I’m just going to publish this. I’ve been too much in my own head lately. Hesitant. Self-doubting. Self-censoring. Worrying what this person and that person will think. Thinking too much about my audience and not enough about my voice.

Odie says I have to stop thinking about how to fill a niche and just write. And he’s right.

My blog. My thoughts.

And sometimes, it can’t all be perfect intro, body, and conclusion with a witty callback. If I hold myself to that standard every time, I’ll do what I’ve been doing the past few months. Procrastinating.

I’ve been Tweeting a lot, because it’s easy. If you are on Twitter, consider following me @MrsOdie2. I follow all my followers. Some of you are damn funny. I dislike people who only use Twitter for promotion. It’s boring. I like to go onto Twitter and chuckle at aphorisms, not find out where and when I can see, hear, read something funny or interesting you might someday say.

Jon Armstrong’s blog last week sent me to a land of ick. In his post “Firsts” http://blurbomat.com/2012/02/29/firsts/, he writes about his daughters’ first overnight at his new apartment. I remember my father’s first bachelor pad after the divorce. At first, he stayed with a friend. Someone who ironically my mother had an affair with and she later ended up marrying and divorcing. I don’t know if this was known to my father or not. The only thing he ever said about it is “There were no good guys in that story.” Fair enough. He ended up, or I should say started out, in a fully furnished, no-bedroom place in a shitty part of town. It had a rough textured, ugly plaid couch and a Murphy bed. I remember there being a mirror near the entry way, because his girlfriend would always come into the room, turn to the mirror and make sexy faces at herself, while making sure her paper-thin hair was covering her bulimia bald spot.

I was about 13. I didn’t want my parents apart. I didn’t know or care why they chose to be apart. I wanted my family. I needed my big sister to stop being angry and my little sister to stop being sad. And I needed to stop having to pretend that I was doing great and I was “fine with it.” It was exhausting. Pretending I didn’t give a shit for so long so that my parents wouldn’t feel like the divorce was destroying me eventually turned into a struggle to feel and empathize. I still have this struggle.

Dooce and Jon have to do what is right for them. I just wish that there was a way for them to get back together. I want for them what my parents were unable to give to me.

That being said, I’m glad my dad married his second wife. She is Family Jesus.

She came over this morning and helped get Viva ready for day care then drove her there. This way I can write during Pringles’ happy/easygoing part of the day. Or try to. She’s in the high chair right now. I’m trying “self-feeding” with her, but finding that she likes to have goo spooned into her yapper.

She’s fussing so much now, I have to continue this later. But I’m hitting “publish.” If I don’t, then I never will and I will get out of my flow. I have to keep publishing, even when I’m not crazy about the result. Thanks for your support.