It's what's for breakfast.

Eliot has been on a long kick of eating Poptarts for breakfast. Not all that surprising, considering that his mother has a serious Poptart addiction and finds it perfectly acceptable to eat Poptarts at all hours of the day--they aren't just for breakfast anymore, you know.

Unfortunately, this morning, we were out of Poptarts...so I started listing all the breakfast options. "Do you want toast, waffles, cereal...?"

Eliot pipes up, "Yeah! Cereal! Do we have yucky things?"

Me: "Yucky things?"

Eliot: "Yeah, Yucky Things, with the mushrooms!"

Me: Think, think, think...
"Ohhhhhh, you mean THESE Yucky Things?"

Eliot: "Yeah, yeah! I want Yucky Things for breakfast!"

Mmmm...we do love our "Yucky Things." But he only really wants to pick out the "mushrooms."

My word, this kid makes me so happy. :)

It's official.

I am divorced.

My ten year marriage is legally over, our assets and debts divided up, papers signed. Eliot will bounce back and forth between the two of us like a ping pong ball for the next fifteen years.

It isn't what I wanted.

I thought I would feel a sense of relief, maybe have a lighter step walking out of the courthouse, as though the proceedings would lift the weight of grief off me. But that didn't happen. I walked down the courthouse steps with tears streaming down my face, barely aware of my surroundings. I stumbled to my car and drove back to my apartment in a blur.

I sit here now, contemplating my (and Eliot's) future, wondering what life may have in store for us next. My head knows that this is for the best. My head knows that I will be happier and healthier with my marriage behind me. My head just hasn't successfully conveyed this truth to my heart yet.

I have felt, in the last couple of weeks, like a trapeze artist, perched on the edge of the platform, waiting in darkness for my turn to perform. And today, in court, the spotlight swung to me, and I swung through the air with a determined grip on the bar. I can't see where I'm going. Everything is a blur of colors and faces. I don't know if I'm headed for the opposite platform, or if there's someone swinging towards me to catch me. A large part of me is afraid, terrified to let go.

But I know it will be okay. I will let go when I am ready, and at that point I will not fear the blind flight through the air. Because the net beneath me is made up of wonderful people. Family, friends, fellow bloggers, even the adorable couple who run my local coffee shop and gave me extra whipped cream in my drink today--all are standing there below me with joined hands, ready to catch me should I fall.

But...I will not fall.

I loved you with a fire red, now it's turning blue...

And you say sorry like the angel
heaven let me think was you.
But I'm afraid
it's too late to apologize.

A few good things.

There may not be any good men left, but there are a few things making me happy right now.
(This is where I go all Pollyanna on yer ass.)

1. Music: The xx, Pink, and Broken Bells are on heavy rotation lately. All making me smile.

2. Reading Material: issues of BUST magazine, the local daily newspaper, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo are in my "currently reading" basket next to my couch.

3. My NEW COUCH! (photo forthcoming!)

4. Mog: Always, of course! He's been cracking me up lately with his vocabulary. Yesterday he picked up a stick in the yard and asked, "Mom, is this stick humongous?" And today he asked whether it would be "hilarious" if he took off his shoes and stomped in a puddle with his bare feet. (As it turned out, the answer was "Yes.")

5. My new spectacles. Finally, eyewear that fits my personality. :)

6. This skirt.

7. This silly person with the pleather hat.

8. This city.

9. My besties.

10. This television show.














So...that's me. Right now. How about you? What's your pleasure?

I don't really mind being monkeygirl.

I have superbly hairy arms.

When I was younger I used to get teased about my hairy arms all the time and it bothered me. Well, that's not really true. I pretended like it bothered me, because it seemed like I was supposed to be bothered by the ribbing, but secretly, I mostly just enjoyed the attention.

On multiple occasions, I trimmed the unruly, curly, ridiculously long arm hair strands with a pair of pink and white safety scissors. It seemed like the thing to do.

Come to think of it, I was a rather strange kid. Probably the arm hair was only an outward sign of inner awkwardness, a feature for the other kids my age to latch onto, an easy target for lame jokes designed to make the teller feel better about him or herself. Kids seem to have a sixth sense about these things. They smell one another's vulnerability and they circle around the weak like a shiver of sharks eager for blood. This is the way it seemed to me. Then again, I was both awkward AND paranoid. :)

Not much has changed over the years...

I just don't cut my arm hair anymore. Let it grow. The longer, the better; the crazier, the better; the more untamed, the better.

It's who I am.

"Wonderboy, won't you take me far away from the mucky-muck?"

My mother always told me, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Luckily, I rarely take her advice, or I would be a very quiet person indeed. But every time I've sat down to write in the past several weeks, this is the phrase that runs through my head. The two miniature Rachel's perched upon my shoulders argue back and forth and change their perspectives so often that I don't even recognize which is my angel and which my devil anymore. One says "Write," while the other sneers, "You have nothing worth saying."

I feel myself standing at the precipice, vulnerable, wavering. Everything around me whispers that this is the moment. I must choose to either move on or wallow and stagnate. The pull of my bed and the covers that I could stretch over my head and disappear into is more than magnetic.

If I am to go on, I need to construct a new life, new routines, new deviations from the routines. I'm still standing with one foot in the past, rooted in a quicksand of memories and old dreams. If I'm to step onto firmer ground, it's very likely that only my foot will make it. Here is what will happen: with a great sucking noise, the mud will refuse to release my shoe and I must leave it behind. But I'm attached to that shoe. What happens if I move on without it? Does it sink and disappear? And what happens to my naked foot without that shoe?

Rachel, why the hell are you talking about shoes and black sucking muck? This makes no sense. And are you on a precipice or struggling in a quagmire? Cause it can't be both. For the love of god, woman, choose a metaphor and stick with it! What is your problem?

This is the problem.

The more I struggle, the deeper I sink.

Tag! Now, wake up!

An amazingly supportive, insightful, superwoman internet friend who writes the blog 15 Minutes recently tagged me with ten questions. I thought I'd answer them as a way of dipping my toes back into the blogging water.

1 -  What MUST you wear for your weekend-kicking-around-clothes?

I'm so completely casual all the time that my weekend clothes aren't really all that different from my weekday clothes! Jeans and a t-shirt, and if I'm cold (and I'm always cold), my bright green knee-high American Apparel socks.

2 - What is your “quote” for life?

Depends on my mood, but right now, I'm all about this one:

"Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled." ~William Blake

Is this merely a justification for my own bad behavior? Probably.

3 - If you knew your next meal would be your last, what would you eat?

This is rough because I LOVE to eat. But I suppose it would probably be comfort food like my mom's chicken and dumplings, or in a pinch, a Papa John's ham & pineapple pizza will do. With Cherry Dr. Pepper, of course.

4 - What do you think is the greatest invention of our time?

Cereal. Unless of course, by "our time" you mean my own lifetime, in which case, I would have to say Velcro. Or Tang. God bless NASA.*

5 - You have one day of uninterrupted time alone. What will you do?

I will take a very long, very hot shower and then burrow into my bed with a good book and a box of Hostess Cupcakes. When I wake up from the sugar coma, I will probably write something or scrapbook, or both. Then I might go for a long drive down country roads with my windows down and blast my car stereo as loud as I want.

6 - The beach, the mountains, the desert, the farm country – all are just 30 minutes from you.  Which way will you go?  Why?

BEACH. With a margarita and some good reading material.

7 - This one’s important, now:  Coke or Pepsi?

Coke, always and forever.

8 - What do you think it would be super fun to dress up as for a costume party or Halloween?

Hmm...dunno. I once dressed up for trick or treat as the Bride of Frankenstein, which was pretty awesome. My mom spent an inordinate amount of time working egg whites and all manner of other gooey, gloppy, sticky substances into my waist-length hair to make it stand on end. The 'do was capped off by a wide white streak of baby powder down the middle. I was wearing so much hairspray that Mom gave me a long, serious lecture about not getting near any jack-o-lanterns, lest my coif go up in flames. Fun times.

9 - What absolutely, positively HAS to be on your i-pod (or radio, or mp3 or CD player, or whatever)?

Plenty of Tori Amos.

10 - Its sports day at school….who’s Jersey are you wearing?
What? Sport what? Huh? I don't understand the question. I thought a Jersey was a type of cow...am I wrong?


So there you have it. I'm back. ;)

*p.s. Neither Velcro nor Tang was actually invented in my lifetime. Sometimes I make shit up. I prefer to think this tendency towards fabrication makes me a storyteller. Some say "liar." But, whatever. ;)