Fish and Visitors Stink After Three Days

If you've had more than an elevator-conversation with me recently, you know I'm so excited about moving I'd almost trade my iPhone if that's what it took.  No, I'm totally lying.  I'd sooner part with Silas.  He yells a lot anyway (gah! I'm just kidding. Stop looking at me like that).  But I'd totally resort to flat-ironing my hair or ironing my clothes or being on time every day for a week or something.

Grateful as I am to have had a place to live these last two months - I'll just say what we've all been thinking for two weeks: everyone is done with this situation.  It's very much time for us all to return to our regularly scheduled programs and start the healing process.

It's no one person's fault, and I'm not pointing fingers.  It's just the way life is.  

People who genuinely like each other try to cohabitate after they're grown and end up wanting to kill each other.  

Borrowing money from your family/friends or trying to live with them are the two quickest ways to find yourself celebrating your birthday alone for two years while everyone is on a time out.

But, you know, lesson finally learned this time.  Next time I find myself quasi-homeless, I'm totally going to move into my Jeep (I've got that same syndrome you get the week you get your iPhone where you're blinded by its awesomeness and can think of nothing else to talk about and annoy the isht out of everyone who's had theirs forever, only it's the Jeep version.  I'm sure I'll come down off of it soon.  Or I won't.  Whatever.  It's awesome!!!)

From the maid

This may or may not be directed to a particular husband who I adore beyond all logic or reason but who may or may not be driving me absolutely batty with one particular obnoxious  habit he has.  I've done some quiet research and learned that this may or may not be applicable to the husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/fiance you adore beyond all logic and reason too.  So, here goes.

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this picture:

That thing on the right?  That's our dirty clothes basket.  That crumpled-up heap next to it that looks like a dirty shirt casually discarded on the floor?  It is a dirty shirt casually discarded on the floor.  RIGHT NEXT TO THE BASKET.

What's not pictured are the dirty socks which were also casually discarded on the floor for the maid to take care of upon her arrival.

Except we don't have a maid.  So, that left me to pick up your mother flipping dirty clothes off the floor.  You notice how that basket is half-full of Silas' clothes and my clothes?  That's because I dress and undress the both of us every day and apparently have substantially better aim than you.

Just swing your arm a few inches to the right and DROP IT IN THE EFFING BASKET that I have conveniently placed there for just such an occasion.  If you don't, you're going to stop magically finding clean clothes in the drawers every morning because the maid is going to go on strike.

..............................................................

Although, that husband who I adore beyond all logic and reason did have to spend two days dealing with car salesmen and being all charming and awesome and negotiator-y to get me this:

Hi, I'm Michelle's new Jeep that her husband helped her get, and she loves me almost as much as she loves her husband, and she VERY MUCH appreciates him for his help and for giving up his sleep on Friday and his entire Saturday to get me because I exude awesomeness and make her smile every time she sees me - much like her husband.

I suppose I should have just picked up the shirt and the socks and kept my mouth shut and known that my husband makes up for his annoying habits with huge bursts of awesomeness and that I'm making a mountain out of a molehill.  But then I wouldn't be me, now would I?


P.S. I love you, husband.

Silas is recalcitrant (i.e. vocab word of the day)

Vocabulary word of the day: 

recalcitrant - resisting authority or control; not obedient or compliant; refractory; hard to deal with, manage or operate

Who knew there was such a perfect way to sum up my son in one word?  

When you look that word up in the dictionary, it should just say "Silas" and have a video clip of him ignoring everything a ask/tell/plead/demand/beg he do in the two hours between us arriving home and bed time every, single night.

Most people have told me that their first born was an obedient angel and that it was their second born who was recalcitrant.  I suppose that means that that little girl in Heaven was born with all the compliance and obedience and manageability and took it on up to Heaven with her, and that her little brother arrived on the scene as the second born with a determination to break mommy's will.

Seriously, though, I wouldn't change him for anything.  Although he sometimes makes me nuts, I love that he's strong-willed and independent with a mind of his own and not afraid to fight for what he wants.  Reminds me of someone else I know.

My secret

I've been keeping a secret from most of you because I'm a wussy/sissy/pansy who is afraid of being judged by her failures.  

But after last night, I don't feel like I'm going to fail at this.  As a matter of fact, I feel positively revitalized.  It's like I've been living in a lifeless shell formerly known as Michelle for the last five years and have finally busted out.  

During the shell years, I've tried to figure out where that fire I used to have went.  Where was that vivacious, confident, live-life-to-the-fullest and try to never have regrets girl?  

What I finally realized is that I suffocated her.  I didn't suffocate her when I quit law school or when I never went back.  I suffocated her when I let those two facts define me.  I looked in the mirror and all I saw was failure branded on my forehead.  

Working in a law firm constantly reminded me that I had failed.  No matter how many times people complimented my work as a paralegal, I still felt like a failure because being a paralegal means working for people who actually finished school and passed the bar and made something more of themselves.  

Every time someone else left the ranks of the support staff to trot off to law school, it reminded me I had failed.  I beat myself up about it so much that I could not see anything positive about myself.  I started taking all of my flaws and magnifying them until all that was left of me in my mind was the negative.

As it turns out I am not a failure so much as I am much more in tune with myself than I realized.  Because?  I don't want to be a lawyer.  

All this time I've had alone with myself since my husband's schedule has gone all whackadoo has forced me to deal with me after Silas goes to bed.  There's no one else to distract me from myself.  

Therefore, I had to face down that demon - because there is nothing more miserable than being alone 24/7 with a miserable husk of a woman.  

What I remembered is that never in my life have I not put up a fierce battle for something I really wanted.  If I had really wanted to go back to law school, I would not have let anything stand in my way.  Period.  I make things happen when I put my mind to them.  But what I've done since I walked out of that law school for the last time swearing I would return in the fall is make excuse after excuse and create obstacle after obstacle to ensure that I would never go back.  

When I finally admitted to myself that I never should have gone to law school in the first place, I stopped hating myself.  Like, instantly.  But I still wasn't satisfied with the level of education I have attained or content to stay put in my current profession forever (sorry to all the people who I work with and love if you don't relish the idea of me leaving some day!!!  although I very much do want to stay put for the time being -and I plan to continue to give 120% effort :))

So, I started researching graduate schools and the GRE and buying study books for the GRE and flash cards and such.  

Last night after Silas fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally went to sleep (boy did he absolutely have no desire to sleep), I got lost in learning vocabulary words and practicing techniques for taking the GRE, and it felt fantastic.  It felt like  being myself again.  It felt like I had something to look forward to that is going to be mine-all-mine but also benefit my family.

So, now out with my plan to keep this secret from you unless I got accepted to graduate school.  Because - I remembered I'm pretty smart, and I'm very much capable of hard work, and I very much have the ability to get into graduate school, and I'm going to embrace that unless I'm proven wrong - and then we'll have a whole new set of bitter/angry/tearful posts to wade through.

Now we start the vocabulary word of the day.  If you already know these words - I don't care because my vocabulary is not as awesome as I thought it was, and I have to learn them.  Just indulge me. 

Vocabulary word of the day:

Execrable - utterly detestable; abominable; abhorrent.

Ex. sentence: The movie Borat is execrable. (Randi and I hate it even if a gazillion other people love it - and we're usually pretty cool and down to watch all manner of stupid guy movies.  Therefore, I dub it execrable).

Look at me failing at life again

Generally, my first inclination when I'm freaking out about something is to call my husband and make him talk me off the ledge.  But he wouldn't answer the phone this morning when I discovered - purely through an act of God - that I was 30 minutes late for a court appearance for a speeding ticket I got 17 days ago.  The Court is a good 30 minutes away with no traffic.

Therefore, I was forced to stop crying (y'all it's an every day thing at this point), put on my big girl pants, and figure it all out on my own.  

According to the two attorneys who sit across the hall from me, I'm currently in contempt of court for failure to appear.  Sweet.

I'm now very much looking forward to being yelled at by a Judge in three hours.  By that I mean, being yelled at is better than God not intervening and me realizing I missed this court date tomorrow and having a warrant out for my arrest.  (silver lining)

How's your day going?

Can someone give me permission to go home now?

OMG.  Michael traumatized me via movie again.  Since it was Father's Day yesterday and he's a pretty excellent father to our child, I didn't feel I could tell him "no" when he requested I watch Devil with him last night.  But hello?  Nothing scarier than a movie about being trapped on an elevator with the devil on a murderous rampage.

Wait, no, I'm wrong.  What's scarier is when you have nightmares all night about getting murdered on an elevator yourself after watching Devil and then you go to work the next morning and get trapped on the effing elevator.  

It was only for a few minutes, but I was literally shaking and short of breath with tears rolling down my face by the time I walked off the elevator and into my office.  

I escaped that death cage just in time to run down the hall and pretend I had my isht together enough to have a conference call with one of the partners at my firm.  

True story.  Shouldn't someone give me the rest of the day off now?

Some advice for the sleep-deprived

If you've stopped sleeping (I don't know because your husband's schedule is all whack and your brain doesn't give a flip how tired you are because he isn't home and could walk in the door any second so it must wait for him to be home to sleep, for example)?

Write everything down.  Write everything down.  Write everything down.  

Or you will forget something.  

And it will be an important work deadline.  

And you will cry in your newest boss' office.  

Because you've blown the deadline by an entire day.  

Then you will spend several hours worrying that your newest boss probably thinks you're a drama queen.  

But you probably wouldn't have cried like that if you were sleeping.  

Then again, you are a drama queen and may well have cried no matter how well-rested you were.

Probably better he knows early.  

But start writing everything down anyway.