Don't you love a good letter?

It's time to blog. It's been a while, but its not been because I've been preoccupied being a damn-cool-grandmother-that-can-walk-and-sing-and-take-a-million-pictures-that-take-a-hundred-hours-to-download-and-I-know-my-boundaries-even-though-I-don't-get-to-set-them-and-I-know-how-to-clean-explosions-in-bouncy-chairs. Nor is it because "my fingers are broken." (JOE)

I've been writing - in fact I have a great blog written - but I've been contemplating publishing it. It's a deep one. It's about balance and choices and self awareness, blah, blah, blah. I've written it, edited it and censored and un-censored the heck out of it, but haven't published it because for me, once something is published I feel like 'its' now in stone and I can't change 'it' and all I can do is face 'it' and, sticking to my current style of writing today, mmm-yeah-hell-no-to-the-never-EVER-f-that-shit-I'm-not-facing-it-yet. Not on Easter.

So, instead, today will be Open Letter Day. Time to liberate.

Dear Easter Morning Facebook Posters,

"He is risen."

Sooo, is he around? Is it a sneak attack? Should I be worried! Should I be smiling at strangers today? "Why hello little fear, you little punk, stop ruining my day. Shall we have a cookie and hash it out?"

Sincerely,
Jane. Doe.

Dear Haley,

It was your moving week/end and I realize I've taught you many, many things - except how to clean a house. My only advice to you is, A) hire a housekeeper, or B) marry one. We'll blame this on your dad.

And, hey, thanks for the bag of old clothes. Kind of neat how we can do this handy-me-down thing! Works for me! Geez, Holy heck, I spent a lot of money on your jeans back in the day! Gotta say I'm really excited over getting the Meks with the red on the pocket. They were my secret favorite. Are they out of style now? If not, they will be once I cut and fray the bottoms to my length!

Now lets talk about the shorts in the bag. Good Lord they're crazy short... they're like frickin underwear! Lucky for you He Is Risen AFTER you gave them away- or I'm pretty sure He'd hand out punishment. And you wore these? It's your fathers fault.

Oh, the jeans with the rhinestones on the pocket are so cool! A little tight, but I'm wearing them around the house to hopefully stretch them out before casual day on Friday. I sit for long periods of time, and eat a lot of chocolate, so looser jeans would be helpful. Oh, I'll have to cut these down, too. By the way, I don't remember buying them. Did you jack them from one of your friends? Can you tell me which one? I ran into Ali at the San Tan Mall last month and she complimented me on my shirt, which I thought was your shirt, but was actually her shirt. Awkward.

And of course I have to mention Marley before I sign off. Have I told you today how much I love her? But I have to ask, when I picked her up last night and she started screaming, was that really her Happy Cry? Or were you making that up?

Love You More,
Mom

Dear Jon,

When I said to you on Friday, "Yay, it's pay day, I ran out of cheezits two days ago" and you responded, "I don't know whether to laugh or cry," well it's okay to laugh. I was making a funny. I never run out if cheezits.

Sincerely,
The girl with the great sense of humor

Dear mom and dad,

I'm sorry our visit today was ruined. I had so much to tell you, so many things to talk about. There are things you don't know, and I know this as fact because dad hasn't yet made an appearance, questioning me in that cop-voice, "what were you thinking?" But next week, when I visit again, I'll make it up to you. I just hope that crazy ant isn't still around, crawling through the grooves of your headstone all pacman-like. So distracting to someone like me... I tried to focus, but come on, it was totally pacman! If he's there next week, I'll flick him. I promise.

Love and miss you both!

Dear new Meth Baker friend,

You are too cool. I like you. I don't know if its because you're my first meth baker friend ever, or because you're the only person here that's nice to me. Do you see the looks I get from the Dealers and pot smokers' girlfriends? I walked past one the other day and I swear when she looked at me I peed a little. She scared me. Well anyway, I like you and I'm sorry I was so cryptic about which apartment I live in. "Yeah, I'm down there, around the corner, on the side, by the other one, across the way." That was cryptic, wasn't it? Don't take it personally. I probably wouldn't give my address to my other meth baker friends either ... if I had other meth baker friends, which I think I'll just stick to the one for right now... It's cool and all, but I don't want to make it a habit.
Bahahaha - I crack myself up!

Sincerely,
Your new neighbor, please don't try and find me

Off the top of my head - nothing

You know the feeling when you have a song in your head that you can’t stop singing? Sometimes it’s an entire song, sometimes it’s only the five words you remember, and possibly they’re words that belong, but not necessarily? Or you have that catch-phrase to a commercial you watched when you were seven that you haven’t seen in decades. “He likes it, hey Mikey!” 

Multiply that by 9 and add a side of ranch. Ranch keeps me coming back for more.

I am suddenly wide awake at 3:30am with an unfinished sentence in my head that I just can't get rid of it because I can’t fill in the unfinished part... the blank at the end... and I'm not falling back asleep because of it.  At least when I'm singing that song, I can sing it, I can sing ACTUAL words that finish (with a final punctuation so it's not left dangling), and eventually pass it off to the first or next person that walks by. I’ve done it; I’ve done it purposely and I’ve done it by accident. Either way, I’ve done it. What a very stupid blank; a ridiculous black hole of a stupid blank. 

“My daughter dispelled the myth that _____________.”

Besides the fact that I DON’T KNOW WHERE THIS SENTENCE CAME FROM, I can’t put a word in this blank. And it’s not that I’m trying for a perfect word, or a crafty word, or even a REAL word. I just can’t put any word… not a single word, not a group of words. Jesus H. Christ. I can’t cheat at it, either. I tried changing myth to belief. I tried pawning the responsibility off on someone else, too, by changing daughter to John, Joe, Jack and Mary. I even tried real people like Lynnette (from work), Brandy (from my apartment’s leasing office), and Laura (tomorrow’s Happy Hour partner). It doesn’t work. Nothing works. I’m really putting a lot of work into this. I’m trying to make myself believe that the sentence doesn’t have to make sense, but that’s so not true. I mean really, come on, it’s me we’re talking about. It absolutely has to make sense and I just want to cry because I have no idea why . This is way too complicated. If I put an actual myth to the sentence, it should make it easier, right, but at 3:30 am, I don’t know any myths (and at 3:30 am, my imagination is sleeping – pssh – so I can’t make one up). If I had my thesaurus, I might have a shot, but I can't find it. There's only two places it can be - in the closet, or not in the closet. Are pot-smokers thieves? I swear if my pot smoking neighbors stole it, I'm gonna be pissed when I'm awake. It's pretty valuable to me. Probably the most valuable thing in the apartment, other than my borrowed day bed. Without my borrowed day bed I'd be sleeping on the floor, and we all know something (or someone) has died a most probable and untimely death on the floor and the desacrated remains (not the word I want to use, but without my thesaurus we're all stuck) resonates several inches above the carpet. *shiver* *making the sign of the cross* *oh, right, not believing in God*

I had great intentions when I went to sleep. Huge intentions. I had my dream laid out. I knew who it was about, and I promise there were no blanks (or myths, or daughters) involved. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t trying to dispel anything either. (Or maybe I was… that would be an awesome dream, and I'm picturing a cape...)

“My daughter dispelled the myth that _____________.”

“…. Sleep is necessary.”
“…. Vocabulary is important.”
“…. Peaches grow on trees.”

OH. Done.  Cool.                                                         

Now, "My thesaurus is _______________.

This post brought to you by 4G

In my twenties, I decided I didn't want to be famous. I wanted to live in a log cabin in the woods, completely removed from society. I wanted to have wolves as pets and not pay taxes. I'd wear sweatpants around the house two weeks at a time (or Calvin Klein courderoys) and spend all my hours watching wildflowers grow along the edge of my wrap-around porch.

I always held out for that cabin; I was sure I'd have it. It's time, however, to put that little dream in the trash.  In my forties, and in a wild, sad, funny, tender, and frightening turn around, I am ambushed by the very mortifying fact that -

I.

Cannot.

Live.

Alone.

My first week back in Arizona wasn't all that bad. In fact, I rather enjoyed being in my own space. I fantasized about all the hours I'd spend writing That Book. I realized my fondness for fried pickles. I choreographed badass routines to Cassie's Me & U and DJ Laz's Move Shake Drop. I found definite entertainment in my mundane reality.

By week two, it just became mundane (with a little schizo paranoia thrown in).

Surviving boredom - and sleeping with the light off - has been challenging. One night, to keep from going stale and yawning myself to death, I downloaded NINETEEN new apps to my iPhone. I now have a flashlight, a boxing timer, at least 5 different photo editing tools, Paula Dean's cooking magazine, some uber-brilliant quotes, the CalorieKing (had to once I got Paula Dean), solitaire, Walgreens, a talking cat, and a gas buddy. As it turns out, last month when I got my new iPhone, I lost my unlimited data plan, so I'll be deleting all my new apps - they. suck. data. I think I'll keep solitaire, though. That game will always be badass.

You would think that I'd have my hands full, after all, I am a 'newly' new grandmother. Just so happens I raised an independent child who wants to do this on her own. I offered bribes. She didn't bite. I offered God's right hand. Then his left. A week into grandmotherhood and I haven't changed a single diaper. I have, however, done her food shopping.

Sitting in an empty apartment is driving me nuts. If you're wondering why it's empty, it's because my yin and yang haven't cooperated enough for me to make a trip back to Vegas to collect my house. I'm betting about now that John and Margaret are considering Craigslisting in order to take back their garages.

"I swear you'll have your garages back soon. Or by Fall. Whichever comes first."

In the meantime, I have a weeks worth of clothes, 3 pair of shoes, a TV, DVD player, and 9 seasons of NCIS. But you want to hear something that really sucks? A weeks worth of clothes makes for a really tiny load of laundry. Laundry which has to be done in the community laundry room, operated by quarters. Imagine that, my first week in the apartment and I noticed it had pot smokers, meth bakers, 42 BMWs and really large dumpsters, but I never noticed it didn't have a washer and dryer in the unit.

Looking on the bright side of things, if I was in that log cabin, I probably wouldn't have 4G, just 9 seasons of NCIS.