tense

it's the middle of the night. i am tense.

symptoms-
a two-week old stomachache
the baby's asleep, and i'm not
my whole body itches
i am losing track of boundaries, and routinely dispense TMI
i am very very paranoid

i. hate. change.

pump it DOWN

Sitting here pumping like any day but it has changed -- i'm only doing it once a day, and I'm not getting much (this looks like about 2 ounces). The trip away really did in my production, despite the 40 oz of milk I came home with. And it's all for the good but it just feels wrong. I guess this is what motherhood is about, right? Trying really hard to do something, learning it, getting it right, and then you still do that? what's wrong with you? and learning how to stop.

So we're leaving DC -- my husband on Sat., me next week. Lots of goodbyes. And lots of craziness inside my head -- I am very tense about all we need to do and because I hate change. I am not at my best when I am tense -- to put it mildly. I am making fairly terrible decisions and losing any important item i come in contact with -- between Tuesday and Wed I lost:

-Laptop - I decided to check a bag with it (see "terrible decisions" above)and then it wasn't on the plane. But I got it around 12 am on tuesday night. Much agony beforehand.
-Important bar and loan documents (ditto)
-My wallet (turned out to be in the trunk, but not before I agonized over it for a night)
-My badge - twice - once just in the house and once at a restaurant.

Plus, the cell phone last week of course. So basically I am insane right now. I can't keep a single coherent thought in my head. In a meeting this morning, and my boss is talking DIRECTLY TO ME about MY NEW ASSIGNMENT and in the middle of what he is saying I am thinking why hasn't the rental place gotten our check? Should I call fedex? Is it OK to mail my bar application first class? Etc. And then he stops talking. And waits for me to respond- with an intelligent question, perhaps. And instead I stifle a yawn and say that sounds .. interesting.

Yup- I'm THAT employee.

But it's great to be home- even if it's only home for a few more days. Laying in bed with B. and G. this morning (B.'s mouth has been on my boob for most of the time that I've seen him since returning home.), the cat on my chest, I tried to reassure myself that this will be the same wherever we are, that this happiness and contentment will stay. But it's a bit of a hard sell for me -- I am so afraid we will be terribly unhappy, even though I've done everything in my power so that we will be happy and rationally, it seems like we will be. But as noted, I'm not too rational right now.

more songs

more songs I associate with particular moments and situations, and descriptions thereof (and you didn't think I could write like a lawyer!)

On My Mind (Kalai)- in the weirdness that is the post-radio world (and post-me knowing about music), I have no idea if Kalai is famous. All I know is my friend Amy gave me a CD with his songs and they are lovely. And she found him on MySpace. This one is me in my cube, waking up, all pregnant, and thinking about the baby rumbling around inside me, especially when the chorus came around - I've been known to take my time/ And I've been told that I'm all right/ But I don't know if I'm your kind/ All I know is that you are on my mind.

For You (Bruce Springsteen): On the honeymoon, walking back to the hotel (well, stumbling)through the hot streets of (you'll never guess) Ottawa, singing this to each other, slaughtering the lyrics. BROKEN ALL YOUR WINDOWS RAMMED THROUGH YOUR ALL YOUR DOOR... FOR YERRRR FOR YERRRR (oh we are TALENTED). A ten minute walk that took about an hour with many, many (very happy) detours.

If you listen to the lyrics, it's a pretty fucked up song (about craziness and suicide) for a honeymoon. Good thing we didn't pay too close attention. Though how cool is the line "Didn't you think I knew that you were born with the power of a locomotive/ able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?"

Maybe I am born with the power of a locomotive. That would be awfully convenient come this moving weekend.

sure?

I love how i sound so sure about everything in the last post. Saving the world, having one kid, etc. Just in time: I went to a party with old compatriots last night and it left me a crying blob of directionlessness on the floor of a hallway basement in the Rayburn house office building (with my boob stuck out nursing, of course. There is always a boob stuck out in such moments.). From here in bureacracy land, I had been thinking about our move and my new job as an affirmation of my committment to certain causes. But they are down in the trenches. And to them it is abandonment and a sell-out. These people I respect and adore were really angry - and dissapointed.

I've been working it out, and I feel better, and I have come back to thinking that our move is a good idea- I know I need to learn how to do this stuff before I can really help anyone. And in this new job i will learn from the best and, as G. says, up my bad-ass quotient.

But still. I just wanted to die, right then on that stupid floor.

How do we ever know we are doing the right thing? Who are these people that do?

Off to pop another painkiller. $%&* tooth.

$%*# the dentist

Walking back to work from the dentist
So sad about the nasty, expensive things I need done.
A new, and entirely unwelcome variety of sadness.
No romance, no broken heart, no pregnancy, no drama.
This is just living, and, dammit, this is just getting old.
The problems hurt as much, but they are grey
Are not very interesting --
Even as I am consumed by them, they bore me.
I imagine myself droning on about it at a party,
telling the youngsters how I grasped the chair's arms and almost screamed at the pain,
everyone around me plotting their escape.
I remember my parents going to the dentist for such things,
mentioned as an afterthought at a dinner they could barely chew,
or my father throwing his back out, my mother's early struggles with arthritis.
From my teendom, such things appeared remote, far away --
the dentist? really? Hmmm...
I kick a rock in front of me -- hard. There's no choice -- it's happening.
I will age gracelessly, but it won't kill me.

what i've been thinking about

oh yes, it's a glamourous life I live. Damnit.