Let Me Eat Cake

What I would like to do right now is eat all the cake and buy a lot of shit on Amazon. Possibly followed by a Law and Order: SVU marathon viewed from my bed.

Hugmonkey's cake. Pretty sure Ironflower, Lovebug and I have eaten most of it. 

I do not feel like blogging, working on freelance submissions, cleaning, doing laundry, organizing the basement or anything else I'm supposed to do when the kids are occupied.

I have had all this time to write and I have grudgingly completed one post.

I always have a certain. . . um, amount of stress. . .eating at me. Stuff I don't blog about because I don't need advice on it (by the way, thank you so much to all who commented/Facebooked/messaged me about Tuesday's post, you helped more than you know) or want to share it with the entire world.

But my desire for cake (and shopping and SVU marathons) tells me that I have more than the usual stress going on lately. It's giving me blogger's block. It's making me twitchy. It's giving me a pile of Hershey's wrappers on my desk. Okay, part of that is not going to the gym because I've got a sick kiddo on my hands. But the other part of that is worry.

My mom's not been well, and while she's going to be fine, she's not going to be fine for a while. And it's taken MONTHS for the doctors to figure out what was wrong with her. . .though it came up during a CURSORY Google search I did. Which I dismissed, because I assumed the doctors would have discovered that issue quickly. And now it's taking weeks for them to finally deal with the issue, because of course they are so over-booked.

Glad we have such "great" health care in the northeast. I swear, it feels like NJ doctors think arrogance=greatness.

I miss my Kansas City medical experiences.

Anyway, so I'm worried about my mom, but there's nothing I can really do, which sucks. Then, on Hugmonkey's birthday no less, a guy shows up at our local mall with a fucking rifle. We might have taken Hugmonkey to the mall that evening if his cold wasn't still so bad (As a friend pointed out, this cold has undoubtedly been a blessing in disguise).

I have been going to that mall since I was a baby. I have been taking my kids to that mall since they were babies. Everywhere I've turned, for the last few days, I've heard about this person's nephew or that person's friend who was in the mall on Monday night. After finding out the gunman had only killed himself, I felt so relieved. So happy that he only wanted to hurt himself.

Isn't that sick? To be relieved it was "only" a suicidal young man?

I mean, of course that's better than so many of the other shooters, who wanted to take others out with them.

I am angry. I am angry that it was easier for this young man to get a gun than it was to get therapy. I am angry at everyone who thinks a "good guy with a gun" could have stopped any of these situations in crowded places with scores of innocent bystanders. I am angry that the news keeps glorifying these situations as they endlessly speculate while waiting for actual news. I am angry that I've had to talk to my kids about what to do if there's a gunman around.

I am worried and I am angry but I hate being angry and clearly I need to go back to meditating because it's driving me crazy not to have control in any of these situations.

If you're still reading, thank you. Just vomiting all this out has been incredibly helpful. Now I know how much I need to get back to meditating, yoga and the gym.

Though if someone could just tell me where the best cake (Hugmonkey's was very good, but it's almost gone) in Bergen County is, I'll be all better in no time.

I Got D'Issues*

I suck at email. Unless it's something that I can answer in one sentence or less, it can take me weeks to reply to an email. Last night I got this long apologetic email from L., an acquaintance that I'm hoping becomes a friend. She is one of the few people I've met lately that I really hope to become friends with. Anyway, we've been emailing and it took her a while to reply to me, for which she was very apologetic.

I, of all people, understand how email becomes low-priority. I owe people dear to me, like my best friend from high school and my beloved cousin, emails. I very rarely answer comments in email (though I do reply in the comments section, mostly) because I SUCK at email. Before I discovered blogging, I was much better about email. But now there's always a blog to read or write. And I LOVE to read and write blogs. So I didn't feel L. had any reason to apologize for taking a while to reply to my email.

But (and this would be the part that embarrasses me) I was afraid that L. hadn't replied to me because I had offended her. I was so relieved that she didn't hate me. Even though I am notorious for taking weeks to reply to emails that require serious thought, I assume that people will reply to me in a timely fashion. And if they don't I assume that they are upset or annoyed with me.

Clearly I am mentally ill.

And what's worse? I haven't replied to L. yet.

Is there a name for my emailing problem? Am I the only person afflicted?

*When I taught in the inner city, my co-workers and I used to talk about "issues". Whether it was a guy's commitment issues or a student's problem with math homework, we covered a lot of ground with the word "issues." One day my student Latisha was having a really rough day. She threw a huge temper tantrum and during it screamed what sounded like, "I got D'issues!!!!" And ever after that, whenever issues were very SERIOUS, we would call them "D'issues".