Just a few weeks ago, I was in the bathroom in the morning, getting ready for work. I was using a round brush to pull my hair back into a ponytail, my typical hairstyle of choice (though with a new haircut, we hope that will change).  The bottom layer of my hair is shorter than the rest, from a previous haircut, and it’s hard to get into the ponytail. That day I brushed it down and let it be a little messy. I thought about my friend Sarah K.

Sarah wore ponytails a lot. Except her hair was so short that half of it would fall out the bottom, like mine. I’ve always called her my best friend. Looking back I don’t know why. She wasn’t my best friend. She wasn’t even a good friend. I just wanted her to be my best friend. We’d been best friends a long time ago. Grammar school. Middle school. We were inseparable. We had so much fun … they called us Gasoline & Matches, we were always getting into trouble. We loved every minute of it.

We once stopped riding our bikes near the front of my house and started a fist fight with each other to see who would win.

She once ate so many brownies and popcorn that she couldn’t even remember how much she’d eaten. Then she puked it up everywhere.

We used to sit on the sloping roof overhang outside her bedroom window and wait for the cops to see us and call her parents.

Her room was painted blue. Her middle name is Elaine. I always thought she was so cool. She’s great with children. I always thought she’d be great with my children. And the two times she saw them? She was. She was great with them. {oh god I’m going to cry. This is ridiculous}

I loved her very much, but she spent her entire life forgetting about me.

As I stood there in front of the mirror, tears springing suddenly to my eyes, I felt angry. I felt so angry that I had tried for years, reaching out to her, emailing her, calling her, finding her, reminding her that I was here, I wanted to be her friend. Catching one lunch, one dinner, one coffee every 10-12mos. I believed her when she said she wanted to hang out more. She wanted to see me more. She wanted to talk more. Email more. Share more. Be there for me more.I fell for it last year again, after she came home from a trip to Israel. She blogged about it, and I read every entry. {I am so pathetic}

She started blowing me off between Middle School and High School. She stopped being a tomboy and figured out how to be a girl. She hung out with a faster crowd and she did things I wouldn’t do. She would come back to me every so often and ask for my help. Boyfriend trouble, family trouble, job trouble, house trouble. She wanted my help fixing it. I fixed it and she went off, waving goodbye gaily, already forgetting what I’d done for her. Every time.

Senior year, at prom, she was drunk. She found me in the bathroom. She told me I was the best friend she’d ever had. She told me that she never appreciated how I always put her back together. She told me she wished she had spent more time with me, and listened to me when I told her that doing E at 14 was a bad idea. That dating drug dealers was a bad idea. That smoking pot was a bad idea. That coming to the senior prom drunk was a Bad Idea.

I knew she was drunk but I felt vilified. I felt recognized. I felt important.

We graduated and I saw her about once a year. Once each time I was pregnant. Once after Cupcake was born. Once after Geeklet was born, which was the last time I saw her.  I called her and left her a voicemail a few months later. Nothing. A few weeks after that I called and caught her – but she was busy. She said she’d call me in a few days. Nothing. I sent her an email. Nothing.

I sent another email and told her I wouldn’t be calling anymore. That I hoped she was having a good time, but that I couldn’t put any more energy into a relationship she wasn’t willing to put effort into as well. I needed some closure.

She responded and said she couldn’t deal with a “friend break up” right now because her boyfriend had dumped her. She’d call me in a few days.

Say it with me, people! Nothing.

I emailed her again, against the wisdom that is Twitter. I had too much history with her. I needed to get some closure. I told her I wasn’t surprised she hadn’t called – that was exactly why I couldn’t play this pretend friendship game anymore. I wished her happy holidays, a good new year, and signed off. She responded and said she was sorry that I didn’t think she was a good friend, then made a bunch of excuses.

I told her I was sorry too. That was the end. I cried for a long time. I mourned the death of a friendship that wasn’t even a good friendship. I was bitter about how long I’d pursued this friendship to end it like this. I’ve felt angry and bitter many times since then. The moment in the mirror, hair halfway to a ponytail, was just one. It hits me randomly in the car, or at work, and I wonder why she was so dismissive of me. Why I wasn’t important to her when she was so important to me. She was right, it was a friend-break-up.

I’m still sad and angry and bitter about it, but I don’t want to be this way. It’s a waste of energy.  A waste of tears, which are rolling down my face right now to beat the band and I can’t stop them. It’s a waste, such a waste.

Here comes my 2010 resolution: I don’t want to waste time on this, or any other useless, bitter, ridiculous situation this year. I want to try and accept things for what they are and if I don’t like it, I don’t like it. Bitterness won’t help me. I need to pick up and move on and stop being so angry, so bitter, particularly about lost friendships. I’ve gained so many new friends in 2009. Sure, only one lives within driving distance. Most I’ll probably never meet face to face. I’m of the iGeneration, I should thrive on this, these computer-screen/social-media/internet community friendships and I DO. Sometimes it’s not enough for me, but I can’t be angry about it. I can’t be bitter. If I want more friends I need to find a way to go out and get them.

So. 2010. Less bitterness. More friends.

Let’s go.

—-

* Title inspired by the book I just finished reading, Bitter is the New Black, by Jen Lancaster. It’s a light, funny read that is autobiographical, which makes it even funnier, and I really enjoyed it. Laughed out loud quite a bit, which is relatively unusual for me (I read books and watch movies with hardly any emotion on my face, causing people to think I am a) bored b)angry or c)asleep with my eyes open).  If it were summer I’d say it’s a good beach read, but since it’s winter I’ll say it’s a good read for when you need something relatively mindless and uncomplicated after a very long and complicated day. I have a lot of those, which is why I love Sophie Kinsella so much.

Thus, I found myself the weekend before Christmas preparing for a week-long bid to get our home clean.

Me: We have a 1200 sq ft apartment, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Right?
Universe: Ha! Ha ha ha! Whoo! Oh Lordy that’s a good one. Heh heh. You foolish woman.

Yesterday I went ahead and picked up a bunch of necessities before the big storm hit. We’ve got a nice little weekend nor’easter here, and it’s already 10 inches high out there, still falling fast. I hit up the Target, and $260 later I had groceries, a bunch of cleaning supplies, a new winter jacket for the baby, new gloves and hat for the big girl, and a few other miscellaneous items. Not bad, I thought. Among my purchases were a bottle of Resolve carpet cleaner spray, and Resolve carpet cleaner powder. I picked up the powder because it was for large areas of carpet, and it involved some scrubbing with a brush, which I figured meant that it would get all the nasty nastiness up and un-ground from the carpet.

I got home, read ALL the instructions, and picked a spot of the carpet to work on. Per the instructions, I covered the carpet thoroughly with the powder and got to business with my scrub brush. I could see it getting cleaner! I don’t know if it was the fumes from the cleaning chemicals or the joy of getting rid of the ground up Oreos, but I felt elated. Hopeful. Thrilled, even!

I look back at the instructions. I need to wait 20 minutes and let the stuff dry, then vacuum it up.

Me: That seems easy!
Universe: Ha! Ha ha ha! Whoo! Oh Lordy that’s a good one. Heh heh. You foolish woman.

20 minutes later I start up our little Shark Roadster, 5 years old, to vacuum up the powder. I get a square the size of the vacuum brushes cleaned before I lose suction. The canister has to be emptied. I take care of that, noting how much the powder really clogged the hepa filter! I continue vacuuming. Another 12in x 2in area is cleaned. Clogged again. I empty the canister and realize this may take a while. I start again and as my husband walks behind me, the vacuum stops. I figure he knocked the cord out. Nope, cord still in the wall. I push the on/off button a few times. Nothing. It feels hot. I call for DaddyGeek. He checks the fuse. Nope, that is fine.

We wait 20 for it to cool down and try again.

Nothing. It is completely dead.

So now my carpet is covered in a thick coating of deadly chemicals of death, and my vacuum is dead, and I have two small children bursting with the joy of Christmas coming.  We have to lock the kids in the bedroom and try and feed them snacks and entertain them with movies while my husband goes out in a fucking Nor’Easter to get a new vacuum less than a week before Christmas because the Universe hates me. (See above)

In the end, he gets the vacuum, he doesn’t die on the icy roads of death, my children don’t die on the deadly carpet of death, and I got to play about an hour of mindless Facebook games for an hour in my warm cozy house while the kids were ensconced in the bedroom because I’m a good mother, I’m keeping them away from the deadly carpet of DEATH.

The new vacuum is awesome and quickly cleans the mess without any trouble. That one section of my carpet looks great. Unfortunately that makes the rest of my carpeted apartment look like complete ass, so I must now go purchase stock in Resolve.

The Toe Incident

Let me preface this  story by saying that I have a horrible fear of all things creepy crawly. I can’t help it.  I jump, I scream, I freak. My husband believes he might die in a car crash with me one day if I see a spider in the car because I’ll jerk the wheel into oncoming traffic. Our headline will read “Two Killed in Tragic(ally Funny) Car Crash – Spider in Custody for Involuntary Manslaughter.”

Right.

I don’t remember what day it was, or even what year it was. Suffice to say it was at least 6-7 years ago. I believe I was still living at home. (My memory is terrible, in fact it really bothers me that I can’t remember squat, so the fact that I remember THIS much is a damn miracle) My family (mother, sister, brother) usually congregate in the kitchen; it was almost literally the center of our home growing up. It was a small eat-in kitchen but it had a table and enough chairs for all of us. We would sit, and sometimes we would talk and read magazines and gossip, my mother, my sister and I.  Those were some of my favorite times.

One such day, we sat ’round the table just as we normally do. My sister to my left, my mother to my right. The table was likely stacked with mail, magazines and discarded jackets and the like. We each probably had a Diet Coke to sip as we chatted. I sat on the chairs that my mother has recovered countless times (even adult children make big messes) with one foot crossed underneath me and one leg facing forward. I still sit this way often. My feet were bare – a trait inherited from my mother. We love bare feet in our family.

We sat and talked, and it may be that we discussed creepy crawly things and I was on edge. It may be that we were talking about recent TV episodes and I had no reason to be jumpy. However the conversation fell out, I was listening to the gossip when I spied something out of the corner of my left eye.

Me, in my head: OH SHIT. IT’S A BUG.
Me, out loud: [terrified screaming as I nearly leap out of my seat and bash my head on the ceiling cartoon-style]

My sister and my mother are also squeamish – my sister even moreso – and they asked with worried voices, panic creeping in at the edges: “What? What is it?”

Me:  Oh. It was just my toe.

At this point I realize that I should have just said it was a spider, because the guffaws, hoots and chuckles coming from either side of me were enough to make me realize I would never, ever live this down. I was almost right. I might have lived it down if it ended there.

Not even five minutes later, I see something out of the corner of my eye:

Me, in my head: OH SHIT. IT’S A BUG.
Me, out loud: [terrified screaming as I nearly leap out of my seat and bash my head on the ceiling cartoon-style]
Me: Oh. It was just my toe. Again.

I expect my urn to have some sort of witty verse – maybe a haiku? – about how I scared myself with my toe. Twice. My own damn toe. TWICE. In the span of five minutes. TWICE.

The Car Incident

Stop rubbing your hands in glee, I can see you. No, I did not crash the car as a result of a spider. This is something entirely different. And, no, this is not the story of the time that I hit a snowplow with my car hard enough to break the plow off of the truck. In May. In New England. (i.e. No Snow.)

A few weeks ago I realized I forgot something in the back of the car. We have a Mazda 5, which is like a Soccer Mom Minivan Lite or something.  It fits our family well. I loved this car until it attacked me completely unprovoked. Now, I have to say my feelings are mixed. If my little Mazda 5 could speak, she’d probably remind me that we hurt the ones we love. I’d probably tell her she’s a bitch. But that’s neither here nor there.

To the point.

I went to the back of the car and opened up the hatch-back trunk. It’s a pretty tall hatch back and the way it’s designed it swings way out, but I’m a smart gal, so I know that I need to step back in order for it to keep from clipping me. I successfully sidestep the Indiana-Jones style obstacle and grab whatever I need out of the back. I step back, reach up, and pull down the trunk using the nifty little handle, but I make a critical mistake; in my rush to get back inside (it’s a bit rainy out) I pull it down too quickly and fail to evade the deadly downward path of the door.

Scrrrraaaape.

The door makes contact with the bridge of my nose, scrapes my glasses off my face and continues further down to the tip of my nose until I stumble back in a muddle of pain and hurt feelings. I thought you loved me! I hiss, and bend to pick up my glasses. They’ve landed lens-down on the pavement. They are badly scratched. You whore! I’m angry. My nose is throbbing. I wipe off my glasses but I am too distracted by the huge scratch right in front of my right eye to see clearly.

And that, my friends, is why I need new glasses.  As promised, Holly – a diagram, complete with stick figures:

As you see by the above picture, entered into Evidence on 10/19/2009, I was brutally attacked by my car. I’m pretty sure this means my insurance company needs to pay for my new glasses. And the eye exam. And maybe some contacts. And probably a pair of prescription sunglasses too. And emotional distress.

So. I dare you to beat that. That’s right bitches – gauntlet down.

There is too much responsibility here, right now.

I think I’ve taken on too much.

I just need a few minutes, a few minutes to myself, to think quietly.

I’m afraid of what I’ll think during those minutes, though. I’m afraid of what decisions might be made.

So I keep busy.

I’ll think about it later, I’ll mull it over tomorrow.

I just need a little more time.

She needs more time.

We need more time.

We need clarity.

We need luck.

We need hope.

We just have to keep on going. If we stop we might fall apart here, and it will be the end of everything we know.

Unfortunately, my inability to understand how we got here does not actually do anything about the problem. So we have piles. Everywhere.

Someone help me. PLEASE! Because if I drown in clutter, I won’t be able to blog here anymore. And, obviously, that is some sort of national emergency.

Note: I iz cheep. Therefore, the gorgeous storage solutions look amazing, but I iz cheep, and therefore will not and in many cases, cannot buy them. Ha! I do love me some IKEA, and may be willing to invest there, but OMG I get a little bit scared when I look at the catalogue because there are so many choices.

So.

HALP!

Top of the fridge, and the counter the separates the galley kitchen from the rest of the apt. CLUTTER.

Office area. We bought a bookcase but have done nothing with it. And that lamp isn't plugged in because I can't find the plug from all the CLUTTER.

Toys. EVERYWHERE. I bought containers, to, you know, contain them, but then we just have piles of overflowing containers. Not helping.

Laundry Clutter. This is the WORST. Laundry is my Perry the Platapus.

That one sealed box is very well labeled, though.

We are so screwed.