Take The Day Off

How the fuck does one do that?

I have things to do.

I have places to go.

I have blogs to write.

Don’t you know that?

Haven’t you encouraged me to do just this, write, live my life, do my thing?

I thought so.

So.

Here I am showing up one more time at this keyboard.

But typing rather fast, if I do say so myself.

I do have places to go other than this small laptop.

I have a beautiful new bed to crawl into.

That’s right.

The mattress has arrived and I wish I had actually video taped the unboxing.

It was hella fun.

And fast.

It took perhaps two minutes, three, tops, to let out of the box, unseal the plastic and arrange it on the wooden slats of my Ikea frame.

Then I laid down and made the “sushi face.”

“Uh, haha, I guess I know what you look like when you have sex,” my friend said to me years ago when we were in We Be Sushi and I was having a Dragon Roll.

I can’t help myself.

I make a face.

And apparently it is a tad sexual in nature.

Or I could just say that I am expressive.

I was a touch expressive when I lay down on the mattress.

“Oh my God.”

Then I giggled madly.

I am looking forward much to getting into that bed and making all sorts of “sushi faces.”

Heh.

Especially since I have finished and sent in the paper for my Therapeutic Communications class and I also realized that I was caught up on the reading.  I mean that makes two classes that I am caught up with all the reading and all the assignments.

I have two other classes of course where I am not.

However.

I am much further than I was the last time I had class.

And I feel that this will become a trend with me.

Getting it done.

I can’t help it.

I don’t have the time to let things slide.

Although.

Occasionally.

I do have time to.

Let my love light shine.

And breathe.

And ride my bicycle in the rain.

It rained today!

I was not happy about it, I don’t like commuting on my bicycle in the rain, but I was also grateful for it and the rich smell of it heralded me all the way up Lincoln Avenue and through the Pan Handle and on into work.

Today in work stories.

I managed to not let myself freak out too much.

I stayed focused on my job and being of service to the family and putting into my job rather than taking out of it.

And.

I made a new dish for dinner that I have never made before.

The mom and I renamed it since it was mushroom casserole and ain’t no five-year old boy anywhere going to chow down on mushroom casserole, so we called it quinoa risotto with mushrooms and cheese.

Heavy emphasis, mine, on the cheese.

The three-year old will sometimes ask me to just put shredded cheese in his little outstretched hand so he can just eat as quick as possible.

Once.

When the parents were not around I actually tipped the plastic bag directly into his mouth, he just begged and I couldn’t help it, I didn’t drown him in cheese, thank you very much, but I did pour a good amount into his happy little face.

So.

Mushroom risotto with CHEESE.

Really, it was casserole, made with quinoa.

I remember when I had no idea what the hell quinoa was.

You may not know what quinoa is either.

I don’t think I did until I moved to San Francisco and despite having had it a few times I have never made it until today.

It was easy and the casserole, er, I mean, risotto, was lovely.

I may end up making it for myself one of these days.

You know.

When I have a bunch of free time.

Hahahaha.

Ah.

Fuck.

Sorry friends.

Sorry if I don’t go running out to the clubs to cut a rug or to the cafe to hang out or to that dinner party, house-warming, baby shower, birthday party, fellowship dealio.

Sorry.

I’m busy.

“You’re just going to have to put your head down and say, hey, I’ll see you in three years,” my person said to me over a tea the last time I sat down and did some work with her.  “Some of your friends aren’t going to be happy about that, but they will all understand it, and when you can and where you can, you will find the time to make to hang out with friends.”

It just won’t be what you want it to look like.

And.

It won’t be how they want it to look like.

And I want to date.

Who the fuck am I kidding.

Although there does seem to be space between the space to sneak things in, there is still the schedule and the routine and the doing that I do to take care of the things that I need to.

“Don’t stop writing on my account,” he said and went back to checking something on his phone.

He sat and watched me write my blog from the chaise lounge across the room.

Demands change.

Friends and lovers.

Graduate school and work.

Recovery.

Let me not forget that.

I can’t really take too much time off from that, at all.

I have to do these things and I make no excuses for that.

I am this woman.

And.

Should you want me to come out and play, I will, I just need to take care of a few things first.

Really.

Just a few.

I promise.

Just Got The Message

My new mattress arrives tomorrow!

Last night on this cruddy one I have had for the last two years.

I am not complaining, it’s done it’s job and I have slept on worse.

The fold out futon shenanigans that I slept on in Paris for six months was by far the worst thing I have slept on.

Well.

Not true!

I just realized.

I have slept on worse, and really, when I compare and contrast, even on a shitty mattress, it was a shitty mattress in Paris.

I had a friend once who said it didn’t matter how bad things were, if you just tacked on the end of the sentence, “in Paris.”

I was caught in a sudden rainstorm, “in Paris.”

I got lost, “in Paris.”

I overslept, “in Paris.”

I have to do my laundry, “in Paris.”

So.

Yeah.

That futon mattress, in Paris, sucked, but it was in Paris.

I have slept on far worse in Homestead, Florida.

Yes.

There.

On a piece of cardboard box that was slid underneath the thin tent floor of the two-man tent I was sharing with a friend, the cardboard scant protection from the sharp coral rock that our tent was set up on.

Even with the cardboard and a sleeping bag, I could still feel that rock underneath my back.

Imagine, I am imagining now, that for months I slept on cardboard boxes.

I have slept on plywood set up on top of milk crates.

I have slept in cars.

I have slept in the back of Grey Hound buses.

I have slept, on the ground.

I have slept on other people’s lumpy couches.

I have slept on the thin, worn out cushions in my ex-brother in-laws fathers’ camper truck bed.

That sucked.

I have slept in far worse places and on many a baggy couch with broken springs.

I have slept in dangerous neighborhoods were gunshots woke me up in the middle of the night.

I have slept on beaches.

I have slept in the woods, “camping” aka “homeless” in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

I have slept in the moldering basement of a duplex on a mattress on the floor.

I have slept cramped against my sister’s small body on a mattress on a floor.

I have slept in the bottom well of an old beater Dodge with a thin pillow braced against the door.

I have slept in far worse places on far worse beds, some which really had no right to be called a bed at all.

I am so grateful.

I have so much.

Do you see how much I have?

I have a full plate.

I have a job.

I have a bicycle.

I have this laptop.

I have graduate school.

(I have a lot to still read, but I’m getting caught up!)

I have stories.

(“Writers would kill to have some of the life material you have, Carmen,” Alan Kauffman said to me with an incredulous shake of his head, “you have had so many experiences!”)

I have love.

My God.

Do I have love.

I found myself pulled up 18th street tonight after work, my feet just knew the way and despite my brain saying, “go home, go read, go study,” I knew that I needed to be somewhere else tonight before I could do just that, go home, go read, go study.

And I found myself at Most Holy Redeemer in the Castro.

And I found myself at home.

I shared my piece.

I don’t remember what I said.

I got my God on.

I got on my bicycle and I got on the way back to the Outer Sunset.

And mysterious coincidence?

Is it odd?

Or.

Is it God?

I ran into a very dear, most welcome, super amazing and loving person on my way home.

“That’s H____________!”

I almost shouted his name.

I could see he was working with someone.

I almost kept riding.

But when you see your person, or I should say, when I see my person, I had to stop, flip a bitch on my whip, and pedal back to where he was sitting with one of my mates.

Oh.

Was it good to see him!

I got the best damn hug.

From him and from my contemporary and we just had us a great big love fest right there on the corner of Sanchez and Noe.

Thank you God for always knowing when I need to see my people.

We made plans to see each other soon and I got a brief, intense, full of love check in.

Then.

Merrily on my way.

Through the autumn turning Pan Handle, through the quiet dark of the park lit only with speculative sodium lamps and the bright white flare of tents being erected in the meadows.

There must be a concert happening this weekend.

I am out of touch.

I have been so busy in my own little world of school and work that I am not paying a lot of attention to other things.

Outside Lands has already happened, so it must be Hardly, Strictly, Bluegrass.

Translation.

Hardly, strictly, ain’t gonna be anywhere near it.

I’ll be in school this weekend.

I made good for the family already, getting them prepped by making not one but two homemade chicken pot pies for them–one to freeze and one to eat Friday when I am not there to make dinner.  Plus I made ginger chicken with hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, garlic, onions, and water chestnuts to wrap up in lettuce for dinner this evening.

I’ll do more prep for them too.

And.

A little for me too.

Although, I am pretty set as far as groceries go since my dear friend helped me out with the pick up and lift back to my place last weekend from SafeWay when I was having my near panic attack.

I do have to do a little more reading.

(A lot, but who’s counting)

But I’m kicking through it.

Every morning before I leave for work I have been reading.

Every evening when I get home I have been reading.

Add to that I have managed, don’t ask me how, to continue with my morning writing routine and my evening blog.

I don’t have to know how it works.

I just know that it does.

And it’s going to work even better.

Even sooner.

I’ll be sleeping on a brand new bed as of tomorrow night.

My life.

It rocks.

And it’s not because I’m sleeping on any.

Rocks that is.

And What Are You Up To

Tonight?

Not what I was up to last Thursday.

Ahem.

I am studying.

Or should I say, I was studying.

Sigh.

Not getting hickies tonight.

Oh well.

I knew well what I was getting into when I decided to pursue graduate school–no more reading for pleasure for a few years, limited social interaction and engagement, and lots of studying, outlining, underlining, and digesting of ideas, theories, and studies.

I will also get to add to that, navigating student financial aid, technology, online facebook pages for my cohort, never thought I would use social media for graduate school studies, but my cohort has a group on facebook and I actually do use it.

Said hickies have faded and left little trace of their previous engagement.

All that is left is a warm feeling and a few sweet thoughts.

He goes one way.

I go the other.

Nothing wrong there.

No expectations.

No resentments.

Life meandering on its way.

I’m not maudlin, upset, or concerned.

I’m focused on what is happening in front of me.

Which is mainly getting all my Human Development reading done before the weekend.

I have one chapter left in the big text-book and a lot of articles in the reader, but I have successfully finished all the reading that I need to have done to outline the chapter and do the presentation with my partner next week.

I will go back over the reading again this Saturday and perhaps one more time before I do the presentation.

Grateful to be getting the work in and done.

Grateful to be carving out the space here and there to navigate said reading.

A little here.

A little there.

The stuff and things they get done.

I haven’t really addressed the reading for any of my other classes yet, but I will.

I will get to it.

I always do.

I don’t sit idly by.

I don’t take many breaks.

I get the job done.

Speaking of job.

I expect that at some point tomorrow, since it has not happened yet, didn’t happen today, I will be sitting down with the family and doing my year review.

I have no more anxiety around it.

Which is a relief and I don’t have expectations of myself, except that I show up and be honest and come from a place of gratitude for my job, for the boys, for the gift of having a job while I am in graduate school that seems like it could well carry me through all the way from this first semester to the last.

That is my hope.

Although.

I know.

Well.

I know well.

That whatever happens.

I am taken care of.

I have no doubts.

With that qualification I await the morrow with some interest.

Tomorrow is when the school disperses the financial aid.

I have my fingers crossed that I will get the rest of my tuition bill paid for and that there will be a few thousand, two to be specific, two thousand, left over after my tuition is covered.

I really want a new mattress for my bed and I have been eyeing the Casper full size for the last three months or so.

But.

I wonder.

Would it be better to sit on the money and see how I do under my own power with the hours that I am working at work before I spill out the money?

Should I sock it away into savings and have a nest egg?

Sleeping well is important, but could I wait until I do my taxes in January?

That seems so far away.

I have been quite frugal the past few months and am doing alright with my finances.

I will be paying my rent for October when I get my paycheck tomorrow.

That’s also something I need to keep in mind, the paychecks for the next few months will be smaller to reflect the fewer hours I am working.

I feel like I can afford it though.

The full size is $750.

That would still leave me sitting on $1250, which is basically one months rent, and I could sock that away into my savings, where I currently have one months rent, and then have a little prudent reserve to see how I do with the navigation forward.

I keep looking at my bed.

It’s a nice bed.

But.

It’s an Ikea mattress that is two years old and was not meant to be the end all and be all of mattresses.

I had thought I was going to replace it this spring, but I did not.

Sleep is important.

My brain will do better with quality sleep than without.

I could write it off as a study aid.

Baha.

Doubtful, but it’s a nice thought.

I don’t have many needs.

I live a small life.

But.

It is a full life.

A quality life.

I like my food organic.

And yes.

I do drink expensive coffee.

I probably drop $60 a month on coffee beans.

But my, they are so delicious.

I also rarely buy coffee out, although I do have it on a fairly consistent basis.

Today I had a lovely iced coffee from Grand Cafe on Mission Street on my way to the Mission/Bartlett Farmer’s Market to shop for the family.

The family sports my coffees.

I don’t take advantage of it, though there can be a tendency in my brain to want more, after a certain point I just can’t do a big coffee after four in the afternoon.

I have a lot of perks at work.

I am well aware of how lucky I am to have a good job, that I get to live in San Francisco, go to school in San Francisco, live in the best city in the United States, one of the best in the world, and live as well as I do.

Yes.

I live in a studio.

But it is by the sea.

In the most salient place for me to be.

The best place for my soul to reside for the time being.

At least for the next three years.

And after that?

Who knows.

I am too focused right now on the here and now.

Where the reading is.

Just there.

On the other side of my laptop.

Now.

If you’ll excuse me.

I have some more reading to do.

See you tomorrow.

I’ll let you know if I get that raise.