Blue Moon

I’m used to feeling completely worn out and lazy in the throes of rainy wintertime. But in May? Gay, glad, sunny, funny May? WTF, dudes. Today, Trombone and I watched a bulldozer rip up part of the parking lot of the Safeway near our house. I drank bitter Starbucks coffee and Trombone ate circular oat cereal. That’s some stimulating action, no? We did this because I could think of nothing better to do.

Ever have those days where you feel 13 years old? Everything sucks; everyone is stupid; you hate that you’re acting like an idiot but you can’t stop?

Possible culprits include:

BULLET: The PMS, which, based on my past two periods seems to be 85 bagrillion times worse than ever before in my life; enough so that I am actually blaming it for things, as though it were an evil sidekick.

BULLET: That this is my last month of maternity leave and I spend 50% of my time wishing I was enjoying it more because the part of our lives we call “NO PICNIC AT ALL” is rapidly approaching and then I’ll be regretful I didn’t take the baby to pet more animals while I had the chance but when my day starts at 5 and ends at 7 like it did today I kind of wish parenthood was unionized.

BULLET: That I am only just today again starting to try to get Trombone to nap in his crib which means that up until just today again I have had no time except evening time to sit and think and write and read and guess which of those takes precedence? That’s right, TV.

BULLET: That because I am only just today again starting to try to get Trombone to nap in his crib, I had to listen to him cry for 30 minutes this afternoon before he passed out, then woke up 30 minutes later, still crying and spent the next 30 minutes crying and clinging to me. Awesome. I don’t know what I like better: the first 30 minutes of crying where I have to plug my ears and hum lalalalala, the second 30 minutes, where he finally sleeps and I waste time wondering how long he’ll sleep instead of doing something I couldn’t do while he was awake, like talk on the phone or write in my journal or watch the goddamn season finale of ER already, or the rest of the fucking day when I try to manage his shaky mood and he acts like I left him in a dumpster without even a cannister of circular oat cereal to snack on.

BULLET: Useless guilt about all of it.

BULLET: Oh – but don’t forget the anger about the guilt. Because I don’t need to feel guilty! Right?

BULLET: And once we know the day is almost over, there is hysterical laughter about the anger about the guilt.

Yup. I’m blaming the PMS. And the full moon; the second one this month, apparently.

BUT. I stopped at the drugstore on our walk this afternoon and I picked out some chocolate and then took a stroll down the lipgloss isle where I found a Covergirl display and a sign that read Limited Time Lipgloss and Nail Polish! Buy Us! and it was a lipgloss I owned and loved many, many years ago. The Perfect Lipgloss. You know when you love and use a lipgloss till you’re carving the last bits out with your pinky nail and then you go to buy a new one and they’ve stopped making it and you curse CURSE the sky and COVERGIRL and Tyra and everybody who says it’s easy breezy beautiful, it’s NOT, NOT if you don’t have the right lipgloss.

It was THAT lipgloss. They’ve brought it back for a limited time! I am – well, I am not ecstatic or anything. But I am pretty pleased.

You win some, you lose some. And since the face of feminism has had a facelift, I feel safe in admitting that I am a feminist who likes lipgloss. Maybe I’ll get a t-shirt made. “This is what a feminist in lipgloss looks like.” Hmm?

I’ll get right on that, after I try to wriggle into my wedding dress.