Late January Miscellaneous

Hi!
I haven't been writing too much lately, as you might have observed. I have been walking around all emotions, but only the painful kind that feel like chunks of glass in the circulatory system. I have cried and laid in bed and studied the ceiling for hours on end, without the ability to pull myself up, put on a cute outfit and throw my beret in the air like Mary Tyler Moore. I have lost my inner Mary Tyler Moore.

It has a lot to do with the sun. I don't seem to be able to change my depressive trajectory, but I can remove myself to observe that these bouts have to do with the moon and my hormones, and not having enough fun and light. My days are filled with one obligation after another from morning til night, always to meet someone else's expectations of me, but never actually for ME. Christmas was one HUGE obligation to everyone I'm related to, work is rewardless, and it is grey, dark and cold outside.

My husband is wonderful at depression triage, and has been urging and beggging me to tattoo, but I am too much of a wet noodle to get back in the game. My bad days do not flood me with a surge of creativity. Creative types get depressed, but depression does not make one creative. I feel a total drought in creativity. I can't even pick out which socks to wear. Boo hoo.

Things are not all bleak, though. My eldest daughter seems to be finding her footing with her schoolmates, at last. Yesterday was a rollerskating birthday party at the roller rink, all the 9 year olds from the charter school were there, and my daughter skated her little heart out to the sounds of Thriller and that media over-saturated Taylor Swift girl. She was red-faced and beaming when I came to pick her up with a neighbor kid in tow. He goes to the old school, so wasn't invited to the party, but was hanging out at our house yesterday afternoon.

"I had a great time, even though I had no one to skate with at couples skate,"she said.
"I would skate with you at couples skate, next time. We could come on a regular day and go skating some time,"said the little neighbor boy, and I just melted into a puddle. Awwwww! Then in his next sentence he called some other kid a dickhead, and I had to be parental and put the kibosh on that, but for a second, I was a puddle of butter.

My younger daughter is her same ol' plucky self. We went out for chinese the other night, and at the take-out place, there was a paper party-warehouse type palm tree, decorated with Christmas tinsel.
"Nice tree,"I said.
"What is that? Do they have palm trees in China or something?"says the little one.
"I guess. China is big. I think they have everything in China."
"They don't have ME in China!"
I've been laughing all week at that. "They don't have ME in China!"