the sad, the glad and the strong bad

So, for just about all of my Blake-less summer vacation so far, I have been vegging. I had thought that it would be really hard without him for so long, and I did cry the first day when I saw a little guy splashing in a public wading pool, but mostly my angst has been reserved for me. Since the first shock faded in January, my loneliness and feelings of abandonment have never been as strong as they have been this month. I find that more than ever before, I long for the Boy. The interesting thing is that despite this desire, I don’t particularly want him back in the state he was when he left. I can recognize the nostalgia in my thoughts and I’ve decided to give it free reign. As long as I don’t get maudlin and start drunk dialing him and begging him to take me back, I’m going to accept these feelings as part of the process.

I’ve been telling people that getting separated is like getting ready to eat a pie. People like me tend to think that they’re smart enough to avoid certain pieces and they can throw away a bunch of the pie uneaten. The bitter truth I have found this summer is that I have to eat every damn piece of sadness, every piece of nostalgia, every piece of insecurity and fear. I do not get to skip a slice because I’m clever, or because I’m aware of the dangers or because I’m trying very hard to sympathize with the Boy’s decision. The pie has to be eaten regardless. And no, it does not come à la mode. (Unless the ice cream is made of tears, that is. Salty salty ice cream of tears.)

But! On a happier note, my mood has improved in the last 3 or 4 days, and I’ve mostly gotten over the hump of inactivity. It took a lot of aimless wandering, but it seems to be over. Yesterday was the first day that I felt normal and even happy to be out and scooting around the city. Which is a good thing because there were so many good things yesterday that it was more or less my birthday: first, a matinee of Die Roten Punkte that had me wishing for even more rock, then dinner at the Corner House for Summerlicious, and then a long and happy Stitch n’ Bitch at Lettuce that incorporated Little Mousling’s search for anonymous sperm donations (“just go to the Brunny and stand for a pitcher,” I counseled) as well as the memorable phrase “reach-around colonoscopy.” And Denny wasn’t even there to hike up the smut levels…we did it all on our own. I blame German performance rock and really good wine and the never-ending medical talk that practically begged for a punch line to lighten the load.

Yesterday and today I prepped Blake’s room for painting, and I hope to be done my taping in time for Saturday. I even bought him a fan, so that when he insists (as he does nightly) on going to bed in long pants and snuggling under a comforter, he might not die of heat exhaustion. (I find myself in the curious position of begging him to wear less clothes now that we’ve hit the warm weather. “Come on,” I whine, “don’t you just wanna wear your undies? Or nothing?” He makes me sweat just looking at him. And yet he springs up every morning refreshed and ready to snuggle in my bed. I don’t get it.)

I’m feeling a little guilty for taking advantage of his absence. Blake has been quite vocal about his desire to paint his own room. He’ll probably have a freak out when he finds it’s been done without him, and small wonder. Still, my guilt can’t quite overcome the sheer lunacy of single-parenting a 4-year-old while I paint his room. No dice, Blakers.

I really should have taken some “before” pictures; his room is usually a cluttered mess of epic proportions and almost all of it has all been transferred to the closet. I wouldn’t have thought it possible if I hadn’t done it myself. I even vacuumed the baseboards tonight, seeing as I’ll be getting up close and personal with them before long. And if this painting job is anything like my last one, I’ll still be painting when he comes home. He’ll like that.

I’m also finishing projects every couple of days, with recent standouts being the De Profundis pillow (which combines knitting with cloth strips of text so that Mason can decorate his couch with one of the most depressing bits from Oscar Wilde’s letter from prison) and an amigurumi Strong Bad. I’m madly in love with Strong Bad, and have to stop myself from saying the same thing over and over: “Dear Strong Bad, How do you crochet with boxing gloves on? Yours, Rocketbride” I think the people around me are finding it old.

I got my big box of prize yarns yesterday. There is something absolutely magical about a box of yarn that is for me and me only. It’s a pretty interesting assortment; not a lot of anything I would choose myself, which means that I’ll have to stretch and do a lot of new things. And there’s nothing wrong with a big old stretch, especially when I haven’t done yoga for months. Did you just hear something crack?

In final crafty news, I’m wondering if I have the fortitude to enter the Summer Ravelry Olympics. I committed to doing a lot of amigurumi toys this summer for my co-workers, and it would be kind of nice to plow through them in 17 days. On the other hand, I’m going to the Ottawa Folk Festival in the middle of the run, and I can’t imagine that it’ll help my time. Still, a dozen toys in 17 days would be pretty cool. We’ll see.

Labels: angst, crafty, friends, outings, the boy, victory

- 1 comments/hedgehogs -

- Rocketbride's adventure of 7/10/2008 10:20:00 a.m.