How does it feel when you’re out on your own?*

We interrupt this extended hiatus to bring you…

… Connor’s first day of school. As you can see, he was totally ready:

I, however, was less prepared for the separation. I chose to deal with it by staying awake worrying for the entire night before, leading me to make this face at ass o’clock this morning:

He loved it, of course. Can’t wait ’til Tuesday.

*The GooGoo Dolls

Hello time bomb, I’m ready to go off.*

I know, I know. I haven’t been updating. And I’m going to continue in that vein, because I am trying hard to focus on stuff outside of my head. There was big drama a week and a half ago, and while not all of it was directly caused by me, you could say fairly that the underlying cause of it was the depression that’s been swallowing me slowly since some time in October.

I’m trying to repair the damage — to my marriage, my relationship with my kid, my home, and myself. I need to get out of my headspace for a while and focus on reality. I have spent months obsessing and analyzing and thinking and seething and resenting and despairing, and I don’t know how to fix it except to push it away and get on with life as if it’s not there.

I’ll be back around when it’s safe for me to do this thinking thing, this words thing. In the meantime, I’m almost always on Twitter if you feel a burning need to keep up.

Time to let reality sink in.

*Matthew Good Band

Coming to rest. [Updated.]

Having my great-grandmother’s desk, with the same lamp that’s always sat atop it, and her small Diarmuid Harrington sketch of the Golden Gate Bridge hanging above — it feels like a tiny corner of home, right in my living room.

ETA: I took a picture. Lo, I am functional!

My great-aunt and some family friends brought me my great-grandmother’s desk and file cabinet today. Once I got everything set up, it made a very nice and homey “office” in the corner of our living room. Almost everything in this photo (desk, file cabinet, framed print on the wall, monitor, lamp, some tchotchkes) was my great-grandmother’s, and I may never leave this space again. It even smells like Gram’s house.

There’s also a set of extremely old decorative plates that will be filling the empty spaces behind my chair, but those have to wait for Michael’s arrival. Man wields hammer; woman flutters lashes! This is how things work, for I am very lazy.

Also, please to ignore the stain under my desk (pre-schooler perils) and the unsightly jumble of cords behind my chair. (Now that I think of it, the blue carpet isn’t any better — but that at least is not my fault.) I spent two hours today swapping desks, another hour organizing, and two hours filing. It’s time for something fruity, cold, and a little bit alcoholic. I am clearly far too busy to Photoshop.

No mother-in-law jokes need apply.

The past couple of days have been better, really better — not “everything is perfect” better, but “hey I’m sure glad that crappy day is over” better. My in-laws, rather than being shocked and angry at the state of my house (and me) on the horrible day were very nice. They took Connor for a weekend visit, and yesterday my father-in-law brought over a swingset, set it up, and mowed our lawn for us. We had one of Connor’s friends over last night; they had a blast playing on the slide and swings until it was too dark and cold to do anything but sleep, and we’ve already been outside for an hour this morning.

An aside: If you have kids and need a workout? Get a swingset. Half an hour of pushing 40 pounds of kid on five pounds of swing, running under and around the swings, chasing your kid up the slide, and generally being goofy will kick your ass. It’s great.

It’s also great to finally feel like I get along with my in-laws. I don’t know what’s changed — I know I’ve been trying to be less uptight; I have no clue what changed on their end — but it’s such a relief. When we picked Connor up yesterday I caught sight of a framed picture on their living-room cabinet: a picture of Connor, Michael, my mother-in-law… and me. It’s the first time a picture with me in it has been displayed in my in-laws’ house, and it was nice to see. It was also nice to sit down and have an actual conversation with my mother-in-law, which I would never have said (or done) a year ago. We talked about Connor’s potty-training, and gossiped about the recent trend toward shoddy mainstream parenting, and looked through a Christmas catalog, and not once did one of us feel slighted or try to work in a backhanded compliment.

We are, slowly, making a family — one that is not just Michael, me, and Connor, but includes our parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles. I’ve wanted this for Connor ever since he was born; one of the reasons I didn’t just cut Michael’s parents off completely was that I was determined for Connor to grow up with a full complement of grandparents and extended family. I didn’t think about it then, but you know what? It’s nice for me, too.

Luck of the draw.

Some days, I still cannot believe that this is my life now. Things are going right in such unprecedented numbers already — I’ve got a good job, I have a garden, my kid is very cute and sweet, my husband is both genial and handsome — that when even more falls into my lap I wind up slackjawed.

Everywhere I went today, I found a bonus. I signed in to work this morning and discovered that I’d won some money in contests — not a lot, but enough that I can have a couple days off if I want to. We went to McDonald’s (… I know) for lunch and got some very pretty old-style Coke glasses, for free, just for eating crap (… I know). We picked up Michael’s check and found that he’d gotten an unexpected raise. While Connor and I waited in the parking lot for Michael to come back from grabbing his check, Connor said hello through the open windows to a couple of guys who were going in to shop. When they came out of the store a minute or two later, they had lollipops for Connor. “He’s so friendly,” they exclaimed, these 50-year-old obviously childless labor-sweaty fellows. (Connor took all this very serenely. “I am pretty friendly,” he said, “and lots of people give me suckers.” This is, alas for his teeth, true.)

We headed to Wal-Mart for some groceries, ran into our landlord, handed him the rent money right there, and he turned around and gave a five dollar bill to Connor. “You get yourself something fun, tough guy,” was his stern instruction. “I will,” Connor vowed solemnly, and he did, selecting a very nice Transformers action-figure set. As we meandered through the store it seemed like everything in the world was on sale: the fancy-pants ecologically friendly laundry soap with the smell I love? On sale. Egyptian cotton sheets to replace the, um, cheap cotton sheets that are about on their last leg? Sale. Delectable, glistening fresh produce — corn and tangerines and artichokes? SALE! Between the raise and the sales, Michael’s check went farther than it ever has.

As we were coming home, Connor fell asleep in the car, going limp and pudgy-cheeked in a way he hasn’t since he was about a year old. I got the pleasure of one (last?) limp-toddler, carseat-to-bed transfer while he snuggled against my cheek. He’s now in the middle of an epic nap, and I’ve had two hours of uninterrupted reading time in a bedroom that Michael stealth-cleaned right when I was at my breaking point with the mess.

It was chilly and grey this morning, and I’m excited for autumn. I feel like nesting, cleaning out shelves and polishing furniture, laying up stores for winter. I feel like everything is going to be this good for a while, and I can’t wait for fall mornings full of coffee and anticipation. (Lest you think I have gone completely ’round the bend with all this optimism, I find that I can wait — possibly forever — for the inevitable death of my garden. I thought we’d have a second harvest, but the morning chill has sharply disabused me of that notion. Oh, well. Can’t win ’em all.)

What about you? What’s it like for you, going into a new season and looking ahead? Tell me all about it; I’ve got nothing today but coffee and time.

It’s official…

… My imported Lj archives are just too fucked up for me to bother with.  I am really sorry for anyone who tries to wade through the entries I bothered to move over here.  On the other hand, I am very thankful that I did not bother moving all the entries over here, because that is a shitload of history that I would feel compelled to edit.

In sum:  out with the old, in with the new.  All I need now is for bitterdiatribe to point here, a much more suave theme, and a clue about what I am doing.  Stay tuned.

Thanks, WordPress.

Now all I have to do is import my old LiveJournal (ew, ick) entries, find a WordPress wizard who can install this crap at bitterdiatribe, and oh yeah — ask Shae if I’m allowed to set this up at bitterdiatribe.

 (Perhaps I should take care of that last one first, yes?)

(Yes)

ETA: Apparently, all of my imported LJ entries are royally fucked up.  Wonderful!  I am just dying to go back through and edit all of the $%^&$@ nonsense where apostrophes should be!  THIS WILL BE GREAT.