Eye watching you

I think my mind's eye is a very dangerous, selective thing.

I got an e-mail today from an old friend who updated me on her life and the lives of everyone we knew in drama school. Everyone who had kids; everyone who is happily married; everyone who has wonderful jobs doing wonderful things in wonderful places.

My brain reads these items and processes them as a friend should. It glories in the details and revels in their successes on their behalf. What good things to happen! What wonderful people to have them happen to!

Conversely, my mind's eye takes the plain descriptors and translates them. I see the new babies, the happy couples, the successes, and I make them into all the things commercials are made of. The babies are sweet, smiling nymphs, ne'er pooping nor crying, always laughing or sleeping. The parents coo and look at eachother with knowing, loving faces. The couples kiss movie kisses and lead clean, remarkable lives. They have friends who treat them kindly and jobs that are interesting. They have no financial problems, even though they are actors and writers, because they are working actors and they are published. And they follow their hearts and allow them to sing. And they have no regrets to wallow in.

My mind's eye is fair. It paints all my past friends and aquaintances with a wide brushstroke, all their lives pretty and complete. Sparkling and neat.

This is why I hate getting e-mail.

Ten pounds

I'm sure of it.

Not just the holidays-- I blame my laziness in every way. All that exercise last year taught me only that I can eat whatever I want in whatever quantities I choose. Only, if I stop exercising, I get fat.

mmmm....fat.

Bedtime

Tonight I'm sleeping with six super hot, single chicks, right here, right under the same roof where my young, impressionable 11 and 13 year old boys are sleeping. Only I can guarantee that in my bed, there won't be much sleep, if you know what I'm saying.

No?

Let me explain.

My toddler has developed an intense love of anything pink, pony-ish, ultra feminine, or princess related. Occasionally this little girl will come crawl into bed with me, insisting on bringing her most-loved toys to round out the slumber party.

A few nights ago she pulled in a smattering of plastic toys: a heart-clad wand, a miniature dressing table, a Barbie-inscribed heart, a unicorn, Sleeping Beauty Barbie, and a small teapot. The only common thread: they were all pink. All of them, each its own garish shade. All of them clutched in her tiny arms as she wandered into my room at 1:50 a.m. All of them "invited" to sleep next to me.

The next time we slept together, in place of the pink toys, were four Pretty Ponies (and one Pretty Unicorn) galloping us to sleep.

Tonight, as mentioned, the hot chicks. Six Barbies, some that are royalty, some that are groupies. By name: Snow White, Cinderella, Arial, Sleeping Beauty (we've bedded down together before), a Barbie she has named Bo Peep, and a craven, whorish Barbie called, "Fiona," wearing naught but a pink miniskirt. No doubt all of them will manage to roll over to my side, wedge themselves under my back, the crook of my neck, tangle about my feet; their sharp arms and elbows at all odd angles, annoying every minute of my wakeful sleep.

Ahhhh, but I do have rules:

No shoes.

Good book

I read the book The alchemist over the weekend. Incredibly inspiring. Highly reccommend it.

Observation…

I realized that my boys are growing older. Moreover, my sweet, wonderful boys are and always have been human beings and they grow older and onward. They have friends and influences that are not me. Logically I've always known this, but it seems that viscerally, I am just now coming to get my arms around it.

My boys, my wonderful, sweet, innocent boys...they are really not so innocent. It is the same game I played with my parents, either out of respect for them, or shame of my knowledge-- to pretend to be innocent or to simply not say certain things in front of my folks. Perhaps I assumed them too innocent to know such things, and felt that my understanding of the world would embarrass them. Or, moreover, myself. Perhaps these boys do the exact same thing with me. They have conversations all day long about things that are important to them; about people, their feelings, the things that make them laugh... they use profanity and know just enough about sex and violence and sorrow and human behavior to make candid judgements and witty observations. Through it all-- whether outright and veiled-- I see that these two boys, they are such individuals.

All the same... it is a strange thing to comprehend that my children have a life outside the life we have togeher, just like I have a life outside the life we have as a family. I suppose it just is my human self-centeredness, but occasionally I glimpse the world past the end of my nose, the one I obsess over constantly from a distance yet don't delve into quite as often, and it amazes me.