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I wondered today whether I'd made it all up and if we make it all up, then why can't we un-make it? I thought about the poet and how she can use words to make things up and hide behind them so that only those who are known and who know will understand them.

I feel the itch of hair, too much of it, on my neck. I don't have time to get it cut, but I will have my eyebrows waxed this morning. Sometimes it feels as if my eyebrows are the last, perfect thing, an arch, a bridge, from there to here.

Passed out, even before getting out of bed

Oliver has begun a new regime of waking himself up in the morning, taking a shower, getting dressed and making his lunch all on his own. To give you a sense of why this is momentous -- and he has been doing this successfully, now, for more than a month -- before embarking on the regime, our mornings were so fraught with drama that they were operatic. That is not hyperbole: if I were to run away from home and disappear in the South Seas, it would be around 8:10 on a weekday, after I dropped the Brothers at school.

Anywho.

As I was saying, the new regime has also given Oliver a sense of success and accomplishment that I never could, seeing as I was shaking him sometimes violently to get out of bed, yelling at him to hurry up and force-feeding him breakfast.

That was hyperbole.

Part of the regime is coming into our bedroom and lying down next to me to "snuggle." Now, I know this isn't going to go on for very long, and it's technically not really snuggling. What happens is that Oliver lies down next to me, fully dressed with his hair combed neatly, and then we just chat. Yesterday morning, this is what he told me: Mom, you know when you're not lying down like this, you have a really cool face. I asked him what he meant. He said, Well, like the other day when you were wearing that pink shirt, and you walked by and I looked at your face and I couldn't believe it. I said, Couldn't believe what? He said, Well, I know you're my mom and I probably think you're beautiful like most boys do for their mothers, but there's something different about you, too. I think it doesn't have to do with being my mother. I was listening now, holding my breath. He continued. There's just something about your face that is alive and cool. Like you're realllllllly beautiful in a way. 

Reader, you know I told him thank you and that was the nicest thing that anyone has said to me in a long time. And Reader, just because he's the Big O -- the boy who turns twelve years old this Friday, the boy who drives me absolutely batty most of the time -- he also said this:

Mom, I kind of get why Dad picked you to be his wife. I mean, I'm just your son so it's not like THAT, but I think I'd be lucky if I grew up and met someone whose face was like yours.

Honestly, folks, if I weren't already lying down, I would have passed out.

Laugh out loud, redux, with Ecclesiastes

I stumbled upon this post last night that I wrote nearly two years ago. I laughed out loud -- I'll admit to it being pretty damn funny -- but also because it lends weight to a couple of phrases from my favorite book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes:

Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

That which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.

I'm still kvetching about seizures and stress, and I'm still bemoaning my weight and age. That one is more important than the other is beside the point.

All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing.

I got my hair cut yesterday, and when I asked Henry to take my picture, he told me that I had to promise to actually post it. Here I am, vain as hell, looking for someone to photo-shop one inch off the sides of my face and restore the cheekbones that lie underneath. An upper lip would help, too, but leave the eyebrows.

In lieu of your kind comments and protestations of my "beauty" -- I know ya'll -- I'm going to ask you to regale me with stories of your own vanity. Let's have fun.

And I set my mind to know wisdom and folly; I realized that this, also, is striving after wind.Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.