snowstorms, sesame street & sleater-kinney

fifth largest snowstorm in the history of chicago. (monday). is this how i will recall this time in my life? the days blend into the weeks into the months into the hours into the i'm still not sleeping. my son - my baby. he is a miracle (my miracle). he's turned my life upside down into a tilt a whirl of sleepless nights and endless joys and stressful free time that's not really quite so free anymore. he steals my  heart, yet makes it clench. i nearly burst into tears last evening as i not quite but almost force fed him guava pears. the tears weren't from the food, which actually brought him some relief, but the impending pain from his captive uncut teeth. the tears in his eyes, the pitch in his cry - it was pain and i couldn't do anything about it. except join in. (which i almost did, but not quite).

instead, i tried to put him to bed nearly two hours too early. it didn't work.

so instead, we watched more yo gabba gabba. and danced to some juliana hatfield in the dark, unlit kitchen. sang him some grizzly bear softly in his ear. swayed and rocked. and went to bed, tears caught in our messy heads of hair and sank into deep exhaustion in the shared queen bed he's so subtly consumed in the past months.

this morning - the snow. it was still there. piled up, feet of it. in the streets, the sidewalks. my mother-in-law got stuck after picking up my son. her van stalled in the middle of the street. so mom (me) copped an unexpected extra two hours of sesame street, while continuously stealing glances at her iphone, wondering what time she'd finally have to depart to the office. two words of the day. fairy school. baby bear's dirty shirt. a couple milk breaks. and then it was time to go in - the office. again. even with a string of remote work from home days, the heaviness was still there.

trudging. tired. sesame streeted out. not looking forward to another day of corporate politics and meetings encouraged to 'collaborate creatively,' yet not really speak my mind (or what i at least think i'm supposed to say). work. not enough caffeine in the day. wondering what's next. coming home. it's snowing (again). heavily. my son didn't come home to me until an hour later than usual. then he nursed, and went straight to sleep. thankful, now, of the mini sesame binge we got to sneak in this morning, or we wouldn't have had anytime at all together today.

still so tired, though. some quiet time while my husband continues to work. at 7:19 pm. listening to music, shredded cheese residue stuck under my fingernails from the makeshift pita pizzas waiting in the turned off oven.

this week has been so hard. is it the seasonal blues? is it simple menstruation? i don't think so. am i just tired. the crashing of super woman - days and days. weeks and months. office hero. motherly duties. loss of me (or am i just hiding).

in two weeks, i will have a chance. to have a drink and wear some lipstick. feel pretty, and be a girl. go see a feminist rock show with some friends. sleater-kinney. the last time i listened to one of their records as regularly as i do now was the summer of 2005. i was in a new relationship, although we were long distance over the months of june-august. i listened to the woods in a tiny tin can bedroom, with a broken sliding piece of plywood, disguised as a door. in a makeshift trailer park. in the parking lot of a water ski show. i was in a relationship, without any of the perks of a partner, who was far away. my friends were long gone, graduated from the likes of trailer slumming, and i worked a job i had burnt out on years prior. i was a fresh twenty-two. 22 years old. too old for this shit. but the woods. it was the ideal summer soundtrack to an almost grown up former wild child, who preferred the company of her one hitter in the tin can bedroom than the swarms of horny 18 year olds who somehow managed to piss their beds on a nightly basis (mickeys), those who lived alongside me in the concrete jungle gym.

i did have one close friend, that summer. two, if you count the finnish girl. but jenny, who i knew for years from the summer job. never close until that year, and whenever i think of sleater kinney, i think of the woods, and i think of that one hitter and i think of cheap beers and i think of her, jenny. we suffered together, missed our significant others whom we were separated from for the summer. we loathed our employers, but laughed quite a bit anyway. the highlights of those three long months, so long ago, were the evenings she would spend the night in our campy lot, vs. driving the 18 miles back to where she was staying that summer. it meant we could act like assholes, always laughing at some inside joke, invisible to even us at the time. cut yo dick off. tapio. yr the best lil boi in the werld. (i'mnot). sprained ankles and black hard pizzas. drinking in hotel parking lots. sneak smoking pot at pirate's cove. never enough lil wayne. i was so sad, yet so content. that summer.

now here it is, 10 years later. who hit fast forward? so much has happened. so much has changed me. i'm not that lonely little stoner anymore, although sometimes i wish i was. i met so many. loved even more. hurt and cried and dusted myself off. drank too many. became my own person, my me, my own skin. and now i sit here - on my couch. in the midst of another snowstorm, listening to corin tucker yowl from sk's latest album, 'we win, we lose - only together til we break the rules,'  it's ironically cute, hearing this girly anthem, thinking on my friendship with jenny. because oddly enough, it's motherhood that's brought us back together, a decade forward. casual friendship strengthened by the bond of insanity and love. raising our families in different states, united through technology. god bless the text message. and sleater-kinney. and our goddang babies, as tired and insane as they make us - producing that little slurpy dirtball baby boy snoozing in the crib in the next room over was my greatest accomplishment to date.

and it's still snowing. but if two years down the line, someone mentions the mostly wild winter, with that huge snowstorm on super bowl sunday in 2015, i'm perfectly content, remembering my sleep deprived madness, monotony of the day to day details highlighted with the joy of my baby boy's goofy, lopsided smile, and my friendship with a girl named jenny. with sleater-kinney, banging around as the background soundtrack.

two weeks today, and a modern girl, i'll be.