I Hate My Message Board » Uncategorized

Crying in the car

Tracy — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:07:58 +0000

Or, really there isn’t a right place to begin writing again, is there?

I’ve been doing fine, I suppose. There have been urges to do something BIG! and LIFE! AFFIRMING! but it seems in the movies that always involves heights, and I’m scared of those so instead I decided to go with doing the small and life sustaining things like take the kids to school and grocery stop.

So today I’m doing just that and on the way home the kids all fall asleep in the back of the car and I decided to take the long way home so I wouldn’t have to wake them. For once, it’s quiet and there’s not a whole lot of traffic on these back roads and it’s too easy to think. And Fast Car by Tracy Chapman comes on the radio and all of a sudden I can’t stop crying.

Crying while driving is always a tricky thing. You can’t really give in to it fully or you’ll really have something to cry about, yet you can’t do too much about it, either. You just sort of have to let it all flow out while establishing a blinking pattern that will leave you with near full visibility and hope your nose doesn’t get into the act, too, because the tissues always go missing out of the center console.

I considered going to the Starbucks drive through and getting something nice to drink but I wasn’t sure if crying girl ordering a grande caramel macchiato was some sort of horrible cliche or noteworthy enough that they’d all talk about it and remember me when I came back. Or for that matter, which would be a bigger blow to my self esteem. So I just drove until John Tesh started talking and I could distract myself with how much I dislike his radio show yet have never bothered to change the channel.

Later that afternoon, I was driving again and a woman driving a car approaching me was crying in her car. She looked angry, like she’d been in an argument and stormed off without considering where it was that she wanted to go. I hope that everything works out for her.

I guess if I tried hard enough I could squeeze out some meaning or lesson from this experience and make this a proper sort of blog post but really I think what I wanted to say was hey, this is where I am, more or less okay but sometimes I cry while driving.

PS thanks to everyone that left nice comments, emailed and called, it’s been very appreciated.Similar Posts:

Quick update

Tracy — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:00:07 +0000

We are still dealing with the tragedy that struck my husband’s family and I will be unable to post for a few more days. Thank you all for your kindness and support, it’s been greatly appreciated.

TracySimilar Posts:

I know people, fabulous people

Tracy — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:01:47 +0000

Or, look at what my friends are up to

It’s life coach Tim! On the early morning tv in Florida on New Year’s Day! And you know how I feel about people who are on tv, namely that their acquaintance is to be cultivated so as to be able to enlist their aid for getting my very good ideas for reality shows made into…reality.

I think he did very well although I didn’t really hear it all as I broke out into the giggles when the guy said “Seriously? You really help people?” I was just waiting for John Stossel to jump up from behind the couch and say “Give me a break!”

Edited to add: check out Tim’s latest post on his absolutely magnificent goal for the next year. He wants to give away a million books and is looking for your ideas on how to make this a reality.

In other news, my friend Madame Fabulous, you might know her from her guest posts on this blog, has jumped back into the world of blogging. Check out her blog, Madame Fabulous Knows Everything and be sure to subscribe because I know she’s going to come up with some great stuff. Check out the guest posts she’s shared with us:

How Does My Garden Grow (seriously, how?)

Cherry Blossoms

The Cruelest Cut

MadFab, Merlot and Malice

Bringing Your BestSimilar Posts:

2010 Won’t be another sequel

Tracy — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:27:45 +0000

Or, if somebody has a Mr. Linky up for resolution posts, you know I’m going to be dropping dope urls

NWA – Express Yourself
Uploaded by benjamin_franklin. – Watch more music videos, in HD!

Things to cut out:

Flaking
Perpetrating
Smoking weed (causes brain damage)
Hesitating to diss one
Following the styles and trends of others
Being what society wants me to be
Rapping for the pop charts
Exaggerating and making fiction in lieu of reality
Moving like a tortoise, full of rigor mortis

Things to continue/encourage

Getting straight
Meditating like a Buddhist
Combining subjects with predicates (note to self: find out what, precisely a predicate is. Is it related to the word predicated? How could somebody know what predicated means but is fuzzy on what a predicate is? Okay that’s enough, add stop beating self up over lack of grammar to list)
Ruthlessness
Remember it’s not about wealth
Kick reality but stay myself
Grow like an embryo or possibly a tumor (non-malignant)
Get a bottom so people will stop ignoring me
Stay funky

Happy New Year! Let me know your hopes and dreams for 2010 in comments! And if you’ve written a resolutions post of your own, be sure to drop by Nanny Goats in Panties to add it to the list.Similar Posts:

The music of my childhood

Tracy — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:48:32 +0000

Or getting to know me, getting to know all about me

The other day, my son Alex was telling me how his younger brother sometimes calls him Al. I told him, well that’s awesome, Call Me Al could be your new theme song. He didn’t know the song, so I pulled it up for him and it got me thinking how much I loved Simon and Garfunkel as a kid. We didn’t listen to much music at home, but I think my father had an 8-track player in his Cougar XR7 (I still love saying Cougar XR7 outloud, doesn’t that just so 1970’s badass?). When I hear these songs, I’m instantly transported back into that car, listening to my mom singing along in her Korean-accented English. I think all kids should have a memory of their mother singing and that’s why I sing to my kids, even though ____ (insert tone deaf cliche here).

My father played the flute and we were always so impressed that he could play along to this song. Also, that he could play the Sesame Street theme song. I can’t say that I was emotionally precocious enough to truly understand the lyrics of most of the Simon and Garfunkel songs we sang along to back then, but I did know that I liked the way the words brought pictures to my mind and I think it was my first appreciation of poetry.

I don’t remember if we had an 8-track of this song or if it just came on the radio a lot, but it was one of my mom’s favorite songs to sing to. Every time I hear the beginning of this song, I think of my mom.

I was an adult before I realized that James Brown wasn’t saying Papa’s got a brand new van. I think this song is why I am so funky.

Again, I was an adult before I found out this song was by Sonny and Cher. When I was a child, I remember thinking how incredibly sad it was that the singer had no parents.

One of my all time favorites. I remember me and my sister sliding around on the back seat singing along. All kids should be raised with a hefty dose of Ray Charles. This is the one parenting rule I have to put my foot down on.

What can I say? I got my excellent taste in music from mom and dad.

I really had no idea they were gay until the longest time. I just thought that’s what grown men were like. After all, my dad was in the Army and wore a uniform.

Diana Ross was awesome!

I admit it, a lot of classic songs and musicians I heard on Sesame Street or the Muppet Show first.

What songs do you remember from your childhood? Share, please!Similar Posts:

Just Busted: I don’t get it

Tracy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:21:08 +0000

Or, who buys this? WHY?

I saw this for sale at Walgreens today. Putting aside the disturbing idea that we have enough arrests in this county to warrant a weekly publication, I’m completely baffled by this paper.

I probably should have bought a copy or at least thumbed through one in the checkout line, but frankly I was too embarrassed. Once, a cop pulled my sister over for expired tags and he insisted on seeing my ID too because he thought for sure I was this hooker he busted before. He didn’t even apologize for thinking I was a prostitute violating parole which I thought was quite rude.

Anyway, I am really self conscious about that even though it was about 12 years ago and I wasn’t going to take the chance of opening up the paper to look at it and have the hooker that looks like me be on the back page and people snicker at me as they walk by until finally I flip it over and see prosti-me.

Seriously though, who would buy this? Why? Is it so you can memorize the face of everybody arrested for a crime in this county so if they come to your house you will know not to let them in? See if anyone you know was arrested? Do people buy several copies to get clippings for the grandparents? You know, because it seems like this would be something better suited for the Internet, so you could have searches and a like button for arrests you thought were particularly good. They could call it BustedBook!

Would you buy this? Do you have any idea why somebody would? Is there a similar publication where you live?

And why is that lady on the upper left smiling? Is that normal for people who’ve been just busted?Similar Posts:

It’s like Schadenfreude, only like for nice people

Tracy — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:58:54 +0000

Or a few random thoughts in lieu of a post

My youngest, you can't imagine him being a handful, can you?

It’s really hard to get back on track after being off it for so long. I guess that’s why they call it “on track” because it’s like you’re this huge heavy train just chugging along and if something knocks you off, sister you’re going to need a crane to lift you back on.

Hmmmm…all of a sudden “They’ll Need a Crane” is even more layered than it was before. Like the flip side and crap.

In any case, the good news about being off track is if you need a crane anyway, no reason you can’t have it set you down on a new different track. Which is totally what I’d do if I felt like it, but I don’t. I’m just glad to put November behind me.

So, the Schadenfreude. Have you ever run across one of those parents that no matter what their kid was doing, was always calm and spoke to the kid in this high pitched sing-songy voice. No matter what? And the kid is pushing five? And while part of you is rolling your eyes, the other part is wondering now why in the hell can’t I always be calm? Not with the sing-songy voice, of course, that’s just crazy but maybe not so bark-y sometimes. Or jaw-clench-ish. Calm, that would be the ticket; non-escalatory, I think you’d call it.

Because the thing is my two youngest are 2 and 3 and I need all the non-escalation I can get. They aren’t bad kids, but neither are they the kind of kids that will sit still through a dinner at a restaurant and nobody would realize they were there until we got up to leave. It’s my fault, really, because if I have learned one thing about parenting from reading the comments on Consumerist and other such blogs, it’s that somewhere along the way I have failed to let them know what my expectations were, probably because of the bark-y, jaw clench-ish manner in which I speak. Which is really going to suck for them when they grow up and want to comment about out of control children posts on blogs. Maybe they are creative enough to turn it around.

Yeah, I was that kid that would throw himself on the ground in front of other shopper’s carts in Kroger, right in the middle of the aisle, too so they couldn’t get around and when my mom tried to pick me up, I’d manage to simultaneously go limp and thrash all my limbs around so that she was forced to use both of her arms as a makeshift straitjacket to get me off the ground while trying to corral my brother with her left leg so he wouldn’t run down the aisle trying to knock down an entire shelf of pickles with his outstretched arm.

We didn’t go out much.

And you know, I probably wouldn’t have done it, if she’d only calmly told me I shouldn’t do that. Instead she’d just go “Schrop. Rraattt. Rrrowww.” like freaking Scooby Doo with his jaw wired shut.What the hell is that? English? Who would think a toddler could understand that?

So, yeah, being a more calm parent is something I want not only for my own blood pressure, but for my kids, too.

Back to SingSongMamma, even though her lilting manner of speech was irksome to me and I wasn’t sure if I should emulate her bright, loud way of affirming everything her child said (YES! I do hear that noise! It DOES sound like a train! Do you think a TRAIN is going down the TRACK? You are so OBSERVANT! What ELSE do you HEAR?) or if that would only encourage my child to speak that way to me when I was in the nursing home and should be avoided, I was jealous of her remarkable calm. In fact, in my lower moments while she’d be sing-songing and I’d be barking through clenched jaws, I almost imagined she was doing it just to spite me.

Then I found out through the grapevine that her kid is something of a terror and scratches other children and doesn’t share and throws hissy fits that would put mine (as in me, not my kids) to shame and I’m ashamed to say I had a brief moment where I felt, not so much vindicated, but like, you know, I think we’re going to be all right. I’ve got room to improve, they’ve got some growing up to do, but the lot of us are all basically okay and will continue to get better.

And it’s not like I’m glad her kid is a terror or that I think this means her way is wrong, just it’s like, well, you know. Right? You know? I’m still a nice person, right?

Before I go, I’d like to mention that Patricia, of Patricia’s Wisdom has put together an awesome Harvest Potluck cookbook as a fundraiser for UNICEF. It’s a free ebook, but you have the opportunity to donate to the UNICEF Children’s Fund as a thank you for the cookbook. I haven’t had an opportunity yet to make anything from it but several recipes have caught my eye.

And I’m still getting back in the swing of things. I’m completely run down these days from being sick and having to power through the holiday, so sleep is my number one priority, but I have a feeling that once I get a few good night’s rest, I’ll be good as new. Thanks so much to everyone for your good wishes! I am so behind on email and comments that it’s not funny, but please know all your good thoughts have been most appreciated.

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Today I am thankful for

Tracy — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:00:58 +0000

A house full of boys and trees to climb.

I’ll be back on my regular posting and commenting schedule on Monday but until then I am enjoying time with my family and making a few hundred spring rolls/egg rolls.

Photo taken at My Big Backyard, Memphis Botanic Gardens. They have trees to climb and rocks for scampering on and space for kids to be kids. Check it out if you’re in the area.Similar Posts:

No one can take away your right to fight and to NEVER SURRENDER!

Tracy — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:38:14 +0000

Or, you know it’s been a bad week when I quote Corey Hart to have the strength to go on

I am a complete and utter heel for taking so long to thank everyone who voted for me in the Good Mood Blogger Gig competition. All of the votes and encouragement meant so much to me, and although I didn’t make it into the top 20, I got well over 3ooo votes which is amazing. I meant to tie it into a post about self promotion, but then I got sick and could only think about how much I hated really big umbrellas in crowded places.

So, I was starting to feel better and about to get back on track when my stove and oven broke. A problem, but not insurmountable. I bought a hot plate and made arrangements for a repair.

Then, we discovered when trying to light the water heater pilot that the vent that is supposed to take away all the bad stuff, like carbon monoxide was completely blocked. As in so blocked that the utility company immediately turned off all the gas to the house because it was so unsafe. Our hot water and heat are gas, but luckily it wasn’t too cold and between the microwave, hot plate and electric kettle we were able to get enough water to bathe.

Which is a problem, but not insurmountable, so we called the heating and air conditioning people to come and take a look. The repair guy said he couldn’t do anything without the gas being on, but then he decided to pull the pipe thing away from the chimney and found it completely clogged with dust and rubble and whatnot. He said to call the chimney company.

Which was a problem, but not insurmountable, so my husband called the chimney company and they came right out on Friday night and said the chimney was completely clogged and an interior wall had crumbled completely many years before and to fix this would cost a couple thousand dollars.

This was a problem and felt pretty dang insurmountable.

But we surmounted, oh yes we did and yesterday they came out again and got our chimney nice and clear. The utility company only has emergency crews on the weekend though, so we’re still without hot water and heat, but the end is in sight.

And after a good hot shower, I will be back to my bubbly self, I just know it. In the meantime, I think it would behoove us all to watch this video and remember that Corey Hart believes in you! Don’t give up!

PS This is not obligatory, but I certainly think that some wow, you took care of four kids, a dog and a husband with no gas or working stove for many days is certainly a nice thing to do. I mean, obviously our pioneer ancestors did it and survived, but I am made of softer, 21st century stuff and need coddling.Similar Posts:

Scary Products Contest Winners

Tracy — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:27:12 +0000

I am so sorry that this is tardy, we seem to have come down with a fiendish plague at my house. I don’t think it’s swine flu or even regular flu, but it is responsible for copious amounts of snot and phlegm.

But that is boring and so to avoid the crime of writing while sick (which always results in page after page of me whining how UNFAIR it all is and weeping at the tender beauty of my courage in the face of rhinovirus) I’m proud to announce the grand prize winner is:

Alana from Girl Alive for 8 Hotdogs in a CAN with ONIONS in BRINE

Runners up:

Rina from Gotta Little Space for Potted Meat Food Product

Abbie for Placenta Shampoo

Sean from Lance Bass Ruined My Life for Book Thongs

Stephanie from Adventures in the Life of Me for Fortifido and Dog Snuggies. Be sure to check out her animals trying Fortifido and the Snuggie, too cute!

Abbeytoo for Creepy Glow in the Dark Skull Purse and Life Size Sock Monkey Ballerina

I will be contacting the winners by email later today to get their addresses to mail their prizes. Although I probably won’t get to the post office until we all stop leaking. I am a good citizen that way.Similar Posts: