Post-movie Let Down

I enjoyed my alone time watching the IMAX Hunger Games movie here in Columbia, MD. It was a good movie. Of course, I wanted to see so much more than made it into the finished film. I left feeling old, fat, and out-of-shape. I can, and really do need to do something about that. Then I went to Starbucks and had a chai and a piece of pumpkin bread, which seemed like extreme indulgence after life in District 12 or trying to stay alive while being hunted in the woods.

I did some people-watching, with the old fashioned school fire alarm bell and organ music of the mall carousel leaking in through the open entrance of the store. Everyone seems to be so beautiful in their own way. It's weird. They all seem precious somehow,

A Bucket Full of Holes

Forest Encounter
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenny_barker/5171483226/

As the white noise of the warm wind, blowing in strong gusts through the treetops, wafts through my open window, it is sprinkled with silvery dimes of sound from my bedragled backyard wind chimes.  A lone spring peeper chirps to itself, although I may be able to hear a faint chorus behind it when the wind dies down... yes, I think so.  They must be down the block, further in the common forested area of our townhouse development.  Yes, there they are.  They are a bit early this year it seems, but as you may know if you're from around here, we've had an unusually warm winter and March came in like a lamb wrapped in cotton.  It was in the mid 70s (F) here today.  We have daffodils already.  It's ridiculous.

That aside, I do have a serious purpose here:  confession.

Sometimes I am rude.

http://www.cultofmac.com/112913/manners-2-0-is-it-rude-to-watch-your-ipad-at-a-restaurant/

"I haffa go potty!  I haffa go potty!" my son says loudly in Friendly's Restaurant tonight.  "OK, let's go."  My husband whisks him off to the men's room  My daughter is coloring and hedging in on my territory again.  She likes to sit as close to me as possible, leaning on me if she can, while sticking both elbows out away from her when we sit together in a booth.  It drives me crazy.  I think it must be because when I was growing up we each had individual swivel chairs (four) around a table so that there was only one person to a side and no chance of touching.  When I am in a place to eat, I have discovered that I do not like to be leaned on, snuggled, climbed over, or to have a small head thrust up under my elbow and arm as if my child were an anxious dog.  My daughter is unable to sit next to me and not do all of these things in the course of dinner.  I've tried to explain to her that I love her very much but that mommy just needs some space when she eats, but it has yet to stick.

Pigs, Rainbows, and the Invisible Gun

I don't really want to write tonight.  My molar hurts and I don't know if it's one of the ones I know needs to be worked-on or not.  I refuse to deal with it or acknowledge it.  I want to stay lying on my stomach in my daughter's pinkly-lit room on her bed, next to her, with my little son on the makeshift trundle on my right.  I want to lie with the beginning chapters of Charlotte's Web on my mind, dimly remembering playing on and under the unfinished basement steps of my childhood, pretending to be Templeton, the rat, after watching the cartoon special.  In those days, you could see between the steps and children could play in the space under them, in the

TOOLBOX: Psychological Counseling, YES please.

Image from Psychology Today

I wish I had known when I was in crisis in 1997 or so that seeking psychological counseling and even care from a psychiatrist is really just not that big of a deal.  I was all wracked with guilt and shame at concept of not being able to cope well enough with my life,  of needing help.  I saw it as an admission of failure and inadequacy of the mind, of weakness.  I have a friend I am leaning on to seek counseling right now and I'm pretty sure she is viewing the prospect in the same light.  So I thought, maybe others might need to know what I was telling her.  Now, not every person who seeks counseling is in crisis and not every person is in the grips of major depression or anxiety, but I am going mainly from my own experience, and I was a mess.

From String Cheese to Surfer Girl: Baggage

http://www.snack-girl.com/snack/cheese-sticks/

My daughter and I had it out today over a moist stick of string cheese.  She had dropped it on our dirty foyer, floor so I rinsed it off.  Then she whined and complained about it being wet so I went to get a paper towel.  When I returned she was drying it with the hand towel from the powder room (yuck!).  Then she complained that it was now crumbly and she wanted another one and I had messed it up and on and on.  After a moment I said, "Fine.  You don't want it?  Give it to me." and I grabbed her hand as she pulled it away, anticipating my move, and I tried to take it from her.  She clenched down, rubbery cream-colored masses welling up between her fingers.

Get Off My Chest - Part 2

Image: Masterfile.com

2.  To my high school field hockey coach:  I know this is pathetic, but I have been needing to get this off my chest for about half my life.  Consequently, I remember details of events that should have long been forgotten because I have been wanting to rebuke you these past 20 years.  If you even remember me, which I doubt, you might guess what I'm going to rant on here.  More likely, you have no idea what a hand you played in who I am today and this is going to be a bit of a sideswipe.