On being barely in my 20s anymore

When I was 20, I worked a full-time job, a part-time one, took three classes a semester and volunteered at Planned Parenthood, dispensing advice and the pill. I had a drinking habit, a small circle of everyday friends, a larger circle of every weekend friends, some friends (who came with benefits) and six-packs.

In hind-sight, I owned the fucking universe.

And the jobs would promote me, and I’d get A minuses, and a discount on my depo-provera. And I didn’t have to deal with the focus issues that I now have because I didn’t have a nearly-three-year-old-fog-horn in my ear, I drank lots of coffee and still dabbled in the nose candy (read: anything that makes you speedier makes a person with ADD more focused), and I didn’t have a week’s worth of bleeding, painful hell to deal with every three to four weeks.

Yes, I’m blaming my period.

Since, I’ve had that decibel-emitter, I’ve obviously gone off the birth control and I’ve quit coffee, wheat, dairy, and pretty much all other things that make life fun (ie. drugs) when you’re 20 years old.

I grew up.

And I got dumber. Or so it seems.

Deadlines get forgotten without notes. I need notes to remind me to check my notes. I can’t work on a long-winded task while she’s up – yes, I just admitted that sometimes I put on a movie (fuckit. or two, or three) when I have a deadline and no childcare, to work. Also? I have absofuckinglutely no patience for interruptions when I’m working. Whether you’re 6′2″ or 35″, you’re getting the death glare, the huff and the adult version of annoyed whining.

It kind of sounds like her annoyed whining. Yes, she is mine, why do you ask? Nature vs nurture people.

Anyway…

The point is, I cannot multi-task any longer. I used to pwn juggling 40 thousand things and now, I have to double check if she’s wearing underwear before we leave the apartment and maybe if I am, too. I put her in the bath, walk ten feet away to do dishes from a vantage point that I can see her, and I forget that she’s in the tub. I have to set a timer to tell me when dinner’s done, people. When I’m making pancakes.

Right now, I have a lot on my plate. Besides pancakes.

I’m designing five websites. I’m getting products to review. I’m amalgamating my three side blogs into this one. I’m writing on a bunch of sites and have plans for ebooks, too. Two clients need three and a half years of bookkeeping done between them, and I should probably get around to mine from last year, too – so I can do my taxes, three months late.

Oh, and did I mention that I have no childcare this month? Yeah, she’s on holidays, our care giver.

So me? I’m out of here. I’m off, galavanting. For at least two weeks.

On artistry

So, for about six months now, I’ve been playing into Isobel’s emerging personality. This is one of many, but what makes it different is that it’s into vandalizing. This kid stops at every single tag on every single telephone pole, bus stop, garbage can, wall and electrical box. She tries to figure it out, she traces the lines, she asks what it says. She knows that people are marking what they perceive to be their territory. She wants in on it.

She also, some evenings, has a hard time unwinding at bed time. On those nights, when I’m not frantic to dump her into bed with a quick kiss on the forehead and an I love you while backing out of the room, I cater to this by allowing her to do something that relaxes her – preening over me.

When I’m especially tired, or in need of some physical contact (yes, it does so happen) or I’m sick, like tonight, it’s all kinds of awesome that I’ve taught her some basic massage, and that she likes to comb my hair and to draw pictures on my back with her fingers.

My life is so hard, right?

Usually, she nails me in the head with the comb a few times, the drawings are merely scribbles with an unleaded finger that may feel more like poking and stabbing, and the massage is never longer than three seconds as she chants sauge sauge sauge, but still, I lie there, and she goes to town, and all the while both of our breaths are getting longer and further apart from the last.

It’s zen-ish, really.

Mr Lady gave me the great idea to put something in her hand that would make a mark when she drew. In her post, she talked about using pens. I’m not that brave, but I do have an abundance of eyeliner pencils kicking around – because you know I wear so much makeup, right? – so I figured, might as well. Maybe she’d be more focused for longer, and I could just lie there and do nothing.

I’m all for lying there and doing nothing. Sometimes.

Half an hour later, I was combed, relaxed and very aware that she kinda rocks free-hand straight lines, for a kid who usually just scribbles in circles.

What I want to know is, how the fuck am I supposed to get this shit off of my back?