welcome to seattle

oooh i got it so bad today, a complete freak out of the old-school Joy order: I wanna move. I wanna move out of the state. I want to get outta dodge. I want to run run run runrun.... is it winter fever? is it having no car and sitting in this house with no dryer and poo and pee covered clothes from various little ones piling up as fast as towels, washcloths and jeans are, as fast as quilts, snowpants and throw rugs are, as I struggle not to call the landlord again and SCREAM at him again, I NEED A FRICKING DRYER. (I spoke to him today and he said You can get a dryer for like 100 bucks, They arent expensive at all!) nice. I had no idea money bought things, what a genius he is!

I hang and hang clothes but they do not dry well, it takes over a day, they are hard and stale. Why not go to the landromat? Because I dont have a free day to sit and wait for the dryers. We do not have a bunch of spare time. We do not even have a family car right now.

So I freak out. I picture what city I should click on on employmentguide.com, or monster.com---and what comes to my mind when I try to pick a city for us to live in? Seattle. Portland. Toronto.Vancouver. SanFran. London?

Me and the children, walking down main street, thats what. This is the ESSENCE of Joy: THIS is what I want to do with my life. I know the grown up lesson here is to do it in my own town, but hey its my blog, my fantasy....I would be so dangerous if I had money, we would travel the live long day, just traveling and traveling---and so you see, being truly without transport is maybe sadder for me than others. all we can do is wait until we have some money and then get our van looked at and then pay to fix it or hear that it will be too expensive to fix and deal with that.

I want to be out and about with lots of children. I want to go to places with them. I want to go to Ann Arbor hands on museum, cafes, parks, this is what I "do", in my mind's eye. Picture this scenario that I pictured as I clicked "seattle" while trying to find a dealership job for Steve online today: I have a stroller, perhaps a double stroller, we are jaunting down main street, (fashionable wind in our hair).... Greta and Mickey are skipping up ahead, we are all heading towards our fun meeting of some sort, homeschoolers, or LaLecheLeague, or veggiepals, whathave you. Because in Washington I would mysteriously make friends???? I digress.

We would thus have complete outfits on, and be clean and looking good, put together. We would meet up with my awesomely cool Mom friends and their great kids. Of course, COFFEE would be involved, as well as organic impressive snacks from Trader Joes and local markets. I would remember the hand sanitizer and the chapsticks. We'd be livin large.

We would spend the best parts of the day out and about like this, perhaps meeting up with Dada at 5 for dinner in the park of some sort, perhaps with our musician friends? IS THIS CRAZY? I DON'T THINK IT IS! But it is so far from where I am right now.

No car. Its not cool. I have had enough. I really am getting super sad. When it first broke I had little visions of aww darn, cant go to Kroger--but wait a minute! WE cant go ANYWHERE, not even on the weekends. Our other car doesnt have enough seats for us. So NO outings whatsoever. No COSI. No Mall. No Nature Center. No visiting pals. NOTHING. No Library. I want to scream!
My big magic wardrobe? I havebeen wearing fleece pants for 2 weeks straight. I look like I weigh 350 in them but who cares? I am not going anywhere, right? The kids need good memories of my giant ass to traumatize them, its a basic foundation of any decent childhood, I say.
Did I mention I want a goddamn car?

I hope we get a big tax return. I hope we can put lots of it in savings, lots of it into fixing the van or getting a new van, and I also secretly hope for a jogging stroller so I can go on walks with a baby or two---we have no sidewalks on most of the streets around here, and you can't push a stroller, it is SO hard, the wheels get all jammed, it is horrible. If I had a nice jogging stroller with bike tires, I could walk and feel happy and lose weight and go places. We also need lots of money to wrap up all that was involved in leaving our old house, as well as tons of miscellaneous little bills that we have piled up in some box in our bedroom.
I am dreaming, we arent gonna get that much money. But it sure would be cool. five grand, thats all I want---hee hee---see I am simplistic and non capitalist, huh?

Otherwise, I do not know how anything is gonna change. I hate that money has that power, but it is what it is, our universal currency, and I understand for the most part.
So, I guess moving away would not be the key to making mom friends. I am sure they are right here in town. I have several women i could call today and set up a playdate with, but i always have a reason why i cant, dont want to, or something. Usually someone is sick. Then we have no car. Then the house is a disaster and we have no snacks to feed guests. Then we have no proper outfits cause the dryer. arggggg there are about 5 days a year i feel llike i have it all together enough to warrant daytime company.

Perhaps it is trauma from visits in my past, judgmental non understanding people i have invited into the sanctity of my real mommytime home and it didnt go well. I need to get honest with myself and try to recall which of these bad visits were my mom or mother in law (who many years ago used to come over to visit me, but unfortunately were so involved in snooting around with the white glove-tests that they wouldn't know a precious, poignant moment, a potentially great afternoon if it hit them in the face, sadly) and which were true mom friends.

I cant wait until spring, at the very least we can walk to this one park by us. If we get no car we could go walking. In the mud. No, I will be optimistic and say it will stop precipitating! sigh. im sorry. i cant drum it up today.