dilemma

I don't know how to even go about explaining what happened today. I picked my kids up early and took them to the place we usually go to so they can play for an hour or so before dinner. One of the parents I know, it's not like we're tight (I'm not really tight with anyone) but we talk when we're up there, wound up backing into my car. I saw the whole thing from a distance of about 50 yards. The parent got out of there car, looked at my car and then got back in their car and drove off. Now it's not like my car sustained major damage, hardly, the paint got scraped where my bumper was tapped. It wouldn't be a big deal if this parent had bothered to walk over and say something to me. But they didn't. I don't know why I didn't get up, maybe I assumed they would come over to me? I honestly can't say. But it makes me feel so crappy. And I don't even know what to say to this person next time I see them. Thanks for the hit and run on my car? I avoid conflict like the plague, so I'm obviously not going to say that, but what would be a way to politely get the point across that it totally wasn't cool to back into my car and then drive off hoping that I didn't see what I did?

study break

Damn, where has May gone and how did it get to be the twenty-second all of a sudden? So I'm doing my usual panic/procrastination dance. Have a test tomorrow morning and I really need to study but then I decide I need to recycle my glass and plastic even more, and it's off to construction junction. Or I simply must stop at Anthropologie NOW and buy a scented candle (oakmoss, it's yummy) to get rid of the spunky smell in my house (a fetid attar of stinkbug, cat, and rotting bananas). And can someone please explain to me just who is buying the handsoap at Anthropologie that's selling for twenty-fucking-two dollars?! So I ponder that insanity for a while and the unfairness that all I can afford is a scented candle, even their sale stuff is pricey. But right now I have a home and health insurance, I'm more fortunate than many in this country, in that I can afford an overpriced candle. Then when I get home and sit down with all my powerpoints, well, of course, that's when I notice how filthy the house is and start cleaning like a madwoman trying to atone for the vacuum neglect this house endures during the week. And just to go off on a side note I really need a new vacuum, like the perfect vacuum (I'm on a quest for the perfect vacuum, pillow, pair of jeans to make my thighs look slender, oh and man). Speaking of which, man have I had quite a few responses from match. It gives me faith that there are other intelligent, kind, educated people in Pittsburgh and they get bonus points for good spelling (you can't imagine how many people on match have trouble even constructing a sentence). Who knows how it will pan out, fingers crossed I can get a couple free meals at Umi if nothing else. I know what I want but if it doesn't happen on match, well at least I met some nice people. And I have to give my Mom (who is also on match) a special thank you because I can't just outright reject people I'm not interested in by ignoring their emails and I figured she would have a kind diplomatic way of saying 'I'm not interested' and she did. Plus we had a giggle about some of the stuff we've seen on match, she has a 36 year old who keeps writing to her that she's had to block. I was like 'imagine if we wind up having the same guy hitting on both of us?' I go out to dinner with my mom and the kids every week and we have some good laughs, in between my having to take Oona to the bathroom. The girl has a thing for public restrooms, it really pushes the limits of the latent germphobe in me.

Okay, now to find something to eat, I absolutely have to fold the laundry and then back to studying. Really and truly this time. Wish me luck.

biting the bullet

Much like someone who holds their nose when taking a vile medicine I'm deciding to dip my foot back into online dating with match. My mom was the real motivator. She keeps emailing me profiles of men with graduate degrees and nice smiles that she notices on match. These men get bonus points, meaning my mom comments even more about them, if they are superb spellers (they've got spellcheck on match now so it shouldn't be that difficult). My mom means well and she knows I'd like to share my life with someone so she keeps trying to nudge me back into online dating, even offering to pay for my subscription, if money is what's holding me back. It's not the money that's kept me out of the dating pool. The whole internet dating scene is pretty much anathema to me but I'm looking at it as a necessary evil towards meeting someone, since I'm not getting any younger and I'm pretty much sick to death of spending all my free time alone. In some ways it's easier than meeting someone in person because I have no clue when someone is interested in me, I need the romantic equivalent of an anvil dropped on my head to get the hint. So in virtual dating I can get winks or emails and that's a hint even I'm not obtuse enough to be puzzled over. It's also much easier for me to flirt through writing than in person. But not on the phone, and unfortunately, some guys like to preemptively screen potential face to face dates with a phone call and if that happens I'll quickly fall out of the potentially date worthy pool. Phone calls when I don't really know someone make me feel as awkward and uninspired by just what to say as I was when I was middle school and the silences on the phone with boys I was 'going out' with would make me blush and stammer to find something (anything!) to fill that gap of nothingness between our ears. But another really tough thing with online dating is the need to sell myself in writing and, you know, if your skill is to pick yourself apart that isn't the easiest thing to do. So what do I write? How do I make myself date worthy? Well I can always hold off on that until I get a decent profile picture to put up, and with the way my hair is looking lately it might be months until I can put a decent profile up.

think up

My forties have not been a decade that's welcomed me with open arms. I've gone through a separation, lost my father and grandmother, am reinventing myself as a nurse, which is no easy task in your twenties, let alone at twice that age. The past couple of years have been a bit of a suckfest for the most part. Financial struggles? check. Uncertain future? check. Middle aged and without health in 2012 if I don't find a job in the two months after I graduate? check. It is enough to keep me up at night and has sucked the fat right out of my face (but not my thighs, it's so not right). But there are a couple of things that continue to go right for me. In spite of me really. Owen and Oona. As bad as things get in every fucking arena of my life, my children are the bright spots in my life. The other day Owen heard me talking to his Dad on the phone about Oona's behavior at school. She is very bright and, I suspect, very bored, and winds up talking constantly in class. The teacher can't control her and I think it's gotten to a point where the teacher has sort of tossed up her hands and Oona controls the class. We get daily behavior chart updates and there are days where the teacher makes sad faces in the row 'I will listen quietly when the teacher is talking' that drawn so violently I'm surprised it doesn't go through the paper. What can I do? I've met with the teacher. I've suggested using Oona as a helper, which I think Oona would love, she plays teacher all the time, and with 25 other students in the class it might be in Mrs. M's best interests. I've said to send her to the principal's office when she acts out (if she isn't going to positively reinforce her than send her to a place she's terrified to be sent to) but the teacher does none of this. Just puts her on sad face and I get the daily update clearly showing how taxed the teacher is by Oona's loquacious nature. So after I got off the phone Owen looks at me and it's like I can see the lightbulb over his head. He says, 'I've got an idea for how to help Oona. Why don't we send her to the talk doc.' The talk doc being a absolutely wonderful children's therapist who helped out Owen when he was having a tough time this fall with all the changes that have occurred in his life over the past year or so. It just made me want to cry it seemed so sweet of him. Just like the fact that ever since I've been able to ask Owen what his favorite color is it's always been the same answer, 'all of them' because he doesn't want any of the colors to feel left out. I kvell over that sweet little heart of his. Or Oona coming over to hug me and pat my head, she can be the most maternal five year old, when I'm lying on the couch and can barely talk my head is hurting so badly. I love that my children are such kind loving souls. I just would like to find an adult version that I could wake up next to. It's not something I need but for fuck's sake it certainly makes life much more enjoyable.