I am overwhelmed.

For some reason, those words are not easy to dislodge from one's heart– they cling on stubbornly, as if prying them too forcefully might cause a violent rush of either blood or tears to gush and engulf everything.  And really, the overwhelm is a very manageable overwhelm, as far as overwhelms are concerned.  It's just so hard to accept the condition and move on.

So, why am I overwhelmed, you may wonder.  Maybe you're even rolling your eyes a little and calling me a weenie or some such.  That's okay: I kind of am.

I am overwhelmed because,

1.  I am a single mother for the week (with a champagne toast to my good friend who does this EXTREMELY HARD DUAL ROLE THING every day of her life).
2. I am still really sad over the death of Yves Saint Laurent: he and his brand were such icons throughout my entire life.  I know that sounds selfish because after all it's a life of a person who's passed on and here I am blabbing about me and my recollections of what has always meant to be well-dressed.  However, I think it's still somewhat meaningful: he was an iconoclast who decreed it was okay for women to wear pants and look fabulous while doing it.  As a woman born in the 70s, I've never had to confront the static and reproach of wearing pants and all the other little ways in which women and men have kept women passive-aggressively dominated for ages.
3. Which leads me into overwhelm #3: I read a novel from the early 1970s about a woman who struggles with the unhappiness she feels trying to be a liberated woman while quite obviously not grasping the full idea of what liberation means to her, and I'm all up in arms feeling the women's lib pain.  Why couldn't Hillary be a better candidate so I could proudly vote for the first woman in office?  Raaargh! (and sorry fellow sisters who support Hillary)
4. Also, Herr Meow had a really hard time going to sleep tonight. 
5. And he has way too many toys– I spent the better part of the afternoon rearranging train tracks.
6. And I'm starting to realize that shopping for clothes does not hold the same thrill it has before.
7. Partly because it's more fun to shop for kids' things and for home goods– lots and lots of delightful house goods.  Naughty, I know.  And oh-so-predictable.
8. I really need to get a handle on my gardening clutter too.  And my craftling clutter, which is woefully out of hand.  And you should see our garage.
9. I hate my husband's motorcycle with a deep and abiding passion.   There Internets: now you know. (eta: hate is too strong.  I do like it but I resent it.  AND IT TAKES UP TOO MUCH DAMN SPACE!)
10. And finally –for now– I gotta say that keeping up with NaComLeavMo is getting to me too.  There are way too many blogs to read and the pressure of reading new blogs plus my steady list is getting to be too much to bear: I want to leave nice insightful comments that don't just sound like I skimmed the entry and thought of a platitude to say.  So I think that I have to bow out, for my own sanity.  I thank you if you're coming through NaCom and I will do my best to visit all the bloggers who stop here directed through the blogroll, but I must needs take a sanity break (I told you I was kind of a weenie).

So there you have it: I have cracked like a fresh egg.  I just hope I don't smell too bad and that you can scoop me up and use me in an omelette or something. 

Toodles, dear Internets!