Charcoal Gray and a Little Fire-Snorting Green Monster....

So, I've changed the look of my blog, which is no surprise, I do it periodically.

I decided to try out a new Blogger template and so I fussed around with it for a couple of hours last night. I went through 4 or 5 different designs, happy with each of them for one reason or another and very dissatisfied with them for a variety of reasons. One of the primary reasons was the color of the type. Most of them worked out o.k. but some of them were just too washed out and you had to manually change them, which I started doing, but then it was just a hassle and it was 2 a.m. by then and I thought I'd better get to bed or I'd really be paying for it today.

So, I left it with charcoal gray and white...with orange.

This is not a normal color spectrum for me, I'm not a big fan of drab...or orange...but I'm kind of digging it today...and instead of drab I'm choosing to call it "Cosmopolitan"--cuz it kinda is. Usually I really like a lot of color. I also like using some of the preset blog backgrounds from Shabby Blog and Cutest Little Blog on the Block, but I didn't see anything that I absolutely loved, so I went with this.

Maybe it's because it is January and January is gray in my mind for a lot of reasons. There's that post holiday let down, and usually the weather is craptacular and really cold, and that's just depressing and then you start thinking of all of the things you should have done but didn't, about the pants that are a little on the snug side, or the projects you've left unfinished, and how you really don't want to deal with any of it because you'd like to avoid reality and just read a book or watch a movie or something. Maybe it's just me--but I doubt it.

So here is my charcoal gray honesty of things that are bugging me today--

1:

My Christmas Tree is still up.

Don't judge me.

I can't even hardly go in the living room because it's still there. It haunts me with it's tired voice "Tracy--Tracy--please--I need to sleep. Let me go back to my box. My branches are tired of holding these ridiculously sparkly ornaments up. Please...I'm begging you." To which I reply-- "I KNOW!! I KNOW!! I SUCK!...I promise...I will get to it tomorrow...I just cannot possibly deal with you tonight after the day I had today. I just need to kick off these shoes and relax for a minute." To which the tree sighs...it sighs because it knows that I'm really waiting until the weekend.

2:

I did an exercise, regarding jealousy, for a project I'm working on.

I don't like talking about my jealousy and I don't like addressing it. It has always been my thought that jealousy is a really ugly thing, and that it is a very negative attribute, that it is ungrateful and embarrassing. It's not something you want people to know about you. So, with the exercise, I almost skipped over it because apparently I didn't want to evaluate my psyche to that degree. But, I made a commitment to a friend, with whom I am doing this project, and so I held to it and did it.

This is what I found: when being constructive and looking for solutions, evaluating the things you are jealous of can be very motivating. The exercise required that you list who/what you were jealous of, why you were jealous and what you were going to do to change it. I'm still working on the "change it" portion.

Now, don't go thinking I'm going to tell you all about who and what I'm jealous of. I'm not giving you the list--that would be too much--besides, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or have them know how small I am inside sometimes, because sometimes I am jealous of stupid, tiny things--to my own dismay and chagrin. I'd like to keep up the relatively pleasant fiction that I'm just kind of, mostly a nice person. ;)

I will tell you this though--if you've ever seen the magazine Where Women Create, I will give you this, I'm a little jealous of everything about that magazine and the people in it. I wish I had a beautiful artist space, and that all I had to do with my time is what I want in decorating and making and creating.

Sometimes when I read about their lives I feel my little green monster begin to stir. Sometimes my monster snorts a little fire as it starts to wake up when I read how they are 28 years old and have everything artistically that you could imagine, all because when they were 15 their mom let them do whatever they wanted creatively. Yeah, I get a little twitchy, and I really wish that I had been more over the top. And then I feel embarrassed about it, because how stupid is that to feel that way? I had a good childhood, it had it's flaws but it was good. No one abused me or molested me or neglected me. I was very well loved and cared for, so how could I be jealous of something like paint and fabric and art?? You get the rest of where I go with this inner conversation. It can turn in to a vicious little self-berating diatribe of how-ungrateful-are-you?? So I'm working on how to turn it around and in to action. I'm an adult, I can do what I want so, ... what do I really want?

I would also love to work for that kind of a magazine, with the exposure to the ideas and the people and the places. So on my list--this one also has no solution yet and I'm still pondering on it.

I will give you one more thing on my list--I am jealous of women with babies and children sometimes. I know, I'm kind of a bad person...I told you already.

I've had lots of practice reigning in my primal feelings and I'm not usually jealous in a terrible way, in fact a lot of times I push it so far back I don't really think about it...but sometimes...sometimes yes I very definitely am...enough to cry sad, hot, hard tears about it...but that's usually when I'm sequestered away in a corner of a closet somewhere in the dark where no one can see me or hear me...and then when I come out my eyes are bright green instead of hazel, and I have a headache and I need a cold compress for my eyes to get the swelling to go down.

But enough of that, what really sends me into a Hulk-like green monster rage is when they whine about, sin of all sins, how they have X number of kids and are struggling with getting pregnant. Really?! Shut Your Pie Hole already--be glad you have tiny fingers and toes that you were blessed to have come into your life. You have no idea what it's like even if you're struggling with it a little now--because YOU ALREADY HAVE IT. If it never happens again for you, while it may not be what you wanted, you've already been blessed...it is not the same as having empty arms with nothing at all.

It's like this---you, with your child(ren) and your already successful pregnancy/ies, are merely standing in the shadow of the granite cliffside of failure, regret and frustration that women suffering from infertility and childlessness often feel. 

You can have regrets and be sad, I do get that, I don't begrudge you your sadness and frustration and I'm sorry that you are going through that because it royally sucks, but be grateful and of all things, please don't whine to the woman who remains infertile and childless about how they don't really understand how hard it is and how you can't believe that this is happening to you and that you had plans to keep and that you can't have your umpteenth kid...I mean, really?  We all had plans.  Sometimes shit happens--shit you don't expect and it royally screws up all of the proverbial "plans."  And what you're saying now--it's rude, insensitive, selfish and it's thoughtless...all on your side of the table. Open your heart and your mind a little, think outside of yourself and show a little compassion by being aware of your words.

Then, on an uber personal basis and since I'm on a roll and just to send it all the way home--do not even start with me about how I'm not really a woman, and won't ever really know what it's like to be a **real woman** because I haven't given birth and am not a mother and how you pity me that I will never accomplish the ideal pinnacle of womanhood.

Oh yeah...are you shocked by this? So was I. Imagine those words being said to you when you are a few years into the misery of infertility...they are real and are floating around in my past from a relatively close family member. My eyebrows met my hairline and my mouth was a perfect little "O"...and yes...even though I try not to...I still hold it against her, though mostly I try to forget about it.

Like I said...jealousy can be an angry, ugly and embarrassing thing...but there... you have two of my worst. I share them because if there is anyone else out there that has felt the sting and tasted the bitterness, in whatever way, I want you to know I understand...and really...you've just got to work through it to become who you really want to be, without being encumbered by things that are out of your control. Judge me on it as you may.

3.

My house is a little bit of a wreck since the holidays.

Now, perhaps some of you are perfect and are already agog with the fact that my Christmas tree is still up and that I have some minor jealousy issues, which I chose mostly not to divulge. If that's the case, you should not read on. Don't do it. You might be just a little horrified at the humanity of it all.

Sunday it was like all of the sudden the blinders were off and the sun was shining too brightly on the inside of my house. I thought "What in the hell happened here???" It's almost like a pile-bomb went off. Perhaps you've heard of a pile-bomb, or at least seen one and maybe didn't know that it had a name.

There are little piles of things all over the place. These piles vary a little in size...some of them are little, and some of them not so much. There are piles of coats and scarves, piles of books, piles of bills and papers, piles of laundry, piles of CDs, piles of DVDs, piles of linens folded and waiting to be put away, piles of clean dishes, piles of boxes waiting to be filled back up with Christmas ornaments (see item #1 on this list) and piles of piles of piles of crap everywhere.

So this week I am kicking off the 30 minute-a-day boogie. What is this you may ask...I will tell you.

You can do ANYTHING for 30 minutes. So everyday after work, Beloved and I will work collaboratively for an end to the pile-age and to getting everything spic and span and cleaned up and back the way we like it. For 30 minutes a day we will pick a chore or a task, and do it first, before we relax, before we sit down to read, or do whatever it is we want to do more than we want to do chores. Everybody can help, and everybody gets to choose whatever they want, because per my previous paragraph you can see that there are several things that are out of order and require attention.

I'm pretty excited about it and am looking forward to this evening. I think it will work really well, and we will realize that 30 minutes gets a lot more done than we thought. And then when it's all done, I guarantee you we will feel sheepish about having put it off these past few days and weeks.

So, that said--here's the gray blog that I'm really feeling...plus the really awesome photo from the Against Me! show I went to this summer with my two youngest brothers, which is just a really fantastic memory and makes me happy every time I see it. And no, I'm not depressed, but apparently I'm a little Cosmopolitan. ;)