I’m going to be honest for a second. (I mean, when am I not?)

I’m tired.

And there’s not even any real reason for me to be tired.

It’s like I try so hard to be all these things — independent career type person, decent wife, acceptable cook, counselor to friends and family, responsible dog owner, assistant property manager/marketing person, knowledgeable DIY project-doer, good speller (pretending I didn’t have to look up the word “knowledgeable”), writer, extrovert, smiley, computer-savvy, photographer, compassionate, professional, on top of things — all these things that I know I can be, but not necessarily without practice.  And almost definitely not all at once.  And it’s sucking the life right out of me.

And I don’t even have kids.

But maybe that IS life, you know?  Feeling crazy all the time.  Fortunately, I’d like to think that if I’m aware of my craziness, I can’t possibly be insane.

Comforting, no?

I can’t describe what has been making me crazy.  It’s been happening for over a year now.  I keep waiting for it to go away, or for it to magically resolve itself, or for a sign to drop down from the heavens, grab me by the shoulders with iron fists, and literally steer me in the direction I’m supposed to go.

Just like in the movies.

There’s a silly movie from 1994 called “Don Juan DeMarco” with a young Johnny Depp who thinks he’s the actual Don Juan of yore — celebrated lover of women and passionate pursuer of life.

Until recently, I hadn’t seen it in years.  But Justin was bored one night without our cable, and I had taken a moments pause from my manic pursuance of one project and then another, so we streamed it from Netflix.  We made it a good hour into the movie before I ran off to do something else.  This is not uncommon.

Anyway.

Marlon Brando plays Depp’s psychiatrist, who initially is cockily confident that he can “cure” young “Don Juan’s” delusional illness in the 10 days before his retirement.  Instead, he finds himself getting swept up in Don’s tale of adventure, love, and sex.  Then one night, in bed, Brando confesses to his wife his fear of getting swept up in the “momentum of mediocrity.”

And that, I think, is one of my greatest fears — getting so caught up with life’s little distractions, that I forget to enjoy it.  Or worse, worrying so much about how to enjoy it, or how I’m not enjoying it, that I let it pass.  Brief.  Unnoticed.

So, how do I do this?

When I head to my job tomorrow and have to call people because their rent is 21 days overdue or a contractor decided that painting a room with primer only and slopping it over the switch plate covers is acceptable (puh-lease, like I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to painting a room); when I realize my one and only work skirt isn’t clean because I blogged instead of doing laundry tonight; when I remember it’s Friday and I still haven’t picked my home project to complete over the weekend; when I take a breath and realize the photographer I assisted at the wedding shoot last Saturday still hasn’t given me any feedback about my photos; when my friend Alaina calls and tells me her baby is on its way and our lives as we know them are about to change forever; how do I do this?

How do I live in this moment without continuously counting down until the next?

I firmly believe that there is a disconnected wire somewhere inside this screwball brain of mine that makes me think these daily things — these things that make up life — are just the build-up to what I’m really supposed to be doing.

That, at nearly 29-years-old, my life hasn’t even started yet.

Well, I’m here to tell myself that’s about the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.

That doesn’t necessarily mean I should ignore the feeling that I could be doing something more.  But it does mean that I shouldn’t be wishing for days to pass by more quickly so I can get to the good stuff.

The good stuff is turtle cheesecake in the break room at lunch.

Wet puppy noses.

Dinner on the deck.

Goodnight kisses.

New life.

Why would I want those things to pass by more quickly?

Such is the bane of the “right-brained curse”, as one of my favorite bloggers, Brittany from Blunt Delivery would put it.

I hate my restlessness.  And I love it.

And, until I figure out how to beat the momentum of mediocrity, I’m afraid I will never be able to rest.

That’s just kind of… sad.

I’m not really sure what’s going on with my life, except for the fact that I went from having no job to having what feels like 3 in about 4.7 seconds.

There was no transition period.

And I’m pretty sure that everyone needs a transition period.

I’m assisting in a wedding photography shoot on Saturday.  I have no idea what I’m doing.  I feel like I’m constantly playing catch-up in my one freelance writing gig.  My dogs are vibrating balls of energy because I haven’t figured out how to fit walking them into our new schedule.  Dinners are becoming slightly more “convenient,” and the Chinese take-out place down the street might start recognizing us once again.

Also, things are hectic in the land of real estate assistantship.  Assistantry?  Asskickingshiptry?  Apparently I’m doing something right, because after exactly a week-and-a-half of part-timing it, they want me to help out full-time.  And I’m torn.  On the obvious hand, it would be great to have the extra money.  On the other hand, it will take away serious time from my writing pursuits, including my little land of Domestiphobia.  Which is obviously already suffering.

I think I will take it on for a little while, mainly to help the team out of the current bind that’s caused when a group already manages over 50 properties, then takes on 40 more it knows nothing about all at one time.

On the plus-side, I’m learning a lot about the land of juggling showings, repair companies, and the egos of finicky clients.  I’ve pulled my travel coffee cup from the back of the cupboard, dusted off the mothballs, and can once again enjoy the de-stressing qualities of an aromatic cup of Kona on a 30-minute morning commute.  I feel a little bit important and needed.  The world is getting interesting again, and that’s never a bad thing.

On the negative side, well.

Let’s not worry about that unless we come to it, shall we?

This weekend we went camping.  Not roughing-it-in-the-woods-with-a-tent-and-no-toilets camping, but sleeping-in-a-trailer-with-hot-water-and-a-bathroom-and-air-conditioning-and-a-full-size-refrigerator camping.

The good kind of camping.

Especially when it’s over 100-degrees outside.

But that’s not the awesome part.

The awesome part is who went camping with.  Remember Catherine, from Simply Solo?  I wrote a guest post for her a while back.  Well, we figured it was time to bring our blogging friendship to the next level — the real world.  And since her family has a camp site about half way between where we both live, she was gracious enough to invite us out for the weekend.

And I’m pretty sure I had a blast, from what I can vaguely remember.

There was a lot of food, a lot of alcohol, and many, many good times.

I mean, how can you not have a good time in a place like this?

I probably had a little too good of a time, because we spent the first couple of hours playing beer pong on a floating raft in the water, and suffice to say I don’t really have any pictures after that point.

FAIL.

After reading each others’ blogs for so long, Catherine and I already felt like we knew each other.  I was a bit surprised, though, when she confessed I seem younger in person than I do on my blog.

At first I wasn’t sure what she meant, but after some explaining, I think I get it.

My blog is all over the place.  I know this.  You, as a reader, never know what to expect from me.  Will I be lamenting about my quarter-life crisis, talking about depression and failed relationships with counselors and my quest for my dream job?  Or will I get all Martha Stewart on yo’ ass and come at you with hippie recipes for chipotle sun-dried tomato hummus and spinach feta turkey burgers?  Will I organize a closet?  Will I try to figure out my design style?  Will I bitch about work?

No one knows.  Not even me.

But it made me realize that, over the past few months especially, I’ve started trying to portray a level of perfection that simply doesn’t exist. At least not for me.

Even though I tell you stories of how I ruined a quiche or how our carpets (circa 1994) are so heinously dirty that I tell people to leave their shoes on when they come in my house.  I could even tell you about how I stabbed myself with a corn skewer at dinner with Catherine, the infamous Chef, and her parents this weekend, but some of you still, for some reason, will think I have my sh*t together.

The problem is all those DIY home improvement Martha-esque blogs out there that make people — myself included — want to attain that practically unattainable level of perfection.  We all try so hard to pull our own weight.  To keep up with the Joneses.  To be better wives.  Husbands.  Cooks.  Housekeepers.  Professionals.  Our focus becomes one of competition — how to be better at something than someone else (or at least just as good), and it doesn’t even matter if that something is a thing we even give one ounce of a damn about.

And that, my friends, is how you waste a life.

So I think that what I’m trying to do right now is remind you — and remind myself — that I am one hot mess of a human.  I screw things up.  My windows are never clean and my finger nails are probably dirty.  I like cooking, but I detest figuring out what to cook.  I’m too cheap to buy new underwear or get my hair cut when I need it.  Sometimes my refrigerator smells and I don’t know why.  I had braces for 2 1/2 years.  Dusting bites the big one, I kill all of my plants, and perfume makes me sneeze.  I Google everything because there is a lot I don’t know and I want to get it right the first time.  Yet that desk I painted still has streaks.  I’m chill in public but get stressed at home, and I feel bad that Justin always has to see the worst of me, and I’m terrified of wasting this precious, precious life by spending it in a competitive, restless trance.

I have a lot to figure out.

But I’m working on it.

And, in the meantime, I might need to share the occasional hummus recipe that turned out awesome to remind myself that I’m not a total failure.  That sometimes I get things right.

And I highly — highly — suggest you do the same.

We’re all in this together, you know?

Okay.  I’ve always known that Justin and I currently live in the type of area that many people around the U.S. would refer to as “the boonies.”  Or maybe the suburbs of the boonies.

But I didn’t fully come to grips with that fact until yesterday, when I was working my new job.

See, the city of Fayetteville is not that terrible.  It has all of the basic amenities, a very small mall, a slurry of chain restaurants and fast food joints, and more and more “urban-chic,” privately owned cafés, coffee houses, restaurants, and specialty shops are cropping up here and there.  Thanks to the existence of multicultural Fort Bragg and a high Hispanic population, we can be treated to all kinds of hole-in-the-wall culinary delights, if we know where to look.

The non-sketchy half of downtown Fayetteville is cleaning up quite nicely.

Much of the time, however, I prefer to visit friends in nearby Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, or Pinehurst/Aberdeen/Southern Pines, just to feel like part of a non-transient community for small fractions of time.  And sometimes we visit the beach.

The problem is that military communities, in general, can become run-down relatively quickly if the city doesn’t stay on top of things, because if people don’t consider a place a long-term home, they don’t tend to care about long-term aesthetics.  Abundant pawn shops, strip clubs and tattoo parlors cater to a young soldier’s basic needs, but it takes a bit longer for a wine café or an independent book store to attract a steady customer base.

So.  I would consider this a transitional period for this area.

Then, there are the outskirts.  The outskirts are a little… sketchier.

My new job as a real estate assistant involves a lot of running around, primarily stuffing the tracker full of lock boxes and corrugated cardboard signs, then fiddling with keys and combination codes and attempting to use my high-heeled sandals to stamp signs into the ground in 100+ degree heat while wearing a pencil skirt.

It ain’t pretty.

Add to that the fact that  yesterday I was so middle-of-nowhere lost, that directly in front of me lay a beautiful field of goldeny wheat looking stuff, but I was too afraid of the ominous meaning in the shotgun pellet-riddled sign I’d just passed to stop and take a picture for you.  Or maybe it was the lease we’d just signed with a guy who threatened to shoot us if we tried to get on his property without permission.  Or maybe it’s the eviction stories I’ve been hearing around the office.  Empty houses.  Strangers’ secrets.

Yeah… maybe I’ll get that picture for you next time.

Those of you who are scared of the city and its petty thefts and crowd anonymity should come take a look at the country where everyone has a gun and no one can hear you scream.

Who would’ve thought working in real estate could be such a scary job?

I’m curious about you readers — are you city or country dwellers?  Which do you prefer?  More importantly, if you’ve ever worked in real estate, just how do you not end up looking all haggard, sweaty and bedraggled at the end of the day?

P.S.  We’re doing something exciting this weekend and I’ll be back to tell you all about it next week.

P.P.S.  I finished my desk and will be back to show you pictures of it next week.

P.P.P.S.  I need my coffee.  There really was no point in telling you that, except that I wanted another post-script.

Thank you for your time.

Well kids, that ship I told you about, she’s turning but fast.  I got called last-minute on Monday to meet with someone to go over the photo shoot for a wedding he wants me to help with, and then yesterday I went in to hear a job offer for a part-time job and ended up working it for the rest of the day, and yesterday I found out I’m one of the finalists for Re-Nest’s hunt for a new writer.

You can see one of my submissions that got posted here.  And, you know, comment if you feel like it.

Of course, it could just be some ploy on their part to get a bunch of free material, but either way, having my photography and writing up on such a hugely popular site is a pretty good feeling!

I promise I will be back with more as soon as possible — but now I have to run to work.

Will someone remind me why I wanted a job again?  Or three?

But I will say this: Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom and no body wants you and your life is just one big fat waste of time but it doesn’t matter because the world’s going to end anyway, things turn.

See?  What did I tell ya?

This morning I had to be the mean neighbor.

Usually, believe it or not, I’m the nice one.

I won’t call the POA (Property Owner’s Association) on you if your propane tank isn’t “camouflaged” by lattice.  (Because, you know, white-painted lattice blends in with nature more than a white-painted tank.)

And there is no way in the reality of this vast universe as we know it that I could care less about whether your trash can sits outside.  (Unless you’re using it to store a dead body, in which case I might take issue with the smell.  But I’d talk to you about it before calling the Authority.)

Need a cup of sugar?  I’m here.  Some eggs?  Look no further.  A Percocet?  Well.  I’m not going to discuss it in a public forum, but call me.  We’ll talk.  (It’s the suburbs — we understand pain.)

But this morning, I was not in the mood to dole out coffee, farm products, or prescription drugs.  My generosity ends when you let your dog piss all over my world.

On a daily basis.

Look, I’m human.  I have dogs.  I understand that you can’t always control where they pee when you’re walking them.  But remember this?  Remember my nice little mailbox planter I worked so half-assedly to complete in a semi-finished, it’ll-get-me-by-for-now sort of way?

Every day, this old man walks by with his golden retriever.  And it’s a mean golden retriever.  (I know — that’s like a depressed Richard Simmons  or Kurt Cobain singing pop music.  It just doesn’t seem right.)  And every day, he stands there while his retriever raises his leg and pees on my mailbox.

And it drives my dogs crazy.

So today, I was in the garage slapping a coat of polyurethane on my desk.  I’ve given up on waiting for a non-humid day.  And, sure enough, Gramps and Kojak come ambling along, and there he stops.  The dog doesn’t initiate it — he does.  Like he’s saying, okay, Fido.  Here’s where you pee.  It ticks her dogs off.  Hear them barking from inside?

All I did was stand up, back sweats and all, sponge brush in hand, and say, “Really?”

He was startled, like a kid caught stealing baseball cards.

He gave the leash a tug and ambled on.

I knew he knew.

And this battle, I’ve won.

I’m not really sure why I just went into all that, because that’s not really what I sat down to write about.  I guess I’m still breathing in the sweet fumes of victory and clear gloss lacquer.  Ah, the problems of the privileged.

What I sat down to tell you was something about which you might already be very well aware.  But, in case you’re not, I wanted to expand your horizons and help make your life a little easier.

See, while the internet is a reliable distractor, providing us with ample writings, videos, and more time wasters than it’s possible to count (like this here blog), it also provides us with ways to streamline these distractions so we’re more efficient in the ways we avoid actual work.

Enter Google Reader.  It’s a nifty little tool that combines all of the blogs you like to read in one, compact space, so you no longer need to sift through email subscriptions or remember to visit individually bookmarked sites to catch up on each one.

All you need is a free Gmail account, and it’s yours.

Then, you just go to google.com/reader, paste your blog URLs (like http://domestiphobia.net) into the “Add a Subscription” window, and you’re set!

The reader will list all of your subscribed blogs in the left-hand column and automatically track what you’ve read and haven’t read.

Tip:  If you don’t like how narrow the reading pane is, just press the “f” button on your keyboard, and you’ll be able to read the blog posts full-screen.  If you move your cursor to the top of the page, a hidden navigation bar will drop down.  Press “f” again to exit full screen.

If you read more than one blog, I highly recommend you start using  this little gizmo.  It takes about 2 minutes to figure out, and it’s allowed me to be a lot less productive by helping me read and keep track of significantly more blogs on a daily basis.

And that is a beautiful thing.

Listen.

It’s been a weird day so far.

Like, someone-stole-my-shopping-cart-full-of-dog-bones-at-Target-while-I-was-looking-for-cauliflower kind of weird.  They have these new, giant shopping carts with super-smooth steering, but good luck getting one of those things down an aisle.  So I left it in the main aisle to avoid getting in anyone’s way, but apparently I should have laid camouflage netting over the top and planted ferns and strategically placed landmines because some bitch stole my cart!

So that’s the first weird thing.

And yes, I said I was looking for cauliflower at Target.  Because it appears as though Target finally realized they were on to something when they started carrying groceries, but people still had to stop somewhere else if they wanted any produce, and now Target carries produce as well.  I’m thrilled that I can do all my shopping in one place and have it not be Wal-Mart, but I’d still rather live somewhere I can walk to small specialty shops — markets, florists, hardware stores — without climbing back into the car between stops while wearing cute, heeled sandals and my feet don’t get tired.

Remember the beautiful streets of Malaga?

And where it’s not like 187-degrees F outside with 90% humidity.

Seriously… My clothes feel wet.  I get the back sweats when I’m sitting in the car.  Today, walking through the parking lot to Target, my knees started sweating.  My knees!  I’m shiny all the time.  I had that thought in the car — that thought about feeling shiny — and when I switched the radio station (I’m a switcher — I never keep it on one station for long), the song Shiny Happy People by REM came on.

No lie.

So that’s the second weird thing.

Another thing happened as I was walking into Target.  I was actually coming from the Home Depot next door — trying to avoid a car trip across the parking lot between giant superstores — and I was somewhere in front of the outdoor gardening area at Home Depot when I heard someone just outside of Target yelling.

No, screaming.

Loudly.

Not scared screaming, but angry screaming.

And swearing.

Profusely.

“This is the WORST f*cking time OF MY LIFE!”

“You are SO f*cking BAD!”

“Shut up!  Just SHUT THE F*CK UP!”

Now.  You probably have already guessed what I saw as I approached the Target store.  But I want to preface the rest of the story by saying that up until now, I’ve consciously avoided writing about extremely controversial issues on this blog.  I take the Buddha/Lennon/Switzerland approach of can’t we all just get along? and maybe I should just stay out of it.

But I’m curious.

Because when I saw what I saw, I’m ashamed of what I did.  Or rather, didn’t do.

And I want to know what — if anything — you think should be done by a passerby in a situation like this.

Back in the Target parking lot, I zeroed in on a woman parked in one of the front-and-center handicapped parking places.  I’m pretty sure she wasn’t handicapped, unless she had some incurable loss of control over her vocal chords, causing random, shouting, verbal diarrhea to pollute the air within a 200-yard radius of her body.

She was holding a small child, a little girl no more than 2 or 3 years old, and was walking around the car to put her in the back seat.

I did not see her commit any act of physical violence towards the girl, but the yelling?  It was full of I-hate-yous and untamed frustration and probably spittle.

She was basically acting like a 2-year-old.

Ironic, no?

I thought it was terrible, but I continued on into the store.

There, another patron looked at me incredulously.  “Can you believe that?” I asked.

“No!” he said.

“At least I didn’t see the woman hit her…”

“I did,” he said.

Now.

This was the moment.

That moment where you know you’re making a decision that could affect someone’s life.

For better or for worse.

And the bitch of it is that you just. don’t. know.

Had I approached the woman, she might have gotten angrier and taken it out on the child.  Had I called the authorities, she would’ve been gone.  Had I reported the information, maybe the child would be taken away from a woman who was just having a bad day and put into an abusive foster home.  And by the time my mind finished processing this information — weighed the options and possible outcomes of action vs. inaction — she was gone.

Poof.

Personally, I like it when I see a parent discipline his or her child in public.  Even if it’s harsh.  I don’t think children are disciplined nearly enough anymore, and I’m allowed to say that even though I don’t have kids, because I still have to see them and interact with them every time I leave my house.  Also, I was spanked as a kid.  I was not hit, and there’s a difference.  The spanking stung, but it was on my cushy little butt and was intended as more of a humiliation factor than anything else.  And I undoubtedly deserved it every time.  I don’t feel as though I am any worse off today because of it.

Now, no matter how you feel about spanking, and trust me — whether spanking is right or wrong is NOT the discussion I want to open here — there is a line.  There is a line between what my parents did to me and the full-on abuse of a child.

The discussion I want to open is whether or not it’s right to intervene — whether or not there’s an obligation to intervene — when someone’s behaving in a way you don’t deem appropriate.

The thing is, I don’t know if what that lady did was something she could get in trouble for.  I didn’t see the hit.  I only heard the rage.  And I didn’t know if, by saying something, I would only make it worse for the child.

So I did nothing.  Like Amir in The Kite Runner, I chose the evasive route.

I kept expecting John Quinones from the ABC “ethical dilemma” show, What Would You Do? to jump out from behind the shelves in the $1 section, screaming “Coward!  Why didn’t you intervene?!”

And the simple answer is, I don’t know.

Had I calmly walked up to the woman, told her I understand what it’s like to lose control — to get frustrated — to want to lash out — and it’s okay, it happens to the best of us, but please think about what you’re doing to your child — would she have calmed down?  Would she have taken a deep breath and come to her senses?  Burst into tears and cried on my shoulder?  Spit in my face and pushed me into oncoming traffic?

There’s no way to know.

And that, I suppose, is why I didn’t intervene.

But now, I think, I probably should have.

I’m curious to know what you would have done.  Or at least, what you think you would have done, because there’s no real way to know until you’re in the moment.  I’m especially curious about those of you outside of the U.S., because I have a feeling I know what the general response might be from citizens here.

And now I’m sweating again, but I’m pretty sure it’s not from the heat.