Quote from Q

"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself
constantly walking around in the daytime and falling into at night. I miss
you like hell." Edna Vincent Millay

Because I wrote about how I feel like I lived my life with this soft, firm cushion supporting my back and I was rarely even aware it was there, took it for granted that it would stay in place. And now, with Roy gone, the cushion isn't there -- it's just empty space -- and I have to work so much harder to hold myself upright it's exhausting.

When Even Mr. Right Turns Out to Be Wrong

So I thought he was it, (partly because he seemed to be certain I was it). When you're over 40 and you've been through lots of everything, you think maybe you can't be totally wrong, or totally surprised, at least when it comes to men and loving them. So I feel kind of stupid, and defeated, because it appears that I was totally wrong and I am totally surprised.

So what should you do when even Mr. Right turns out to be wrong? Go to an amusement park. I went to one that has a water park and regular roller coasters and all. Spent the morning laughing my head off on water rides and getting soaked with my son and my nephew and his girlfriend. Then spent the afternoon screaming my vocal chords numb on death-defying rides like the Zoomerang and Down Time.

Down Time is a HUGE tower with a sliding square box on it. There are chairs stuck to the box, three on each side. So you go sit on these chairs, legs dangling, those u-shaped restraints locked over your chest. I was in the middle. My 18-year-old nephew was actually scared and tried to take the middle spot but I said nope, Mommy in the middle. I couldn't have done it if I couldn't hold onto my little guy (the 7-year-old, who wasn't scared, just laughing giddily). So up we went and at the top, I'm saying "wow, this is high, oh my god, this is really high, REALLY high..." It was like what you see when you're taking off in an airplane. So I stopped looking down, grabbed my son's hand, clutched the u-shaped thing with my other hand, and a second later we dropped. It was absolutely terrifying -- the most terrifying 10 seconds of my life, I think. It was the feeling I've only had in my scariest dreams, where I'm flying and then I lose the ability to fly and just fall out of the sky.

I got off the ride trembling. I've never trembled before -- not out of fear anyway. I was truly, honest-to-god TREMBLING all over. And out of breath like I'd just run somewhere fast. It was wild. What a rush.

The Zoomerang was a loop-de-loop roller coaster that went high, fast, and then backward too. It was scary but in a fun way so I was laughing the whole time, laughing so hard I could hardly breathe. And all that laughing and screaming did some temporary damage to my voice, which was hoarse and funny for about an hour.

So you can see why I am now saying it's a great antidote to a broken heart. You just can't cry or feel despair or even think when you're doing stuff like that. So now I'm wondering what to do next weekend. Skydiving?

Still breathing .....

Things that make you go "hunh?"

Stayed up till 2am Sat night with my three girlfriends I've had since elementary school. We laughed so hard we almost hyperventilated. One has three kids and lives in Jersey, the other has two kids and is in Mass., and the third I see a lot because her parents still have their house nearby, and I still live in the area we grew up in. We do this once a year, and I swear the good brain chemicals and hormonal secretions from all that laughing and unconditional love will add a few years to our lives.

So tonight, my son goes on his new obsession/Web gaming site -- runescape. He's too young for it, but he lives and dies to play it. While he's playing, he says, "hey mom, my brother, S, just said hi to me. He's on runescape right now." So my son asks me to respond for him -- he doesn't type fast enough and his phonetic spellings are often indecipherable. The "brother" he's referring to is his soon-to-be stepbrother. His father is, somewhat suddenly, getting married next month to a woman with adolescent kids. My son worships them and they seem very nice. I end up calling my ex, who is out of town with his fiancee, to ask him for the phone number of my son's future stepbrother so he can call him and chat while they're on runescape together. He calls back with the number, and the next 45 minutes are spent on speaker phone with the boy and his sister, taking turns, helping my son navigate this complicated online world. On the screen, I see my son's "guy" and his future stepsister's "guy" (who's actually a girl) walking together in cyberland, trying to fish for shrimp in a pond.

All I can think is "hunh?" This is my life.

Drumroll!

So you are now reading an award-winning blog. Thanks to my lovely and charming friend Kerri (www.sixuntilme.com), who awarded me the Thinking Blogger Award (see left). And on her blog, she said really nice things about me. So now I'm going to say really nice things about her. This chick is witty, smart, lovely, charming, witty (so witty it should be said twice), sexy, ethical, warm (but please don't hug her -- not into gratuitous physical contact AT ALL), cute, industrious, techie ... she makes me laugh. And keeps me company really well, especially in the iced coffee addiction arena. Okay, I have to run now, but go check her out. She's awesome.

Poison ivy, dog poop, deadlines, oy!

I've had worse weeks, for sure. But I'm in one of those time/space vectors right now where not a whole lot is going my way. In fact, someone observing from overhead -- say, hanging from the ceiling fan that's blowing down on me right now (because I haven't taken the time to stand on my kitchen island and switch the direction of the blades for summer -- did you know you're supposed to do that? have them suck the air up rather than blow it down?). I digress. Back to my whine.

The most amusing and annoying thing going on is that I have poison ivy... on my butt. Okay, more specifically in the, uh, crack of my butt. My son, who is 7 and thinks all things to do with butts are beyond hilarious, is beside himself. He will announce to anyone he can find, "MY MOM HAS POISON IVY ON HER BUTT!" It's been a week as of tomorrow, since the day I stupidly squatted to pee in the woods. And this morning I woke up itching in new places. Poison ivy is my enemy. It attacks me with a vengeance like nothing I've ever come up against. I should have succumbed the minute I noticed it, and run to the doctor for the steroids prescription. But in a classic example of the definition of insanity, I once again thought "oh, maybe this year it won't be so bad."

So then the other thing, which I don't have time to fully go to town whining about, is the sudden proliferation of dog poop. The day of my son's birthday party I ran around the backyard picking up the the poops of my two dogs, Lucy and Coco, along with the neighbor dog Finnegan (his are the larger piles). I do this with two plastic bags, one covering my hand like a glove. It is disgusting. I have a very sensitive gag reflex and pretty much go into dry heaves when I have to have this kind of close contact with giant masses of feces. So yesterday I came home to find poop in my downstairs play room, not sure which dog to blame. Then this morning I woke up to poop on the oriental rug in the living room.

All of this makes me feel particularly sorry for myself because I have this big magazine article deadline this week and I waited until the last minute, finally got a plan and started writing and then found out from the editor that I need a different approach entirely because there's something too similar already in that issue. That would be doable -- stressful but doable with 5 days to deadline -- IF I didn't have a full-time job and a son.

There's more -- the serious stuff that doesn't lend itself to joking -- that has me spending way more hours under the covers than anyone in my position should. Q and I keep asking (it's been a few years now??), "When's it going to get easier?"

That's the oy. That's why everything comes back to "just breathe." What else can we do?

(Next up, my nice friend Kerri-- www.sixuntilme.com --gave my blog an actual award! So, you are now reading an "award-winning" blog...)