working on my divorce papers. (doing it myself.)

trying to figure out what to get logan for his fourth birthday in a couple weeks. (wow, how the hell did that happen?)

got these so far:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/74273822/sale-boys-magnetic-chalkboard
http://www.etsy.com/listing/75709458/bakers-dozen-solid-wood-toy-set
http://knoobies.com/Site/Welcome.html
(this last one bums me out because it's such an awesome idea, but made in china!!! booo! but i spent way too long trying to find knee and elbow pads somewhere besides the all-evil target or walmart, and just failed. ran out of steam.)

feeling mostly numb and exhausted all day every day. it's crazy that when you're raising kids - arguably the time in your life when you need to be at your utmost awesomest - that's when you are the most useless. i have lost probably a third or more of my brain power - can't write or speak for shit anymore - and am generally just a total loser these days. can't keep a clean house, can't accomplish anything in a reasonable amount of time, can't keep my cool or think straight, etc, etc, etc. omg. so hard.

tilly is awesome, though. she's got seven teeth (she'll be eight months next week) and is sitting up on her own finally. she's the chunkiest chunk of love you've ever seeeeen. so cute.

and logan is mostly cool. still super smart and sweet sometimes. but also sometimes evil. sucks to admit it because i feel totally defeated - what did i do wrong?! - but i'm hoping he grows out of this phase soon. it's hard to try to be completely attachment parenting / "gentle" discipline / etc, because basically i have no tools to work with when he acts in a way that i don't enjoy. i basically tell him how it makes me feel and he basically laughs in my face or stares at me blankly, and that's that. it's hard when you realize that the reason you behaved well as a child was purely out of fear. it sounds great to try to motivate your kid to act awesome out of love and respect, but in practice (at least so far) it doesn't work unless conditions are completely perfect (ie: only when he's not hungry/tired/angry/lonely/distracted/bored etc).

logan says sad stuff once in a great while. yesterday he announced, "i wish my dad could move to maine so we could wrestle because i don't have anyone else to wrestle with." omg. *sob*

it's awesome that he can be so articulate. but it breaks my heart, just the same.

so, i have been making a concerted effort to wrestle with him daily now. and i so totally suck at it. i obviously never watched them do it, because i am utterly clueless as to the appropriate method. so far it basically consists of me sitting on the floor and him tackling me to the ground. that's his turn. when it's my turn, he runs around shrieking and i chase him, catch him, and tickle him to death.

how am i doing?

we went to see our friends' house today - they're in the middle of building it. by themselves. by hand. while working full-time. crazy awesome. anyway. i was talking to logan on the way, since we haven't been to see it for at least a month, "how much to you think they'll have gotten done?", and he says "the whole house will be done. i just KNOW it!". so cute.

and it looks great. but it gets me down to think that i'm 33, with two kids, and rather than having firm roots somewhere and a support-system, friends and families and babysitting co-ops and gardens and happenings and exchanges... i'm basically starting completely over from scratch, AND trying to figure out if this is even where i want to be. this was the problem with making the easy retreat to maine. it wasn't where i really wanted to be. but i couldn't afford to go where i wanted, and i had to do the easy fast cheap thing instead.

so now i have to decide whether to make a go of it here, and for how long, or if i can get out of here... and exactly how i would do that i have no idea.

i guess even before all that, the very first thing i have to figure out is how to support us once the money runs out in a few weeks.

just read ten years of march lj entries and... well... a few things of note:

• i miss lj something fierce. it was a huge part of my life and a huge social support.
• there were happy times with jamie here and there, 'tho mostly forgotten now. so i'm glad they were logged somewhere.
• being a parent to two is unbelievably hard. this time is altogether unbelievably hard. but it will pass. and faster than i think.
• i'm perennially trying to lose 20-30 pounds in the spring! how depressing.
• my life is really empty right now.
• so glad not to be doing art guide any more.
• i miss my sister.

this is making me feel really old. i just heard back to back covers of don't look back in anger (oasis) and yellow (coldplay). i mean, honestly! are those songs really old enough to have covers already?

same thing is happening with movies now, too. i can't remember what, precisely, other than fame, but i feel like there's a bunch of them all of the sudden. 

and clothes too! i've finally gotten to the age where i'm old enough to have actually worn the original versions of the crappy shit the cool kids are now sporting again with great enthusiasm. hello flashdance! 

the bread is rising in the oven, and i step back and survey the disaster zone that is my kitchen (and entire house, frankly).

i've just begun watching the show mad men, set in 1960, which to me looks every bit like the fifties. watching the housewives go about their days i'm reminded of my grandmother and it's totally fascinating to see a tiny glimpse into the world that shaped her. 

it's also interesting to me to watch myself and jamie relate - the unconscious imprinting that shapes our expectations of each other (mostly on his part, but on my side as well to an extent). for example i expect of myself a perfect home. which is totally ludicrous given that i grew up living on the streets and in various moving vehicles on land and water. in my entire first 12 years we never once lived in a house, let alone with electricity or running water. it's no surprise that i haven't the slightest bit of talent for housekeeping, with its constant endless stream of tasks to be completed simply to maintain.

and yet i do live in a house. by choice. so i feel should know how to do these things. i should be skilled at them by now. i should have a perfectly clean home - a place for everything and everything in it's place. and no place for filth and clutter. that's what my head tells me, which is sort of surprising given that i did not see any of those things happening in front of me as a child. part of me feels like there is some big secret to which i'm no privy - the clue to keeping house while having a life.

and of course a career. 

we've had a mouse (our second one since we've been here) for several nights. the traps weren't working for some reason. last night i got over-zealous and set four, SURE that one of them would work.

of course this morning there's an enormous and very very dead mouse in one of the traps. but for some reason rather than feeling relieved i feel sick to my stomach. i can't stop thinking about it and feeling awful. i just want to vomit! it's so sad and so gross and i'm so flipped out over it. why couldn't the damn thing have stayed outside so i didn't have to murder it??!!

also what if it was a pregnant mom? or what if she had babies here and now they're alone somewhere in my house! aaagh!

i have to get out of here.

still feeling seriously grumpy. what the hell is my *problem*?!

i am betting at least part of it is the fact that the drive to and from peekskill did NOT go well with jamie AT ALL. on the way down he got super incredibly ridiculously pissed off at me twice: once for choosing a route that was not a major highway, and once for allowing us to get lost. on the way back he was driving like an asshole, scaring me to death as usual, but i knew no matter how i said something it would go badly, so i waited and waited, and then tried to broach it in a non-accusatory tone, but STILL he was infuriated.

this was our first trip as a family, and our first "vacation" - mini as it was - since 2001 (not counting our trips back and forth to maine)... i was really looking forward to it, and i guess i was pretty deflated by how badly the drives went. 

basically it showed me how much it could (and probably will) truly suck to try to drive cross-country with this person. and it depressed the fuck out of me. 

and THAT just reminds me of all my old feelings on the matter - i start thinking what a dick he can be, how little we have in common, what poor communication we have, etc, etc, and then i start to wonder if i'm even happy. and then it just all starts to spiral down.

back from our weekend in peekskill, and feeling morose. i want to lie around in pajamas all day and play on the internet, but instead i have to entertain a toddler and while attempting to make sense out of this explosion of a home.

why is it that sometimes a return from a trip feels warm and welcome and lovely, and other times cold, empty and sad?