theology&geometry

… but if there is one thing I have learned about photography (or at least how I like to do it) that is different from writing, it’s shoot sober, edit drunk.

Some day in 14 years when I am scolding Holden for eating Jolly Ranchers and putting his expensive braces at risk, I am going to wistfully think back to when he was a wee babe and wish for simpler times when I could hold him in my arms and get a grin out of him just by smiling wide. I know my memory and its tendency to function as a black hole (I have already forgotten much of what we did all day during the first month of Holden’s existence), and it’s going to be hard to remember what our days were like when he was this age.

So on Thursday, I photographed pretty much everything I did all day, figuring it would be a pretty accurate representation of our average day. Fun with mundanity. Or FUNDANITY!

This slideshow probably won’t make much sense without captions, since my phone takes such HORRIBLE pictures, so to see the captions you have to select full screen and then click on the first picture. Captions should anchor at the top right after that. I think.

• babies can sleep soundly with their heads at 90-degree angles from their bodies, but they scream in agony the instant you take them out of the bath tub because of the slight change in temperature?
• I am 30, a homeowner, and a parent, but I feel most like an actual adult those times when a light bulb goes out and I know I’ve got a backup bulb stashed away?
• the women on the network morning shows dress in tiny tiny tiny dresses year-round, even when it’s cold out? And hooker heels?
• Google is fucking up my world? I mean, I know they’re allowed to and I never really thought the “Don’t be evil” thing would hold sway forever. But still. Why can’t they just chill with the stupid? Who is in charge over there right now who’s making these Facebookesque decisions?
• people post text-heavy shit on Pinterest? It’s a visual pin board. If you want to bookmark text posts, use that handy “bookmark” feature on your browser.
• It’s nearly February and I haven’t worn a single sweater this entire winter? WHAT IS WITH THIS WEATHER?
• I bought a house that isn’t in walking distance to any restaurants or grocery stores? There’s a corner store a couple of blocks to the west, but some dude was shot and killed in that area a few days ago. Besides, all they have is crap food anyway.
• I look even more supersized now than I did when I was nine months pregnant, despite having lost 10 pounds (during birth) and breastfeeding around the clock?
• my feet are constantly getting mangled from unseen pieces of glass or wooden splinters that apparently litter the kitchen floor, no matter how often I sweep?
• Mitt Romney is allowed to call Barack Obama “detached from reality” without the entire country collectively laughing in his face and then ignoring him for the rest of the year?
• my dad has an epic mancrush on Newt Gingrich? He has really liked him for as long as I can remember. I don’t think they would get along in real life.

Holden loves this song.

… come in and fix shit in 20 minutes. They also inform you that in the great state of Tennessee, you have to have a license to cut hair but not to do electrical work. Interesting. No, wait. Stupid.

Note to self for when I inevitably forget this: The breaker box is technically rigged, but it’s not dangerous. Illegal, maybe. But the house is not going to burn down if I leave an extra lamp on. I just need to pony up $1,200 for a new weatherproof panel and some rewiring in the next … however long it takes me to get $1,200 to spend. Whee.

I pretty much feel like shit mentally nearly every second of every day and I’m getting really tired of it.

Fix it fix it fix it.

I don’t know how.

2:15 a.m.

Just ate a turkey sandwich and a pickle. Watching “Hoarders.” And I just put my very first load of baby clothes in the washer.

Well, I’m late posting this, but I’ve been slightly preoccupied.

Yow. I can’t even think. I’m actually posting this from my bed with an iPad, if that tells you how out-of-whack my head is right now.

My little navel orange has morphed into an avocado this week. That’s weird because around here, navel oranges tend to run bigger than avocados. So, well, whatevs. I don’t have my nifty “wacky physiological things that are happening to your fetus” app near me (where is my phone?) so I will just reach for the nearest pregnancy book, since I have redecorated my house with the things.

Oh, screw it. I just thumbed through two and didn’t find what I was looking for. Something about hair, fingernails … something. Horns? I don’t know; I’m not a doctor.

I’ve been feeling mostly okay except for the near constant headache. I don’t let myself take Tylenol very often so occasionally I caffeinate it, but most of the time I just deal with it. Or tweet angrily about it. Wonder why pregnant ladies are grumpy? It’s because there’s fruit in their uteruses and alien hatchlings in their craniums.

I was getting the hang of typing on this iPad until I realized I can’t hit the space bar with my thumb because I have a long fingernail. Dang it.

Anyway. The deluge of babythings has begun in earnest. Lesley brought me quite a haul and Ashley topped it off with a changing pad. I’ve got the goods crammed into the bedroom lest they become cat toys. They will eventually but I want them to at least be babythings first.

Hearing the heartbeat Tuesday was amazing. Having that recording has been priceless. I sent it to my parents and brother and sister. Krissie said she just cried and cried and my dad replied, “That sounds like a boy’s heartbeat!” And I think he’s right. This whole time I’ve felt like it’s a boy. No reason. Just a feeling. We’ll see about that.

Okay, I have to crash. I have had an incredibly long, busy day.

Yeah, me too. It seems that my desire to go outside and dig in the dirt has sort of been swept away along with my ability to write and take pictures. The good news is that I think I did a sufficient amount of prep work in the fall to save me some major spring ass pains. My mulched beds are not completely overrun with weeds (aside from the front bed’s four dozen or so volunteer oak trees I had to yank up the other day) and I planted enough in November that I should be able to just maintain this spring and summer.

I’ve not been crazy about going outside too much because of my perennial mosquito problem. I don’t want to get bitten and I don’t want to avoid getting bitten by dousing myself in chemicals. (Here is the part where sweet people want to chime in with natural mosquito remedies, which I appreciate so much, but I have tried them all and been munched on throughout my life anyway. I can drape myself in dryer sheets, clip an Off! fan on my hip, slather Skin So Soft on my skin and spray Deep Woods Off! all over myself to sit on the porch inside a ring of citronella candles with marigold plants flanking me, and still get eaten alive. I’m not exaggerating.) Oddly enough — and I swear if my saying this jinxes it, I will be forever pissed — the time I have spent outside this spring has been mercifully mosquito-free, despite my having seen plenty of those buggers swirling around in the breeze. It’s nearly June and I have had one bite this year. One! Usually I’d have hit thirty by now. I can’t help but wonder if my bodily chemistry has changed so drastically that they aren’t craving my sweet nectar right now. I would find that odd because my blood volume has doubled, so you’d think I would be the equivalent of a big meaty Ryan’s for those bastards. But, well, not yet.

Anyway. My tiny oak leaf hydrangea is blooming, as are the marigolds and the purple coneflowers (thanks, saraclark!) and the other big hydrangea I thought I killed last year in my attempt to eradicate the evil trumpet vine. My irises never did bloom. I find that extremely odd, but then again, my buttercups never bloomed either. Lack of sun? I guess it’s time to play musical flowerbeds and move some bulbs around.

The lilies are getting plumped up, which is really exciting because I forgot which ones are planted where, so the colors will be a surprise again. The tons and tons of of allium I planted still haven’t bloomed either. But the gerbera daisies I potted last year self-seeded and came back, although the orange one’s blooms are puny.

My mums are blooming already, too. The ones planted in the bed and the ones in pots. I haven’t done anything to any of them. Never pinched blooms, but they are bushing out really nicely. I guess I need to get to pinching, though, if I want them to bloom through fall. Am I the only person who feels guilty pinching blooms? It seems mean.