haiku friday - missing

once upon a time
everything I touched turned to
endless poetry.

I'd wake in the night,
poem at my fingertips,
begging for a page.

on a walk I'd see
an ant, the wind, something sweet -
poems everywhere.

but now they are gone.
not writer's block, it's a drought.
why have they left me?

a hole deep inside,
right where the poems belong...
full of tears instead.

(So, of course, I write a poem about not being able to write poems. Go figure.)

For more haiku fun, click here.

Wordless Wednesday - Little Drummer Boy

Will someone please wake me up?

Last night my mom "called" me (we were using microphones with our computers) and we got to talking about my brother's upcoming wedding. It's finally officially set for January, and I'm going to be a bridesmaid. Mom made a comment about dresses and my heart skipped a beat - I've had good luck with bridesmaid's dresses in the past, but that's never a given. You never know when someone is going to want pink, frilly dresses with huge bows on the back. I wasn't too worried, because from what I've seen my sister-in-law-to-be (wow, she really needs a nickname!) has good taste.

So anyway, back to the phone call. Mom said, "They're mocha brown, or latte brown, something like that..."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Brown is good. For one thing, it's not pink. For another, I like brown. Hooray!

But Mom kept talking: "...and it's strapless."

I sort of sputtered for half a second, and then I shouted, "Has she seen me??!"

Mom wasn't even attempting to hide her laughter. "That's just what your brother said."

That didn't surprise me at all, that sounds exactly like him. I'll bet he laughed just as much as Mom did.

See, I've never worn a strapless dress. I've never had a desire. Because I know there is no way I can pull it off. I remember shopping for formals when I was in high school, looking at the strapless dresses and saying to my friends, "That's beautiful, too bad I don't have anything to hold it up." No one ever argued with me. Most of the time they laughed. It never hurt my feelings, because I knew they were right. I usually laughed with them.

Again, back to the phone call.

I was still sputtering. "You know what's going to happen, don't you? I'm going to be walking down the aisle, step on my hem, and the dress is going to just fall off!"

Mom was incredibly helpful. "Make sure you wear pretty underwear."

Oh, thanks Mom. You're the best.

I decided not to talk to her about it anymore. But my mouth kept going, betraying my brain..

"Maybe I can super glue it on..."

Even I laughed at that one, but my laughter was bordering on hysterical.

This is my nightmare. My own personal nightmare. I trip over painted lines in parking lots. What am I going to do in a strapless dress and (if I remember the rest of the fuzzy conversation correctly) high heels? This cannot be real. Could someone please wake me from this nightmare?


p.s. To my almost-sister, if you're reading this: please don't take this the wrong way. Yes, I am terrified...but who cares? This is your wedding, not mine, and I'll cheerfully wear whatever dress you choose for me. I can survive for one day. I hope. :)

What happened to my brain?

I can't put a coherent post together. Actually, I'm having a difficult time writing anything at all that makes sense - a few days ago I couldn't even figure out my own shopping list. (And I have a feeling the Sergeant is going to read the letters I've been sending the past few days and think "Was she half asleep when she wrote these?" Sorry honey..) I have several drafts of posts saved, but right now they all look like rambling rambles of Rambledonia.

I have several theories:

• extreme lack of sleep
• migraines EVERY SINGLE DAY
• lack of adult conversation
• weather changing from hot (80s) and sunny to cold (60s) and rainy literally overnight
• Olympic fever
  
• all of the above
  

At any rate, my brain is dysfunctional. I've been typing this post that says absolutely nothing for about half an hour now. (Of course, part of that could be the child attacking my feet and the cat attacking my head.)

In other news...the Little Mister has a molar. At 14 months old. Is that weird? It seems weird to me, but since he's my first child I don't really have a reference point. And it's on the top...don't they usually start on the bottom? I'm not at all worried, it just seems odd...but maybe I'm just crazy. At least now I know why he's been fussier than usual for the past week.

(See what I mean about the rambling?)

I'm going to stop now. This is just getting silly. Hopefully soon my brain will work again.

A River in Egypt

The Sergeant first went to Iraq in September 2005. The night before he left we sat on the couch in our living room, just being together, and he had a Pepsi. When he finished he did the thing that always irritates me: he put his can on the coffee table instead of in the recycling.

The next day, several hours after he left, I saw the can sitting on the coffee table (not even on a coaster!). He always leaves things for me to clean up after him, I thought. I smiled a tear-filled smile and left the can on the table.

I did the same thing every day for over a month.

If you take care of it, a tiny voice whispered in my mind, he won't be here anymore.

I had a couple friends over to pass out candy on Halloween, and when I was cleaning up the house I finally took care of the Pepsi can.

One stupid little action nearly broke my heart. I cried for about an hour.

The Sergeant left twelve days ago. I have done the laundry, cleaned off the desk, washed the dishes. I cleaned out the car. I hung his jacket back on the coat rack.

But there is one article of clothing on the bedroom floor. I step over it every day, several times a day. I can't bear to pick it up. I can't admit he's gone.

Yes, I hail from Denial Land. I'm just not ready to face that collapse. Not yet.

The good news? Even when I decide to leave Egypt, I'll still have this to hold on to:

Sympathy

After the Little Mister and I finished breakfast we headed to the living room. He immediately immersed himself in blocks, trains, books, and chatter in a language I cannot understand....and I (of course) turned on last night's recorded Olympics.

After synchronized diving (how beautiful is that?!) came women's gymnastics. I was oohing and ahhing over the Chinese team, and the Little Mister wasn't paying any attention at all.

Then one of the Chinese girls fell on the vault, a horrible and painful looking fall. "Oohhhhhhh" I said.

Without even looking up from his Duplos, the Little Mister said, "Uh-oh."

How's that for sympathy?

Another Distraction

The perfect distraction, actually.

Exactly what I need, exactly when I need it.

The Olympics!

I'm an addict. I watch everything. Here on our odd AFN tv the stuff that is "prime time" in the States is on starting at 2:00 am. I'm going to use my dvd recorder. (I can't miss Michael Phelps swimming in a final, can I??!) At the moment I'm watching Men's Beach Volleyball...fun stuff. Earlier today I got teary (I'll admit it) when I saw not one, not two, but three American flags raised over the women who swept the individual fencing event.

Even the Little Mister is excited...or acting excited, anyway. If he hears applause, he claps...and there is a lot of applause when the Olympic Games are on the tv. He very rarely pays any attention to the visual part of the tv, but he always responds to the applause he hears. It's cute. And I know someday he'll watch the Olympics with his mommy. The thought tugs at my heartstrings a little bit. Anyway...

Two weeks of nail-biting ups and downs, of cheering out loud (and sometimes, perhaps, yelling at judges or referees).

A perfect distraction.

Distractions

In keeping with my "staying busy is my friend" theory of keeping my sanity, this is what I did yesterday:

Yup...I made a quilt!! Start to finish, a friend and I made this quilt yesterday. It's not very big (prefect Little Mister size, though!) and not very fancy, but I made it!

I met my friend A. in the hospital, when the Little Mister was born. Her youngest daughter was born the same day, 16 hours earlier, and the four of us were roommates. One of the things we talked about that day was the beautiful rag quilt she made for here little girl. "It's easy," she said. "I can teach you." Took us nearly 14 months to actually schedule a day to quilt, but she was right. Even someone who can't make a sewing machine make straight seams can make a rag quilt...if there's someone else there to help. :)

And now I can add sewing and quilting to the list of things to do when I don't want to think about reality.

Oh, and the Little Mister had a great time playing with his friends..

I didn't get pictures of everyone, but this little girl has two older sisters and two older brothers...and a little brother or sister on the way!!

We now return to our regularly scheduled Reality.

The Sergeant flew to Kuwait yesterday.

And so...the Little Mister and I are on our own again. We're back to trips to the playground, playing with blocks and trains, and long conversations that consist of hi interspersed with the occasional uh-oh.

It's not that I don't like those things. Our "hi" conversations crack me up. It was just really nice to talk to someone who (occasionally) answers in complete sentences.

And so...I'm a bit down today, a bit not myself. I know it'll get better...but today I'm watching old episodes of Buffy and eating Oreos, two things that always make me smile.

Oh, and I'm hugging my baby extra tight.