mentioned it to the Husband, who insisted that 1. He doesn't have an emergency name, 2. Never put any thought into having one and 3. Neither has any sane person. It can't be just me - anyone? Anyone? PS - Look - M's got a blog!

If We Named Ourselves

Generally, we don't get to chose our own name. Sure, you can legally change your name to pretty much anything you want, including Max Power. But most of us tend to stick with the moniker our folks chose, possibly with the addition of a married name. We make peace with it and/or learn to love it, if we didn't before, and that's that. I'm fine with Jami now, though I still maintain that it's a nickname and I always wished for a "full" name, sigh, oh well. I think Jami looks cute typed and written. My middle, maiden and married names all also have 4 letters, making me a perfect square, at least name-wise. It's quick to write and even though old people tend to call me Janey or Jenny, most people don't say "WHAT?" when I introduce myself. BUT, if I'd named myself, it would have been at about age 4 when I decided that I was Cynthia (Cindy for short). I refused to answer to Jami, only one of the aforementioned names. I wrote "Cindy" in my coloring books and on my "papers" from playing school. My mother began to worry about how she'd explain to the kindergarten teacher that even though my name technically was Jami, she'd have to call me Cindy if she wanted an answer. Long story short, the situation resolved itself before school started, and instead of me, a life-sized doll answered to "Cynthia" (well, not really answered, but you know what I mean). Some days I wonder what would have become of me had my parents let me keep the more girly "Cynthia" and ditch the possibly unisex "Jami/Jamie/Jamey . . ." Would I have become more perky and bubbly as Cindy? A cheerleader and the Prom Queen? Would I have shown a stronger interest in name-brand jeans and eyelash curlers? We all know about Shakespeare and the rose is a rose . . . blah blah blah, but how can I be sure? Like it or not, you have an expectation of someone, however weak and changeable, based on their name. So would I still be ME as Cindy or would I have been some other me? We'll never know. If you'd named yourself, who would you be?

Happy Birthday, Grandma

It's my grandmother's birthday. Not the one who had the birthday in October - the OTHER grandma, you silly but loyal reader. I started to write about how my grandmother was one of my best friends while I was growing up, listening to (and keeping!) my secrets, even up through Jr. High, how her house was my favorite place to stay over, how she was the first one to babysit me and the first person I left Eddie with when we brought him home, but it started to sound like a eulogy and believe me, there's plenty of life left in this particular 76-year-old. I get my outspoken-ness, my love of games and my voracious reading habit from her, and probably my night-owl biology and love of pasta. Thursday, she's going to Gymboree with Eddie and me, and I won't be surprised if I have to help her down the slide, too. Happy Birthday, Grandma - much love and a million blessings.

Friday Feast

Feast One Hundred & Twenty Nine Appetizer What was one of the fashion fads when you were a teenager? Big hair! I was woefully unable to acheive proper big hair. Soup Name one thing you think people assume about you when they first meet you. I've had several people think that I am older, but LOOK younger - I have no idea why. Salad On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how hard do you work? at what? housework - 7 Parenting - 9 Wifing - probably a 7, blogging - 4 Main Course If you were given a free 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl to sell anything you currently own, what would you advertise? Hmm, I don't know that I have anything worth selling, really. The autographed John Tesh poster I just gave my mom to eBay? Dessert Fill in the blank: I love to ________ when it is _________. I love to curl up with a good book, a cup of tea and a comforter when it is raining and stormy out.