Never Shake Your Booty While Pushing a Shopping Cart

(Intro: Queen: Pressure... pushing down on you....)

I like going to the grocery store. More so when I'm by myself. I find wandering up and down the aisles relaxing. I get a little exercise and get my "shopping" fix even if it is just over canned goods and laundry detergent.

My usual plan of attack is this: 
1. Go through pantries, freezer and fridge and draft shopping list.
2. Have driver drop me off at any of the following: SNR, Parco, Hi-Top, Rustans or Shopwise (SNR and Parco being my groceries of choice).
3. Grab eco-bags and shopping cart.
4. Turn on iPod and select band of choice for today's shopping excursion.
5. Waste 2-3 hours going through each and every aisle.

The music I play while I do my grocery shopping generally reflects my mood and outlook for the day. 

Am I feeling contemplative as I analyze how many wash loads I can get out of a 4 liter bottle of fabric softener? Then break out the Sigur Ros. May be some Radio Head.

Are the rising prices of chicken and fish making me depressed? How bout some Damien Rice and Sarah MacLachlan?

Are the badly stacked piles of toilet paper making me angry? That calls for some Stereophonics. May be a couple of vintage glam rock tracks from Guns and Roses and Poison.

But generally I like shiny, happy music while I do my grocery shopping. Katrina and the Waves kind of happy. I like listening to some ska like Save Ferris and Letters from Cleo. A little gay Brit pop from Right Said Fred and the Pet Shop Boys. Some vintage Queen.

A word of caution though: never let yourself get to carried away by what's playing in your ear. This has happened to me one too many times.

In Shopwise I once bumped into an ex-office mate while belting out the chorus of a Mariah Carey song in the canned goods section (I blame the noise-canceling headphones which apparently really DOES cancel out all noise --- including your own).

In SM Hypermart I caught one of the LEAP preschool mommies staring at me as I grooved to Quincy Jones' Q's Jook Joint while squeezing lemons amongst the produce.

And today...today will live forever in infamy. 

I was playing Under Pressure by Queen as I was on my way to the check out counter of SNR. I didn't realize that the pulsating beat of dum-dum-dum-du-du-dum-dum (so reminiscent of Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby) had driven me to subconsciously do a mini Running Man while pushing my shopping cart. It was only when I looked back to go back for some canola oil did I realize that all the sales people from aisles 10 onward were staring at me and laughing their asses off.

Beware the iPod while doing grocery shopping. Damn those block-rockin beats. 

(Extro: Groove Armada: I see you baby...shakin that ass....)

The Tenth of an Inch Difference Between Heaven and Hell

....is accepting things as they are or wishing them to be otherwise.  

It's been a tough couple of days. This has been my life ---- long stretches of being ok and normal followed by sudden bursts of depression.  

No one really gets to see it. I've become very good at hiding how I feel. The only one who ever senses it (and gives me a wide berth and lots of patience because of it) is John.  

The insomnia's back. Long, late sleepless nights spent staring at the wall. Or writing in my journal. Days that are spent trying to catch up to lost sleep.  

The short temper.  

The tears. 

I slipped in the laundry area again last night, wearing the same slippers I was wearing when I fell that awful night. In my anger and anguish I threw them in the trash. I'd burn them if I could. It reminded me of what happened. And I started wishing again that I never wore them that night. Or that I went up as soon as dinner was over. Or that I didn't got down at all.  

Wishing for things that I cannot change. For things that, I know now, could not have changed anything.  

The most awful realization I have had to make in my sad journey towards letting my babies go --- is that they were never mine to keep. 

Awful, yet freeing at the same time.  

May be one day this thought won't make my heart feel that it's being squeezed in a vise. May be one day, writing these words won't make me cry anymore.  

May be one day I'll be able to bridge that distance and find peace.  

A tenth of an inch doesn't seem that far.

Here We Are Again

I haven't had the heart to update this blog.

I couldn't find the words to say: we have lost 2 more babies.

We hadn't even gotten over losing Ines, and now we have to add getting over Carmen and Salvador (our twins) to this impossible task.

It has been 46 days since we lost the twins.

I still don't have the words.