So I had this great idea. Not going to lie, I was drinking. But you can’t just dismiss a great idea because the source is hazy, now can you? I mean, you have to give it a chance right?

Here goes then. The idea is/was/might have been sorta like this; how about I blog my way through this re-evaluation of my business plan, child rearing craziness, career growing, keeping our heads above water, time management thing. I have to have some sort of purpose with these blogs. Maybe others on this same kind of trip would benefit from my struggles to be that world beating monster of organization and efficiency I’ve always dreamed of being. And there’s no getting out of doing them.

It’s not my fault. I promised my manager that I would blog weekly and put out short video content as a marketing effort to help people get to know me. The real me.

“It’ll be fun,” she said.

“It’ll be a crap-ton of work,” I heard.

“Once they get to know you, they’ll love you so much!” she said.

“Meaning right now, they just think you’re bat-crap insane and we need to do something about this,” I heard.

“I’ll be your accountability-buddy and keep you on track,” she said.

“I will stand on top of you and shriek about your lack of focus and determination while reminding you that you pay me a bunch of money for just this sort of thing. Whining will disappoint me (oh ACK!) and you will no longer be my little funny bunny super star. So get typing bee-yatch!,” I heard.

There was some other stuff about finding a topic that interests my target market – I don’t know, like advertising trends or something – that I blocked out because researching that shit is definitely way too much work.

So here I am, blogging. Don’t feel too sorry for me. I did time as a reporter so I can bang out three stories before lunch. While drinking. I was a crime reporter for a daily in the US Virgin Islands. Drinking was appropriate.

OK then, bang out one on Time Management 101 and the beginning of this journey. Not bad, ready for posting. One down, a zillion more to go. Just lock myself in the studio and get busy. I got this. In fact, at least three more cute, fun and clever topics are already rolling around in my head. Just have to take the 4-year-old super menace, The Purple Avenger, to school and I’ll get busy. Spend the morning writing and cranking out the funny. It’ll be nice.

Fifteen minutes later, although it seemed like many hours, I’m home, having dropped the PA at school, disentangled him from my leg and climbed back into the Kid Tank with the tantrum over his new ‘inja Turtle shoes still resonating in the car. I am a very, very, bad, bad, bad mommy because I didn’t let him wear his new ‘inja shoes to school. Never mind the fact that they are way too big (thanks Daddy) for him and he can’t take more than two steps without tripping over his light-up ‘inja clown shoes and falling on his face. Bad mommy.

Never mind. I’m home. I’ll just slip out back for a quick cigarette and then I’m on the job. Fingers ready. Let’s go!

Ten minutes later, I walk into the living room to find the ‘inja shoes destroyed on the floor. Along with the morning paper, one of my husband’s flip flops and something that may have been the PA’s breakfast last week.

Fucking LARRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYY! Larry’s my son’s dog. She’s a cute pibble mix with a heart of gold, a sunny disposition and an insatiable need to eat things that aren’t hers. She is trying to kill me. And yes, she’s a girl named Larry. We had the name before we had the dog and we also have a 4-year-old. These things happen.

Because I’m a strong, liberated, feminist woman, I only wept for about 10 minutes.

Then I dusted myself off and called my husband.

“Where did you get the ‘inja shoes,” I blubbered. In my head, praying (odd for an atheist but this is my foxhole) PLEASE DON’T SAY WAL MART. PLEASE DON’T SAY WAL MART. PLEASE DON’T SAY WAL MART.

“Wal Mart,” he says.

“Oh fer fucks sake, really? Goddammit. Auggghhhhhh!”

“Something happen?” says husband.

“YES. That fucking dog. Now I have to get a new pair of ‘inja shoes before school is out. He’s only had those shoes for one day and he cried all the way to school because he couldn’t wear them. I can’t take it. Wal Mart? Really?”

“Sorry,” says husband, “did you forget to lock Larry up?”

“Never again. She’s going to live in that doggie condo of hers like veal on the hoof from now on. I have to go to fucking Wal Mart.”

Wal Mart is (obviously) not my favorite place to go. Unfortunately, because I live in/near Texas, Wal Mart is unavoidable. At least I live in a cool part of Texas. Perhaps the only cool part of Texas but it’s still Texas. And Wal Mart in Texas is not like other Wal Marts. It’s a new level of hell. But here I go, 8:30 in the morning on the start of a holiday weekend on a tourist destination island near Texas. Good times.

Now I’m in Wal Mart, rage shopping on a holiday weekend. Just blindly walking around filling my cart with candy, Legos (for me and me only) and booze. And the fucking shoes, of course. Still way too big for him because, apparently, size 10 is a very popular size. So I have to get size 11 clown shoes in the same light up ‘inja design, along with another pair that will actually fit in another light up design. Making $60 total in kid shoes in a day and a half.

The Wal Mart cashier doesn’t laugh at my jokes. This only makes me try harder which would have been very amusing for her if she had only acknowledged my existence. Fuck, I’m bombing at register 10 in Wal Mart. That’s sad. Career epitaph right there. She bombed in Wal Mart.

Now I’m walking around the parking lot in circles for ten minutes. Just pushing my cart around and around while I look for my car. Never find it. Likely because I didn’t drive my car to Wal Mart. I drove the Kid Tank. Which you think I would have snapped to in my vain circles of the parking lot. Especially since I noticed a white Tahoe and thought to myself, “self, that looks like the Kid Tank,” without realizing that it was, indeed the Kid Tank.

Goddammit. Ok, fine. Back in the Kid Tank, Prince’s “Indigo Nights” blaring because funk makes everything better. Seriously, you should get that album. Hard to find, but awesome!

Feeling better. Feeling funky. Run next door to our rental to get it ready for guests. Housekeeping! Whee. Not too terrible although it is clear that my husband lied when he said he already cleaned the bathroom. No problem, I got this.

Go back home, walk into the house, spot the Purple Avenger’s nap accoutrement on the couch. The dynamic duo of Pop and Nunny (pacifier and giraffe headed blanket thing). They’re here. PA is at school where it is now, OH DEAR GOD, an hour and half from nap time.

Yes, of course, I know he’s too old for that nonsense. You tell him that. As far as I’m concerned, peer pressure will take care of that problem by high school at the latest. Bigger fish to fry around here.

Back in the Kid Tank, race to the school in the hopes that I can sneak in and stuff that crap in his pack-pack without him seeing me. Squeal to a stop in front of the school where I see a note on the door that they won’t be back until 11:15. It’s 10:48. No one is there. Now what? Can’t wait here for them because he’ll see me and that can’t happen. Dammit. Dammit.

Go home, fold today’s mountain of laundry. Get back in the Kid Tank, back to the school, dodge kids coming back from Splash Day festivities, find the afternoon zookeeper and thrust Pop and Nunny into her hands. She’s a nice lady. She doesn’t deserve a non Pop and Nunny day. No one does.

Get back in tank, phone bings. It’s the PA’s best friend’s mom. “Want to get together over the weekend? Thinking pool and maybe tourist attraction.”

I’m not going anywhere near a tourist attraction on a holiday weekend, thank you very much. And we have a pool. So I invite them over tomorrow morning. Put down my phone, realize that I’ve just invited people to my house! The one with the chewed doggy couches and the funky smell. That I will now have to clean today in order to allow outsiders inside.

Oh and it’s 12:30 and I haven’t eaten. Or written a single word. Much less recorded any words. Not even any sounds.
Because time management. Fuck me. Welcome to the journey. Hope you enjoy the ride.