Only December to go to finish the year out!  Hooray!  I seriously hate this year.  2009 has been the suckfest of all my life. Oh, I know there may be worse times to come, but I don’t want to imagine it.  I’m so sick of the holidays already, with all the cheer and the happy and family fun times, YAY!  I want to enjoy it, and sometimes I do, but other times it makes me gag.

I read The Bell Jar today.  Started it last night, really.  I enjoyed it, very much in the same way I enjoyed The Catcher in the Rye, though I think today’s book was more pertinent to me.  No real revelations, though.  I can seriously empathize with mentally ill people, and there are times when I wonder if that just means I’m sick, too.  So many conversations that I had with Lauren the week before he died, and me saying, “Me, too, I totally understand that!” and now I worry that there’s some hidden monster in me waiting to kill me.  Especially on days when I just don’t want to get out of bed, when life just seems a dreaded chore, I worry. What would I do if something overcame me?  Am I wired the same way?

Obviously, mental illness is on my mind, and the holidays, and so many other things.  The parts of The Bell Jar I sympathized the most with, though, were the feminist portions, and the life decisions parts.  Feeling paralyzed that one decision excludes all others is a very familiar conundrum to me.  Right now I’ve got to choose something for survival that might throw me off a track that I was enthusiastic about, that I thought my whole passion was behind.  Was it really?  Was it driven out so easily because it wasn’t my passion, or am I just going through what all the books really say?  Why don’t I believe that the books and the psychology apply to me?  What is the right decision to make for my family?  (What about the right decision for me?  And why do I think to add that when I’m reviewing the blog post 10 minutes after I originally published it?)

Tomorrow it’ll be different, after the kids get up and get out of bed I’ll concentrate on them, and doing the laundry, and all the other steps that need doing.  But now is the time I’m thinking and whirling in my mind and all I catch are shadows of what would have been if I weren’t such a dumbass and could figure it all out.  And I don’t know what to do and I’m sick of not knowing what to do and I’m tired of walking into the other room to discreetly cry a few tears and then pull my hair down to hide my face behind.

So maybe the book did do me some good, and was cathartic, since I’m a wreck right now.  I’m just going to revel in being free and having finished what I started.

As I was making my morning coffee, I realized that I’d forgotten to post at all last night.  Red Chief was puny, and I was distracted with trying to cheer him up.  Both of the boys and I watched Moose and Squirrel in bed together until we fell asleep.  Did you know that Rocky and Bullwinkle was around in 1959?  I didn’t, but when I realized that they were speculating on the existence of moon men, I had Chris wiki it for me real quick.

In the midst of all of that, I just forgot all about the blog.  I was furious at myself when I realized, though.  I railed about how if someone else had asked me to promise to post every day, I’d have done it.  But since it was a promise to myself, I broke it. Didn’t do the novel, no, so I’m going to stick with blogging, and still I don’t even make that. I’ve no idea why I don’t treat myself with the respect I’d treat others, but this is just another example, and typical.  So close to being finished, and I blow it. Even now, looking at the clock, I wanted to just say “screw it” and go on, not blogging for the rest of the month.

I guess I’m pretty burnt out of blogging right now, if I tell the truth.  I’m also struggling with other issues, and wondering where the line between utterly stressed out and grieving and truly depressed lies.  Of course, if I decide I need more help, then I have to decide how to get it, what with the lack of income and all.  One day at a time.  I’m seriously sleeping too much. I suppose I should be proud of how well I have done, given the month, but all I saw was one more broken promise.

I’m aggravated at myself, but I am not allowing the typical “well, I blew it, let’s go the whole distance” tantrum that I’d normally throw to fully punish myself.  I’m working on that self-forgiveness thing.  It really isn’t that big a deal, if I look at it as if I’m another person.  When it’s me,”good enough” doesn’t seem to exist.  Right now tiny failures terrify me anyhow.  I need to work past that, because the only cure for that is inactivity, which is unacceptable.

While I think this picture is self explanatory, I guess there’s some people who won’t get it. The Iron Bowl was a great game, and Auburn really played well, but Alabama did win in the end.  We found this poor Auburn fan half-heartedly yelling “Roll Tide Roll” at the top of her lungs in the middle of nowhere at an Exxon station. We assume that’s as close to civilization and true public humiliation that her family could come up with. I did ask her permission before taking the picture.  She sighed, “Yes, I have to do that, too.”

Bless her heart.

Here’s the fruit of my late night labors, a pumpkin streusel pie. We do Thanksgiving as a sort of potluck where everyone brings their speciality.  There’s usually no less than 10 desserts, but my humble contribution still doesn’t stand a chance.

We’re hitting the road in approximately 31 minutes, so I have to scoot.  Let the record show that I’m thankful.

It’s 11:47 p.m. and I’m just remembering that I have a blog post to make!  I’m really looking forward to taking a breather five days from now!  Tomorrow I’ll try to post something or another in the wee hours before we head to Tupelo for our annual Turkey Day gluttony.  Then the next post will be made late Friday evening as well. I’m squeaking by on this project, but Saturday I already got my knuckles rapped for my lack of novel manuscript.

I’ve got a pie in the oven, and am more than a little irritated at my ability to stretch deadlines to their ultimate load.  I also have a bed full of clothing.  I’m not quite sure where the procrastination set in, but I remember doing projects that were supposed to take weeks of work well into the wee hours of the morning ever since I was in 6th grade and had to write a project on Bolivia.  It’s been a struggle for me my whole life.  I sometimes wonder if I do it sometimes to add a challenge to otherwise uninspiring projects.  Who knows?  I certainly need to work on it, still, even at the old age of 33 and 11/12s.

And my husband just looked over at me and snickered before he cheered, “Go, Pea, Go!” Oh, that might be confusing.  I’m allegedly the sweet variety of pea, to clarify.

Goodnight all!  Gobble gobble.

Not super talky tonight in general.  I’ve been a bit blue today, because it’s not really all that weird to hate goodbyes.  My visitors are off to their Thanksgiving vacation, and I’ve already been missing them something fierce.

To top off the blue feeling, I just watched a video for survivors of suicide.  My brother is conspicuously absent too, and with the upcoming holiday and game I feel it keenly.  There was a little mnemonic presented to anyone wanting to help anyone else who was grieving or dealing with a loss that I thought was particularly insightful.  The three Hs were to Hug, Hush, and Hang out. That sounds just about right to me.

Of course, being showered with kisses by a kindergartener helps too.  So does watching a second grader be goofy with his new foam bullet gun, and arguing about which Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtle everyone in the family represents.  I highly recommend borrowing a couple of grimy little boys the next time you’re feeling sad.

After swearing for 15 years I would never ever do it, I played Axis and Allies today. The Spousal Unit to Be set up on the extra bed in my dorm room bed once, and after about an hour of trying to parse the rules I got exasperated, sat down on the bed beside it, destroyed Asia and half of Europe, and declared victory. I wasn’t going to play that game ever ever ever. I also never have succombed to Risk or almost any other war games of the board sort. Chess and checkers notwithstanding, of course.

Anyway, my friends are over, and peer pressure does work on me on rare occasions, depending on the peers. And, darnit, of course I had a little bit of fun at it, too, after my brain stopped hurting from so many rules all at once. Sooo many rules! We stopped after about 6 hours of gameplay or so, because my attention span had enough, but maybe it wouldn’t be incredibly awful later now that I know the rules. Or… maaaaaybe I’d deign to play Risk. If Jared didn’t bring any blue decks over. I’m not promising anything though.

It’s too much stress to even try lying to myself about the novel.  Not real confident about the bloggy posty either, but hey, I haven’t blown that completely yet. Even if all that’s getting posted right now is random thoughts, I think that I’ve read enough other NaBloPoMo posts that are of the same level that I can forgive myself for that.

Friends will be here in an hour, and I’m excited but I’m also wound up tight.  I’ll try and chill for a few days and just quit with the fidgetfidget nervousness, which will probably all smooth out once they’re here.

Oh, that reminds me that over Turkey Day, I’m supposed to cheer up my Granny who got something prescribed “for her nerves”.  Since I’m the level headed and grounded one. It’s funny ’cause, sadly, it’s true.  Laughter is good for the soul, right?

So, this every day posting stuff is getting hard now. I knew it would, starting about now. Holidays really are official now. I have friends coming in town tomorrow.  As a matter of fact, once you count all the different invitations I’ve wanted to accept or people who were just going to come by tomorrow, I’ve been officially quintuple booked for the weekend.  We’ve whittled it down a bit, but it’s still going to be a whirlwind of activity over the next few days.

All of this, on no money and no immediate prospects for more!  And Christmas is next month!  HOORAY!  Money is my bane.  It stresses me out so much when it’s tight that I can barely function.  I have this overwhelming need to have it coming in, in amounts far larger than I’ve seen in quite some time.  And Chris isn’t nearly so avaricious as I am.  So, I’m afraid I’m going to become a monomaniac until the short term crisis is resolved.  I’ll do my best not to be an utter jerk to my family and friends in the meantime, though.  Just forgive me and understand that one of my biggest triggers has been pushed.

And that’s all I have time to post today.  In the 7 minutes I allotted myself, I prattled about being stressed about money.  That pretty much says it all.  This has to get fixed, post haste.  Else how will I justify my spiffy shooting star boots when I’m picking up a welfare check?