Monday Morning

It's Monday and i think that i am half-way through my time in San Antonio. I got here on the 13th of September, which means I have been here approximately nine weeks. I aim to be back in Boston by the beginning of February and no later, sooner would be lovely.

I am looking forward to the Holiday Season. Last year Judah watched Paula Dean and the Barefoot Contessa make their versions of Thanksgiving dinner. This year I want to include him in the fun, so sometime today, we will be shopping for our ingredients. I think we may make the potatoes and the sweet potato casserole.

We won't be seeing Chris until December 8th. We're spending the 8th through the 16th in Boston. We're all looking forward to it, as this will be the first time Judah sees our place. the 8th is also our seventh wedding anniversary-- it'll be fun to be together for that.

Judah's last soccer game was Saturday afternoon and it was too cute. really, the little Tiger team has come SUCH a long way. To commemorate the end of the season, their coach presented each player with a trophy. Judah LOVES his trophy, carries it around, sometimes even kisses it!

Probably one of the biggest struggles i have is paying attention to the concrete, Real World details of my life. I am almost always distracted by existential questions and/or personal psycho-analysis. Because i am so distracted the following is true: I drive bad, i cook worse, i forget to take vitamins and sometimes even forget to give Judah his morning allergy meds. these are just examples. I am getting better, but it is Such a Struggle. it is hard for me to even be motivated for it, except to think that if I don't pay attention to these details, i will suffer consequences. I don't want to be neglectful.

and, i don't want to be obsessive, either. lately, i notice recurring motifs/thoughts, and the net result is that i have become somewhat bored with my thinking process-- it tends to be angsty, somewhat neurotic/obsessive, unproductive and, now, predictable.

I need to shake that up!

So this blog is an attempt to pay attention to the externalities I usually fail to engage. it reads a little like those posts about what one is having for breakfast, but for me it represents real growth. boring though it may be.=)

Have a good monday!

more polyvore!

wardrobe by ericasw

Bandwagon

boots, plaid! by ericasw

in San Antonio or, "and never the Twain shall meet"

I am in San Antonio, right now, sort of bunkering down in my life. I am pretty sure i passed my comps, now i am to write the Dreaded Thesis.

I get a lot of Starbucks these days, out of necessity. I have been tired more days than not and the caffeine makes all the difference. I have started associating the lattes with "treating" myself, which i find humorous. I guess in the way of vices and splurges, a latte is a relatively tame choice.

have you had their new hazelnut hot chocolate? it's a revelation and i never call things "revelations."

my life has been profoundly interesting these days, to me anyway. I have become totally free, through some rather complicated experiences, from my father-figure issues. Some of those experiences, you have read about right here and others I am not sure what to do with. My relationships with God, Chris, my dad, and literally every important male friend has changed, in what feels like a short amount of time. but the truth is that is has been long time coming, no?

A former self, a sweet girl, rather dependent, is giving way to some strange current incarnation I hardly know at all. The best thing about this metamorphosis is that i deeply trust myself now.

(i am aware that you are not excited about Obama, but i am. i am not even sure why I am. i think it has more to do with Potential and less to do with my personal investment in Obama. I think he could do great things, and that feeling, that hope, i love it.

Although, i am far from being sure that he will do great things.)

Being away from Chris has been a gift, one that i think he has given me. As a recovering co-dependent (*wink,wink*) I had often envisioned my spending time away from my husband. This time has been one in which i face myself, a rather dark side, and asked myself whether my life was one i truly identified with: not one i believed in, but one i lived in, one which represents the Truth as i am it.

It turns out, mercifully, that it is-- my life is the one I belong in.
And i am so grateful to Chris for his patience and faith in me, which isn't dependent on the answer to those questions being what it SHOULD be. I could be any incarnation of myself and Chris would respect it.

my respect and appreciation for him have grown huge.
it is far from any definition of perfect, but
i love my life.

in Chicago

and i forgot how big this town is. really, when i stepped on to the train, which i took into the city, i felt provincial and broken down. one thing i noticed was how daunting i found the foreign advertisements. Somehow, the diversity and the ads for companies we don't have in Texas made me feel small.

But now i am in a friend's basement apartment, getting colder by the minute, visiting all my familiar sites on the web, and i feel secure again.

I am here to take my comprehensive examination for the Religion in American Life program. My test is at 9:00 a.m. in the Buswell. I suppose the rattling off of the details, to you, my friends, is my way of dealing with the test anxiety. i hope i pass, but i wouldn't be surprised if i did not. We'll focus on the hope, k?

i have been busy busy and tired. I worked a bit to come up with my per diem for this trip. When i get home i will have to work a good bit to make up for this week. hopefully, it comes together, the financial details. hopefully, i come together.

I have come up with a mission statement for myself, which i have been saying to myself almost everyday, sometimes more than once. the difference it has made! the saying of words i choose to describe the life I am working toward--they have been a talisman and an antiseptic, almost magical in their power to shape me anew, words i wrote and said and memorized are healing to myself.

i will have to tell you sometime what they are... do you have a life statement? a mantra? can i know it?

On track

I have been so busy doing the things i meant to do while i was here.

i have been studying, I have been working, I have been mothering.

and i have been doing little else. I watch precious little TV. I am missing Dexter and I will have to try to catch the finale of Project Runway at another time. Please, let it not be Kenley and please can it please be Leanne.

I have been about my own agenda and it feels really good.

As now Judah is home and i am starving, I'll have to write more later. possibly.

hope all is well. . .

Sundries

I am in Texas, as you know, and I am doing well and poorly at the same time. It doesn't even out to okay.

Maybe because this blog has been read by people I don't want reading it before, I am hesitant to explain too much of that sentence. We need a secret blog, where we can share secrets.

I am making efforts. I go to church here, twice a week- Tuesday morning ladies bible studies and Sundays to Christ Episcopal. I don't feel at home in either place but i get something, usually, from each place each time i go.

I try to take care of myself. I am not sure I ever mentioned before that I am particularly bad at this, by nature. I get too locked in my head to think about taking vitamins and exercising. I bite all my fingernails off in deep thought.

I am trying to be mindful of my physical needs. I just made myself lunch, real lunch, though i didn't really want anything at all.

I am headed to work tonight at a restaurant that is just fabulous. It serves chic American Latin Cuisine in an avant-garde atmosphere and tonight is my first full-fledged night on the floor. I am a pretty good waitress. I like to chat people up. I can forget practical items sometimes, not usually, and i think of the whole thing as an opportunity to pay attention to detail (see above) while actually getting paid.

Have you heard of OPI nail polish color "I am not really a waitress."

i feel that! but i don't hate waitressing, I don't. $2o-$30/hour. and little stress.

Jujie has been sick since i got here. he had spasmodic croup and not he has an ear infection.
on the upside, he is loving his swimming lessons.

more later, loves.