But I have thought about it. So that counts, right?

December was for decompressing from my first semester back in school. Also for obsessing about the holidays, which came and went. Then it was 2012 and now it’s almost February and it all seems like a big haze of days and events, major and minor that it seems too daunting and pointless to get in writing, you know?

After being unplugged for a while, it gets easy to stay that way.

Then I got a note from Bex regarding a very old post about some photos I’d taken when I was 15. So I started looking through them and cringing and figured what better way to jump back into the internet’s waters than by humiliating myself just a tad.

Also, I wanted to help Bex a bit by showing her what NOT to do during a Quinceañera photo shoot. I’ve included some additional photos for your displeasure.

The repost:

—–

Yes, that’s me, observing an adolescent myself from the heavens and apparently having a good laugh about it.

It was March 1990. I’d just turned 15 years old. In our predominantly Cuban community, your “Quinces” or “Fifteens” were the big coming-of-age birthday. That was the year countless girls in my grade held huge, elaborate bashes, complete with a “court” of fourteen other couples performing choreographed dances that showcased the guest of honor – the Quinceañera.

These were catered, full bar events, usually held at a banquet hall where the dancing and drunken debauchery went well in to the wee hours.

My single mom could not afford such a luxurious spread on her meager factory wages, so I got the next best thing – a professional photo shoot in a pristine white gown and lavender cape. I’ve still got the album of about 125 photographs taken in both studio and outdoor settings. This one here was shot on my actual birthday, on a bright sunny Friday at the Vizcaya Gardens in South Miami.

There are so many things wrong with this photograph, it’s not even worth the effort to go in to a thorough analysis. My tall hair, my fake nails, the lace, the flowers, the parasol. The list of tacky is overwhelming. And the weird overlapping composition is a running theme, since I have several photos where there are two of me vying for face time on the same frame. There’s even one where I’m telling myself an amusing secret  – probably that our photographer was taking hallucinogenics.

Me, as goddess of the Atlantic:

I won’t even go in to details about the ones taken against a multicolored laser beam background…

—–

I may have missed you the teeniest bit internet waters…and all the lovely sparkling fish that swim around in it.

I have a confession to make.

I am officially sick of blogging.

It’s not you. It’s me.

I’m tired of hearing myself talk.

30 days is nothing to sneeze at.

The Red Kangaroo can make an entire baby kangaroo in just 30 days.

The adult life span of a head louse elapses in the course of 30 days.

But I didn’t sprout a marsupial.

Or spend my entire life feeding off scalp blood.

I just slapped some mental debris on a page and crossed my fingers that someone would come by and read it.

I am glad I did it. I proved to myself that I have the capacity for consistency and discipline, at the very least in small, insipid doses.

And I also proved…

Well, I can’t think of it right this second, but I’m sure it will come to me later.

You know, once my computer is powered down and I’m tucked in my pajamas.

Either way, it’s fine.

I made it to the end of the race without sustaining any major injuries.

So if you don’t mind, I will just snatch up one of those “participant” ribbons and be on my merry way.

Then I may or may not sleep for a week.

At the very least my laptop will be snoozing.

After I finish that damned paper of course.

I’ll be back. Just not tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

This is a plastic representation of what my brain should look like (I mean I think it is, I’m not studying anatomy or anything, so…):

This is a food representation of my brain after I’ve spent two days cleaning up little boy vomit and writing a paper that was due at 10 pm tonight which I subsequently finished at about 9:35 pm tonight even though I’ve had ample time to write it way before the puking even started so the joke is on me. Which is why my brain looks like bacon with a side of egg and not like egg with a side of bacon. Also everyone knows bacon beats egg and egg is only there as an artistic garnish.

This is the face my brain would make if it was completely circular and yellow and had buggy eyes. Especially since my wispy haired professor hasn’t confirmed receipt of my paper and for all I know the internet just chewed it up and digested it and now I don’t even know if I’ll get a full night’s sleep because possibly there will be stomach flu related complications in the wee hours because mostly that is how life works when there is a barfing curse floating around and also I feel a little nauseous myself and I don’t know if it’s because I legitimately am sick or I am just feeling burpy pangs of paper angst or sympathy burps of mother angst or some combination of both. Also I’m smelling ghost puke and I don’t know if it’s a premonition of barf to come or a lingering of barfs past. Plus I still have one more paper to write and we still need a Christmas tree and my youngest is turning five in two weeks and Christmas is around the corner and there’s all that shopping to do and what happens when all four kids are puking and I still have to buy the teachers gifts and I don’t have any ideas for that last paper and I think I’m going to cry because we’re out of chocolate and I should be sleeping because I don’t know when the kids will wake up and…

Stop.

I don’t know when I decided to start climbing the mango tree in my grandparent’s front yard or why I decided it would be a good idea to hang upside down from one of the lower boughs. But once I learned I could do it, I never wanted to stop. Even though the bark scraped the back of my knees raw, even though there were always fire ants crawling on the trunk, I wanted to live in this tree.

There was a power in knowing I could climb it. That I could scale the limbs. That I could suspend myself as long as I wanted. That I was strong enough to do it.

I loved the gasps it drew from my mother.

I was going to snap my neck, she assured me. I would crack my skull wide open.

It didn’t seem that high even then. I could touch the grass with the tips of my fingers as I hung there. So it never really worried me. It was easy to see she was bluffing. How worried could she possibly be, snapping photos with her rectangular 110 while my little sister posed beside me with a Cabbage Patch Doll?

At school, I sucked at sports. I was a slow runner. Instead of catching rubber balls that were sent flying in my direction, I cringed and dodged. I couldn’t pitch. I was a lousy kicker. I was always picked last.

But I could climb the rope all the way to the top.

And I could scale this tree.

My tree.

Until my grandfather cut it down to put in a paved driveway.

It had stopped producing fruit. I don’t remember if I cried. I’d probably moved on to bigger things.

—–

The prompt this week was to share a favorite photo, the moment and the meaning behind it.

If only I was still that limber.

This is what a literary essay in work looks like:

Mrsbear Outnumbered

Professor Wispy Hair

LIT 4321

27 November 2011

<Insert Title Here>

This is the beginning of my paper about The Novel We Read. This is where I put my thesis statement. This is where I put my supporting statements.

The rest of my paper will go here, in subsequent paragraphs where I continue to prove my argument.

This is yet another succinct and well thought out paragraph that is full of nuance and insight.

This paragraph is more solid than the last. I am wowing the reader with my powers of persuasion and indisputable evidence to corroborate my theories.

This is the paragraph where I tie it all together with a flourish. The reader is moved to tears. This is the part where the professor decides to give me an A+ only because there is no higher estimation with which to judge my sublime work.

<The End>

I’m pretty sure tacking <The End> on after the conclusion would guarantee at least a ten point deduction.

I should probably put a little more time into my research, a little less time into my creative delays.

Eyelids heavy. So so heavy.

Breathing slowing.

Vision blurring.

Here’s a brief snippet from today.

My mother: You’re only alive because I spent six months of my pregnancy on bed rest. Drinking liquid meals and going in a bed pan. I couldn’t even sit up to brush my hair.

Me: I think I’ve heard this story before.

My mother: We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if I hadn’t given up showers.

Me : Um, thanks? I will never live this down, will I?

They’d been hounding me for weeks about whether or not I would let them go. My stand-by answer was “I have to talk to your dad.” Really we’d already talked about it, but we were both on the fence. My husband agreed that if I felt okay about letting them go, then he would trust my judgment.

My oldest is 17, her sister is 13. At their age, I’d been to concerts and more. I felt good that they would be there together to keep each other safe, but also I felt better that another mom would be present through out the event to keep watch and drive them home. If ever there were “right” circumstances, I suppose this would be it. Small venue, affordable admission.

I caved and bought them the tickets yesterday.

I’ve been a little nervous ever since.

I hate sending my babies out in to the world. I know it has to happen so they can grow up to be responsible, functioning adults. But after spending their whole lives keeping watch over them and protecting them from harm, kissing them goodbye and handing them emergency cash goes against my nature. There is so much blind trust involved. I trust my girls, but I also have to trust the world and all the wackos crawling around in it.

On the drive to their ride’s house, I dispensed some last minute advice.

“Don’t stand next to weird guys on the dance floor.”

“Don’t take drinks from anyone.”

“Stay together.”

“Don’t leave with anyone other than who you came with.”

“Know where all the exits are.”

“You remember how to stop, drop and roll?”

“Is your phone charged?”

“You know how to dial 911 right?”

I might need to be medicated by the time they start driving.

Update: They were home safe and sound by 11 after having a fantastic time bouncing and tossing their heads around. Nobody was trampled, which is always my worry, but luckily my oldest was able to keep her little sister out of the mosh pit so no injuries were sustained. Now I can go back to locking them in a tall, tall tower until they’re 30.

I’m waiting up until midnight, here in the comfort of my own bed, still stuffed to my neck in turkey and gravy and cheesecake.

I’ve got my overheated laptop searing my thighs because Amazon is promising me a bargain on one of the big ticket items on all of the kids’ Christmas lists.

I could’ve camped out on a sidewalk with 80 other shoppers in the hopes of busting through their doors to wrestle some other bleary eyed mom for the last PS3 console, but I value my life far too much. Also, I lost my lucky shiv yesterday during a melee over the last packaged pie crust over in the freezer section of our local grocery store.

I spent the better part of this morning dicing and chopping and baking and mixing and worrying that none of it would be done in time. (It wasn’t. We were an hour late to the turkey dance because my oven doesn’t know how to man up when I need it to.) It made me a generally unpleasant person to be around.

But I recovered and came up for air during my ranting and raving just long enough to inhale my sister’s sausage stuffing and a healthy dose of sweet potato casserole. I’m sure my kids were grateful. Shoveling food in to my face made it difficult to snap at them. The turkey meat helped keep me docile. And now I’m in bed, waiting for the clock to strike 12 so I can get out of my pumpkin, chuck my glass slipper at someone and make myself even more comfortable by becoming unconscious. Deep, delicious unconsciousness.

For now I’ve got to do Santa’s job, minus keeping the elves in check and making sure the reindeer don’t have parasites.

I’ll let you know how it goes after I virtual shank somebody for a Black Friday bundle that will probably be available three days from now for cheaper.

Ah, the holidays.

Where are the carolers so I can chuck a mug of scalding chocolate at them.

Update: midnight actually = 3:10 am, because they are on west coast time. But I think I snagged one, unless I’m having a very vivid dream sequence right now. Booya.

To all of you eating tomorrow: I wish you easy digestion and room for dessert.

To all of you shopping tomorrow: Don’t. But if you do, I wish you good bargains and safety from trampling.

To everyone else: have a lovely and safe Thanksgiving/Turkey Day/Thursday.

I will be spending it with most of the people I love, whom I am unbelievably thankful for.

Among the other things I am thankful for:

Sweet potatoes
Sunshine
Wet grass
Pillow top mattresses
Long phone calls with old friends
Scary movies
Quiet car rides
Warm ocean waters
Ice cream
Pajamas

Really who couldn’t spend their whole day in some soft cotton pj’s? But I do believe that is called “giving up on life.” Unless you have the flu in which case you’re excused. Also drink some orange juice and take some cough medicine. You really don’t sound very good.

Gobble gobble.

I said two idiot things.

“I have no idea.”

Plus.

“I think I work better under pressure.”

Which is code for “I procrastinate” and “I am lazy.”

It’s kind of a shame because I think Dr. Professor is the bees’ knees and now she probably thinks I’m a silly nitwit. But there’s no undo button on life so there you have it.

Here’s a glimpse of what my mind is doing when it should be writing research papers.

Apparently my mind prefers not to approach things head on, but to double back through the woods, then find a manhole so it can crawl through the sewers before climbing back up under the original thing then gnawing away at its ankles until it cries uncle.

That kind of made more sense in my head.