Reasons why

Today was okay for going back to work after 6 days off at a property that is in turmoil. I expected nothing less than a clusterfuck, and the property delivered. 110%. This is not negativity speaking, it is merely realism. And I dealt with it with sarcasm and a smile, the only way you can deal with these types of things. Things got accomplished while I was away thanks to my coworkers, and I nailed down some uncertains while I was there today. It’s a busy place that allows zero time to think of anything but the figurative fire at hand, and I enjoy the act of dowsing the flames. So when I say it was the clusterfuck I expected, it is without bitterness.

A switch flipped when I walked into the door at home. I’m dealing with enforcing a chore list for both boys. It’s supposed to make my life easier and instead I found myself arguing about the items on the list which took about as much time as it would have for me to do the items myself. It immediately turned me off of human interaction, and I cooked up some grilled cheese for the privileged little hooligans and escaped to my back deck with my cigarettes and the intent to clear out my email inbox after nearly two months of neglect. Mindless business, the deleting of junk mail and filing of receipts and bills into their proper folders. I then drowned reality in the new Stephen King book, ignoring my social media, bathed Chase, and engrossed myself in my planner. Busy work.

Now my littlest hooligan is in bed and my oldest one is likewise ignoring reality up in his room getting his Fortnight fix. I’m still feeling kind of negative and I can’t pinpoint why. Today was everything I expected it to be, I got more accomplished than I anticipated, and my life is good.

I guess maybe it’s that old feeling of not being enough. Of not having enough hours in the day, not enough hands. . . Hell, needing a clone is an understatement. Sometimes I feel I need an army. And I just ask the kids to keep their rooms clean and unload the dishwasher and other time consuming things that they are capable of that would allow me more time to spend on important things – like cooking dinner or going over homework. But instead they have to bitch and whine and act like they shouldn’t have to do anything to keep the place running smoothly. I just remember being Matt’s age and having to keep up my grades and do the majority of the housework – and we didn’t have a dishwasher, and a lot of my childhood was spent hanging laundry on the line to dry, not throwing the shit in a dryer. My dad was a single working parent too. And he got to come home, make dinner and then sit down and watch the news while Aaron and I did the rest. I know I complained some, and all kids do. But we complained while we did the chores. We didn’t half ass it or just blatantly not do it. My kids are ballsy enough to do these things and its infuriating. “Oh, I’ll wipe down the mirror once a week,” Matt told me tonight. I had asked him why the bathroom didn’t get wiped down and he said he did. I called bullshit because there was toothpaste splattered on the mirror. And that’s what he said! Like he decides or something. I corrected him, he said he did it. And I walked in the bathroom and there sat the toothpaste still on the mirror.

This is why I swear, folks. Infuriating shit like this.

Chase – said his room was clean. I walked in to put him to bed and all the things he’d been playing with sat underneath his bedroom table. “I wouldn’t say this is clean,” I told him. “I don’t wannnnntttt to clean it though!!!”

And they have the nerve to bitch that they don’t get an allowance.

These are the reasons why swearing isn’t enough. I have to do yoga, too. . .

Chase lost the lid to his lunch box water bottle at school today. Three days into the school year and this hoodlum lost the lid – the screw on lid – to his water bottle. What in the actual fuck. His excuse was he needed to get the last of the water out of it. That does not explain the lack of a lid, child.

When I get committed, it will be for something stupid like this.

This is why I swear, do yoga, can’t sleep and drink too much caffeine. To keep up without going batshit crazy.

Happy Monday. Or Wednesday. Same difference.