Thoughts for a rainy Monday.

So, I have shamefully neglected my blog - too easy to do, seeing as there's nobody reading it and sending me urgent "will ya update your blog already?!" emails. That's OK - I've realized I'm not keeping this blog to try to develop a following or to become Miss Internet Popularity. I'm keeping it, basically, for my own sake and for my daughter's, to have someplace I can come back to later to remind myself who I used to be once I've become somebody else through the simple passage of time. So, future self and future no-longer-a-toddler daughter, here is where I was the last weekend of August, 2006.

I'm finally reclaiming an aspect of myself that has been missing since Esther arrived. The aspect of myself that is neat, clean, and organized. A month ago I kicked my husband and daughter out of the house and reorganized my home office. Two years worth of piled-up bills, warranties, receipts, etc. etc. etc. was culled through and filed away. I dismantled several extraneous pieces of furniture and exiled them to the basement. I set up the room with a computer/office corner and an Esther-activity corner. It felt good to admire it when it was done. The empty, uncluttered space in the center of the room felt like a masterpiece.

I did the same thing in our bedroom this weekend. In the nearly two years since Esther's birth, a huge pile of crap had accumulated at the entrance to my closet. Discarded maternity clothes, jeans with broken zippers, pre-baby-weight-gain suits, worn-out shoes - you get the picture. I finally sat down, filled up garbage bags, assembled Goodwill-donation boxes, put the out-of-seasons and might-fit-again-somedays into Rubbermaid bins and schlepped them down to the basement. I reorganized everything hanging in the closet so I actually can see what I own. I swept a humongous pile of dust off of the closet floor. And then, for the first time in two years, *I closed my closet door.* It is so nice to approach my closet without climbing a mountain of crap, open the door, turn on the light, see what I have, pick out an outfit, turn off the light, and shut the door again.

I also cleared off the top of my dresser. Two years' worth of receipts, broken junk jewelry, photographs, pantyhose (some with runs, some intact), old wallets, safety pins, and dust, dust and more dust. Now all that's there is a framed photo from our wedding, one tin of lip gloss, a bottle of hand lotion, and a couple of Mamuschka dolls there to distract Esther from the other stuff. The gleaming, dust-free, empty expanse of beautiful polished wood is pleasing to my soul. I need a nice jewelry chest to put in that empty space and to house my jewelry that lives now in four separate, inappropriate spaces throughout the house, and the dresser project will be complete.

Having cleared all my crap off the floor, I was able to move my laundry separator to my side of the bed. Now there's a big empty space where I'd like to put a small table and a chair or two to create a nice reading/studying space. Sometime in the next year or so I need to sign up to take the bar exam in another state than where I am currently admitted and working, so I will need a quiet place to sit and study undisturbed by my hubby's addicted, incessant television watching. But the neatness and organization is a huge step in the right direction.

The next organization project to tackle is my car. It's just full of garbage, baby toys, and clothes waiting to go into the Goodwill donation box. Oh yeah - and my nephew A., we think, stealth-puked in the back footwell the last time he was here. I should really get around to cleaning that up someday. Vaccuum the whole car out, dust and Armor-all the dash and leather seats, clean the dog-slobber-and-noseprints off of the windows of the hatch, hang a tree off the rearview mirror and it will feel like a whole new car. And then, folks, all of the spaces in which I live my life will be neat, clean and organized, the way they were before I became a mommy. (I am proud to say my office never descended into mess and chaos the way my home did.)

What to say about Esther? Yesterday she turned 23 months old. Another month to the big second b-day. She is talking more and more. Yesterday she came out with "go home." Go home from the Pop Warner football game where our friend's daughter was cheerleading. Go home from the supermarket halfway through a grocery shopping trip. Go home, go home, go home. She is growing like a weed. She is so very cuddly and kissy, in between extended bouts of incessant physical activity. She loves Maisy, Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go and can ask for those shows by name. She is finally letting me read books - a select few - to her. She can count to eleven. She can say the alphabet with a little prompting. She's starting to eat actual meal-sized quantities of food. She's nursing for far shorter periods of time, and weaning appears to be a realistic plan for the not-too-distant future. I have a number of photos waiting to be uploaded, and will post some of my favorites here soon. I could go on and on about how wonderful she is, how much I love her, and how happy she makes me, but really, what is the point? I'll just say that she is happy, healthy, and developing at light-speed and leave it at that.

I went to bed plenty early last night anticipating my normal 4AM wakeup call. But then I dreamed so intensely that I kept waking myself up, maybe four or five times. Of course, I can only remember one of these dreams. It's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I want to preserve this memory for myself. I don't remember the details or how in the dream I came to be in the situation, but I was having sex with another woman. I don't even remember her face or if I even saw it. But it was the act denoted by the wonderful, old-timey word "frottage," and it was super-hot. I frequently have erotic dreams, but they have always involved men. I usually wake up short of the big O, gasping and cursing at having woken up too soon. Not this time. I had a full-on O that built up forever and then broke over me in waves with long, shuddering aftershocks. The thing I remember most from the dream was how soft and smooth her ass felt in my hands. I've never had a same-sex experience, although I'm mildly curious. I almost feel like it couldn't possibly be as hot as that dream was.

I've always anticipated that someday, when Esther is a mature young adult and showed some interest in knowing more about her mom (if she ever does), I'd give her this URL and allow her a peek inside my head. Well, if you're reading this sometime in the future, Esther, know that your mom is a sexual person, no matter how icky it makes you feel to know that. I have sexual thoughts and needs and wants and desires and dislikes, even at the ripe old age of thirty-five. Your arrival disrupted my sexual existence for awhile. I don't resent that at all; I think it's very normal and not unhealthy, but I need to get back in touch with that aspect of myself as well. I wonder if there are areas of exploration I never touched on, even before you came along, that I might still get to experience in my future. Sexuality is an ongoing, evolving thing, never static throughout one's lifetime. My subconscious clearly told me last night that I have been neglecting my own sexuality, but that it has continued to evolve and change even while underground.

Well, I've got nothing to say to follow up on that. So, this is me, signing out.