Tumbling: Don’t Try This At Home Without a Spotter If You’re My Age

Last night I was working on various writing projects, and IMing the IB (Internet Boyfriend) late into the night. (It’s not what you think. MIB and I have a joint online venture that we’re trying to remove the bugs from. There’s no romance involved, unless you call being enamored of our project a romance.) The reason for working at home is that I have another life during the day time. It’s a business life, and it’s a busy life. Writing is my recreation, and while I try to do it at work (sometimes without much success), I can really only concentrate if I’m sitting in my perfect purple chair, which is in my bedroom. It’s hard to concentrate with the phone ringing all day. No one calls me at home, except telemarketers. I have caller ID so I choose not to answer those calls.

After spending five hours typing, the perfect purple chair was not feeling quite so perfect. In fact, I was beginning to feel a serious issue with my back and neck. While MIB was chatting away, I put my laptop down on the floor and stretched out. Doing this helped a bit, but not much.

It was 1 a.m., and my daughter was cleaning her room and making a terrible noise. So I got up (without MIB knowing) to survey her progress. It was very positive! I was impressed. It was also helpful to move about. My back felt much better.

When I returned to my laptop, I realized that the article I was working on for another forum had suddenly disappeared. It was a huge article, with lots of links to other things. I was angry. I was almost despondent. I was really tired. But, this is what happens when you use the web based publishing tools of various sites. I neglected to save it as a Word document. It was my fault. Even though I was bleary-eyed, I managed to reconstruct the article much as originally written. In fact, dare I say it? It may have been better than the original.

By 2:30, my fingers started to do their own thing, and it was hard to keep up with a IM conversation and type an article at the same time. Besides, my back was now killing me. So I said good night to MIB and thought I would lay prone on the floor again before going to bed.

While I was doing so, I decided to do some up dogs and down dogs, otherwise known as baby yoga. This usually helps, but not early this morning. What I really wanted to do was flip all the way over. I started rocking backward in an attempt to flip over, but found that I couldn’t get my legs to cooperate! My muscles felt like they didn’t belong to me, and my stomach had gotten into the way. Damn! What had happened to me? This used to be an easy task for me!

By the third attempt, I was annoyed. I wanted to flip over, damn it!

After getting up this morning (I overslept because I only got three hours of sleep), I decided to clear a spot downstairs and try again. Since I couldn’t seem to complete the task by flipping my legs over my head, I thought I would try it the other way. You know, by doing a somersault, head first.

This method worked. Somehow, I made it all the way over, even though I nearly lost consciousness.

I guess I should have had a spotter.

A Strange and Busy Day

My Internet Boyfriend and I have been busy.

We’re always busy, but today we’ve been super busy. In addition to being busy with our business and our busy-ness, I’ve been busy with normal business and busy-ness at my business.

I should have taken a photograph of my desk this morning. I couldn’t find the bottom of the piles. (It sort of resembled my husband’s desk. I cringe when I think about that.)

In the middle of trying to run my business, MIB is IMing me to tell me to do this and that regarding the business of our busy-ness. This is because I’m a computer dummy and I can’t figure things out on my own. I wish I could, but my brain can only handle so much traffic at one time. My busy-ness made my brain extra-full of thoughts, some of which fell off the face of the earth (or my own face) and some of which didn’t.

I save all my email, so I should be able to go back and sort through the individual business to get to the busy stuff.

One of these days, I will remember the business of my busy-ness. Not today though. I didn’t learn my social security number or driver’s license number in two seconds. That took a while, and I’m sure I will learn this business.

Lucky for me, MIB is a good teacher and very patient. And he adores me.

Lobbying for Adoption

I’m about “this” close to putting myself up for adoption on eBay. No, it’s not because of this that I’m looking for a new home. It’s because I woke up to six inches of snow, YET AGAIN.

I really don’t know how much more of this I can take. Winter sucks. Royally.

I have a really nice net-friend, and you all know him. He’s My Internet Boyfriend. Beyond the confines of this forum, we share email which can range from sublimely serious to definitively wacky. We’ve known each other for about a year, and I like him a lot. I’ve seen video of his family, and he’s seen video of me singing some country’s national anthem. He even sent me a gift, which was damn nice of him. But before any of you get the notion that our relationship is more than friendship, I guess I would like to clarify. Yes, it is more than friendship. MIB is more like a brother to me.

In an email last week, he was describing a house guest who doesn’t really have a job, but chips in by taking on some household tasks. I thought the guy was one lucky dude. He hit the jackpot by bunking with MIB. So I replied back, “Well, why don’t you adopt me?” His answer dealt along the lines of getting rid of his wife. This was not my intent! My reply was then, “I don’t want you to marry me, I want you to adopt me!”

The more I think about this, the more I like this idea, so I am now lobbying full time for adoption. Think of it! I could be the sister MIB doesn’t have. (He has a sister, but not one like me!) I can cook. I enjoy cleaning and laundry. I can babysit the kids. I have a clean driving record and can shuttle them around. I can run errands. I’m a master with organization and would keep the house tidy. In addition, I’m pretty smart with conversation and I’m no dummy when it comes to Scrabble.

I’m loyal, trustworthy, and honest. And after July, I’ll be without minor children. (What to do with Mr. Demonic… Hmmm… I’m still working on that.)

The trade off is that I would be far, far away from this Rust Belt northern clime. Oh, sure, he’s farther north in another country, but from the sounds of it, his location is rather temperate. When we are under siege by Alberta clippers, he’s enjoying 50 degree days and light jackets. Although located fairly centrally, his city is also much closer to the ocean than I am, which is a huge plus. It appears that the entire area has a strong economic base and the cultural attractions are many.

I wonder if my local Staples has pre-made legal paperwork for applying for adoption?

Barring a hang up in being adopted by MIB, I am hereby taking a waiting list for those who would like to add me as a family member. After that, I’m using eBay.

The Myth of My Beautiful Mind

You have to love MIB. Well, maybe YOU don’t have to, but I do.

For some odd reason, he thinks I am beautiful. He has likened me to mountains, which impresses the hell out of me. How does he know what I look like? Well, we’ve exchanged photographs. Besides that, on that other web site, I had posted photographs of myself. I don’t know why. In my youth, I thought I was a pretty odd looking person. Embarrassingly so. I was small, thin, angular, not very feminine. I had ridiculously skinny legs, and still do. I didn’t wear dresses where my legs were exposed until my thirties. Same goes for shorts. I was a huge consumer of makeup, too. Now of course, I’m heading into old age and eventual cronedom, so I really don’t give a damn what I look like anymore. Even at my age, I will sometimes don a miniskirt. Who has time for makeup? If my face is clean when I leave the house, that’s a huge plus. I also don’t give a damn about anyone else’s opinions of my physical being, which is amazingly freeing. Since I don’t have the heavy burden of worrying about what other people think, I’m able to accomplish much more in my already busy day.

Recently, MIB made a comment to me that I found was somewhat peculiar. (I say “somewhat” because “rather” doesn’t fit the bill. It was only mildly odd.) If I can translate, he made a comment that if I were a psychobitch or something thereabouts, that would be too bad because such a disgusting personality would be hidden in a “gorgeous body” (his direct quote, not mine). Oh, and if that were the case, “all that glitters is not gold” – this is humorously told, and it made me smile.

However, though the comment was made in jest, I fear that MIB must have been happy to glean a modicum of truth about that from our association. Although it pains me to do so, I must now dispel the Myth of My Beautiful Mind, if only to make my real self more apparent to MIB. I don’t want him to open the Oreo of my mind and instead of finding a creamy white middle, he finds a paste consisting of flour and poo. After all, I can’t have him go through his daily trials and tribulations thinking I’m some sort of perfect goddess, flawless in every way.

No, just like my body, which is now angular with a spare tire around the middle, small and not very feminine, my mind is not exactly a pristine and wonderful mechanism with which to put on a pedestal.

Back in the “olden days” i.e. my tempestuous youth, my mind was clouded by many ominous things. First of all, I partied, a lot. I think many people of the twenty-something persuasion do. In retrospect, I was fairly responsible about it. I stuck to beer and only dabbled infrequently in minor psychedelic substances. I was deathly afraid of cocaine and heroine, and just as nervous about hard liquor.

Around this time, I became horribly depressed. Partly because of the substance abuse issues, and partly because I contracted a physical illness that caused me to think I was going to die. My mind became a veritable cesspool of dark and brooding thoughts. With therapy and a lot of good antidepressants, I clawed my way back to the light.

I also had a tendency to be down-right evil. That’s right, when properly nudged, I could invent revenges that would pale most manly men. In fact, most of my revenges had to do with the men in my life, and the women they threw me over for. I could go into detail, but I’m sure many of the things I did would be considered punishable offenses in a court of law. Besides, I’m now reformed.

So, there you have it. My confession that all that glitters is really not gold after all.

I hope you still love me, My Internet Boyfriend.

Venting

Today, I wrote a wild and furious email to MIB. I was venting, because of some frustration I have been experiencing in my personal life. I cannot vent in the blog situation. The people who know me from my previous blog situation might not understand. They would think I was a spoiled bitch who had no reason to complain. In the Place Where I Use My Real Name, I definitely cannot vent, because the object of my release would read the rant and think I was seriously angry with him. The truth is that I’m not really angry, I’m more frustrated and cranky. The only person I could think that would understand would be MIB.

In the past, MIB has also ranted to me about things that upset him in his life. I know he’s never seriously angry with his sweetie. He loves her more than anything. We both know that it helps to put your problems into words and bounce them off people who do not have a vested interest in your life. Sometimes you need another pair of eyes in order to see your own world the way it really is.

So I fired off an email that probably scorched some fiber optic cable on the way to his eyes. It was long, and I hope coherent. If you hadn’t noticed, I write much the way that I speak, and sometimes when I speak, I can go off in several tangents at one time. This might lead some people to think I’m scatterbrained and an air head.

I’d always had a problem with speaking well. I can talk, and have always been able to do so. Being brought up the way I had been, it was always considered more respectful to keep your mouth shut unless directly asked a question. In my later teen years, people would think I was stand-offish and snobby, as well as too serious. This wasn’t the case, of course. I was listening very intently, and would often feel like my contribution to the conversation wasn’t worth as much. So I never had much of an opportunity to talk.

Writing was another matter altogether. I’m a far better writer than speaker, especially when given an assignment where I have time. This is because when you write something of note, you are able to mull over the words, conjugate the verbs properly, and even add descriptors that would jazz up even the dreariest of scenes.

In college, I took a debate class, mostly because I thought it would help me get over my reserved speaking stature. It was a very scary experience. My first debate was a disaster. The second was better. The third, and my final grade, was another huge mistake. However, I did learn something. When I am passionate about a subject is when I do my best talking.

As for today’s frustration and my rant, I apologize to MIB if I sounded like the psychobitch from Hell. But thanks for listening. I feel so much better now.