No idea what I want. But here is what I don't want.

I am not one of those women who is content to spend her entire life doing any of the following:

• completely losing herself in the quest to raise self-absorbed, entitled little shits, destined to have a jillion regrets by the time menopause hits and her kids have completely taken her for granted and plan to stick her in a home
• serving.
• faking a polite phone demeanor
• brown nosing
• being embarrassed by how unoriginal I am at my high school reunion
• being too embarrassed to even attend a high school reunion
• sitting around.
• never having anything interesting to say, ever.
• only being concerned about dusty drapes and what the neighbours are doing with their azaleas 
• drinking martinis at noon

And so on.

One day, I am going to open a small gallery that caters to artists suffering from mental illness... one day.

Lindsay and Existentialism.

Sometimes I look at the wrinkle that's forming on my forehead and say to myself, "My God.  You're 24 years old.  And you still feel like you're 18", and I do.  I do still feel 18.  And if it weren't for this hideous wrinkle I wouldn't even have had to face this scary reality: I'm not much of an adult at all.  I feel like all the other people are adults, but I am just walking around in disguise as an adult.  I'm just faking it.  But if you look hard enough, it's easy to see that everyone else is just pretending too.
How do you grow up?  I want to know because, in a traditional sense, I really haven't made anything of myself.  Probably because I'm not a very big believer in formal education.  I did the University thing, I did the community college thing, and hated every minute of both.  It was a total waste of time and money.  Try as I might, I couldn't squeeze into that disguise.  A post-secondary education is perfect for some people, but for me it was just an aggravation.  I never felt challenged.  I never made friends.  As far as making it in the world goes - I believe that success depends wholly on personality and outlook on life.
Think about it: why have job interviews?  So that employers can get a feel for who you are and what you're about.  If they like the cut of your jib (so to speak) you're in.  It doesn't really matter what your resume says, but what you respond to their ridiculous questions with (what is your biggest weakness?  'I work way too hard', for example).  I have no patience for this shit.  When you start thinking about things they way they really are, and peel away the layers of collagenous bullshit surrounding every social interaction, it makes you a pessimistic know-it-all.  Like me.  I am famously unemployable.  I don't respond well to authority, I don't take menial tasks very seriously, I don't believe in beating around the bush, pretending to be nice, I don't think customers are ever right, and I don't think anybody should have to waste their life working at a job that they don't completely love.
So.  There.  And potential employers who happen upon this blog: I'm sorry, but there it is.
I have come to realize that I must come up with something.  I have to find some way to make my way in the world (and make money for my family) without having to try to fit into this role that I just can't manage to fit into.  It is a waste of time and resources just trying to make that way of life work for me when it does so clearly not.
When I think of times I was genuinely myself, these times are when I am at my most alone.  I used to buy flowers for myself ($50 bouquets!), I used to spray paint my furniture, I walked dogs just to avoid having to work around other human beings, this is when I thrived.
And at other times in my life, I have felt like the most adult person I know!  Conflicts with family members have brought me to a place of peace and acceptance.  I have apologized for my part in fights and I have lost relationships that I held precious all my life, despite having done nothing to hurt the other person.  What can you do?  I have come to realize that no matter how hard you try, you cannot cling on to a person who has moved on and no longer wants you.  People will outgrow you.  People will change. You're going to lose everyone, at some point, to circumstances you cannot control.  It's sad but it's a very real truth.  I have also learned that apologizing does not mean that you were wrong and the other person was right: not always.  Sometimes it just means that you value your relationship more than they do.  Another sad reality of adult life.
Fuck it - I don't want to be a grown up.

Total Physical Exhaustion.

I bought new shoes today.  And 2 new tops, one of which I've had my eye on for weeks and was lucky to snag at the Vintage boutique that I love.  That was today.  Carter came alone and we spent the afternoon together.  Strangers made him cry, the wind made his boogers crusty and his Tombly Boo fell in the mud.  But he had a really good time, and I'm glad we spent the day together!
Now, I have started a new job at a bar in Stoney Creek.  This was my second week there, and I am making peanuts.  No money at all.  It's pitiful.  But I love my boss and the people that come into the bar all the time and I get to wear whatever I want! (I am a really big fan of not having to wear what employers tell me to wear.  Big fan.)  Anyway.  Yesterday I worked for 13 hours straight and got dicked around by drunken assholes who didn't want to pay me, and I had an anxiety attack in front of my boss, her boyfriend, and the seedy clientele who, very shortly after, left abruptly and without tipping me.  Yesterday was a horrible, horrible day.  So I know I haven't been around much the last little while, but I need to relax right now.  Just for a while.  And then I will be back.

ARGH!!!

Okay.
So.
Because things aren't going as well as I would like (professionally speaking), let me just go ahead and say what needs to be said.

Kids are Assholes.

Total assholes.  They ignore you when you bark orders at them.  When you tell them to sit, they lay on their bellies and wiggle around like worms.  They hit each other.  They cheat when they play games.  They lie.  They have head lice.  They give you lip.  They make you feel like a bad guy.  They ask to go to the bathroom 10 minutes after you gave everyone a bathroom break.  They tell their parents lies and their parents believe them all, regardless of the lunacy.  They smell.  They have tangly hair.  They jump and climb all over you.  They throw things.  They don't throw out their garbage.  They can't play nice.  They don't share.  They don't take care of their things; they lose everything!  They cry at the drop of a hat.  They're manipulative.  When they're in packs, they are impossible to control.  They think they know everything, they know nothing!  they nag.

There.

Not my son, though.  No siree.

I'm a snooty little bitch... don't bother me.

Normally, I love the bus rides to work every day.
I'm listening to my ipod, smoking a cogarette (in secret, because Mikehates it and thinks that I smoke all the time, which i don't - I only smoke on my way to work), knowing I look adorable in my adorable coat and shoes and hats and all that - perpetually posing non-chalantly, like oh me?  I'm just waiting for the bus.  Oh I don't take it because I have to - no, I genuinely care about the environment.  I have a Corvette at home.
HA!
I am pathetic.  I really am.  But it's the only time I get out of the house by myself and it only lasts a half hour or so, and I treasure it beyond measure.  It's my me time.
Until this fat bitch at the bus stop decided to befriend me.
I shouldn't call her a fat bitch.  She's actually not bitchy at all.

No matter how hard I try to ignore her, or look busy, or try to avoid eye contact, this woman cannot take a hint and she insists on whining in my ear for 5 whole minutes out of my me time.  MY me time.  She never has anything pleasant to say.  She always, always complains about the bus being a minute too late and now she's going to miss her connection.  I laugh and nod like Oh, I hear ya sister but inside I am scathing.  Why doesn't she leave a little earlier so as not to miss her connection and save me from her awkward conversation?  She has been sent her to irritate me.  Sent here from the returns and exchanges line at wal-mart.

I don't hate fat women.  But I do hate women who never wear make up or even bother to try looking halfway decent when they walk out the door.  I think it signifies a lack of self-respect and I don't respect people who don't respect themselves.  Argue that point with me all you like.  Whatever.  I'm not changing my opinion.  Why can't she see that I have nothing to say?  Why does she stand there and STARE INTO MY SOUL until my eyes brush past her? And she has to start with the whining about the connection and all that shit?  I do not care.  I do not.  I don't give a shit.  Someone get this woman a Blogger membership so she can blog about what ails her and leave me the fuck alone while I enjoy the only half hour of my day in which I'm not chasing around a child?

But otherwise my little journey to work is wonderful.  :D

a small post about that sweet treasure of mine...

Babies certainly do have a way of complicating the simplest things.

Putting my baby down for a nap is as hard - and as time consuming - as doing the New York Times crossword puzzle.  On a Sunday.

Luckily for me, I got prepared for work early today.  Made C's bottles, packed his diaper bag, cut some cucumbers up for snack at work today, and put aside his hat, coat and mittens for the bus ride.  I have to take C to work with me today, where his grandpa will meet me to pick him up, hopefully before I'm supposed to start working.
Phew.
So about an hour ago Carter started acting cranky and silly.  Awesome.  So I try to snuggle him on the couch.  Nope.  Try to feed him a nice hot bottle.  Nope.  Try to rock him to sleep.  Nope.  And finally I just give him what he wants - I lay in bed with him in the dark and snuggle.  This almost always puts me to sleep as well, so I try to avoid it.
half an hour later he finally falls asleep.
We have a humidifier in the room because he has a cold.  Water bubble rise to the top sometimes.  You know how these things work.  So up come the bubbles.  And then he starts wailing.  Again.
So.
At the end of my rope, I decide to be brutal with him because we have to leave very soon!!  So I put him in his crib and shut the door.  And I stand outside the door while he bawls for about 2 minutes, and then silence.
I worry for a second that maybe... I don't know.  I worried because he was finally quiet and it happened very abruptly.  So I check on him.  I open the door a little, and it creaks.  And he starts again.

I close the door again, he eventually falls back asleep, but I have to wake him up after only 15 minutes because I have to take him to work with me, on the bus, where he will be picked up at the school I work in by Mike's father, perhaps before I have to start work, perhaps not.

Babies.  Who knew!

I will be posting some photos later, because I'm just overloaded with them and it's been a while.  I'll probably just throw them onto the tail end of this post.  Tah tah!

Shloppy Shloppinesh

Forgive me.
I have been sick for days.
Carter was sick too.  For one or two days.  Me?  Six days now.  And it is not letting up.  At all.  In fact, I now have an earache above all else.
But...
I did make gingerbread men and they are delicious and lovely.

So.  Because I have been sick, I have also been high on cough medicine.  I don't know if this happens to everyone, or just me, but when I take the recommended dosage of Nyquil I get loopy.  I lose track of time, lights seem so much brighter, the room starts spinning, and I have these crazy thoughts.  Mostly about dying.  Lots of thoughts of dying.  But practical thoughts.  Thoughts like, I think Carter can handle life with his dad.  Mike'll do okay.  They'll live in squallor... I'd better not die until after he turns about 3 or so... then the danger of him choking on any debris that's laying around in the squallor Mike has him living in will be remote...
And so on.
It's fun, being high on Nyquil and everything.  It's like a little nod to my past.  Ahhh, the good old days.  Only now, after the Nyquil kicks in, I can't be alone with the baby.  Just like any other creep on drugs, I must stay away from the baby when I be trippin'.
So no cough and cold medication for me today.  It's just me and the baby and later on I have to go to work.  With the new guy.  I have no idea what to expect but I do know this: he wears a sideways cap and he goes by the name Deek.
I guess we'll just have to see.
I am going to miss my former work buddy.

I lost my train of thought.
It appears that there may be a long, curly pubic hair on my keyboard.
Okay, it's gone now.
I may still be high from last night's Nyquil, the way this post is going.

I would like to point out that I never would have gotten sick if it weren't for my job.  Kids are filthy little things and when they like you, they jump and crawl all over you and breathe into your face and drool all over you and give you head lice...  shudder
I know what you're thinking, and you're right: I am a saint.  For me to be exposing myself, and my child, to the awful grimy underbelly of the elementary school environment, is above and beyond the call of duty.  And I will raise my plastic shot glass full of bright green Nyquil and cheers to that!

Down the hatch!

Eye Contact.

I'm not very good with eye contact.  I never have been.  It has always felt a little aggressive for some reason.  But now I have this job with these rotten little shits awesome little treasures and I have to keep my cool, and I have to stay in control.
These kids dominate me sometimes.
I don't remember crying over not being IT, or crying because I was eliminated from a game, or crying because someone "stole my spot" in some stupid line up for the drinking fountain.  But you should see these kids!  They cry constantly!  And of course I just think of them all as someone else's Carter, so I try to fix things.

But you know when someone's really upset and then you approach them and they become a million times more upset?  Well, that's what they do.  Every. Single. Time.
Sometimes there are as many as 3 kids crying at a time!  It's madness!
So I have finally resorted to just letting them cry.
They calm down so much faster than if you coddle them and beg them to come join the group and play.  It's so simple!!!  Who knew?

But sometimes you have to give the kids shit.
Like when someone whips a bean bag at another kid's face.  Or when someone throws a hoola hoop over the basketball net and the janitor has to come get it down.  Or when someone runs off without warning.  These things happen.
And they never listen to me!  they never care what I have to say!

So I sought some advice on a forum.
The key - apparently - is eye contact.  Make eye contact.  Maintain eye contact.  Never break eye contact first.  I just got this advice today.

I never knew that I would have to use my new eye contact intimidation technique on a super old indian lady wearing dress pants with dirty sneakers.  She's sitting across from me on the bus, looking at me like I am the most perplexing creature she's ever seen.  At first I look away.  Then I'm all like nono, I'm going to stare back.  And after about 3 seconds she raises her eyebrows all feisty-like and looks out the window of the bus.  Lindsay - 1, Old Indian Medicine Woman - 0.

The next time I used it was at work maybe an hour later.  Someone was out.  So I said "so and so, you're out" and he's all like noooooooo wha wha wha I'm not out wha wha and I stare.  And stare.  And he stomps away without any further argument.

I'm telling you, I've found kryptonite.  Is that how they spell it?  Hmm.

I Deleted Facebook!

I've had a lot of time for reflection lately.
I got a new job and it made me happier (which I didn't think would happen).  When I leave for those few hours ever day, I get on the bus alone.  I ride around listening to Regina Spektor on my ipod.  And then I hang out with some happy little children before going home to spend the evening with my little family.  Gone just long enough to miss them, and no longer.  It's the happiest I have been in years.  Considerably happier than when I was bar tending, or waitressing, or getting drunk and coming home alone.
It can get easy - especially when you have social anxiety coupled with clinical depression - to shut yourself away and never put yourself out there because it scares you.  And as happy as I would be to just spend the rest of my life at home with my baby, I realize now that eventually the little light would have gone out.  The little light that awesome people have inside of them.  Yeah, I just called myself awesome.  Get over it.  I am.

I think the most miserable thing about working in bars would have to be that anybody who hangs out in bars enough for a bar tender or waitress to know personal details about them, is just pathetic.  Hear me out - I enjoy being a regular at a cute little wine bar as much as the next gal, but never alone and never for more than a couple of drinks.  Bar flies are lacking in the things that fuel my very spirit: inspiration and beauty.  My few days of intense reflection have resulted in an epiphany: I need to be surrounded by people with a little light within.  Hence the children at the after-school program.  Kids always have a little light.

So if there is anything I want for Carter, it is for him to nourish his soul.  To keep inspiration close at hand and to never shut himself away from beautiful things just because there is so much ugly in the world - and there is SO much ugly in the world.  But a glass of wine over funny stories shared with a missed friend, or an unexpected phone call from across the country from someone you love, that good stuff is worth treading through life's disgustinghatesludge for.