possibly gifted

Oh hi! Where the hell have I been? Traveling, visiting a bunch of barf bags, LITERALLY, but I’m going to save that story for next time.

I never gave much of a reason for the title of this blog, “Possibly Gifted.” Knowing me in real life is very apparent but indulge me for a moment.

My parents sent me to a private Catholic high school so I needed to get my academic record to transfer. When I was in fourth grade my teacher wrote that I was ‘possibly gifted’ and for the longest time, I was confused by it. Was it a compliment? An admonishment? It seemed a little backhanded?

The part that has always, and continues to, strike me is the ‘possibly’ part. Is she above average intelligence? Does she need remedial help? Her last name starts with Z and I’m sick of filling out these goddamn evaluations?

So as I clomp through life I think about this probably on a weekly basis. It was never more apparent to me than the other day as I was doing some spring cleaning.

I don’t know what happened, but I’m much more thorough when I clean now. Oh wait, yes I do: Prozac happened. (That’s a story for the time after the barf bag story.) So when I was cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast on Sunday, *I decided to wipe down the fronts of all the cabinets. Then that turned into cleaning out the refrigerator.

*Eric let Jack have peanut butter off a spoon as they were standing in the kitchen and Jack wiped it all over everything.

I decided it would be easier to take all the contents out of the drawers first and wash them out. We have a split sink (I DON’T WANT TO EVEN GET INTO IT) so it was hard to fit them in and try to wash and rinse them but I managed ok. As I was putting the bottom drawer back in, it kept ramming into the back and it wouldn’t close all the way.

I kept trying to get the drawer on the track and lift and lower and nothing. So I removed the bin. And I looked at the other bin. And realized I had mixed them up. They fit like a glove. Cool, problem solved.

Look at this mother fucker shine

The shelves were boring. I just took the stuff out and wiped them off. I only had to discard one yogurt container that was a middle school science experiment while we were in Buffalo. Brilliant.

Halfway through the door shelves, Jack woke up from his nap so I had to go rescue him and give him lunch. As I resumed putting the shelves back in the door, the first one at the very bottom collapsed and all the stuff on it fell on the floor.

“FUCK YOU I HOPE YOU DIE!” I yelled, reasonably, at inanimate objects. Then Jack started yelling and half-crying. Cool. Way to be a role model.

I assured Jack I was yelling at the fridge (totally normal) and got him calmed down. I tried that damn shelf about a dozen times. How does a drawer come out but not go back in?

Eric came back from the store to me sitting on the floor trying to jam the shelf back in, the fridge alarm beeping in my face, and Jack throwing food on the floor.

“I can’t get the shelf back in and I don’t know why not. Can you do it please?”

If I’ve learned anything in eight years together it’s that Eric is better at life than me and much calmer. So sometimes I just default to him.

After 3.2 seconds of examination he turned around and said “What about those drawers?” and pointed to the ones on the counter. There are two kinds. SURELY I hadn’t tried to put the wrong ones in the wrong spot AGAIN…

The lesson here is that if you want someone to strategize your communications, I’m your woman. If you need a smidgen of common sense to get out of a wet paper bag, might I introduce you to Eric?

 

 

 

habits?

Egg whites in a cast iron skillet or the poles?

Oh my God, I don’t know what to say. Here we are at 6:24 am and I am awake and at the computer and *shrugs*.

There are only two reasons I am out of bed right now, and they are both upstairs and share DNA. Last night I promised Eric that if he got up to run I would get up to write. Around 6 (when my alarm was supposed to wake me up), I heard the treadmill making that pounding whirling noise. At first my plan was to pretend I didn’t hear it and the alarm didn’t go off and I would fall back asleep and explain all this via our usual lunchtime email.

But then I felt bad. He actually got up. He often SAYS he’s getting up to run and then doesn’t. This is what happens when you are forced to do something but don’t enjoy it. It’s literally his job to run. (More on the funness of Army stuff another time.) So, I got up.

The other reason is the previously mentioned Pterodactyl. Sweet Jack, light of my life, is kind of a shitty napper. Some days he’s asleep for 20 whole minutes. Some days he’s out for a couple hours. It’s maddening. I can’t get anything done that requires any real thought. I usually accomplish annoying household administrative tasks – cancel this, take this bin in, wash this, scrub that…etc. So if I get up early there’s a better chance that I can get anything done.

And here we are.

*OH MY GOD HE’S AWAKE 45 MINUTES EARLY THIS IS WHAT PARENTING IS LIKE SAVE YOURSELVES*

Cool, cool, four hours later we can continue. Aside, you can still do nearly everything you did before you had kids. Now you just do it on someone else’s tiny tyrannical schedule. (Eat, sleep, exercise, try to make something of your life and not fall into a hole of existential despair, etc.)

I’m not entirely sure how to make a habit. Spare me the 21 days or 30 days of consistent practice garbage. I’ve done that and still completely abandoned things the minute that time frame was up. Probably because I was doing thing that I felt that I *had* to do as opposed to want. But shouldn’t you floss your teeth? Tell you what, it wasn’t until the dental hygienist did a scared-straight talk with me about gum disease that I started flossing regularly. I make it about five times a week.

Most times I get myself into the exercise habit out of either gaining weight or…nope, that’s it. Real talk – if I was a few sizes smaller I would NEVER exercise. I get sweaty, it takes at least a half hour, it works better if you also eat some healthy foods, and you have to have separate clothes for it. Let’s pretend you could exercise in your jeans and stuff. You would have to wash them every time and that defeats the purpose of jeans- never washing them.

Sure, I feel mentally better (generally) after I have thrown around some weights but all in all I just do it to be smaller. There’s a lot of backlash now for admitting that. I dunno. Burn my feminism card or whatever. Actually, don’t. I need that for other stuff.

Losing track of time is another specialty of mine so I like to set schedules, especially for household chores. As in, Sundays are for bathrooms. Gross. But if I don’t give myself that kind of deadline then toilets don’t get scrubbed, bathtubs have baby ring around them, and floors get sticky with hair product. (Did you know that 97 percent of toilets are scrubbed by people who do not piss on them?)

The more I can stick to this mindset, the better the house looks. I did a brief text poll of my gal pals one day and asked how often they do things like vacuum. Luckily, we are all gross together but one mentioned that she read you should vacuum once a week for every living being in your house. That’s four for us. Come on. I guess every other day works out that way, huh? Now that the toddler insists on dumping his food on the floor to share with the dog we probably make it twice or three times a week. Mopping also has to happen a lot more. I attempted to spot mop the dining room where Jack’s chair is one night. I “spot-mopped” the entire dining room and kitchen.

So what’s the point? Mostly that I am a gross person and only do things out of either bullying or absolute necessity. My ideal day is eating and not moving from the couch. I would definitely be on an episode of a TLC show if left to my own devices. I also recommend living with someone who was forced to make his bed and keep his room a certain way by the U.S. Government and see how long you’re allowed to be messy.

FOR FUCK’S SAKE IT’S AWAKE AGAIN I’LL NEVER FINISH 1,000 WORDS IN ONE DAY

Aaaaaand another 36 hours later I’m back. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have no idea how to start a habit. I can tell you to be persistent. Be consistent and maybe if it’s important enough it will happen. When I think back on the things that I do that have any sort of regular appearance in my life, I started YEARS ago. So just pretend time is infinite and you’ll get there.

Got any bright ideas for me? How do you do it? Is it all bullshit? I’m open to all of the answers.