life outside the zen garden

For my mother, there is no Zen, giving her no guilt about throwing me from mine.

I had a post planned about the peaceful creativity I find in cookie baking, but one phone call from my greatest critic put a quick end to that. The person who claimed we are each our own fiercest critic has never met my mother or Q’s.

I said a few weeks ago that this would be a summer of lists, putting my narratives on vacation, but that was when I was “working” 40 hours a week. Even though I am working harder staying home with the kids for the summer than I ever have on any job, my mind is free. There is equilibrium found in natural light and the removal of parking garage auto fumes from my system. So the narratives are back. Mixed in with the lists.

1. My original cookie craving was white chocolate pecan, but a 16oz bag of pecans was $7.79. So now I have the ingredients for something called chocolate white chip. Everything I needed for that recipe was less than seven bucks.

2. The kids are not invited to the cookie baking. I’m thinking around midnight when everyone is asleep. Peace, quiet, the smell of cookies baking. How could life get any better?

3. Zoloft-weaning update: the first few weeks were rough as hell, but I honestly feel better than I ever have. In my life. My thinking is clear, I am in control of my personal environment. For the first time, I can separate acts of love from malicious attempts to manipulate me into submission. Heavy, right? I figured out that in addition to being wrongly medicated a few times, I’d also missed the point of diminishing returns on earlier meds. At some point, I needed to get off of them in the exact right moment just like I did with this one. Brain chemistry is tricky and experimental and needs constant monitoring.

4. My children who know the diff between Mongolian and Thai and sushi and sashimi are no better or worse off than kids who recognize Tuesdays as spaghetti night and Thursdays as pot roast. So stop trying to make it seem they are eating unhealthfully and are one restaurant meal away from scurvy, Mom.

5. When I respectfully tell you that your implications of my children being unhealthy because “everyone knows you don’t cook” is an insult to everything I do for my children physically, emotionally, financially, mentally and spiritually, just because you didn’t mean for it to be insulting, doesn’t remove the injury, Mom.

6. The parents of the owner of the adolescent, erect penis emailed to my daughter met with our local police yesterday. Can you imagine being shown a printout of your son with his dick (his word to my daughter, not mine) on the bathroom counter (don’t ask, and yes) with him in the mirror, camera phone flashing away? The officer told me the parents are visibly upset and embarrassed and “devastated”. They would like to call me sometime this week with my permission. This should be interesting. I know two people who should be very glad the Zoloft-wean was a success.