You might be wondering why I haven’t blogged in almost three weeks. Guys, I’ve been busy. How many blog posts did you write? (Don’t answer that if you wrote more than one.) Here’s what I’ve been doing:
1. Working.
Yup. I have a job now, a real one where I have to be in the office during “business hours” and “wear pants” and not “cut a bitch” for stealing my cheese sticks out of the office fridge. These things take time. You try wearing supply shelf colored clothing and waiting for hours to catch the cheese thief in the act.
2. Watching Going on a journey with the Bachelor and yelling at the TV
Arie: I really want my parents to see what I see in her [Lauren].
Me: WHAT?! WHAT IS IT THAT YOU SEE IN THIS PERSON?
Sample Arie/Lauren conversation:
Arie: I just really want you to open up to me.
Lauren: It’s hard for me to open up.
Arie. I love that. Thanks for opening up.
Lauren. It was hard.
3. Lavishing affection on Rosie
Rosie has decided she needs more attention. This is hard to do with the job thing and the Bachelor-yelling thing taking up so much of my time. I try to take her on a decent walk-run in the morning and give her lots of attention.
4. Cleaning up the things Rosie pees on
Peeing is how Rosie expresses her need for more attention. My mom and I estimated that she peed 12 times on one walk one day, but then she still managed to pee on our guest bed. I’d say it was a statement against my mom, but Matty and I were sleeping on the guest bed. She also peed on our new runner, which can’t be put in the washing machine. If you’ve ever attempted to hose off an 8 foot runner with a shower sprayer and a scrub brush, well then high-five, because we’re in a special club together. No offense, but I would like to quit the club. I wish Rosie expressed her need for attention with flowers or poetry or cleaning up the house. I honestly wouldn’t even care if it was bad poetry.
5. Seeing my friends
I’m sorry, Rosie, but sometimes I have to hang out with my human lady friends too. I celebrated Galentine’s Day drinking beer, eating ice cream and making friendship bracelets with my ladies at Turtle Swamp Brewery, split a side of Nutella french toast with my running buddies at brunch, and celebrated Shabbat with our friends and neighbors where even George drank some wine. I have to admit, I would happily abandon blogging to do any of these things again.
6. Parenting
You know what takes up more time than raising an anxious dog? Raising two kids! They’re significantly more work than, say, making and then eating nachos, and even hosing off an 8-foot runner rug. On weeknights, after I’ve made them dinner, come up with reasons why we’re not having dessert, cajoled, scolded and yelled at them to floss and brush their teeth, pretended not to give a shit about the flossing and brushing and then yelled at them again, did a dramatic reading of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (my Hermoine is on point), turned on all five of their night lights (yep, two kids, five lights), and stolen some kisses, I’m too tired to do much blogging. Plus, those Mother of the Year forms are a bitch to fill out.
7. Wifing
I have a husband too! I like to hang out with him. We try to do Date Night every other week. He likes to watch movies, but only in the center two seats of the halfway-back row and I like to eat a real-food dinner, during normal dining hours (7-9). We’re also both too busy (see items 1-6) to really plan much, so a typical date night is trying-to-see-Black-Panther-at-the-fancy-restaurant-theatre-but-not-getting-tickets-and-going-to-sushi-and-shopping-at-Anthro instead.
8. Real Writing
I’m in a writing group with a bunch of awesome real writer ladies. They do things like write novels and submit essays to literary magazines and win writing contests judged by Roxane Gay (shoutout to you, Val!). We meet once a month to critique each other’s writing and I try to write things that are neither letters nor lists. They inspire me to step up my writing game.
9. Half Writing
Even though I don’t post often, I do start blog posts often, I just don’t finish them. At this very moment, I have 14 post drafts, including, “Dear People on the Subway” and “IAQs.” It’s because there are like 17 hours of Bachelor programming a week I have a really high bar for what makes a publishable post.
10. Reading
Any writer will tell you that reading good writing is half the battle. Actually, that’s knowing. Knowing is half the battle. But still, reading is important too. I’ve bravely (foolishly?) challenged myself to read 50 books in 2018. So far I’ve read seven. So I’m a wee bit behind.
All seven were good in their own way, but may I highly, highly recommend The Boys of my Youth by Jo Ann Beard.
I gotta run, Arie needs me to yell at him. But rest assured, I’ll be blogging more often. I mean, when I can. Just know that I’m doing other stuff too.
Yours sporadically,
Natasha
Letters & Lists 