out of Kadesh

I have come to the sad conclusion that I never have any idea where the hell I am in life. I get lost in my own neighborhood. I get lost on my way to places I’ve been a thousand times. I get lost when I know exactly where I’m going. I get lost on the way from the refrigerator to the kitchen table.

Every time I get in the car I have to sit there for a minute so I can remember which way to go, and most of the time I have to call Lance and have the following conversation.

“How do I get to Amy’s again?”
“It’s off 12th.”
“Oh, right. Thanks.”
“Sure!”
“So, real quick… how do I get to 12th again?”
“Uh…. you take Broadway and turn left on 12th.”
“Oh, duh. Of course. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“And I take a…. a left to get onto Broadway?”
“No…. you take a right. Remember?”
“Yeah! Oh yeah, I just got turned around in my head, how silly.”
“Haha, that’s ok.”
“Thanks. Ok, bye then.”
“K. Bye.”
“Wait! Wait… are you still there?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Just making sure… how do I actually GET to Broadway? I mean I KNOW how, I just want the uh… um… the fastest way, in your opinion. Yeah, that’s it, the fastest way, since I could take many routes and I just want the… one that would be um… fast.”
“Do you want me to just walk you through it?”
“Oh, if you want, sure.”
“Ok. First, get out of the driveway.”
“Ok! I’m on it.”
“Reverse, not forward.”
“Oh! Right, ok, thanks.”

It’s not really my fault, Reader. There are four, FOUR interstates that loop in and through and around Nashville, and these all go in two different directions. (Did you know this!?) For the life of me, I can’t get the East/West/North/South thing figured out. I always panic at the last minute and make a bad decision, and slowly as I’m driving into the Scary Unknown I start to realize…. I think I went the wrong way…. I don’t really recognize my surroundings…. What does that exit sign say?…. Why am I on an interstate I’ve never heard of?…. This can’t be right OH MY GOD I’M IN ARKANSAS.

And 100 times out of 100, I just want to stay in Nashville. I do NOT want to go to A) Memphis, B) Clarksville, C) Louisville, D) Huntsville, or E) Knoxville. Those helpful cities they list on interstate signs mean NOTHING to me. It’s useless information. Can’t they just say “Megan’s House,” “Target,” “Where Megan is meeting her friend today,” “The grocery store”? THEN we’d be getting somewhere.

Today, we were driving to Huntsville, and I took over driving at a rest stop. These are the worst for us who get confused by the whole E/W/S/N business. I’m of course in the wrong lane, and Lance is all, “Take a left.” And I’m all, “Wait, are you sure? What?” And he’s like, “Yeah, to get on 65 South.” And I’m all, “WE’RE GOING SOUTH!?”

YES. Hello, Dummy, the state of Tennessee is ABOVE the state of Alabama. My brain just doesn’t work that way somehow. I subconsciously picture how Huntsville is at the top of Alabama, and so my subconscious is all: Ok, it’s at the top of something, so I obviously go north, and done. WHICH MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.

See why I want to stay within walking distance of my house at all times? It’s a good thing I’m married to Google Maps. And it’s a good thing he’s patient.

Hands down, best comment I have received so far was from this guy at work tonight.

Him: “You cut your HAIR!? No! Nooo! Why did you cut it??”

Me: “Um… well… I guess it was just, you know… time for a change.”

Him: “What did your husband say!?”

Me: “He liked it…”

Him: “Is this the first time you’ve had short hair?”

Me: “No, but this is the shortest it’s ever been.”

Him: “It’s really different.”

Me: “Yes.”

Him: “Well.

……………

It’ll grow out.”

It might be time to get out of the pool, Bubbs…

Easter is tomorrow. (Is it incredible to anyone else?) Things I have to do before then include finding an outfit to wear to church, since you’re supposed to look cute on Easter. Don’t ask me why; I’m from the south and I just follow the rules down here. And I hate shopping, and I don’t have time to shop anyway, so it’ll be something from my closet, which means it will probably be too big since I lost weight after my pregnancy (but I still look flabby anyway). Also it will be from at least three seasons ago, so it will be nice and outdated. So that’s going to be a fun task.

Other things I have to do today:

…use my birthday present to make some cinnamon rolls…

…bake Noah some oatmeal cookies for his candy-free Easter basket…

…and iron my pants for work. No, that has nothing to do with Easter; I just have to go to work tonight.

Things I’m doing instead of the aforementioned things I need to do today: sitting on my ass. No pictures for you, unfortunately. Just use your imagination.

And what the heck do Buzz Lightyear, cinnamon rolls, and fake grass have to do with the resurrection of Christ, you ask? (We didn’t actually use fake grass in Noah’s basket, but I wanted a third item for my sentence. My name is Megan, and I will lie if it makes my paragraphs sound more complete.)

I have been asking myself the same question, and the answer is, of course, nothing. Just like a Christmas tree and stockings have nothing to do with the birth of Christ. We Christians just go with it. Bring on the pagan holidays and add a side of Jesus. I LOVE THEM Y’ALL.

I just said goodbye to my neighbors, who are moving to California tomorrow. Luckily it’s raining, which is perfect weather for such a sad day.

***Let me just pause to say that even though I know this is a day for weeping, if Lucy doesn’t STOP THAT WHINING FROM THE CORNER I WILL WRAP UP HER MUZZLE WITH DUCT TAPE. I keep trying to explain to her that we ALL miss Lance, and that shrill sound she’s making isn’t speeding his return one iota. (What the heck is an iota anyway?)***

The first time I met my neighbor Tracy we were walking the dog down to the bakery, my pregnant belly stuck out in front of me like a backpack facing the wrong way. As I huffed and puffed up the hill, we ran into a young woman with beautiful tattoos, wearing Vans and carrying a sling over her shoulder, a teeny tiny baby tucked inside. She introduced herself as our new neighbor and she introduced the baby as Winston, her three-week old.

Over the past year and a half, Noah and I have grown really close to those two. I have admired Tracy from the beginning, and I have learned so much from her. She inspired me to become a vegetarian again, to share sleep with Noah and not expect him to sleep through the night, to gently raise him in an attachment-parenting kind of way, and to try our best to live all-natural, organic lives. She has given me tips on food, nursing, sleeping, parenting, holistic medicine, where to get a tattoo from a gentle tattoo artist, and she was the first person to tell me about the Patterson House, which is a really neat underground bar that’s built into an old house here in Nashville, and I feel definitely not cool enough to be in there.

But Tracy and Chris are. They’re some of the coolest and nicest people I’ve ever met.

It’s going to be so sad looking across the street at their empty house. And even though I took Noah out shopping and bought myself some new pajamas and him a new toy bus (which it turns out he is frightened of, because if you push the driver’s head it takes off across the floor and that is just not natural), when we got back home to this empty neighborhood I immediately came down from that temporary shopping high.

I hope our friends are happy out in Cali, but I’m going to be bitter about it for a long time. I’m so glad they were in our lives, even for such a short time.

I hope someday we meet again.

Today I met a family with a daughter named Chaplain and a newborn baby named Navarre.

It was early on a Sunday morning, and all the unchurched hippie families who have to be up early with their kids who refuse to sleep in past 7am come to sit down with a cup of coffee and a bagel while their kids run around hitting each other with selections from a large, germ-infested toy bucket. I call it Heathen Hippie Happy Hour. (No, I don’t really. I just made that up. But now I’m going to start.)

I’m fighting off a cold, so I was chugging an Odwalla Smoothie (2000% of your necessary daily Vitamin C, y’all) with my morning GODHELPME coffee, and in walks, no lie, a three-year-old wearing tights, Doc Martin boots, and sunglasses. She pulls the shades down her nose and peers over the tops of them like, What have we here? (Alternate subtext: Where my boys at?) Standing in the doorway, she shakes her short blonde locks and saunters to the counter, and I realize that everyone in the coffee shop has stopped talking and is looking at her. I choke on my smoothie. It’s not until she walks past that I see that her tights are GUSSETED to fit around her Pull-Up. And that is when I realize that, oh for sure, this really is a little girl and not a miniature Marilyn Monroe on a casual day. The child had more style than I could hope to have in a million zillion years. What. In. The. World.

It made sense when I saw her parents, though. And then they introduced her to us in Baby Corner. Chaplain. For serious. Well, there you are.

I love East Nashville.

Me: “You know, we’re just going to blink and Noah’s going to be 10. And then we’re going to blink again and he’ll be 20.”
Lance: “Yep.”
Me: “Which is why I propose we move to Never Land.”
Lance: “What?”
Me: “To Never Never Land.”
Lance: “Ok.”
Me: “How do we do it?”
Lance: “Well, first we have to find some Pixie Dust.”
Me: “And we have to figure out how to get there. I think it’s somewhere past the third star…”
Lance: “And straight on till morning?”
Me: “Right.”
Lance: “That part is easy. We could google it. The hard part is going to be finding a fairy.”
Me: “They live mostly in forests, I believe.”
Lance: “There are some trees behind the coffee shop.”
Me: “So all we have to do is go back in those scary woods back there, find a fairy, figure out a way to steal her dust, and set Never Land into our GPS. We’re practically there already! Noah, are you ready to never ever ever grow up?”

Last night Lance and I were in a feverishly heated discussion about these articles I had been reading about abortion. (Not heated with each other, but heated on the same side against… THE ENEMY.) (Couldn’t think of another way to put that.) And abortion! It’s not like we were in a heated discussion about the merits of running vs. swimming for a healthy heart or the taste of sugary vs. salted peanut butter. Why I chose right before bed to read articles which I KNEW were going to infuriate me I can’t quite explain. I really don’t like feeling angry, even righteously so. Promise. And I realize it was particularly unfair of me to take my pile of pre-bedtime anger and dump it into my poor husband’s lap, but I didn’t know what else to do with it. I needed him to share the load. It’s not my fault! (Ok, it is, but don’t tell Lance.)

Actually, discussing it didn’t help. I should probably have just quietly smoldered with fury for a few minutes. Maybe my impassioned anger would have turned into sex, which definitely would have been better than the two of us, side by side looking at the ceiling, yelling about how stupid everyone is in the whole wide world. I should have. But I didn’t. And instead of halving my ball of indignation, I doubled it, because I still had mine and now Lance was all angry too. Really I tripled it, because discussing it actually made me feel doubly worse.

And you know how discussions go in which you feel super passionate, they just escalate. Like we start talking about one thing, which leads to how we feel about another thing, which leads to how defiant we are about this other thing, and every sentence ends with some variation of ANDJUSTWHODOTHEYTHINKTHEYARE!, so by the end we’re just furious and sad and feel sort of helpless.

I don’t know if you have ever tried relaxing enough to fall asleep after feeling your blood boil within your veins, but I am here to say that it is not so easy. So after a while Lance was like, “I’m depressed,” and I was like “I’m still SO MAD, like whoa.” I tried to laugh. I was thinking, maybe I’ll just laugh at that senator from Georgia who wrote a bill that demands each miscarriage be investigated to make sure it was accidental. It’s funny, right? I mean there is no way in hell anyone is going to let this bill be passed. And, I reasoned, maybe it is so crazy people will find other, milder versions of this guy also crazy. Which would be good! So I’m like, trying to laugh, and my laughter quickly turns maniacal, which quickly turns into more screaming at the ceiling. (In fact, I’m trying to type this paragraph faster than my brain can pay attention to what my fingers are saying so I don’t get REALLY FUCKING PISSED OFF all over again. Plese disregarrd all typoes.)

In other words, Lance was depressed at the state of the world, and I was ready to climb onto the roof with a megaphone so I could preach to all of East Nashville, and neither of those feelings are healthy for purposes of peaceful sleep.

So I go, “Do you know any jokes? I could really use a joke.” Lance turns onto his stomach and hugs the pillow sleepily and mumbles, “Three guys walk into a bar. You’d figure the second one would have ducked. And… uh… the third one? Um… was uh… blind.” I’m silent for a few seconds before I’m like, “That was the worst joke I’ve ever heard. First, it wasn’t funny. Second, you messed it up.” So he’s like, “Ok, ok, ok. A rabbi, a priest, and an… um… an electrician walk into a bar and the bartender says, ‘Is this a joke?’” And I’m all, “An electrician? That’s not the way it goes.” Lance is all, “Sure, it doesn’t matter what that third guy is.” And I’m like, “Chyeah, what would an electrician do in a joke? It’s supposed to go, ‘A rabbi, a priest, and a blonde walk into a bar.’” And Lance is like, “I think an electrician is just as arbitrary as a blonde.”

And I’m like, “You are no help at all. You need to learn some jokes and how to tell them before I read anything else.”

This morning, while I was dozing after Lance took Noah to eat some breakfast, I dreamed we moved back to DC and I went back to work. I was talking to my boss, and he was giving me some task that had something to do with newspapers, and it was very involved, and he was trying to explain it all to me. And I was all, uh-huh, yes, I hear you, but the truth is I didn’t have a clue what he was saying. Because I wasn’t listening to him. I was thinking about Noah. I was picturing him walking around some day-care, playing with toys and talking to the day-care workers, and I was fighting back tears because I realized how meaningless my job was. I was missing the only time I have with my little boy – I was wasting it on newspaper articles.

I woke up feeling sad, y’all. I woke up and wanted to hold my baby. So I stumbled into the kitchen and when he saw me, he lit up like I was Christmas morning. He toddled over and lifted his chubby arms over his head (ok, who am I kidding – he lifted his chubby arms and they ALMOST came to the top of his head) and I reached down and picked him up and breathed him in. He smelled like eggs and baby shampoo. I could have eaten him in one bite. And I thought, yes, this is exactly where I want to be.

A friend asked me the other day if I ever get bored staying home with Noah. Is it boring? YES. OMG sometimes it’s soooo boring for real. Like the hundredth time he wants me to make that vroom-vroom car noise with his wooden truck. Or when I’m reading the first four words of The Little Red Hen AGAIN. Or when I’m following him around from room to room, or picking up yet another grape or hunk of soggy bread or cheese after he’s mashed it and thrown it on the floor. Sometimes I long for a work atmosphere, where actual adult human beings inhabit my world and not tiny aliens bent on putting pocket change and lint into their mouths or emptying the contents of their dresser drawers or biting my legs or putting smooshy banana hands in my hair or unrolling every roll of toilet paper in the house. I crave conversations in English instead of the language of whining, whining, whining, shrieking, whining, crying, yelling, whining. I long for neural stimulation in the place of mindlessly stacking wooden blocks or plastic rings so they can be toppled and sent crashing to the floor.

But the thing is, despite all of that, today my tiny alien knows more than he knew yesterday. He knows how to stack those blocks by himself. He can say “mama.” He can tell me that the cow says “moo.” He can point to his nose when I ask him where it is. He can almost RUN when I’m chasing him. He finds the oddest things funny, and he can belly-laugh in appreciation for his sense of humor. He can take that wooden truck from me after I’ve “vroom-vroom”ed it all around the floor and make a “bbb-bbb” sound as he mimics me.

And let’s not even talk about all the times during the day when he stops whatever he’s doing just to come over and put his arms around my neck or crawl up in my lap for a second or turn and grin at me for no reason whatsoever.

And I haven’t had to miss that. I’ve been here for each and every precious, heart-stopping moment of it. You get what I’m puttin’ down, Reader? I feel moments like this morning again and again when I see Noah’s smiling face. I’m exactly where I want to be.

I know there are many women who are unable to stay home with their kids even though they wish they could, and I am one of the lucky few that can. I mean, let’s not make any mistake – it’s hard going without my paycheck. We’ve had to sacrifice and learn to scrimp and since we’ve lived here we’ve managed to bury ourselves under a mountain of debt we’re trying to crawl out of, but still. We’ve got plenty of food to eat and running water and electricity, so we’re truly doing just fine, and I know that would not be the case for a lot of people trying to live on only one income. I recognize how blessed I am that the choice to stay home is mine to make.

And I recognize how much it kicks ass, for serious.

After the heart palpitations from the dream this morning subsided, I remembered something someone recently told me when she learned I stayed home with my son: “You’ll never regret that decision.” I’d never thought of it that way before. If I chose to go back to work, I can see myself looking back in anguish at missing so much of my baby boy’s life. I’d never be at my son’s college graduation wishing I’d spent more time at work. If I look back on these years the way they are, I’ll never be sad I didn’t go back. I’ll always cherish this wonderful, career-killing, boring-ass time, and I mean that with every fiber of my being.

Signing off, y’all – I got another boring day ahead of me tomorrow. (Just kidding.)

Noah’s been walking for about a week now, on his own and everywhere. The only time he crawls is when I’m chasing him and he gets so worked up he drops to his hands and knees to scurry away from me.

So yesterday, we’re out at Ugly Mugs, and the little flirt toddles over to these three ladies sitting on a couch in the back of the coffee shop. And sure enough, he starts flirting it up, smiling all big with his five teeth and turning profile side so it looks like he’s playing hard to get or like he’s shy. And he starts swinging his arm back and forth, grinning at these ladies, and he’s like putting his hand in his pocket! And after about five minutes of this, when I guess he figures he’s warmed them up enough, he lifts up his shirt so his little belly pokes out!

No lie, y’all, my son just flashed a bunch of girls.

And I’m all, Ok! Show time’s over! You’re grounded until you’re out of diapers, you little Casanova.