(no subject)
Jul. 1st, 2002 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
semperfionaI'm so tired. Rosa stayed up past 11 again last night, and I was too frustrated to sleep then, so I ended up staying up until 1:30 or so reading The Last Hot Time by John M. Ford. I don't quite understand the ending.
"Afraid of it. Afraid of success." People on the other side of the office are teasing one of my co-workers about her book--she's writing a novel. But the words...it might be exactly true of me and my writing. Why might that be? Because success would mean exposing my true self to people for whom I've been playing roles for so long? I don't know.
Got up at oh-god-thirty Saturday to go on a hike at Castlewood State Park with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
indigobynight--and the new puppy, who is adorable--and members of the St Louis Hike Club. It was a very nice three-mile walk along the bluffs over the Meramec River. My calves still ache a bit, though. It has been far too long since I've done any hiking at all. And I didn't have appropriate footwear. I was wearing my pseudo-Birkenstock sandals. My sneakers have not been in evidence since I moved in February, and I don't own any hiking boots. I think I should buy some if I'm going to do this very often, and I may: it was fun.
After the hike Rebecca took off for home because she needed to go grocery shopping and such. I went to breakfast with the club members. They're all quite friendly, though the conversation was mostly "Hikes I have known" and I didn’t really have much to say.
Then I wandered up to Rebecca's house to spend the afternoon lazing by the pool. I managed not to get sunburned, which is a minor accomplishment. Read several stories from Faithless by Joyce Carol Oates. Her writing is always slightly disturbing. R's friend Tanya came over at dinnertime, and we all bundled into cars to go see Lord of the Rings at the dollar theater. It was sold out! The movie's been out since December, it's been at the dollar theater at least three weeks already, but it was sold out! Tanya left then, and the rest of us rented Made and went back to R's to watch it.
I'm not sure why it is, but I don't seem to find movies all that funny anymore. Made was billed as a comedy, but I didn't really laugh much. There have been several like that, lately. Is it Hollywood, really not making funny movies anymore, or is it me? Things that are supposed to be funny mostly make me cringe, anymore. I take them personally, put myself in the joke butt's shoes, feel offended by jokes at the expense of various groups...or just think the jokes are puerile. What was the last one I saw? I don't remember now. Didn't make much impression, I suppose.
Anyway, after Made they put Monty Python's Holy Grail on, but I left about halfway through because I had nearly an hour drive home, and it was already 11:30.
Next morning, I fetched Rosa from her dad's, as I've already posted about. Jen and Phaelen came over around 1 to splash in the baby pool and play; oddly enough, while Rosa had been thrilled to swim in the morning, once he arrived she got pouty and didn't want anything to do with the pool anymore. Eventually we all went inside and the two of them played together pretty well while Jen and I just snuggled together and watched them.
They had to leave about 3:30, and I took Rosa for a drive to put her to sleep. Brought her home, laid her down on the couch and started to read The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve. Realized shortly that I was also tired, and went upstairs to sleep. That was about 4:30. I slept until nearly six, then got up and read a bit more. Rosa woke up not long after, and we went to Francis Park for the Compton Heights Band concert. As I'd expected, she didn’t want to sit through it, but there were tons of kids on the playground, and she played for quite a while there.
Then she started wandering around the park; I followed her. After a while, when it was getting dark, I wanted to go back to get the chairs and go home. She bit my hand. I made her apologize and then we went back to the playground for a little while. Her throwing gravel at another little girl was the last straw. I made her apologize to the girl, and then we went home. She kept protesting "I'm going to be good now," but I told her she was being punished for having already been bad, and that was that.
I tried the "going for a drive" method to put her to sleep for the night, since it was already nine o'clock, but it didn't work this time. She stayed awake. During the drive she found a new way to break mommy's heart. Now she's started saying "I want my mommy and daddy."
So then I had another frustrating and tiring two hours of trying to get her to go to bed. In the end she went to sleep in my bed, which is what I have been trying to prevent. I was worn down enough to let her. I'm a pretty stubborn person, but there's no such thing as out-stubborning a two-year-old.
Somewhere in those two hours she got hold of a marker for disguising furniture scratches, and drew all over herself and me. When I got to work this morning my coworkers all commented on my decorated feet. Sigh.
"Afraid of it. Afraid of success." People on the other side of the office are teasing one of my co-workers about her book--she's writing a novel. But the words...it might be exactly true of me and my writing. Why might that be? Because success would mean exposing my true self to people for whom I've been playing roles for so long? I don't know.
Got up at oh-god-thirty Saturday to go on a hike at Castlewood State Park with
indigobynight--and the new puppy, who is adorable--and members of the St Louis Hike Club. It was a very nice three-mile walk along the bluffs over the Meramec River. My calves still ache a bit, though. It has been far too long since I've done any hiking at all. And I didn't have appropriate footwear. I was wearing my pseudo-Birkenstock sandals. My sneakers have not been in evidence since I moved in February, and I don't own any hiking boots. I think I should buy some if I'm going to do this very often, and I may: it was fun. After the hike Rebecca took off for home because she needed to go grocery shopping and such. I went to breakfast with the club members. They're all quite friendly, though the conversation was mostly "Hikes I have known" and I didn’t really have much to say.
Then I wandered up to Rebecca's house to spend the afternoon lazing by the pool. I managed not to get sunburned, which is a minor accomplishment. Read several stories from Faithless by Joyce Carol Oates. Her writing is always slightly disturbing. R's friend Tanya came over at dinnertime, and we all bundled into cars to go see Lord of the Rings at the dollar theater. It was sold out! The movie's been out since December, it's been at the dollar theater at least three weeks already, but it was sold out! Tanya left then, and the rest of us rented Made and went back to R's to watch it.
I'm not sure why it is, but I don't seem to find movies all that funny anymore. Made was billed as a comedy, but I didn't really laugh much. There have been several like that, lately. Is it Hollywood, really not making funny movies anymore, or is it me? Things that are supposed to be funny mostly make me cringe, anymore. I take them personally, put myself in the joke butt's shoes, feel offended by jokes at the expense of various groups...or just think the jokes are puerile. What was the last one I saw? I don't remember now. Didn't make much impression, I suppose.
Anyway, after Made they put Monty Python's Holy Grail on, but I left about halfway through because I had nearly an hour drive home, and it was already 11:30.
Next morning, I fetched Rosa from her dad's, as I've already posted about. Jen and Phaelen came over around 1 to splash in the baby pool and play; oddly enough, while Rosa had been thrilled to swim in the morning, once he arrived she got pouty and didn't want anything to do with the pool anymore. Eventually we all went inside and the two of them played together pretty well while Jen and I just snuggled together and watched them.
They had to leave about 3:30, and I took Rosa for a drive to put her to sleep. Brought her home, laid her down on the couch and started to read The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve. Realized shortly that I was also tired, and went upstairs to sleep. That was about 4:30. I slept until nearly six, then got up and read a bit more. Rosa woke up not long after, and we went to Francis Park for the Compton Heights Band concert. As I'd expected, she didn’t want to sit through it, but there were tons of kids on the playground, and she played for quite a while there.
Then she started wandering around the park; I followed her. After a while, when it was getting dark, I wanted to go back to get the chairs and go home. She bit my hand. I made her apologize and then we went back to the playground for a little while. Her throwing gravel at another little girl was the last straw. I made her apologize to the girl, and then we went home. She kept protesting "I'm going to be good now," but I told her she was being punished for having already been bad, and that was that.
I tried the "going for a drive" method to put her to sleep for the night, since it was already nine o'clock, but it didn't work this time. She stayed awake. During the drive she found a new way to break mommy's heart. Now she's started saying "I want my mommy and daddy."
So then I had another frustrating and tiring two hours of trying to get her to go to bed. In the end she went to sleep in my bed, which is what I have been trying to prevent. I was worn down enough to let her. I'm a pretty stubborn person, but there's no such thing as out-stubborning a two-year-old.
Somewhere in those two hours she got hold of a marker for disguising furniture scratches, and drew all over herself and me. When I got to work this morning my coworkers all commented on my decorated feet. Sigh.
