Hey! Me! Ugh, shut up.

WARNING: This is one of those "F-bomb" posts that I refer to in the "About" section to your left. If you aren't into F-bombs, then you can skip this and go HERE to read about that time I made jam. The pictures are pretty, and it's good jam. I just pulled one out of the freezer this morning. And now, for the rest of you, a blog in F major.

I am a self-proclaimed genius. And like most self-proclaimed geniuses (geniusi?) I am also an expert. An expert on what? Glad you asked. I am an expert on your life.

That's right folks, after knowing you for five years, five months or five minutes, I am the kind of expert who feels totally at ease doling out unsolicited advice on what books you would enjoy, the type of supplemental formula your finicky baby would probably stomach, the color that would look good in your guest room or on your wooden stairs (hey, Kate), and how many chickens you could probably fit into your small urban backyard.

Not only that, I am really in tune with the bigger questions. Want to change careers? Come and see me, I'll have a dozen suggestions. Need to organize your living room or downsize your belongings? I can point you towards a darling book and a killer website. Need to know how to better communicate with your spouse or child? Step up friend, this font of knowledge is here for you.

Wondering how I have any friends left? Yeah...me too.

When advice is solicited, I do love to help out a pal. I mean, who doesn't have opinions on how their friends should be living? As a people, we make a thousand judgments a day about the choices of others, and it's okay. How else would we know where to position our own lives if we didn't have the barometer of our friends', family's and even total strangers' decisions to test out changes in the atmosphere? A judgment in this sense isn't a negative, it's a necessity. And when a sentence begins with, "Hey, I could really use some help with..." then we are well within our rights to tap those everyday thoughts and let the opinions flow. But sometimes, yes sometimes, I open my mouth and out pours a flood of advice that was neither asked for nor, most likely, appreciated. It is at these times that I would do well to heed the voice in my head, which is saying (not too quietly), "Hey! Danielle! Shut the fuck up."

Seriously, self, do us all a favor and give those thoughts a rest. No one likes a know-it-all. (The irony of making this statement in the form of a public blog is not lost on me.)

If you are at all like me, wouldn't you also benefit from a nice round of Shut The Fuck Up? Or, as my family says, Shelta.

Quick detour: When we were young, my uncle lived with us for a while one summer and worked construction. The guys on the job were always telling each other to "shut the fuck up," as good natured young fellas will do, but this wasn't really appropriate job site language. As a result, "shut the fuck up" was shortened to the colloquial "shut the." When my uncle was relating this story to my parents, one of my little brothers (who were totally interchangeable at the time) misheard and asked them all what "shelta" meant. And from that day until this, "shelta" has been my family's loving way of telling each other to zip it.

So, how do I move forward with this newfound self-awareness? As an opinionated thinker who is constantly mulling over the activities going on around me, I'm not going to change my core self. I wouldn't want to. I like that I'll never be at a loss for a position in a lively debate, and truth be told, I'll probably always be trying to get you to read the last great thing that I read (Wiley Cash, A Land More Kind Than Home). But when you come to me as a friend and want to share a story or thought about your life, or we are just hanging out with our kids on a random afternoon, I can find a way to keep my personality intact and also refrain from telling you what you should do.

In order to keep myself on track I have created a mantra, complete with special font and faded overlay, that is directly influenced by the motivational posters found in break rooms across America.

I should have added a fourth: Occupy your mouth with food or drink. Until I master these new skills, perhaps we should only meet up for Happy Hours?

Shoulda, woulda, coulda

I had a professor in college who wanted to eradicate the word "very" from the English language. His reasoning? If a writer had to resort to using it, then their adjective wasn't strong enough and they needed to pick another one. He was very smart.

I would also like to kill off a word. Not an obvious one, like "moist" or the love-to-hate-it "panties." The word on my chopping block is much more fraught with the poisonous nuances of guilt and shame. It's a word that I hope to erase from my vocabulary in order to lift a shroud from my life and protect my children from its dark and foreboding presence. So who gets voted off the island, sent to swim with the fishes, goes down for the big sleep?

Should.

I hate it.

Is there anything more crippling to the present moment than niggling thoughts of what you should be doing? Reading a novel when you should be starting your taxes. Checking in on Facebook when you should be writing a grant proposal. Going to a movie when you should be seeing live theatre. Eating a brownie when vegetables should be on the menu.

And the constant running list. The shoulds that always live in the background. I should:
do yoga
take the kids to the library
learn Spanish
make a grocery list
hang the pictures stacked in the closet
answer that email I've been avoiding
get a haircut
fold the laundry
sweep
buy a broom
replace batteries in all the dead toys
make a Goodwill drop
create a filing system to help out next year's taxes...

In reality, there is no such thing as a should. It is a bogus construct designed to instill unrest. Nothing is ever good enough when there is something more that should be done. Well, fuck you should. I declare you null and void.

And really, outside of this random rant, there is no such thing as a should. There is doing, and not doing. So how to kick should to the curb? Time for an action plan.

1. Question the reasoning behind the should.
Why should or shouldn't I be doing something? Outside of this moment, does anyone besides me care about the implied morality of what I am doing? Sometimes all it takes to release an old idea is to face it head on. So screw you, Nancy Reagan, I didn't always say "No" and I turned out just fine. 

2. Drop the guilty implications of should.
What is the point of "I shouldn't be doing this?" Whether it's polishing off a box of cookies or robbing a bank, either stop the action or at the very least don't ruin it by adding shame. Savor those cookies. Steal those dollars. Be in the moment. Then go for a walk or split the take with a favorite charity. 

3. Break the habit of should.
Sometimes I think I use a should for no good reason other than making myself unhappy. Not on purpose, just as a lazy form of ennui. Case in point, everyone's favorite "I should exercise more." This is not an action item, this is a way to feel less than while still watching TV. Which is lame. Let my jeans chastise me by being too tight if they must, I don't need to add insult to injury. I'm back to the idea of "do it, or don't." Exercise, or don't. Thinking on the should of the matter results in a whopping nothing. And some of the shoulds are even more mundane. Alone, "I should start packing for my trip" may not be that big of a deal, but left unchecked it can multiply into a giant list of actions that a better person would be taking while crappy ol' me just plugs along. Enough! If a giant fist punched me in the face every time I said "should," I'd stop saying it pretty quickly. I'm smart like that. Time to extend that same self-preservation skill to my general happiness and sense of worth. 

4. When saying or thinking the dreaded should, take a moment to reset.
If I "should" be sending an overdue birthday card, am I able to stop what I am doing and crank out the card? If yes, do it and move on. If no, either decide not to send a card and live with that, or decide to send the card as soon as I am able and return to the task at hand.

5. Let the "should cycle" die by not using it with my kids.
It's pretty easy to rework a "You should share with your brother," into "If you don't feel like sharing then you can go to your room and play by yourself for a while. But if you'd like to play together I'd love to have you stay here with us. Your choice." No guilt. Lesson imparted. Child retains a small sense of control and dignity.

Man, I should have made this list years ago!

A moment's respite

When I was younger, and more full of myself and my ideas, I always thought that I would heed Virginia Woolf's advice and never be without a room to call my own. And not just any room. A writer's garret. Some sort of adult feminist clubhouse that admitted only me. 

My grown up reality is that I am lucky to be able to lock the door and use the bathroom by myself. Most showers are accompanied by an infant in his Exersaucer. I share a bedroom with my husband, and our bed often hosts one or both of our sons. If I am sitting on the couch there is a child in my lap, another vying for my attention, and two dogs trying to woo me with "pet me" eyes. I wouldn't trade any of it for that drafty room of my imagination...and yet...

Sometimes I just want to be by myself. And write. 

Most writers, whether they are willing to admit it or not, have grown up with the notion of only being able to tap into our best selves, our most poignant writing, if we are locked away somewhere in total isolation. In addition to my writing loft, my creative dream was a cabin in Maine. Three months alone in the woods and that hidden novel would surely expose itself! And unless I was able to attain that perfect atmosphere, then who could blame me for not reaching my full literary potential? I admit that I fell prey to Virginia's dashing notion that “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” 

And that idea, dear me, is bullshit.

For starters, I am afraid of being in the woods alone so at least 60% of my time would have been devoted to fantasizing about bears, Bigfoot, and either the escaped mental patient with the hook at the end of his arm or the one who licked your hand in the night pretending to be your dog. Also, I have never been to Maine and know nothing about its actual landscape. And most writers aren't independently wealthy. We are average people with mortgages and medical bills, families to care for and jobs that require our daily presence. In our lives, writing is work. It is not glamorous, it is not better with a glass (or bottle) of wine. It benefits from regular practice and multiple drafts. 

And it can be accomplished in stolen moments if we are ready to take them.

My new creative goal does not involve escaping from reality in order to try and recreate it on paper, but rather to take advantage of the wasted minutes that can be gleaned from a normal day. This way I am accountable for my time, and that novel is allowed to grow in fits and starts instead of rotting by the wayside while I wait for an idyllic writing opportunity to present itself. 

I keep hearing my best friend Rachel's voice in my head, saying "Ounces make pounds." It's something she used to tell young hikers on Outward Bound trips when their backpacks would become so heavy after the addition of one more book, one more energy bar, one more souvenir rock. That idea, of one tiny river rock being insignificant but an hour's worth of river rocks adding substantial weight to your pack, can so easily translate into time. If I write for 30 minutes a day while the baby naps for example, I may only see a paragraph that one day, but by the end of the week I'll have 7 paragraphs. By the end of a year I could have 70 pages. It's daunting if I think of it in terms of "then it will take me 3 years to write a book!" But how wasteful I feel when I realize that I could have started this project 3 years ago...

So, I will squirrel away my idle time. Facebook won't miss me. My email will keep. The dishes will get done, dinner will be cooked, television won't notice my absence and no one in my family will feel shorted. These 30 precious minutes will become my room. And soon enough, I will have a book to call my own. 

Bucket o' Fuss

The English language is very important to me, and I am a self-admitted judgmental snob if you abuse it. In college I once stopped seeing a guy who used to "excellerate" too quickly in the car...probably from all of the "expresso" he drank. Irregardless (ugh) of that fact, it was probably better that I nipped that relationship in the butt. (Butt. Really? It's "bud," folks. So while you are busy goosing each other, I am going to go ahead and clip this metaphoric rosebud before it is allowed to bloom.)

Imagine my nerd-like distress then when I heard my mother-in-law lovingly refer to my crying baby as a "fussbudget." Um, what? That sounded more correct than what I would have termed a "fussbucket." Even now, spell check is calling me out as wrong. Nooooooo!

Time to investigate and quickly, because someone is fussy again.

Turns out, fussbudget is the original term. Damn. According to the Jewish World Review, editors of the tenth edition of Merriam-Webter's Collegiate Dictionary, babies have been budgeting their fuss since around 1900. Before "budgets" became ridiculously small amounts of cash left over after paying the bills, they were pouches (15th-century England) or "a stock or supply" (16th-century linguistic update). So in all likelihood, fussbudgets are either pouches of fuss (please refer to picture above) or a nice fat supply of fuss (Id.).

But wait! At the very end of the article they note that the addition of "budget" may have been just because it sounded cute, leading to other terms such as the occasional synonyms fuss-button, fuss-bug and...(insert drumroll here)...FUSS-BUCKET!

Saved by a technicality (!) and further backed up by that omniscient tome of etymological theory, the ever-popular Urban Dictionary:
FUSSBUCKET
NOUN - a bucket of fuss; someone who is so fussy they could fill a bucket with said fussiness. See also fussbucketry: the state of being a fussbucket. Example: "Dude, calm down. Stop being such a whiny fussbucket."


Booyah.

Looks like I don't have to break up with myself today. But I should probably feed Aidan instead of taking fuss photos for the blog. Even though I love him so much, it appears as if I couldn't care less. (Yes, "couldn't." Not "could." That doesn't even make sense.)