bring it

all right, i'll just go ahead and point out the obvious: my last post here was almost a year ago. yesterday, in between a couple of the fourteen (14) loads of laundry i've figured out i do weekly (or need to do), i idly sent a text to brita: "i wish i could give up wanting to have a blog."

anxiety bouquet

there's a lot i wish i could give up wanting. last week, trying to ward off a full-blown panic attack, i made a list of things that are causing me such angst these days. (i've been such a basketcase that d was compelled to bring me flowers one night last week - highly recommended supportive-spouse behavior, by the way.) i stopped adding to the list when it got to 29 items, mostly because i ran out of room on the piece of scrap paper, but also because so many were things i wanted to be different, but had almost no ability to change. for instance, i wanted my nose to stop running. and our dogs to be less excitable at the end of the day. and not to have to do fourteen loads of laundry a week. i wanted not to have bought a white couch. or to worry about trace pharmaceuticals in our drinking water, pesticides in our fruit, lead in our dust, composting, recycling, Haiti, Sudan, Baltimore, peak oil, my inability to cancel our cable tv service.

"actually," brita said, "i'd like to read about you canceling your cable."

"i wanted to cancel our cable," i responded, "but it turns out it's more expensive just to have internet service than to have both. file under 'best intentions.'"

"so write about that," she said.

at that point, i was reminded of the "but i mean well" in last night's leftovers' web address. i guess in a way i always intended this to be a space to air my wants, my mistaken intentions, with the hope of making them...less. just less. that's probably not all that interesting to anyone else, but it's cathartic to me. so i'm declaring 2011 my year of less wanting. we'll see how it goes. in the meantime, i've got a few house and craft projects i want to share here. stay tuned.