No tolerance for death

I've always really liked Halloween. That's partly because it's candy-centric (I like Valentine's day for the same reason. No boy in the picture? Who cares! There's always chocolate!). I also really like dressing up in costumes.

This year, I feel a little differently. Last night, as I was walking past a house all decked-out with ghosts and a fake graveyard, I thought "Egh. How morbid." My reaction took me by surprise. I usually love this stuff! The skeleton bones just seemed so sad. It was just for fun, but it reminded me too much of real bones resting in the cemetery.

I get the same sinking feeling whenever I see a really violent movie these days. I have no tolerance for gore and death. In Bruge was an excellent film, and thank goodness all the blood and guts came at the end, otherwise I would have never seen it.

I guess that now that I've brought life into the world, I just see no point in focusing on death. Not to get lecture-y or anything, but there's so much to appreciate about life, so much to live for, why do we have to have all this stuff where killing people is the focus?

Anyway, I hope that's not the end for Halloween for me. There are still the costumes, the pumpkins, the apple cider and the candy.

Guarding time

Now that I have much less of it, I've been extremely selective about how I spend my free time. Some of it's necessarily spent on things like shopping and cleaning (though my standards have gone waaaay down these days...the toilet doesn't get scrubbed until it gets that gross ring at the water line, and that would NEVER have happened in my pre-baby days). Beyond that, I get to choose, and sure as hell, I am not going to waste my time on mediocre movies or outings that aren't fun for me. A few weeks ago, I sat down to watch This is Spinal Tap, which I had never seen, and a third of the way through, I turned it off and headed to bed. Sorry...maybe it would haven been funny if I were 25, or a man, but it just wasn't doing it for me. Sleep was much more interesting.

Yesterday, I did haul 10 dead six-foot arborvitae out of the ground, which seems like it might be a waste of time, but I felt very satisfied afterward. My hard work means I get to plant something there next week. I have been itching to get my fingers into the soil, and all that shoveling did the trick.

That's the thing about motherhood...it makes you much more focused. I really do think about who I want to spend time with, and what I want to be doing. I want to take a walk in the autumn sunlight, I want to watch D. sleeping, I want to do a bit of writing, I want to pour myself a nice glass of wine then drink it while I cook Sunday dinner. All these things are worth it.

Buh.

There's this scene in Overboard--that's right--Overboard with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, where Goldie's at home with the four out-of-control boys, doing wifely things like cleaning and cooking and ... using a chain saw to cut down a tree??? And then at the end of the scene she's shown sitting in a chair, sort of shell shocked, muttering "buh buh buh buh buh." I always laugh at that scene. And today I feel a little bit buh buh buh myself.

The weekend started out with a bout of food poisoning. I barfed midway through the presidental debate (highly apt) and spent the night tossing and turning with nausea. Then last night, D. awoke, just as I was about to go to bed, and he was burning like a hot potato. His temp was somewhere around 102, and he was inconsolable. I spent the night nursing him off and on, and then boing! 6 am he is better and ready to go and I am feeling fried. Then T. came down with some sort of bug, which meant that I was pretty much on my own taking care of D. today. Gah. And it was one of those days where I'm constantly changing my shirt because I get spit up on, except once it wasn't spit-up but poop.

I should be in bed, since D. is finally down for the night (let's hope his temp doesn't spike again) but I am insane enough to be staying up to watch Mad Men. But you know, I've been sleep deprived for the last three months, so what's a little more lost sleep?