Theories of Inadequacy

We shan't discuss the pot rack. I've told my nearest and dearest (all two of them) the details of my humiliation, and they know better than to spill. So, no matter what happens, no matter how you beg, the pot rack shan't be discussed. Here, however, is a photograph for those of you who who are dying to know about The Pot Rack Incident. Interpret it as you wish.

The other day I was reading Other Blogs. I adore blogs, and there are several I like quite a bit better than mine. I'm no visual architect, for instance, and I keep putting pictures up because my grad school water-boarded me into using "multiple methods of presentation." But, I'm limited in terms of what I can do with these pictures because I have no visual imagination.

I know a lot of words, but never enough, and I can never find the ones I want at the right time and am forever using cruddy substitutes. I'm self-indulgent about the words I love. Sometimes I spend whole posts trying to come up with excuses to use them ("shan't," for instance.) In this manner, I plod on dully. I speak only one language. I can't draw. I have no musical talent whatsoever. I used to think I was pretty mechanical, but that has no use in blogging, and in fact has been proven false by the incident we shan't discuss. I have only one fine quality, which is enthusiasm, and that doesn't make up for as much as you'd think. Further, it is (and has eternally been) out of fashion.

Back to the beginning: I was reading Other Blogs, hoping to learn something. I learned that people are geniuses, all except me. I'm still not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it is nice to know that intelligence in humans is possible. One does not always have clear proof of that. On the other hand, I feel so wildly unsuccessful compared to other bloggers that I'm discouraged.

I become very enthusiastic about the blogs I like. I develop crushes on wordsmiths, and on people who spell difficult words correctly. My wife is an excellent speller; I couldn't have married her otherwise. I, of course, can barely spell cat. I comfort myself that at least I know when I spell something wrong and that spelling is not actually of any use. Still, I like good spellers, and I wish I were a good speller. I've spent a lot of time trying to be a better speller. (Fail.) It's my thing--what can I say? There's no reason for it, but it cannot be denied!

Having no job is a cesspool for neurosis. The other night I couldn't sleep because Ari's big boy bed was being delivered the following morning. I kept worrying that he would freak out and keep getting out of bed and screaming or something. You know how it is; you hear stories. Ari's friend Eden (named changed to protect the innocent) apparently freaked out for weeks, banging on the door to get out, crying, and curling her little fingers under the door. Eden is a perfectly civilized child under most circumstances. Every time I see her, she greets me with a polite kiss on the check and then goes back to "reading" her books or examining her puzzles. However, she lost her shit about her big girl bed.

Ari, sleeping happily, in his big boy bed

I'd heard this kind of thing before. So I instituted my excellent insomniac coping strategy to be fully energized for Ari's impending all-night-long crisis! He's the three-year-old, but I am the freak who can't adjust to changes.

I swear that I'm a normal person in real life, when I don't have too much time on my hands. There was a poem I once liked, by Joy Harjo, called "Grace." One of the lines is "Grace is a woman with time on her hands." I used to love that. It made me think of air so humid it's syrupy and women chatting (in the South, of course) over clotheslines, not really having anything to fold. Now I say, "Bull!"

I tried to get Ari early from school some days, to take him to the park and places. He seemed a little miffed. He was happy to see me and to go to the park, but when we got there, he would say, "Mommy, there's nobody here to play with! Where are the friends?" And he was right. We don't know any of the stay at home parent crowd, and it's not much of a crowd. So, I stopped doing that. It only threw him off. I enrolled him in some classes (swimming, soccer), but they haven't started yet. Hopefully, that will go better because there will be other kids.

I've thought of exercising, but I hate exercise. The only time I've successfully exercised was when I was coming out in college, and I had lots of unrequited lust. Now that I'm all happy and shit, I can't motivate. I spent an entire year once polling people about what motivates them to exercise, and I didn't get any good answers. People would say they enjoyed running however many miles and felt good afterwards. Give me a break. Either I'm missing some essential organ that makes people love to suffer, or those bitches all lied. I quickly lost interest in finding out which it was.

I find, on days like this, that the 15 minutes I spend at school when I pick Ari up really pay off. When I walk in, throngs of three-year-olds throw themselves at me with hugs and kisses. Ari waits his turn and goes last, because he wants me to carry him for the rest of the day. It is very hard to feel anything but good when this happens, no matter that I can't spell.