life – Pantsless Weirdo

Sixty-third

Posted on June 5, 2019 (September 27, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

Dear Mama, Happy birthday. You would have been 63 today. You would have hated being in your 60s, I’m sure. Still, I think you would have aged well given the chance. I hadn’t realized how little I have written here because I have written here, I just haven’t published. This blog has 85 published posts, …

Grown ups come back

Posted on May 14, 2019 (September 27, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

I dropped the overfull basket of clean clothes onto the floor with a plop. It was overflowing with laundry that I had washed a second time because it had been clean on the couch and made its way to the living room floor over and over before we could get a chance to fold and …

unusual cases

Posted on April 8, 2017 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

The scale let out a beep that seemed louder and longer than necessary. What if I wanted to discreetly weigh myself? The thing might as well have stood up on two feet, strutted out of the bathroom with its hands on its hips, and bellowed down the stairs, “LARDO PUT ON SOME POUNDS!!!” 177.4 pounds. Four pounds …

Tonic immobility

Posted on February 3, 2017 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

For two weeks after the election, I walked around in a thick haze of confusion and grief. I grieved for the nation I thought we were, for the terror that many people I care about were now facing, for the uncertainty of the four years that lay ahead. We need to give him a chance! People …

Sixteen Months

Posted on January 1, 2017 (August 31, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

Dear Leo, You turn 16 months old today, and I find that totally astonishing. I realize that your Dada and I will be putting 16 candles on a cake for you before we know it. I will try not to cry or lash out in my frustration that I can’t slow down time and hold …

Accustomed to privilege

Posted on December 30, 2016 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

Our bedroom is illuminated by a single red light bulb in a lamp on the dresser as I contort my body to slip out of bed. It is not quite 4:00 AM. Green curtains are drawn over mini blinds against the dark and cold outside, and steam from the humidifier billows into the air. The …

It is what it is and time marches on

Posted on July 1, 2016 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

When you first have a baby, lots of well-meaning but annoying people tell you to “sleep when the baby sleeps.” It seems like good advice, except it’s presumptuous and—like most things in life—parenting advice is not one-size-fits-all. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa.1 In those early days when people …

Life in snippets

Posted on November 8, 2015 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

Ten weeks ago I was furiously cleaning my house in anticipation of possibly going into labor, though I had no idea that I would actually give birth in just a couple of days. My swollen feet matched my ripe belly, and I was fueled purely by frustration. I did not love being pregnant. I did …

The inebriation indoctrination

Posted on June 27, 2015 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

A few months ago, I experienced an apt juxtaposition of God and the messiness of life, and the way it all fits together beautifully—even the ugly stuff. Before we get into that, we should probably back up a few years. It was the summer of 2010 and I was struggling to find my footing in …

Do you want to know the sex?

Posted on May 7, 2015 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

As my mother lay in the spare room at my sister’s house laboring to leave this world, she was often in and out of consciousness. Mostly, she was not lucid. She would have conversations with people who weren’t in the room and of whom my sisters and I had never even heard her speak. Probably …

Pantsless Weirdo

Unfocused Essays from My Basement

Category: life