Back to School

Today was the day... Eva is now a first grader, Jack is in 7th and Jake in 8th... sigh.  I'm not a fan of the school year.

Never, in the history of my children being school aged, have I been emotional about their moving up the grade ranks... Oh, I've been surprised that suddenly I had a Kindergartner, or a 3rd grader or my Lord, a middle schooler... but never hit hard by the reality.

Until this year.

And it's 8th grade that is doing me in.

You know what 8th grade means, right?  It means high school is literally lurking around the corner, waving it's grown up wave at my son.  And once we're in high school it's just a fast track to college to his own apartment in a new town to jobs and dearbabyjesus please give me a time machine so I can just go back as he goes forward.

Back to his chubby toddler cheeks and curls and snugly little body that napped with me.

Back to Thomas the Tank Engine and booster seats and sippy cups.

Back to when I was the most important person in his life... I'm selfish, I want, in so many ways, my little boy back.

But that isn't going to happen.  And so I have to send him to 8th grade.  And a little further out into the world.

I love him so much and I worry about how much I want to still teach him... how much I want to share with him... and I know what a fucking maudlin drama ass I sound like.

And so I'm going to strive to make his world a little smaller this year... a few less hours with his friends and a few more hours with me... because finally, finally I see it... what everyone tells you from the minute your child is born... it really does go too damn fast.

I didn't take this photo... I stole it off one of his friend's FB pages...

How I Eluded a Serial Killer at the Movies

I went last night... by myself... after having an argument with my husband... in the middle of an argument with my husband... because I was afraid of how much anger I was feeling towards him and I just needed to get the fuck out for a bit.  OUT.

And I was going to go with a friend and then I thought no, I'll just go to another friend's house and then I thought I really just want a cookie and so I went to Mrs. Field's and to the movies and the kid at the ticket booth says:  Ma'am, you're the only person who has bought a ticket to this showing... you sure you want to go?

And I decided to be brave and so I took my cookie(s) and went in and sat smack in the middle of a huge theater and watched the previews and then the movie.

Alone.

Which, for Eat Pray Love was probably fitting.

And (don't you envy my ability to start so many paragraphs off with "and"... it's almost as though I never had a grade school grammar class) I forced myself, somewhere about 30 minutes in, to put away my cell phone and stop texting people about the movie as it was happening and also to not play Solitaire during the slow and/or uncomfortable parts and just watch the movie and it was like my own little forced meditation.

So then I cried.  Because I was alone so I could!  I understand Julia Roberts Elizabeth Gilbert!  I too feel lost!  Wh didn't Ubud look like that festive and breezy when I was there in May?  And omg Javier Bardeem is so fucking hot and my husband does not make me mixed tapes... also, I want pasta... and so it went.

Which was/is fine.

When the movie ended I felt this weird little accomplishment and decided, as I hunted around on the floor for my lost water bottle, that perhaps multitasking isn't the accomplishment I think it is and maybe, instead of going to India to an ashram, I should just try to focus on doing one thing at a time.

So I put my brain in this little gear and was like,  I am a calm and purposeful person.  Calm and Purposeful.  CALMANDPURPOSEFUL.

And (AND!) then I walked out to the lobby and swear to God there wasn't another person around.

Lobby Crickets.

Lights off with the exception of the glowing from the soda machine and some runners and no one.

NO ONE!

Eeek!  Flee!  Flee from the Elder Mall Serial Movie Theater Killer!

But first I had to pee.

Calmly and Purposefully I hustled to the bathroom where I peed and wondered if when I opened the door to go back to the Lobby I would encounter the Elder Mall Serial Movie Theater Killer...

I almost didn't flush because I didn't want to alert him to my presence.

But then if I was killed I didn't want to be found next to a toilet with pee in it... like my last act on Earth was a slovenly janitorial practice.

So I flushed and then, holding my keys like a weapon, I carefully opened the door.

Still.  NO ONE.

Then I found out I was locked in.

But the fire door worked.

Guess what?  It's not connected to the alarm.

But then I had to cross the dark mall... the mall where I thought I would be able to have some security guy escort me to my car on his Segway... was quiet and dark.

Their fire door worked too.

So then I CALMLY AND PURPOSEFULLY got my ass home.

The End.

About

After so many incarnations... Eva Las Vegas, It's All Fun & Games, Double Secret Probation, The Secret Life of Mothers, Reviews etc... why another blog and why now?

Because I am not a fan of therapy yet I have that which needs to be vented and poked and over-thought and analyzed to death and I like to drop the occasional overused f-bomb and don't need to hear from my cousin's second wife about my "dirty" mouth... the more my real life intruded into my blogging life the less I felt I could say.

Not that every post will be a whine about family or friends or anything of substance, it's just that I felt so hemmed in... so scrutinized... I couldn't post about the smallest of frictions without accepting that once I hit, "Publish" they were about to become Frictions with a capial, "F"... I kept bringing the damn mountain to Mohammed.

As I've said in the past... on one of those other blogs, my posts are sometimes a more and sometimes less honest depiction of myself.  Sometimes I am funnier, taller and all around more charming and sometimes I am a troll... it's more on how I view myself through what?  My third eye?  My internal censor?  The keyboard?

Who knows, maybe someday, like next week or next month or next never, I'll let some real life people cruise back in and snoop around so they can then call and ask just what the hell I am blabbering about...maybe.

All I know is the minute I set this up, I felt like blogging again.