Duly noted

See, people?  Do you see what happens when I add one single navy item to my wardrobe?  It ruins the whole thing!  Now I have to rethink everything!  In other news, it takes a special kind of person to overbook herself, out of a pathological need to make everyone happy, and then work herself into a pouty swivet because she's overbooked.  Said pouty swivet has so far involved coffee caramel ice cream, a sip of last night's wine, and the decision to pretend that my hair looks just fine without a shower, thank you.
In other news, blogger recognizes neither "pouty" nor "swivet" as a word, and there's a tiny tab down at the bottom of my screen, just above the clock, that says, "Complain."  Yes, thanks, I think I shall.

Mindless Blogging, Vacation Edition

By vacation, of course, I mean school break, and by school, I mean the one my child attends.  I enjoy my younger son quite a lot, actually.  He's smart, and intuitive, and an incredibly deep thinker, traits that make him, to me, extremely entertaining.  When he's home all the time, though, linear thought becomes difficult.  He's six, after all, and the concept of other people's separate consciousnesses is a nebulous abstraction at this point, even for such an advanced philosopher as himself.  For example, in the course of writing this paragraph, I've been asked to look at his Minecraft horse, play Minecraft with him, witness said horse's fashion show, reminded again that he's ready to hold the fashion show, and informed that his horse is misbehaving.

When one has reams of schoolwork to accomplish, chores to perform, and all of it should have been done yesterday, these interactions are a special kind of spiritual torture.  When one has nothing planned and the vague feeling that one should post a blog entry once in a while, it's even worse.  After all, why?  Why shouldn't I can this half-assed effort at blogging regularity and go ride horses around in (shudder) Creative Mode? (They're trapped in a cage of arrows.  See?  It looks like somebody has been shot by a bunch of arrows ...)

I'm sure this angst is worsened by my semester off, which is about to end, during which I have accomplished ... what?  My Great American Novel remains unwritten.  The new house still doesn't look like it's inhabited by Martha Stewart.  It might even look like it's inhabited by a crew of hillbillies with a penchant for decorating with cardboard boxes.  (Are you ready yet? ... Look!)  My art remains exactly as I left it in August.  My crafting skills have been at the service of a horde of small children for months, with nary a concrete project of my own to show for it.

Should I tie this up in a neat bow?  Note that, although greatness in the arts has not yet been achieved, other greatnesses are showing potential?  That as a result of willing and enthusiastic work at my son's school, I have a community, potentially wonderful and deep friendships, a house, for Pete's sake?  I don't know.  Ennui and uncertainty are often voices worth listening to, provided we listen deeply and discerningly enough.  In the meantime, my child has, again, delighted me.  Mom, look, I made an exploding blueberry!

A Clever Title That Won't Make Me Wince Later

I dreamed about you last night.  I'm not sure what a heartstring is, exactly, but it's been ten years and I still feel a tug in the center of my chest.  We were sitting at a round cafeteria table, in a room full of the usual suspects, I guess, although I didn't see any of them.  As we sat there, opposite each other, I felt that old familiar magnetic current, the one born of friendship and shared experience and never being able to have an actual conversation (unless it was an emergency or my boy's hair needed buzzing) with a touch of lust, deeply repressed.  Or more than a touch.  Anway.
You are not the only one I dream about, but you are the only one I dream about specifically.  There are That Place dreams, involving unexpected return, confrontation, and, more recently, plotting mass escape, but the dreams about you particularly are different, if only in that they are more personal.  I vaguely recall a conversation about your children, maybe an interaction with them.  I heard you and your wife lost a baby recently, a few days after her birth.  Before that, I heard that you were depressed, always on the couch, and that your wife was so stressed her hair was falling out.  My heart throbs with impotent rage and sadness.  The young man I knew was full of puppyish enthusiasm and energy.  Now you sound broken.
I think about how our lives could be so different if things had been ... different.  I know that "if only" is a waste of time, and I know that the things lost would be at least equal to, and possibly greater than, the things gained.  Still, I wonder.
I cannot wish you well.  Not because I wish you otherwise, but because "well" is not a word I can realistically associate with that place, nor do I believe that it's a possibility for anyone remaining there.  I wish you ... awakening.  Freedom.  Bravery, heroism, escape.  The chance to breathe again.  That's what I wish.

So, this guy ...

Please a wee bit a thought (an annotated message - caution, explicit language below.  All errors in punctuation, spelling, and grammar are the work of the original author)

Hi My name is [name redacted]. I have never contacted a woman under 40 something [fair enough].You are very funny in a very enjoyable way for me [thanks ...].I write well if you care to look at my profile.I can not spell shine ola [nope, you're right, that's not how you spell it].Even 5&6 letter words I have looked up countless times I am sometimes stumped [it is fair to note here that my original profile blurb said something about how much I care about correct spelling.  If you can't spell for shinola, well, that's why God created spell-check].I am old in years only [congratulations].My body compared to most men closer to your age is-well a mans body not soft like a womans body should(for love making that is) [I actually am not sure what this means.  I think what he's saying is that he's in good shape for an old dude, but maybe he's comparing himself to a woman?  Maybe he's trying to say that he's gone a bit soft, but forgot where he was going mid-sentence]Also a large number of male humans in thier 20s,30s,40s are boys [possibly].Except for thier profesion or job they no little about anything and do not understand good humor nor how to make love (not fuck) a

good woman [I'm not sure how one would make love a good woman, either.  I do know that my male friends my age tend to think I'm hilarious, so maybe that makes my humor bad?].  You choose "man for dating".I belive that if we were to befriend eachother on several elements (sp) [ah, irony] of interaction-we would in all likely hood give a try at making love [really?  You're not the first old guy to wishfully think so, I'll give you that].If you are a truly sensual woman I am confident we will enjoy as many pleasent hours as you care to devote to this most wonderful of human sharing [yes, and clearly if I don't respond, it's because I'm not truly sensual, thus giving you the convenient out of damning me as a frigid bitch].It is all about timeing physical affection! and a special kind of

communication we will discover togeather [tempting ...].If you know of what I speak, but have been unable to discover knowledgable men that [that what, exactly?], or men with some ability but are not enjoyable to be aroundPlease atleast speak with me [so you can rescue me from what is clearly a wasteland of sexually incompetent men]..If you are not fully aware of this "place" that truly good love making can take "us" -Then I sujest: if you feel sexy,horny,full of desire in your ownself , I am confident we can have a great time.It is even possable that the age diference could enhanse stimulation [... for you, no doubt]. Well thats my story and I'm stickin to it. I think a pleasent, no doubt funny but serious phone call might end with a plan to meet-no?

Why you ? I'm not sure.The idea struck me ,somehow you seemed just right.I would love to be with a younger woman [congratulations].In my late 20s I was with 2 diferent ladies in thier 50s [good for ... them? ...you?] One was a blind date that a former girlfriend set up with me and her mother [I flatter myself that I'm as accepting of sexual diversity as the next person, but ick].As it happend a very fun and sexy woman [again, congratulations, I guess]. [phone number redacted]

My very best regards [name redacted]

P.S. Sorry about the misspelling I just refuse to go to 
the dictionary 5 or 6 times in even a note as short as this [ignoring my specific mention of how much I care about spelling is an excellent way to show you care about what I have to say].xo [initial redacted]

Yep.  I wonder if he wonders why I never wrote back, or if he found some other nice young woman who was truly sensual and couldn't spell "shinola" either.

Much Brain Dumpage

So hi!  Surprise!  I'm still alive, or so it seems.  I just can't manage to muster the focus for an ENTIRE EXTRA PIECE OF WRITING these days, especially one that doesn't have a grade attached to it.  I'd offer to give back my Writer Card, but I'm not sure I was issued one in the first place.
Good news!  We found a place to live.  I've been looking since April, and then at the beginning of June it seemed like I didn't have to anymore, but only for a week, when, surprise!  We still had to move!  However, two days ago a wonderful place fell into our laps, although I find myself hesitant to speak of it, in case somebody might hear me and decide it's not quite time for this saga to be over.  However however, I've also been spending a lot of time telling my son about how things aren't as scary when you fling the door open and let the sun shine in, so ... it's lovely, and the boy wants to live in the front porch swing, and it's owned by a family we know, they brought their kids up there, so their history is everywhere, which is so nice, and the view is great, and a determined person could hike through the woods to Texas Falls, and there are oxen across the road, and even though we don't officially take possession until August, we've been given permission to start a garden ASAP, which is good, because ASAP is almost too late ...
I thought my brain had more to dump, but Stockard Channing's version of Ramona's World is interfering with the firing of my synapses, and I'm determined to hit publish tonight - do or die! - so I'll be back for more dumping tomorrow, or next week, or the next time the pressure reaches that critical point.

Sometimes, it would take more time than I have to untangle The Feelings and sort them into sentences with words.  Often, my brain looks like one of those little word clouds bloggers like to stick in their sidebars, only less "relevant" and with more feelings and images mixed in.  I think mind-reading is probably overrated.  We all think we want to do it, but really, it's not a person's thought-cloud we want to know about.  Reading minds would just be exhausting.  And pointless.  Nobody wants to know about the potato-chip-saw-a-bird-where's-my-other-earring-and-my-glasses-gotta-find-my-stats-notebook-and-a-new-apartment-and-why-do-all-my-pants-have-holes.  But sometimes sorting out the deep and interesting stuff with linear sentence structure possibilities is too much work.  So I don't write.  Unless I'm supposed to be heading out the door and literally every other possible use of my time is probably a better one.  Then I'll give you a peek inside my brain.  If you can see through the brain-cloud that's obscuring everything from both of us.  If you find anything, let me know.  I'll be off having pointless debates on Facebook to prove how smart and awesome I am.

PS ... Q?

So I came over here to procrastinate, and maybe write something pithy, but I was checking the blogs I subscribe to, and noticed that three posts written a week ago were nonexistent.  I'm peeved.  Is this a glitch, or are we having massive deletion of posts, here?  Unfair, dud(ettes)!  Unfair.