Unrelated Side Note

I was in such a BAD MOOD last night, so Matt and I headed down to Judge’s Bench in Ellicott City and got seats at the bar right inside the door and next the band. I was still in a bad mood halfway into my Kolsch when the band opened with a Springsteen song and they sounded so good my mood lifted instantly

The band rocked. Two guys, great covers, packed house, people were happy and dancing and singing along. I grabbed a business card with the intention of hiring them for a future spring party we have at the new house. No joke. I liked them that much.

This morning, I woke up to an email from a friend telling me her kid was sick. Bummer! But it’s a beautiful day so Matt and I are going to the Renaissance Festival and then over the bridge for a friend’s birthday party at a dock bar. Oh, it’s such a beautiful day, albeit a bit windy so it has me a tad out of sorts.

It’s been a rough three months. I’m tired. I’m restless. I looked in the mirror today after I got dressed and said out loud, “Oh man, when did I get frumpy?”

Matt said, “You don’t look frumpy to me.”

I kissed the man right on his face for that one, but I feel like my entire life is wrapped up in the buy/sell process (still praying for you, Natasha!) and it’s starting to take its toll. While I’m not exactly old, I’m not exactly a spring chicken either. I’m not just bouncing back from this, you know?

Right now, more than anything on God’s green Earth, I want to take a nap. I just want to curl up in a ball with my Emmy Bug and snooze! Rest my body, then hit the gym for a good, solid, hour-long workout, and I want the workout to be sweaty and hard.

Maybe I need to hook up with a trainer again for a little while? Maybe I need not to eat the cheesecake Matt brings home to me from his lunch at TGIFridays? I’m not sure what I need. Work is hectic and stressful and my schedule is insane through November. I’m trying to be as organized as possible so I can come back to work ASAP after we move.

I’m teaching three classes a week and lifting weights at least twice. It’s gotta be my diet these days?

I don’t know, I just don’t feel like me right now. Blah.

The strictest of all Christian faiths, and my parents were certainly the stereotypical believers. I could write a book on how growing up Catholic was painful, and how it played an enormous part in my many attempts at self-destruction but this blog is not the time nor the place for that.

As I’m growing older (and hopefully wiser), I am trying to know God. And have been doing so privately for many years. Mostly because I was afraid of what my friends would say. Me? Afraid of what someone thinks? Well, sure. We are social creatures after all. I didn’t have the fortitude to face the ridicule, the attacks, the arguments. The, “Really? You? Cindy? You believe in GOD.”

But, I’m tired of being quiet and private. I’m tired of feeling like I’m under endless fire just because I feel something inside that feels RIGHT to me. I’m tired of hiding behind other people and using them to make excuses.

When Matt and I decided to get married, I put our decision to have Christian ceremony on my parents, so that I wouldn’t have to face the possibility of ridicule. But, folks, I’m putting it out there now, officially, that it was important to me. IT WAS SO INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT TO ME.

However, I did, and still do, recognize and respect differences in faith and non-faith, so Matt and I discussed it and chose to have our Christian service in a non-denominational setting. A room just big enough to hold our guests. With lovely, abstract stained-glass windows. No icons, no alters, no relics. No mass or Eucharist. No minister in robes. Just a room full of the people we loved.

I think about the promises Matt and I made to each other on our wedding day. We made them in God’s name, and I think about how joyful we were making those promises to each other. How we exchanged our rings in prayer. How Matt chose, “Holy Ghost” over “Holy Spirit” because it was old skool, and how our minister made a little “whoooooooo” ghosty sound and I laughed, and how I didn’t feel ashamed but I felt right and full of love.

When Matt kissed me under that skylight after we were pronounced husband and wife and Green Day’s “Pop Rocks and Coke” came blasting out of the PA, I thought my heart might explode.

I think about how the words of our minister touched me when he told the story of the wedding at Cana and said the most profound thing anyone has ever said to me in regard to the bible, “Don’t save the best for last. Save it for each other,” then burst into a Johnny Cash song, which made me laugh and made me think that religion can’t be all that bad if God called this man to ministry. A man who said, “Yeah, I like the idea of rock ‘n’ roll for a wedding song. God gave us free will after all. Do it.”

Did I mention that he also danced with me and gave us poetry as a wedding present?

I felt safe and protected that day, and since our marriage, I have had a renewed, deeply personal interest in God and an immense curiosity in faith. Why? Because sometimes I think believing in something is a lot more difficult than accepting data and facts, and if you know me, you know I always have to take the hard road.

Last night, I picked up the Good Book and began to read it again for the first time and I found my literary brain kick into high gear as I thought of my favorite quote, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” – T.S. Eliot

It was enough to make me close my eyes and pray. It was enough to make me nearly weep. It was enough to make Emily nudged her forehead against mine and curl up in my lap. It was enough to make me thankful for a renewed chance at life, again and again. It was enough to make me run to Matt and tell him that I love him.

No one’s spiritual quest is easy. I still have my doubts, and I don’t know that I’ll end up in church and if I do I don’t know what church it will be. All I know is that something is speaking to me and I am trying to listen.

The kitties finding their SPOTS because kitties have SPOTS, you know.

In this house you will find:

• Sam in the batting of the guest room bed, under the side table in our bedroom, sitting on the floor next to the kitchen counter or on the back of the wing chair in the sun room, or sitting in the window behind the curtains in the master bedroom.
• Emily on my pillow, under our bed, or on the third shelf of the closet, shedding on my sweaters.
• Diesel curled up on the right side of the couch in the sun room or on the right side of the couch in the living room, on the stairwell ledge on the third floor, in the windowsill in our master bathroom, or locked in a closet because he snuck in there when I wasn’t looking.

Matt and I have been having fun thinking of the places the cats will love, and also contemplating how to get them proper access to the windows as none of the windows in this house have sills. In the new house, we think we’ll find:

• Sam in the nook between the kitchen and den.
• Emily in the middle of the living room floor, following the sun beam around the room.
• Diesel on the ledge at the top of the stairs, or sitting next to one of the three glass doors at the back of the house, chirping at the birds.

Has a blog. He’s working on finding his voice, and I’m pleased that he’s taking part in the exercise of writing. You should read it, especially the post he wrote last night that includes:

cake with grandma, hilarious
a preview of the house we hope to buy
a gig he’s doing this weekend

I convinced him to open up comments to all to encourage more people to read. Enjoy!

Up and at ‘em! I’ve been sleeping well these past few days, and I felt great this morning. I was on my own planet, and taught a rockin’ rollin’ Spin class, got in my Outback, drove to work, and walked in the door just as the rain started coming down.

Our showing on Wednesday canceled on us. I was trying not to get my hopes up too high about it so I wasn’t crushed by this news. At this point, I just have to let go. There’s not much more I can do. Matt doesn’t want to reduce our price any more than we already have (and I agree) so I suppose we’ll just have to sit it out and hope that no one else snatches up the house we want to buy.

In other news, taking care of the chickens has been a trip. They were a bit aggressive with me yesterday, though. Pecking and squawking and following me around the coop. “Okay, okay! I’ll go away! I’m just trying to give you some water. Damn.”

Taking care of the dogs is a whole other story and I have firmly come to the conclusion that I am not a dog person. In any way, shape, or form. Far too needy and the barking. Ugh.

So, it’s a rainy Thursday morning. Hope you have a good one.

I can’t help it. It’s really difficult to fight off today. Thankfully, Matt has a 12-hour show call today and I am going out to my friends’ farm to tend to their chickens and read a book in a hammock. I’m supposed to go to a crab feast later this afternoon, but I don’t know if it’s fair to subject my friends to my uptight emotions right now. I have a few hours to work that out though.

I’m also supposed to buy a gift for a one-year-old birthday party tomorrow afternoon. I know very little about babies, and even less about what to give them. I have a couple of errands to run, so I suppose I’ll work that out along the way, too.

I don’t like feeling this way. Like I want to blame. Like I want to judge. Like I want to blast and bludgeon the emotions of whoever happens to be nearby. I don’t like being in a foul, foul wretched mood about things over which I have no control, especially on a beautiful day like today.

I think I’ll try to remain quiet for most of the day. I think I’ll try to remember to breathe. I think go to the gym in a little while, work off some stress, before heading out into the day. I think I’ll try to let go, but I’m not promising anything today. My head is full of doubt.

I think the best thing I can do for myself right now is make a list, create a solid outlined path in regard to the things I need to do today, and just follow it without question or diversion.

I know this is vague, and mopey. But that’s where I am today. Just kind of lost for a place to go.

When I think back to our wedding day, I think about a lot of things. Some days it’s the vows. Others, the crinkle of the Ricola bag. The food, the dancing, the champagne … but today, it’s about the music.

At our ceremony:

• Waiting music: Variety of rock hits, including a lot of Springsteen. We were fortunately to get married in a very open-minded venue in regard to such things. As long as we weren’t dropping the ef bomb, we could play whatever we wanted. Heck, our pastor broke out into an A Capella rendition of Johnny Cash’s “He Turned the Water Into Wine” during our ceremony, which was an awesome surprise.
• Mothers’ entry song: Packing Blankets, Eels.
• Processional song: (which I made our sound guy play all the way to the end while I bopped around and sang and waved to people). Note: the video is missing the killer horn section that is in the recorded version. The band attempts to sing it, which is hilarious.
• Recessional song: Pop Rocks and Coke, Green Day, which made one of my bouncers say, “Yeah! Green Day, as she held open one of the doors as we excited the room. I gave her a high five.

Then things got a little weird. At our reception, Matt decided at the last minute that he wanted an announced entry and chose Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher.” It was so awesome, and so loud, and so rockin’.

We had a nice dinner mix that included things like “Where Do They Make Balloons,” and when we cut the cake, we played “Cheesecake Truck,” which was a song that Matt chose because it was straight up ridiculous, and hyper “just like Cindy. Who likes to eat all the cake.”

Then, our first dance, which was something we agonized over for months and finally settled on a song so converse to traditional, it left more than a few people with quizzical looks on their faces.

We chose “Woke Up New” by Mountain Goats, which is a story told from the perspective of a old man whose wife has just passed away as he goes through the motions of his first morning without her and asks the question, “What do I do, without you?”

It’s heartbreaking and beautiful and defines perfectly the relationship that Matt and I have.

We had planned a recessional song, that we never got to use, long story, but I liked our sending off so much better the way the way it ended up. The folks who remained were our family and absolutely closest friends all crammed into the hallway of the manor house. Sometimes, the spontaneous bits end up being the highlight of the day.

I had a great day, which ended with a free pint because the bartender kicked the keg and house policy is, “Beer is free when it kicks, no matter how much is in the glass.”

Lucky me!

Then the evening wore on, I wasn’t in the mood for my second beer, and I started getting agitated for no reason, so we left, I put in a mix CD and sang loudly all the way home, despite Matt’s complaints. I can’t say I blame the guy. Oh, I’d like to point out here that this is the first time I’ve ever left a beer unfinished at a bar.

I might have gotten too eager about some feedback and overstepped my boundaries with the realtor. Am I getting desperate? Breathe, Cindy, breathe.

It’s all I can do, right?

We are going back again to look at our number one house. I want this house so much; it consumes every fiber of my being. I’m trying to be patient. I am. I really am. But this place is meant to be our home. I just want it to happen. Please.

Okay, I’m going to bed now. To read a book and to drift off to sleep. It’s all I can do, right?

Right.