One of the secrets to a long marriage....

 PMS

1. Psychotic Mood Shift

2. Puffy Mid-Section

3. People Make me Sick

4. Pimples May Surface

5. Pass My Sweatpants

6. Perpetual Munching Spree

7. Pass My Shotgun

8. Pissy Mood Syndrome

9. Potential Murder Suspect

10. Pack My Shit

Pick one, any one of those. Sometimes you can pick them all. But what you absolutely cannot do (if you are a man that is) is lose track of the calendar and pick one of those at the wrong time. PMS jokes are hilarious, unless of course you are actually PMSing. Then they are legal grounds for well...if the judge is a woman just about anything.

When you are asking a long term couple the secrets to a happy marriage one of the things that rarely gets mentioned but I would bet is up near the top of the list is that the husband knows his wife's cycle and knows when to keep his mouth shut. See here is the thing men (those who haven't already figured it out) need to understand. When a woman is PMSing or MSing as the case maybe be and her emotional cycle is, let's just say a little erratic, she KNOWS it's a little erratic and doesn't need you to point it out. Because as soon as you point it out it goes from being a little to a lot. And you go from being a husband to HIM. As Brent would say..."That's rookie shit."

I have male friends who do not get this concept at all. They think it's just awful that they have to deal with the mood swings each and every month. And to them I say, back away slowly. Because I am so sorry that you have to deal with a few mood swings directed your way. Your partner? What they are dealing with? Well let's see...they have the moment of ovulation, you know when the woman's body releases the egg? Doesn't that sound nice and easy? Releases the egg. What this really entails is an egg EXPLODES out of her. Seriously, the ovaries don't have a nice little opening for the egg to just slide through when it's time, they tear through the ovary to start their journey towards the miracle of life. And yes, you can feel it happen. For some women it's a little twinge that they get in their side, for others it's exactly what you would imagine part of your body exploding would feel like.

And that, my friends, is just the start. Then you have the oh you're not pregnant, fine we will douse you with extra hormones just to double check and then to clear the place out to start again. Which means all of the breast tenderness and swelling of a pregnancy accompanied by the cramping and bleeding of a period. Oh, and I know there are men out there that don't want to talk about this. It's icky. You think it's icky? YOU THINK SO? How about us? And if you think that your middle school years were embarrassing when you had to walk with your books in front of your crotch because Sally Salazar wore that short skirt to class again you try being Sally Salazar when she doesn't have a change of clothes in her locker and she started bleeding unexpectedly. Trust me she spent the day with a jacket wrapped around her waist, if she was lucky enough to have one or a friend who could lend her one, and she went home and thought she was going to literally die of embarrassment....she is sure she heard about a girl in Portales that that had happened to.

And let's just touch on cramping here for a second. Again, it varies, some women have just a mild, "oh that's not good" feeling, some women have nothing at all and some women feel like there is a small rodent trying to gnaw it's way out of her stomach. Oh, and some women don't know from month to month what is going to happen! It's like PMS roulette! Can I plan on going out with my friends or will I only want to lay on the couch watching Bridget Jones and weeping softly? What will it be this month?

And there are supplies involved. And you are too embarrassed to buy them for your girlfriend or wife? She feels like crap and you can't man up and stop at the store on the way home for a box of pads? Oh no...not good at all. Brent's dad was very funny about this one. Never bothered him at all to stop and buy. He grew up with all boys in his family so you would think it would have been the opposite, but the way he looked at it, he was buying pads and Midol and things like that because there was a woman in his house. A woman he was having sex with. So he felt pretty darned good about it all. And for you fathers out there, if you need to buy the stuff for your daughters, know that she didn't want to have to ask you anymore than you wanted to stop and buy the stuff. But just be glad that it means you aren't a grandpa just yet and buy the damn stuff!

And then there are those, like me, who get extra symptoms. I already have insomnia issues and when I am near or on my period I can go from a bad sleeper to a non-sleeper. It adds to the difficulty curve just a touch. And I also get anemic. I've been on iron pills a few times, which make my stomach upset, so I try to make sure I get a good dose of iron in my foods when I need it. But between the no sleep, the low iron, and whatever else I get hit with that cycle it often means there is a day or even two where I do nothing but sit on the couch and read. And for those of you out there playing along at home here is what Brent's reaction to those days is...

"I'm sorry you don't feel well, honey. Can I get you anything? I brought you some chocolate."

And yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have been married for 25 1/2 years. Now you know one of the secrets to a long marriage. And if you need me, I will be on the couch.

A pregnant pause...

I am the same age right now that Brent's mother was when C was born. And when we decided to have him we had to sort of ease in to telling her. And when we did tell her she decided what she wanted called because she absolutely wasn't going for Grandma. And it sort of kills me a little because right now I am the same age Brent's mother was when she became a grandmother.....and I am probably 10 years away from it!!

Yeah, not where you thought that was going is it? Unless you know me. Or have been around me much for the past year. Or have talked to me at all about babies lately.

Over the past few years my younger set of friends (and more than a few of my age as well!) have started having kids. Now this has made some of our mutual friends "clucky" (I love that expression, my UK, Australian and New Zealand friends use it) for kids of their own. But not me. It's left me "Grandclucky" I am so ready for grand-babies. I want one to spoil and send back. Not one to keep.

But I am looking at two more years of college for C, plus getting established at a job and oh yeah, finding someone, falling in love, getting married, living together as a couple for awhile and THEN FINALLY WHEN I AM OLD FOR GOD'S SAKE finally having my grand-babies. C and I were discussing this at the mall on Friday and he said, "So I have this pressure to look forward to." I promised him that no, no pressure, but it wouldn't hurt my feelings at all when he finally had kids. Then he reminded me that if I got too pushy he could always withhold visitation rights to those future grand-kids so I better just watch myself. Can you believe this kid? Keeping my unborn grand-babies from me for no other reason than I might have volunteered to "get rid of" the boyfriend of one of the girls he goes to school with so he could step in. Okay, fine, I didn't bother to ask him if he was interested in the girl, or even what her first name was, but that doesn't mean I was being pushy....

Yesterday at my friend Jenn's baby shower her college friend Tiffer was there with her youngest. Five months of smiling goodness. I let Tiffer have about 5 minutes at the party before I took her child. But I only got to hold her for about 10 before someone else took her from me. And I was very mature and didn't knock her down and steal the baby back when I found out that she has a one year old at home.  Bitch, please...you still HAVE a baby, my baby is almost 20 and threatening me with my unborn grand-children, so give me back that BABY! I mean...no big deal...share the love...

If I can fight Jenn's and Steve's families for time with Gé Gé (working on how this is going to be spelled, it's G.G. Gee Gee? Gi Gi? Ge Ge? They'll let me know...) they might have saved C a few years of seriously, no pressure but are you seeing anyone? If not...well...if you catch me eyeballing your 20 something daughter it's nothing creepy, I just want to see if she would be a good mother to my grandchildren...

I'm kidding.

Totally joking.

Really...

(maybe)

And done....

Well there you have it, the end of June is here and so the Blog a Day in June (that would have been better in May wouldn't it?) is over.

Not too terrible really. There were maybe three blogs that were "OH no! I've got to get something up!" blogs and the rest actually were real and true bloggy blogs.

A few things I learned:

I have discovered that I need to go back and update my past blogs with labels. As I am writing and I want to link to a past blog I have to really think hard about what time of year I wrote it and what I might have titled it. Now I could solve this by using more descriptive titles that match what I am actually writing about, but that wouldn't amuse me as much so that's not going to happen. So I need to get better about using the labels. And also going back to the beginning of my blogs and adding labels to those.

I am still really bad about adding the extra space at the end of the sentence. Years and years of typing with the double space is extremely hard to break. I go back in and take them out when I notice but I don't always notice. And this sort of makes me feel old. Because it used to be a "thing" and now it's just a sign that you learned to type when it was a "thing" and now it's not.

I prefer to write free flow. Even with fiction. That's not something I just learned, I've always known it, but I reinforced it this month. I tried a few times to make an outline for future blogs or fiction pieces and they would stump me. I would get partway down the list and nothing. Any idea that had been in my head was now gone. But if I took the same ideas and just starting writing then they would word vomit out of me. This is a real challenge for me when I am writing longer pieces. Sometimes you just NEED that outline to keep you on track. I am experimenting with a hybrid outline word vomit formula right now. Just putting ideas in as place holders without the formal feel to it. We will see how that works.

I really like feedback on what I write. I know you write because you have to, and I have plenty of stuff that doesn't see the light of day because I just wanted it out of my head for the time being. But it pleases me when I know that people actually read what I've written. Even if the feedback is just, "hey, I read that and you are full of shit" at least I know someone read it!

And...as it's June 30th and the last day of the month I know I am owed one more fiction piece from My Caffeine Fueled Muse so I consider that the reward to the end of my challenge.

What's next, happy campers? What should we do for July?

This one time...at band camp...

I said it in the title so you don't have to later, but you will anyway.

Okay, so this morning at the gym I was watching a story on what to do when your child gets homesick at camp. As they were giving all of the handy dandy tips I was thinking, never happened. C never balked about going to camp or being at camp. He never flinched when getting dropped off at daycare. Not a sigh of discontent the first day of school. Didn't even blink when we left him on his first day of college, though at that one I went straight in to the ugly cry. He just never had that separation anxiety issue. Ever.

I can remember the first time we sent him to daycare. He had been a stay at home kid for three years by that point and this would be the first stretch away from Mom and Dad for any length of time. I was so worried that he would have a hard time. And as Brent and I dropped him off for his first day and we saw other kids his age start to cry as soon as they hit the door and realized their parent was leaving I started to panic just a little bit. What was I going to do when he started bawling? How was I going to possibly go to work knowing that my baby was miserable? Well he was fine. He went off to play with his group and never looked back. Now, when Brent picked him up he was filthy and hadn't eaten lunch so he only lasted at that school for three days. So you would have thought when we found a new school for him and dropped him off the second time he would be a little wary? Nope. Not at all. Off to join his group and didn't look back.

This was after Dad cleaned him up a bit.

Same thing every year for school. Every change in schools. Every change in cities and schools. The kid was just unflappable. I felt simultaneously smug and jealous when I would see the kids that would tear up when Mom and Dad walked out the door. Knowing that my kid was already playing and had no clue if I was there or not. The first time he went away for a long stretch was the week at Outdoor School in the 5th grade. I worried more than he did about how he would handle the time away, because of course, he handled it fine. As we dropped all of the kids off to catch the bus for camp there were parents fussing over kids who were anxious to go and then there were those of us standing in the cloud of dust our kids left behind like a cartoon character as they ran to leave us!

And every summer was the same. Band camp at the coast and then at Western. He never balked about going, couldn't wait to get there and really had no urge for us to stick around. I am sure there were parents there who would have stayed all week if they could have. But we were usually on the road again within a half hour of getting there. Long enough to check him in, move him in and see if he needed money for anything. 

Looking at colleges I kept trying to steer him towards the west coast. It was closer. He pointed out that no matter where he went he was going to be at least a plane ride away so it didn't really matter how long that plane ride was. (He might feel a little differently now that he's done the coast to coast commute a few times) So he wasn't concerned at all about going to school in Vermont. On the other side of the country. WAY far away from his parents. His school handled the hanging on parent issue by taking the kids away from you after you get them moved in, having you stay on the lawn for a few more speeches and then "inviting you to leave." Yes, that's how they put it. You are then invited to leave. So when they called the kids away by dorm  as soon as he left I broke right in to the ugly cry. And he joined his group and....

...was perfectly fine.

I had a handout from the college for things to watch for during freshman year while they were adjusting, the moment to wait for that they all go through where they don't want to be there anymore, they just want to be home. And of course, he never hit that point. It's not to say there weren't rough patches and adjustments for him during his freshman year, being an only child with two rooms to himself at home to being one of three people in a dorm room and one of the other two is a thief, well these are things you learn to deal with. And he did. He moved. And got a good quiet roommate in a dorm closer to class and things went along swimmingly. Last year by the time we got to campus to drop him off (Hurricane Irene sort of mangled our original travel plan) his room was already party central filled with his friends waiting to welcome him back and when I asked if he wanted to grab dinner before I headed back to the hotel it was, "No thanks, you can go." And this year he is going back to school three days before he has to to make sure he gets settled in with plenty of time before class starts. 

So yeah, when it comes to tips on how to handle a homesick kid I have no space to relate. But if you ever want to know how to handle the blow to your ego when you realize that you are not the center of your three year old's universe? That I can help you with....

More about writing...

So it's a mini blog today. I have some household chores I am doing plus I am trying to get a short story to pull together in my head by Saturday so I am focusing most of my bathroom fume enhancing creativity on that today.  But I have a question for you all to ponder....

In a fiction piece, the sort that I seem to do, the relationship, slice of life stuff, could you ever root for a heroine that was an unapologetic adulteress? I have had this woman in my head...this scene...for YEARS. She opens her door one night to find her lover on the other side of it. He's holding his suitcase and he's come to move in with her. His wife has kicked him out and now he thinks he can go live with his mistress and life will be grand. But the thing is, she doesn't want him. She likes being the other woman. Likes being on her own. Likes the dating with no risk of commitment. Doesn't want it. Doesn't need it. But now it's sort of forced upon her and what does she do? In my head, in my outlines, she starts working on getting him back together with his wife in the present and we see scenes from her life on how she got to the point where she was someone's mistress in the first place. And more importantly why she likes it.

AND...it's a comedy.

So what do you think? Could you get past the part where what she is doing in her social life is the thing that most of us married women find to be the unforgivable sin? Could you find her to be charming enough, funny enough, to want to spend a few hundred pages in her life? Or would the concept be such a turnoff that you couldn't even pick it up?

And yes, I know you don't write for your potential readers, you write because the story needs to come out and since this woman and that scene have been in my head for at least 10 years, maybe more considering I think she is wearing shoulder pads, I am pretty sure she will eventually see a fully realized light of day... *deep breath* BUT....could you read it? Would you read it? And more importantly could you see yourself liking her? Because I see her as likable. Just morally ambiguous.

Okay, off to think about Princes who have been turned in to Beavers.....

And a story starts to take shape....

It's always interesting to me where the nugget of a story idea comes from. I like reading about the ideas from famous authors I like. I like it when friends of mine who write share with me where they came up their ideas and I really dig it when I am reading something they wrote and I recognize part of the story. Like a line of dialog or a setting and I know I was with them when the seed started. So today I got a seed for a story idea and I thought I would share with you how it came about and then the very very raw beginning of the story (since that's all I have right now) and see if you like it too (not the story so much since I won't have reworked it and it will be really raw, but the seeing where the idea sparked and then where that led).

This morning as we were going to drop Brent off at work the alarm on his phone sounded reminding him of a 7:00 meeting he had. As it was 6:55 right then and we were at least 15 minutes away from his work he wasn't going to make it on time. So we did the next best thing and dug out the headphones and had him call in to the meeting. As we got him dialed in the car recognized his phone and linked to it through the blue tooth. Which made me think of a time it happened in another car we owned. C and I were coming home from errands or school or something and Brent was in the house on a conference call. When we pulled in to the garage his call switched from his blue tooth headset to the car. So all of a sudden instead of him being on the call we were. I quickly turned off the car thinking that would switch it back and instead hung up on everyone. Oops!

So while I was thinking about that I thought, boy that would be a bad thing if you were on the phone with someone you shouldn't be...and the story started percolating from there....this is what I have so far:

Janine sat on the edge of the bed and repeated to herself, "Put your shoes on, Janine. Put your shoes on, Janine." It had become her routine for the past two days. Going through the motions. "Brush your teeth, Janine. Eat something, Janine." Every step needing a reminder on what normal people did. How she needed to survive. Because Janine was falling apart. And what do you do when the person you rely on to put you back together again is the one who broke you?

Two days ago Janine had come home from work to find the garage door open. She could see that Kyle had been working on something at the tool bench so assumed he had just run back in to the house for a minute leaving the door up. As she pulled in to the garage the blue tooth on her car activated picking up Kyle's call.  Janine cussed silently under her breath. The last time this had happened the call had dropped as soon as she turned off the car leaving Kyle disconnected from his conference call and scrambling to get back in. After the moment of panic that she might accidentally disconnect Kyle's call passed she actually focused in on the words being said.

"I have to go. Janine will be home soon. It was great seeing you today." Janine heard Kyle say

Then a voice she didn't recognize came on the line. A woman's voice.

"It was good to be seen. Very good." and she laughed. That deep throaty I've just gotten laid laugh. "When will I see you again?"

"Soon. Janine has a function on Thursday so we could go grab dinner. Spend some time out together. It will be fun."

Then the woman again,"Or we could stay in. That would be more fun."

It was Kyle's turn to laugh."Yes, yes that would be. Okay, I have to go. I will talk to you soon." and then the last part, the part where Janine thought she might actually be sick. "I love you."

"I love you too, Kyle."

And then the click of the disconnect.

Janine sat in the car for a few more minutes. Trying to process what she had just heard. It couldn't be right. They had a good marriage. Everyone said so. Everyone could see it. They had been together for almost 30 years. Their kids were grown and off living their own lives now. This was their time. They traveled. They went on date nights. They enjoyed each other. They were going to be grandparents soon. And...and...Kyle was in love with a woman who... who wanted to stay in because it would be more fun? Wanted to stay in and have fun with her husband? Who obviously had stayed in with her today. While Janine thought he was at work. While she had been at work.

As the thoughts kept racing in her head Janine took a deep breath and steeled herself to face him. She closed the garage door and walked in to the kitchen. She saw Kyle standing there with his cell phone still in his hand. He jumped a little when she came in.

"Oh, I only heard the door open, not close. You scared me."

Janine opened her mouth to speak but found she had no words. She walked past Kyle, through the living room and down the hallway to their bedroom. The room they had shared since buying the house almost 20 years ago. The room they had made love in last night. LAST NIGHT and today he was off with the laughing woman who wanted to stay in? Janine put a hand on the doorway, she needed something solid to touch. To remind her that this was all real.

She hadn't really thought anything through on her walk but her body seemed to have a plan and she was just following it now. She pulled a suitcase from under the bed and set it out. Kyle came in to the room at that point.

"Janine, what's going on? Are you okay? Are you going someplace?"

Janine turned and looked at him. He was still holding his cell phone. And the look of true concern on his face was the last straw. That he dared look at her like he cared about her and her feelings while still holding the phone. That phone.

"I'm not going anywhere. You are. Pack a bag and get out."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I heard you, Kyle. I HEARD YOU. The car picked up your call as I pulled in. I HEARD YOU. And right now I am doing everything I can to hold my shit together but looking at you holding your phone. Your phone that you just used to tell another woman that you love her is making me lose it. So pack a bag and get the fuck out, Kyle."

"Janine, honey, I don't..."

"Don't, Kyle.  Don't call me honey. Don't say anything to me at all right now. I am going to pour a drink and sit down. You pack a bag and go. Call your friend and let her know lucky her Thursday is coming soon this week and you can go out to dinner or stay in because that would be more fun...."

Right then the realization that Janine had heard too much dawned on Kyle. She could see it in the set of his face. How very very tired he looked suddenly.

"Janine, I...."

"Don't, Kyle, just don't."

Janine hadn't talked to Kyle in the past two days. Every time he called she let the phone go to voice mail. She couldn't stomach the thought of talking to him on the same phone he talked to her on. She hadn't told anyone at work. She knew the response would be shocked and then supportive. But she just couldn't say the words yet. The only person she had told was her mother whose first response when Janine said that Kyle had moved out was, "What did you do?"

What did she do? The only thing she could think of was that she had come home five minutes too early.

"Put your shoes on, Janine. You have to go to work now, Janine."



And that's all I've got right now. Like I said, I will probably rework it quite a bit. But this is the way I usually treat a story nugget. I write up what is in my head RIGHT NOW and tuck it in to a folder to come back to later to polish it and sometimes completely change it all together. Unless it's a short blog piece just for you all. The I write fast and dirty and post before I work it too death. "Post the blog, Denise."

Meh...

I got bored today.

Let me let that sink in for a few of you. I (me, Denise, squirrel girl, shiny objects amaze and amuse me) got bored today.

I rarely get bored and it always comes as a sort of shock to me when it happens. Talking to my mother last week she described me as the most "self-contained" of her children. I have never needed someone else to amuse me or play with me. I can sit patiently waiting for things for a very long time. Now usually, to be fair, I have a book with me. And I have been known to read the owner's manuals in cars when left too long waiting without one. But I've never much needed a lot of activity to find something to keep myself busy. And when I do start to get bored I just move on to something else. So I don't often get bored.

When Brent and I first started dating he told me his parents used to tell him that "only boring people get bored" if he would tell them he was bored. Which I thought was about the worst thing you could say to someone ever! Because everyone gets bored sometimes. Everyone. Even those of us who make up stories inside our heads for fun get bored.

So anyway...today I got bored. C and I were waiting at the dealership while they did a maintenance check on the car. I had figured it would take about 45 minutes and as they were closing in on an hour and half I was done. I didn't sleep well last night so reading my book wasn't working out too well. Stephen Hawking's idea on the theory of EVERYTHING is hard to digest through a foggy brain. I didn't want to play any of the games on my cell phone. C was playing his own game and didn't think me kicking him was all that fun, though it amused me and I realized...I'm bored...

So I started to think about it and decided that I was bored because I was over the time I had allotted in my head for sitting there. I had other errands to run today and a story I had been working on before I left the house and other things I was ready to go do and sitting at the dealership was over! So then I pondered...am I really bored or am I just restless? When made me think of the Bob Seger lyric from Night Moves  "we were just young and restless and bored..." and wondered how often people mistake restlessness for boredom. Are they really bored or are they just ready to move on to something else? And is that the same thing? Is being done with something the same as being bored with it? What would the line be between restless and bored? Would restless mean you just wanted to go do something else for a little bit and bored be that you never wanted to do it again? And how long would you have to be bored before you did something else? Like if you were really and truly bored with everything around you how long could you exist like that before you changed something? And could you ever really be bored with everything? Wouldn't that be crossing the line into depression? Which isn't boredom. It's a whole different thing. You might feel bored, but you were like bored cubed. Not just regular bored. And....

Then the service tech came to get us because the car was finished so I didn't have to be bored anymore. Thank goodness...longest five minutes of my life!