Shoes and Other Things

Today I am wearing sandals. Sandals that smell. Shoes that smell should, by standard female guidelines, immediately be thrown out. However, my shoes seem to have a longer life outside of the spaghetti sauce-covered tall kitchen trash can than the shoes of other women. Why?

I have a suspicion it is somehow directly related to why I have not replaced the glasses frames that I have worn for about 6 years now; why I feel that I can go just another day without shaving my legs even though I'm wearing a skirt, why $20 is somehow just too much to get my underarms waxed anymore, why I eat fruit snacks with my dinner, and why I have not gotten my hair cut and dyed in 6 months. In fact, it's directly related to why I need so much more desperately to dye my hair now more than ever to cover the excessive grey roots: I am a parent.

To be more specific, I am a single parent, the adoptive parent of my nephew, former city girl now forced to make nice in the suburbs where I grew up. Wow, that must really be hard, you say... Well, you ain't just whistlin' dixie.

I used to know so much. I knew things. I am now currently lost in parentland, in which maps are strictly forbidden, your gut instincts (of which I have few) are embraced, everything your parents did with you is frowned upon, and you barely have time to get your bearings enough each morning to keep moving forward.

I love parenthood, and I want to run screaming from it at the same time. I've been assured this is normal. How does an aunt who is a mom, an intellectual forced to watch The Country Bears, a sexy woman with no time for dating and less prospects, survive in this place?

I guess that's what this blog is for.