Today, as I sat in the waiting room waiting for my girl’s class to finish, there was a problem. A disturbance. In the force, if you will. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.  They were totally in my head though…

But still, they needed silencing.

You see, someone stuck 3 stickers to the otherwise perfect, unadorned, totally clean half-wall.  Stickers. On the wall.

Now I don’t know about you, but there are some places I can’t stand to see stickers. Mirrors, windows, furniture, and of course walls all fit neatly on that list.

But these walls are not mine. I’m a guest here. A guest, sitting and patiently waiting for my kids class to finish…  Her 90 minutes class. And there were those stickers. 3 of them. 3 stickers from Trader Joe’s… You know the ones, they give them to your kid while you stand in the checkout line. 3 perfectly round colorful stickers some cashier at Trader Joe’s gave to some kid.  A kid who likely has a sibling going to class here.  Some kid that had to sit and wait for its older sibling for what must have seemed like hours upon hours. Potentially some kid whose parent was sitting right there not paying attention as the child stuck those 3 perfectly round stickers to the clean, unadorned, pale green half-wall.

I fucking hate that parent.

It took precisely 22 minutes for all my irritation and irrationality to come to head before I took two steps (one forward and one to the side) and removed those 3 perfectly round stickers, strode across the room, and threw them in the trash.

Somehow I’m sure this makes me the crazy one.

This isn’t about the socially awkward slightly clueless guys that can’t really figure out how to approach a woman.  Not guys that stumble over their words.  It isn’t the shy guys.  It isn’t even about the overly confident cocky assholes who think they’re god’s gifts to women.  This is for the creeps.  A bit of advice from me to you?  Don’t be creepy.

Don’t talk to me in parking lots.  Don’t catcall as I walk down the street.  Don’t come up to me in a crowded place and try to take my hand to get my attention.  Actually don’t touch me at all. Anywhere.  And don’t follow me down the street to talk to me.

All of this is triply true if I have my kid with me.  You may have a bit of a MILF fetish or something, but I really don’t care.  All of that behavior is out of line.

As I was walking with my kid today a man came up behind us.  He’d been following at a somewhat respectful distance but I was still aware of him.  Then he sped up.  When he was about 4 feet away he tried to engage me in conversation.

“Hi!  How are you doing?”

We walked on.

He followed.

“Hey, do you need some help?”

“No.”

I shifted a bag I was carrying, put my hand on my kid’s back protectively and we walked to catch up with a large group of people crossing the street ahead of us.

“Hey, is that your kid?”

“Yes.  Goodbye.”

Walking and putting some distance.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

Still walking

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

And he stopped following, but stood there watching us walk away.  I breathed a sigh of relief but continued on with that large group of people longer than I really wanted to, making sure we weren’t followed.  I kept looking over my shoulder the entire way.

My mind was racing.  Thinking through each question.

Did I need help? I guess I was carrying a bag, he could have thought he was being chivalrous.  He was dressed in work clothes, he could have been a day laborer looking for work.  Still, I didn’t like it.

Is that my kid? Fuck you.  You’re a stranger.  What if it wasn’t my kid?  If I had a litter of kids with me and a stranger giving me the creeps asked me if they were mine I’d probably get my mama bear hackles up and say yes.

Do I have a boyfriend? Guess what creepy dude?  Regardless of my relationship status there is no way I’m going to tell a creepy dude following me I’m not seeing someone.  I’m always going to say I’ve got someone in my life. Someone that likes to whack creepy dudes across the face with a giant stick.  For being creepy.

Perhaps I should have stopped talking sooner but talking seemed to keep him at bay and give me the means to maneuver my kid and I into a safer situation.  As I write this, I’m still a little shaken.  If it had just been me I would have recovered sooner.  Sadly I know this because it’s not the first time some creepy guy has followed me down the street.  Or around a coffee shop.  Or through a store.

The only good I can pull from this unfortunate experience is to use it as a teaching tool.  All kids should be taught how to be safe in situations like this.  It’s a scary reminder that recalls lessons from my childhood.  Don’t take candy from strangers.  Walk on well lit streets.  Don’t talk to strangers (yeah… I know. my bad). Just say no (that’s to drugs, but it comes to mind).  Stop, drop, and roll (if you’re on fire… not when a creepy guy is following you).  It’s a delicate balance between scaring kids unnecessarily and making sure they understand that not everyone in this world has the best intentions.

Regardless of lessons learned, I just can’t make sense of “creepy” behavior.  I can’t imagine that it would ever work to gain someone’s favor or affection.  All it does is frighten, freak out or piss off the object of interest.

So creepy guys?  Knock it the fuck off.

I bought a mop.  I needed a mop.  I went to the store for a mop and I bought one.  And some hair dye, it was on the list too.  A mop and hair dye because a girl has to have her priorities.

I’ve been hiding in a little box for over a year, tucked away from the outside world focusing on doing very few things, but doing them well.  Getting my head together.  Deciding what to do.  Figuring shit out.

Do you know what I learned during all that quiet box dwelling figuring time?  I mean aside from that I needed a mop and some hair dye (and peanut butter, duh).  That I need to climb out of my quiet little hidey-hole and get with the program.  I need to do some doing while I’m figuring out what to do.  Big life changes, even when you are the one who instigated them, touch your entire life.

No shit, Sherlock.  I know.

So what do I do?  What am I doing?  What the hell is going on with me?  How am I going to pull this shit off?  When is it all getting underway?  Why am I asking these questions so loudly?

…did you read those loudly?  because they are so loud in my head.  echoing…

Because I’m trying to figure out who I want to be when I grow up.  I’m looking for work after 10 years of being a stay at home parent and I don’t know what it is that I do.  I know what I used to do.  I know who I was then.

10 years ago.  Then it was black and white. But then it was just me.

I’d like to make it as simple as that list I made for the store yesterday.

mop
hair dye
peanut butter
cottage cheese
bagels
tomato juice

To be able to walk out into the world knowing what I need and how to get it.  It isn’t.  It won’t be.  I’m doing it anyway.

Any advice?

Can something be a pet peeve if you’ve only experienced it once?  I ask because something happened over the weekend that made me bat shit bonkers annoyed and I never ever ever want to see it again… but the times being what they are I’m quite sure it’s going to happen at some point.  You see this is about shoes.  Yes.  That’s right.  Shoes. Kind of.

Now I love me some shoes.  I do, I most certainly do.  Even now I’m contemplating what shoes I’d like to wear tomorrow.  It’s been a while since I’ve been able to go out and indulge my love of shoe shopping but that doesn’t mean it isn’t very real to me.  All that being said, I’m not much of a sneaker girl myself.  But I understand that they are a necessity for many and they have their place.  I’ll wear them if I’m exercising.  Most other activities I firmly believe there is a boot for, but exercising is mostly a bootless activity.  I accept that.

Exercise is not at all the activity I am thinking of though.  I got off track a little.  I think it’s fine for people to wear sneakers.  Viva la fitness shoe.  Especially kids.  Awesome great!  Keep those feet healthy and comfy.  And they do great things with sneakers now.  I love it.  Have you seen those knee high Converse?  Be still my heart.  Really!  There seems to be a sneaker for everyone.  I’m a little sad that I can no longer find the awesome sneaks I wore in my teens.  I think they were called Side One or something like that.  They were black leather and rubber with an over-sized tongue that folded over the laces.  Other than those I was a Converse girl all the way.

Over the weekend though I met my sneaker nemesis.  A shoe I never really worried over in the past made it to my list of irritations.  Because it became a rudeness thing.  RUDE.  That’s what this is really about.  I was at the movies in the dark theater enjoying a very funny film when I saw out the corner of my eye a camera flash, or what I assumed was a camera flash.  I did my best to ignore it, irritated.  Then again.  And again and again.

MOTHERFUCKINGDAMNTITSTOPTHATRIGHTNOW!

I looked over my shoulder and saw nothing.  I faced forward.  I watched the movie.  I laughed and then FLASH FLASH.

Ah.  It’s a camera with a red eye reducing flash set on it.  I looked around.  Irritated.  It had stopped again.

I cautiously turned to face forward and then whipped my head back around quickly thinking I might catch the perpetrator.  And that’s when I saw it.  This is also the moment when my sneaker rant starts to make a little sense.  It was a little girl with the fucking flashy light sneakers that were so popular a few years ago.

It’s totally possible that they are still popular with kids now and I’m just unaware.  I may be out of the loop on little kid sneaker trends.

But as I was saying, this little girl was wearing them in the movie theater.  Happily stomping her feet and kicking away making bright flashes of light every few minutes.  I should make it clear that I don’t blame her.  She’s a kid.  But I do wish her parents or whatever adult took her to the movie had thought that one through a little better.

So that is my new crazy pet peeve.  People wearing flashy light shoes in dark theaters and kicking things.  Just don’t do it, okay?  Okay.  Also?  I won’t be calling those things sneakers anymore because I don’t know how you could sneak up on someone in them.

Okay.

After several false starts we’ve got a snow day.  A fucking snow day.  For those of you that live somewhere that actually gets snow let me explain a Portland snow day to you.

You only know it’s a snow day because the school district calls to wake you up to tell you it’s a snow day.  While this should be an occasion to sleep in all snug in our beds before waking well rested and snug to rub the sleep from our eyes, it isn’t.  Instead we must pop out of bed and throw on snow gear RIGHT AWAY so that we don’t miss any of the snow.  Because it will be gone or worthless by 10:30 AM.

No, we don’t really need the snow gear, but we have it so we need to make good use of it.

If you’re lucky you manage a walk, a snow ball fight and a very thin snow angel while you gross someone out by eating fluffy white flakes right off a tiny tree branch.

Happy snow day Portland!  May your socks be warm, your cocoa be hot and your snow be fluffy.

I sat with needle and thread.  And tweezers and scissors.  And an ice cold drink, just in case.  But I sat with needle and thread and mended things that needed mending.  A button here, a ripped seam there.  And the zipper of my favorite bag.

The end stop had come off and when I unzipped it I really unzipped it.  The teeth parting neatly all the way until none of them met.  Fuck.  Damn. Shit. Motherfuckingpieceofshit. I can’t take this.

It was a frustrating day.  I remember that, though I don’t remember what the specific difficulty was.  Some days enough is already enough and then something small is dropped on top like a rotten cherry and the world seems to fall apart around you.  That zipper was the rotten cherry.

I tried halfheartedly to fit the pull back to the two separate lines of teeth but with hands shaking in frustration it didn’t happen.  I cursed some more and set it aside with the end stop and the zipper pull tucked inside for me to tackle another day.

And tucked away it stayed for several months waiting for a day I had the wherewithal to deal with it.  Yesterday was the day of much wherewithal as I tackled a mountain tiny tasks that needed tending to.  But fixing the zipper on my favorite bag gave me, by far, the most satisfaction.  So much so that I felt like celebrating.

As is so often the case, it’s the little things that make or break me.

Shit hits the fan every now and then.  The last year that fan has seen quite a bit of shit and this particular week has certainly not been an exception.  When you’re already struggling to keep your head above water and someone sets a full 10 gallon hat on top of it… you tend to struggle a little more.

So I wanted some clarity.  One thing I could see and decide clearly and easily.  It should help that this is a calm weekend.  A time to revel in a bit of normalcy.  But it leaves time for my mind to wander even as my hands perform the mundane tasks of the day.  Load the dishwasher.  Fold the laundry.  Sweep the floor.

I needed a focus.

I remembered a day a few months ago where I inadvertently photographed only orange things.  At least it began unconsciously.  By the end of the day I was looking for orange things to capture.  It made me laugh.  It calmed me down.  Not the color, but the knowledge that I had a theme.  I decided to give that form of concentration another chance.

So I asked the twitters what color I should photograph and post today and the answer is red.  I’m hoping this will not only give my mind a linchpin but since red was just one of 5 suggestions it will give me something to concentrate on here as well.

Focus.  Concentration.  A focal point.  I need that.

There are days as I sit and watch the world go by and listen to those around me that I wonder if I’m in the waiting room for HBO shows.

One mom talks about her divorce and her ex’s divorces.  Messy and messier still.

Another hands out homemade cookies and talks about the planned community they wish to move to.  It’s its own city.  Within a city.  I wonder if she’ll start selling drugs.

The one that always comes late sits in the corner laughing forcefully talking about beer and remote controls and I can tell that the energy behind her laughter isn’t joy but I can’t quite find its source.

The woman next to me makes and receives text after text and pushes back her perfectly maintained thick black locks while reading about martial arts and running outside to take calls in a hushed whisper.

Alone surrounded by empty chairs sits the woman on her phone. Her younger son on her lap as she wrangles playground parents from her older child’s school.

And the grandmother who can sew anything. Like… anything…  It conjures images of a seamstress in horror movies and things that have been sewn together when they, in fact, should not have.

Snippets of the dark side of their personalities come through and I can picture freeze frames of them at home. In the car. Digging a hole in the middle of the night.  Smiling as they dress down a community of incompetents.

And I wonder for a moment about their real stories.  The ones I don’t know and never will.  That no one will. Unless, of course, they get caught.

It began as a conversation with my daughter. Discussing eyes.  Then eyelashes.  Mascara.  We ended up at fake eyelashes.

The fake eyelash is something that many women have a chance to get to know throughout their lives.  Some of us loathe them.  Some of us love them.  Some of us manage to avoid them.  My girl has set herself on a path where a pair of fake eyelashes or two may someday come into play.  Whether it’s lucky or not, her mother has had an opportunity or 20 to wander a day sporting those long lashes.

So as she asked I reached into the silver train case that over the years has become home to my various cosmetic accouterments.  She waited patiently as I pulled out the false lashes on their special holder, my lash curler and then a tube of lengthening mascara that I rarely use and explained to her the lash “longification” processes.

I expected them to be viewed as implements of torture but they were received with curiosity tinted by trepidation.  At her request I applied one and batted my mismatched lashes at her.  Through a peal of giggles, my own, I heard her loud protest that it was horrible and reached to pull off the lashes.  Before I could strip them off she stayed my hand and asked instead that I put lashes on the other eye as well.  And so I did and as I did I began the the talk that I heard so often as a child and that I hope mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, caregivers, teachers, coaches and female role models all the way around give to kids.  No.  Not just them.  Fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers and male role models too.  That people are beautiful for who they are.  Special by their very nature and  beauty is in the eye of the be-holder.  But that yes it is fun to get dressed up and sparkle from time to time.  And with that and a few tickling swipes of my luxurious lashes they were unceremoniously removed and placed back into their case for a far off time when I may need them and we were left to think.

And what began as silly talk about long lashes became a few simple words on the symmetry (or lack there of) of the human face. It expanded to thoughts on the human form.

Later, alone with my thoughts I ruminated on the lack of balance inherent in human nature.  Not just in our thoughts and desires but in the world today.   And to the lip service given to balance – to symmetry – to equality – when what we really want is just to be happy.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not.  It could come as a total shock to you, but it’s Tuesday.

Yep.  Tuesday.  The second day of the week (if you start the week counting on Monday.  Which is how I do it.  Monday is the beginning of the WEEK.  Sunday is the WEEKEND).  But for some of us lucky individuals last weekend was a 3 day weekend.  So Really Tuesday is the beginning of the week because Monday was the weekend.  Which meant a long weekend.  And now a short week.

You see Tuesday is usually our calmest day here at the house of Kaos.  It’s mellow.  Monday is crazy get back in the groove go go go day.  Now today is crazy go go go day but with extra busy sprinkles on top and tomorrow?  Tomorrow is already Wednesday.  That’s mid week.  The week is nearly halfway over.

I feel like I’m running around in shorts mid winter losing my mind not knowing which day of the week it is or which way is up.  Also I’m cooking brussel sprouts for dinner and I was raised to believe those are evil and gross but now I think they’re yummy.

So a short week pretty much means the sky is falling.