Archive for September, 2010

Tourist No-No #1

Posted on September 17th, 2010

Old man tourists may not take pictures of my child. For some reason, there are still tourists in my city, even though the rainy season has started. They were at the famous bookstore, and there were many more outside one of the famous breweries as P and I were walking home from the famous bookstore.* In fact, one 70-ish man with a SLR camera was wildly taking pictures in front of one of the famous breweries. And then I crossed the street towards him and two 70-ish women, and I realized he was taking pictures of P. I saw red. Did I ever mention the type of legal work I used to do? I probably haven’t and shouldn’t, since this is a small city. …

Categories: Advice, Too much to ask?

Wanted to buy

Posted on September 16th, 2010

One sensory deprivation tank, so I can get some fucking sleep.

Categories: Naps, Not crazy...yet

Mr. Roper, Take 2

Posted on September 16th, 2010

Anyone remember my landlord? The guy who never got around to fixing my portable A/C unit, so we just went out and bought another one and deducted the amount from our rent (after telling him that we were going to do it, and he never responded except a few days later by text message saying “OK”)? Don’t get me wrong, I like absentee landlords. I want to be left alone. It’s bad enough my old crazy boss is downstairs and I have to see the office d-bag in the elevator sometimes. But the landlord - tonight he sends this weird ass email to both M and me, asking if we’ll be renewing our lease. In January. Because he has to, you know, plan ahead.…

Categories: Too much to ask?

R-E-L-I-E-F

Posted on September 16th, 2010

For a lot of reasons. My migraine is almost gone. I get headaches every damn day, but fortunately (?) only about one a week is so bad I want to cry, I can see sounds, or the sound of P screaming is enough to make me want to jump out a window. Fortunately, this one responded to a triptan. Yay. P is over the hump, developmentally speaking (at least for now). That awful screaming/meltdown thing still happens, but it’s much rarer, it ends quickly, and she’s gained a lot more control of herself. Also, she’s cognitively so much more advanced than she was even two weeks ago. P isn’t alone in that awful screaming/meltdown thing, and the more parents of 3 year olds I…

Categories: Good day

Writing Right

Posted on September 15th, 2010

The first 80,000 words of the novel wrote themselves. Maybe even the first 85,000. On bad days, I could still pump out 1,000 words – and that was when P was still a demon child. Now that the seventh circle of hell has returned my mostly even-keeled child to me, it’s been much harder, and I can’t figure it out. OK, I’ve been more active with P – we go more places and spend more time doing puzzles, art, and cooking. We have coffee dates. But even when I get time to write, the words haven’t been coming as easily. In the old days (read: the first time I wrote a novel, a million years ago) when the words slowed down, it was because…

Categories: Writing

Council tenancies, ketamine suns, and electric barbarellas, oh my!

Posted on September 14th, 2010

I clicked on the wrong playlist on this morning – instead of P’s music, it was one of my playlists, which I am always too tired to listen to in the evenings, anyway. Fortunately, this kid is already used to the Sex Pistols. I grew up listening to classical music, Simon and Garfunkel (and still know all of their songs by heart), Judy Collins, and Woody Guthrie. My kid knows the words to “The Wild Boys” by Duran Duran, and it is her favorite song ever. I’ve put “better” music in her playlists, but unless it has a driving beat in the first few seconds, she’s not into it. (She loves the Go-Gos and Celtic music.) A few nights ago, when she asked to…

Categories: Music

Monday morning gift

Posted on September 13th, 2010

This morning, P woke up, found me, said, “Hi, Mama” and then snuggled. Before she turned into a three year old terrorist, P used to wake up every morning like this. Enter demon child, who woke up screeching, “I WANT SOY MILK!” and would throw tantrums over being forced to ask nicely first. Now, granted, I am not always the most fun first thing in the morning. But I missed my sweet morning girl. Yesterday was a better day. I called her on all her BS behavior, and while I was exhausted at the end of the day (and so was she), it was OK. Progress is slow and not linear. I wrote in my journal about the “Hi, Mama” I missed each morning,…

Categories: Good day, Routines

Road to nowhere

Posted on September 12th, 2010

We set out for the beach this morning. I have something to confess: this is kind of sad, given that we live in a coastal state, but we’ve never taken P to the beach, because 1) the water here is f-ing cold and people are always getting sucked under and drowned and 2) we were pretty sure it would scare her until she reached a later place in development because the ocean is big and loud and cold. But I have a painting of the ocean in our bathroom and we’ve been talking about the ocean and various marine mammals/fish/reptiles, so it was time. We’d told P about the plans last night, which stayed a tantrum and shaped behavior, at least after I reassured…

Categories: Good day, Hard days

This city isn't quite big enough, apparently

Posted on September 10th, 2010

So a coworker (from before law school) posted on Facebook that his mom’s service was at such-and-such time. And like dozens of his other friends/acquaintances/former coworkers, I commented that I was sorry about his loss, and expressed my condolences. And a few comments later, there was a familiar name. And I realized it was a woman from a quasi-governmental agency we sued whose deposition I took. Apparently they’re from the same small town outside our city. (At least it wasn’t opposing counsel, a woman who is such a ___ that she tried to make me think – and for a time succeeded – that I’d violated some ethical rule, just to mess with my head.) Facebook does complicate practice, but that was a new…

Categories: Law, Weird day

Return to Normalcy?

Posted on September 9th, 2010

Well, at least for a day. I’ll take it. I’m still flinching at shadows, waiting for tantrums that – for the most part – haven’t come. M was not obtrusive as a sick-at-home-husband today, except that he accidentally sparked two or three tantrums by not being aware of the hair triggers she can go off about. Mr. Rogers instead of Dinosaur Train? Tantrum! Turn TV off before credits are over? Tantrum! Wrong cup for milk? Tantrum! Daddy’s chair is in her way? Tantrum! Oh, it’s all about expectations. I can’t believe I’m calling a day with at least 10 tantrums a good day, but she recovered quickly from almost all of them, and that’s the important thing. Anyway, what was interesting about today was…

Categories: Good day