Is it just one last kick at the January suck-can?

I don't really know what the hell I'm doing posting right now. Monday is February 1st. I guess it's highly unlikely that I'm going to wake up all bright and shiny and January-bitchy-bitterness-free. Although now that I've written it down, it's more likely that I'll remember to call my sister and say happy birthday (is there something symbolically lovely about having a birthday on the first day that isn't January? Perhaps there is. Unless you're Elaine -- good thing it's my sister's birthday and not yours, huh, Elaine?). Truthfully, this January hasn't been as bad as past Januaries. For a large part of that I have many of you to thank, which I do, warmly, profusely, until you're slightly uncomfortable with my frenetic overzealousness. Being able to -- spew is such an ugly word -- vent, and have people acknowledge and sympathize and empathize is unbelievably cathartic and comforting.

Before I started to blog (back when I said, many a time "I will absolutely categorically never blog" just to clarify precisely how wishy-washy and unprincipled I really am), I would look at blogs and think "well really, a lot of it is just a big mutual admiration society. How many people do you need telling you over and over again that you're a good person and you don't suck as a parent and you're not a big sucking useless drain on society?" It turns out that when you're the one involved in the mutual admiration, the answer is "many many people. No really, this is good, but are there any more people? Tell me again how green my eyes are, and how when my kids hate me it's all part of their natural development and not because I fed them too many hot dogs, and how last Wednesday wasn't my very last chance to ever make a positive contribution to the world." I've read blog posts where people confessed things that they obviously felt were so horrifying, so shameful that all of their friends and/or readers would immediately abandon them in disgust, and I thought "Jeez, I do worse things that that on a weekly basis", and everyone else said the same. And it helps. In a real, actual, observable way. So thank-you.

Photo by Steven Stiefel

But today? Today my husband is back (finally), but he's off all day with Angus at a hockey tournament. And I slept too late to be able to wash my hair before taking Eve to Irish Dance for extra rehearsals for the Crack thing. And I ended up in a van with two other women who both also claimed to have overslept but looked like fashion models. And I hate obsessing about my hair, but somehow it feeds into this whole 'being the best me I can be' crap. Like I'm failing some major life test by never getting the right hair cut, and never knowing what to do with the hair cut I get, and everyone else in the world even if they don't have great hair have normal hair, but the normal stuff doesn't work with my hair. Actually I guess it's my face that's the problem. I have a face that hair can't frame normally. I should work on face-camouflaging techniques.

Now Eve's at a birthday party next door. And I need to do my husband's sales-meeting/skiing in the Alps trip laundry. And clean the house for Eve's party next week-end. And figure out something for supper. And I'm out. I'm flat. I've got nothing.

But this week Eve made a get well card for Angus because he had a cold. Then she made a welcome back card for Matt because "this is the most much I've ever missed Daddy". And then she came upstairs and handed me a card that said "Thank you for everything Mom."

So fuck you January. Fuck you laundry. Fuck you messy house. I'm going to take my card upstairs and read a book.