Confessions of a Has-Been

• I bore me
• I miss writing when I didn't mentally visualize actual, for real forreal people who would read my words.
• I see the occasional "writing contest" and try to have one of those; "Self. You know you coulda/shoulda/woulda-but-I-know-ya Won't-ah" type conversations.
• I get bored early on and stop listening.
• I try to inspire me. There's lots of places to go-- like google images. Or other people's blogs. (the none has-been ones) But I feel either cynical or bored and just pissy because I don't know how to use power tools.
• Because I'm bored, I notice things like the nasty shades of grub on the computer keyboard. I think- "I bet there's a way to clean that". I think- "I could probably google that information". Then I immediately feel bored. I mean-- who wants to spend their free time cleaning a computer keyboard?! I think that's at least a couple of additional stages into "has-been" status.
• Do you know that if you try to inspire yourself by surfing the internet, you find women who re-make their wardrobes out of their husband's XL white t-shirt and a linen tent from 1980?! Where can you even go from there?
• Or have you ever actually watched a Martha Stewart tutorial video? Geez, I really felt like slapping her. Is that a sign of life?
• Dust.
• The appearance of dust can make me go almost comotose. It's always frikking everywhere. Like all you do is sit around on your pet-infested couch munching on bon bons all day. It just fluffs around the place- all the way up the stairs. Under the desk. Around piles of goodness-knows-what. and if anyone sends me a link on simplifying my life or decluttering, we no longer have a relationship. I will block your e-mails.
• I've been wearing the same pair of Zenni glasses since August when I got really sick and rolled over in bed, inadvertently crushing my other pair. The pair that I actually liked. These ones are..... pink. They make me look like the middle-aged has-been that I am. In pink glasses.
• I've taken to habitually saying (to the dog) : STOP STARING AT ME!
• sometimes I accidently prompt small children to say; "Sorry, joycie". At which point I have to say- "Not You. You can stare at me."

And now for that tidy wrap-up that the feel good blogs insist on:

I walked to the thrift shop with the kids this afternoon. The weather was splendid. A perfect, crisp, clear, sparkley winter afternoon. They wandered over every bump and clump, gathering sticks and licking snow blobs along the way.

After I made my selections (great pair of unripped Old Navy jeans for Sam, some pin backs for a project that I may or may not ever complete.....), the kids and I went to stand in line to pay. Several grey-haired women were ahead of us and one of my kids asked; "Why are there so many grandmas?"

I explained that every kid has a grandma (if they are lucky) and so there are lots of grandmas around who belong to all sorts of people.

To which a four year old replied;

"But there's only ONE of you, right Joyce?"

So yeah. Has Been, but not in triplicate.