Now Playing -
the A/C. Turned up to "11".
Now Eating -
M&Ms, plain.
Now Feeling -
lucky.
Now Tweeting
- Melanie
Happy post-Independence Day, y'all.
Sometime between 1:30 and 9:00 this morning, someone decided to grant independence to some items in my car. They (because it's always a "they," isn't it? You know how they are....) liberated my $60 portable Discman that Huz and I had each gotten for the other two Christmases ago, the multi car adapter, a plug-in ionizer/air cleaner, my cell phone adapter, a piece o'crap handheld tape recorded that had been dropped on its head hundreds of times and whose radio no longer worked, and (most unfortunately) my Fair Liberty's Call cd, which was in the cd player.. Enjoy your loot, assholes. I'm sure it'll fetch a pretty penny on the street.
But they didn't break the glass, didn't steal any of my clothes, and didn't touch any of the "faggy showtune" cds and tapes lying around. They did however, jimmy a bit of the molding away from the door (enough that I can see how easy it would be to get into my car if I got locked out) and royally pissed me off.
Royally.
It was 80 degrees when I left the house this morning. The temperature now, at 9:15 p.m.? 88. Cripes, it's hot. I should have done laundry tonight, as free time this week will be at a premium, but who wants to shlep down to the laundry room in this heat? And folding hot clothing? I think not.
So yesterday was a lot of fun. Spent, as was New Year's Eve, on a bluff overlooking Long Island Sound. Blotting the moisture, dodging the sun (and Debbie? I actually did get a little color!), eating and drinking and playing with kids, and seeing some people I don't see nearly often enough. And we drove down to the beach while it was still light out, and skipped stones in the Sound for small children, and twirled sparklers, and toasted marshmallows, and watched awesome fireworks (Bradlee really outdid himself this year) and sang the requisite patriotic songs.
I wish The Huz had been with me. But he was not. Because he is, as he told me (as if he needs to tell me these things because being His Wife, there are just those Things I Know), he's in a bad headspace right now. Midlife crisis, full throttle. He doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up. And I say this not sardonically, with no malice. It's simply the truth. You get to a point where all your old high school friends have careers and houses and families, and you look at yourself, a musician who is so burned out trying to do good work under mediocre-to-downright poor circumstances that all the joy you once found in making music has been sucked out of you, and you don't know where to go next.
And you worry that you don't have a retirement "plan" other than hitting the lottery, and you live one check to the next, and you may never have a house and family of your own. And you're caring for your elderly mother who is slowly losing her mind and you're being pressured by a sister who is telling you what "needs to be done" and who has that "luxury" because she is several thousand miles away, and let's not talk about the burnout that itself engenders. And you worry because you know (as a friend pointedly put it yesterday, cutting through the chitchat of those who are lucky enough to be retiring this year) you will have to "work until you die." And sometimes you feel like something has your heart in its fist, but who the hell has time to go to the doctor?
And yes, I worry about these things as well. Every day I open up my checkbook, I worry. We're in probably the most fallow period, money-wise, we've had in our entire marriage. But it is not my place to tell him what he should do with his life. Because then I would become my mother, and that much is never going to happen. I can hear it in my head now - "Why don't you tell him to get a job in a bank or something?" Because that is his decision to make, not mine. Because I never wish to become a person who tells someone what to do, and is then blamed or made to feel guilty for the outcome. Because it is his life. And yes, I am a big part of that, and of course he has that to consider in any decision he makes. But it has to be his decision. I cannot, and will not make it for him.
I married this man for who he is, not what he does. He is not a trust fund, not a 401K. If I had wanted that, I would've married me someone who works in a bank. Instead I married someone who is smart, and funny, and a far better person than I am, who cares about me and cares for me and who I thought was better at what he does than anyone I'd ever seen from the moment I met him.
So what if we're poor? {Pollyanna}We'll live on love!{/Pollyanna}
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a very fine cat indeed - Friday, Jan. 17, 2014
happy new year! - Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013
this is where i am - Saturday, Jun. 30, 2012
this is how it is - Friday, Feb. 24, 2012
a very late last year's wrap-up - Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012
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