More precisely, it was a weekend to play in the lake for six hours (the boy), soak up the sun (the mama), eat plenty of confetti-iced angel food cake (the both) and then nap it all off.
He didn't move for two hours.
And this morning just a few minutes pre-swim, he took this one of me. I like think it evokes a certain je suis Jackie O. You don't have to tell me to work it, grrrl twice, even if it is just to shovel roads in the sand, shoo away giant blue dragonflies and ride on the pontoon boat for a few laps around the lake.
Maybe all that attitude came from laptop detox. Or maybe it was all the chips and Diet Coke I consumed all weekend. Maybe it was me gearing up for another court date on Monday. It was possibly the $40 in shipping I just dropped to ship my business cards for BlogHer (holla) that I procrastinated into...well, $40 rush shipping to order. Or perhaps it was me jonesing to hear this song (I'm not kidding, it is as under my skin as my sunburn). Awww hell, let's be honest. All that attitude was just the result of a good dose of family, a great deal of sun and the intense desire to crawl back into bed.
It was all good, though. All much better than I even thought it would be or even realized I needed.
I needed some music this morning. I needed to wake-up. I wanted to get going. I was hoping to clear out some of the clutter of to-do lists and things to remember and stuff I want to write about and when the hell am I going to get the laundry done -- all of that out of my head so I could just write. And even before the writing, just sit at my desk and let the sun creep across my keyboard and let the words come together before I put them up on my screen. For that, I needed a soundtrack.
And so I clicked on YouTube and there was an Emmy Rossum song on the homepage. She's adorable, yes, but she's not on my radar. I'm not one of those Phantom-obsessed twinkly music grrls, and so even if I did know she was putting out CDs, that recognition was lost behind something by Pink or Ani or even (shhh) Colbie. But there she was and this song was -- this song...oh, this song -- and I clicked it.
And now I can't stop pushing play. I don't even know how many times I've played this song today, I just know I need to hear these words, this melody, the message.
I love hoodoo-guru-y things enough to know that if I open myself to the messages the universe is sending me, I will see them, feel them, and in this case, hear them. Sometimes, the messages are whispers. Sometimes they are songs synthesized out of an overused, overheated, overwhelmed laptop.
The lyrics say something like, "Save me / Someone take my hand / Lead me." No one needs to do that for me, but I can take the words for myself. Every single time I replay the song, I feel like it sinks in deeper that it is OK for me to slow myself down. If someone else steps in to help me press pause for even longer, well then...that would be just fine too.
For now, a Friday, I will slow down by logging off a little bit early, packing up the boy and giving into the rush hour traffic we will sit in on our way to the lake. When I get there, I won't have any kind of internet connection and very little cell phone reception. So I may just press play for myself, to myself, and sing the words I now know over and over again.
(The video on the link is much better but this little one's embeddable and will do, thank you very much).
is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
Sunday, July 13, 2008 
