It's not vitamins. Vitamins can't fix a life.

Mondays are my very favourite day of the week. Well mondays and fridays. On monday and friday i don't work and i have the kids.

We have a very unusual custody schedule that involves plenty of back and forth. It allows me to spend both my nights off with them and means they only have a babysitter one or two nights a week. It also means i get to see them every single day as i do all the school picking up/driving maintenance stuff.

On mondays and fridays i make elaborate meals, catch up on school work and plan something fun for us to do.

Wednesday, thursday and sunday nights are my least favourite times because i don't have the kids. The house is empty, cold and lonely without them.

So, today was monday. The kids are all asleep and i do what i always do - wait till they are all sleeping and then poke around the house in and out of their rooms. Feeling foreheads, kissing noses and picking up stray lego bits.

It's funny, when they are not here i don't do anything around the house. I don't cook or clean. I don't even go in the kitchen. I work, i sleep and i sit in bed with my laptop. It's a waiting. A waiting for my family.

This past month has been a crazy one. Tons of working and not much else. Well, sadness and anxiety and worry.

I am feeling better today. I had some sort of epiphany over the weekend. Realized what was important and what was causing me stress. How i want my life to look and the hard steps i need to take to get there.

Most importantly i want to be happy and healthy.

I am not very healthy right now. I have a terrible diet. I even went more than a few days without eating this past month. That was my first clue that my life was reaching toxic levels in terms of my mental health. Waking up in the morning feeling completely depleted, realizing that i hadn't eaten the previous day. I wanted to eat, but thinking about it was overwhelming. Cooking was out of reach. Restaurants suck when you spend most of your time in one.

So, today i ate. I ate a lovely meal with my children. I ate lunch too.

I have also been feeding a sort of manic impulse to be bad. Not that bad. More of a fueling of pre-divorce rage. Raging against the dying of the night. Or something like that. Staying up too late. Hanging out with the wrong people.

All of this to say i am doing better. As for my mouth i have an appointment january 7th in vancouver where i shall get part of me cut out and examined and hopefully be on the road to a healthy body without cancer cells in it.

In between then i intend to have a mighty chawesome holiday season. Thanks to Jeremy for my new favourite word.

girls from jess howard on Vimeo.

I have this uneasy feeling. This fluttering in my chest. I remember when fluttering in my chest meant i was in the presence of someone i was madly in love with. Fluttering now is part of my constant state of anxiety and sorrow.

I am so tired of being the bad guy in this town, in this relationship, in this conversation.

Going through a divorce sucks. It sucks you dry. The pulling apart of two lives. Some parts like crazy glue. Those years shared. Some of them really great, some of them really crappy. All the years in between where we just existed, like many couples do. Just getting through the days, the work, the children.

It has been over two years since we first separated.

For two years i have been the subject of gossip and assumption. Two years is a long time to hold your head high.

If i could have one wish it would be to go back to the day i made the decision to screw it all up and kick myself in the shins.

It's not that simple though. I would have to go back many more years and kick my ex-husband in the shins. Tell him to listen to me, to respect me, to help me.

And then i'd have to go back through all the years and kick myself a few more times and kick a bunch of other people along the way.

A life unfolds. Things happen, good and bad, mundane and thrilling. All of these events in my life that formed me. I remember them all. Separation anxiety, shoplifting, eating disorders, crazy crushes, depression, mania, date rape, death, abortion, drugs, alcohol, love, happiness, sadness, birth, children, passion, desire, heartbreak.

And the one person who knew me better than anyone else, who held my secrets in his heart and my heart in his hands is gone. Free to spill my secrets out to the world.

i am so tired of this loneliness

then answer your phone asshole.

i can't. i can't.

i don't know what to say. i'm afraid of what i might say.

he said you're making it hard for him

there is nothing i can do about that. all i can do these days is sleep, work, parent and sit in my bed and participate in this endless void of both heady and lowly banter. i don't have the mental capacity to even begin to address those words, the audacity of them.

you put your angel wing necklace on again

i need it. i feel at the end of my rope. i can't take another single thing.

i still have so many things to deal with before life becomes, even remotely, normal. i don't even know what normal might look like anymore.

i did kick parenting ass today. that was a start. and i took some vitamins. and i bought some decorations.

i am not going to blow this holiday season off. i am going to make it lake house awesome. all cinnamon and pine scented.

the phone is ringing. you want to talk to this person. answer the phone.

i can't.

I have been sick with the flu for three weeks. It has been really yucky. My oldest daughter has been sick that long too. (We each felt better for a few days and then it came back even worse.) My youngest daughter caught it on monday and i put her on TamiFlu and she was better in two days - get yourself some TamiFlu if you get sick.

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I weighed myself this morning when i picked up the kids and i have lost 15 pounds since the last time i weighed myself which was probably back in march when i lived in a house with a scale.

I weigh the same as the day i got married. I think i might try on my wedding dress which wasn't so much a wedding dress as just a really pretty summer dress. It probably won't fit as the distribution of fat on my body has changed radically as well as my bra and butt size.

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I met with the contractor for my house the other day. Everything is coming along. They have framed the main floor and put in the trusses for the roof. They are framing the upper floor this week and the roof should be on in the next two weeks.

It's getting to the exciting stage and leaving that depressing my house burnt down stage.

My insurance policy is completely maxed so we continue to negotiate on all the details.

The kitchen designer is putting an island in and a space for a dishwasher. Yowza! I just have to come up with the cash to buy one.

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My lawyer is not returning my calls. That is never a good sign.

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My daughter has now died her hair blue. And her body. And the bathroom. And her scalp is the brightest blue of all.

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The kids have been home from school all week and i haven't had a moment to myself. I had to wash parker's mouth out with soap this morning after he called me a "fucking idiot." Nice. I never thought i'd be the mom of the potty mouth kid or that i would be the mom who washes her 6 year old sons mouth out with soap.

We are driving each other a little crazy.

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The rowers on the lake have woken me up every morning this week. All bullhorns and shouting. It's kind of cool.

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Totally blew NaBloPoMo. Again. Oh well.

Have a lovely weekend.

Have some fun for me.

Send soup.

Neil is brilliant. He is a master of getting people to his blog. He is funny and charming on twitter. He writes and links to lots of people. He starts small little scurries of opinion. All of it makes him someone that everybody knows. I do know him, i spent a few hours hanging out with him in Chicago last summer and found him charming and gracious and kind.

Anyway, he is doing his yearly Great Interview Experiment and i am taking part. I was interviewed by "D" at Decoy Betty and here is what i had to say:

Why is believing there is magic in this world so important to you?

I think, if i am honest with myself, i need to believe there is magic. You see, i have had a very tough three years, it hasn't been anything that many, many other people don't go through - it's just that they *keep* on happening. But, in between it all, in the middle days, i have had moments of great bliss. Large and small. I have seen the magic in my kids amazing resilience. I have seen the magic in a few kind words at the exact needed moment. I have felt love that hurts so much it makes me cry. I have seen my daughter light up when she visits her fairy house in the morning and there is a new and tiny note waiting for her. I need to believe that life will cut me a break soon, that i will magically have a wonderful future.

What are your top 5 songs to sing in the car?

This is a tough one. I'm a bit of a music junkie. Five songs that have really carried me through the past year are:

1. "Skinny Love" by Bon Iver

2. "The Night Starts Here" by Stars

3. "Halfway Home" by TV On The Radio

4. "Weighty Ghost" by Wintersleep

5. "Milk Thistle" by Conner Oberst

And, everything by Band of Horses who are my musical super heroes.

Now that all of your kids are in school, you said you have 5 free hours during the day (when they aren't sick with swine flu - yikes!) how do you spend that time; and how would you like to spend that time - in dream land?

Lately i've been spending that time doing the Mondo Beyondo course and learning how to use my Diana camera. The Diana is a vintage inspired plastic camera. I have several lenses for it and an Instant back which lets me take mini "polaroids." I love it, but it's simplicity has proved very difficult.

In dream land i would spend that time doing some kind of exercise that i actually enjoyed and working on my career as a photographer.

Can you write a haiku (5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables) about what it's like when your youngest claims into bed with you some nights?

chubby hand face down
softly snoring kicking sheets
winter breeze kisses

Aren't they supposed to have a seasonal reference? I tried...

From looking at your photos (and that one entry about your facebook photo), I can see you like arms and legs but rarely have photos of your face, why is that?

Honestly, i'm the only one who ever takes photos of me, especially since i've become a single mom and, more truthfully, i almost always look bad in pictures other people take of me. I lost my self-confidence in regards to photos. I suppose that part of it is getting older too. It's hard to get a picture of me where i actually look like me. My legs and feet though? They always look like me. I also like the feeling a picture of feet gives me. My kids feet have so many stories. All the places they have been and the places they will go.

I suppose the same can be said for my Facebook profile pics that have been a series of pictures of my legs and feet - dancing, jumping, running - going somewhere. It reminds me that i do have places to go and a future to embrace.

I've been to British Columbia and I still have nightmares about those giant banana slugs, do you ever get over seeing them around your yard? Have you ever stepped on one? Do they make a yucky sound?

I kind of luck the slugs. They have a hole on the side of their head that they breathe out of, it's kind of cool. I hated them as a kid though. One horrible summer i stepped on one in bare feet and it squished between my toes. *shudder* I still remember exactly how that felt. I've stepped on them in shoes and they actually 'pop'. It's pretty gross, they pop right out of their slimy skins.

I have been having a rough time lately. I think it's like a coming down.

I have had many hours alone. I'm not sure why i didn't in september and october. I think my kids are sick too often and there are too many professional days.

I have spent a lot of time in bed over the past two weeks. I have felt myself unraveling. A losing of footing.

Things could have been so well, they were going well back in july. I had a house, i had a life. I was feeling happy and confidant.

One by one everything has gone to shit.

You know all that.

In the past week i have expertly removed every single person who cares about me and who i care about from my life.

I have screamed "i just want to be alone."

I am having a little breakdown and i am totally present in it. I am not denying it or playing it down. I am letting it happen.

And then i will better.

~ i continue my love affair with London Fogs - especially with Mighty Leaf tea.

~ wandering around the house with the kids this morning, explaining to them where everything is going to be.

~ tuna melts on squirrely bread topped with cucumber and pepper.

~ red converse high tops on my daughter.

~ flash fried capers.

parker talks about stuff... from jess howard on Vimeo.

What bugs me?

~food in my teeth
~food in your teeth
~wayward facial hair
~egg in soup
~mornings
~teachers who silently judge
~10% tips
~fruit in food, i like my fruit by itself thank-you
~leopard print
~lighters out of fluid
~quoting philosophers or self-help books
~bugs flying around my head while i try to sleep
~private school girls

things i like

~feline head butts
~watching polaroids develop
~when it gets dark early
~being out in a city at night
~waking up in the country
~loud music
~boys and guitars, at the same time
~filet mignon, medium rare
~kisses and hugs from my kids
~20% tippers
~ hair cuts with razors
~wearing black

We really do feel alone. We really do.

Over the yummiest soup, looking out at the lake, i wondered how far i could swim before i would drown.

It becomes a habit. This holing up. These days of offices in bed. The connection to all the people making you feel cool one moment and like a total failure the next.

I have this annoying habit of developing huge crushes on musicians. Something about words and music and feelings. With books and writers it's the words, not them. I have crushes on books, stacking my favourites beside my bed. Giving them loving looks and caresses as i fall asleep.

Those things you said about me were very mean and hurt my feelings.

I'm surprised when people want to be my friend. It surprises me and sometimes i leap in their arms and beg them to never, ever leave me. Other times i push them away by never answering their calls or requests, saying no to get-togethers and invitations. I'm surprised the friends i do have tolerate me. Especially when i call them or show up at their door in tears in the middle of the night.

I'm surprised how many of us are alone.

I'm thinking it's probably a good thing i didn't end up being a stay-at-home mom to four school aged children.

Although i have had more days with sick kids around than not since school started in september, these days when i am home alone for five hours? I go stir crazy.

I think i don't know how to be alone. I know i don't know how to be alone.

I have friends that lunch, and yoga, and hike. Sometimes i think i should be doing those things. I should be climbing mountains, drinking wine over raunchy conversation, teetering around in high heels and put together bodies.

I should have friends. I joined Bitches Who Brunch knowing full well i would never, absolutely ever, show up.

I am socially inept. I am exactly what people think of when they hear about women who spend their days on twitter and facebook. I am a geek.

Geek sounds too romantic.

I am the living, breathing picture of social anxiety.

I can get all up in your face on the internet because i don't have to talk to you. I don't use any live chat applications, i rarely answer emails, i log in to skype in the very wee hours of the night to talk to one person. I never go "online."

I am alone, i choose to be alone, but i feel paralyzed by being alone.

Anybody who is friends with me on Facebook knows that my profile pic is, as a rule, of my legs or torso, never my face.

It has become a fun little thing for me. Late at night, usually after work, when i don't have the kids i start taking pictures with photo booth. There are many, many pictures. If i'm lucky i get one that i like. (like the one above from last night.)

I'm thinking i need to put all of these leg pictures into one place. An evolution of the leggy self-portrait. The silly things i do to entertain myself and keep from feeling alone.

Not quite sure yet if i'm going to do NaBloPoMo this year. I have a heavy heart surrounding NaNoWriMo and PoMo because of losing my novel three years ago, 36,000 words in. It still haunts me. Words that were lost, that poured out of me that dark november, gone forever.

Anyways, today i am feeling a little better. I have had a few days to digest my news. It took awhile for my body, my heart to remind me that i am, indeed, still healthy. That i'm not going to die. It's just going to be a pain in the butt (and mouth) for a few months. Then i can move on. It's just another hurdle. I am getting very strong legs from all these hurdles i have been jumping.

Surely good things are around the next bend.

I've been listening to Sigur Ros. It's somehow grounding me and letting my dreams come back out. I can still dream.