Ending With A Whimper

So not a bang.

However.

I did, between this morning and tonight, between yoga and a full day at work, get my notes organized, tabbed, and compiled, as well as finding all the things I want to reference for my big final paper for my Clinical Relationship class.

Suffice to say I am a bit zonked.

Up at 8 a.m.

Doing my morning routine, breakfast, coffee, writing, then starting to get my feet into the transference/countertransference pool, then yoga–which was really needed–and back here to the house, a quick shower, and yes!

I found a place to stay in Brooklyn!

Wait.

Fuck.

No I didn’t.

So bummed.

Cool loft in a warehouse in Bushwick, I had hopped on Air BnB to just peek at it before work and there it was!

I booked, made the request, plopped my credit card number down and waited to hear back.

I heard back later in the day and it was a let down.

The loft was only available three of the four nights I needed.

And I figured, well, I don’t want to be wandering around on my last day trying to negotiate one place to another, rather just say no thanks, and find something else.

Problem is that when I got home from work I was so beat down by the work day that I had barely any brain cells to rub together.

I looked a while on Air BnB but it just got to be too much and I decided that my main focus has to be organizing my big paper.

I got off the site and sorted out the rest of my readings and made loads of notes and probably have enough stuff to write a twenty page paper.

I just have to write it.

So tomorrow.

Another early start before work and no yoga, just the writing.

Getting as much done as possible, then work.

And work will not work me as much as it did today since I’m taking a half day to hit a doctors appointment, then back here to the house to finish up what ever I don’t write tomorrow morning.

Work really was full tilt boogie today.

In no particular order I went to the corner store and bought groceries, enough broccoli for three batches of my homemade soup, got milk for the boys for the next couple of days, boiled over a dozen eggs for the family to take to school; made the aforementioned soup, a quadruple batch by the recipe, actually; roasted a chicken, then later pulled all the meat that was remaining off the chicken for making chicken salad tomorrow for the boys lunches over the weekend; roasted radishes (yeah, you can do that, they’re pretty fucking tasty too) made sushi rice, cleaned up the house a bit, organized some of the boys stuff; and then took the two monkeys to the Farmer’s Market on Bartlett and 22nd where I juggled a full flat of strawberries, 5 pints of cherries, 1 container of cheese curds (CARMEN! CARMEN! CARMEN! Give me more cheese curds please, please, PLEASE!), smoked salmon for visiting pooh bahs, um, ha, I mean grandparents, basket of apricots, pint of mulberries, and one container garlic cheese dip.

Served dinner, did baths, did pajama time, did color time, did ALL the dishes, I mean, there was a lot of washing up, two gigantic bags of compost–I did so much food prep–took out recycling and tried to not think about the paper I have to write.

Tried.

It snuck in a few times, but most of the day I was too busy to breathe let alone think about transference, counter transference, Freud, Lessem, McWilliams, Kohut, Kahn, Stolorow, or any of the other characters who have had possession of my brain.

Let me tell you all about it.

Nah.

I’ll bore you to sleep.

I watched the six year old do classic splitting and projecting around the mom as he experienced separation anxiety in regards to the imminent grand parent visit, and tried to feed the anxious dog as many scraps as I could sneak.

I love my job though and it’s a good family I work for, grandparents just mean more work and I seem to forget that.

Then again.

This was my first time having a paper due on a Friday rather than at the end of the weekend and it has thrown me off my stride a little.

I was laughing to myself.

Full time work after this year of school is going to feel like a vacation.

I joked with a friend that I’ll be flying across the country to New York to take a nap.

Although.

I did have a moment in yoga today.

A revery slipped in.

A Queens of Harlem sort of thought.

And Harlem is not somewhere I had thought about staying.

But it has a nice flavor to it when I say it.

And I was thinking too, hmm, I might need a tattoo while I’m in New York.

But.

First.

A place to stay.

I took out some money from my savings today too, made the transfer so I wouldn’t have to worry about the travel costs and told myself that I would let myself stay somewhere nice.

It don’t have to be fancy.

But nice.

I thought about some hipster hotel I had heard of until I saw the hipster price–$300 a night.

Fuck that.

But I can find a good place and I know it will happen.

Now that I have my notes and books organized I feel like tomorrow it will be just to show up to the page and the words will flow.

They always do.

I’m going to take a few more minutes tonight to poke around Air BnB.

But rest.

That’s where it’s really at for me right now.

A cup of tea, a little snack, a tiny bit of video to unwind.

Then sleep.

I have done a full days work.

Good work.

Strong work.

I have earned this rest.

It will be had.

Nighty night y’all.

May your dreams be full of Freudian slips.

Heh.

Upside Down

Right side in.

Topsy turvy.

This day has been strange.

However.

I have rolled with it really well, surprisingly so, I feel super settled and though overwhelmed a little, just now, pretty able to just groove along with what is happening.

It did not hurt that I got a full night’s rest.

I was knocked out last night.

It still took me a minute to fall out, but when I did, whoa, I was down.

I think I actually got a solid eight hours, which is the first time since last Thursday.

Yay sleep.

I got myself organized this morning, stripping the bed and washing the sheets, getting into my morning routine, a little breakfast, a couple cups of coffee, some writing.

Oh.

Yeah.

And text my friend who’s place I’m staying at in Brooklyn.

I mean, I should find out how I’m getting into his place when I show up there next Thursday.

Except.

Well.

Shoot.

His travel plans were changed and he actually needs to stay at his room in Brooklyn and I need to find another place to stay.

I really took it well.

I was a little sad at first, I mean, who doesn’t want to save a few bucks on a place to stay?

But then.

I got happy.

Hey!

I get to see my friend, I get to go do the deal with him and see how he’s doing and catch up and grab a coffee and maybe walk around Brooklyn.

I may wrangle him for one of my museum days.

He is an artist after all.

So instead of getting miffed, I just got real.

Ok God.

Where do you want me to stay?

I mean.

I am a little overwhelmed with the decision.

I reached out via the social media and said, hey, what’s up New York?

I have gotten some nice leads.

Suffice to say, and I am not at all ashamed of this, I’m a little too freaking tight on time to give it a whole lot of thought.

The place will find me or I will find it.

Right now.

My mind is focused on finishing the work for school, because I’m not going to have any fun in New York if I still have papers to hand into to my professors.

I got one more in today.

Just a small piece, a page posting and a couple of response replies to the thread online.

Not much, but some motion.

And!

Yes!

Oh, such sweet relief, and I have no idea how it happened, but the APA formatting software that my friend let me download from her, well, I finally got it to open.

I have absolutely no idea what I did differently, but it suddenly happened.

I texted her and got the password to the account.

And voila!

I can now format all my papers in APA style.

No more pulling out my hair trying to figure out citations for the paper, the software does all the work for you, organizing, formatting, my paper will be perfect!

Well.

At least better formatted than the previous ones.

I still have to write the thing.

I made some strides though, small ones, but it was a start.

I put away the one class reader and notebook that I have finished all my reading and papers for, thanks and good night Multi-Cultural Counseling, it’s been fun.

Then I organized my three other classes that I have assignments due for and did the aforementioned posting for the fourth class.

I had five classes this semester.

Going back to just working full time is going to feel like a vacation.

No wonder I am having trouble focusing on where the hell to stay in New York.

Queens?

Brooklyn?

Hell’s Kitchen?

Harlem?

Chelsea?

Wait.

Come back, Martines, not there yet.

Get back to the paper.

So.

I started going through my notes and putting the stickies with scrawled notes and ideas on my notebook.  I started to get the gist of what I am going to write.

Tomorrow I’m going to do yoga in the morning and when I get done I usually have a few moments after my shower to look at things, I’ll take another half hour and keep up the organizing.  Then, come home and review the rest of it.  I’ll take Friday to do the writing, before and after work and the doctor’s appointment.

Then date night.

Because a girl’s got to have some play too.

All work and no play makes Carmen no fucking fun.

I’m listening to Mike Doughty’s Stellar Motel right now, he lives in New York, and as I have been blogging I have had this little question in my head.

“Where would Mike Doughty stay?”

Fucking cracks me up.

Maybe I’ll just message him.

Hey, you got a place you like?

No, you don’t know me, but you follow me on Instagram.

Ha.

I do actually have a lot of connections and folks I know in New York or people that have traveled there and had suggestions.

Everything from my boss saying she like Gramercy Park (um, out of my price range) to go where there’s good coffee shops–Queens, Brooklyn, etc.

Oops.

Ha.

Digressed again.

I am happy though.

I have the opportunity to go to New York and have a completely different experience than the one I planned.

Isn’t most of my life like that?

While I’m busy making plans, God steps in and says, “no, here, this will work better, you’ll like this more.”

Ok, God, so yeah, where should I stay?

Now that I know what you want me to smell like.

OMG.

I found my scent.

I am in love.

Remember, couple weeks back, I dropped my brand new bottle of Chanel’s Egoiste Pour Homme in my sink, yeah, that sad, sad day, I haven’t had any perfume since then.

I have not had the time, or, well, truly, the inclination, to replace it.

I suspected I was needing something new.

And wouldn’t you know it.

I got to work super early today, the traffic was oddly light, and I parked on Valencia and paid for all day parking, still waiting on the permit, in front of a specialty perfume shop that opened a little while back–Tiger Lily.

I walked in.

I told the woman what I used to wear that I really loved.

Issey Miyake Feu D’Issey.

Then I told her about the Egoiste Pour Homme and breaking the bottle and that Chanel had sold me the last bottle and were waiting for restocking.

That I decided I needed a new scent and I was looking for something closer to the Issey Miyake perfume.

I described what I wanted and she and I walked around the store.

She suggested this and that.

And they were nice, but not exactly what I wanted.

Then.

Oh damn Gina.

There it was.

Rose Flash.

Holy shit.

I had a visceral reaction to it.

I shuddered deeply with pleasure as the scent washed over me.

I felt warm and lush and supplicant and hot and fiery and sexy and roses and candles and spicy, all so delicious I could barely stand it.

I was completely transported.

“This one!” I said fierce with the knowing.

“How much?”  I asked, bracing myself for the amount.

“$60, and it’s perfume, not a toilette, so it will last you a while,” she smiled.

“I’ll take it,” I walked over to the counter heady with the perfume.

“We’re currently out,” she said scanning her supply.

Well poo.

“But, it’s a local perfumery and I can get it in really quick, let me have your e-mail and I’ll send you a message as soon as it comes in, and in the meantime, let me give you a sample, I love how you reacted to it!”

Yup.

And I have been dreamily reacting to it all day long.

I put some on at work and the soft warm wafts of scent would envelope me and my mood would just shift and change and open.

Happy.

I feel happy smelling it.

Ah.

So nice.

See.

Something new.

A new smell, a new experience.

There’s something great in New York.

Serendipity.

Love.

Adventure.

There are no problems.

Only different points of view.

Different perspectives and a new opportunity to have a different experience.

Looking forward to it.

Now, excuse me, while I wind down.

I’ve got some busy time ahead of me.

And opportunity to see what happens next.

I suspect it will be amazing.

It always is.