New Year

There's not a damn thing I feel sorry for except that I bumped my tailbone on the stairs just now and my ass hurts.

There was a marriage that didn't work and so we worked through it and dissolved it.

There was a man I loved but he told his friends "There's no future between us," and "I guess I'm doomed to fuck her again," so I kissed his ass goodbye. His craven life is as miserable as he deserves.

There was a man I loved and he loved me so we gave it a shot. He is the best. We are crazy happy in love super duper good times.

That is 2008.

XO

Hiya

I haven't quite disappeared into the ether. I'm not underground or posting under another name, though.

Right now:

The boy fell asleep on the way home from a friend's house so he snoozes on my bed, still in his jacket. I am sauteeing red onion for a quiche in the morning. Mozart violin concertos on the stereo.

I logged into blogger and could barely remember my user name and id. A year ago I was posting like crazy, venting frustration and amazement with the way life was going. These days I don't write at all. Life is no less interesting. But I'm completely consumed with Life that I have neither the time nor the energy. Also, the reasons from the former post. I want my life to be private.

Life continues alternately to make me laugh and throw my hands in the air. People are shit. People are amazing.

Here's a comprehensive list of what I do, in no particular order:
Teach. Mother. Drink. Listen to music. Play music. Read. Tend house. Laugh. Fuck. Cook. Complain. Gossip. Sleep. Eat. Grocery shop. Yogacize. Drive.

In the words of one of my students:
"You know what's behind that cloud?. . .

. . .THE SUN!!!"

A Word of Explanation

I guess if I say I'm still around, I'm exaggerating.

Sometimes I hit the blog-o-sphere to see what everyone is up to. Generally, though, I'm too talked and thunk out by the end of the day. If I have energy to do something for myself, I exercise or read.

I'm also finding that my rather pleasant life makes less compelling narrative. I have an OK job, a boyfriend who is the best of men, a son who impresses and delights me, amicable relations with my ex. . . . It's not easy to be a single mom, but that's simply the fact of my situation.

I could get into personal details about fucking and love, some of the struggles to reinvent myself over this past year, friends who have disappointed me beyond measure. . .

. . .but there's a problem. There's still one person out there who knows about this blog and may still check it. Earlier this summer I censored the personal details out of consideration for his feelings. At this point, he's simply forfeited the right to know what's inside my head and heart. We don't talk or communicate in any way, by mutual agreement.

I'm not even going to write what I think of him or explain the situation to all of you simply because as he himself once told me, "If you don't want to engage with someone, don't engage with them. Period."

This blog is the last open line he has to me, sorry to say. So that's why I don't say much. I do miss being out there with you.

No News Is Good News

Stick with me; I'll bring you current by the end of it.

From a recent conversation, I've been thinking about faith and life. Well, the story is longer than that. It had to do with C0wb0y M0uth, atheism, beer, and Republicans.

Anyway, I had to think: do I honestly believe in God? I was raised by a Quaker and a broken Catholic and a born-again Jesus-Screamer, and that meant going to Unitarian/Universalist church. At the start of my marriage I got pretty into a local Methodist church. I was in crisis, and the minister was very fine. Then I passed out of it again.

At this point I could say that I believe Jesus was a philosophical pacifist who was killed for being a formal heretic, but I do not believe that he was the son of God. The Bible? A historical text both wise and flawed.

But where am I, essentially, on the God part? Something felt wrong with not believing, as though that means I am a lesser, less moral person. I don't believe there's a giant Santa in the sky, handing out goodies or coal. I believe in grace, generosity, kindness, gratitude, and love. But not that they're a divine gift from somewhere outside myself. Still, I felt weird just saying, "Nope. No God."

Then I read this by Penn Teller from NPR's This I Believe:

I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

OK, so now the current life story. Today I was driving the highway after a long few hours in Satan's Gaping Maw (Ikea). I was unshowered, driving the truck, listening to the radio, only one window rolled down because the driver-side window won't go back up once it's down. My son is having a problem controlling his temper in class. My boyfriend is out of town. My father is a clown and my mother is dead. Not crazy about my job right now. I sort of have a cold. But you know what?

My life is unbelievably great.

True Friend.

Last week my grief for my mother hit me at 9:30 on Wednesday night. I felt that now-familiar need to talk to her.

So I sat down and typed a letter to her as though she didn't know the news of the last year or so. I spent probably an hour on the computer, and wrote about two single-space pages. I told her the truth about men. I told her all the complicated details that I would have left out in real life, for fear of her judgment. I explained where I was now, how I think, and where I'm headed.

At the end of it, I realized that all that truth actually needed to be out there in the world for someone alive to know. I needed to learn how to have the guts to share it with an actual friend.

So I changed the heading, and sent it to my college roommate. We aren't particularly close. We were excellent roommates, but not each other's closest friend in college. But she saw me through a lot of man-trouble, so when I got married I asked her to be my maid of honor. Now we see each other maybe every other year. I know we love each other, but still I worried about her reaction.

A day later she emailed me one sentence:

'I am so proud of you.'

What's Happening Now.

It's so easy. I talk to him for the first time in a month because of a mutual friend's trouble, and I backslide immediately into sadness.

And then I can barely stand how much I miss him. Talking about music and books. The number one sex. The way how there's something about him that has always pulled on a part of my heart, and still does.

In everyday life I profess anger and intolerance for the way he treated me; the way he rejected me only until I walked away; and the way he has reacted to my moving on.

In everyday life I happily spend my time with someone new who is a mature and whole man.

But after just a brief conversation with this former man, I'm fully immersed in what we meant to each other and how much I miss him and what we had. I truly loved him and wanted to give him every part of myself, to an unhealthy degree. We were tremendously close.

For a long time, however, we both said that a real relationship between us wouldn't work. He told me to walk away, and I did. He changed his mind, but I did not.

I'm not saying that I basically revisit my opinions or decisions. Just that it's hard to feel all the stuff, to be in it and understand that it's part of the natural course of a break-up. Sucks, in fact. So that's what's happening now. In the middle of love and loss and sadness.

Single Mom 1, Barber 0.

Well that was hilarious. I just used the clippers on my boy's hair for the first time. I mean, I used to hack away with scissors when he was a baby to not terrible effect. He's hit the barber exclusively for the past two years or so. Tomorrow he flies to see his grandparents, and I wanted him to look sharp.

So I busted out the clippers.

Now, the only reason I have them is because a friend bought them when he thought his were busted. But they weren't. So I got the new ones. I've used them for my own - ahem - personal use.

But what do I know about clipping a boy's hair? Nada.

As usual, I just jumped in. How bad could it get?

Well, his bangs are hilariously short. But the rest of it looks pretty even and good.

Go go single mom!