Come By Here

February sucked. March is doing okay, I guess. For a few days I was completely insane, crying at the drop of a hat and wanting to break things. Then I had a tiny mini-vacation day where I got to eat sushi, and frozen yogurt with mochi, and a nummy pastry, and I got my nails did, and I have been mostly better since then. Also, it turns out that getting manicures is awkward, and considering I messed mine up in 4 places within fifteen minutes, I don't believe I am built for it. This is fine. It was pretty effective in getting my hands to stop shaking post-doctor appointment.

Imminent Space Monkey is still Imminent, getting more and more so every day. Stellina went through a week where she was terrified of baby brudder and didn't want to see her mom, but now she is back to checking brudder's room every night before bed to make sure everything is in order. Due date isn't until the 18th, but I guess babby could come anytime between now and then. New Babbies! They are so great.

BiebzBear is either growing out of his annoying-as-hell stage, or I am getting more tolerant, and I think it is both. I have been reading lots of parenting books which I think is helping with my ability to understand why he does the annoying shit that he does, and/or to change things so he doesn't do them. I spend most of my time with him, now, usually 20-25 hours a week.

I seem to have picked up a church gig now at a small Methodist congregation in Arlington. It is fine. They pay me decently for minimum-impact work, though they have a 10:30am Sunday service - 9:30 call time is so early! Hymns and simple anthems are fine but I desperately miss singing in Latin and I miss singing early music and I miss singing anything challenging. The choir members are mostly older folks, with two other paid youngsters like me, and everyone is really friendly and nice. But Methodists are weird, and also this church is in the middle of nowhere. If I could find a Catholic or Episcopal church that was easier to get to and wanted to pay me to sing for them in a slightly more professional choir, I would miss my friendly little Methodists, but I would be less bored. In rehearsal yesterday we started working on a simple Thomas Tallis piece, which made me miss early music in a way I never thought I would.

Speaking of church, I am planning to do a Lent project. I seem to do okay when I have projects to accomplish, with little steps and an end-date, and not so well when I have a giant amorphous "do this until you are done with it" assignment. So I am going to try to exercise every day from Ash Wednesday to Easter, I guess with Sundays off?, in some manner or another. I am hoping it will help with my general lethargy and low energy/motivation levels, since it really couldn't get much worse. However, because I believe that running is for chumps, I am tasked with coming up with better ideas for exercise. I am thinking lots of dance classes and bicycle (impending warmer weather = a huge plus for bicycle), and maybe I'll find a yoga class even though I do not like yoga, or do a trial membership at a gym or something. Also, I hate running not only because it sucks and it's for chumps only, but also I can never get my iPod headphones to stay in my ears just while I'm walking, let alone running. What is the solution to this! Are there excellent running headphones out there that anyone knows? Also are there good exercise ideas?

Anyway, Lenten Project Oh-Eleven. I don't know if it will work and maybe it won't, but I will try. I am bored and I can never get anything done. I feel like I am always trying to play catch-up with myself. I can never make any positive progress because my room is never clean, and I can never clean my room because I have too many things to do, and I can't do those things because I am at work or sleeping.

When I first started watching Stellina I used to marvel at how Stellina's mom kept her house so impeccably clean with a such little kid. It didn't take long for me to realize that her secret, I guess, is that she never lets herself get behind in the stuff she has to do. StellinaMom keeps their days so regimented that everything always gets done when it needs to get done: laundry, dishes, wiping down all non-porous surfaces, putting away toys. Stellina's up at 6:30 or 7, lunch is at 12, nap is from 1 to 3, dinner is at 6:30, bathtime at 7:15, in bed at 8. Scheduling gets harder, of course, now that Stellina is the Queen of Stalling. Stall-ina, haha, get it. She also refuses to use toothpaste, what's up with that!? She and I discussed why, and she said, "Because it's too blue." A likely story.

Back to always playing catch-up. Every task I ever have always seems just a tiny bit out of hand. Too much laundry, too many shoes to put away, too much floor to sweep. It's so much easier to get in the bed and stay there for three hours, until it's time to find food and then get back in bed for the nighttime sleeping. I almost wish for a fresh start but I think that would require moving, and not only does moving REALLY suck, it never quite seems to be a fresh start, because I'm always running out of packing/moving time, so I put everything in boxes as quickly as possible. Then on the other side I'm just unpacking boxes of crap that I don't know what to do with, and then I still have the same piles of crap that I had in my old residence. I think what I need is two days where I can mega-dose with speed, I mean... caffeine? and do all my cleaning that I could ever possibly need to do, and everything else I've been avoiding, and then a mini-vacation, and then I can manage to have a mini-fresh start and be happy. And I can do my best to channel StellinaMom and never get behind in small, daily tasks.

Why does my happiness depend on how clean my living space is?!