Miss Tricky Takes Over

Soooooo…there are big plans afoot here at Miss tricky HQ but I can’t really talk about them yet so I guess I just became one of those ho-bags that says “oooh ooh! Big news… but I can’t tell you” and then smirks a lot to herself for a while. Sorry. If it helps, it is totally making me crazy too. Sorry again.

 In other news, my list of resolutions is small this year- and they are all of a vain and superficial nature. How fitting….

 Number One: Grooming. I have spent my 28 ½ years on this planet (okay maybe not the first 10 or so) longing to be one of those women who is not a total mess all of the time. Up until now I have been thwarted by my desire for more sleep, more fun times and an obsessive need to be working every moment that I am awake. No more! This is the year that I start shaving my legs more than once a quarter! I also vow to get regular pedicures and manicures. At 28 it is safe to assume that I am not getting any better looking so I might as well start cleaning up what I’ve got. I’d like to pretend that I will also do things like exfoliate and moisturize but let’s not get too crazy. It’s all about the baby steps, people.

 Number Two: Pilates. I have decided to approach this one from a non- weight loss angle this year. Sure there’s about 15 pounds I’d like to say goodbye to, but feeling strong energetic and capable is what I am really aiming for. I suppose the weight will slip off in the process? Also, it has recently occurred to me that I am not 22 anymore and if I have any hope of aging gracefully and beautifully I should start by being 28 gracefully and beautifully. Or something.

 Number Three: Finally get around to making that doctor’s appointment and get this evil mirena yanked from my womb. Over share? My apologies.

Maybe I should quit smoking too.

Sweet baby jebus, The Spawn is back to school! That was a long 11 days. For real. I have never been so excited to put him on the school bus…. not that I don’t adore him. I am, however, looking forward to getting ready for work today without this….

 “Mawmy, are you drying your hair? That’s what you’re doing mommy? Drying your hair? For you can go to work? For you can go to your coptail work? Where you make coptails for the peoples? I like coptails. I visit you and you make me the coptails? What are you doing now mommy? You putting on your make-up? I will help you! Here mommy! Don’t you need these? (Reaches into make-up bag and hands me fistfuls of crap) Here mommy! I am helping you! Did you forget your earrings mommy? I will get them! (Scurries away and returns with earrings) Here mommy, your earrings! Mommy, don’t you want your earrings mommy? Mommy, I got you some earrings! Are you going to take the bus to work mommy? I like the bus but I am not going to school today, mommy. No school today! Here mommy, your earrings! Mommy aren’t you forgetting your lipstick? Don’t you want some lipstick mommy? Liiiiiiiip stiiiiick. I think you need some lipstick mommy…. Mommy are you done now? Are you ready mommy? Are you going now? Mommy? Mommy! Moooooooommmmmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyyy”

 For real, dudes. That happened. If you think your life is ridiculous try starting the day arguing with your four-year-old about why you do not need lipstick.

I am not sure why this has been so difficult for me to write. I keep thinking that this year’s newsletter will be rather anti-climatic after last year-maybe that’s why I have been putting it off. The constant and often painful change of 2008 made it very easy to point to exactly what happened that year; an ordered checklist was easy to compile. 2009 was much sneakier and quiet. But now that I am looking back on it, 2009 seems like proof that 2008 happened.

 This past year was about committing to the changes I had made. This past year was all about settling into the person I had become. 2008 forever changed me- old habits and ideas fell away and I got a chance to re-define how I wanted to live. 2009 proved to me that I have changed. When all the drama and conflict subsided I found myself calmer and more centered than I have ever been before. Here’s to growth and maturity continuing in 2010!

 The Spawn, on the other hand, spent 2009 changing and healing and growing at an incredible rate. If you came to my house today and met the chatty, imaginative little boy who lives here you would find it impossible to imagine that he was the same little boy who’s tantrums and struggles I have detailed in this blog. He has more than blossomed- he has exploded! The changes in his diet and his new therapy have made it very difficult to spot the remaining traces of his disorder. We fully expect him to enter “normal” kindergarten next year, and though that brings with it a new host of challenges we are confident in his ability to continue to thrive.

 And then there’s Mr. President… That crazy man moved The Spawn and I into his home, was patient during the job search, helped to find daycare and a nanny and even attends school meetings on a regular basis. He is more than my squeeze; he is my partner. I am starting to think of The Spawn as ours rather than mine. When you find yourself being a single mom (autism or not) it seems ridiculous to think that you will ever have a relationship again. It seems ludicrous to imagine that anyone will love your child as much as you do or that you would let them if they wanted to. Obviously Mr. President’s love for him is different than mine, but I am amazed to discover that it is perfectly complimentary. We have built a family- and it was easier than I thought it would be.

The thing is, I am lonely. I was going to blame it on being in a new place and having some good friends but not the type you have history with – but, in reality, I have always been lonely. I was lonely in Rockford. I was lonely in Milwaukee, I was lonely in Pittsburgh and now I am lonely in Philadelphia. I might be a “loner”. Remember in school when that was a dirty word? A loner was someone who didn’t make friends and preferred to read quietly and didn’t go to parties and we were all supposed to try and not be that person. A loner was different and dangerous and strange. Are they still?

 When I fantasize about free time and what I would do with it, most often I am alone. I knit and read and write. When I get really crazy in those fantasies I take dance classes and pilates and am in classrooms learning new things. Only once in a very great while to I daydream about being with people. I have this perfect image in my head of what it must be like to have those relationships. Standing breakfast dates and stitch ‘n’ bitches and cocktail hours….. But at 28 wouldn’t I have created that by now? Am I just a loner? It is not my natural instinct to call a friend when I am blue or frustrated with something; I do not naturally reach out. But if I am just built to be solitary then why this lifelong feeling of loneliness?

 Sometimes I imagine that it can all be blamed on distance and that if I could magically place about six of my friends (some of whom have never met each other) into the same city we would bond and spend time together and it would be just like I picture. Unfortunately I suspect that that wouldn’t work. I think I would distance myself and be the same lonely I have always been.

 So then is it time to change the behavior or the way I think about loneliness?

This is day four of my FOUR! CONSECUTIVE! DAYS! OFF! And I have done absolutely nothing. I initially thought that having four whole days to not be at work would be the best Christmas present ever, but then I got me some Tiffany& Co. so it is only the second best present I got this year. (Isn’t it amazing that those little blue boxes are almost enough of a gift in themselves? It’s marketing at it’s finest!) The Spawn is equally delighted with his gifts – largely Lightening McQueen in nature- and is already hassling us about next Christmas. We did not make it to Atlantic City for Boxing Day this year. Rain and our apparent inability to continue a tradition kept us at home watching Six Feet Under all day instead. All in all I am declaring this Christmas a success and we are all hurtling towards a new year together…FTW!

 Tomorrow means back to work and routine and finding a way to keep The Spawn entertained for his next 5 days off of school, so today looks like a good day for a Sunday drive and discs 3 and 4 of S.F.U.- Merry Christmas all, here’s to not getting out of my pajamas until the last possible minute!

Fact: There is no good way to start a blog post when it’s been over a month since your last one.

Last week I spotted our friendly neighborhood opossum perched atop a chain link fence. He hadn’t moved in 3 hours when The Prez and I went out to investigate. I probably should have called animal control, but I suspect that opossum rescue is not high on their priority list. Mr. President took pictures and I paced around in the street and frowned in concern. (What are you supposed to do in this circumstance? Is there a protocol to follow when a seemingly unharmed opossum sits on a fence for a really long time? If so, it doesn’t come up in a Google search.) We googled and learned that the whole “playing possum” thing is an involuntary response and tried to convince ourselves that he had been chased up there and was now a victim of his own defense mechanism.

 The next morning his lifeless body was on the ground next to the fence. Is that what opossums do when they are old and dying? Do they climb into a tree (or onto a fence) and wait to leave this plane of existence? Did we witness an opossum funeral rite? Anyone? Anyone? In any case, I’m bummed about it. He was a neighborhood fixture and will be missed. Even if it’s only by me.

I hate to admit this, but I watched most of a movie called “The Women” today. Not the 1939 one but the 2008 terrible one. It was terrible. All of it. And seriously, when is Annette Benning ever terrible? Anyway, the truly shameful part is that I was inspired by it. Meg Ryan’s character finds herself divorced and unfocused and completely clueless as to what she wants to do. She does two things that struck a chord with me. The first is saying that she has been ambivalent about life and that she wants to change it. I’ve never thought about it that way before. I am ambivalent about my own life. She also creates a sort of inspiration board for her life- this is my new favorite idea ever and also my newest goal. Done and done.

 I need changes. I don’t think they need to be huge and dramatic changes, more of the small but life-altering variety. I have been exceedingly restless and unhappy of late. Then I get depressed and overly self-critical about feeling unhappy and restless when my life is so damn good which just makes me more restless and pouty and…. you can see where this is going. As with everything in a mildly OCD person’s life, lists help…

Things that cannot be changed anytime soon or at all:

My work schedule. It’s intense.

The fact that I have a 4 year old in school and therefore have heightened responsibilities.

The fact that I do not have a disposable income.

Things that can be changed and should be immediately:

My health.

My overwhelming sense of melancholy due to being unfocused and ambivalent.

My attitude and approach towards my blistering schedule.

My priorities.

My lack of the emotional energy needed to tend to the important people in my life.

With that in mind I have quite a bit to do this week. First up? Find a doctor and get the hormonal deluge and chronic headaches sorted out. Purchase cork board and push pins for my inspiration board project will follow and then I MUST find a reasonably priced yoga/pilates studio near my place of employment. Three things in a week doesn’t seem like a lot to accomplish but it will be a small fucking miracle if I get all of that done. Speaking of hormones, does anyone else out there have an IUD that they think is making them ill and crazy? Inquiring minds and all that.

 Lastly, an open letter of apology…

 Dear Mr. President, Rhiannon, Sisters Two, Michelle, Rachael, Courtni, Sasha, Kim, Stephanie and The PQ Nation in its entirety,

 I am an asshole of a friend/squeeze/family member/contributor lately. I know this and I am desperately trying to sort it all out. I miss you all terribly and I feel guilty about not being on top of life enough to manage to have a conversation. I think I am going to try and make my needs and myself a priority for the first time ever in my life and you guys and our relationships are what I want most. I miss the banter and feedback and support and humanizing contact we used to share and I am committed to finding time for it again. Thank you for your patience.

 Love,

 Tricky

I have about 10 minutes before I have to start getting ready for work- no one plans time to write like me, huh? The guilt of my empty blog has been increasing lately and even the President pointed out that my new blistering work schedule wasn’t leaving anytime for what he (adorably) calls my “writing”.  Since Saturday was the Pagan New Year I am declaring finding time to post my first new years resolution! Hurray! In the mean time here are the latest news worthy stories in bullet form…

• I am just getting over some sort of heinous and awful flu. I assume this was my punishment for arguing with the squeeze about flu shots since I have never had the flu and shots are dumb. I lose.
• The Spawn was a cowboy for Halloween. He thought he was a horse and that horses say, “moo”.
• All of my longing for a trip to the Midwest in November seems to have been in vain…. maybe spring?
• Did you know there was such a thing as viral pinkeye? Yeah- me neither.
• I finally broke my “going out with the ladies for drinks and dancing in Philadelphia” cherry. Rest assured that I schooled them about such classic dance moves as “the shopping cart” and “the fork in the garbage disposal”.
• My cocktail creation (The Philadelphia) is catching on and if you live around here you should come to my job and drink one. Or seven.

 And for good measure I will leave you with the latest totally ridiculous thing my beloved squeeze has said to me…

“I know you’re sick but you actually look really pretty right now. You don’t have big bags under your eyes…. you know, not puffy either…like when you get up in the morning?”

 That’s my man…

What would I even write about anyway? That life is still dreamy? It is. That I work and come home and spend time with the family? I do. That the NEW! PART-TIME! NANNY! is working out beautifully? She is.

 Life has become insular and rather rhythmic lately. It is all cozy and warm and good. Now that fall is here and the breezes have turned cold, I find that I am content to hunker down in my den.

 Well……..

 All that plus the fact that a lingering weirdness has descended upon me and I have absolutely no desire to talk about it at all. I am actively ignoring my internal monologue. It is not trying to help, it is just kicking up fuss and I am enjoying the first ever “fuss-less” time in my life and I will not have it bothering me now for no good reason. I am not used to this feeling of contentment. I am not waiting for something or killing time or weathering a storm- I am just living and loving and enjoying where we are now. The dreaded autism monster has been pushed back and for the first time in 4 years I am reveling in my son. He delights me now in a way that wasn’t possible 5 months ago. So I am going to retract my earlier statement. I am not suffering any weirdness. I am simply taking the time to settle in and really get to know the new me I have built- and all the great things that have come along with her.

 And more importantly, right now I am cold and cannot think about anything but thick socks, red wine and a stack of unread magazines waiting for me in his gorgeous leather chair….

As you know, or would know if I ever actually wrote blogs anymore, Mr. President has been off on vacation since last Tuesday. If you count them up, that is SIX long nights with no squeeze to annoy. We used to go for two weeks at a time without seeing each other before I traversed the state and moved in with him but this is our longest stretch since the whole fam damily decided to cohabitate. Anyhoo, my point is that since the end of May I have already turned into a wimpy little idiot girlfriend. The first night was mostly okay but all five nights since then I have been a tossing and turning, bad dream having, no sleep getting mess.

Wednesday night I started bleeding profusely from my pores at a dinner party and no one but me thought it was alarming. Thursday night I was lost and cold and really upset about nothing and my old boss kept wanting me to get ice and then go swimming but I didn’t want to because I hadn’t shaved my legs and all my co-workers already didn’t like me and I didn’t want to give them more ammo to use against me and why was there a pool at work anyway? Except we weren’t actually in work it was more like an abandoned hotel and there weren’t any people to get ice for except my boss and co-workers so maybe I was just working at their party and I kept trying to go upstairs and look for something but every time I got to the top of the stairs I got poofed back to the pool that I didn’t want to swim in. Friday night was filled with urgent voices that I needed to help but couldn’t seem to get to and everyone I asked for help just looked right through me, plus my hands were broken and then Saturday my old friend hypnagogia came back. (Those of you saying “hey! What’s that word you just made up?” should click on the link. Be sure not to skip the paralysis part-that is the most fun.)

It has been a long time since I had one of those episodes. In fact, since about a three-month stretch during the very worst of my marriage-fueled nervous breakdown where it happened every night, I can only remember two other occasions. It is unpleasant to say the least. I will be sort of dreaming about something but still very aware and realizing that I am falling asleep when suddenly this pulsing, static-y, deafening noise starts rolling through my head. Next comes the cascade of horrible imagery. (It used to be seeing people go into The Spawn’s room and take him, mixed in with classic satanic imagery. Weird, right? The worst episode involved seeing a big black bull with red eyes charge through my window and into my body and then my room was full of people trying to exorcise it out of me. I know how crazy that makes me appear but try and remember that I was sort of dying from stress and misery and was totally bat-shit crazy at the time.) Once the images start to get really horrifying things get worse. The strange part of this state is that you are semi-conscious- you can’t tell you are dreaming because it’s all too real but you also know you can make it stop if you could get up and get away from it all. (Makes no sense, I know.) So only once you are properly petrified and desperate to make it stop do you realize that you are paralyzed. Completely and totally paralyzed. The first time it happened I knew I was lying in bed with my then husband next to me. I knew these people were hurting me and all I had to do was wake him up and he would help me. Except I couldn’t move to touch him. I could feel him breathing and warm right next to me but my body wouldn’t work and I was trying to scream but I couldn’t move my mouth or vocal chords or whatever you need to make noises. Eventually my mental thrashing and screaming turned into actual thrashing and screaming and I woke him up panicked, and was too terrified to sleep normally for months. It was so disturbing that I called my sister early the next morning and described it to her. Sister dear hopped online and researched and found the term “hypnagogia” for me.

 Anytwats, it happened again on Saturday; That terrible noise, the pressure on my body (this time flat on my stomach and pinned to my bed), the paralysis, and as a fun new twist, my ex-husband walking through my bedroom door and toward me.

Saturday night was a bad night. I shook myself free of it at about two in the morning and baby jesus himself could not have made me go back to sleep again that night.

 Last night was just sort of a hodge-podge of all those things. Not any actual hypnagogia but my fear of it happening again kept my mind churning and me waking up every 10 minutes just in case, ya know?

 I’m tired.

 Luckily the squeeze is on his way home right now and will be here well before bedtime tonight. And so help me if his presence doesn’t work and I have bad dreams all night with him here I will…well…….. do something really rash and serious!