Starting Backwards...

I have no clue what I'm doing.

That's a usual starting point for me. I've thought about blogging for months, in between loads of laundry, changing my son's poopy diapers and throwing up from morning sickness. That's one thing I've learned since becoming a suburban, stay-at-home mom--I have lots of time to think. No time to write any thoughts down, of course, but the mundane routines, the constant banality, the isolation of the suburbs allows one a lot of time to think. I live in my head most of the time. It's not the healthiest place to take up residence. Even my journal would be a better place to live, but that would require me actually finding my journal, and a decent pen that writes...oh, and the time to sit and write more than a grocery list in longhand.

But today I find myself with an hour to kill. I was supposed to have an ultrasound today to find out the sex of my unborn child, but I wrote the appointment down on the wrong day, so the time set aside for the appointment was suddenly wide open. (On a side note, I have discovered that nothing robs you of simple, common sense and intelligence like pregnancy. I am a walking zombie most of the time.) So, I decided to start a blog about what's going on in my frenetic little head, and how an aging, over-educated, under-employed, post-punk Christian mystic and former urban pioneer manages daily existence in the Suburban Jungle. Without throwing up or losing my mind. Most days.

The basics are as follows: Late 30s. Married. Mother to 1 and 1/2 kids (Child 1 is a toddler, child 1/2 is due in December). Abiding in a ticky-tacky subdivision full of cookie-cutter houses somewhere in the Southeast, about 30 minutes outside of Atlanta. Possessor of an MFA in Writing, which has so far provided me with about $40,000 in debt and no writing gigs. Rabid reader of anything I can get my hands on. Anything. Watcher of far too much TV. Hater of exercise and housework, lover of naps and Assam tea (made properly, with decent tea and boiling water and a dollop of milk, for the love of all that's holy, NOT cream...) . Mad lover of music without an ipod or working radio in my car.

Currently reading/Just read:

• Great Lies to Tell Small Children/The Book of Bunny Suicides by Andy Riley
• The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim (not really liking it, honestly, but I'm halfway through it now, so...)
• Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller (lots more on this later. This book smacked me in the head very unexpectedly about 3/4 of the way through...)
• Jane Grigson's English Food by Jane Grigson
• Happiness: A History by Darrin M. McMahon (mainly because I'm trying to prove a hypothesis I have about happiness being illusory. More on that later...)
• Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America by Mike Yankoski
• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Current Life Soundtrack:

• The Art of Virtue, Adrienne Young and Little Sadie (I am SO diggin' this album right now!)
• O.C.M.S., Old Crow Medicine Show
• Nickel Creek, Nickel Creek
• The Very Best of Peter, Paul & Mary, Peter, Paul & Mary
• Illinois, Sufjan Stevens
• Drunkard's Prayer, Over the Rhine
• Various tunes from Gnarls Barkley, Ani DiFranco, The Band, Patty Griffin, Matisyahu, Kirk Franklin, The Replacements, Green Day, Switchfoot, Tree63, James Blunt, Gary Allen, Johnny Cash, Aimee Mann and Richard Thompson, to name a few...

OK. That's enough to get us started. Laundry and dirty dishes call.

Next up: why I don't believe in happiness anymore, and other joyful opinions...