free (fringes) love

{So it turns out I broke the internetz trying to get this link to work.  Anyway, read on, and please visit free fringes to participate in Lovelinks #8.  You can still link your post here, but we won't see the pretty thumbnails!  Erica has promised me a hosting gig AFTER my switch to WordPress, which is now imminent - stupid Blogger...}

I have a confession to make:

I have a secret crush.

I can’t help it.  My crush makes me feel special.  My crush makes me feel like what I have to say is interesting and important.  My crush also makes other small blogs feel the same way.

So I guess my crush is kind of a blog hussy.

But that’s okay.  There’s enough love to go around, isn’t there?

Erica at free fringes is the creator and fabulous host of Lovelinks - a brilliant new feature that highlights the smaller blogs (like mine!) and brings them together with fabulous readers who will help spread the love - or at least make you feel a little less lonely.  

AND it's easy peasy to get involved by linking your favorite posts of the week that could use the love: either someone else's or your own, then vote on your favorites.  

Winners will receive a fabulous button and bragging rights for the week (sorry, a years' supply of macaroni is not included.)

I am flattered to have won Lovelinks #7 (acceptance speech?  I can barely get a sentence posted!)  So I was bestowed the honor of hosting this week's Lovelinks #8

Want one of these?  Then link up!

Give us your best post of the week, or share with us your favorite obscure posts from when you were just messing around instead of working on that spreadsheet.

Submissions are open beginning at midnight Tuesday (5/24) until midnight, Thursday (5/26) then the fun begins:

1. Visit as many links as humanly possible

2. Leave relevant comments on your favorites

3. Come back and vote for the one you loved the most - voting is open until midnight Saturday (5/28) then the winner will be revealed!

4. Don't be mean or stingy: Karma will bring you back as a cockroach

What are you waiting for?  Click below to link up (and stop making me look bad, or Erica won't let me play with her stuff anymore!) 

[Edited by Erica M---for your link to work, you'll need to add this hyperlink somewhere in your post: lovelinks #8. Just something like: this post was lovelinked this week at lovelinks #8. Very simple]

Reboot

Okay, so I took a little *break* and I feel like I have some ‘splainin’ to do.

Sometimes, I have these weird panic attacks.

They start out in the pit of my stomach - where the little butterflies start flittering.

Sometimes the butterflies grow.  And grow.  And grow.

Until they turn into something different.

When that happens, things start to go awry.

The shame of it is, that nervous, tweaked-out energy usually translates into some of my best material - I’m pretty funny in calamity!  But I can’t get it together enough to concentrate on any one thing for longer than a nano-second.

The kids generally don’t realize I’m in mid-crisis;  partly because I try not to visibly freak out, if at all possible.

And partly because they make me screamy anyway.

Normally, Derek’s there to talk me down from the imaginary ledge, and I can get back to a place where I can function normally.  At least for a little while.  At least until the next one happens.

I can’t figure out why they come and go the way they do, and usually I can work through them, but sometimes, they just get a little too big and demand attention. 

Kinda like a third child.  Or worse, a second husband.

So I do what I can to make it through, until the anxiety decides to retreat back to it’s dark little cave.  Although that periodically takes some creativity on my part.  This time, I needed something a little crazy to get back to “normal.”

So naturally, I dyed some of my hair purple.

I feel much, much better now...

Blueberry Blues

I recently saw about the first half hour of this movie called “My Blueberry Nights” (it was very awful, and I had to change the channel before my eyes started bleeding,) about this girl who gets unceremoniously dumped by her cheating boyfriend.  She spends the first bit of the movie skulking around this diner that they used to go to and develops a friendship of sorts with the guy (manager? owner?) who works there - who is played by Jude Law.  In one scene, she wonders out loud why her ex dumped her; why he’s with someone else - is she prettier?  smarter?  And Jude lays a pretty sage explanation on her that goes something like this:  


See this chocolate cream pie?  I’m lucky if I have one slice left at the end of the night.  Same with the apple.  But look at this blueberry pie (which is untouched.)  There’s nothing wrong with it - it’s a perfectly fine pie, and it’s actually quite delicious;  it’s just that people ordered the chocolate cream or the apple instead.  It’s not the pie’s fault, people just wanted something else.  They made different choices.   


That blew me away.

I think I am a blueberry pie.

We have lived in suburbia for about four and a half years now, and I still have not made any friends.  Well, to be honest, I was pretty tight with my neighbor, but alas, her husband got a transfer and they now live a good 600 miles away.  I have made acquaintances - you know, those people you see in the school yard or on the soccer field with your kids - moms that say ‘hi’ to you, and ask how you’re doing, even though they really don’t give a rat’s ass whether you just won a beauty pageant or were recently diagnosed with leprosy.  I actually tested this theory out a couple of weeks ago when asked by one of the ‘regulars’:

Other Mom:  Hi!  How’ve you been?

Me:  Oh, hanging in there.  Just trying to keep my head above the laundry!  (ha. ha.)

Other Mom:  Oh.  Uhh...

Me:  I swear, Peyton has more costume changes in one day than Madonna!  (ha. ha.)  Ugh, it never ends, right?  So how are you?

Other Mom:  Oh look, I think Ashley’s having trouble with her swing.  I’d better go get her.  Nice talking to you!  

I doubt that woman has ever been happier to see her child in peril.

It sounds kind of random, what I did (and seeing it written on paper, I sound waay more manic than I actually was, honest,)  but I really thought that this might start a dialogue, you know, an opening for her to initially commiserate with me and maybe share a bit of herself.  Instead, she fled the scene like her ass was on fire.  

Having kids goes hand-in-hand with having playdates, and those playdates also offer most moms the opportunity to meet and forge friendships with other moms.  I mean, these moms already have some things in common:  their kids are friends, they’re usually about the same age, and they don’t live too far from each other.  Other variables include the coolness of their husbands and the age/sex of their other children relative to your own.  Once all (or at least some) of these things come together, it should be fairly easy to find some common ground unless the other mom  a) is a notorious gossip, b) thinks she’s way better than you, or c) is crazy as a budbug (more on this last one in a later post.)

From a distance, that particular mom seemed to be relatively well-adjusted, and I always thought she was pretty nice, but faced with that unexpected interaction, she just completely shut down.  Was it me?  Maybe my reputation had made it’s way around the school yard, although for the life of me, I can’t figure out just what that reputation might be.  Maybe I had something on my face.  Maybe she thought I fell under category “c” above.  

Maybe I’m just a blueberry pie.

Everything is back to “normal” now.  That other mom is hanging out with her circle of friends in the school yard - one of the many circles I don’t fit in to, and she still says, “Hi, how are you?”  (although now I think I detect a hint of fear in her voice that I might actually tell her.)  I have taken to waiting in my car until school lets out.  I’ll try again another time, with another mom, but it’s tough putting yourself out there and feeling an icy cold breeze in return. 

Besides, I’m starting to get really good at “Angry Birds.”