Ready or not, here I (don't) come!

At long last, I blog.

Much as I'd love my first post to be brilliant and eloquent, I'm not getting my hopes up. Besides, to what will I aspire if I set the bar high? Laziness. Pure laziness.

A select few will know exactly what those answers mean. The rest (because there are teeming masses, right?) will learn, soon enough.

Jayzus girlie, can you be a bit more nebulous right now? Sorry. I live in my head a lot, and lack the agility to climb out gracefully. I promise to be more forthcoming in the days/words ahead.

Here, I'll start. I'm a mom to two-my son is 26 and my daughter is 18. (How do you italicize on here? This is exactly why i've delayed blogging for this long. i knew it was gonna be really hard to learn all that stuff like text/font changes, etc. then there would be blogs that i'd write and write and write the hell out of, and would then lose, due to my lack of blog skills. then there would be the day i'd try to figure out how to post pictures. see? that's why i considered it about 12,847 times, and disposed of the notion. now, here i am...writing my first blog...at a complete loss about how to italicize a word. i KNEW i shouldn't have done this. it's going to be SO MUCH WORK. and without italics to turn to, i'm left with nothing but upper case. and people who type in upper case tend to look CRAZY, if you get my drift.)

Where was I?

Ah. Right. I have two kids. I work in the information industry. (most of my other blogger friends in the business are all secretive about their real job, for reasons of privacy and discretion, i suspect. problem is...i'm neither private nor discrete. wait. wait. i AM discrete. i'm not sure how to spell it, but i know i am it. everyone i know THINKS i'm not discrete because i talk a lot and sometimes forget what's supposed to be secret and what's not. but in my HEART i'm discrete. once, during a party at my house, when someone accused me of being indiscrete, i proved my discretion by announcing that i knew serious secrets about everyone there, which i had shared with NO one...all this time. that showed 'em. fuckers. so many people did look so nervous at that moment.) (oh, maybe that's why we don't link our work with our blogs. because we are all in the nasty habit of cursing like sailors. shoot. i'll try to watch that.) Anyway...I'm not so good with secrets and stuff. And I halfsie don't see the point, as everyone knows everything about everyone, all the time anyway. But to honor the gals (and Michael, who's not a girl) and stay in solidarity, I will attempt circumspection as much and as long as I can. So... two kids, info industry, I live in the East Bay in the same house I've lived in since 1982.

I love my kids, my friends, my family, my two dogs and two cats. I am happily unmarried, although I dabbled in it long ago. I discovered my inner artist around 10 to 12 years ago, and while I can't draw or anything, I love making stuff. Artating, as it were. I cannot claim that term. A man I once dated, was married (before I dated him) to an artistic but inarticulate woman. She told him a story about watching an artist paint by a river, and (unwittingly) said he was "artating." A word was born. I'm ashamed to say I originally latched onto the word with cruel intent, as she was an awfully pretty ex. But eventually I came to embrace the word in all its artful glory, and shed the petty cruelty.

So...got kids, got family, friends, dogs, cats, house, and I artate. And I do home repair. I pride myself on being somewhat self sufficient. I have power tools and I kinda know how to use 'em. Imagine me, with Pancho Villa bandoliers strapped across my chest, but instead of bullets...mine is loaded with a drill, a saw, hammer, screwdriver, etc. Well, that's not actually true. I don't have a bandolier and I don't resemble Pancho. But I would love to have something to hook tools onto me because I lose them all the time when I'm working on stuff.

Did I mention I am one of the 4% of adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? Yeah, that's me. I'm a little too old to have been diagnosed as a child. It just wasn't done back in the 60s. The nuns simply said I was rather rambunctious. And since I was a tiny, tiny, tiny child...I never got the ruler across the hand. Anyway...focus isn't my strong suite. But 1-that's never stopped me, 2-I developed compensating skills, as some are lucky enough to do when untreated as a child, 3-I quite enjoy the zippy-fast nature of a lousy attention span, troublesome as it sometimes is, 4-look, a sparkly thing! (okay, i just threw that in there as an homage to all those jokes about it)...

Retinue. I love that word. I plan to use it today. Let's all use it today, once, while speaking or writing. Naturally, please.

Okay: kids, family, friends, dogs, cats, house, art, ADHD, and I broke my leg. I didn't just break my leg. I broke it good, to quote my orthopedic surgeon. Tib, fib, and something else. Truth is, I can't read his writing and I was reallllllllllly stoned on opiates in the hospital, and can only remember every 6th thing I was told by all medical personnel. I had a bad run-in with a pothole. I was attacked by gravity, and I came out the loser. (but you shoulda seen the other guy.)

Anyhoo...I broke a few bones in my leg in a really nasty way, two weeks ago the day after tomorrow. An ambulance took me to a hospital with a good orthopedic department. I spent approximately 7 or 8 hours in the ER getting Xrayed and drugged and cared for by all the really nice nurses and doctors. They loaded me up on some remarkable IV drugs so they could "reduce" my fracture (imagine a bone. now break the bone. now shove one of the bones over, so it's kinda parallel with the other parts of the bones, instead of linear the way god or whomever made you. that's wrong. a reduction is an attempt to make it right.) Think of that scene on "ER" or "Grey's Anatomy" when they call in a big guy, then a big, strong orderly holds onto the patient's shoulder while the other medical brute pulls on a limb really hard and the patient curses and shrieks. And voila! The bones are aligned again. THAT's a reduction. Only instead of shrieking, I softly whispered "owe" and each time I did that, the ER doc said "another ten CC's" to the anesthesiologist and I have almost NO recollection of any of it. Except I apparently would not shut up, apparently to the anesthesiologist's annoyance. Which reminds me (sort of) of another time I had something medical done in "conscious sedation" and the anesthesilogist asked me if I could please stop talking for just a little bit while he focused on my respiration and stuff. Which is kind of paradoxical because here I was terrified about about being awake during the procedure, but too afraid for general, and when all was said and done I was a chatty little missy the entire time. I got all this second-hand, from my dearest friend in the world who held my hand during the reduction. Then, two days later, they knocked me out the real way and operated on my leg for a bunch of hours, and now I'm in a cast, but I'm leaving a lot out. Details later, as I might say if I was working instead of sitting on the sofa in my living room, with my foot up, writing my very first personal blog.

Okay you know what? Much as I'd like to finish, this blog post is getting awfully long. What say we stop here, and I promise to return at a later date, for the next post?

And I promise I will explain the name of the blog. It's good, the meaning of the name. That's another reason I kept putting off blogging. I could never think of a really clever name. The daughter and niece have both gone with clever spins on the family name. But that sort of screws the pooch on private. Besides, I needed a name that would be organic. It had to mean something to me. For the longest time, it was going to be "It Getter" as in "I get it." Why? Because my daughter (and before that, my son) always would say "you just don't get it" to me, during adolescent disputes. But I DO get it. I SO get it. Of course I get it. It's not like I'm some old motherlady or something. I get it. Boy, do I get it. So...it would have been a motherly act of rebellion. It Getter. Because I get it, motherf***ers!! (is that better than swearing? i so love bad words.) But...I broke my leg. And both the time to blog, and the title of the blog were born. The New Normal Pie.

Remember this phrase: "A (or is it "the?" i'll check) chance to become the new normal pie." It's a mystery. It's a puzzle. It's a curious and evocative phrase. It has great meaning, I suspect. Only I am not exactly sure what it means. At first, I was completely perplexed, and thought it to be a piece of opiatic nonsense. Then after just a few days...it began to take on meaning. I felt like my mission was to learn what the phrase means. Gradually, I wanted the chance to become the new normal pie. I was yearning to become the new normal pie. And all at once, I began to feel as if right now...right this very minute...I have the chance to become the new normal pie. But first I have to figure out what the "new normal pie" means. I half think it might take the rest of my life. Which would be perfectly fine by me.

Yes, it's still a little vague, I realize that. But I will explain on the next post. I promise.

-xo

ps: uh...i just saw the little shortcuts thingie at the bottom of the page with italic instructions. oopsie.