2004-05-24 - 2:34 p.m.
I am so tired. I�m simply typing this on my word program at work to copy-paste it later so that I don�t fall asleep sitting here at my desk. I�m not taking lunch today cuz I�ve already missed a lot of hours (too many to mention, even though it�s only about six so far) and I�m going to miss more tomorrow cuz Chloe is graduating Kindergarten. I�m so tired. I�d rather just leave right now and go take a nap at home. I miss the days when I could just work part time and then take naps while the kids were in school. I truly am grateful for those times way back when. I used to lay in bed in the a/c with the heat or the cold outside (usually heat, I tend to get jobs in the wintertime), and the kids would be at school and I�d lay there, lie there?...and read magazines or books. I fucking love to read. I should have been a book editor. But then, I�d find complaints about THAT, cuz I wouldn�t be able to always read books I would have chosen.
Another thing I miss is leaving the kids at home with Jimbo and going with my best friend, Shannon to Books-a-Million. Now, there is a Borders down in Naples. But it�s at the easy-access-beginning of Naples. I would drag her down there these days if she were down here. The only other Borders I�ve ever been to was the one over in West Palm Beach, I believe. I bought a thick-ass journal there (back in 2001) that I haven�t even used more than a 1/6 of an inch�s worth of thickness. I like typing much better than writing with a utensil. But, that�s what I bought. I think I bought a book on the Grateful Dead also. I was there with Shannon, as a matter of fact. What were we doing all the way over on the other coast, you ask? Well, we had just attended a concert for two days of the Grateful Dead member, Phil Lesh (and Friends). That was our last stop before getting back on the highway if I�m not mistaken...no, no, wait. That was one of our stops after having lunch once we checked out of our motel room. Hotel room? It was more like a hotel. A motel to me is very shitty indeed. This was not as shitty. That night we went to the 2nd day of the concert. It was great fun.
Anyway, I never read the Grateful Dead book (yet!) and I rarely use the journal, only cuz I use my online journals more. I also bought some caf� delicacies. I just love Borders. I think it�s even better than Barnes-n-Noble sometimes. Although, I think it�s just the quality of the displays. Borders is more open and airy. Their shelving is slightly different in appearance. But everything looks good enough to buy. Even the things I would not normally buy. Like books on native flowering plants or a cheesecake recipe cookbook. But, still.
I am so tired. I�m going to ramble on about something else...let�s see...the pictures I have hanging up on my cubicle walls. I have Stephanie�s and Chloe�s school pictures from this year. Jimmy�s is also right there, except his is framed. Oops. I think I might have either no more frames or had gotten Jimmy�s back earlier and the girls� pictures are re-takes. Either way, I wonder what type of statement it�s trying to say, only having my son�s picture framed. Then, there is the picture of all three of them sitting on Santa�s (THE REAL SANTA!!) lap, courtesy of the mall. And leaning beside that one (they are both little ones) is Chloe�s �graduation picture� from Pre-K daycare. She looks like 9 there. She�s so grown up looking. It�s funny. Then I have glamour shot type pictures (3 of Chloe, and 2 of Jimmy, none are framed and the services weren�t available to Stephanie�s age group). Then, there are two of Jimmy and Jimbo together.
Now, for the drawings and paintings. There are three that are part of my �garden� series (2 from Chloe, 1 from Stephanie). They are in place of my �window� (cuz I have none) immediately hooked to my cubicle. So, they all have the same theme, skies, grass, something flowering/growing. Then, there is a little �family drawing� from Chloe in ink pen medium on notebook paper complete with grass and 2 tulips. Her family is her brother, sister and mommy, sadly. Then, I have my postcard that my best friend (kmmmmm, I almost typed �bed� friend, no, she�s not my bed friend, although we have laid on beds talking to each other for many many hours through to the morning) gave to me. It says: �GOD COULDN�T BE EVERYWHERE SO SHE CREATED MOTHERS.� I like it. Then, there�s the little cat drawing in orange and yellow markers over there off to the side, from Chloe. Then, 2 paintings from Chloe. One being the rocket ship, the entire piece of oversized paper is painted blue, with a white and red and blue rocket in the middle. It�s really cool, cuz there are clouds at the bottom of the picture, and stars above the clouds to reiterate that it�s flying off into space. This is on the adjacent wall from my garden pictures. Then beneath it, I have her tempera ink blot butterfly in her choices of neon orange, neon fuchsia, green, and royal blue and every time I look at it, I think of �IN-A-GODDA-DA-VIDA, BABY� simply because it is a butterfly and Iron Butterfly is the band that sings that song. Don�t ask. Last but not least, oh, wait. And I also have a picture of me and all the kids, of when Jimmy was actually in a high chair still. I think it might have been his birthday. I had tried heroin the day before for the very last time, thank you very much. Before that it had been like over a year. I was just an experimenter of sorts, really. I�m totally disinterested in it now. As a matter of fact, I don�t do anything. Anyway, I fake smiled in the picture, which was so hard to do, cuz heroin is bad for you and makes you feel sick, sick, sick. So, anyway, that last thing is a dinosaur made from contact paper and one googly eye (it�s a side view) and the tail has construction paper hole punch chads all the way down it like spikes? Even though it looks like it�s of the brontosaurus (spikeless) persuasion. And that�s my office.
Oh, plus, there are a bunch of memos all over the other parts of the cloth cubicle walls. My computer keyboard and monitor are black. My mouse and tower are manila white/yellow. I have the kids� school events calendar up on the wall. It listed every day they were going to be off school. It was very handy to the extent of making me feel depressed about the full eight hours of them having to be in daycare for those days, etc. My monitor is sitting on a plastic wrap bound package of 8 white-pages phone books. I keep snacks and bottles of water in my bottom drawer of my desk. I�m tempted to bring in a mini-refrigerator. I won�t though. If I were rich, I would. But, then, if I were rich, I wouldn�t be at this desk. Then, we can�t forget my two transcribers, one for big cassettes and one for micro cassettes. And my phone. Very sensational.
Did I mention? That I�m going to miss more hours tomorrow? It�s Chloe�s �commencement ceremonies.� It�s from 1 to 5. I hope I don�t have to stay for the whole thing. She is very concerned that she is going to have a lot of homework in the first grade. I told her not to sweat it. We are going to practice reading better over the summer. Something I should have done last summer...oops. I clearly remember doing that with Stephanie the summer before she went into Kindergarten. Not really helping her read...but helping her write her letters and numbers and stuff. Anything aimed toward proficiency is helpful. It�s hard when you don�t have or make much time. Which is my excuse for not doing the same with Chloe before she entered Kindergarten. Her Pre-K class was supposed to do that, but they didn�t really push them, I see. She�s doing a lot better. But she relies too much on memorization for her reading and doesn�t always sound out the actual letters. She just sees some of the first letters and makes guesses of what other words she has had that has some of those letters. It�s quite a disaster. Every �B� word is �baby.� Including, but not limited to, ball, bowl, billy (goat), bucket, etc. You get the idea. We are reading Thumbelina that we got from the public library. Painstakingly slow, might I add. We are on our third page cuz I make her sound out everything. It�s my way of testing her and forcing her to �get it.� She�ll get it. So, we have done three pages in about five days. Of course, we take some days off. As you can see.
Okay, I�ve succeeded in staying awake this long. Good for me. Hip hip hooray and all that. I need to try to just read my book inconspicuously. I finally bought my Woodstock poster that I bid for on the Goodwill website. I realized that I was slightly confused or maybe the owner was outbidding me...so now I paid an extremely high amount of money for a stupid used poster that is admittedly torn in a �small� area. It�s on it�s way, complete with high shipping fees, but not as high as ikea.com. And no, I can�t afford things like that. My priorities are always out of whack.
By the way, what the hell am I going to do about my car�s a/c when they start spraying for mosquitos, if I�m outside driving, surely I will be forced to close all the windows and then die of heat stroke. Yes, they spray for mosquitoes in Florida with planes all over the counties. Do people know that up north? Do they spray for lightning bugs up north? I sure hope not. I like lightning bugs. Okay. I�m going to attempt to copy-paste this now. Bye for now.
