i am spinning my wheels. i am stuck in the mud. as much as i accomplish anything, move the slightest bit forward, i am being pushed back, seeming to stand ever still, yet flailing. there is so much mess about. so much eight arms swinging about, bringing things and little boys to and fro; constant madness and there is an inner turmoil to accompany the outer chaos. there is a sense of all this being unjustified, unfair, not right. there is a sense that i am under constant pressure and the slightest bit of anything pressing on me any further causes eruptions, spasms of profanity and gritted teeth. one day the car seat wouldn't go in and it was all tourette's and tmj - i was needing so badly for it all to stop. i hated the car seat, the car, the fact of the need to drive, this history that made me require this hunk of plastic that will surely be landfilled, this unnecessary mined ore and all the petroleum of the world - the arab oil dictatorships, this president and his saudi ties... the call for jihad seemed suddenly so reasonable as i was running late and the car seat still moved and bastian fell asleep between my purse and diaper bag in the front seat, waiting. jihad! fuck the car seat! that is the essence of the unreasonable erupting from me. that is the every day, these days. i cannot articulate anything and i cannot pinpoint what is wrong. i have been having a bad life and i am waiting for it to be spurred to improvement. i am trying to accomplish just that by the movement of any project in a forward direction, but my long-term destinations are insurmountable even in my dreams where i announce that the pursuit of midwifery is a decade away; and my short-term goals get buried by my sons spewing snot and making constant messes. even dusting the bookshelves becomes impossible as things are all drenched by the three year old in food bits, soap, and salt. he finds new concoctions for the things he drinks, eats, and eliminates with our floors and furniture. my life is the cup of tea made and forgotten as one child pees in his diaper while the other pees on the floor and i move from place to place, wiping and vinegaring, discovering peanuts in the plants or jam on the computer screen, hours later discovering the tea on the kitchen countertop, cold and unnecessary or unwanted with the lunch i must attempt to make. i am spinning in circles, looking for a pathway to release into and finding myself merely continuing to spiral. i cannot hold a thought and i am going nowhere.