Things That I Disagree With
Mornings. Especially gray/grey mornings (authors note: both spellings of gray/grey are proper - which paralyzes me when prevailed upon to choose. I have decided to always use both). Josh says I have morning confused with mourning and therefore believe I need to awaken in despair. He's probably right, because I can't remember very many mornings before 9 o'clock or so that I didn't feel the heavy hand of death on my soul. Or maybe I just use that as an excuse to sleep later. Either way, today was particularly gloomy, and I probably should have just stayed in bed.
Mournings(sic) like this get particularly difficult when I have to get dressed. Mostly I try to avoid it as long as possible, since the decision making process is so completely overwhelming. This morning I have no pressing reasons to get dressed in the near future, other than a possible impromtu trip up to Olympia where my sister is visiting my mom, so I can crash the visit and steal all of mom's attention for myself. I may as well go, since the kids are going to hang with the D-Bag (bio-dad) for a couple days and Josh has to work pretty much forever. Or at least tomorrow. But then I would have to get dressed.
The only thing that I have established unquestionably to wear on this dark day, is a new matching bra and undie set. This is almost enough to make me cast off my mourning, but then I think about which jeans to squeeze into and my discouragement is renewed. Every time I wear matching underwear Josh gets a little bit suspicious, as if on this day of Ultimate-Self-Image-Despair, I have a secret rendezvous with someone who would appreciate it more than he does. Really, I save the NEW matching undies for days when I feel so gross that having cute underwear is absolutely the only reason a paramedic (other than my husband) would touch me if I was dying in the street from a car wreck: "Oh Lord - do we have to touch her?" "She's dying!" "Well, at least her underwear are clean. And they match" "Ok, CPR in progress."
Ever since I was little I have had this thing with matching underwear. I think it started with one of the college age girls that lived with us in Portland. I have never fully put together why we had a string of college age girls living with us, and whether they paid us or we paid them for putting up with 4.5 homeschooled kids, or if the arrangement was sans-financing, and they worked off their housing by driving us places like gymnastics classes in little green cars, and buying us snacks of dry roasted peanuts. I have several very brief but clear memories of these girls, and in addition to one of them boiling all the bristles off my dad's toothbrush after "borrowing" it, and a pet parakeet, I distinctly remember one of them INSISTING on the necessity for matching undergarments in case of a medical emergency, just as I described. It really makes sense. I mean, imagine cutting off someone's clothing and discovering the horror of fruit of the loom grannie panties paired with a Hanes Her Way Super Bra that clashed! GASP! I try to make certain, every day, that no such travesty will ever befall me or my potential rescuers. I will not deny that on my "off" days, when I am unmatched, I am an extra cautious driver and would obviously never risk something like a bike ride. Yes, I learned many valuable things from those young women, including how much you can fit into the rear seat of a vintage 70s hatchback, the immortal skill of perfectly feathered bangs, and how to short sheet a bed.
I guess now is that time of the day when I have to decide if I should actually take a shower and move on with my life, or continue my mourning in bed. For the rest of the day. Which doesn't sound half bad, especially with the Madeleine L'Engle books I just bought at a thrift store yesterday. I have a moderate list of productive things I would like to accomplish today, which makes jetting up north all the more tempting. And it's cloudy enough today in Bend that it isn't like I would be foregoing our normal sunshine for Olympia's perpetual gloom. Maybe these are decisions better made in the self confidence of matching underwear.
Mournings(sic) like this get particularly difficult when I have to get dressed. Mostly I try to avoid it as long as possible, since the decision making process is so completely overwhelming. This morning I have no pressing reasons to get dressed in the near future, other than a possible impromtu trip up to Olympia where my sister is visiting my mom, so I can crash the visit and steal all of mom's attention for myself. I may as well go, since the kids are going to hang with the D-Bag (bio-dad) for a couple days and Josh has to work pretty much forever. Or at least tomorrow. But then I would have to get dressed.
The only thing that I have established unquestionably to wear on this dark day, is a new matching bra and undie set. This is almost enough to make me cast off my mourning, but then I think about which jeans to squeeze into and my discouragement is renewed. Every time I wear matching underwear Josh gets a little bit suspicious, as if on this day of Ultimate-Self-Image-Despair, I have a secret rendezvous with someone who would appreciate it more than he does. Really, I save the NEW matching undies for days when I feel so gross that having cute underwear is absolutely the only reason a paramedic (other than my husband) would touch me if I was dying in the street from a car wreck: "Oh Lord - do we have to touch her?" "She's dying!" "Well, at least her underwear are clean. And they match" "Ok, CPR in progress."
Ever since I was little I have had this thing with matching underwear. I think it started with one of the college age girls that lived with us in Portland. I have never fully put together why we had a string of college age girls living with us, and whether they paid us or we paid them for putting up with 4.5 homeschooled kids, or if the arrangement was sans-financing, and they worked off their housing by driving us places like gymnastics classes in little green cars, and buying us snacks of dry roasted peanuts. I have several very brief but clear memories of these girls, and in addition to one of them boiling all the bristles off my dad's toothbrush after "borrowing" it, and a pet parakeet, I distinctly remember one of them INSISTING on the necessity for matching undergarments in case of a medical emergency, just as I described. It really makes sense. I mean, imagine cutting off someone's clothing and discovering the horror of fruit of the loom grannie panties paired with a Hanes Her Way Super Bra that clashed! GASP! I try to make certain, every day, that no such travesty will ever befall me or my potential rescuers. I will not deny that on my "off" days, when I am unmatched, I am an extra cautious driver and would obviously never risk something like a bike ride. Yes, I learned many valuable things from those young women, including how much you can fit into the rear seat of a vintage 70s hatchback, the immortal skill of perfectly feathered bangs, and how to short sheet a bed.
I guess now is that time of the day when I have to decide if I should actually take a shower and move on with my life, or continue my mourning in bed. For the rest of the day. Which doesn't sound half bad, especially with the Madeleine L'Engle books I just bought at a thrift store yesterday. I have a moderate list of productive things I would like to accomplish today, which makes jetting up north all the more tempting. And it's cloudy enough today in Bend that it isn't like I would be foregoing our normal sunshine for Olympia's perpetual gloom. Maybe these are decisions better made in the self confidence of matching underwear.