Photo Journal | 365 | and I will sing, waiting for the gift of sound and vision

065/365 - Monday 4 January 2016 | I'm collecting sunsets, not for the first time in my life.

066/365 - Tuesday 5 January 2016 | One of my January goals was to set up a proper altar and magickal corner in my bedroom. It's not finished, but getting there, and what a sense of calm that fact brings me.

067/365 - Wednesday 6 January 2016 | Before-bed journaling, just like Mom.

068/365 - Thursday 7 January 2016 | Cardboard forts, a requirement for any proper boyhood.

069/365 - Friday 8 January 2016 | A better gift left on my car than what the birds usually leave.

070/365 - Saturday 9 January 2016 | On this mannequin is a $158 tunic from Anthropologie and $258 pair of Cache leather pants. I know this because both have original tags intact. We're selling them for $30 a piece (which, still, is too rich for my blood). This is a public service announcement: stop buying new, full price clothes; you are wasting your money.

071/365 - Sunday 10 January 2016 | Oh, Winter.

072/365 - Monday 11 January 2016 | Last day with our rental, Martigan's "new red car", the 2015 Ford Quinceanera. Brunhilde comes home today.

073/365 - Tuesday 12 January 2016 | I don't think I'm a good friend. I mean well, and I aspire to be a good friend to people who deserve good friends, an active listener, a thoughtful giver, all that. The truth, however, is that people--their emotions and expectations--exhaust and worry me. Today I was given two for-no-reason gifts by two people fairly new and ancillary in my life. My co-worker, Marilyn, gave me this Betsy Johnson snake bracelet, and my husband's friend Crist's new bride, Sheila, whom I've only met in person thrice, hand-painted this stunning tee for me. I don't deserve things like this, but I want to.

074/365 - Wednesday 13 January 2016 | Sunset again.

075/365 - Thursday 14 January 2016 | Wolfman's mom brought Mads a little nest she found in her yard today. She's done more than that--she and her husband, Tommy, left a car with us to borrow and drove Brunhilde away to finish the work she needs done. But, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that kind of generosity. It's easier for me to focus on this little nest in my boy's hands, how amazed he was by this thing, and what kind of magick it was that Sandra saw this nest and thought of Mads.

076/365 - Friday 15 January 2016 | I've started reading books again. I've missed this.

077/365 - Saturday 16 January 2016 | Did a little sun gazing on the drive in to work. #magick 

078/365 - Sunday 17 January 2016 | This is what grandmas are best for: the snow was not a pleasant type, but very cold and very wet. But, Grandma was pretty insistent that the toddlers get bundled up and go play in it anyways, though we moms hemmed and hawed. Grandma was right, of course. The toddlers spent all of five minutes outside before wanting to come in and warm up, but those five minutes were important. It might not snow again this year.

"Sound and Vision," David Bowie

Madmartigan, 2 Years Old | when I was young, I was the nicest guy I knew; I thought I was the Chosen One

About Mads, 2 Years and 5 Months Old:

• Mads says, "I got an idea," and tries to put his wind-up Mystery Machine on the Yule tree.
• "Are you pooping or are you getting into trouble?" is the appropriate question to ask in answer to Mads demanding, "No! Go away!"
• Mads says, "I miss you so much!"
• Carrot poops were the grossest when he first started eating solid food, and they are the grossest a year and a half later.
• Before he takes off running, he momentarily runs in place like Bugs Bunny, and sometimes when he's super psyched, he'll run sideways, exactly like a costumed mascot at a sporting event pumping up a crowd.
• Mads says, "I a snuggle bunny!"
• Mads recognizes photos of himself as a baby.
• Martigan has one curse in his arsenal: god damn it. He wails it at night when he's trying to fight bed time.
• Mads says, "Look at me!" while attempting dare devil feats.
• He has figured out how to open the (supposedly) child-locked kitchen cabinets.
• Within half an hour of playing on his Christmas drum kit, he busted one of the drums open doing heavy blast beats.
• Occasionally, Mads tells me, "I a baby," if he's feeling particularly in need of affection.
• Mads loved riding around in the rental car, "my new red car," he called it. He was sad when we turned the car in, and if either of us mention it, he will pout and little and say so wistfully, "red car all gone."
• Mads suffered his first ever ear infection this month.
• Mads weighs 28 pounds.
• Martigan's favorite books this month: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Little Blue Truck, Winter Days in the Big Woods
• Martigan's favorite shows and movies this month: Toy Story 2, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Dora the Explorer

"I Ain't No Nice Guy," Motorhead

Thankful Thursday | lets play Twister, lets play Risk; see you in heaven if you make the list

Before we go to bed, we sing "Thanks A Lot". We've been doing it for months now, but it's only been recently (now that, as I've previously mentioned, Martigan's language skills are rapidly developing) that Mads has started listing things he's thankful for before I sing him the song. He is always thankful for his daddy and for Lunchbox. Sometimes he points to himself and says, "I thankful for me!" Sometimes he points to me and says, "I thankful for you!" I've started making a little list of the things for which Mads expresses gratitude, to pair with my own list.

Mads Is Thankful:

• for his dragon
• for boobies
• for Cici and Ella
• for cars
• for farts
• for rocking to sleep
• for Hammer! (his Thor's hammer night light)
• for his truck
• for medicine
• for gingerbread cookies

I Am Grateful:

• that Mads is learning the practice of gratitude so early.
• for my son's scribbles on the blank pages of my new journal.
• for Wolfman's cooking and the company and conversation of friends.
• in retrospect for the help of my husband, my grandmother, my mother-in-law, and my father-in-law in those first lonely, overwhelming weeks post-partum--for Sandra vacuuming and mopping my kitchen on her day off work, for Bob pacing the house with screaming Mads in his arms, for Grandma rocking Mads to sleep in a wooden rocking chair, for Jared, always Jared, my love and partner and helpmate and the most incredible father to this child of ours.
• when I wake up to realize Mads and I finally fell asleep somewhere in the midst of the most ferocious before-bed tantrum he'd thrown in months, and I Am Grateful my son is not actually possessed by demons but, just, two.
• to wake up early and have a full hour to myself in the morning, sitting at the kitchen table, working on this here blog; I Am Grateful to Wolfman for being my alarm clock.
• for the becoming-regular customer at work whose compliments give me some inkling of my career trajectory, particularly when I'd given up on the word "career" applied to myself.
• to April, for picking up Duck Donuts the morning of Christmas Eve at work--three dozen, though I never got pat the first box with all the maple bacon donuts.
• for long, empty roads Christmas Eve morning as I drive myself to work.
• for my father-in-law, Bob, always for everything he does, for all the ways he shows his love.
• when I ask Mads what he thinks of my new earrings and he answers, "that's beautiful!"
• to Wolfman, for rightly pointing out after my I'm-Not-Good-Enough Christmas Eve meltdown that at this age, Mads is not particularly interested in Christmas and only wants his tried-and-true routines.
• for whichever hippie soul paid for all the 90s music playing on the jukebox at Waffle House Christmas morning--Jane's Addiction, REM, even Blind Melon.
• for surprise visits at work from my sister and niece and from Jared's Aunt Theresa and his cousin Steven's family--Hollie, Steven, and the girls, Selby Kate and Dani Rae, and I Am Grateful for Selby's comment that when she grows up, she wants to come back to my shop and buy one of the recycled sari skirts.
• for Christina's incredibly detailed power point on processing in the POS system, so that even without her, I can find my way around the system easily enough.
• for Grandma's leftover manicotti for lunch, just as good 24 hours later and cold as it was freshly baked.
• for the feeling of riding in a car on a warm, humid night with the windows rolled down.
• that I am not a child anymore.
• for the sound of rain hitting the car windshield.
• that even when my husband and I are fighting (if it can be called that), we can still share joy, interest, and humor in our son together.
• for the privilege of having stood in the same room with pages of Leonardo Da Vinci's journals and the original works of MC Escher.
• when Mads tells me, "I love you. I want to hug you," even though I know he's just trying to weasel his way out of bedtime.
• for a phone call from my mother-in-law just to wish us Happy New Year.
• to be married to a man who can build a fire, and for cold enough weather, finally, to necessitate a fire, and for the tinkling, musical sound of embers in a hearth.

"Man on the Moon," REM

Photo Journal | 365 | some people think I'm an advocate of Lucifer, some say I'm a child of God; some people think I've got the nine lives of a cat, others say I'm filthy as a dog

058/365 - Monday 28 December 2015 | I wrote in my last post that the end of Christmas always makes me a little sad, but maybe always was the wrong word to use. The truth is that this year, I'm more relieved than wistful, ready to put away the decorations and get on with my life, excited about the coming year.

059/365 - Tuesday 29 December 2015 | It's been raining for days, weeks, months. I can handle it. I love the rain. This old house we live in, however, well... Our big Christmas gift this year was a life-sized skeleton to sit on our front porch and dress up throughout the year. (My grandmother just gets me.) Here's Leonard grinning out from underneath an umbrella, sitting on the bench like he's waiting for a bus that will never come.

060/365 - Wednesday 30 December 2015 | As soon as I got into the car at the end of my work shift, from his car seat Mads announced, "Mommy, we go to Abbey Road!" His language is developing so quickly, it boggles the mind. My perfect little sponge, he shall be fed real chicken nuggets in a restaurant with guitars hung on the walls.

061/365 - Thursday 31 December 2015 | Rough day. Amazing day. All of the above. Stood in the same room with the original works of MC Escher, yes, but while wrestling an unruly toddler. Mads was not just a toddler today, he was a Toddler Full Force. Convened at Grandma's house, briefly, afterward and enjoyed a cup of her coffee (she always makes it strong) in the mug Grandpa used when I was growing up. Good bye, 2015, you difficult, astounding thing, you toddler of a year.

062/365 - Friday 1 January 2016 | This blurry photograph of my husband makes me so happy, because he was so happy when I took it. On New Years Day we took Mads and Ella to Monkey Joe's. I usually inform friends, new and old, that my husband, breathtaking and astonishing and worthy of knowing and loving though he is, is resolutely anti-fun. I had assumed this Monkey Joe's business would not be Wolfman's favorite hours of our day. But, ever the good dad and uncle, as soon as the toddlers had doffed their shoes, he had doffed his as well and joined them in all the bouncy structures, and he smiled while doing it. I love they way his joy surprises me sometimes. I love him when his grumpiness does not surprise me. I love him.

063/365 - Saturday 2 January 2016 | Mads and Wolfman visit me most mornings at work, with the weather being what it is lately--wet, very wet, incredibly wet, oh and now here's some cold. My menfolk drop me off at the door of my shop, and I get the store open and running. About half an hour into my work day, they grace me with their handsomeness again. Sometimes Mads will be riding in a car-shaped cart, spinning the wheel, sometimes they will have ridden the carousel or the train or a coin-operated car or two. I love seeing their good-looking faces. It is, always, the best part of my day.

064/365 - Sunday 3 January 2016, Day Off | The boys took me to Hillsborough Street. I hadn't been in years. We popped into Sugar Magnolia, once my favorite place to buy all my gypsy duds, but now-a-days disappointingly not everything-in-the-store-under-$15. We bought Mads a little Balinese tom tom drum and a handsome new shirt for Wolfman. Then, we had a sit down next door with the gooiest, messiest cookies. 

"Be Forewarned," Pentagram