So, that’s what I’m wearing right now.

There’s this young man, James, who goes dancing where I do, and he recently friended me on Facebook and started rather persistently asking me out.  I’d been undecided on this because I don’t feel ready to date.  On the other hand, a younger, 6’6″ guy who’s good at dancing might be the perfect rebound-man to go out with a couple times, so I was considering it.  Until this:

So, it says on his Facebook page that he speaks three languages, which I thought was impressive, so I asked him about it in our little message dialogue.  He told me then that he speaks “Ingles, Deutsch, and Espanol.”  Very cool!  And someone I can speak Spanish with!  So the written dialogue continues like this:

____________________________________________________________

Me:  Pues, podemos hablar juntos en espanol si quieres.

Him:  Ok not quite sure what that means. Please translate

[Must be joking, right?  Cool, he has a great sense of humor!]

Me:  Did you forget your Spanish?

Him:  I know some but not fully there in conversational Spanish

["Not fully there in conversational Spanish?"  How many kinds of Spanish are there?  I didn't know there was an ancient, unspoken version.  Oh, perhaps he means he speaks Gallego, Basque or Catalan!  But, seriously, you can't even understand that basic, written sentence?  It has the words "hablar" and "Espanol" in it.   And after growing up in Tucson, Arizona, less than an hour from the Mexican border!  It would be more of an effort not to learn Spanish living there.]

Me:  Foreign Language Faker!!

_____________________________________________________________

And I haven’t heard back since.

You’d think if you were going to be a Foreign Language Faker, you’d pick something like Tagalog or Sanskrit, something that you’re much less likely to get called out on.  But Spanish?

And I’m guessing that what he means by speaking Deutsch is that he likes to say “Gesundheit” when someone sneezes.

I don’t feel like going into details now, but suffice it to say that drop-off with Rex today was unpleasant.  He has a new lawyer and a new swagger to go with it.  He’s feeling cocky, so I’m suddenly very insecure, and when I emailed my lawyer with a couple questions, I got an Out-of-Office auto-reply saying nobody’s there until September 7.  An entire week for Labor Day?!  It wouldn’t bother me as much if it didn’t seem like I get Out-of-Office replies from their office all the time.  They’re never in on Fridays and always leave early on Thursdays.  I’m really hoping that’s a summer thing and that after Labor Day, they will be a lot more available.  Please?

I could really use somebody to pat me on the back and say, “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay.”  Not happening though.

I’ve been writing another blog on the side (Sorry, dear Dissolutionment, I’m not a one-blog kinda gal!).  It charts my progress doing drawing lessons with Cindy Wider at DrawPj.com.  I hadn’t really shared it with anybody except a few family members who are required to love and accept me no matter how much of a beginner I am.  But I linked to DrawPJ enough times that Cindy Wider found it, liked it, and tweeted it!

That was so much fun, but then it got even better.   Cindy invited me to study more intensely under her Mentorship Program, and even to participate in her Instructor Training Program– so that I could ultimately teach her fabulous curriculum.  I love her philosophy, and the course has helped me learn so much that I would love to bring the same happiness to others someday.  And of course I’m honored that Cindy thinks I’m capable and hard-working enough to achieve that eventually.

So I brought the swim teacher in for private lessons, keeping myself out-of-the-way and watching the action secretly from the kitchen window.  The first day was horrible.  I’d pep-talked him as best I could, but finally there came the moment when I had to leave him alone with the teacher, and he was none too pleased.  He cried virtually the entire time, and was screaming out for mommy.  Heartbreaking.  Lesson two was a bit better.  He cried, but not as much.  Then came our practice session together.  First we played in the water for a while and then, to give him some notice, I said, “In two minutes we’re going to start practicing swimming.”  He said, “Want to practice now.”  I couldn’t believe it.  So I thought we’d start with the “easier” stuff, the arm motions rather than the dunking but, no, he announced that he wanted to go straight to dunking.  More disbelief.

Finally, at lesson three, though he was a little shaky and worried beforehand, as soon as he was in the water, he embraced it completely.  No crying, no fighting it at all.  He swam to the wall and back many times from the distance of four or five feet.  I’m amazed by his bravery and his rapid progress.  I didn’t realize how much we was capable of, and I’m so impressed.

He also has an amazing swim teacher.  Here they are:

I promised him that when he gets back from Daddy’s, we’ll go for a night swim.  That’s going to be great!

Here’s a story about a town where singing out loud is banned, so don’t belt out this tune if you live there!

I’m making a meal in the kitchen while Mimo sits on the island bar stool with his water bottle and a matchbox car, or whatever toy is his current favorite. There is lovely music in the background and we are both cheerful and chatty. Suddenly, he accidentally knocks over his water bottle, and absolutely freaks out.

“MOMMY CLEAN IT UP!!!” he yells. This challenges me on several levels:

1) I don’t appreciate it when my child orders me to do something (who does!?) and typically I just tell him that he needs to do it himself or ask nicely. But in this scenario, it’s not that easy because….

2) I’m reminded of all the times Rex would similarly freak out if anything spilled or got dropped. The psychiatrist said this was a common reaction for someone with OCPD. Rex would order me to get a “spill towel” (spill towels were located in each and every cupboard or linen closet in the house so that you’d always have one close at hand), and he’d be waiting by the spill with a stern look on his face and his arm outstretched, like a relay runner waiting for the baton. I’d have to run over with the spill towel (baton) and pass it to him as quickly as I could so that he could frantically clean it up– even if it was just water. Obviously, it’s important to clean up spills promptly, but the drama around it was always absurdly ridiculous. So when Mimo behaves this way, it really triggers the memories of these unpleasant experiences.

3) I’m paranoid that Mimo has inherited OCPD, and so when he reacts like this, frankly it freaks me out. I understand that it’s common for toddlers to behave in some compulsive ways, and he’s probably completely normal, but I can’t help but feel worried about it.

So, how do I react in this scenario? Not very well, to be honest. As soon as he yells, “MOMMY CLEAN IT UP!!” I say “DON’T YELL AT ME!!” practically yelling myself. Great example I am. And then I clean up the mess as quickly as I can in order to end his (and therefore my) distress.

I was talking with a friend who happens to be a family and child psychologist. She made the observation that Mimo has perhaps learned this behavior from his dad, and that he’s far too young to have any personality disorders. So the best thing I can do is to provide him with an alternative to the Rex reaction, and to be extremely calm and mellow when the spill happens, and not even necessarily clean it up immediately. I should say something like, “Okay, no problem at all, we’ll clean it up in a minute, as soon as I finish buttering your toast.”

Now, the question is, can I actually pull that off? It’s what I’ll be trying to do next time. Any other tips for handling this scenario would be much appreciated!

So I thought I might get out of this situation by at least writing down the titles of these would-be posts. Maybe the headlines are enough to convey what’s been going on anyway, and then it’s like hitting reset and I can move forward. So here they are:

Two Nights in a Row Without My Mimo
Traveling is Easier as a Single Mother (When Your Ex is Rex)
Visiting Perfecto-Relatives When Your Own Family is Broken
So Happy to be Back in My Own House
I’m Really Bad at Flirting
Rex Not Responding to Petitions

That pretty much summarizes it. Perhaps it’s better to have this form of writer’s block, where at least there’s no dearth of ideas. On the other hand, maybe it’s worse this way, because it’s extremely frustrating to have specific things you want to say and then not be able to get them out. I guess both are bad because, to apply the over-used fertility metaphor, it’s like barrenness vs. miscarriages– either way you have no baby, and it sucks.

A/C guy just showed up, gotta go.

3.  Elbowing Dance Partner in the Face While Twirling

I honestly don’t know how this happened.  I didn’t think I was such a spaz with my arms, but apparently I am.  It occurred while dancing with one of my favorite partners, Jim, who’s very skilled and fun to dance with despite the fact that he’s substantially shorter than I am.  Which I guess explains how it was possible for my bent elbow to be at the level of his face when he spun me around.  All I know is I heard a loud *whack* and finished the twirl to see Jim looking shocked and dazed.  I expressed my profuse apologies but he insisted on valiantly finishing out the song with me, twirling me a bit less after that.  Needless to say, he didn’t seek me out for any more dances that night.

2.  Dress Comes Off  (imagine what #1 must be like if this is only number #2)

I thought my j.crew sanur convertible dress was perfect for dancing: lots of twirl, a super comfortable cotton and spandex fabric:

Cute, right?  It’s convertible, so it can be worn as a dress or a skirt, which is great… UNLESS it goes from dress to skirt in the course of one dance!  Apparently the heel of my shoe snagged the back of my dress during a dip, so that as I walked off the dance floor my dress was now below my bra.  Thank GOD that bra was roughly the same color as the dress and the lights were dim, so it’s possible that nobody noticed, and I was able to pull it back up pretty fast.  But oh. my. god.

1.  “Did You Bring A Towel?”

I’m not normally prone to prolific sweating, so when one of my dance partners asked if I had brought a towel, the only thing I could imagine was that he was looking for one to borrow for himself.  But that would be kind of gross, so why didn’t it occur to me to do a quick reality check on the activity of my own sweat glands?  Instead, I danced quite a few more songs before finally taking a bathroom break at which point I noticed that my shirt had prominent, massive sweat stains under my armpits.  And I must have flashed these armpits hundreds of times as my arm was lifted up time and time again for a turn.  Now, a quick investigation into the properties of various fabrics reveals that the “modal fabric” of the shirt I donned (modal is essentially a variety of rayon) is 50% more water-absorbent than cotton–  NOT an optimal characteristic when you’re going to be dancing for three hours straight.  Anyway, I was so mortified that I made a bee-line for the door, avoiding even saying goodbye to someone to whom I really should have said goodbye.  I wanted to bury my head in the sand.

So, to review:

Don’t wear rayon fabrics when you’re doing any sweat-prone activity.  If you’re going to wear a strapless dress dancing, do a “tug test” to make sure that the dress can’t easily fall down.  And finally, keep your elbows to yourself.