Creaky McCreakerjoints

Here's the new blog, where I bitch and moan about my suffering: Road to 50 (witty, eh?). I blog instead of eating chocolate, and let me tell you, the chocolate was better. And so was the wine.

Day one of 84 days

Ugh. So today I started my first day of the Project. I dimly remember attempting to get back in shape last year and failing miserably, but this time I have joined a group of other people. Which is really the antithesis of my nature - I hate joining groups. I hated Girl Scouts, I never belonged to a sorority, I hate those professional "women's" organizations full of perky ex-cheerleader types, and I sure as hell will never join Toastmasters. It's all too Amway for me, too full of helium-infused bubbly chatter that makes my teeth grind.

But this one is being led by my kind and gentle yoga teacher. I trust him, and I like his style, which is more calm and patient encouragement rather than drill-sergeant barking. I do not respond well to being pushed - I tend to push back. But I have to admit - the fact that I sucked it up and joined a group and will have to report on my progress over the next 12 weeks is a motivating factor. I would be too embarrassed to fail, so I am grudgingly following the groupthink, not unlike an alcoholic who finally goes to an AA meeting.

So it's Day One of the Project. I got up at 5:30 a.m. to do my aerobic exercise. I switched from a huge mug of coffee with 2% milk to a tiny cup of coffee with skim milk. I am hungry. I am bitchy. My joints hurt. I hate everyone, and it's only 10:30. Yay me.

Happy new year, y'all

How are you, my readers? (Both of you.) How was your Christmas? New Year's? Kwanzaa? Festivus?

Although I don't make resolutions for the new year, I do look at my list of Things I Must Do in My Life to refresh and rethink. Ten years ago I took a very hard look at my list because I was on the verge of turning 40, and the list became longer and more important since my life was NOT working out as I wanted. This year I couldn't even find my list.

But that doesn't mean I don't have it stored in my dusty old brain. Over the next month I am going to review it and post about it and I am curious to see what sort of responses I get, if any. Do you have a life list? How much of it have you done, what do you regret, and what are you yearning to accomplish?

I will share mine soon. I am starting a project with my yoga teacher called "Bridging the Wellness Gap" which is a program that I hope will improve my health, fitness, and mental wellbeing. This is all part of the Road to 50, which will occur in September of this year, and damned if I will be a slobby old frump on my birthday. Divas do not do frumpy, unless it is cleaning day and you must shuffle around in your t-shirt and sweats and tiara.

Happy 2009, everyone, and let's hurry up and get to January 20.

Giving is addictive

I love to give things to people. I like buying gifts, because if you pay attention people always tell you what they'd really like.

My best Christmas memory as a child was the year I was nine years old and helped my dad pick out a gift for my mother. My mom and I had been shopping earlier in the fall when she saw a coat at Sears that she absolutely fell in love with. It was beige suede with a beige mink collar, and it was beautiful. It was also expensive.

I don't remember how it came up, or how it came to be that my dad decided he could afford it, but I remember being so proud that I could go with my dad to the Sears store and show him the exact coat that she wanted. We bought it, had it wrapped at the gift wrap counter, and stopped at the candy counter on the way out.

When my mother opened the gift she screamed with happiness -- I've never forgotten the look on her face. I was so happy and pleased that I was such a "grownup" and helped my dad make her Christmas special. My mother wore that coat until I was grown and gone to college even though the thing was practically disintegrated.

I thought about that great feeling when I went to the grocery store last night with my son. We were buying canned food for the food drive at his school, and he was excited. We picked out about four grocery bags full of stuff -- canned veggies and fruit, instant mashed potatoes, chicken and dumplings, etc. My son was very careful about picking out some things that he thought other kids would like -- spaghettios and chicken noodle soup, and of course mac and cheese.

As we checked out and loaded the bags into my car, he smiled goofily and said "Mom, I feel so GOOD that we did this." It brought tears to my eyes. I hugged him close and told him I knew just how he felt, and we went home.

Feh the halls

OK, put the tree up. Got the wreathes. Decorated stuff. Feh.

My heart's not in it, and I don't know why. If I didn't have kids I'd skip the whole thing.

But I do, and they make it worthwhile. My sweet son put on his fuzzy reindeer antlers and helped me decorate the tree and sighed with happiness when it snowed. We will bake cookies this weekend and get out the frosting and the colored sugars and make a glorious mess all over the kitchen. My daughter sings carols in her baby voice and tells me that if we don't have money for presents that it's OK with her.

I suppose because the mood of the country is so bad, it's affecting everyone. Millions of jobs lost, children sliding into poverty and hunger, and a man loses his life because of a stampeding mob at Walmart. How can I focus on shopping for gifts when the world is such a mess?

My kids are safe in the snow globe I have built around them: a comfortable home, school, basketball practice, homework, friends. But that snow globe isn't the real world any more than Christmas makes everyone loving and giving. There are days I want to give all my money away and live in a cave, but who would that actually help?

Anyway. I think I'll write a check to my favorite Christmas charity and offer up my heart to the universe, and see what happens.

a hot mess

OK, forgive me for my previous maudlin and idealistic posts about the election. I'm happy with the outcome and thrilled that the whole circus is over. I do feel sorry for our new president because he is going to have to clean up a shitload of a mess, and it won't be finished in four years. At least he's brilliant. He'll make good decisions and I can't wait to see intelligent press conferences again.

Being obsessed with the election was a nice diversion from my own messy life. I guess I've stopped thinking that life calms down and is ordinary and manageable. Of course the crappy economy has hit all of us hard, but it's the personal things that are really making my life hell right now.

My ex-husband, the millionaire, is still going forward with his decision to modify his child support obligation because he claims his income is "terrible." The $25,000 he spent on his 50th birthday present to himself - a scuba trip to Indonesia for him and his girlfriend - was, apparently, not evidence of any actual material wealth.

My current husband, Mr. 2.0, is borderline manic-depressive and is on a rollercoaster dealing with his 18-year-old daughter's unplanned pregnancy. To say that he does not deal well with emotional upheaval is to say that a thousand fire ants biting your genitals is a little irritating. He's a wreck and is impossible to live with.

My 14-year-old daughter is a temperamental hormonal mess trying to figure out her place in the world. She and my husband do not get along (see fire ants, genitals, irritation above.) They fight daily, and I am caught in the crossfire. There are nights when I dream that I have moved to another city, changed my name, and started my life over, and I am beginning to look forward to those dreams. Maybe even to the point of making them reality.

Is everyone's life this messy? Is life just a series of problems to be endured? Is marriage impossible? I don't know, and I've stopped trying to figure it out. All I do know is there are things in this life that I still want to accomplish, but the list is getting shorter. I want to raise my children and be the best mother I can be, and I want to make art, and I want to see a bit more of the world before I check out. I want to love people and be loved. Why are the details so hard?

VOTE!!

I can't think about anything else but the election. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight. This is the most historic election in American history and I am twitchy and nervous and happy and scared and about to burst with hope.

GO VOTE. It matters. I am voting at my son's school tomorrow and he is going into the booth with me because he is excited by the possibility of making history. It is his future I am voting for, and my daughter's, and all of the people I love who need to feel that love matters more than hate; that hope matters more than fear; that one person can inspire the best in all of us to come together as human beings.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shores,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"