The truth is, there were some busy days, or whatever-- i'm not trying to give you some kind of weak excuse. And then Thanksgiving happened, of course, and I had a sweet Thanksgiving post in the works but of course nobody here let me have a half a minute to work on it. And now it's come and gone and i guess i'll just have to save it for next Thanksgiving. Or just publish it later in a few days and take out the thankful bits, which is probably what I'll end up doing. Man, is there anything better than blogging about blogging?? I really don't know.
And here I am, at the onset of what is sure to be a pretty crazy week, and today happened. And I thought, before I let any more time pass, I'd better just seize this day, and talk about it. Come what may. Because is there anything more second-best than reading someone blather on about what they did that day? So, let's go.
The day begins at 5:00am. Many days in my weeks, I have nights where I'm pretty sure I wake up at the end of every single REM cycle. Recently, I learned that a REM cycle lasts about 45 minutes. I can't account for ALL the minutes of last night, but I'm pretty sure I saw some minute in every single hour. It isn't usually until about 3:00 that i get any proper sleep but it's usually accompanied by some pretty whack dreams. Either they're just straight up horrible, or i have the same dream. This is the third time i've had it-- I dream I keep checking my clock (which is what i do 900 times in the night in real life) and then I do it only to see that i've overslept and missed my seminary class. Then something wacky happens, like I try to text the students only to have my fingers be completely unable to hit the right keys which-- i can tell you-- turns into a nightmare real fast. This, too, is too much a part of my reality. But anyway, in one dream past, one student didn't get my message in time not to come and he ended up texting me pictures of random things he was doing while wandering aimlessly on the pre-dawn streets of Brooklyn, like the sketchy guy at the corner bodega, or some fruit because that was the only store open, and other super sad things. The dream last night consisted of me, upon waking to find i'd overslept by 2 hours, running to a friend and past-seminary teacher's house to get her advice [on what to do if you oversleep?] and then I decided to go to the church anyway, where we meet, and found the class sitting on the grass, being taught by some kind of rugged, super outdoorsy bearded mountainman type, teaching them survival skills, and all the kids were super engaged and excited and I was all jealous and thought, note to self: incorporate more survival skills into lessons.
Only to be woken up by Faithfully, when I laughed a silent laugh, shook my head on my pillow, and commenced the day.
This post is already ridiculously long, but I must press on. There's so much more to tell.
After class, I hustled home, found a miracle spot facing the orange glowy dawn of the day, praised the heavens above, and got Julian ready for school. This week I am helping out at preschool so I changed, grabbed our stuff, and we all left for the bus. We were early, so we sang some Christmas carols while we waited. Julian's new favorite is Deck the Halls, and my new favorite thing is when he sings, "don we now our gays a-carol..." Oh man, does not cease to make me laugh. We had a delightful time in school and I enjoyed getting to know the kids and learning about nutrition and the food groups. And guess what I did? GUESS. I... made.. BUTTER. With my hands! We put cream in a ziplock and shook it until it turned to butter! I know, say whaaaat?? It's true, people. You can do it. And then we flipping ate it on crackers. I've got to stop with the italics. It's like a disease. We ate our own butter! It felt so amazing. I mean, I knew how butter was made, but never in my life did I ever think that I could hand-churn it. I felt like Tom Hanks on his island when he makes his big bonfire and self-congratulates. I... have made butter.
After school we walked to the bus stop and waited for approximately one millennium for our bus. We had been riding for a while when a woman got on and sat across the aisle from us. As she sat I saw her metro card flutter to the ground. Thinking it'd slipped out of her possession I pointed it out to her when she said to me in a loud, quirky, Brooklyn accented-voice, "Oh, i know. That was on purpose."
Awkward.
Because I had to make a decision in that moment not to proceed to look down on her. Julian is convinced that if you litter you go to jail, and I'm just fine with that. Because you might. (Because you should.) Anyway, she then said, "what do you think I should do with it? Should i keep it?" And the woman behind her gave her a suggestion I couldn't hear. Though trying to disengage at this point (I had done my part), I may have mumbled something about possibly picking it up just to keep the place clean but I'm certain no one but me heard it. She then engaged in conversation with me that made me regret trying to be a nice person. It went a little something like this:
JEN: Oh.. no, do whatever. I thought you'd dropped it accidentally.
Crazy Girl: Oh. Is that your son? I have a son too.
JEN: Ah..
Crazy Girl: How old is your son?
JEN: He's 4 (escape, escape, escape this conversation...)
CG: Oh my son is 3.
JEN: polite smile and nod. Turns to Julian to answer his question about something.
CG: What's your son's name? (super loud)
CG: What's your son's name?
CG: I said, what's your son's name?
I think at this point I turned back from talking to him and digging in his backpack to find something and she says, "What's your son's name? I asked you three times."
JEN, staring hard at CG: I was talking to my son.
CG: Ok. I didn't mean to bother. So what's your son's name?
Are you kiddin' me? Must I tell everyone on the bus my son's name? (I didn't say that)
I finally relented: It's Julian.
CG: What? Julia??
Yeah, it's Julia.
JEN: JuliaN...
CG: My son's name is ______. (I forget)
JEN: Ah..
CG: You're not from here, not from New York, are you.
JEN: I'm not from New York, no.
CG: Yeah, you're like, from the Midwest.
JEN: No.
CG: Well, you know, someplace else.
CG: You look like Anne Hathaway, did anyone ever tell you that?
JEN: err...
Another lady two rows up: Yes, I see it too!
JEN: Must be the hair, right...
...whilst frantically pushing the "stop bus" button, or whatever it is. GAAH.
So that was that. Upon our arrival, Julian and I shared a lunch, then he played quietly while I worked which was rather dreamy of him, and then we set off for Target to look for a few Christmas supplies.
While in the midst of the Target Christmas Section, as if it couldn't possibly get more Christmassy, I read an email from a friend suggesting a book club using a book I'd been recommended to read by a stranger on Goodreads and told this friend about it but hadn't read it myself yet. An excerpt from her email:
I just finished Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory", and am so in love. If you're a sucker for quirky Breakfast at Tiffany-esque characters and the richest winter imagery--no no not landscapes, I mean roaring fires in a country kitchen, hand gathered pecans, an epic fruitcake bake-in that lasts a solid week and dogs drinking hot coffee with a touch of whiskey, y'know the way she likes it--then I have found you a treat. I know I'm not doing this thing justice but suffice it to say that if you are like me and thought that you could no longer read a decent piece of literature because your brain's entertainment threshold is bloated to an impossibly high degree thanks to Revenge and Scandal and other netflix jewels, think again! I was fully enchanted by this book and all of its lovely 29 pages. There are two other short stories in the book, also seasonal, but this one is the more famouser one.
And Julian and I had a glorious time running around, making dinner, eating it, having a rootbeer float, reading his Christmas advent story, and that has been my day, save a few details that I, believe it or not, left out. It's pretty good, right? I should mention that I do have a Christmas fire (from youtube) on TV almost 24 hours a day, in addition to ye olde Christmas music a la Sufjan Steven's holiday pandora station. One highlight being O Come, O Come Emanuel from Six Pence None the Richer.
And that's about all I have time for because it's 8:00 and I have to start getting ready for bed. Happy blogging to you and yours and let the holiday posts begin! I love seasonal blogging, don't you? Is there anything better than that, other than the things aforementioned?
*publish*
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