Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down (featuring pumpkins, coffee and Gaga)

this is the most freakishly busy and not-falling-apart i may have ever been. i mean, i’ve been lots busier than this in my life – more lists on my palms and crammed in my pockets, more things scribbled in pen and pencil in smaller then even smaller lettering turning little calendar squares into something resembling boxes overfull of springs, less sleep, more night-thinking, etc and on and on – but the difference is i’m ENJOYING this frantic autumn.

my body is always tired and i can’t turn my brain off at night – so i drag myself out of bed on ‘brain break’ nights to scribble lists, revise, send emails, read – and i keep forgetting what day it is and there are bags under my eyes. once again, the weird difference: this is pretty fun.

the fact that all the things i’m doing are completely voluntary (except laundry and matching my son’s constant amazement that the mere switch of a word –  i.e. 2 PLUS 3 is 5, but 2 BESIDE 3 is 23 – can change the meanings of things in spectacular ways) plays a part, i know, but i think something has shifted. i don’t feel frantic – yes, i know i’m manic. but the coil is not so tight and i’m perfectly capable of sitting still.

tomorrow and tuesday are adam’s first soccer games, wednesday and friday are Bug rehearsal – i’ve never coached soccer and haven’t been on a stage in over a decade, but it’s cool. i’ll wear tube socks the first half of the week and cut fake lines of coke the second half and be happy about it. friday morning while adam’s in dance class i’ll try and read but instead send myself reminder emails from my phone and check messages.

there are profound things here, profound clockwork adjustments that have been made – but it’s past noon now and the time i thought i would have to ruminate on it a little has been cut short…

i can dig it. it makes me cranky but i can dig it – in five minutes i’ll be ejecting kiddo’s gaga dvd for the day and rustling up clean clothes for the birthday party in a couple hours and i won’t remember to be cranky because i have lines to go over with eric and a story to revise and sci-fi scenes to finish (at 9pm each night i grease my phalanges and crack my wrists, take a deep breath and hope for the best) these nights after dark, and halloween costume possibilities saved in another tab and ghost lights and fake blood to put on the windows, and jerseys to wash and….

happy autumn. happy survived the apple festival. happy tired brain body – i would not stay this pace this course forever, but the lack of quaking on my insides foretells a longer life than i expected, i think.

 

 

 

hello, september, i love you

summer is dead, thank god for that. i hate those last few weeks, the grass shriveling and insects coughing up their own dusty innards. now we have CHILL. now we have striped knee sock mornings and piles of wrinkled sweaters and sweatshirts in my back seat – shoes that stay attached firmly to your foot the entire time you walk – none of that gum-smacking flip-flop shit. proper shoes lashed in place.

karma or fate or maybe just plain old time has taken something from me that i will not say aloud, only maybe that i have shown hubris in my declaration of raccoon magpie squirrel lock-picking wallet-stealing persuasive manner of life, and my hand – very literally my hand – was smacked, and i lost a tiny and meaningful piece of something that was in fact my most prized Acquired Object. i have had it for 16 years exactly, one year longer than my 2nd most prized Acquired Object (a half inch orange plastic horse from a quarter machine in Wyoming). extra xanax and two hours of flashlight house-combing could not bring this speck of preciousness back to me. not that i thought it could, but try try we had to try. i’m not saying i’ll tuck my sticky fingers back in my pockets (i am a magnet for treasures and it is my nature to keep people with me by keeping people on me), i just think all the bravado and downright puffed chest about the whole thing was/is unnecessary. stomach-turning, this was. i lost my most precious confiscated Precious….

speaking of hats, i have collected many new ones. i am now Coach Gowin (laugh, it’s funny) and R.C. (if you live within 90 miles and don’t come to portsmouth to see BUG and watch me do fake lines of coke and kiss a girl on the mouth then i renounce my love for you) and screenwriter (again! same project – should be doing that now, in fact, but my batteries are loooow). so if I were Batman, as the question was once posed, i think Soccer Mom would be drunk-partying persona Bruce Wayne, R.C. and prose/screenwriter would be ass-kicking slightly-detached-from-sanity Batman, and me sitting here in the recliner with a crayon (for underlining of course) tucked in my book and script within reach and cat at my feet would be lucid-between-role-playing Bruce Wayne. id, ego, superego? right?

OH! OH!!!! but on a happy note – i found the fucking Batman ring. that’s gotta be the note on which i end this post:

(the batman ring post)