rim job...

several months ago there was a runner in arizona who was caught on film pooping in someone's yard.  according to the news story, a fed up homeowner caught the repeat offender on a hidden camera.  instead of going to the police, the homeowner sent it to the local news station.  sometimes public shaming is in order to get your point across.

over the summer i started running a lot.  i still loathe the actual process of running, you know the one foot in front of the other business, but i have gotten much better at it which makes it tolerable.  to be completely honest it isn't as bad as it used to be.  i don't get as tired, my legs don't hurt as much, my lungs don't feel like they are going to explode anymore, my breathing is way better and my rear doesn't jiggle as much as it used to.  all bonuses in my book. 

i have never had the urge to drop trow and crap in someone's yard, but after my experience yesterday i might choose an outside venue from now on. 

there are two port-a-johns at the trail head where i run.  after my run yesterday, i told my running partner "i'm going to use the potty."  he said, "okay, i'll meet you at the truck."  before we go any further let's chat a bit about these portable toilets.  you are stuck inside a plastic coffin of human excrement.  they smell terrible.  they are never clean.  there is no way to wash your hands.  it's a super small space that lends itself to mistakes.  in a nutshell they are ultra gross!

so i go into the john.  barely touch the handle to lock the door.  lift the lid to expose the heaping pile of crap, paper, liquid and the cloud of fumes that probably could've lifted the lid by itself.  one of the top 5 rules to using a port-a-john is you don't ever sit on a port-a-john seat EVER, you only hover regardless of what kind of business you are adding to the pile. i pulled down my pants as quickly as i could and did my business.

here is where something went terribly wrong.  it wasn't splash back, although that has happened to me.  i didn't even accidentally sit down.  there was toilet paper, which i had grabbed enough to wipe 35 butts just to be on the safe side.  but my luck was about to change.

i reached around to the right.  now, your hand has to pass the seat, graze the rim and dip into the bowl just a bit in order to get around one's hip and behind your bum.  as my hand dipped in i felt something touch me...

have you ever played operation?  wiping your ass in a port-a-john is very similar to playing this popular kids game.  although there are no sound affects, if you accidentally touch the rim you might just get more than you bargained for.

...for some reason my right hand was damp.  not wet like water wet, but cold and damp.  in what felt like slow motion i pulled my hand back into my line of vision.  right there on my hand, the cause of the damp, was crap!  not my crap...someone else's crap! 

now it's gross enough when you accidentally get your own crap on your hand.  you know this has happened at some point in your life.  you don't use enough toilet paper.  you are somewhere with that ridiculous one ply toilet paper and even when you use 12 sheets it still soaks through.  someway, somehow you've done this.  now just imagine you have someone else's crap, a complete stranger's crap, you've never set eyes on this person's crap...on...your...hand!

what happened after can only be described as some sort of attack.  i completely freaked out inside of my plastic coffin of human excrement.  i started dry heaving making this horrible barfing sound intermixed with "oh shit! oh shit! oh shit!"  somehow i got my drawers pulled back up, with my completely useless left hand, all the while holding my right hand as far away from me as i could. 

i washed my hand in a stagnant pond of green.  it was the only water source.  my running partner had a travel size bottle of hand sanitizer, which i dumped way more than i needed in my palm and rubbed vigorously into the affected area.  however, i wasn't satisfied, i put on gloves.  i had to cover my contaminated hand so i wouldn't have to look at it or worse forget and touch myself with it before i had a chance to properly clean it.

time to come full circle with the story from the beginning.  maybe this public pooper has had too many mishaps with conventional toilets and has decided that the only safe way to go number two is out in the open?  lets face it there is absolutely zero risk of getting someone else's crap on your hand when you just squat out in the open.  the public pooper may be onto something, but i don't see myself doing this anytime soon.  instead i will take the riskier approach and take my chances in public facilities.

two ratchets...

two summers ago my kids voluntarily decided to share a room.  the idea was presented on a typical sunny afternoon.  although it involved a lot of rearranging, i thought why not, they aren't going to want to do this forever.  so we set off moving all of my son's stuff into his sister's room and turned his room into a play area, aka junk haven.

for the next six months i tucked my two darling kiddos into their beds.  every night when i left, miss p would shout out, "see you in the morning" and as i walked down the steps i would shout back, "thanks for the warning".   i would sit downstairs on the couch and listen to them whispering back and forth to each other.

under the cover of darkness, sharing the same space, seemed to be the only time they got along.  i could hear them giggling, telling each other things that they didn't want to say in front of me, and sometimes i could hear miss p helping her bro sound out a word in his book.  they were bonding, solidifying a friendship that will last a lifetime.

i fully expected this arrangement to last about six months.  i figured miss p, in the thick of those preteen years, would want her own space back.  that ash would get tired of his sister's sloppy ways and need his organized clean space back.  to my surprise they shared miss p's room for the whole school year, with very little arguments or complaints about each other.  then for some reason, this summer, they decided to switch rooms, piling all their bedding into junk haven.  camping out on the floor like they were camping.

a month into middle school and my miss p, has decided she definitely needs her own space.  in some fashion these two have been preparing for this moment.  miss p has slowly been arranging and rearranging her room to her complete satisfaction before officially moving back into it.  while ash has been clearing out the junk from his room turning into a space he is comfortable with.

last night was the first time in over a year that they slept in separate rooms.  there is a part of me that is super sad that this journey is over.  no longer will i hear them giggling quietly, or sharing stories of their day, or helping each other without arguments.  however, they made the choice to share a room on good terms and ended on good terms.  i'm super proud of my kiddos for being there for realizing when the novelty has worn off and made adjustments before wringing each other's necks.

raising a son...

 

my son is ten. he is a pretty typical boy in most respects he likes; video games, donuts, soccer, altering safe toys into weapons of very little destruction, a strong dislike on being clean, exploring in the woods and streams, wrestling anybody who will participate, scaring me whenever the opportunity arises, tormenting his older sister, drawing, finding anything to do besides his homework, and showing me anything that has to do with pooping or farting.

he is reserved and shy, and like most adult men i know, does not share his feelings freely.  he seems to keep those things locked up tight, but every now and then he breaks down.  when those moments happen he has my undivided attention.  there could be a meteor headed right towards the spot i am sitting, or the zombie apocalypse could be starting (just for the record, i think the whole zombie thing is totally dumb), or the president could be tugging at my shirttail, none of it is as important or pressing as hearing the thoughts going on in my little man's head.

i am always surprised by what he reveals.  i'm not sure that i am completely equipped to be raising a boy.  his little mind works so differently from mine, most of the time i am at a loss. i don't realize the challenges he faces as a young man trying to find his place in this world.  his road of discovery and truth is just starting, but i worry for him.  i don't know how to instill confidence to share his feelings when the world around him tells him, "men don't share their feelings."

i have read countless articles, in every kind of publication imaginable, that single mothers raise weak sons.  due to our societies high divorce rate, more boys are being raised solely by women and we women are instilling girly qualities in our boys.  in my experience, women tend to be much more comfortable sharing their feelings, sometimes we share too much (i recently shared too much and it didn't turn out well), but for the most part you don't really have to guess where you stand with women.  whereas men tend to keep their feelings locked behind an impassable door with only one key, which they keep hidden away. 

i wonder out loud, can't there be a happy medium?  is it really that unrealistic to raise young men to openly share their feelings without taking away from all the macho manliness that men have been taught for countless years?  does asking your son to share his feelings, to do the dishes, to help fold clothes, to do any other traditional woman oriented chores, or simply living with just females really emasculate that young man? 

i do my best as a woman to understand the challenges my son faces, when he chooses to share them with me.  i try to indulge the gross things he is interested in (we just went through the process of curing a crow skull).  i laugh at the ridiculous videos he finds that center around farting or pooping, even if i find very little humor in them at all.  i save the traditional man chores for my young man.  i try not to get too worked up when he digs massive holes in my backyard just for the sake of digging a hole.  i react appropriately at the pranks he pulls on me as long as they aren't dangerous.

the authors, researchers and voices behind "single mother's raise weak men" would probably cringe at the fact that i require my son to give me a kiss everyday, that i hug him in front of his friends, that i encourage him to share his thoughts, not just his cockamamie ideas, but his feelings as often as he wants, and that i tell him i love him every chance i get, but i don't care.  they can be naysayers.  watching my son trying to put on a brave face just to be a "man" makes my heart hurt and frankly i think it's wrong.

deja vu or...

there aren't too many scenarios on this planet that someone else hasn't already or will experience.  it could be as crazy as being held at gunpoint, as funny as falling in a department store or as boring as using your crockpot three days in a row.  chances are someone has done nearly the exact same thing.

to me this is the best thing about sharing our personal experiences, we realize we are not alone in our endeavors.  talking about our set backs can ease the sting, consequently talking about our leaps forward can heighten the elation.  the trick is to be brave and share.  to own our lives in a way that is transparent.

this brings me to a text conversation i was having a bit ago:

sometimes i think i'm going to have to wait until my children are grown to be able to really find, develop and settle in to the relationship i desire, but that seems so far away.  i have to believe it is possible to achieve sooner.

finding a balance to satisfy my personal needs without compromising my duties as a mother is something that i have not been able to figure out.  i honestly don't think i am the only woman who feels this way.  i don't even think this is something single mother's deal with.  i think a large number of mother's struggle with how to find that perfect balance so you don't lose yourself to motherhood.

i've often wondered if fathers have the same struggles.  do they stress over balancing being the breadwinner, (yes, i am generalizing, but the majority of men bring home bigger paychecks than women do, check out the stats), being an engaged daddy, still being the macho guys guy and being an attentive husband?  hmmm?

interestingly this very conversation i was having with a friend, came up on a blog i frequently read.  the post was about the author, a man, who broke up with his girlfriend because his duties as a father required that he put all his attention there.  if you have the time follow the link and go read his post, he is a way better writer than i am and it's from man's perspective.

whoa!  how many times have you read an article, or clicked on someones facebook post, or seen an episode of a show, or hear a story on the radio and said, "hey that could've been me?"  this actually happens to me all the time, it is almost like having a deja vu moment.  when this does happen, i really tune in and compare the similarities and disparities.  sometimes i come away thinking, boy i'm glad my situation didn't end that way!, and other times i think, i should meet that human we would have a ton to talk about!. 

anyway, my point to all of this has nothing to do with finding balance, it is about the fact that we are united in the fact that we share experiences that are similar to others.  the others may be perfect strangers, a family member or a best friend, but our commonality is our experiences. 

love isn't a light switch...

how do you know when to break up with someone?  i know there are many, many different scenarios as to why someone would call it quits, we all have our thresholds, but how we come to that precipice is interesting to me.

i think it is a false presumption to think that we break up with people because we dislike them or stop loving them.  i know too many people, myself included, that decide for one reason or another that they must put some distance between themselves and their partner.  I know from my own personal experiences it isn't because i stopped caring.  i just don't think you can turn off the love switch that easily.

let's go way back to matt.  i broke things off with him, not because i didn't care about him anymore, but because what we were wanting, in terms of our relationship, were on different ends of the spectrum.  our last significant time together we went on a hike to pilchuck.  we talked about our future life together, what we were wanting from each other and possible solutions as to how we could make it happen.  i remember during our descent, he was walking in front of me and i was dissecting the whole conversation when i called his name.  he stopped on the trail, looked back at me with a skeptical smile.  i walked up to him, gave him a huge hug and kiss and said, "i love you." 

i meant it, i did love him, but love isn't everything.  i had realized on this hike that the compromises he was asking me to make were beyond the scope of what i could do.  i wanted to try them because i cared about him deeply, but i knew eventually i would be unhappy and possibly resentful for having made so many sacrifices to make "us" work.  why get started down a path with him, that included the livelihood of four children, just to uproot their lives and ours?  i couldn't bring myself to do it.

that hike was one of the last times we were in each others presence.  we met one other time, at his request, to try to talk it through but i had made up my mind on the mountainside.  the last time we were together ended in tears on both our parts.  although it was a hard decision i felt it was the best for my kids and i.  i have since learned he has married. 

let's jump ahead to something a little more recent.  lately (in the last couple of years), i have found myself in entanglements where i give more than what is being received.  maybe i jump in too quickly, or i have too high of expectations, or i don't even know what else, but whatever the case i feel like i am holding the short end of the stick.  not really the situation i want to be involved in, so i move on.

i move on because i want to be in a situation where both parties are giving and it's satisfying for everyone.  relationships cannot be one sided.  again, i don't decide to move on because i dislike them, maybe their actions, but not them.  it is usually a tough decision because i still really enjoy their company i just need more. i need something that either they are unwilling or can't give (to me).  sigh.

so, how do you know when to call it quits?  for me i think it is when you are having to change who you are to accommodate your partner.  when we do this, we build up resentment because the relationship isn't satisfying our needs we are just pleasing someone else.  the right relationship should nourish, celebrate and embrace each parties wants, needs and goals.

a side note:  i don't think you should jump to the quitting selection.  there are a lot of opportunities to improve a relationship if both parties are willing and open to compromise.

recurring dream...

dreams are something of an enigma to me.  i am not one who generally remembers their dreams, however lately i seem to remember the racy ones.  anyway, i can't remember the last time i had a nice dream, a nightmare, and i've never had a recurring dream.  with that said, i have a high school friend who appears a couple of times a year in unrelated dreams.  he just walks through the picture, i call it a cameo.  when this happens i usually shoot him a message just to say hey. 
 

are you someone who remembers their dreams?  i have another friend who claims that they can control their dreams.  crazy, right?  but this friend swears to it.  all they have to do is think about what they want to dream about before falling asleep and somehow that is what this friend dreams about.  when this friend tells me they had a dream about me, i just reply, "you planned it."  a planned dream kind of loses its impact as opposed to an unplanned dream.

 

the other night as i was reading and getting ready to crash for the night, i got a text.  this human doesn't normally text me at this hour seeing as how this human lives on the east coast and should be sleeping.  the text simply said, "are you busy?"  being this is an unusual thing for this human i replied, "nope. what's up?"  the next line kind of surprised me, "i had a nightmare and just want to run it by you."  now there was a whole slew of texts that transpired with a ton of details that i'm not going to include, but this is what you need to know, for the past several years this human has had the same nightmare about someone close to them.  here is the gist of the nightmare:
 

i get the vision of her being trapped in a burning house and by the time i get to her it's too late and i see her burning alive.

 

what would you do if you kept having this same nightmare?  i had a couple ideas of what i would do.

• dream journal.  write the nightmare down as soon as i woke up, with as many details as possible.  my thinking is that although it may be a recurring dream there might be slight changes that you don't recall 2 hours or even 10 minutes after you wake up.  list everything i did and consumed that day.  much like a food journal, you might find patterns of consumption that trigger the dream.  write down anything strange that happened that day.  there may be no correlation to the events of the day prior to the dream other than something out of the ordinary occurs, that maybe when you look at the history will prove to be extraordinary. 
  
• talk to the subject of the dream.  when i suggested this to my friend the idea was quickly shot down.  however, i think it might be helpful.  i get that conversation would be strange and most likely extremely uncomfortable, but maybe the subject has some insight to either make sense of the dream or stop them.

 

those are really the only ideas i have and i would most likely do both of them, that is if i was intent on understanding and possibly stopping them.  do you have any suggestions?

duped...

why is it, we say we want to hear the truth, but when the truth doesn't quite fit into our expectations we unzip our nice guy costume and unleash the beast from within?  i know that i am guilty of this.  i sometimes pout or get really angry or plead my case until i am blue in the face because my feelings are hurt, but is this really a reasonable reaction?

the other day i was faced with a human who said, "i duped them."  they claim that i falsely led them to believe one thing when my intentions were something different.  obviously i beg to differ, but that is always the case when two people are on opposite sides of an issue.

i think the problem lies in the fact that humans rely on how a situation or an interaction affects them emotionally.  we place stock in factors that are out of our control.  we have expectations of how others should treat us.  we have preconceived ideas of how our lives should go.  when one or all of those things don't happen we feel "duped".

tonight i will be walking into a situation with many unknowns.  seeing as how there are so many unknowns i have no idea what to expect.  i am sure there will be things that i don't agree with, that will hurt my feelings and that will inspire me, but above all else i am hoping for the stripped down truth. 

i have been preparing myself mentally so that i don't unleash the beast.  i am praying that i can be completely vulnerable without a iron wall to protect me.  i am hoping that i can shelve my ego and really hear what is being said, not just hear with my ears but hear with my heart.  i seek the courage to express myself in a manner that isn't accusatory and reflects my sincerity.  i am expecting clarity to a chain of pain so that i (we) can put it behind us.

if all goes well, i (we) will be on our way to mending a relationship that has been dragged through barbed wire lined trenches.  a relationship that has meant so much to me.  even if it doesn't go as well i hope, the truth, my truth and their truth, will be on the table and the unknowns will be gone.