hard times

i am sitting here, listening to my nine year old sing the eye of the tiger. which in a moment, could be a pretty powerful thing...but considering this is the ninth time i'm hearing this...not so much. i guess he's having a hard time getting past this song on guitar hero...

i am tired. i am worn out. we are just too busy lately. and it's not like i am getting things done in a smashing successful fashion...which is what i used to imagine when i'd listen to mamas talk about how much crap they were cramming into a week...surely their houses were cleaned, meals cooked, and their children had clean underwear, too, right? why did i assume that? what an ass...

now i know differently. we officially have somewhere to be each day of the week, except for saturday. but i did get my third born signed up for soccer...so at least i won't have to listen to him whine about his lack of opportunity to be completely over scheduled. every one's equally over scheduled according to their ability and our saturdays will be gone once soccer starts. oh, but i was talking about how now i know differently...how i know now that those women's houses were probably trashed, their meals probably served out of styrofoam, and their kids were probably wearing their underwear inside out (if their mama taught them properly) or going commando (i actually listened to my two oldest kids discussing when was the last time they went commando...it was a lot more recently than i would've thought...but i don't normally think about it, so i guess that statement isn't exactly true). anyway, our house isn't too bad, i am doing a fair amount of cooking, and they all just got a few pairs of clean underwear handed to them earlier today, so i feel like i am on a roll.

but i am so tired. and i just don't feel like i have much stamina lately. i wonder if it's the vitamins? the lack of running? something in the air? the-rapist told me the other day it was just life. remember when kids would finally figure out walking, but then forget all their words ? then eventually they could walk and talk...but it took awhile to get it all going together? and i understood what she was saying...we're all learning lots of new stuff right now. how to wake up and not be pissy with each other. how to make sure homework gets done without being pissy to each other. how to be on the road a lot more without getting pissy. hang out in different groups now that we always seem to be minus at least one if not more...yes, and not get pissy about it. we are worn out with trying to not take out these adjustments on each other, i guess. because these kids are sleeping hard at night. and so are these parents.

so...dependent arising...it means the emptiness of inherent existence. when things inherently exist, they are what they are, and they can't be changed by outside things...that would negate their self arising. so everything is dependent arising...and everything is empty of inherent existence. i know this is working up to some big things...but since i'm kind of excited to get a grip on what these concepts even mean, i don't mind waiting a few hours or a day til i can read more. i do think that it is pretty exciting to see everything as dependent arising...and knowing that emptiness of inherent existence is not the same as nonexistent, it seems that everything is going to be, in some way, a collection of everything else. but maybe that's too jumbled up. the dalai lama seems much more adept at teasing out more specific concepts. it's good stuff.

peace