Ten.Eight Hundred & Fifty
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I know it’s early, but how early? How much longer can I lay here before the alarm goes off?
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The smell of heat. He must have turned it on in the middle of the night.
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At this point I’m not really sure how much more I can advocate for him. But also, I could care less about Halloween so, whatever.
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Note to self: buy hothands for tonight.
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She forgot the tombstone. I have him drive us back home so that I can get it to her before we drive me down to work. A little bit of mom guilt creeps in but then I think to myself, “how in the world am I supposed to remember everything? I can’t remember everything.”
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I remember that though it’s hard to do in the moment, what he’s doing is actually asking for more attention. Maybe what he needs is just more love.
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He says he’s going to up my budget. That brings some relief.
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There’s a movie playing on the garage door and tables set up in a few driveways. I put my ham and cheese croissants on a table and then we go into the one house we know. I think this will be okay.
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We’ve lost our group and one of my children.
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We’re back in the driveway by 7:30. The kids are all parked on benches watching Hotel Transylvania 3 and eating candy and popcorn. One dad comes around to offer a shot of Hennesey. I stick with my wine. We talk about Brentwood and what we like about it and how she likes it more than Petaluma because everyone just seems friendlier here but that she does miss being so close to the ocean.
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I tell him that whenever I’m not in Brentwood I want to leave, but when I’m really in it, I can’t see myself moving. Because, actually, as much as I like certain things, the kind of people I’m around matter to me too. And if I am in a place where we can stand in a circle and talk about the random places and ways in which we’ve had to pee because of being trapped in a car with no available bathroom in sight, then these actually might be more my kind of people.
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Which is not to say that my kind of people aren’t also in those other places. I just may need to interrupt the thought that I can’t have what I want where I am.
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This art of really being and knowing the spaces in which I live and work and create.