2012 – yes, I’m doing that kind of blog.

So, it’s been a while. I’ll admit I’ve been pretty lazy lately, and I pretty much forgot about blogging. Not that I blogged much last year.. but I’ve definitely been out of the loop since the clock struck 2012. Here is my attempt to pick up where I left off.

2011 was shit for a lot of people. Me, it was all right. I was going to school, getting along with everyone, making friends. I guess what made it shitty was my husband getting sick and being in the hospital for a nasty stomach virus and appendicitis, struggling with insomnia and anxiety, and then a brief crack in our relationship. Yes, I’m one of those women – my life revolves around my man. To be fair, it also revolves 99% around my daughter.

I worry I will drift again now that I am full time, and also because my daughter gets on my nerves twice as much now a days.  I think that’s because we spent over a solid month together over the holiday break, and now I want to spend time away from her. Am I a bad mother? No. Am I human? Yes. Everyone gets tired of the people they live with once in a while. Don’t deny it. I worry that this second shift in my life might drown me but so far this first week went well. Got to my classes on time, and she absolutely loved day care and had no problem being there (leaving is a different issue). It’s going to drain us because we are commuting every day now, and I have twice as much work to do, but I’m sure like everything else we will adapt.

Humans’ capacity for adaptation is amazing. I just have to keep telling myself that. I can do this.

My favorite parts from “My Sister’s Keeper”

For a long time Kate is silent. Her mind is running in circles, like a gerbil on a wheel, the same way mine is. Chase every rung of possibility and you still get absolutely nowhere.

The information is endless, a series of darts thrown so fast I cannot feel them sting anymore.

Take it from me: love has all the lasting permanence of a rainbow- beautiful while it’s there, and just as likely to have disappeared by the time you blink.

Campbell’s fuming. I could have told him it would wind up like this. Daughter trumps everything, no matter what the game.

The moon’s in freaking Aquarius. I never should have gotten out of bed.

Traditionally, parents make decisions for a child, because presumably they are looking out for this or her best interests. But if they are blinded, instead, by the best interests of another one of their children, the system breaks down. And somewhere, underneath all the rubble, are casualties like Anna.

A photo says, you were happy, and I wanted to catch that. A photo says, you were so important to me that I put down everything else to come watch.

Jesse is wrong-I didn’t come to see Kate because it would make me feel better. I came because without her it’s hard to remember who I am.

Once, in second grade, Kate drew a picture of a firefighter with a halo around his helmet. She told her class that I would only be allowed to go to heaven, because if I went to hell, I’d put out all the fires.

Kids don’t stay where they’re supposed to. You turn around and find her not in the bedroom but hiding in a closet; you turn around and see she’s not three but thirteen. Parenting is really just a matter of tracking, of hoping your kids do not get so far ahead you can no longer see their next moves.

… I was just on the cusp of having one of those bone-cleansing cries a woman should treat herself to once during a lunar cycle.

“Well I had the other problem,” I told him. “I had the heart of the relationship, and no body to grow in it.”

“What happened then?”

“What else,” I said. “It broke.”

You are a train wreck of sexual history.

Daddy says the first car just pulled up and if Kate wants to come down wearing a flour sack he doesn’t care. What’s a flour sack?

I wonder if she’s ever felt a baby turn inside her, tiny hands and feet walking in slow circles, as if the inside of a mother is a place to be carefully mapped.

I am convinced that there is a censor sitting on my brain with a red stamp, reminding me what I am not supposed to even think about, no matter how seductive it might be.

Here in the hallway we’re unnaturally quiet, as if they’ve taken all possible words with them and left us with nothing.

What I didn’t count on were the tall walls that grew around me, or the belly of the planet, hot under my sneakers. Digging strait down, I’d gotten hopelessly lost. In a tunnel you have to light your own way and I’ve never been very good at that. When I yelled out my father found me in seconds… he crawled into the pit, torn between my hard work and my stupidity.

I am more comfortable rushing into a building that is going to pieces around me than I am trying to make her feel at ease.

Just so you know: no one plays Go Fish after they’re potty-trained.

You can actually see the gears churning. A kid like Jesse couldn’t care less about a piece of paper that permits him to drive, just so long as he has wheels.

I wonder how much the general population of this country knows that the legal system has far more to do with playing a good hand of poker than it does with justice.

The only way I can fight for you, Anna, is if you can prove to everyone that you can fight for yourself when I walk away.

“So, um,” the boy said, “you’re not going to tell the cops, are you?”

In one quick move … I grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and pushed him up against the wall. “Are you that fucking stupid?”

“It’s just that my parents will kill me.”

“You didn’t seem to care much if you killed yourself. Or her.” I jerked his head toward the girl, who by then was vomiting all over the floor. “You think life is something you can throw out like a piece of trash? You think you OD and get a second chance?” I was yelling hard into his face.

You can stay up all night and still not count all the ways to lose the people you love. It seems to me, now that this is more than just a hypothetical, that a parent falls one of two ways when told a child has a fatal disease. Either you dissolve into a puddle, or you take the blow on the cheek and force yourself to lift your face again for more.

The wheels were neon yellow and the gritty surface, when you stepped on it in your sneakers, made the sound of a rock star clearing his throat.

At the police station, when my dad came to get me, he asked what the hell I’d been thinking. I hadn’t been thinking actually. I was just trying to get to a place where I’d be noticed.

For God’s sake, Julia. This isn’t the Victorian age; I’m not going to attack you because I see your ankle.

If you were an animal Campbell, you know what you’d be? A toad. No, actually you’d be a parasite on the belly of a toad. Something that takes what it needs without giving a single thing back.

What’s your middle name?

When I was a teenager I wanted a middle name. I chose Christina because at the time I was going through a religious phase and I wanted a religious middle name. I was baptized at my mom’s church and started signing it into my name. I dropped it after high school though, and now that I’m married I am simply Laura. My maiden name is Ionescu, pronounced yo-nes-koo. It’s not just that I am an atheist, I don’t like the name anymore. It’s far too common and plain for my liking, and I already have a plain and common name. Every other woman is Laura, and they are usually blond and smart. I don’t feel like it’s quite the right fit for me.

Being middle name-less is sort of sad though. Over the years I have thought about a new middle name I might like, and I have been coming back to the name Olivia. Good thing my passport still hasn’t come in the mail, damn post office, because I can simply request the change.

Just something to think about.

L’Hiver

Winter is upon us. It seems just yesterday I was talking about fall weather clothing and now we are rushing towards the holiday season. As much as I don’t like being cold I must admit I LOVE winter in Colorado. I love the smell of snow in the morning and stillness in the air, with a shimmering sun millions of miles away. I love being able to see my breath as I step outside to run errands. I love taking those moments to stop and just be in the world, changing from hot to cold, light to dark, and knowing that is happening. To be part of something so big and changing – it’s amazing if you let it hit you.

Now that my daughter is growing up, everything, including memories, revolves around her. I appreciate winter based on how old she’s been each year and her experiences. Her first winter she was still in a baby car seat. I remember bundling her up so much you’d think she was nothing more than a rolled up blanket. I fussed over her being warm and comfortable enough. Towards the end of her first year of life she began to move – crawl like a speed demon and even beginning to tinker with walking. By the time her second winter came around she was a year and a half old and ready to experiment with snow. Bundling her up again, we ventured into the still backyard which was absolutely plastered in fresh, deep snow. The trees and I held our breath as she very slowly took cautious steps, one foot in front of the next, until she was so pleased with herself she was bouncing around the yard. She even plopped backwards to make a snow angel – which to this day I still don’t know how or what she knew that was – and looked up into the grey sky. “Amazing,” I thought, “she is mesmerized by this world just like me.” Her third winter is starting now. She is two and a half and LOVES the snow the two times we’ve had it so far (which I’d like to point out is normal Colorado weather). She has already begun to throw snowballs this year! She often talks about snowmen and Christmas and I know this year is going to be nothing short of a blast.

Writing Samples

Writing Samples.

Only a handful of leaves have fallen but they signal the coming of autumn, my favorite time of the year. The mornings are just a little cooler now and the quest for the perfect set of light to heavy weight sweaters, hoodies and jackets begins again. It amazes me how each year I analyze my wardrobe during the transitional seasons. So far this year I have my one thick hoodie I bought at an outrageous price last year from the bookstore on the Hill, which so far it’s been worth it; two light sweaters I can wear sans tee-shirt, one brown and one black with grass-green stripes – which are very big this year I’ve noticed; and brand new thick sweater with a honeycomb stitch pattern from Old Navy, my favorite store. I also have some old favorites: fleece sweaters, leather jacket, wool pea-coat, and tan trench-coat.  Unfortunately, as it always is in Colorado, as soon as fall has officially begun the sun cranks up the heat to remind us that summer does not yet want to give up the stage to her brother Autumn. Sigh. At least I am prepared for the eventuality of cold weather.