it really does seem like you’re at the edge of the world.

Grandma died today, 6AM eastern time. She was with my mother, sleeping peacefully. We tried hard to get back east, but the prices of tickets combined with fewer flights meaning more packed trips meant nothing was to be found.

I really wish I were home.

These last few days I learned the following:

1. I am a liar
2. I am purposely (?) attacking people for their religious and/or political beliefs
3. I should be held to higher or equal standards (the jury is out and undecided on that one) for participation
4. I apparently hate the average person - you know, the white Christian non-breastfeeding gas guzzling people out there.
5. Yes, I hate them all, apparently. Hate my kid enough to feed him formula too. OH NOES
6. I live an extreme lifestyle. Are you ready? WAIT FOR IT. I … recycle. God, I am such a bitch.

How on earth do I live with myself? I ask you.

So just to cover my bases with everyone, here is a handy list of people and ideas I hate, so you can use this against me one day when we’re arguing and you can’t think of anything coherent to say. Please print it out and paste it on your monitor.

I hate:
- Jesus, Allah, and Buddha
- Zoroastrians, Jews, Druze, and lawyers. If you’re a Zoroastrian attorney, YOU LOSE.
- Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, the asshole
- Vince McMahon
- Ron Paul, mostly because he’s got too many damned posters all over creation and back
- my dog’s way of shedding hair and remaining fully-furred, inexplicably
- people who cut me off on the highway
- inconsiderate pedestrians
- adults who bike on sidewalks. You’re a vehicle, dammit, get into the street! THERE’S EVEN A BIKE LANE!

Have I missed anything? I hate you, you and you too.

We are a bag of tired bones here today at Casa Cajo. The last two nights have been sucky - Matthew was secretly replaced by a demon of some sort and woke up repeatedly and unendingly. As a result, we are all zombies, of course, except for the little boy. He has a way about him.

We took him into the doctor this morning because we are at the start of week 3 of this sick that just will not quit (actually, for ALL of us) and we wanted to rule out things like ear infections or something nastier brewing in his little germ factory’s caves. He is fine. I love our pediatrician to bits and pieces - she greeted us warmly today and said how nice it was to see the whole family (although I think she was being nice - two of us looked like we were about to keel over!) and she does a great job of reassuring us me that everything is fine and he is headed in the right direction. I asked, because I always do, about Matthew’s speech and she said she is not worried one little bit, and when I told her that one of my July mom’s babies already knew her A-B-C’s, she reassured me. I like her - she makes me feel competent and not paranoid. Hard task, that.

For my own reference, a list of things Matthew says now:
- mama (although the stinker will actually, if you ask him to say mama, say baba instead. Pfeh!)
- baba
- dog
- duck
- outside
- rabbit
- grandma
- great-grandma
- thank you (never with us, the stinker)
- banana
- orange
- What’s that?
- All done!
- Hi there!
- milk

Things Matthew understands:
- feet
- shoes (boy loves shoes. Watch out Zappos)
- socks
- diaper change
- he nods yes and no appropriately (although if he isn’t sure, he’ll nod both at once!)
- hungry (heads for fridge)
- milk or water (heads for fridge or points for a sippy cup in the dish drainer)
- book
- hug
- kiss
- blow a kiss
- Peekaboo
- cover up and cuddle in bed

And lastly, a funny after today’s doctor’s visit: we took Matthew to daycare and there were a few other of the full-time kids there. Matthew ran into their arms and gave them kisses and hugs and it was very sweet. Then my goofball son decided to play on the floor and put his head down and stuck his butt up in the air, à la downward facing dog. This was funny, because hey, isn’t a baby’s butt in the air a funny thing? What’s even more funny is that Matthew has found his leadership skills in yoga: within a few minutes all of the kids were head-down on the carpet with their butts in the air. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

One of the things I hate about the discussion and debate on race: the idea of that being colorblind is the answer to solving racism. Bullshit. You know - the “I don’t see you as Black/Asian/Latino/etc., I just see you as a person!” rhetoric. That is laden in privilege so thick, as Gorilla Monsoon would say, you could cut it with a knife. You can’t NOT see that in me. I am Asian. My slanty eyes belay that fact loud and clear. My every interaction with people is based on my experiences as an Asian woman. My experience as a mother is colored in the same way. Thank you very much for not being able (or willing?) to see me as Black/Asian/Latino/etc. If you don’t see me as Asian, then you are blinder beyond words.

I worked out today. That might not seem monumental, but it is. I have been in a serious funk since November or so - first it was bronchitis, then the holidays, and then I got sick with what I now believe is a MRSA infection (two, back to back), then Matthew got sick with the same and was hospitalized, and I just somewhere along the line lost it. I haven’t stepped on a scale in forever, my bag of weight watchers materials taunts me, and my case of fitness DVDs, bulging like my waistline, taunts me.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a TransFirmer, to replace the one I gave to Erin when we left Chicago. It has sat in the entry way to our apartment since Saturday, before I decided at some point this afternoon to get busy with the rest of my life and open the damned thing up. First up, Jiggle Free Arms (”Let’s get funky!” Stephanie says while not sweating a damned bit and smiling when my muscles are screaming in anger).

I don’t know what switch went off, but I am holding out a glimmer of hope that this is the kickstart I need. These last few months have been a cycle of not-good and my body is bearing the brunt of my head’s discontent. I miss the days when I worked out solid, day in and day out. I miss running, I miss 5Ks and most of all I miss the sleek muscles my body was just getting the hang of.

Tomorrow morning, I plan to get on the scale, backwards (I learned something from watching Lifetime TV Movies while visiting my mother) and have Josh weigh me and he can keep track of my weight and measurements. If left to my own devices, I tend to weigh obsessively and lose sight of the overall goal of a healther and fitter body. I plan to eat a healthy, balanced breakfast and lunch, and dinner. I plan to drink more water than diet Coke. I miss my old self and I am not going to keep blaming the onset of motherhood as a reason for her departure. I am getting that person back, dammit.

Work has totally kicked my booty these last few weeks - all for good reasons, I think - but stressful nonetheless. I was at work today, and Josh came out with Matthew to visit before we all went home together - Matthew was a shy little charmer - it is amazing how our gregarious son is so shy around new people. Watching him learn and the little light bulbs in his head go off is really cool - it is like he is our own little science and psychology experiment. He saw someone put money into a soda machine, press a button, and then a soda came out. As it happens, Matthew is kind of in love with sodas (I don’t know why; I let him taste a little of my diet Coke and his face screws up into a grimace, but I think he likes the bubbles) so he immediately scrambled out of my arms, went over to the machine and inspected it. He pressed a button and put his hand into the slot and waited for a soda to pop out and looked all up in the slot trying to figure out why no soda came out.

Stuff like this - watching him figure things out, play with the dogs, squeal with laughter - this is what makes parenthood cool.

(I will forget happily about the snot that runs from his nose like a faucet. Seriously, this boy is keeping Kleenex in business.)

I am feeling less funky, which is a good thing, I think. I spent a couple of days brooding, which is to be expected, given a hectic work schedule, and a hectic year in general. Josh has challenged me to come up with concrete ways to move my life in a way I want to move it, and I’m still thinking on that - but just that challenge seems to have changed my outlook. Tomorrow I have a professional development session with one of my colleagues - to talk about my emotional competency. If he’d asked me what I thought my emotional competency was Tuesday morning, it would have hovered somewhere around -4.