Hairballs of Genius

Lent Backfired on Me This Year…


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So… most people give stuff up for Lent. Chocolate: Don’t really eat it much, so that’s pointless. Candy: It’s Peeps and Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs season, so… no. Junk food: Pie? cookies? Cake? Chips? Whatever. Couldn’t care much less. Swearing: Fuck that. Popcorn: I would rather die. I usually just jokingly say I’m giving up giving things up for Lent. As in I love my vices far too much to give them up, and since they don’t actually hurt anyone, why bother?

But this year, I took that teasing phrase to a whole new level of crazy. Because I wasn’t crazy enough already. So what I gave up for Lent this year was: not giving up before I’ve even started. Don’t let the draft win. It thinks its pretty and perfect as is. I know better, but don’t even know where to start most of the time. Don’t let the draft win. Quit giving up.

(Remember I said that. Because I wrote an epic rant on Thursday (3/26) morning at about 4am. It’s got me so heated up that focusing on making it an intelligent statement of my opinions has been hard to do, and I’ve only been able to work on it bits at a time. So we’ll see when it actually gets posted.)

Back to Lent and giving things up… Lent is supposed to be about giving things up. *see list above* Here’s part two to that equation: Not pick up a new bad habit. Which is precisely what I did this year. I don’t drink a lot of caffeine in general, don’t like hot cocoa/chocolate much, and don’t like coffee. Except apparently, if I add enough sugar and just the right amount of milk to coffee, I can guzzle that shit like water. Wait, what? I drink coffee now? Well damn. What a brilliant idea I had, huh? It’s not like a friend offered me some one day and not really thinking, I accepted. Oh, no, no. If only it were that simple.

Instead, I actively sought out some sample-sized packets of different flavors. And bought them. On purpose. What. The. Holy Hannah. Was. I. Thinking? I’ve blasted through those and am now on to the next flavor. This particular flavor is called Snickeroo. Why? Because damn you, dyslexia, I thought it said Snickerdo. (Snickerdoodles are my favorite cookie, and though I don’t freak out when we don’t have them available, I will eat every last one of them when we do have them.) Or maybe it was wishful thinking. I mean seriously? Cookie-flavored coffee?  Hell yes, I’m in on that one! Coffee has always smelled good – why didn’t it ever taste good? Well now I know. Sugar. A shit-load of it. And now I’m hooked.

Just When You Think You’ve Got Everything Under Control…


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(Originally written 1/28/2015)

It’s gone. All gone. And… there are tears. Before you begin to worry about my mental stability, it’s just a Mama Moment. You see, tomorrow marks a new beginning in my son’s life. Tomorrow, we take him to the elementary school and register him for Kindergarten. So…

Yes. There are tears of joy. Because starting the day after Labor Day this year, my little boy is gone. All. Day. Long. No more day-long fights with his little sister, no more bickering over what he wants to eat for lunch, no more screaming and yelling on a continuous loop. No more MythBusters on repeat.

There are also tears of pride. Soon, he won’t be a little boy anymore. He’ll be a “big” boy, even though he’s pretty under-average for a five-year-old. He’ll be off to school to learn new things, do new things, meet new people, and make new friends. Because my little boy is growing up – wait… did I just say he’s growing up?

Oh dear. There they are. Tears not of sadness, but yes, sadness. I’ll be hanging out at home, with my little girl, playing games, reading, goofing off, and cuddling all day. I’ll be eating lunch with her. I’ll watch a movie with her. I’ll read her stories. I’ll fight with her over what we’re having for lunch (please, God, no more mac & cheese!)

The quiet will overwhelm me. My daughter, on her own, is relatively quiet. My son on his own, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. So while it may finally be quiet in my house for the day, my son will not be in the picture. He, who is already quite independent, will want to be spending time with his friends instead of Mama. He will have homework to do (really, people? Homework in Kindergarten?) He will want to be left alone. More than he already does.

I know there are wonderfully fantastic things that will come out of this – like everything I’ve already listed, even those listed as negatives – but at the moment, I’m too busy mourning those things, and want to wallow in the loss of the “little” in my little boy.

Friends…


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I have a few. They’re all pretty great. We’ve all got warped minds, and have fantastic conversations about how things are “always better with power tools,” and how to improvise weapons with things like welders. (Purely in the name of research, I promise.)

Tuesday nights are reserved for my NaNoWriMo pals. We meet year-round, and write. Or, you know. Try to. But we also talk, especially that last hour of the night, when we’re all a little punchy. Tonight was no exception.

Tonight, they set aside a little time to help me come up with taglines for a novel I’m working on. One of my fabulous friends, suggested I go home and sit down with a bottle of beer – or my equivalent anyway, which would be some fruity concoction involving vodka and crushed ice – and just free-write. She told me I’d start coughing up one-liners, and one of them would be genius.

In other words, take a page from all the famous writers from a bygone era – minus the syphilis, of course – get drunk and start coughing up hairballs of genius. So here’s my first hairball of genius. A blog. Now it’s up to me to maintain it, and actually post to it. On a weekly basis. With any luck, I’ll stick to that goal, and actually say something that means something to someone.

(PS: This was actually written yesterday, however, for some reason, it was posted as a page instead of a blog post. A couple times. Hopefully, it will work this time. *Crossing fingers*)