The Bored Housewife Chronicles

I've spent some time editing and arranging selected Fantasy Friday posts, regular posts, and short stories from the Bored Housewife years into a collection, and it's for sale on Amazon as an e book and in paperback.
Mostly, I've done this as a way to inspire myself to continue writing, and to memorialize the time I spent here in Blog Land...it feels like a whole separate lifetime.
I used a pseudonym, in the hopes of maintaining some sense of anonymity, but I'll probably end up telling everyone I know, anyway...ha.
Here is the link, if you want to see my (pen) name in print!! Kind of fun...
(and definitely weird to see a pen name instead of MY name. Might have to change that...)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JE6C5M
Happy Daylight Savings to you all...grumble...yawn....

Survival of the....out of shape?

I know, I know.
I should get fit.

Life is strange right now.
I'm so happy and yet so worried about some things.
I think I expected True Love to save me--
from everything else in life.
But...ya know...ahem...SURPRISE SURPRISE, dumbass--it hasn't!
Well. Yeah.
I guess I shoulda known better.
Ha.
Finding a soul mate has been the end of a life long quest, and now I find myself casting about for a purpose.
Ya know?
Harumph.
S'weird.

Plus, he is mightily distracted right at the mo.
And I like his Adult A.D.D. to be all focused on me.
All 23 of his simultaneous trains of thought should be dominated by yours truly.
That is what makes me smile.
That is what makes my world turn.
I don't know.

Maybe I'm just losing my need to have my whole world filled with him, ya know?
Like...in a healthy way.
But it also sort of makes me uneasy, because I like how it feels to be all wrapped up in each other...
Sigh.

I have too many thoughts to churn through and this isn't the place.

But life is good.

Books have ruled my summer.

"The Hunger Games" and "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
All sorts of books by Christopher Moore--"A Dirty Job," "Practical Demonkeeping," "Bloodsucking Fiends," "You Suck,"
"The Passage" by Justin Cronin
"Until I Find You," by John Irving - love him!
Aaaaand....I think there were others, but I can't think of them right now!
I finally got a library card at my historic and beautiful little town library, so maybe I can stop spending so much money on books!!
But don't count on it.

Also, I met a woman who runs literary workshops and I am going to sign up to have her light fires under my butt. Cuz, goodness! I should be writing.

So.
Yeah.

Life rolls on, life is ever-changing, life is always the same.

peace out

I find it interesting...

That I have wasted the past hour and half reading recipes...
when what I really should be doing is, oh I don't know--ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE!!
I have laundry to do.
I have writing I purportedly want to do.
I have a house that is...let's say...ummm...experiencing entropy in a rather distinct fashion.
Siiiigh.

But, ok.
Here I am.
Writing this, at least.
I'm just doing this so that I don't feel so badly when I give in and play Dope Wars.
No, it's not on frigging facebook or anything.
It's just this lame-yet-super-awesome little math game.
I like to call it a math game, so I don't feel so badly for LOVING a text-based game where you buy and sell illicit substances and borrow money from loan sharks and occasionally get chased by the cops.

My brown ...uh...that was supposed to be "brain".
And it serves to prove the point I was attempting to make with the sentence starting, "My brain..."
I was trying to say that my brain doesn't work right lately.
But it said it for me.
Kinda groovy.
If it weren't also a tad bit alarming.
But, eh, whatever.
I hate alarm clocks anyway.

I thought I had a funny story...
Oh yeah.
Last night Oldest Step-son had us watch a claymation video that he discovered online.
It was a beautiful little story, a bit dark but also adorable.
"Harvey Krumpet" is the name and there were lots of big names in the voice overs.
Super groovy.
So the title character learns a bunch of "fakts," as his mother spells it, and one of them he shares with us is my new favorite slogan.
"The people who believed the earth was flat are the people who wrote the Bible."
I posted that as my facebook status, and got a rebuttal from a painfully Christian friend (of a friend, really).
She said something like, "Everyone believed the earth was flat then and only the Creator knows..." uh...something. Can't remember what she ended with.
But I couldn't help but reply!!
Uh...that's the whole point: the Bible was written by and for people who didn't truly understand the world around them, so they made up reasons why things happened. I think it's super funny that modern day religious-types think that they are so obviously more correct than the ancient Greeks or Romans, or Native Americans! The older I get, the more surprised I am that anyone else still believes the fairy tales of their youth, because I have grown out of those closed-minded beliefs.
Which is not to say that I would EVER want to persuade anyone to change their beliefs; if you have religion and it works for you--AWESOME. Good for you, and happy yappy day. But I happen to be a skeptic these days; and to believe that if there is an omniscient being of some kind, he/she/it is far less involved in our little microcosm than we would like to believe.

OOps.
I got all...controversial and stuff.
I guess that's what happens when you think more than you dream.
Or when you're borderline depressed because life is harder than it used to be and yet you still can't find the inner drive to make something of yourself.
"You" being me, in this case. Heh.

Well, whatevs.
If this blog has proven anything, it is that I am about as unpredictable as the weather patterns of the coast of Maine.
(That is to say, right wicked unpredictable!)

Kayaking is not for sissies

Actually, it doesn't take guts to kayak, just will.
Such a fun day!
We floated with a pair of loons for several long, quiet minutes.
So close!
It was awesome.
We paddled all the way around a small island in the large lake; scoping it for some possible camping...
The sun wasn't too hot, the bugs weren't too thick.
And I didn't even get sucked away by a current today!
Super sweet.
Then we found a store with some of the most amazingly delicious peanut butter cookies in existence.
We played with the GPS and (I) talked non-stop the whole way home.
We had a great conversation about how lazy we are, and we're mostly ok with that, but we miiiight just wanna start using the kayaks and bikes more often.
Also, we listened to the Lady Gaga CD I just got...
I know, totally not my style!
But it's oooooh-so catchy.
Groovy.

This little laptop of mine has been malfunctioning lately, and one day last week it just flipped me the blue screen of death bird and refused to boot up again...
It was sucktastic.
I fretted a bit about the data I might lose...
but then I realized that I couldn't think of a single thing that might be on this computer, unbacked up.
Maybe some writing...but nothing I could call to mind.
So I figured, what the hell?
If I don't know what's missing, it's not so bad, right?
So.
Now I have my puter back.
Let's hope the Best Idea I Ever Had wasn't just lost to the ether...

Tonight I'll have dinner with my sister and our two cousins with whom we grew up.
Our Grammy lived on the corner and we lived to her right and they lived to her left.
I just thought that's how life was supposed to be...
I didn't realize how lucky I was.
We built a tree house, they all taught me to ride my bike (I'm the youngest by 1.5, 2.5, and 4.5 years), we played baseball and kickball and Red Rover and tag and freeze tag and tv tag; we played Monopoly and checkers and Clue watched Press Your Luck and The Price is Right; we dove into the thorny bramble of blackberry and raspberry bushes, coming out with stained faces and fingernails. We really had a beautiful and protected childhood. Our moms were always around and if they were busy picking crabmeat, our Grammy was right there, and we all sort of just wandered around the 'hood.
About the time our cousins launched into the social frenzy of jr. high, we moved to a house in another town, about 3 miles away. It was the end of an era. Everything was different. Still good, but...emptier, quieter. It was like two of my sisters had gone away to college or something. None of the devastation of a divorce, but just...a separating of worlds.
My sister and I eventually moved far away for college and marriage and each had two sons (all 4 in the last two weeks of July, weirdly enough), and they both built beautiful homes in that same town, married and raised dogs.
Very different lives in some ways.
Now that I live here again, I don't see them as much as I should, but I know they are here, and it feels good.
It'll be really great to hang out tonight.
To laugh and catch up.

Iron Pen Competition, SLC

A friend of mine is participating, but I am not there this year.
She sent me the photo which is the only guideline the participants are given.
I couldn't help but respond to it...




Smoke stack rising in the distance
Your brothers teased you for years
(you saw it last, lost in thoughts amid the chaos of the long road trip with too many passengers)
but now you are gone
the tallest brother
the shortest (life).
And the youngest
(now the tallest, in your absence)
has filled his shoulder space with ink
of a scene of industry,
the smoke stack which you saw last
and exclaimed in surprise
at something the others had already discussed at length
"Look at that huge smokestack!"
They laughed and laughed...
They love you better now than they ever did then.

I love to write because--

It makes me feel alive.
It makes me feel sexy and vital and REAL.
It makes me feel edgy and like I'm outside the rest of society--
and I like it there.
It is sometimes cold and dark, with distant stars less distant, because I am cradled by the arms of outer space.
Sometimes...
it is sizzling hot, so that my feet cannot land long in one place, and I move through the bed of coals that I chose with the delight of a child over discovering Willy Wonka's fabulous factory.
What I can't stand is when it feels like breathing beige and drinking unflavored gelatin.
But really?
What have I written that was gooood?
Besides all my thoughts on writing or life or whatever.
I have no reason to believe I can write a book or a screenplay that will be worth anyone's time.
But.
I still plan to.
(insert evil grin)

Once upon a time....
there was a girl
who thought her whole destiny rested in her ability to spin words
but really?
She has dishes to wash and kids to feed (so she can get them out the door on time for their baseball game)
she has to sit on a dock and smile and make small talk and hope that some of these darling people want to buy tickets to go for a 2 hour sail on an exquisite wooden schooner in the breathtakingly beautiful bay.

yeah.
Well.
Riting is gud.
Let me tap back into my Malone-y/Bukowski-y vein o' endless writing that feels like it matters even if it doesn't.
Misery can't be the only thing that makes me creative.
Fuck.

Home, Sweetest home of all...

It has been a month that in some ways has felt like an emotional roller coaster from here to the moon,
but
in other ways it feels more like a tidal wave that was quietly building and it has swept over me
now leaving me feeling clean, fresh, invigorated--alive!
Visiting Utah for the first time since moving away was just as emotional for me as I should have expected...but I didn't.
I was distracted by other things up until the very moment I arrived there.
Mostly, it was wonderful to be surrounded by friends and family who love me, and whom I've missed very much.
And partly, it was hard to be there without my sweet husband.
But really...it just brought a lot of realizations under the glaring stagelights on the theater in my mind.
It started a domino effect, setting into motion a jarring of my perspective as I was forced to examine my life and my choices.
I'm not gonna lie...it was scary.
I wouldn't say I ever regretted my decision to move with the kids to Maine, but I had to feel my way through it all over again, groping in the dark. I came out the other side with a smile on my face, though, and the sure knowledge that I have done the right thing. Like I said, it isn't so much that I regretted my choice, or even doubted it. It's just that...I don't know. Maine has been hard. Utah is easy. And I was feeling like it was all just too much. I realized, maybe for the first time, just how much I had given up in order to move here--and it made so many things make sense at once that I practically imploded.
So once that tidal wave passed, I spent a week at home and then hopped in the car with two friends from high school and we drove through 10 states to visit my best friend who is another friend of ours from high school. We had an amazing time--and most of that trip is another story for another post, but the part relevant to this post is that I finished this leg of my self-discovery journey. I realized that I have been sort of wallowing and stagnant. I reached a point where I am ready to press onward--including, but not limited to: exercise, writing, and a whole new course of study for my ever-elusive bachelor's degree!
See...my whole life, the only solid goal I had, and something I sought after with every cell in my being, was True Love. I know...I'm kinda pathetic. But that's just the reality: I didn't have anything else motivating me but finding my True Love. And now that I have found him, my entire being has had to realign itself. It has been a beautiful ride, although bumpy at times. The end result was this: without a life goal, without a driving force, I was somewhat depressed--lost. I am now rebuilding my outlook on life, and reconnecting with the person I was during that last era of my life, the one in which I was miserable but cool. Now I'm happy and frumpy. Heh. It has left me very off balance. Trying to form a new identity, not based on surviving a relationship that was painful and awkward-fitting. Now I get to just be myself and it is.....unfamiliar at times.

So......therapy with Lisa. Yipee.

I'm stoked for summer/spring to be here, and stoked to be spending time outside, moving my body.
I'm looking forward to carving out little slots of time for my Self--writing time and exercise time.

Here is the best part of that trip I just returned from last night: while I was gone, my boys were taken care of. I don't just mean someone was here with them and their needs were met. I mean my husband--my heart-meltingly wonderful husband--loved and nurtured them while I was gone. He is a pro at the parenting thing. I left lots of food and meal ideas, and that was it--he did everything else on his own. He took them to baseball practices, took them to get cleets, made sure their homework got done, and had such a good time with them that they hardly called or texted me. And when they did? There was no sense of urgency, no sense of panic, like when they spend time with their dad. When they come back to me from him, they are like wild animals--their behavior shows me all sorts of things about how they've been treated (and how they've been ignored). When I got home last night? They were happy to see me, but they were the same boys I left a week ago. They were happy and well-rested and clean and well-fed. Their behavior had...ahem...I'm embarassed to admit it...IMPROVED! I'm beaming right now. I married the best man who ever lived. I already knew that...and I already knew he was an awesome Dad. But my whole chest cavity is filled with warmth when I think of what I have just learned. I have learned that for the first time in my life as a mother, I am not alone as a parent. I have a partner who loves my kids and is not only committed to raising them well, he is able to do so in a way that works for me. I needed someone I could look to for guidance, someone I could trust to see the big picture when I'm blinded by immediacy.

I feel like I just found the fountain of youth or the secret of life.
I am so full of love for that man and joy that I can hardly contain it all.

Now I get to push the reset button on myself and let the universe carry me along on its swift current.

Two words

Script
Frenzy
(dot org)

Well...

My Mom called yesterday
from California
where she and my Dad are spending the winter
at her sister's home.
She said he wants to stay there
permanently.
I responded, then
in the solitude I found as she spoke,
I choked back tears.
They were still evident in my voice when she drew me back to the conversation with a question about my niece.
For 10 years, I longed to live near my parents again.
For one and a half years I have basked in the wonderfully close relationship that we have enjoyed here--dinners at each other's houses, making bread or jam or applesauce together, outings to the beach, hikes with the kids...
If they leave...this is so much less "home" to me.
The family that I am close to lives back there, in that place I hated.
I have family here, too, but the 15 years I lived away left a distance between us.
They feel like strangers;
I feel like an outsider.
Maybe it won't work out.
Maybe they will just continue to spend winters there, and summers here.
I know that my Dad always thinks every change is The Cure.
Not the band...
but the solution to Everything That's Wrong With Him.
The depression, the dizzy spells...the working 34% of his one remaining kidney?
Sigh.
I will roll with it.
But I am probably not done crying.
If they really don't come back
and we continue to have no relationship with younger stepson
and older stepson graduates
or not
and Sweetest Love's company continues to not hire him for an engineering position
then maybe it IS time to move.

Sigh.

Other than All That?
Life is grand.
Spring is here, love is all around, and I am going to tear up this summer!