Wednesday, May 23, 2007

This is Your Life

I’m not sure how I discovered the blog East Side Girl, but I love it. It’s well written and usually makes me laugh. This post, though, got me thinking about all the wonderful “nothing special” days that I’ve been having lately. It’s been busy – very busy. We’re moving and packing and in a general state of harriedness, and YG has been crazy at work, managing the ECT, and working to make sure the MG can stay in her current school system. Emotionally, everyone is all over the map.

But it hasn’t been all bad. In fact, it hasn’t been bad at all. It should be really stressful, but we’ve been managing, and I’m actually looking forward to moving in. This past weekend, we didn’t do much. I had a fever and a horrendous cold last week so I worked from home on Thursday and Friday, switching from sleeping to working to sleeping to feeling sorry for myself to sleeping. On Saturday morning, I was DYING to get out of the house, but we were entering into Day 4 of craptastic, rainy weather. YG went to yoga class, while MG and I ate breakfast and watched What Not to Wear. I took her down to SuperCuts and we both got blowouts and then picked up my drycleaning and filled the car up with gas. None of this was glamorous by any means, but the MG kept talking about how much FUN she has when she’s with us. It makes me both happy and sad. Happy that she’s happy, but sad that she’s not when we’re not around. I’ve analyzed and am analyzing what it is that I do differently that makes it so fun for her, and I’ve found….nothing. I don’t really act different around her. I certainly swear less, and I try to keep all my opinions (i.e. usual rants and raves) in check, but I don’t go out of my way to do any kid things with her. I just don’t exclude her from what I’M doing. Maybe that makes her feel special? Maybe it makes me a selfish asshole? I’m not sure – I just know that it’s easy to drag her around while I do my errands.

Later that afternoon, we went over to the new place to measure and try and map out where all of our stuff is going to fit. It was just as good as I remembered. I’ll have to get rid of more items to make the place work, but I’m not as angsty about it as I was a few weeks ago. I’ll be sad to see some of these items go – I can remember exactly where they sat in my grandparents’ apartment in Brooklyn, but it’s time to move on now. And I think we’ve come to a good compromise. I am still excited about the massive amount of closet space, along with a cubby devoted to just my shoes. Oh joy!

We left the car at the new place and then took the *bounce, bounce* miniscule 10 minute walk to Davis, grabbing pizza and subs at Mike’s before taking the T to Berklee for a Dan Zanes show. THAT was a blast. I could write a long post about how craptastic “kids” music is (see: Hannah Montana) and how annoying it is to have the MG repeat the same horrendous song over and over again (see: Hannah Montana), but I won’t because I made my parents take me to A New Kids On The Block concert when I was 11 and I put up posters of Donnie Walberg all over their basement, so Hannah Montana is probably my karmic payback. Dan Zanes was fun for the MG AND for me. Lots of cute kids and hipster parents bouncing around. The usual “cult of the child” people and some anxietymoms overly obsessed with their kids not being able to see or bounce properly, but overall, a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon. We walked in the rain to the Prudential Center stores to kill some time shopping before heading back to dinner at an Italian place in Davis.

Sidenote: YG and I watched Before Sunset on Saturday night a few months after watching Before Sunrise, a movie I adored when it came out. It started off bad, mainly because I think Ethan Hawke is and plays douchebag really well, but then moved into enjoyable. Overall, it made me think, though, that people my age aren’t really that interesting.

On Sunday we woke up and the sun was out for the first time in four days. YG took the MG to Sunday school while I stayed around to pack. It was still relatively sunny when I left for church, but opened up into a downpour on my walk. Of course, I had no umbrella. L I was late and cranky and wet by the time I got there and not entirely enthused by the idea of sitting in wet clothes for an hour, but our church always manages to rock it out. The pastor gives wonderful sermons, but we had a guest speaker this week who talked about the meaning of Ascension Sunday and how pragmatic Protestants have trouble with the “mysticism” and “mysteriousness” of the event. (not something the ex-Catholics like myself have problems with). She talked about how the disciples were all real people with problems (not belivieving, lying, betraying and the like), but yet they were able to get on with spreading the good word. I took away that I don’t need to spend so much time worrying about my various states of disbelief, I could just get on with it. So yeah, nice time.

Afterwards we had Beatles brunch at Cambridge Common. The music, duh, was good, as was the food. The mimosas are not nearly as good as Temple Bars, but I just discovered that Temple puts vodka in their mimosas…hence the excellence. As we were leaving, it downpoured again and while we trying to figure out how to fit 3 humans under one small umbrella, YG heard the voice of one, John Malkovich. He lives in Harvard Square, but I’ve never seen him before, and I know I should mention that he’s an awesome actor and acclaimed enough to have a movie made about people entering the portal to his brain, but I’ll always know him as I’ll always know him as Dr. Jeff/Ulysses the Android. Words cannot express how much I LOVED that movie when I was about 10 – around the same time as I loved NKOTB. The fashion stylings of PR consultant, Frankie Stone, were sooooo 1987. I digress. The Malkovich didn’t seem too happy that we were staring, but whatever – random celebrity sightings don’t occur that often in my neighborhood.

We walked back home, and YG described it this way, “You, me, MG, in the rain and no one complaining about it. At all. Just happy to be together, soaked to the bone but content.”

The perfect weekend.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aw, that sounds like an awesome day, despite the rain and fatigue and lingering cold. I bet the MG has a great time with you because you don't talk down to her--it's your NOT altering yourself around her that makes you so refreshing, perhaps? I love that the two of you got blowouts together!

Also, the end of Before Sunset made me bawl my eyes out (that last line from Delpy is just so perfect to me), but then again, the high school graduation scene in "Saved by the Bell" also sort of choked me up this week, so apparently anything can make me cry these days.

SKB

Anonymous said...

I seem to recall seeing Making Mr. Right more times than the average person. It's why I love "So Happy Together."

east side girl said...

I love that you use the word "craptastic" so liberally. I use it myself on a daily basis.

Nice post!