Meh because I’m a girl. And I’ve never owned a lego. To me, they look like little bits of things I’ll need to stoop to pick up about 50 times a day and that is just not fun. Also, there’s no way to put clothes on them or dye their hair blue. Or day dream of a life in Malibu with beach parties and tiny waists.

As for the stepping on them part, well, Moms can I hear a what what about stepping on toys? In the morning? Or on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night? Or what about stepping on bath toys on the shower? Anyone ever step on a Lincoln Log? I HAVE. For those of you without children, let me just say that in the split second after stepping on a toy, there are expletives. A lot of them. In rapid fire.

I put away the legos and didn’t really encourage Archie to play with them unless Fancyhats was around because I didn’t want to clean them up and I didn’t want to sit there pressing little bits of knobby plastic into other bits of knobby plastic.

Until a few nights ago when I discovered that legos come with a guide. Recipes. A pattern book, if you will. These patterns follow step-by-step instructions for building various things. And not only that, but Archie’s legos came with patterns for a farm, and farm animals, trucks and a gas station. A GAS STATION!

If you follow the pattern, you can build these little bits of awesomeness.

IT’S LIKE KNITTING, PEOPLE.

I can sit there and meticulously work with my hands and have a finished product that looks how it’s supposed to! And I CAN DO IT WITH ARCHIE AND FANCYHATS!!!! This eliminates that pesky knitting guilt I feel when I’m knitting and ignoring everything around me BECAUSE KNITTING IS THE ONLY TIME THE VOICES ARE QUIET!!! Also the parenting guilt I feel because racing cars around the couch bores me to tears and sometimes that’s all Archie wants to do and I tell him that my car is broken and maybe he could fix it in his room. My car breaks a lot.

Now I’m all about the legos, and like knitting, I want more. I keep looking in this one little set of legos and wishing there were more. I want the space station lego kit and the shopping mall lego kit and the office park lego kit. I WANT THE WORLD!

In summary, legos have made me a better parent. Also, they are like knitting. Except I can’t wear them out to places.

1) Entertainment for People killed. We were at capacity. The performers were amazing. It was a perfect event. Except for the part where I forgot to thank Nat and Meagan. And introduce myself. Other than that? Perfect.

2) I do not wear synthetic material. That includes panties. I also haven’t stepped foot into a Victoria’s Secret since I was 16 years old. I have pretty panties but I prefer Nordstrom and since moving to Portland, Oh Baby. For my regular daily cotton panties, I go Old Navy, and my favorites, my favorite daily hipster, cotton, boy panties come from Costco. I know, right? I just want to tell you this in case you ever think a pair of shiny nylon snags in the ass panties are mine, they are not. I believe in pretty panties. I also believe in cotton. Cotton panties ensure nice smelling lady bits. Synthetic, nylon, snag in the butt panties, however, do not.

3) Yesterday I needed to buy lip gloss. I was having that day when the kid is chattering for hours, the work stuff is barely getting done, a look at the finances is a horror and did I mention the kid chattering for hours? I was having that day and I had to go to the market because we were out of milk and all I could think of as my hands were shaking and I was feeling, I’ll say it, CRACKED OUT, was buying lip gloss. It seemed the only thing that would make my life make sense in that very moment.

So I stood in the lip gloss aisle in the market staring at the various displays as if the correct glossy fruity-tasting lip plumping thing would save my fucking life.

I picked up some Sally Hanson Comfort Shine Lip Glaze. Color: Sweet Raspberry.

And it came in a pot, which I prefer because I think it’s so sexy to watch a woman dip her finger in a pot of lip gloss and apply it to her lips. And I thought, when Fancyhats comes back from his dude weekend, I’m totally going to do that. TOTALLY. I’m going to sit next to him and when he’s telling me about dudes and golf and whatever, I’m going to carefully unscrew the lid to my new lip gloss, dip my finger in and pull that Sweet Raspberry lip gloss right across my mouth.

It was the only thing that made sense in that moment.

So I bought it, bills be damned.

And I opened it as soon as I got into the car.

And I found this:

Can you see that, internet? It’s an applicator of sorts. It’s in there and the lip gloss is not accessible by finger. GOD, HOW WAS I GOING TO SEDUCE FANCYHATS WITH NOTHING MORE THAN GROCERY STORE MAKE-UP?!?

So I pulled it out and, what’s more, it’s impossible to get any lip gloss on the fucker. After several minutes of trying, I got that little bit on there to show you, internet.

What’s more…WHAT’S FUCKING MORE is I spent the day wondering why that lip gloss made me so uncomfortable to apply. And it wasn’t until I took pictures for this very post that I realize why. It’s because that thing looks like a cat penis. A CAT PENIS.

I’ve been applying lip gloss with a cat penis.

Yesterday as part of my new life, I started getting rid of all the clothes that make me feel fat. Or that I bought after my pregnancy because I couldn’t fit into my old pre-pregnancy clothes. Some clothes I still can’t fit into. My boobs are bigger now and my ribcage never went back to its original size. But I just don’t want to wear size 10 jeans. And if I put on enough weight that I need to move up to a size 10, then instead of buying those jeans, I’ll just bike and cut back on the hamburgers and beer and fit into my size 8’s.

I’m on the ebb of my yearly weight, with summer here I’ll ride my bike every day and as it gets warmer, salads and small meals sound better. Plus I’m doing a high fiber thing these days to help the weight loss a bit. I still have no scale and the last time I weighed myself I was at 150. So whatever. I have no idea what my ideal weight is. I know that when I bike a lot I get pretty firm all over. Not skinny at all, just firm. Makes me feel stronger mentally and physically.

Back to the clothes. I got rid of the clothes for a few reasons. The first is that they made me feel bad. Not too bad, but bad enough that I wasn’t 100% focused on the day. I had a small part of me that felt crappy. I don’t want to live that way anymore. I want to focus on the day and my son, the amazing people in my life. My career, my projects, myself. I want to look at Portland, and not inside at stupid things that feel bad about myself.

I truly do love this city. I love all the trees and when I lose focus on the small moments beauty here, I’m just wasting my fucking time, you know?

Also, Fancyhats (that’s the new boy’s name) makes me feel beautiful. He sees me as beautiful. Since meeting him (well, we’ve known each other for a year) but since I’ve been spending time with him, the light I feel inside of me, the one that drives me to do Back Fence and Dinner and a Story and get together with Frayn weekly and daydream about possibilities big and small, is on all the time. He makes me feel that anything is possible. Not just these events we want to do, not just the love I have of entertaining people, giving people an great experience, I feel like I can do anything. So, if I’m feeling this great stuff, why do I want to spend a single day wearing jeans that don’t fit me right? I don’t.

So to Goodwill it is. So far, I have two garbage bags of clothes. TWO GARBAGE BAGS of clothes that made me feel bad. That’s ridiculous. Some of my friends are doing cleanses. They’re watching their food and taking pills to get the crud out. Right now, I’m doing a life cleanse. Getting rid of things that make me feel bad, of things that remind me, still, of the post-partum depression, things that don’t reflect the way I feel inside, of who I am.

V always says, “The universe abhors a vacuum.” I’ve made way for the good stuff and here it comes. Everyday another very great things falls into my lap.

Okay, so I’m officially a single mom! Yay me!

We hear about the plight of the single mom and how hard it is on her, and granted there are things that I’m sure will be very hard, but I’m telling you that two nights of time to myself, to just be alone and to not have to clean up after another adult is just making me so blissed out. To have my own space again and decide, you know what? I want to paint that wall bright yellow because I can. I CAN. Feels so incredibly free!

I’m also in a lot better place than most single moms. My parents will be living in Oregon within the year. My best friend from high school just moved here. I’ve got a ton of dear friends here in Portland and a ton of projects and cool stuff I do, so you know, it’s totally exciting.

And, oddly, though I’m spending a lot of time with Archie, I’ve gotten my energy back about it. We were at the playground and for two days in a row, I actually played with him. I ran around and climbed and chased him and didn’t just sit there with my sunglasses on and knit. I was so excited to see him this morning, it took everything in me not to wake him up earlier.

And I just interruped my precious blogging time, to build A a little fort out of the mattress box.

I’m sure there will be days when I’m totally burned out, but today, the first day of my official single-momdom, I’m all good.

Maybe it’s because I slept so well on my 600-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.

I got a new bed. Remember my old bed?

Because, right? That seems like a bed a guy would want? Well, that turned out to not be “mine” so I had to get another bed. And that’s actually for the best, because I went to Ikea with this thought: I will find the girliest fucking bed in this store and I will buy it and build it and sleep in it.”

And so I did. Presenting my new bed!

You guys! It’s white enamel. WHITE ENAMEL! Swear to god, I’m never giving up this bed. NEVER. I also bought a memory foam mattress from costco and also those 600-thread count sheets. In cream. I’m going to get new pillows too because now my pillows seem like crap.

I assembled it all myself. Moved the mattress, put the sheets on and then went to bed after a hot shower. I slept, under my heavy covers, with the windows open and it was delightful.

In a few weeks, we’ll have a painting party where we will primer with the mold-killing primer and by August, my house is going to be so beautiful and GIRLIE. Did I mention that my best friend from high school is an interior designer?

Here’s today’s hippy-dippy moral (stop reading here because the irony train has ground to a halt): when you make the right, hard, but right decision, the universe opens every door wide open. Opportunities flow and life becomes so much easier.