palm-to-the-springs

i have had a two-day headache.

i suppose the best time to have a two-day headache is when one is on vacation and has nothing to do but sleep in a dark room.

i cannot wait to get home to our enormous and comfortable bed. we have been sleeping in the most uncomfortable full bed for the past 5 nights. good god.

said bed is definitely the reason for said headache.

i have written two poems this week, so far.

i have yet to write my poem for verdad. that is due like now.

i am actually looking forward to being back at work.

i read 'the four agreements' and already feel like my life is changing. awesome.

i actually got angry today at a stranger who commented on another blog saying, "anyone who says they LOVE LOVE LOVE their spouse is LYING." super angry.

(i LOVE LOVE LOVE my husband. we fight. we disagree. but that is because we are two different people. spending most of our lives (thus far) apart, not even knowing the other person existed. we come from two totally different families. and have had completely different life experiences. but i LOVE LOVE LOVE him. and cannot see that changing anytime soon. grrr. stupid stupidness of all stupidity.)

inhale. exhale. inhale. exhale.

i have already failed today at one of the agreements. 'don't take anything personally.' acknowledge. start over.

back me up, ladies. let me know how you feel about your man. can't we be crazy in love whilst being honest? or is it more 'normal' to always be on the brink of a divorce/break-up? i almost feel like we need to take this discussion to oprah. and maybe dr. oz.

(i will be laughing about the idea of me sitting with oprah and dr. oz all day) :)

credit where credit is due

last summer i stumbled upon an etsy shop that happened to be involved in something called, 'the nienie benefit sale.'

this is how it all started.

the benefit was for a husband and wife, both badly burned in an airplane crash. the wife, stephanie nielson, was well known for her blog the nienie dialogues. so i began reading. and the more i read, the more heartbroken i became. and the more i read, the more i wanted to be the kind of wife and (someday) mother that she is. and the more i read, the more i wanted to write.

what i liked so much was that, even when she was having a hard day, she still appreciated. there are no posts about regret. she emits this amazing light in each post. she is a woman in love with her life, her husband, and her four children.

and i find it incredibly refreshing.

so often we find ourselves complaining. or we find others complaining and we chime in. the other night, a friend of ben's here at the conference, said "the more i talk to my wife, the happier i am that i'm here." she had badly cut her hand. the kids were running wild. etc. and all i kept thinking was how sad that comment was.

and how much sadder if the person saying it were my own husband.

it's unfortunate that we live in a society where we are pushed to believe that our spouses are holding us back. or our children have made us miss out on our lives.

a friend of my sister's took her two daughters to disneyland for one of their birthdays. one of the girls, i believe she's 8, was scared to death of the haunted mansion. begged not to have to ride it. cried the whole way through the line. and at one point her mom looks at her and says, "i've already had to sit out on another ride, i'm not sitting out on this one too."

GROW UP.

so the girl rode the entire ride with her hands over her eyes quietly sobbing. and again, i felt so much sadness for this girl. genuinely scared. and her mother could care less. cares more about riding on a ride she's probably been on more times than she could count.

so i don't know. i don't have kids. i don't know what it's like. but i do know what i want to be like. and a lot of my inspiration comes from nie. even though she's mormon and i am not. and have no desire to be.

but there are worse things in this world than being dedicated to one's family and truly loving the life you have been given to live.

and now, an anecdote:
last night, we are out to dinner with a few friends here at the conference. i am asked what i got my degrees in. i start talking about poetry. in my modest way. and then ben starts telling them how well he thinks i write. he says it blows him away. he goes on and on saying all of these wonderful things. and i felt as if i was simultaneously melting and bursting. i felt like i was emitting this amazing light. i almost wanted to close my eyes. instead i just smiled. possibly the biggest smile my face has ever known. i am a woman in love with her life and her husband. and the way the two will forever be interwoven. and the pride i feel in that admission.

thank you, nie.

a revised to-do list

here i am in beautiful palm springs...again. we were just here two weeks ago and it is eerily as if we never left. there is a mocking, and pretty dense, cloud cover and so i don't think there will be any sun-time for me today. which is truly a shame because i need it. i would attach a picture of my i-haven't-seen-sun-in-forever tanless arms but...i will leave you with this white space instead. it's pretty close.



now that that's out of the way, it is supposed to be sunny the rest of the trip. i am keeping my fingers crossed.

other than tanning (it is hard work, people. all of that flipping, and hydrating...it's exhausting) i have a few exciting things on my plate for the ensuing vacation. most days i'll have to myself as ben has meetings to go to so i've packed accordingly.

let me paint a picture:

i have a tote that says, "she has grown too fond of books and it has addled her brain." my ma gave it to me this past christmukkah and i love it! so, said tote is packed to the brim with margaret atwood, charles bukowski, and a collection of japanese poems from when the earth began until now. i am going back to my roots, people. i am going back to the poems that drove me to write in the first place. going back to the poets who made me want to emulate what they had so skillfully created. going back. to my poetic youth.

ah, to be young again.

i also have my 'poet's market' along with multiple highlighters so that i may color code different places to submit to, look into, etc. isn't this getting exciting?? well...i also brought along my laptop. and i also have free wireless internet.

so who knows HOW much i'll get done. but i'll try to keep the internetting to a minimum. try.

so all of my worries consist of the following:
-when will i get to lay out?
-how many poems will i have time to write?
-how much will i be able to read before i doze off? (the dozing is unavoidable and, at this point, pretty predictable.)

i'll keep you updated. i'm hoping i'm struck with the lightning bolt of geniusness this week and write poems that reiterate how awesome i am.

hoping.

what my friday night looks like

i worked until about 6:00 tonight so that i could walk out knowing i had completed all of my work for the month. i needed to do this so that i could guiltlessly go on a trip with ben out to palm springs for his ntma conference. i needed to do this so that i wouldn't be too missed at work. or perhaps so that i could feel a little bit like a good employee amidst my feeling like a terrible employee. see, we are in the crux of tax season. taking 4 days off is a bit rough. BUT. 4 days off i took. and i am trying to be ok with it. i am a people-pleaser, people. i think it would be near impossible to be any other way but it would probably add years to my life.

so it's friday night. i've got my husb here at my side. fast asleep and making the darned cutest snoring noises you've ever heard. (oh, bet me. seriously. bet me.) i'm semi-watching 'looking for lincoln,' as much as one can watch whilst blogging. sure, he was no saint. but it is possible abe lincoln was my first love. (there goes my heart, pitter-pattering) so he is easily forgiven. at our feet are the cats, also fast asleep. it must be a boy thing. sleeping this early on a friday night.

my friday night looks as close to a still-life as it possibly can. i feel almost as if i am living a series of frozen moments. as if my life is moving very slowly in a world spinning too rapidly to maintain its axis.

and so my mental checklist continues to grow out of control.

nothing substantial. just about 14 billion small things. like 'remove chipping nail polish and repaint.' otherwise i look and feel like i'm about 13. but i've forgotten 3 days in a row now. tomorrow i will tackle that one, for sure. along with laundry, dishes, packing, eating the rest of the strawberries b/c they will surely go bad before we get back, adding litter to the boys' litter box, making sure the sprinklers are turned back on, writing a poem for verdad, going to the health food store, general cleaning, and with any luck i will get a good 1/2 hour to soak in the tub.

ok, i too am laughing at that last one. even as i was typing it i was thinking, "a-yeah right."

sigh.

good night, my fellow dreamers and poets, living in a world of ordinary words, driven to make them more significant through sheer imagining.

good night and good luck.

de.com.press

do you remember learning to count out syllables? i am picturing an entire classroom of 5 or 6 year-olds clapping out words like play-ground. bas-ket-ball. i don't know. what words do 5 or 6 year-olds even know? i have no clue... sy-nec-do-che..? well, probably not that last one...

this past week has been a bit nuts. i don't think it's par-ti-cu-lar-ly events or work but perhaps just me. my brain moving at a trillion miles an hour. (can a brain travel? see what i mean?!) so i've been a bit snap-py. like pms on crack. (can pms be on drugs?!?) it's straight crazy, folks.

so here i am. thursday next. today was uncle jimmy's birthday and we celebrated in grand fashion. chinese food from fortune cookies, german chocolate cake from bake n broil, and a couple of fun gifts. it was a really nice deviation from the usual. everyone was cheery. and i really think uj had a wonderful day. today we also celebrate charles darwin and abe lincoln.

perhaps now is a good time to divulge my life-long love affair with mr. lincoln. president lincoln, if you will. i don't know if i ever did a report on a famous/historical person who wasn't abe lincoln. even now my heart does little flutters.

an-y-who. what this girl needs is a lit-tle r&r. saturday will see me and the girls maxin and relaxin at burke williams. i can almost taste the lemony-lime water. and let me tell you that i am going to be queen of the spa. and by spa i mean ja-cuz-zi. and by queen i mean no one is going to make me stop soaking for nothin. (wasn't that an-noy-ing? this is directed at one person in particular...and i know she's saying, "it was super annoying." although, i can't say for sure she would say 'super'...hm...i'm gonna bet she would, haha)

and that's about it. isn't it sounding wonderful?? some spa, some lunch, a little romance for hearts day, and a whooooooooole lotta relaxing.

done, done, done and done.

the biggest shoulder shrug of all time

it is almost midnight...i am tired but i can't force myself to shut down this laptop monster and close my eyes...when i do i will likely fall asleep in milliseconds...but i'm fighting it like a little kid tonight...what i really want, more than anything, is to just be, here with ben and the cats, all weekend...i don't want to leave the house except to go out into the yard...i don't want to talk to anyone...i don't want to do chores or make plans or buy anything...i just want to be slow...to fall in and out of sleep as the day passes...to wear pajamas and socks...and maybe i straighten my hair just for the hell of it...i don't want to melt into a puddle in front of the tv and i don't want to facebook...(although i love reading those '25 things about me' notes..)...i want to feel peaceful and relaxed and calm...i want to be rid of anger and annoyances...i want to erase all of the negativity that is being thrown all over the world like confetti...sticking to everything...i want to be selfish without feeling selfish...and eat frozen yogurt everyday...i want and i want and i want...

and yet.

confessions

1. my favorite spanish word is miercoles. it means wednesday. it is pronounced: me-air-co-less. with emphasis on the 'air'. i can't think of a more perfect weird word to translate into the weirdest named day of the week.

2. i will skip through the ends of songs on my ipod just so it will not add to the playcount. i only do this if i have already listened to this song compulsively. like, 20 times or something. and i know nobody would care except i would see the excessive playcount and be embarrassed.

3. the night i met ben i believe it was just after midnight and i've never known which day to mark as the day we met. i always remember it as being saturday night but i'm pretty sure it was sunday morning. and, almost 6 years later, i still haven't reconciled this.

4. the cantor who officiated our wedding didn't recite the vows i asked him 3 (maybe 4) times to recite (in our meetings, at the rehearsal, etc). he told me he would and then didn't. i didn't want anything crazy, just the 'i emily take you ben...' i cannot wait until one day we renew our vows just so i can simply say the vows i wanted to say on our wedding day. i am trying to be better about this one but every time i think about it i feel as though this one man made a conscious decision to deprive me of something that was really important to me on the one day of my life which would never be done over. and i think he did it because he couldn't have cared less about our wedding. or me. and it makes me boiling angry...

5. there are times i'm convinced i love my cats more than i will love my future children.

6. i have never felt, for any man, what i feel for my husband. i have loved. i have lusted. i have been in love. but what i have and feel now is incomparable. true story.

7. i have the life i have always dreamed of. and it scares the crap out of me...if for no other reason than i cannot bear the thought of any part of my world changing. even though that is an inevitable reality.

8. i believe in god but also believe he has more important things to do and/or worry about than sporting events, how you keep your house, what kind of plates you eat on, who you marry, etc. i believe god wants us to all be good people. that's it. what could be more important?

things things things

said haircut ensued on thursday. the result was a trim. i'm thinking of growing it out until summer and then possibly cutting it short short short. when i showed roy (my hair guy--and he is awesome) the picture of the short hair style he said, "you are not ready for this. this is the kind of haircut that you must drink wine during so that you can handle it." whenceforth i pulled out a picture taken circa august 2000. the picture was of me with hair shorter than the girl in the previously mentioned pic. he says, "whoa. that was short!" so, he knows i'm ready :) but...i must learn to style bangs. this will be VERY difficult. VERY. but i will attempt to get to know my bangs and style them in a manner that will warrant short hair. god help us all.

earlier today we had some friends over for the super bowl AND IT WAS FABULOUS :) it was a lot of fun. i'm sure you remember jen & brian from an earlier post and my friend dominique all joined us for an afternoon and evening of football watching, ping-pong playing, laughter and excellent conversation. it was the kind of day where i step outside of myself for one moment and think, "this is the life. this is the life i have dreamed about." ben and i made two batches of chili (one beef and one turkey), football cupcakes, and hung streamers in the teams' colors across the living room. it was a great day.

although...does that really make tonight sunday night? and does that really mean that tomorrow is monday and it's back to work? how can this be? where did our weekend go? why am i typing in such a panicky voice right now?!?!?

couldn't we all use an extra weekend day? i know i always could...