My psychosis: Good for something.

I want to write something. I'm compelled to type words onto this white screen and address all of you that have continued to suffer through what has surely been a depressing or at least worrisome set of posts to read. I want to say that we're okay, we're going to be okay, things are good, and oh by the way, listen to this hilariously humiliating thing our sons did, those crazy kids!

But, well... I got nothin'. This is our new routine, this ever-present tension that we fight off with forced smiles and deep breaths and reminders to each other not to kill anyone. There are better and calmer days, there are days with lots of tears, and there are days I black out with a thick sharpie on the mental history book: Error. No one needs to know about that. Move to next day. I think this is just where we are right now, this is the place we've come to. We're trying to leave this place, though. We're genuinely trying. I'm looking for the funny, but as Andie pointed out in a recent comment, I more often find myself screaming about the TREES in my way, all of these TREES, I can't see anything but TREES, where on god's green earth is the FOREST already?! So, the funny is kind of blocked out these days; I can't find it as easily as I'd like.

You can imagine how strange it must be, then, for me to learn that Bub and Pie nominated us for a ROFL award. That's right. An award honoring funny posts. Funny. On this site full of rage, exhaustion, and insanity. There is only one explanation here: I must have been unconscious at the time of the funny. The name of the nominated post? Dreamland.

So, okay. I can't FIND the funny, but sometimes it still finds me in my sleep. Thanks for the reminder, B&P.

Also, because I don't want you to leave every day believing our house is a place of pure and utter misery, two brief glimpses of the forest from recent days:

1.) Last night at dinner, Bryce told us there was a new student in his class at school. He rarely volunteers any information, preferring instead to watch his parents stammer all over themselves as they seek the correct combination of questions to elicit details he apparently finds mundane. We perked up immediately: Oh really? A new student? Is it a boy or girl? What's his or her name? Is he or she nice? He said, "Yeah, she's nice. And she's pretty, too." (Is it time for this? She's pretty?) "Oh, she's pretty, well, I'm glad to hear she's nice - did you play with her?" I asked. "Yeah, I did. And she runs fast, too. She's faster than me!" Mmhmm. Now I see the infatuation.

2.) This morning I was home when Quinn woke up. The child is delusional enough to be happy about this despite my constant shrieking and nagging, and he came down the stairs quietly grinning and giggling to see me. I made his breakfast and continued scrambling around the house acquiring the ridiculous amounts of food and water I lug to work with me as if work is an expedition across the Sahara. When I had a second to stop, I plopped an egg in a frying pan and sat down in the dining room to shovel it into my face before leaving for work. Quinn was in the kitchen at the breakfast table and sauntered over, holding his toaster waffle and vegetarian sausage-covered plate at a precarious angle, a determined look on his face. John told him to get back in his seat, not knowing what he was doing and suspecting foul play. "No, it's too awful in the kitchen, I'm too hot in there," Quinn replied absurdly. We looked at each other, confused. He rounded the corner and put his plate on the dining room table right next to mine, and quietly climbed into the chair next to me. Ah, the forest. It's nice in here with all those trees out of the way.