Grudge Girl

Rattling Around

2007-05-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

Charlotte is a sunshiney girl.

Man. I have been avoiding writing anything here because I'm still working on that whole fear of writing thing. I have a huge block, after failing to complete (1) my thesis and (2) my freelance course-writing gigs. It's kind of miraculous that I can even approach the computer. For a long while I couldn't even do that. Now I can at least google things, and read TWOP recaps. And cyber stalk people. But writing makes me vomitaceous.

Why do I cry every year at the end of the Scripps National Spelling Bee?

I'm like a total squealing Beatles fan for that thing. I don't know if it's all the beautiful Indian children, or thinking about how hard the kids have worked, or actually recognizing some of them from year to year, or remembering how promising I used to be, or the fact that I still do pretty well with the spelling of the words, and so I tear up at the faintest spark of a hope that I'm still smart.

It's ridiculous and weird. This year I watched it with Charlotte on my lap. Why a 2 1/2 year old was interested at all in the spelling bee is beyond me, but she was all apple-y scented and drying off from her bath, and shiny and golden and warm and snuggley. So of course I was even more lame and teary. When the stoic 13-year-old brace-face boy won instead of the impishly adorable and wiggly 11-year-old, and then cried on his father's shoulder, I was history. Done for. I hope he was crying out of joy, and not because this was the only time his father ever hugged him. You know, because he won. I worry. I make up tragic stories for people and then worry about them. Is this normal?

They asked for the correct definition of the word floccipaucinihilipilification on "Whad'Ya Know?" on NPR a couple of weeks ago, and I totally knew the answer. I was elated for about 4 days. So not normal. Why should my self esteem depend so much on my knowledge of arcane and practically useless words? And why am I listening to "Whad'Ya Know?" What am I, 57?

We close on our huge, brand new, beige-box-neighborhood house on the 30th, and the current state of our charming, tiny, one-bathroom, brick bungalow indicates that we are in some very serious denial. So that's worrying.

Why does no one in those neighborhoods plant any trees? I cannot do without trees and shade. Birds and squirrels. I have decided that I will instantly annoy everyone in my neighborhood by spearheading a campaign to get everyone to plant at least 2 trees in their back yard. I will start a newsletter and put it in their doors early in the morning. I will focus on how trees improve the beauty of the neighborhood, as well as property values. I will cite statistics and include graphics. I will contact Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, or some such group, and see if I can get them to donate trees. I will distribute brown paper bags filled with maple helicopters at Halloween. The local news media will get wind of me, when people start noticing that this one beige box neighborhood actually looks decent, what with the trees. I'll get involved at the national level. The Today Show will call, and before you know it... look for me on Oprah.

This is what I do in my head when I'm avoiding writing, and avoiding thinking about the shame that accompanies the not writing. I guess crying at spelling bees and crackpot scheming is better than constantly contemplating jerking the wheel in traffic, like I was for the previous 6 months. Right?

All Work and No Play Makes Beth a Crazy Girl

2007-04-13T05:13:00.000-07:00

So, after almost losing my damn mind, months and months of keeping the secret that I almost lost my damn mind, abandoning this blog and all my cherished internet friends because of shame and crippling writing/computer phobia, having daily to keep track of all the various lies I'd told to cover my tracks and pretend to be normal, mental and emotional exhaustion, suddenly finding out that I was going to be inheriting a (for me) pretty damn large sum of money after the death of a second cousin, beginning to build a new house and trying to get things fixed up on this old one, intense rage at my horrible uncle for various will-related shenangians pertaining to the aforementioned inheritance, family drama regarding uncle and money and evil going unpunished, constant worry and feeling of overwhelming doom accompanied by nerve-wracking adrenaline rushes, no sleeping or too much sleeping, lots of eating, unending mental tape loops and revenge scenarios (ahhh, my old friends), and finally having my I'm-really-totally-normal-and-everything-is-cool cover blown by the arrival of W2s that reveal how I didn't actually make the money I was supposed to last summer because I got to the point that I couldn't get out of my car in the parking garage, but would go to "work" anyway and sit in my car for 4-5 hours at a stretch in order to pretend that all was well...

I've finally sought therapy. And am considering medication. It's a little scary. Apparently my giant impotent rage intersected with my paralyzing fear in a bad way. Huh. Imagine.

So now I have some kind of anxiety disorder accompanied by obsessive tendencies.

You know, I always thought that was just my personality. And I guess it kind of is, except that various life experiences have exaggerated the parts of my own personality that would like very much to crush me, and I haven't had an equal number of experiences that would've helped me to learn to get over it. I can't seem to get over anything, as it turns out.

It's all about lack of control, I guess. But really, what do I know? I'm just a stunted teenager who fears getting into trouble and therefore can't fess up to having fucked up.

The secret is avoidance, people! Avoid-avoid-avoid! And all will be magically fine!

Oops, except for those W2s and that uncle. Damnation. It's always something.

I've only been to therapy twice so far, but I like the woman very much. She's cool. I wish I could talk to her for like 6 hours at a time, while drinking coffee on a couch with squishy pillows and our shoes off. I'm greedy.

Luckily, Andy didn't divorce me or anything. I'm really lucky. He's under so much stress, and he's got me to freaking deal with, but he doesn't ever leave. Huh. Imagine.

I love him so much it makes me cry all the time, because I don't know how I got this lucky, and I feel I don't always deserve him, and I'm constantly terrified he will get fed up and leave, but somehow he doesn't, and then I feel even more abject and grateful. He's so beautiful and good, it makes my heart scoot up into my throat.

And the kids are fine. Ethan is gearing up for a trip to Italy with the children's choir this summer and is beginning to play at having "girlfriends" (EEP!), Simon is brightly charming his way through French kindergarten, correcting my accent here and there, and Charlotte is adorable and tiny and hilarious and loves me ferociously.

I can't seem to get pictures uploaded. Weird. I guess I'll add them to Flickr, and hope they show up on my badge there on the right. I don't know what I'm doing anymore!

To my internet friends, if you're still out there. I have visited your places, but haven't had the courage to comment, because I'm so ashamed of myself. I miss you, and I'm sorry.

I'm still alive... just barely

2006-07-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Just updating with a few pictures of the kids. The freelance gig has completely taken over my life and I'm pretty much miserable and sleep-deprived all of the time. And panicky and avoidant and terrified and self-sabotaging. The light at the end of the tunnel is September, when I can start writing for pleasure again. And enjoying life again. And losing all the weight I've gained taking snack breaks at 3:30 am. I'm afraid I haven't been the best mother through this time, but I'm trying to do the best I can. Some days I am really and truly afraid that I'm losing my mind. I sense disaster everywhere, and have trouble stilling my mind enough to work. Thank goodness for Project Runway. (Except for the travesty of last night, when dear sweet fabulous Malan was ousted when it so OBVIOUSLY should've been Angela! Hello!)

Ethan auditioned and made it into the next highest level of choir, and will be touring Italy with them next summer. He and I are both thrilled! He also won a surprise writing award for a contest we didn't even know his teacher had entered him in. Still Star Wars graphic novel-obsessed, which is fine by me. He's taking tennis lessons twice a week, and is on the local park's swim team with his cousin four mornings a week. We thought it was important that he had some experience being on a team, and getting good exercise. I'm really proud of his progress. He's such a sweet child, as always, and will be fighting off les filles in his first year of middle school this fall, I predict.

Simon is still adjusting to being a middle child, almost 2 years in. He also is blessed with his brother's sweetness, but paired with a more overtly theatrical personality. Sometimes he looks so much like an otherworldly elfling that it makes me catch my breath. He is so smart, and reading chapter books with his daddy, getting ready for the French program kindergarten at his brother's school. His vocabulary astounds me, as do his developing gymnastics skills. He's been very into tie dye lately, and can frequently be seen sporting tie dye underwear, socks, and t-shirts. He's like an adorable little hippy elf.

Charlotte is utterly hilarious, and speaks mostly in vowels. I am "Mimi" and Andy is "Yaya." Which, I think, makes us sound like old Belgian people. Or maybe Dutch, I'm not sure. She jumps on our big old hillbilly trampoline at every opportunity, and hops/somersaults her way through life, even when she encounters concrete. I believe that's a character trait I can get behind, even if it's so foreign to my own melancholy disposition. She's just a creature of light. She loves bugs as well as my make up. Go figure. Some kind of girly tomboy anomaly. Most of the time, all I have to do is look at her, and I laugh. Which is a gift.

All of my children are spectacularly gifted.

I used to be. I hope I will find myself again this fall. November always brings me to my true self. I am living on the shred of a hope that this November will find me haunting patches of moonlight again, as I did in days of yore. I miss that me.

Some pix, for your enjoyment.

He's Home!

2006-03-24T18:30:00.000-08:00

So Ethan's home! He got home a week ago, actually, but I've been freelancing and catching up on grading, and haven't had time to post anything until now. I've got to figure out a way to balance blogging with everything else I'm doing, because it means a lot to me.

I'm not cry-y mom. I'm so not. But, when all the parents were clustered around the Northwest escalator waiting for our orange-clad world-travelers to descend, I started to feel a little funny. Then, as the first-class and business class people started coming down, asking if we were waiting for the kids from Paris, and smilingly reassuring us that they were here, coming any minute now... I started to feel even funnier. Then, as the kids finally appeared, and I was taking pictures, and suddenly Ethan was there hugging me, there were these odd water droplets in my eyes. Huh. It wasn't relief, or reuniting... it was just happiness. Happiness in his presence. I missed that more than I realized.

Doesn't he look capable and self-sufficient, carrying all that luggage? That's his dad in the background, by the way.

Simon was quite glad to see his brother again, as you can see.

As was his dad. It was really sweet. The guy hugged him for the loooooongest time. He almost couldn't bear to let go.

I look like a giant purple hippo in this picture, but maybe you can see the tears in my eyes, just a little?

Sometimes Ethan is such a boy. I think if he were a girl, I would have heard a lot more description of his stay in France, and of the people he stayed with. Girls (hate to be stereotypical, but it's true) just seem to be better at detailed description. Here's what I know. He had a super duper time, and I am most proud of 3 things:

1) He tried new foods. Even escargot! Dude is a seriously picky eater, but he tried everything, and even liked most of it. Good for him. He was especially keen on the pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants) and some kind of chocolate yogurt he had for breakfast every morning. And the "round bread" his host mom bought for him every day.

2) One of the chaperones who went was his English teacher, who is considerably older than the other two twenty-somethings. I'm sure this makes her slower getting around, and probably a bit stodgier. This means that she is definitely not as "cool," right? She's a lot like my mom, actually. Ethan told me that he spent a lot of time with her, and was always in the back of any lines with her, because most of the other kids were just busy having fun, and being kids, and stuff, and so she was a bit ignored. But he is so kind, and so thoughtful (and also so attuned to my arthritic-kneed, stationary mother) that he kept this teacher company, and moved at her pace with her. She shared this with me as well. How on earth did I manage to create this sweeter than sweet person? And what will happen to him in the big, wide, mean world? Well, anyway, I am prouder than I can say of this boy and his sensitive treatment of others.

3) He brought back the most thoughtful souvenirs for everyone in the family. Stereotyping again: boys aren't always the best at this, no? But dudes, he's ELEVEN and he knows to bring quince jam for Andy, and caramels for my mom and dad, and adorable hair clips for Charlotte, and a knight-themed magazine packaged with a cunning little toy dagger for Simon, and a black necklace for me. I'm stunned.

Ethan's teacher told me that his host family was lovely. The mom was a teacher, and the three daughters had way too much fun mothering and feeding and entertaining Ethan. Apparently, he was deeply immersed in the European kiss-kiss greeting, and all the little girls loved kiss-kissing him. Which he loved as well, except when it came from guys. So Ethan took to extending his hand for a manly American handshake to any men who attempted the kiss-kiss. His host family apparently thought this was hilariously adorable. Heh.

What a wonderful experience he had. I'm so glad I nervous-breakdowned my way through that first freelance job to pay for it. Totally worth it. His French is magnifique now!

Speaking of freelancing, they are now hiring me on in a fuller capacity through August, to write 5 more criminal justice classes. I'll be like a major! Maybe I'll be a cop! In order to make this happen, Andy and I have agreed that I cannot continue to pull overnighters. I'm almost 40, for crying out loud! It takes me like 3 days to recover! So, in order for me to be able to work during the day, we're seeking someone to watch Simon and Charlotte 2 days a week. This was a really difficult decision for me, as I was so committed to staying home with them, but our financial situation has gotten to the point where this is just necessary, and I think it's a good compromise. Charlotte will love it, I'm confident. Andy's also going to look into getting me a refurbished laptop, so I can go work somewhere else, because I have a hard time concentrating here chez nous.

I'll be making scads (for me) of money, as long as I can retain my sanity. Working on that too, by the way. I want to sock it away for the boys' schooling. Simon is so smart. He deserves to go to a great school, you know? You should hear him whizzing through Dr. Seuss. It's beautiful! Talk about getting schmoopy! I practically lose it every time!

I include the following pictures because they make me laugh. My niece had a superhero party for her 3rd birthday, and Charlotte went as Supergirl. She had an absolutely cracking good time. Don't even try to tell her it isn't very badass to be hauling around a milk bottle. She won't even have that.

Simon had another excuse to don his favorite, bemuscled Power Ranger costume. He is deeply into them, I'm afraid. He appears to have gotten it from his father, whose powers, I think, originate in his deeply hott spectacles. Mmmm... spectacles...

HI THERE!

2006-03-13T11:15:00.000-08:00

It's been truly loony over here. In light of said lunacy, I'd like to document for posterity the following sweet, calm moments and small pleasures:

1) Brand new cake of soap. Ahhhhhh.....

2) A HUGE, long, beautifully hand-written letter from Yucaree. JOY!!

3) Taking a shower with Charlotte, and holding her small, silent, slippery body close while we stood rocking slightly under the warm water, with her wet little head on my shoulder. Communion.

4) Spinning a penny on the floor with Simon, over and over yesterday, while Andy and Charlotte slept. Simple, fun, communion.

5) Sitting for a few uninterrupted minutes in Andy's lap, like newly dating people, before Charlotte demanded to join us. Missed that.

6) Opening the windows during yesterday's rain. It's been raining for DAYS now (Andy had to vacuum the ponds out of our basement - sigh) and it's been freakishly warm (I guess we aren't getting a winter, after all) so our house got really stuffy and hot, and the open windows were delightful. Especially with the soft rain outside. Nice. One forgets how great fresh air is.

7) Got to wear my orchid-colored raincoat. I LOVE my orchid-colored raincoat.

8) Simon started reading by himself last weekend. Like, all of a sudden, he just started sounding things out, like you're supposed to, and he even read the word "stretch"! Andy and I didn't want to freak out too much in his presence, because we didn't want to stress him out with pressure, and you're suposed to make those moments all about their own ownership of their achievement ("I bet you feel PROUD of yourself, don't you?") rather than about pleasing you. But DANG! Privately, I did a very VERY ecstatic dance and promptly called up everyone I know to brag. He's so smart, you guys. We never really sat down and, like taught him. We just read to him all the time. I knew all those books sitting around here would pay off!

After Ethan's chaperones posted some pictures on the school website of the kids over in France, I finally felt the full force of missing him, and called him for the first time. I was all, "Bonjour! Je suis la mere d'Ethan! Je voudrais parler a mon fils!" Or some such old-lady-sounding, stilted version of French. He was happily playing Le Connect Quatre with the girls, and super excited about the dinner his host mom was preparing. Some kind of quiche with ham AND bacon. His salt-loving heart was thrilled. He told me she buys him a special round loaf of bread every day, because he eats so much of it. Also, they toured the downtown area of the town in which they're staying, which has many traces of its medieval past, including a cathedral that left him awestruck. He said it was the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, when the sun came in through the stained glass and colored the air and the floor. He's my boy. I remember entering St. Chapelle in Paris and just bursting into tears from the sheer beauty of the place. All by myself, sitting on a bench, crying. He's also spending all his money on gifts for us. Such a sweetheart. They've been to a cheese factory and the local market, and the Normandy beaches and American and German cemeteries, and several other points of local interest, and they'll be going to a carmel factory this week. He went to Mt. St. Michel with his family! In short, he's having a totally awesome time. He comes home Friday evening. I can't wait to see him, and to take in the changes I'm sure will have taken place.

I'm still freelancing. It's so weird. The lady who is the boss of me likes me, no matter how screwy and behind the deadline I get. She keeps offering me more work, and trying to schedule things around my life, and figuring out how to get me more money, and talking about future managerial positions, and stuff. I must be good at this, for all it totally and utterly terrifies me. I'm thinking about having someone watch Simon and Charlotte a couple days a week so that I can work during the day rather than overnight, because that's killing me. It's so hard to trust your kids with someone else. I've done institutional daycare, as well as in-home, and none of them have worked out well. Ack. More stress. But we totally need the money, and it's a way for me to build a resume, and, you know, Charlotte at least would probably LOVE daycare. Other kids, other environments, stiumLAtion!!! Geez. Yet another thing for me to have the heebies about.

Love you, internets. I couldn't stay away for long!

Hiatus

2006-03-06T14:00:00.000-08:00

Sorry to worry y'all.

I've got to take a short hiatus while I finish my current freelance project. It's consuming my life. I'm actually considering getting some medication for my performance-related anxiety. It's so bad, I haven't been able to get near the computer without shaking and nausea. Can't check my email, can't look at my blog, can't type a lick. It's ridiculous, and embarrassing, and I feel horribly guilty to have neglected my online friends. Which just creates this heinous cycle, wherein I hate myself and beat myself up, and do lots of household chores I've neglected until just this moment because I can't go near the computer to do anything, even the stuff I love. I suck.

Side note: Ethan left for France on Saturday (EVERYTHING converged in this past week - I did the singing gig as well) and arrived safe and sound after something like 17 hours of travel (including the 3 hour layover in Detroit, and the 2 1/2 hour bus ride from Paris to the town where he's staying). He's with a family with 3 daughters (perfect for him), and has written me emails like "I'M HAVING A GREAT TIME!!!!! I MISS YOU BUT THAT WON'T STOP ME FROM HAVING THE GREATEST TIME!!!" and "I LOVE IT HERE SO MUCH I COULD STAY A YEAR!!!!" and, most hilariously, secretly written in white, so that I had to highlight over it to read it, the following super-classified phrase pertaining to the oldest daughter, who is 12 1/2 (oooh, older) "SHE IS SO PRETTY I WOULD DO ANYTHING TO STAY HERE WITH HER." My son. Sticking with time-honored tradition and falling into a first crush in FRANCE! He'll be back on the 17th. I expect great changes.

So, to wrap up... I've had a mini-breakdown and need to hiate myself (did I just make up a verb?) until I've done what I need to do. It's a daily struggle and I feel weird about considering the medication thing but I've got to do something for the crushing anxiety, the fall-out from which affects everyone in the family, not just me.

Wish me luck.

Sugar and Spice

2006-02-21T23:05:00.000-08:00

Poor little Charlotte has had a rough day.

I awoke with a start at 2:38 am last night, to the sounds of her throwing up in her crib. Poor baby. All in her hair and blankie and that's just so confusing to a baby, you know? She wasn't feverish, but afterwards, as I curled on the couch with her and several towels, waiting to see if it would happen again, she was all pale and clammy and stare-y and... quiet. Which is weird for her.

She is so seldom calm and silent, that I, well, I enjoyed those moments stretched out in the dim light from the open bathroom door. We just looked at each other. Still. Looking. Then she reached out and slowly touched my nose, and then her nose, my mouth, her mouth, my eye, her eye.

The sweet seriousness of her gestures establishing our similarities almost made me cry.

It made me wonder if she is as bewildered by our happening to wind up mother and daughter as I am sometimes. I swear, quite often I look at her and it's as if I'm seeing her face for the first time. She looks absolutely nothing like me, or anyone in my family, or even like I imagined she might look, before she was born. She's about as far from the shy, serene, cello-playing girl Andy and I predicted as it's possible to be. Her face is so changeable, as though her outward appearance actually fluctuates according to her mood: merry, infuriated, sly, curious, delighted...

She is still such a mystery to me. I see her copying my gestures, but she is so much her own person that it's almost... intimidating? What am I to do with this person who is so new to me? So different. Perhaps it's that she's a girl, and girls are new to me?

Today Lulu managed to pass by the basement door during the one interval in which it was accidentally left open, and I heard her fall. I heard her little pink and silver sneakers squeaking on the wooden stairs, and I heard the rustle and bump of her body careening towards the cement floor.

You cannot imagine how instantaneously I teleported down those stairs to see her sprawled in a heap at the bottom, fearful of touching her in case something very very bad had happened and little bones were broken. Perhaps, though, you can imagine my heightened vision in the dark, and the slow care with which I gathered her up and held her sobbing head on my shoulder as I made my way up into the bright light of the kitchen. You can hear my heartbeat, as I heard it, faster and louder than her sobs. You feel my rushing relief as I realize that she is unharmed, and the calm I will into her as I rock her tears away.

This, I can do.

She may be a foreign little alien of joy and destruction, twinkling dimples and pigtails as she strews the contents of the bathroom trashcan across the living room, but I can find her in the dark and I can carry her into the light and cherish the moments of communion she allows me before she heads off for another adventure.

Precious little peewee. Stranger. Love. What am I going to do with you?

Slough of Despond

2006-02-16T14:40:00.000-08:00

I am living in a pigsty and it's giving me a heart attack!

Or at least, like, a conniption.

I was up 'til 5 am Sunday and Monday working on my latest freelance project - in criminal justice ethics, which I have no experience in, but which I've been able to teach myself in a jiffy - and which, of course, I procrastinated until the last possible minute because I was beset by the demons of writer's block and fear of criticism, as usual.

Stayed up Tuesday way too late ironing ALL of Andy's shirts. Happy Valentines Day!

And I worked at the theatre on Wednesday. Home 11:30.

And the Olympics are keeping me up all hours of the night because they save the last skater 'til 11:30! And I can't miss Project Runway!

So there's the no sleeping, and the no time, and suddenly the house is completely wrecked. And I feel totally overwhelmed and panicky. I should be doing the lunch dishes right now. The mountain of the kids' laundry is, like, of LUDICROUS proportions. They should transport it immediately to Torino and use it for alpine events. The kitchen table is covered in toys from Christmas, waiting to be moved downstairs, plus the brand new giant bags of Valentines-mas presents from Andy's mom, and there's no place to put all those, nor enough time to consume all of the Twizzlers and cheetos and gummy worms that are overflowing the goodie basket on top of the fridge. The coffee table is absolutely overflowing with books. There is kid detritus everywhere I look, because no one in this family puts things back where they go, except for me. There are little Dove dark chocolate heart wrappers balled up all around the house, turning into dust bunnies in corners, because Spooky really likes to chase them, for approximately 3.8 seconds. Simon keeps leaving hats everywhere. The kitchen floor is inexplicably sticky. I can't remember the last time I washed anyone's sheets. I keep finding Ethan's Star Wars Clone Wars graphic novels stacked up in the oddest places. Andy's socks are breeding and setting up housekeeping under chairs and tables. And Charlotte threw my favorite skirt in the toilet.

And I haven't had any time for blogging, and sorting through my psyche. Plus, I miss my blog friends!

There is a pizza box on the kitchen counter from 2 days ago. With pizza still in it. Oh god. I'm like a frat boy. Or a hoarder.

I'm getting hopelessly left in the dust!

Geez, and my mom is coming to stay with the kids tomorrow while I rehearse with the organist to sing at the World Day of Prayer service coming up that mom always helps to organize*. I've got to sing eleventy-seven freaking songs all by myself, including The Lord's Prayer, which goes how high, again? I need an emergency voice lesson, stat!

If I don't get the house cleaned up, I'll totally be hearing about it. Mom will give the place a silent once over, and make that little... sigh. And, dear god, she'd be RIGHT!

Does anyone have a paper bag I can breathe into?

I can't believe I am living like this, sometimes. There is no way to catch up. It's so distressing! I've got to pick up the school carpool and then have a conference call with the freelance people. What the hell am I making for dinner? Then I have to drive the choir carpool, so I won't have any time later, either. Oh, and Ethan's backpack is broken, so somehow I've got to find the time to get him a new one.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

And I'm out of Excedrin Migraine.

Damnation!

* Funny story. Last time I did this service, on my final solo, I was getting a little cocky and dramatic because it was going so well, and I had all the dear senior citizen churchgoers in my thrall, and so on the very last note, I raised my hands up in unison, in a sort of American-Idol-glory-note sort of way, but the aged throng misunderstood, and they TOTALLY ALL STOOD UP! Because that was how much POWER I had! Bwah! The minister was a bit flummoxed, and had to figure out a suave way of telling them all to sit down, without causing them to realize that they'd been duped by my songstress prowess into doing my unconscious bidding (stand up and recognize, seniors!), so he smoothly inserted a prayer into the service and then asked them all to be seated for the final homily. Heh. That was totally awesome.

Louder than Words

2006-02-11T11:45:00.000-08:00

Here's what happens when you try to watch the Olympic opening ceremony with your four year old. Sleepiness is catching!

Awwwwwww........

Also, this just in:

Charlotte has learned to use a fork!

Ew. I really need to clean that wall. And that bowl.
Now, I know what you're going to say.

But don't worry! We leave plenty of food out for her. She prefers Purina Indoor Formula. Lots of greens, you know, for a healthy coat and a well-rounded diet. And she doesn't overeat, I swear! Oh, and we always make sure she has plenty of fresh water, from the special filter faucet on the sink, even!

Poor little Spooky doesn't stand a chance.

We got mail!

2006-02-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

Mail!

I heard a slight knock at the door and lo! A package from Tracy! From Maine!!!

I've never gotten mail from Maine before!

Can you tell I'm excited?

Please to behold the most completely, hilariously awesome t-shirt in history.

Andy immediately donned it over his work clothes.

Hee hee hee!

Simon fell instantly in love with his clay fish whistle. It was like kismet. I showed him how to hold it, and cover the holes with his fingers, and suddenly he was like a little Pan piper. He played it all the way to pick up the carpool at school, getting eerily better and better by the minute.

Ethan was equally charmed by his awesome red Chinese dragons, which hold a place of honor on the Shelf of Important Things. Didn't we all have a Shelf of Important Things when we were little? Then you know what a big deal that is!

Additionally, there are THREE, count 'em, THREE dvds of Invader Zim displayed there. Which, it being a school night and all, they were informed they will have to wait to watch. Much to their great disappointment.

Please to also behold the STACK of delicious books that were included in the package. HELLO!

Andy and I were both excited about these babies. Books! From Maine!

When are the book reports due, Tracy?

:)

Also, it was difficult to get a proper picture of this beautiful item, because of the mirrored endcaps, but I had to try, because it so perfectly exquisite and so exactly my taste that it had to be documented. There is no way this picture does it justice, but let's just say I'm thrilled! Girl was NOT lying when she said we had the same taste!

I cannot wait to hang this in a place of honor.

There is also an adorable, ethereal moon fairy ornament that is currently hanging in Charlotte's room, where she is adorably sleeping, and so I cannot take a picture. Fortunately for the ornament, it is hung up high, in the center of her curtain rod, so that it will be safe from her curious and destructive little hands.

Many thanks to Tracy for the thoughtful and spot-on perfect surprise package. It was perfect timing, too, because I was out finishing up some special errands of my own this very day, concerning this fabulous denizen of the Eastern seaboard, which she will soon discover.

Heh heh heh.

Mail! Sigh... I love my internet friends!

BlogHer 2006!

2006-02-06T10:55:00.000-08:00

You guys? I'm totally freaking out right now. I'm going to the BlogHer conference 'o6! In San Jose, California on July 28-29th.

I remember reading all about this shindig on the blogs of the women I mentioned in my last post. I remember looking at their photos, and being soooo envious. So last night I signed up as a BlogHer member, and listed my blog with them, and I read all about the conference, and I WANTED! TO! GO! so badly, and I looked at the registration fee, and the group room rate they've got going, and I haven't yet researched plane fares, but I thought, with my freelance pay (I've got another project going now, on Criminal Justice (heh) and Ethics), that I could do this.

I can do this.

It feels like a step towards my blogging goal. Of WORLD DOMINATION! No no no-I'm totally kidding! I just would like to move forward to increase my readership and visibility, and to further my writing. To see what can happen when I work at it. And... well... I really want to meet my blog idols. There. I've said it. I'm lame.

But I'm going!

I called Andy at work as I always do, and I mentioned this idea to him, and he totally okayed it, and told me HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!! It's my present!!!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

He does love me, you guys. And I love him.

I feel like a grown up. I feel like I'm doing something smart and strategic to make my dream happen. Holy Fanoly! I'm so excited I can barely stand it!

Who wants to join me?

Ars Bloggia

2006-02-05T17:25:00.000-08:00

OK. So I'm trying really hard not to obsess about who it was that mentioned my blog to Ethan's school administration. Because I need less, not more paranoia in my life.

But it's REALLY! HARD!

There is a scenario in my head whereby my old nemesis Laura has somehow, through means known only to the evil, located my blog and, because her favorite thing in life is to ruin mine and/or embarrass me, decided to anonymously phone the school.

Because that's the kind of thing that runs through my head.

My other paranoid idea is that it was that odious fellow from the beginning of the school year, who defamed me via email.

Because I am a GRUDGE! GIRL! and I DON'T GET OVER IT WHEN PEOPLE ARE MEAN TO ME!

ACK!

Also, because I am the mistress of endless mental tape loops, I have been going over and over again what I actually said to the very nice administrators, and, though I think I sounded totally sane and receptive, I didn't acquit myself intellectually quite the way I would've liked. So I have to do that here, or else it'll never leave my head and I'll never get to sleep. I'll be up at, like, 3:30 watching re-runs of Becker on WGN and rehearsing my un-given speech out loud to myself.

So what I want to say to those who think blogging is weird and, like, unnecessarily and messily self-exposure-y, and possibly pitiful and needy or flagrant and needy, and who just don't understand why I would do it is that:

1) (Here's where I get all Women's Studies on ya!) Throughout history women haven't always had mainstream communication resources available to them, and so, we have made use of our wonderful adaptability and openness to embrace the means of expressing ourselves that we actually have at hand. This has sometimes meant that we were in the forefront of developing communication media, creating paradigms and blazing trails in areas that others might perhaps deem lowly or sketchy or beneath the dignity of those with access to the more widely accepted, traditional communication venues.

I believe blogging qualifies. Though men and women both certainly blog, the internets I have been lurking and then participating in are an amazing place for women to form communities, to support each others' experiences, emotions, aspirations, and interests. Blogging is especially well-suited to women's realities. We can do this from home, while we attend to our children and the million other things that fill our lives. We can fit it in whenever, which is not often, we have a spare moment. We can reach out to each other, listen to each other, encourage each other, and help to heal each other. In a world where we are increasingly insulated from each other, and which often engenders loneliness by its very vastness, we have learned to use this technology to create an online kinship.

Heather (Dooce) and Mrs. Kennedy (Fussy) and Alice (Finslippy) and Melissa (Suburban Bliss) and Maggie (Mighty Girl) and Mimi Smartypants exemplify the heights we can attain, if we embrace this new medium with conviction and, well, love. Just look at that list. These women are pretty much making a living by doing what they love! TV appearances and magazine spreads and conferences and book deals and Amsterdam and Andrew Shue, people!

And I bet everyone who reads this post can name other equally accomplished, brilliant, hilarious women who belong on the list I just created.

Someday, I'm going to be on that list. I'm going to make a living doing what I love. That's why I do this. It's part of a path I've set myself on.

2) Whether or not to post pictures of one's children is a difficult choice. I have chosen to do so, and I am completely aware that not everyone would be comfortable making this same choice. I have chosen to be brutally honest and open about my life, and that openness includes wanting to share those photographic moments that mean something to me. I am aware some people will judge me for this. I am aware that for some people, this would be taking an unacceptable risk with one's children's safety. I do not choose to live in this way because, for me, it would feel like living in a hyperbaric chamber. So, while you may feel free to judge me for my decision, you should also know that it is one I have considered carefully. I am nothing if not thoughtful.

Ahhhh. That's better. Of course, I'll probably obsessively edit this post about 1000 times before I feel I've gotten everything just right, but this is a start.

Are you with me?

p.s. I've gotten requests from several people for an email address. I've established a yahoo mail account, and the address is now available on my profile. Feel free to drop me a line! I did receive your comments, even though they don't appear on the post to which they were attached. Blogger has been having some major issues this weekend!

The Day I Totally Thought My Son Was Dooced

2006-02-03T17:30:00.000-08:00

Today I went in to Ethan's school to meet with the headmaster and the elementary school director about what happened with Ethan and the teacher a while back. Remember? I was glad to have a chance to talk to them about this in person, because though Ethan seems fine, it was still bothering me.

Next topic. The headmaster brought up this blog. Someone (I don't know who, but HI! All are welcome! Feel free to comment directly to me!) had discovered this blog and brought to the administration's attention the entry where I vented my rage and frustration with the teacher who spoke hurtfully to my son. I had vented my considerable rage and frustration here, in my journal, in a healthy way, with words rather than actions. Because that's what journals are for! Let me explain.

This blog sometimes functions as the verbal equivalent of a punching bag. Because I am a non-confrontational person, sometimes to a fault, but I am also a very very emotional person, especially where my children are concerned. So writing things down is a smart way for me to hash them out.

I feel compelled to add here that, AT NO TIME were my idle and ridiculous and bravado-laden revenge scenarios to be taken seriously. It is sad to me that I should have to make this explicit. It should be obvious.

But I now know that this is my naivete, once again, rearing its stupid head.

Because there are bajillions of people out there who don't know me, there is potential for misunderstanding. The school has a responsibility to take seriously any troubling language regarding its employees. Of course I understand this, because I am a reasonable person.

You all, when the head master said that he knew about my blog, I was SO shocked and dismayed, I cannot even tell you. I just thought immediately, "That's it. After all the struggle, and all the damage to my marriage, and all the financial hardship to make this possible for him, Ethan is going to get Dooced and it's going to be all my fault."

I told them what I tell you, the internet is so vast, one never thinks anyone will come across one's tiny little speck of a place in it. I was genuinely floored.

I also apologized if I caused anyone to be upset. Because it was never my intention to upset anyone. I wrote what I wrote for me, not thinking for a moment that this public forum was such a small world. Now I know otherwise.

Luckily, the headmaster is also a reasonable and non-judgmental person, and so I agreed to take down the offending post, which was all he asked. I have also temporarily taken down all the entries that directly mention the name of Ethan's school, so that I can change those references to, "Ethan's school."

I also told him that the vast majority of my posts that mention Ethan's school are positive, glowing in fact, because I am so in love with this incredible school. I think my regular readers can attest to this.

Like any writer worth his or her salt, I have minor misgivings regarding free speech issues. There is a big part of me that believes it should be obvious to anyone who looks at my blog that I would never seriously carry out bodily harm on anyone, or even act menacingly towards them. I would also hope that attempts at humor, no matter how ham-handed they may be, would be correctly interpreted by all.

I now understand that I must take seriously the fact that this is not, sadly, the case. Where my posts involve other parties, I must be careful with my words.

Before I began this blog, events like what transpired with Ethan and this teacher would've eaten me up inside. I would've played out endless tape loops over and over again in my head about what he went through, what I wished I could've said, how I would've said it...I would've lost sleep drafting and re-drafting interminable mental scripts. This blog has provided me with a place to record ONCE, and be done with it, those previously debilitating scripts. And, more surprisingly and even more valuably, it has brought to me a group of friends who offer supportive and friendly virtual hugs and heckles from the peanut gallery. It was difficult to try to describe the value of this little internet speck of my own to the headmaster, who admitted that he personally would never describe his personal life in such a public way, but whose only real concern was the wellbeing of the school community.

Let me assert that the headmaster and the elementary director are lovely people, and make me love Ethan's school even more. They were willing to listen to what I had to say, and were, of course, acting in everyone's best interest. This was new for them as well as for me, and they were most gracious and open-minded. Lovely people.

I have shared my triumphs, the hilarity of my life, and my rawest, most painful moments here, and have met with validation from total strangers who have become friends. I cannot explain why this means so much to me. But it does. And I would not trade this experience for anything. I may make a few embarrassing gaffes along the way, but I would never trade it.

I wonder if Ethan's school will now come up with a policy regarding the personal blogs of those in its community, the way Melissa's son's school did? I think it would be a good idea. Surely I'm not the only blogger out there.

p.s. Happy 5th Anniversary to Andy and me! We're going out! For Moroccan, which there is just no way you can do with small children. So, hallelujah haute cuisine!

The Empire's Deadliest Weapon

2006-02-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

Greetings. I'd like to introduce you to Darth Lulu.

Darth Lulu is Commander of the Imperial Knee and Shin Guard, a secret shadow brigade charged with protecting the Emperor's lower extremities. Darth Lulu is known for her skill with the light saber, as well as pioneering the practical Edible Saber Grip, for those lengthy patrols. Darth Lulu is a deadly enemy to those who would attack the emperor below the belt. Do so at your peril! She is a force to be reckoned with, and should never be underestimated. She is a stealthy and fearless opponent.

With bootie ruffles. That will cut you.

Boy Genius

2006-01-31T14:16:00.000-08:00

Simon, Boy Genius.

WARNING: Bragging about to happen.

We've been investigating private school options for the boys for next year, and all the private schools have prospective kindergartners do these "Play-Based Assessments." Well, Ethan's school also had us go get an independent cognitive/developmental assessment at some psychological consultants place. I guess because their kindergarten is 100% immersion, and kindergartners must be smarty-pantses, as well as adaptable and pleasant, to flourish in that environment.

So we go today, and Simon is a STAH, I tell you, a STAHHHH!!!!

The woman who gave him his tests basically fell in love with him, and all but proclaimed him a brainiac. She told me his scores were "off the charts" and that he has an astounding vocabulary, and she even used the words "Gifted and Talented" describing him to an associate.

NOT THAT THIS IS NECESSARY TO KNOW BECAUSE I ALREADY LOVE HIM TO INFINITY.

Of course. And I always knew he was smart and charming and thoughtful and sweet! But still, wheeeeee!!!!! It's nice to hear that your kid is intelligent, like officially. Because it means his chances of succeeding in/liking school are helped along, you know? And education is so important.

And please, check out the cute factor on that mug up there. Cute to Infinity!

Saran Wrap Solution

2006-01-31T14:15:00.000-08:00

We've all been passing around this gross, snotty, heinous cold/flu bug here at Casa Barnes. Andy, with his year-round allergies, produces even more mucus than Simon and Charlotte put together. Plus, he's sort of gross, in a grody-boy sort of way. Like he has black banana peels on the gear-shift console in his car, and, like, gnarly wrappers strewn here and there, and grapefruit rinds in the spare-change holder. You get the picture. Homeless. It looks like some gag-worthy, semi-mental person lives in his car.

Mucus + grodyboy = NO!!!!!

For quite a while now, Andy has been hocking up giant, water-resistant phlegm-globbers in the bathtub/shower, in the morning before work, and then leaving them there for me to find when I open the curtain for my shower. Every once in a while there's one in the sink as well.

BARF!

And I've asked nicely for him to stop doing this, aim for the toilet, or clean up after himself. It hasn't worked. Let us just say that during this particularly mucus-y illness, the plegm has gotten OUT OF HAND! Every morning, I had to steel myself to open up that shower curtain in the morning. It was like a horror movie. What would I find? What bloody, gelatinous, nauseating blob would I be faced with? AAAAAAAAAGH!!!

So Friday night I stayed up after sickie was in bed, and when he was fast asleep, I Saran-wrapped the bathtub. And the bathroom sink. And attached signs that read, like, PHLEGM with a big circle around it and a big NOT slash through it. And PHLEGM VERBOTEN!

Hee! I was pretty darn proud of myself, I have to say.

I think I've finally made my point. He says he can't help getting all loogie-d up in the shower, because of the heat and humidity, but at least now he's cleaning up after himself.

SCORE!

For the Record

2006-01-26T15:45:00.000-08:00

Are you ever just driving along, and all of a sudden you are overwhelmed with the awareness that you are piloting a giant missile of death?

This happens to me all the time. It's scary. But I get so used to this incredibly dangerous thing I'm doing ALL THE TIME, that I forget. And then I have these random, unpredictable adrenaline-washing-over-me realizations and have to try really hard to go over 10 miles an hour.

This never happened to me before I had children, so that's part of it. Of course, they don't have to be in the car with me for it to happen. The mere thought that they could be left motherless is enough. For they would surely waste away in the ensuing wilderness of clutter and unbrushed hair that would constitute Andy's single parenthood and they would turn feral, and then starve.

But there's also my premonition. Many moons ago, before I was ever a mom, before I was 21 even, I was winding through a stretch of I70 at downtown Indianapolis called the spaghetti bowl, and I had this vivid premonition that I would die in a fiery inferno of a crash there someday. I've never been able to shake it.

I drive through this exact stretch of highway EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Then, when I was about 23 I had my astrological chart professionally done (I KNOW. Shut up. I was very glad to find out I'm a triple Scorpio. It explains SO much, yo!!!), and the woman who interpreted it for me stopped at one point, and drew in her breath as she contemplated just how to say something difficult to me, and simply lowered her voice almost to a whisper but wouldn't make eye contact with me as she ominously intoned, "Be careful in cars."

*SHIVERS!!!!*

So every day I'm careful. Back in the day, I was quite the speed demon. I'll freely admit it. But I'm also an excellent driver. Seriously! I'm, like, Formula One good. You should see my reaction time. HEY! I AM NOT LYING!!! I am a kick-ass driver. But now I'm a very careful, kick-ass driver. Plus, I've been through Defensive Driving School so many times I could quote you the manual. I am UP on the rules of the road, people.

And Andy knows about my premonition. But he also likes to be maddening. Witness the following conversation:

ME: You'll be sad when I die in a fiery inferno in the spaghetti bowl. Please make sure the children bathe regularly. And wear matching socks.

HIM: I will be sad. How long before I can marry "Mommy 2?"

ME: At my funeral, I'd like for you to tell everyone about my premonition, so that they can be all eerie-feeling at my ESP.

HIM: But I can't, because it won't be true. You just believe this so strongly that you'll have created a self-fulfilling prophecy. You'll be in a crash because you believe you'll be in a crash, and therefore you'll have, unconsciously of course, put yourself in that position.

ME: (gaping open-mouthed in horror) ...

HIM: It's only logical.

ME: IF YOU TELL PEOPLE THAT HOOEY YOU WILL BE DISHONORING MY MEMORY AND YOUR DISLOYALTY AND LACK OF FAITH IN MY ESP WILL CAUSE ME TO HAUNT YOU, AND MY WRONGED SPIRIT, UNABLE TO REST, WILL BE FORCED TO REMOVE YOUR EYEBALLS FROM YOUR EYE SOCKETS AND REPLACE THEM WITH YOUR TESTICLES!!!

MY PREMONITION IS REAL!!!

SAY IT!!!

HIM: Your premonition is real.

So for the record, I am stating here and now in the vast ether of the internets, that I have this premonition, and if it comes true, it is NOT because of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because I AM TOTALLY CAREFUL ALL THE TIME AND PURPOSELY AVOID SITUATIONS WHEREIN I MIGHT BE SMASHED IN MY VAN LIKE A BUG. If it comes true, it will be a TRAGIC, TRAGIC ACCIDENT that I eerily knew about because I HAVE ESP!

So there!

BA!

2006-01-23T13:30:00.000-08:00

I took Charlotte to the pediatrician last week, and she is not even 20 lbs yet. She is apparently so tiny that she makes the doctor and his nurse break out into the giggles. Then, he apologetically tells me that if she continues at her current growth rate, she'll probably be only about 5'3 or so. He's telling me this, and I'm standing there all of 5'2. HELLO!

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this guy, but DUDE. HELLO!! I'm glad she's teensy! Nothing wrong with teensy!

When the nurse asked me if she's using 3 words, I had to laugh, because... technically? No. But really? Oh yeah, and a lot more. It's just that she speaks in, like, baby binary. ALL IS "BA." "BA" IS ALL. THERE IS ONLY "BA."

So in baby binary there is the syllable "ba" and a shriek. And the various combinations of "ba" and shriek actually amount to an incredibly sophisticated vocabulary. Because, people, she has the syntax, and the vocal modulation, and the speech patterns of English non-binary speakers DOWN. She counts to three: "baaA? baaA? Baaaaa!" She happily waves bye bye: "Ba Ba!" She tells me she'd rather have apple juice than milk, please, and COLD this time, and could I please make Simon move so that she can better pull all the books off of the coffee table?: "Ba Ba baba BABABA! BABA! Baba ba baba ba BA bababa ba BA ba. BA."

Oh, and my name? You guessed it. Baba.

Soon enough, little girl...

2006-01-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

HEE!

zzzzzzz...

2006-01-23T10:30:00.000-08:00

I've been sick. Sicksicksick.

It came on gradually. Through the latter part of the week I just lost altitude and speed, like a hot air balloon slowly coming in for a landing.

It was like sleeping sickness, combined with some Tom-Hanks-Joe-Versus-the-Volcano brain cloud. It felt like my brain had been infected with a virus that caused it to produce some kind of poisonous secretion I could feel draining down my brain stem, along the back of my neck, and into my shoulders and down my spine. All my muscles seized up and I slept almost all day on Saturday. There was beaucoup de nausea, but only minimal hurling. Hurling would've been a relief, if I could've expelled the noxious brain poison. But no.

Did someone poison-dart me?

I'm only now starting to wake up. Luckily, the horrifying headache is gone.

On the up side, I'm still in my reading frenzy. It's almost a novel a day now. It's pretty cool, actually. Grad school slowed my reading pace down to an elderly shuffle, but now that I'm reading for pleasure, it suddenly kicked back into turbo. I've finished J.G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur, Monica Ali's Brick Lane, Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, and I've started on Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day. Next, Vikram Seth's Two Lives. I can't wait!

Yesterday evening I managed to get up and go to work at Beef & Boards. I love it there. I started there in like 1993, and was full-time and part-time and they saw me through some of the worst and best times of my life. It's like home. It's just a cheesy dinner theatre, but it's like home. I've made some of the best friends of my life in that place.

I love flirting with all the old dudes who've been coming for like a million years, and chatting with the groups of ladies out without their hubbies for an evening. I love that I can duck into the theatre whenever I want and catch the show. I love the staff, and the fact that they chuckle at me when I use big words, and do the crossword puzzle in less time than it takes to smoke a cigarette, and walk around reading (because I know where I'm going so well I don't have to even look where I'm going) and that they humor my dramatic gestures and slinky walk. I've always wanted someone who found my idiosyncracies charming, and collectively, for the most part, they seem to. It's like a family, but one whose dysfunctions you can walk away from. And most of all, I love knowing what I'm doing so well that I could do it with my eyes closed, or, as was the case last night, half-sick.

Here's the thing. Some people would probably find this boring. But I really REALLY love being a big fish in a small pond. There. I've said it. I have only modest ambition, I guess. It applies in so many areas of my life. I like to be the best at something, and this is only certain for me in small ponds. Some people (my parents, most likely) may find me sort of lame in this regard, but I've decided I don't care. I've figured out what makes me happy. My mom is fond of quoting that preschool teacher who said in days of yore that I could do anything I wanted to. Which meant, out in the wide world of fame and fortune, apparently, to my mother. But what I like best to do is kick ass and be recognized for it, while still feeling that there is that safe place to fall that you really only get in a family. Or, in this specific case, a dinner theatre.

I love teaching part-time. Modest ambition. I love being a mom. Modest ambition (in certain circles-though I think this is the greatest ambition of all).

Now, what are you doing reading the internets, when you could be reading a book! Hee!!

Random

2006-01-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

Usually in the mornings Charlotte wakes up and cries about 5:30 or so, and we grab a bottle and stick her in bed with us to lull her back to sleep until we have to get up. Yesterday, it was Andy's turn on bottle and retrieval duty. He got up to go to work, and I felt Charlotte asleep next to me, and fell into a doze. About an hour later, she woke up fully and slithered over the edge of the bed, to totter into the front room with her brothers.

As I lay there, I felt her bottle at the back of my neck, and could tell that the collar of my pjs, at the nape of my neck, was wet. Oh well. Moved the bottle, lolled around listening to the kids in the other room, and drowsing.

Eventually got up, went into the bathroom and LO! Dreadlocks. Not just bed-head, I'm talking Lenny Kravitz, full-on dreadlocks! Cemented with apple juice. All over my whole entire head. I couldn't even begin to get a brush through them.

Has this happened to you? I deep-conditioned and everything, but my poor hair still doesn't seem quite right. Stupid leaky bottle.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have started my online Intro to Drama class (studying plays, not acting), and I've made my students all set up blogger.com blogs as their online reading journals. HEE!!!!

So far, none of them have really busted out into creativity land, but I'll keep you posted. I'm kind of excited about it, and wonder if I can get any of them as hooked on it as I've become. Dudes, I'm like a pusher.

I'm it!

2006-01-16T01:00:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged. Thanks, Tracy Lynn!

4 Jobs I Have Had
1) Student Group Tour Guide for the City-County Building, including tours of the courts, jail and lock-up!
2) Initial Interviewer for the Public Defender's Office, specializing in the crazies, the drunk, and the incoherent
3) Freelance Course Writer
4) Teacher

4 Places I've Lived
1) Indianapolis
2) Naperville, Illinois
3) Bloomington, Indiana
4) Indianapolis

4 Movies I'd Watch Again
1) Sense and Sensibility
2) Spirited Away
3) Moulin Rouge
4) Harold and Maude

4 TV Shows I Like
1) Project Runway
2) America's Next Top Model
3) King of the Hill
4) Malcolm in the Middle

4 of My Favorite Foods
1) Chicken Krahi, Onion Bhaji, and Garlic Naan
2) Dark Chocolate of the expensive variety
3) Spaghetti Carbonara (in Italy)
4) Baked Brie and Crusty Baguette

4 Places I'd Rather Be
1) France
2) Venice
3) Japan
4) Minnesota (WHAT?! I love snow!)

I tag Yucaree, Suburban Misfit, and anyone else who'd like to participate. All are welcome! All are welcome!

Just call me sexy giiiiiiiiiirlfriennnnnnnd!

2006-01-16T00:47:00.000-08:00

So I'm apparently Dr. Ruth Westheimer now. Or that other old lady on WE, or Oxygen, or whatever, with her sex show and her little dolls.

At work tonight, Nasir, an extremely beautiful 17 year old Pakistani boy whom I adore, asked me if he could ask me something. And he was all secretive and stuff. And wouldn't talk to me with anyone else around. So finally no one's around and he tells me that he had sex with his virgin girlfriend, and he was apparently (ahem) too big (I know! You should see his feet! He's like a lab puppy!) and she experienced pain, and he was wondering about how long this sort of thing would continue, and what he could do to help her.

...

Now, the part of me that wishes fervently that I were still attractive to 17 year old boys sort of thought for a minute that he might be telling me this as some sort of... I don't know... provocation? But it was clear to the rational adult part of me that he had concerns, and I seemed to him like someone who (1) would have abundant and helpful knowledge in this area and (2) he could talk to honestly and openly. Which is flattering and nice. But not as nice as being flirted with. Which he does, and I have to say I enjoy the winks and sly grins, but now I see clearly that he's just been humoring the old lady. Tossing me a bone, but not, if you catch my drift, and I think that you do.

So I squelched my wounded vanity and embraced my camp counselor role, and offered some tips and caring advice, and he seemed pleased and grateful. (Not as grateful as she'll be, I'll wager!)

Ah, adulthood. Sometimes it's annoying.

But, you know, tonight the house manager found a couple of kids getting busy in a van in the theatre's mammoth parking lot, and, like, who hasn't been there? Hot, but also crowded and lame. So sometimes adulthood has its advantages. Like, for example, I totally came home and majorly jumped my husband, NOT in a van, NOT in a parking lot, and NOT with pain and the ineptitude of youth. 'Cause old girl knows what she's doing, and we've got this DOWN, and what do you know... All is right with the world. Hoo-ah!

Wished Out

2006-01-03T05:50:00.000-08:00

It's 5:00 am and I have to write this out or I'll never go to sleep. The stupid lines I'm going to write here have been running back and forth constructing and deconstructing themselves until I write them or go mad. I'm so tired.

I was going to say that everything I've written about Andy has been a lie, but that wouldn't be exactly right. What's happened is that I've simply neglected to mention one very big looming aspect of our relationship. I read about Heather and John at Dooce.com and see that team, and the comfort she takes in him, and that is not what I have.

Andy is mad at me 100% of the time. It is alwaysALWAYS there just behind everything, lurking, and waiting to pounce. He is mad at me because I send Ethan to private school. We are nearly destitute, in a ludicrously tiny house that is falling down around our ears, barely able to keep our cars running and afford groceries, with astronomical debt load and not much possibility on the horizon of anything improving, and he thinks it's absurd and, well, offensive, frankly, that every penny I make goes to keep Ethan just one more year at this school.

We live in a public school district and there is no way I will throw my son to those wolves.

I would rather be poor and not work full-time, so that I can be home with my small children. I have done daycare with Ethan, and I will not subject my children to that while there is a breath left in my body. But you see, I would rather be poor and happy. And loved.

I can be poor and happy.

I cannot be poor and unhappy. And unloved.

Oh sure, he says he loves me, but what does that amount to, really? He loves me in that he'd-be-sorry-if-I-died sort of way. Abstractly. But nothing I do will make him be tender and kind to me. To love me obviously, truly, romantically, here and now. I am of no value to my husband, beyond maybe as the mother of his kids. And even that is apparently suspect because of my nearly criminal lack of concern for their well-being by working to keep Ethan at his school.

Nothing I do makes Andy behave any differently towards me. I have tried cooking elaborate, love-filled vegetarian feasts, I have tried spending the money I should be spending on Ethan's tuition on groceries, so that Andy doesn't have to buy groceries: he'd rather eat frozen burritos and peanut butter and honey sandwiches. I've tried beautifying and cleaning the house: he'd rather live in squalor. I've tried having sex with him every single day: it didn't make him any more protective of me or gentle towards me when his ill-mannered brother and horrible sister-in-law visited. It didn't improve his mood any. All that hype about give guys sex and they'll do anything for you is a big fat lie. It makes absolutely no discernible difference in my husband's behavior towards me. I've tried being generous and caring to his family. Boy did that backfire. I've even tried to be a better, happier me, spending a little time with my friends in a once-a-month gathering that was so good for my soul I can't even express it, but it just made Andy mad that he had to babysit the kids. I've tried encouraging him to do things with his friends, but the best one doesn't live here and only comes around on holidays, and even then he's apparently really busy now partying, and the other one is kind of lame, and his wife hits on Andy.

None of this matters because, as Andy said to me the last time we had a small argument about something that quickly reduced itself to what underlies all of our arguments, my unforgivable sending of Ethan to an expensive school (for which I have not asked Andy for a PENNY since the disastrous first couple of times I had to early in our marriage, mistakenly thinking that my goals for Ethan would be his goals too), because I HAVE SACRIFICED THE WELL-BEING OF THIS FAMILY.

When he said that to me, I knew that this was why he doesn't really love me anymore, because that is what he truly believes. And in that moment I knew I couldn't be married to the person who really and truly believed that about me. And so I started packing. I will not be with someone who thinks that about me. I will not be married to someone who doesn't love me. This was a few months ago. Andy got scared and convinced me to stay. He said he doesn't think that I sacrificed the well-being of this family, but the cat is out of that bag. Once said, it cannot be unsaid.

So yesterday, realizing that the ice-maker is broken, and the refrigerator probably shouldn't be as hot to the touch as a curling iron, and the drier in the nearly completely dark basement (the lights don't work anymore) is taking 4-5 hours to dry a load of baby laundry, I crept up the stairs steeling myself to mention to Andy that the drier probably should be looked at by someone and fearing the reaction I knew I would get. Because I know that he is mad at me 100% of the time.

He told me to use some of my money to call a repairman because he doesn't have any money. He knows very well that I don't have a penny. Of which I reminded him. Then I said something about the ice maker, and while I was looking for ice cube trays he made some low comment to himself like, "Why don't you just go to Williams Sonoma and get some really expensive ones." Which is the most unfair thing in the world, and just nasty to say to me, because I NEVER shop. I NEVER-EVER shop. I am wearing the same old raggedy winter coat I've had for 9 years, with the pockets ripped out and the lining in shreds, and the same clothes I've had on for 5 days because I don't buy myself new clothes, in shoes from 3 years ago, and I NEVER go shopping. I have never stepped foot inside a Williams Sonoma, except if you count the 2 paces it took me to reach the peppermint bark sample table they had just inside the entrance last Christmas.

I can be poor, if I'm happy. And loved.

I can sleep on the deeply sloping, back-achy mattress that was once owned by my ex-husband's mother and her third husband. In the hideous black lacquer, ghetto, mirror-in-the-headboard, taste-affronting bed that that woman bought for me and her son as a wedding present, without consulting me. With matching bedside tables and 2 dressers. I can stack books and children on top of one another until they spout out the chimney, if I am loved.

He is too angry at me to love me.

When he made that totally unfair Williams Sonoma comment, I was already crying, but suddenly I realized the nightmare in which I am living. This is my horror movie. I am being stabbed in the shower. I am married to someone who doesn't love me, whose constant anger I fear. It is exactly like living with my parents. I am in the exact same god-damned situation I have been in for over half of my life. And I think a part of Andy told me that thing about my mom telling his mom how disappointed she is in me just to hurt me. He could've kept that to himself, but the part of him that is mad at me 100% of the time did that to me to be cruel. He knew I would brood and brood on it, and it would get worse by the day. He's met me, for Christ's sake. Why else would he do that to me?

And so, at the discovery that I am living in my own personal horror movie, this scream flew up out of my gut, and through my throat and the top of my head and suddenly I couldn't stop screaming. My children were there at the breakfast table and I was blood-curdlingly screaming, one after the other. I had to run to the bathroom and scream into a towel, but I couldn't stop. I screamed up blood and mucus and my heart until I couldn't get any more out because my throat hurt too much. This person, person #3, my person who I picked, lives with me but doesn't love me. He is not on my team. He does not comfort me. He is always and forever mad at me and thinks I sacrificed the welfare of the family.

All I have wanted my whole adult life is to bask in someone's love, rather than withering and fearing in the shadow of contempt and anger. I have wished to be able to take breaths knowing that someone loves me completely, without constant disappointment and anger at something I've done or not done.

I still want this. I'm still wishing. This anguish of this wishing is like death.

It was everything I could do not to drive my car off an overpass today. I didn't, because of the children.

I wanted someone who would not cheat on, or hit me. And Andy won't.

I wanted someone who would love me tenderly. And Andy won't.

I will not leave him. I won't do that to the kids. I will stay here and resign myself to this life, wherein I cook and clean and tend to the children, and am not loved. This is the life I have.

I write this because I had to, knowing that you will comment, and Andy will read. I did not write this to bash Andy. He cannot help his feelings. He cannot help feeling that he married someone who has done something unforgivable. But this is my forum, and I wrote this so that I can get it out of my head, and maybe sleep for an hour before the baby wakes up. I have never wanted this blog to be an Andy-bashing blog, and so I'm asking you please not to bash Andy in your comments. That won't help me or him. It would just make things uglier.

The Power of the Written Word

2006-01-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

Okay. So I haven't been able to blog or anything else in my free time over this holiday because I've been engaged in a reading orgy. I've been reading until the external world almost became less real than the internal one, and I've loved every minute!

Oh my god, it's been so long, with all of that freelance stuff and the gearing up for Christmas, since I've read for pleasure. And I knew I wouldn't have much time once school started up again because I'm teaching an online drama course, and online courses take up TONS of time. So I've read and read and read, and walked around with that slightly comatose, far-away feeling for days now. Every spare second I got, I've had my head in a book.

I finished A.S. Byatt's Little Black Book of Stories (delicious and perfect as always), and Helen Simpson's Getting a Life (gut-wrenching, in a quiet, English kind of a way), Michael Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White (contrived beginning, then good, then lapsing into boring, then suddenly picking up and chugging along fantastically until the UNACCEPTABLE and ANGER-INDUCING finish - grrrr... I'm still mad), and David Sedaris' Naked (fussy and hilarious, as usual), all of which I'd started, but not finished. I completely devoured Indu Sundaresan's The Twentieth Wife, which was well-plotted if obviously a first novel and a little bit ham-handed at times, and fed my inner passion for all things Indian. But the capper was Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections.

Over the last two and a half days I almost had a heart attack, so much blood, sweat, sleep, laughter and tears did I sacrifice to that book. Seriously? It is pure genius and, I know it's cliche, but I literally could not put it down. I stayed up waaaay too late and fell asleep with it in my hands. In the shower and changing diapers are about the only times I let go of it. I read it while I blew dry my hair, and while fixing dinner. I snapped up snippets at traffic lights. I read whole portions out loud to Andy.

Holy hell, what a book! I can see why my conventional brother and sister-in-law hated it, but DUDE, my family is IN that book. Mostly me and my mother, and partly my dad and the conventional brother, but still. My mother IS Enid, the mother in the novel. And it freaked me out and gave me goosebumps over and over.

Enid is disappointed and embarrassed of her children. They do not fit her view of "nice" and "normal." This was already eerily familiar as I read, but particularly hit home with me when Andy told me last night that when I was pregnant with Charlotte (remember, Charlotte is only one, so this was pretty recently) my mom told his mom (nice choice of audience, mother) that I am a "great disappointment" for all of their (meaning she and my dad) plans for me. This is what my mother is STILL telling people. Since I was 17, this has been going on. Did she stop to think that by announcing this to my MOTHER-IN-LAW she was essentially saying that my life with that woman's SON is disappointing to her?! No. No she did not. She, I know absolutely, expected sympathy and agreement, and a commiserating tsk tsk at me for putting her through such suffering and travails. It would never have occurred to her to think about the ramifications of what she was saying for anyone beyond herself. She just likes to announce the cross she bears to anyone who will listen. She would be completely bewildered to hear that someone perhaps might find her confessions of motherly disappointment to be a tad distasteful, let alone downright appalling.

My dear friends ErinP. and Philbug asked me today, when I shared this with them, what my mother wishes for. She wants to be able to brag to her friends about me. She can't very well brag about her thrice-married, Master's-Degree-abandoning, poor-neighborhood-dwelling, baby-machine daughter of reality, now can she? She wishes for me to be rich and live in a big house, married to some doctor/lawyer type person (he is of marginal importance in my ideal life-path, except to be professional and respectable and wealthy) and be an acclaimed something-or-other: writer, singer, pianist, violinist... one of those things for which I was trained. I have wasted the many opportunities I was given as a child, you see. She often wistfully quotes my preschool teacher, who said in days of yore, "Beth could do anything she wants to do." Because I was brilliant and shining back then, before boyfriends and speeding tickets. What she has never understood, and what I don't think she ever WILL understand, is that all of that stuff at which I shined so brightly way back when was EASY for me, and therefore would bore me in the long run. No challenge. I never practicied EVER except to cram just before concerts, and I would sing or play like a bird. Same thing with school. Cram the night before, ace everything. Yawn. What is a challenge, what I find valuable and rewarding as hell is being a wife and a mother. THIS, I love. It's HARD, and I love it. This is the stuff for which I received absolutely no training, and I have to figure out on my own, and therefore when I do it well, I know I worked for it. She will never get that. My friends pointed out that if I had gone the route she would have preferred, she would have found something else to be disappointed about. My lovely lovely friends said that it sounded to them like my mother is a very unhappy person, and that that has nothing at all to do with me. I love my friends.

Jeebus. That was a tangent I did NOT mean to meander onto. Sorry. Ahem.

So anyway, I've still got one more Christmas book to finish, J.F. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur. Another India/historical-fiction fix, which is sure to be enjoyable. I shall abandon myself to another reality, with much relief.

It feels so good to have rediscovered my reading self. It's, like, utter luxury for me to immerse myself in a book, even if it's painful, as was The Corrections. Books are my opium. And I feel guilty for having taken a minor leave of absence from blogging, but I totally needed a vacation in the opium den. Yes I did.

So Happy New Year to me.

And to all of you. My wish is for all of you to find the perfect book. It's simple, but coming from me, you can be sure of how very much that wish entails.

Cirque de Grudge-Hubby

2005-12-27T12:48:00.000-08:00

My husband is, at this moment, trying to ride his new unicycle in the kitchen.

One of Simon's most favorite presents is his new stilts. He took them down to Louisville with him yesterday. He also kicks bootie on his balance board.

Charlotte climbs the ladder to the boys' bunk beds and tries to walk down stairs like the big people. At the Kentucky Derby Museum, she was knocking over the barrell shaped seats in the 360 degree movie theater and rolling on them like some kind of lumberjack log roller.

Ethan and I sit and read, and shake our heads.

Andy's genes are Romanian-Circus-People genes, apparently.

This just in

2005-12-25T19:54:00.000-08:00

My husband got me (us) Salsa lessons for Christmas!!!

Aiyaiyai!

Joyeux Noel

2005-12-24T18:31:00.000-08:00

I will take this moment after the house has been tidied, the kids have gone to bed, the brunch food is prepared and waiting in the fridge to be baked/roasted tomorrow, Santa's cookies are on his plate, and before the marathon of present wrapping has begun to wish one and all happy holidays, free from the family dysfunction and stress that can sometimes accompany this joyous time of year.

Best moments of Christmas Eve 2005:

Charlotte has learned how to dance. Granted, it's kind of similar to hillbilly clogging, but it's also accompanied by spinning and head bobbing, which is ultra cute.

If you bend waaaay waaaay down to the floor, and ask Charlotte for kisses, she will come running with the sweetest smile on her face, and put her cool little lips to your cheek and make kissy noises, unless you're Daddy, in which case she lets out a fiendish giggle and runs away. Heh.

Simon checks NORAD for Santa's progress, and when asked to take off his clothes, strips naked in front of the fire and stretches out like a cat.

Ethan cannot contain his glee, and vibrates with anticipation, willingly taking off to bed with the loveliest of hugs.

Making my first pie ever as a Christmas present for my dad, who has everything and is impossible to buy for. All he has wanted for the better part of a year is a "French Apple Pie" like he used to get at White Castle, with apples and raisins in it, and a frosty glaze on the top crust. So I researched it online and found a recipe and made it and it is beautiful, and I delivered it to my parents house while they were out to dinner, and left it on the counter with a simple note, and he is sooooo happy. YAY!!!!!

Stretching out with my exhausted co-Santa after we've done absolutely everything there is to do, for our 3 hours of sleep before the kids bound out of bed.

I like being Santa.

Merry Christmas folks!

Tiny Attention Stealer

2005-12-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

Monday night Ethan, Simon, and I went to see "A Christmas Carol" with my mom. She likes to do this for us every year.

Every year, I sort of cringe anew. Why?

Because of Tiny Tim's freaking overlooked siblings, that's why. I mean, come on! It just bugs.

Maybe it's me, but don't they ever feel a teensy bit resentful that their adorable, perfect, crippled baby brother gets all the love and attention? The favoritism is blatantly obvious. It makes me feel squicky.

I would like to write a short story from the point of view of, like, Peter, Tiny Tim's older brother. And he might be annoyed, is all I'm saying.

Angels Sing

2005-12-17T20:49:00.000-08:00

I know it's a terrible picture. I know. My camera sucks.

But, you might be able to get just a teensy idea of how many kids sang in the Indianapolis Children's Choir's "Angels Sing" concert tonight. Trust me, there are kids waaaaaay up there into the dark area at the top, that you can't even see.

It's breathtaking! The most beautiful Christmas music you can imagine, with these pure, lovely children's voices. Ethan's among them. I may not be religious anymore, but I honestly feel in the presence of something holy listening to Christmas music like that. It lifts my soul.

I'm so PROUD of him!!!!!

I get tears of queerness every year. This year, my mom & dad, my brother, sister-in-law, and their 2 kids, Andy's mom and her big gay husband, and Ethan's dad's mom & her husband went. So we had quite the little contingent going. And Ethan was in the first row, up in the minister's lectern area an the right. It was great! Simon and I totally waved like loons during one of the rounds of applause, and Ethan saw us, and started cracking up, and almost missed a bow. Heh. I like being a proud loon.

Finally, something Christmasey has happened up in here! Andy and the kids got the tree today (while I got my copious grey roots touched up) and now it smells all piney. Mmmmm... Tomorrow, I brave the mall.

My boy rules. He's beautiful, and kind, and sings like an angel. I LOVE this choir program. He gets so much out of it. And, best of all, he's proud of himself.

Just look at him.

GORGEOUS!

Bear with me

2005-12-15T04:28:00.000-08:00

The farking freelance client wanted the entire course restructured before Friday. I'm working my ass off every night into the wee hours. It's also Ethan's last week at school, so there's the Christmas Program, and a half-day to deal with. I'm also working at Beef & Boards Tues. matinee, Fri matinee, and Sun. eve. Then, the Indianapolis Children's Choir has their giagantastic Christmas "Angels Sing" 1000 children singing beautiful Christmas music , which entails a dress rehearsal last night, call at 5:30 (which meant dinner at 4:30), a TV taping tonight, call at 5:15 (which means dinner at 4:15-HA! He gets home from school at 4), and performances Friday and Saturday.

We don't even have a tree, or a single decoration yet. It looks like the Grinch lives here.

Tonight is the last night of it, as I'll be at the Beef all day on Friday, and won't be able to work on it during the day. I was up way late last night, and will have to be tonight, as I'm driving the choir carpool this evening, and won't be able to get started until the kids are in bed.

Last night I went to Ethan's school for the first 5th grade exchange meeting. We found out that they will be going to Normandy, in the Northwest of France. My niece did her exchange there in 8th grade last year. It is an absolutely charming, traditional French village, where everyone walks everywhere. I'm so thrilled for him! It'll be in early March, and he'll be living with a family and going to school with their child, and having lots of field trips (the WWII history around there is unbelievable) with his American counterparts as a group. They also get to see a bit of Paris.

THIS is why I'm so sleepless my eyes feel like they're floating in soup. THIS is why I'm doing it. And you know? Telling myself that DOES help me get through it. It actually does.

Wow. Weird. This is what it feels like to be an unselfish person. I'm a nice person, I'm even a really generous person, but it's not often you have the chance to sacrifice your own basic needs (sleep, food, showers) for someone else directly. You do that when you have infants, but once they're older, you don't need to so much. This feels new somehow, though, and I'm not sure why. I'm too tired to think it through.

I just need to make it through tomorrow without falling asleep at the wheel. Then I can start my Christmas shopping! Whee!

Sorry I haven't been more attentive to this blog. See above.

Lula

2005-12-12T09:00:00.000-08:00

I ask you. Could there be anything sweeter in the whole wide world?

I mean, come on.

I can't even stand the cuteness. I am helpless before it.

Oh. Wait a second. Mischief girl strikes again! She wriggles into tight spaces! She tinkers with electrical cords! She pushes buttons on the keyboard from inside the armoire and makes things I've never seen before appear on the screen! She shuts off the computer processor with a single blow! In the middle of my posts!

This, my friends, is the dichotomy that is Charlotte, peanut of destruction, and cuteness fairy.

Have the tornados blown their minds?

2005-12-12T07:51:00.000-08:00

Dear Kansas,

You bite.

Sincerely,
Concerned Citizen Against Nutbars

There is no unifying theme here. Mostly grouchiness. A thousand apologies.

2005-12-09T18:41:00.000-08:00

It's been a long week. I haven't blogged.

There was a snowstorm. It took me three hours to get the carpool home from school yesterday. What is normally a 25 minute trip. Upset baby. Low on gas. Boiling hot in the van, because I had to keep the defroster on high just to see out of the window because of all our breathing. Sweating, hungry, cranky children and stupid drivers. Whee!!!!!

Also, the freaking freelance client decided they wanted a restructure of the course, and I've had to work my kiester off getting it to them. I was up until 2:15 last night working on it. And then, today, they had the nerve to ask us in this annoyed way to present them the files in the format we FIRST used, way back when, that they subsequently asked to be changed. And now they have the nerve to pretend they never told us that, and act as if we were slightly retarded for not doing it correctly.

And today, both boys had school canceled, but I still had to go work at the dinner theatre matinee of "A Christmas Carol," which I was certain would be canceled because it was composed almost entirely of school field trips! But NO, they tried to run the show anyway, and sure enough, by the time I got the children to the two different babysitting situations I had to throw together last minute, and arrived at work late because my van had trouble navigating the unplowed neighborhood streets, all but 2 of the school groups had canceled, and then after we opened the house, one of the remaining 2 called in, and we ended up with 65 people in the house. Where it had originally been 470 or so! It actually cost the theatre money to put on that show today, and pay the actors and the servers and the kitchen staff and the tech staff, etc.

They should have canceled, and it was extremely irritating to spend all that freaking time distributing my children amongst far-flung helpful childminders and driving to work, for 65 intrepid souls.

Blech.

On a lighter note, in my copious free time (read: every time I take a second to breathe, when I really should be working on something, or cleaning, or sleeping), I've been unable to put down a little birthday present I bought myself, Ian McEwan's _Atonement_. (How does one make this damn thing underline stuff?) It is astonishing, and the engulfing thoughtfulness of it is what inspired me, along with the quiet of a late snowy night, to write my reverie. I absolutely could NOT put it down. It's been a long time since a novel swept me into its world so completely, and made me positively obsessive about it. I'm sorry it's over, and now I want to read everything he has written. I love the Brits. I do! LOVE! You know how some British singers lose their accent when they sing, but with others you can still hear it? And how that's so cool? Well it's the same with the writers. And I super-dig the really English-y ones. I highly recommend this book. It's unbelievable. I can't stop thinking about it.

You know what made me a little sad tonight? Well, we live in rather a poor neighborhood. It's either little old widow ladies, or redneck Nascar people. Oh, and us. Heh. But the poorer neighborhoods are always, I notice anew every year, COVERED in Christmas lights. Granted, they're usually sort of garish and tacky, but festive, you know? And usually it makes me happy that those who aren't so well off are so merry. But driving through my neighborhood after some me-time at the grocery store, I noticed that this year, many of the lights are half-out, and hanging haphazardly, and the overall effect is less merry and more, well, depressing. Sad looking.

I'm cranky and need sleep. Maybe that's it.

Fa la la.

p.s. Okay. My weather pixie has a Christmas tree. That just made me feel a tiny bit better. Cute!

Reverie

2005-12-05T00:30:00.000-08:00

I stepped out into the silent chill, and froze. The world was winter still, and breathless. I listened to the rustling of the ice-covered branches, and I thought I might never move. Winter, at night, brings me to myself. I felt this as I moved slowly to my car, and when I turned on the radio, there was something fragile and delicate and lovely and unutterably sad, with harp and piano and strings and flute, and as I drove in my cocoon across the empty highways, I thought how my bones felt in my skin, and how I am not enough to fill them. Or am I too much? And the music on the radio is like the music my soul makes as it whispers to my bones, like the ice on the branches. This winter soul is my solitude, the part of me only I know. The girls I never was. Or, was, and might have been, but am not. Is my life like I thought it would be? More. And less. The ballerina. The pianist. The singer. The child who tiptoed through my grandparents' house, talking to my dead grandfather, fingering his books, his jackets, eyeing his spirit, present in the mirror. The mermaid. The writer. The witch. And the music on the radio tells me of the poignancy of ice and bone, soul and branch, and my heart cannot bear it. My sleeping neighborhood, those sleeping ladies in the sleeping little houses, my sleeping soul. The black branches against the dove grey sky. So lovely, so rare, so dangerous, always and forever coming back to remind me, like winter, of me.

Pants on Fire

2005-12-03T20:45:00.000-08:00

ANDY: I am such a great liar. It is soooo easy for me to lie all the time. I bet I could pass a lie detector test easily.

ME: You're putting your shirt on backwards, there, Master Manipulator.

ANDY: (puppy-dog eyed) I love you so much......

(with fervent emotion, recalling our wedding day) I DO

ME: (aghast) That was just evil.

A Rankin & Bass Christmas Tragedy

2005-12-02T16:45:00.000-08:00

Attention: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LET YOUR CHILDREN WATCH THIS MOVIE!!! DEARGODTHEHORROR!!!!

This thing is on TV tonight and consider yourself forewarned. It made my brothers and me so hysterical when it first came out in the 70s that we couldn't stop crying, and had nightmares for weeks, and for years afterwards, every time we saw a donkey, real or no, we would have severe sorrow flashbacks. My mother just called to warn me, so that I wouldn't accidentally run across it while cycling the channels.

Why? Because Nestor's freaking mother curls around him in a snowstorm and FREEZES TO DEATH, but he stays alive because she kept him warm, and in the morning she's this tragic little snow mound and he crawls out and tries to nose her awake and gradually realizes, and calls plaintively to her... and... and...

I can't go on. But I think people/other creatures are mean to him too, for his long ears! In a Christmas movie!!!

It's absolutely the most agonizing dead-mother-animal scene in any children's movie, bar none. View at your own risk. Keep away from children. Seriously.

Put 'em up!

2005-12-02T11:00:00.000-08:00

I learned some interesting tidbits of family history from Aunt Bev on our trip. For instance, I was happy to hear that Andy's grandmother dated Al Capone when she was 14, and that Andy's grandfather was a small-time Indiana gangster. That's right. Simon and Charlotte's grandmother was a gangster's moll. At a shockingly early age! Awesome!

There was a bit of an old-school gangster presence around these parts, particularly in the West Baden Springs area, so I guess that's how Grandma Sutton hooked up with Al, and later, Grandpa Sutton.

Andy's mom doesn't talk about it, because she's embarrassed of her origins. Personally, though, I'm excited. Andy's family is sure bringing the fun! On my dad's side, I've got humorless, Grapes-of-Wrath-esque farm people; and on my mom's, bored and bourbon-soaked Louisville aristocracy. Well, to be fair, there are some good stories about them, but Andy's got the peppy bootstraps Irish maidservants and butlers; the dashing, wild-eyed Northern-Italian cowboy (honest-to-goodness!); and now gangsters! Sweet!

Come to think of it, this whole gangster heritage explains so much about Charlotte, like her charisma, thievery, and wanton destruction. Oh, and the rum running.

Recap

2005-12-01T19:16:00.000-08:00

The long drive home. Who sleeps like that?!

Okay, so it wasn't all barfing in South Carolina, as you can see if you click on my Flickr badge. The following are highlights:

#1 most awesomest thing evah - After our date night at the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular, Andy and I went to one of those participatory, dueling piano bars. Cute. Liked it a lot. Very talented piano-singer performers. Weird crowd, though, composed of 20-somethings, yet also the more swinging and drunken members of the senior set. When I took a bathroom break (which is a whole story unto itself), Andy was approached by some late 40s-ish woman, who basically asked him to sell her some pot. HA! Andy was dressed like a respectable citizen, totally normal and all, yet she must have sensed the hippy boy of yore just underneath the surface. He told her she was about 10 years too late.

This makes me unreasonably happy for some reason.

Highlight #2 - Aunt Bev and Uncle Joe, in lieu of the family they left behind in Indiana, have fashioned a family of sorts out of their geriatric neighbors. They all came over for Thanksgiving, which was very sweet. I fell completely in love with Dick, their striking older gentleman neighbor, who had an air of bygone romance about him, and something regal. Also, he was terribly good with the boys. And quite clearly was pining in silence for his deceased wife. In addition, he was HOTT, in that elegant old man sort of way. LOVE!

Sadly, pretty much immediately following the tasty supper, I made the mistake of sitting on the sofa, and promptly fell asleep sitting up, in the middle of a room full of old folks who I would normally very much enjoy charming. Old folks are my speciality. So that was a mildly embarrassing gaffe.

Highlight #3 - Hanging out at the chilly, yet picturesque and largely tourist-free beach, letting the kids dip their toes in the Atlantic, and watching Charlotte run around in utter joy.

Highlight #4 - Charlotte was in a crib in our room, while the boys shared a sofa bed in another. In the mornings, the boys would wake up and go hang out with Aunt Bev. When Charlotte woke up, we'd just open the door to our room, set her in the hallway, and allow her to toddle her way into the front room, where Aunt Bev would welcome her happily. Then, we would shut the door, and GO BACK TO SLEEP!!!! HEAVEN!

Highlight #5 - The Dixie Stampede, of course!

NOT!

Well, Simon LOVED it, but Andy and I were underwhelmed. Maybe it was the whole eating-without-utensils thing, or maybe it was the ridiculous quantities of meat they shoved at us (whole chickens! 4 chunks of barbecued pork!), or maybe it was just the sheer cheese-tastic-ness of the "show," but we sort of couldn't believe how much money people pay for this. Simon got to drink Pepsi (he NEVER gets soft drinks, EVER) out of a mason jar. He was sold.

Highlight #6 - Eating Aunt Bev's famous, patented, colored pancakes, prepared by the hostess with Simon's help. Food-coloring-licious!

Highlight #7 - Aunt Bev gave me a fabulous vintage black velvet cape WITH A MARABOU-LINED HOOD. Holy samoley. My vintage coat fetish was gratified in the most extravagant way. Oh, and also she gave me one of those cute cigar-box purses. Stuff! For me!

Highlight #8 - My triple-layer chocolate pumpkin pie, which is really more like a cheesecake, and is SOOOOO delicious. And I loathe pumpkin pie. And it worked, and looked really impressive, and so I appeared to all the senior citizens like some kind of domestic goddess person, all cooking pies early on Thanksgiving morning. Until I fell asleep, that is.

Highlight #9 - I knew Aunt Bev would lose it when we left. She misses us so terribly, and she's such a sweet lady, and all week long she just kept thanking me profusely for coming to visit, and letting her spend time getting to know us better, and on and on... So when we were all fastened into the van, about to drive away, and Aunt Bev was blowing kisses in the van door at the kids, Simon, my sweet boy, blew one at her and said, "This one is for your pocket, Aunt Bev, so you won't get lonely."

Dear lord.

I expected her heart to surf into our van on a wave of tears, and wave a cheerful farewell to the shell of her body remaining on the driveway.

It was very very touching and I just have to say, Simon has a way with the words and the timing. It's like he's learning tenderness from his older brother, and combining it with his own innate flair for showmanship, and it's quite something. I've never heard this before, and I didn't coach him, I swear. I'm not being cynical, either. He's like some precociously loving, winsome Dickens character. That story will go down in the annals of history. At this moment, in fact, part-time substitute teacher ladies all over Myrtle Beach are passing this tale of exquisite cuteness amongst themselves.

Highlight #10 - Finally getting home after the 14 hour drive back, having only stopped for lunch and dinner. And there was no barfing and Charlotte only cried once.

I'm glad we went, but it's always nice to come home. Poor Spooky missed us so much!

I've been remiss in my blogging this week, but I'm still recovering. My Uncle Bert story is cooking up a storm there on my back burner, and it's about to boil over. I've sort of been avoiding it, because I know it will cause me to experience some rather vivid emotions, and I haven't been quite ready yet. But it's coming...

Barf-Fest 2005

2005-11-28T19:14:00.000-08:00

Dear van,

I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. When Ethan was complaining of being car sick around about Cincinnati, I didn't really believe him. I admit it. It's all my fault. But, to be fair, I did move him to the front seat to try to alleviate his queasiness. How could I know he would let fly all over the co-pilot's area? How could I know he would manage to blow chunks not only all over himself, the floor and the seat, but up into the dashboard vents as well? Why would anyone ever imagine that?

And please, I ask you, why would I ever, in my worst nightmares, believe he would spew FIVE MORE TIMES between Cincy and Knoxville? Surely you see my point. That would be preposterous.

Didn't I do my best, at 1 am, and 2 am, and 3 am, to mop up the damage? Didn't I hand him those extra-large gas station big gulp cups to prevent any further soilage? How could I know he would use them all up?

And really, wasn't I preoccupied not only with keeping Ethan from losing his marbles, but also with Charlotte, who woke up every single time we had to pull over to the side of the road to dump Vomit Big Gulps, or to let Ethan ralf into a ditch, and every single time we pulled into a gas station for more paper towels, dramamine, and air freshener?

And wasn't I starting to feel just a leeeetle bit sick myself? And wasn't Andy? And, you know, the aggressive vanilla paper tree hanging from the rearview mirror wasn't doing anything but adding to the Cheddar-Cheese-Pretzel Combo/Capri Sun/French Fry stench so it wasn't really enjoyable for anyone, now, was it?

And, let's be honest, in Spartanburg at 5 am when Simon tossed his very own cookies for the first of SEVEN TIMES, if I could've just abandoned the whole family at a rest stop and run away with you into the night, you know I would have. Just between us, van, I would have.

So, I'm very very sorry I haven't taken you in yet for a complete upholstery renovation. We only just arrived home at 2 am last night! Be reasonable. We're all still recovering from the sleep deprivation, and the dehydration, and the lack of nourishment. Simon's pants don't even fit anymore! Think of the children!

I have to prioritize, van. Human beings first, much-beloved-but-ultimately-made-of-metal vehicles second. It's not like even the Sparkle Clean people can do anything about the bleaching effects of stomach acid anyway.

Soon I'll treat you to a nice carpet shampoo and de-stinkification. Soon. But first, I have to do laundry.

Your devoted friend,
Hurl Girl

Stay Tuned...

2005-11-21T17:00:00.000-08:00

I'll be out of town from Tuesday until Sunday, and I'm not sure if Andy's Aunt Bev and Uncle Joe in Longs, South Carolina (Myrtle Beach, essentially) have a computer. So I may be out of commission until next week.

As I've worked my manic way through the past few days, I've missed my online friends, and I've missed blogging. It's, like, totally necessary to my life now.

When I was in second grade, I got a diary for my birthday. After about a month of obsessively writing down every item of food I ate for every meal, and occasionally writing a line or two about my goofy and/or annoying little brothers, I gave up. My life was simply too boring.

But my little 7 year old self felt terribly guilty about deserting my diary. I firmly believed in the interior lives of inanimate objects, you see. And there it sat on my desk, silently accusing me of abandoning it, when all it wanted was to fulfill its purpose, and, of course, to be my friend. How could I be so callous?

So, in February, I took it up again. But to explain my absence of several months, I made up a lie. That's right: I LIED TO MY DIARY. I explained that I had been to visit my sick aunt in Canada, and I had forgotten to bring along my much beloved diary. I hoped very much that this would soothe my diary's wounded feelings.

Don't ask me how I thought I was fooling it, when it had been there on my desk the whole time, and was fully aware that I spent those months at home, as per usual.

Eventually, of course, the monotony of my little life, rounded with a sleep, once again got the better of me, and I abandoned the diary for good. But I still have it. And every once in a while, I take it out, and crack up at that 7 year old self so riddled with guilt that I would make up an utterly preposterous lie. It's good readin'! And, now that I think about it, it gives one a pretty good idea of how I conducted many facets of my life thereafter. Up until now, of course.

Needless to say, after that early, negative, initial experience with diaries, even though my life has been considerably less boring ever since I turned 17, I've been reluctant to try my hand at the genre again.

Well, internets, you've changed all that for me. Blogging has enriched my life. And so, I just have to say, {Golden Girls} thank you for being a friend, {/Golden Girls} for helping me to overcome my self-exposure skittishness and self-defeating grudges, and for giving me some really great stuff to read, and to be inspired by.

I'll miss you when I'm gone!

I'll be back with my carrot story and other regularly scheduled programming, as well as lots of amusing photos of our journey, I'm sure, on Monday. Uncle Joe fancies himself quite the thespian, and also fancies enormous tatas, so he works at Dolly' Parton's Dixie Stampede, and we've got tickets! BWAH! They also got Andy and me (that sounds wrong, but it isn't!) tickets to the Rockettes' Christmas show, mostly so that they can have the kids all to themselves, but I expect to enjoy it immensely and to arrive back home full to burstin' with many amusing anecdotes. Hell, I'd pay for tickets just to observe the audience members at these events! AH, CULTURE! Gotta love it.

Anyhoo... It's Thanksgiving, one of my most favorite food-related holidays! Let me take this time to say that I am thankful. I am a veritable cornucopia of gratitude. I feel thankful for many things, but especially, for you, internets.!!

Enjoy the eating! Don't throw your food!

TTFN!

No Freaking Way!

2005-11-19T15:05:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

So... Happy Birthday to me!

Still working on the project, but the end is in sight. I want to thank you all for checking in on me and for your support and encouragement. I shall be glad to do the same for you, should the occasion arise.

I just got a rather cool birthday present.

You guys? I'm sooooo glad I didn't give up, like I thought about doing in the middle of the night on Wednesday.

Because today? I got an email from the project manager telling me I'm a great writer, and she thinks I should write a textbook. She said to come up with an idea, and she'll "run it up the editorial flagpole."

!!!

Seriously?! WTF?!!!

I'm excited, in that good freaked out sort of way. Is this for real?

Here are my thoughts:

(and this is just sad, that this still matters to me as much as it does) 1. My mom will finally be proud of me.

(practicality and lust for material things) 2. Holy shit, I could make some money!!! Student loan payoff! House downpayment! Lots of new shoes!

(delusions of grandeur) 3. My name could be on the cover of a PUBLISHED BOOK, which could be purchased and read by people ALL ACROSS THE PLANET!!! I could be a STAHHHH!!!

(Pride and self-esteem boost) 4. They like me! They really like me!

(Knee-jerk rebellion) 5. My mom always said, since I was a child, that I should be a writer. But I always poo-poohed her because I never felt like I was original enough. If I do this, SHE WILL BE RIGHT. I can't let that happen.

(Fear) 6. Jeebus. I'll never sleep.

(Righteousness) 7. Secretly, I always knew I was awesome. It's about time somebody else saw it.

(More money lust) 8. Andy and I could finally take a honeymoon. To France.

(Disbelief) 9. There must be some mistake. Maybe she thought she was emailing someone else.

(Disbelief) 10. You mean, I might be paid for a job in which I actually use my English degree?

(Celebration) 11. KICK ASS!!!!!

3:30 a.m.

2005-11-17T03:32:00.000-08:00

I'm almost 1/2 way through.

I just succumbed (I can't even think if that's spelled correctly, yo.) and went to Mr. Singh's Shell station for some cigs. And a large coffee.

It's farking freezing. Yesterday, tornados. Today, snow flurries.

Great spirit, help me. I don't think there will be enough time before the kids wake up.

And I've got to teach tomorrow.

Egad.

-----------
7:00 a.m. I'm finished!

With half of it.

Half. I haven't slept.

This is going to be a fantastic freaking day, for sure.
----------------
1:30 p.m.

I cancelled class and worked straight through.

I'm only 1/3 of the way through the second 1/2.

I want to die.
----------------------
6:50 p.m. I'm done. Kaput. Lying on the floor with my limbs up in the air.

I did lose it and yell at everybody about an hour and a half ago, and I finally let go of my tears.

I'm going to go shower, and have something to eat, and watch something really inane on television as I fall asleep.

Andy took Ethan to choir tonight, and took the little kids with him because the poor things have been in the house all day. It's pretty bad when tottering through the echoing halls of the Butler music school is, like, exciting and fun.

This is one of the things that I hate the very mostest about this kind of work. I hate feeling like I'm neglecting my kids.

Also, the not showering.

Oh, and the rigid chair I've been sitting in since yesterday.

...

You know the saddest, SADDEST thing?

Saturday is my birthday.

But, I have 2 more freaking units to complete by Monday. And I work at the Beef Sunday night. Which means... tomorrow night, all day Saturday, and, that's right, Saturday night, this is what I'll be doing. More of the same.

What on earth have I done to myself?

Never again.

My carrot

2005-11-16T11:10:00.000-08:00

Today is the ultimate pain day. Crunch day. Barf day. No sleep day.

As one of the many ways I'm coaxing myself through this, I'm going to dangle the following blog carrot out in front of myself. Well, a carrot won't work, will it? Um... OK, imagine it's a box of dark chocolate-covered lime/lemon/orange cremes. With a few maples and vanillas thrown in.

But I'm still the donkey in this scenario.

Anyway, as we approach the holidays, I leave the following point for you and myself to consider:

My Uncle Bert:

Loveably laughable old blowhard; ludicrously pitiable drunken windbag; or treacherous, racist, misogynist, greedy, wicked villain single-mindedly bent on glorifying himself and destroying me?

If I finish 2 units of my freelance project overnight tonight, and the rest by Monday, I will allow myself the pleasure of exorcising this particular MAMMOTH grudge, thereby relieving myself of my Uncle's odious hold over my psyche and growing one step closer to freedom from obsessive revenge fantasies.

Can I do it?

We'll see.

Enjoy

2005-11-14T13:35:00.000-08:00

I finally found a link for one of my favorite songs of all time, "Taylor the Latte Boy," written for and sung by Kristin Chenowith. It reminds me of how I used to go to the university coffee shop and flirt my eyelashes off with Andy.

Of course, he never gave me free coffee.

But still. I miss that.

Well, if I need to dry my tears, at least we've got lots of available kleenex

2005-11-14T12:24:00.000-08:00

Guess who's up to her old tricks?

Lula Petula, that's who!
Whee!!

I don't think I'll be able to blog for a week or so. The freelance project looms. So, when I'm not curled around the base of the toilet in the fetal position, or pacing while pulling out huge tufts of hair and flinging them madly to the heavens, I'll have to be working on that.

Then, my birthday is on Saturday. I'm working towards that birthday dinner out. It's my goal to make it to Saturday alive. 37, in case you're wondering. OLD!

To those of you whom I visit regularly, and those who visit me, please excuse my slight absence. Just know that I'll miss you very very much, and don't have too much fun while I'm gone.

I leave you with the following amusing photo series:

Ethan and I strike a pose at his Kiln Creations pottery painting party with his school friends, and his cousin. We look freakishly alike in this picture, I think. Which is weird and also cool because we never used to resemble each other in the slightest.

Only 6 of his 9 gal pals were able to make it, but we had so much fun! Yay art!

Behold!

Stop, in the name of LOTR! (Part of Ethan's birthday weekend extravaganza was attending the sold-out LOTR traveling exhibit at the Indiana State Museum. It was awesome!

Gollum and Smeagol

Hi Ho Cherrio!

2005-11-09T12:47:00.000-08:00

(Please ignore the clutter. It's a lovely armoire/computer desk under all that crap.)

Shhhh...

Don't frighten him.

This is a picture of Andy building his very own blog. I'm so proud!

Rather infamous as a non-communicator, from a legedarily uncommunicative family, Andy seems to be taking a baby step towards full disclosure. And that might have just a teensy weensy something to do with me! Yay!

I won't link to it just yet. It's still so very new. Also? He's way smarter than I in several areas, including: German, Dada, manifestos, history, and irony.

This is readily apparent in his first post, which is based on the Dada Manifesto. To which he never makes reference.

I wouldn't have known that, had he not told me. Would you?

I was thinking about how different his blog will be from mine, as I walked around the house today, and I noticed something. The art all over our house is mostly mine. I'm very VERY attached to it. Whenever I move into a new place, the first thing I do is put the pictures up. THEN, the furniture. He does have, however, one particular print that illustrates just how different our approaches to life and art are. It's quite striking. I took a bunch of pictures of the art, and stuck it over in Flickr if you're interested. (Click on one of my picures over there in the Flickr Badge, and then click on my photo stream.) It's pretty amusing, at least to me.

And you know, despite the vast chasm that separates us stylistically, we're a pretty good team. For instance, this morning, both Charlotte and Simon were crying hysterically while they needed to be getting dressed and eating because it was my morning to drive the carpool and I wasn't going to be late again consarnit!!! I was on the verge of becoming a news item. "Area mother spontaneously combusts! Children still crying!" But Andy took over, as sleepy and sick as he was, and kept me from pulling out my last nerve and flossing my teeth with it.

He's a cheeky monkey, but I love him!

A moment of your time...

2005-11-09T09:35:00.001-08:00

Attention Keira Knightley's underbite:

Please get your ass out of _Pride and Prejudice_. I do not appreciate your mesmerizingly jutty hideousness cluttering up one of my favorite love stories from, like, the WHOLE of LITerature.

Thank you. Very much.

Ta.

Oh, and one more thing. Take that basset-faced, pitiful excuse for a leading man with you. He can't hold a candle to Colin Firth.

Young Jedi Knight Turns 11.

2005-11-08T22:20:00.000-08:00

Yucaree's new baby, and Ethan's 11th birthday today got me thinking.

How is it possible that I have been a mom for eleven. freaking. years?

How is it possible that I, with all my attendant issues, have managed to raise such a decent, loving, and enlightened child?

Eleven years ago, Ethan showed up 6 weeks early. I was chronologically 26, but I was just a baby myself, really. And a total rube as far as children went.

Frankly, I got pregnant on purpose to keep his dad from breaking up with me.

Oh yes I did. I was that girl. And I am that fertile.

And the story played out as expected. He married me (pregnant! white! wedding!) and managed to stick around until Ethan was 7 months old before cheating on me and leaving.

At the time, that felt like THE narrative. What a mess.

Yet it turns out it was only a subplot.

The real story involves Ethan and me. And the ways we've affected each other.

It started out rocky, with a beautiful little peach-fuzzy baby on a terrifying monitor 24 hours a day that would sound an alarm if he stopped breathing. I had to learn infant CPR just in case. He was on a caffeine syrup that was supposed to keep his respiratory system stimulated and help to prevent SIDS, but what it really did was make him cry and keep him from sleeping. Until that horrible Christmas Eve when he cried for TWELVE HOURS STRAIGHT and I just sat in my poufy green Lazy Boy rocking recliner the entire time, rocking, rocking, rocking, and glancing up at the clock, and nearly lost my marbles. So I took him off the syrup and he slept through the night and every night after that. He was so grateful for the gift of sleep.

I was grateful to have learned to trust my instinct.

This is only one of the many gifts my sweet boy has given me through the years.

And we're still pretty near the beginning of the story! He's changed so much. He was an early baby and a reluctant walker. But once he got going he never fell. He sang songs before he spoke sentences. To my great chagrin, I could NOT teach him to read. But once we paid someone else to do it, he was suddenly ahead of the curve. It's taken him 4 years at school, but he's finally now speaking pretty fluently in French. It took him forEVER to put his face in the water, but once he did, he started sailing through the swim levels at the Y. This was the first year he would really ride a roller coaster. He always takes his sweet time about things, but once he gets around to doing them, he never falters.

One thing that's never changed about him, though, is his gentleness. Nothing I could do, no mistake I could make, would ever alter his fundamental kindness. He's empathetic in a way that leaves me speechless sometimes. At first, when he was little, I worried for him, forseeing a future where his sensitive spirit would be laughed at and shredded and beaten down by the ugliness that inevitably enters the world of children as they grow. As I've watched him, though, I've been surprised by his inner strength, and the courage of his convictions. He's quite aware of the immaturity and cruelty of which others are capable. He just doesn't allow it to affect him. He is who he is, and he is aware of this. It's breath-taking to witness this in someone so young.

None of this is meant to imply that he's perfect. Sometimes he talks so fast that even I can't understand him. He peppers his conversations with waaaaay too many valley-girl-esque "likes," which is an uncomfortable magnification of my own speech pattern. He's so forgetful that he left the big side door of the van open ALL NIGHT last night, and there was a thunderstorm, and you can guess the rest. He throws his only-worn-once pajamas in the dirty laundry basket no matter HOW MANY TIMES I tell him that unless he rolled around in mud while he was sleeping, he can wear them more than once and thus save me from haveing to do so darn MANY loads of laundry, thank you very much. He won't eat breakfast foods. He runs like a girl.

Minor complaints.

All fade away when I watch him cuddle with Charlotte, or hear from his teacher how he stood up for a nerdy classmate when the others were teasing her.

He's pretty darn pleased with his new Star Wars Clone Wars graphic novels, but I've gotten the WAY better end of the deal.

I think often about the fact of his conception... my deliberate decision to make this baby. It's embarrassing to admit that about myself, certainly. But I don't regret it, in spite of all the ludicrous drama it catalyzed. It feels like my future self, knowing what Ethan would bring to my life, whispered in my 26-year-old messed-up-self's psychic ear, and convinced me to bring him into being.

And I believe the world is a better place for his existence.

Just Shoot Me If...

2005-11-08T15:25:00.000-08:00

I ever rush right out to see "Menopause, the Musical!"

I ever seriously don a "Meowy Christmas" Kliban cat t-shirt .(or any item of kitty apparel, for that matter)

I start going on and on about the revolutionary and captivating and heretofore unsuspected truths in The DaVinci Code! (Seriously, I was SO disappointed by this book. I guessed EVERY thing that was supposed to be a mystery. Easily. And I'm just a regular old English major. I knew about Sophie the first time I saw her last name, thanks to the most rudimentary grasp of French. And what the hell, Sophie, is such a big deal about your grandpa having sex? Woo woo. Quelle insufferable prude! And now that I mention it, what is so all-fired revolutionary about sacred sex in general?! Geez! But the worst, the absolute WORST thing about this execrable and poorly-written book is that the whole concept of the "secret" of the sacred feminine, and its need to be protected, is just so LAME! Because how is it liberating at ALL for a woman to be considered a MAN'S path to the divine? And that if he has sex with her, he's connecting with holiness? How is THAT a dangerously empowering step outside the patriarchy, exactly? To be a vessel?! Is that what subversively liberating destiny for women these secret-society dudes are protecting? Because thank you, but no. If I were a religious person I'd be asking just exactly how *I* am supposed to get in contact with the divine. But as a heathen unbeliever, I can only scoff at the idiocy.)

Oh dear, I've gone on, haven't I? Ahem. Back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Just shoot me if...

I ever willingly attend a Nascar event.

I ever dress my family in matching outfits.

I ever spend my time with my girlfriends discussing my new, retardedly named osteoporosis medication.

I ever give up on coffee because of the heartburn.

or

if I ever take my online friends for granted. Thank you all so much for your caring and careful words, your support, and your sympathy. I do feel better. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Mea Culpa

2005-11-07T12:21:00.000-08:00

When I sat down to blog this morning, for the first time I wasn't brimming over with stuff I couldn't wait to write down. I couldn't come up with something to say.

So I read my favorite blogs, hoping for a little inspiration as well as the pleasure I get from dipping my toe into other women's lives.

I enjoyed some nice reads, but as far as an idea of my own?

Nope. Nada.

I know why this is. I shall confess.

In confessing, I will also be revealing something to Andy, something about which I am so profoundly ashamed I cannot even speak it to him. But he reads this blog, and I guess I need to get this out there so that I can think and write about something--anything--else. It's time for me to suck it up and be brave.

I have a freelance project I'm supposed to be working on. I'm writing an online speech course for Pearson Education, the textbook people. It's supposed to be completed by November 17th. I spent one whole weekend a few weeks ago completing Unit 1, of 5, and was so racked out by the time it was done, both mentally and physically, that I haven't been able to look at the stuff since.

I told my instructional designer and the project manager I'd have Units 2 & 3 done this weekend.

I didn't work on it on Saturday. I got my hair done and then worked a shift at the dinner theatre. Home at 11:30 p.m.

Andy took the kids to his mom's on Sunday so I could have the whole day to work. I slept until 10:45 a.m. (thanks honey) and then puttered around until they left at 1:30 p.m. I got in the shower. I circled warily around the computer in widening circles, like the wake after a stone.

I did laundry. I avoided the computer. I did the dishes. I wouldn't look at the computer. I put away the enormous stack of books on the armchair in the boys' room. I stayed out of the room wherein dwells the computer.

Feeling panicky, I called Andy at his mom's, ready to confess that I was freaking out and to ask for his help?/encouragement?/something. But then when he picked up the phone I chickened out and just pretended like I called to tell him his grandmother had called from Florida, and to check on how they were all doing. I totally lost my nerve.

I hung up the phone, and continued straightening up the house, and finally approached the computer. Only to open up a couple of Word files to make it look like I'd been working, so that when Andy got home he wouldn't get angry with me for slacking off all day.

I feel like suck.

Sometimes I think I have performance related anxiety disorder. I spent yesterday feeling exactly like I did the night I almost lost my mind in the associate faculty office at school, twitching around and avoiding working on my thesis. I physically couldn't do it. I felt nauseated. I contemplated faking sick. I hold my breath whenever I think about it. It makes me dizzy.

This is awful. I am so ashamed. If I do this, I'll be paid $2000. $2000! I NEED that money for Ethan's school. I have been on the verge of tears and vomit ever since yesterday and I wish I could get past this naughty-teenager behavior I always resort to where my biggest fear is getting in trouble. From my husband. Jesus, what is wrong with me?!

Now I'm avoiding checking my email, because I know the Pearson people will be all, where's the stuff?

I HATE sleep deprivation, and time away from my kids so much. It's like torture to force myself to do this kind of late-night, lonely work.

And then, I can't admit it to my husband, with whom I should be able to share anything. He freaking forces himself to go EVERY DAMN DAY to a job where he is shamefully and insultingly undervalued, for ridiculously little pay, and to do work that would bore anyone to tears, because he takes care of his responsibilities.

WHY CAN'T I DO THE SAME THING?!?

I am a horrible person right now.

I'm so sorry honey.

I think I need some help. Is there someone who specializes in this kind of psychology? Like a sports psychologist, but for failing-to-live-up-to-their-potential, thesis-avoiding, freelance-writing-because-they-want-to-be-stay-at-home-mom, English majors?

I am a smart person. I can write well. The client likes what they've seen so far. WHY CAN'T I DO THIS?!

I'm scared.

What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?

2005-11-04T14:10:00.000-08:00

I was driving Ethan somewhere yesterday (I'm in the car driving so darn much that honestly I can't remember. Yikes!) and the NPR people were talking about Alito, and I was muttering disgruntledly to myself, and Ethan asked me why.

So I explained to him about the whole president-gets-to-pick-whoever-he-wants-for-Supreme-Court-judges-who-might-be-there-for-20-years-after-he-isn't-president-anymore scenario, and since he knows I DESPISE/LOATHE/ABOMINATE George W. Bush with the fire of a fafillion suns, he put the pieces together about my mutterings pretty quickly. Good lad, that.

When I told him this judge, and this court in particular, could substantially affect the world he grows up in, he asked me for specifics. I didn't have enough time to get into the whole abortion discussion (Pro-Choice, in case you're wondering, although I'm pretty sure you could've guessed), so I told him about how pretty soon gay marriage issues will be coming before the court, and about how when one gay person gets really ill, or is in a terrible car wreck or something, Bush and his peeps think it's just fine and dandy that the gay person's partner of no-matter-how-many years, who loves him or her just as much as married male/female couples love each other, wouldn't be able to visit the injured/sick gay person in intensive care or make end-of-life decisions for their loved one.

Ethan thought this was horrible. Because he's a HUMAN BEING, G-DUB.

I also told him about how gay people often adopt children, in states where that's allowed, especially children other couples don't want, but that Bush & Co. don't want gay people to be able to adopt children, or even be parents through any other means.

Again, Ethan, the reasonable and loving human being, was aghast.

I bring this up because I've been thinking about this conversation ever since.

Now, my parents are not the most progressive people on the planet, by any stretch. Sometimes I am embarrassed by their old-fashioned-ness. My mom and dad came from families that, though quite different, were racist as a matter of course. Mom came from old Louisville aristocracy, and her people hired "colored folks" as maids and housekeepers, and to this day I get the willies when I walk in the Pendennis Club and notice afresh that ALL the service staff is black, and ALL the members are white. Dad came from farm folk in the tiny, poor, white town of Bargersville, Indiana. Grandpa died before I was born, but Grandma was afraid of black people, and certainly didn't trust them to take care of her in her later years. And gay people? What are those?

So it's rather remarkable that my parents, coming from that background, and religious in only the most unobtrusive, laid-back Methodist sort of way, managed to raise me as someone who doesn't have a racist or anti-gay bone in my body. I think that my mom, as an educator, came into contact with many different types of children, and was just too kind to parcel them out into limiting categories in her own mind. (She still calls gay men "fairies," which I think is hilarious, but she loves the entertainment industry far too much to harbor any ill-will towards them.)

Ever since I had this conversation with Ethan, I've been trying to imagine what those uber-religious, right-wing nutbars say to their children. How do you phrase hate and fear and package it for the consumption of small children, who are, for the most part, predisposed to care for their fellow humans?

"Gay people are SINNERS, Keight-lynne. They will BURN IN HELL and you must shun them. Especially you, Jebediah!"

"Listen here, Heaven-Lee, you git away from them two wimmen. Them's nasty, and don'tchew EVER let me citch yew talkin' to that there daughter they got thar, or I'll wear outchor butt with mah belt! They'll gitchew, and then yull be sorry. "

"When girls wear pants, God gets a tummy ache!" (Actually said to my husband's sister when she was little. Sometimes Indiana is just embarrassing, yo.)

I'm so proud I have a compassionate, empathetic child. I take quite seriously the responsibility of enlarging his scope of understanding, and pointing his moral compass in the right direction. I cannot even IMAGINE teaching him to hate or fear someone because of their ethnicity, culture, sex, sexual identity, or anything else.*

There's enough ignorance and lunacy in this world.

There's a quote from Dickens that I have had framed, and that I have looked at every day since I had Ethan.

"It is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us."

My brother asked me about it recently, because he knows I don't believe in that "God." I explained that, to me, what it's really saying is that children start out so pure and so full of unadulterated love, that when they love us, they love us for our truest selves, and that is SO incredibly redeeming and powerful to me. Ethan, in a way, saved me. By loving me for my SELF, he taught me that I was worth something.

We should extend that, I think. Children love. They don't know, and don't need to know, any of the other crap that attaches itself and constitutues conditions and caveats to that love as we grow older. They just love, and that love is beautiful.

Why would anyone EVER corrupt that? Adults could really learn from children, if we'd open our damn eyes and our hearts. Imagine if we all loved each other in that redeeming way.

Just imagine.

*except G-Dub. But he's an exceptional case, truly. His idiocy is his own fault. And it's ok to hate willful moronitude. It IS! This does not detract from my message of peace and love in any way.

Grudge Papa

2005-11-03T14:34:00.000-08:00

Check out the geezer!

Yep. That's my dad. Heh.

He's is now retired from his engineering career, so he's able to freely indulge in what has always been his passion: flying. He's a private flight instructor, on little planes like Cessnas. He also got sea-plane rated in Alaska a few years ago. Ever since he retired he's been trying to get in with this geezer pilot club, called the "Quiet Birdmen," and they finally decided to vote him in. I was sort of worried about it for him, because he's rather... introverted. And a little weird.

But he's in!

Look how excited he is! Isn't he cute?!

He doesn't go around like Snoopy-a-la-Red-Baron all the time, just when he's playing with his new friends.

And, just so you know, my brother's old color-block shirt from the late 80s isn't part of the official club costume. When they swear my dad in, in December, he has to be wearing HEAD-TO-TOE RED LONG UNDERWEAR with his antique pilot cap, goggles, and white scarf. Oh yes. I would pay good money to see that. Especially if they, like, added flippers and/or boxing gloves to the mix. Hee!

Really, though, my dad has never been the type to... socialize, let's say. He doesn't really... have friends. So it's quite heartening to see that in his swinging soon-to-be-sixties, he's suddenly a frat boy.

Party on, Floyd!

Not that he reads this blog, or is even allowed to know of its existence, because at some point I might want to mention the... strained... relationship between me and my dad when I was in high school, that culminated in my running away from home for 2 weeks. To St. Paul, Minnesota. Where I holed up at Macalester College with a friend from Naperville. Just a hair shy of after-school special.

But things are better now. He's a way better grandfather than he was a dad. He used to be really old school. You know, uninvolved and emotionally removed and newspaper-reading. But he's loosened up. And he's always had this little cool streak to him. So we're good.

Dad/daughter relationships are so complicated. So FRAUGHT. I'm happy we survived it intact.

So I say to the ionosphere, "Yay Floyd!" Fly up up into the sky, loony old geezer. Have some fun for a change.

Fall Day

2005-11-03T13:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was so lovely. We played outside for a long time, and of course I took pictures. The rest of the set is over there on my Flickr badge.

I have nothing pithy or wise to add. I have no amusing anecdote. I merely had a quiet, nothing sort of afternoon with my two littlest children in the fall sunshine. The sort of nothing afternoon that's really everything, in this life we share as a family.

I am a lucky girl.

Iron Chef Grudge Girl!

2005-11-02T12:15:00.000-08:00

You know what's exhausting? Cooking 4 different dinners.

Chez nous, Andy, Simon and Charlotte are vegetarian. Ethan and I are not.

Back when Andy and I were first married, and up until Simon passed the baby food stage, I used to cook only 2 dinners. One vegetarian, for Andy, and one non-veg, for Ethan. I would usually choose one or the other, or sometimes a little of both. Sometimes there was overlap, like on pasta nights, but not always. Ethan likes his chicken.

Back in those days, I was really coming into my own as a chef, and I would cook these AWESOME, complex, interesting dishes for Andy, while simultaneously making something simple, meatwise, in the crock pot for Ethan, thus saving myself extra work at the dinner hour.

But once Simon started eating regular table food, he wasn't about to touch Couscous a la Greque, or Fasolakia Iadera, or even Chickpea and Potato Curry, no ma'am.

Because children eat differently than adults.

I really wish I could kick people who say stuff like, "If you only give them 12-grain sprouted bread and brown rice and okra, then that's what they'll eat," or, "If their only choice is lentils, and you let them get hungry enough, they'll eat lentils."

PFAH!

No. That's DEAD WRONG.

They will starve. Or, at my house, they will barf.

Sure, at first, Charlotte was happy to munch on tabouli and falafel. But that didn't last long. There is always a sudden end to that behavior, when children's tastes narrow. Developmentally, this is appropriate. So, if you want them to eat AT ALL, beyond, like, Flinstone's vitamins, and anything orange, you have to work with them. And you end up feeding them Wonder Bread, and white rice, and spaghetti, and hot dogs/not! dogs, and chicken/veggie nuggets and green beans and carrot sticks like everybody else.

I really HATE those self-righteous people.

So, anyway, no matter how much time I spend with the coupons and my recipe books, and combing the internet for recipes that vegetarian kids will eat, and planning menus, and shopping thoughtfully, some nights at our house, I end up preparing 4 different freaking things: grown-up vegetarian for Andy, kid vegetarian for Simon and Charlotte, grown-up meat-eater for me, and kid meat-eater for Ethan.

Half the time, I just ditch the grown-up versions, and we all eat kid food.

A couple of days ago Andy was digging through my enormous stack of recipes trying to find the one he wrote down for pizza dough, and he remarked that there were a lot of cool things in there, and lamented that he hadn't seen those in a while.

I was like, "Do you want to try to feed Simon and Charlotte Mediterranean Eggplant Stew? How about Vegetable Ragout with Cumin and Ginger? Vegetarian Cassoulet? Greek Risotto with Spinach and Artichoke Hearts?... Yeah, I didn't think so."

My children amuse me

2005-11-01T13:20:00.000-08:00

HALLOWEEN!

Here are the boys, in character. Hilariously, Ethan affects the gothiest face ever. In my old swingin' 90s velvet clubbing shirt. Which he has now claimed for his own.

Simon's been working out.

Charlotte, over there, raided our OWN candy bowl, and ate her way through the wrappers of 2 Kit Kats while everyone else was running around costuming, and make-uping, and all that stuff. Notice the blissed out, feral-child expression on her face. She actually growled at me when I tried to take that away from her. That's my girl!

Charlotte woke up screaming at about 11 pm, and when we went into her bedroom to see what was the matter, she was having a magNIficent, horror-movie nosebleed, which she had smeared all over her face, and her sleeper, and her green Pottery Barn Kids French Rose comforter, and it was just the GORIEST looking thing ever. In honor of Halloween. Already a drama queen.

Poor baby, she was a little freaked out. Is it bad of me that I wanted to get the camera and take pictures? I didn't, though!

So this morning, I cancelled class and stayed home with both her and Simon, who's been a titch feverish lately. And Simon and I watched a Magic School Bus on TLC about chickens and eggs.

I'm not kidding.

I wish I were.

Usually, The Friz, the kids' cartoon teacher, takes them on field trips into weather, or seeds, or other stuff like that. This time? The school bus transported the kids **UP A CHICKEN'S VAGINA** in a rainbow whoosh, up into her ovary, where they bounced around on the yolk sacs of eggs-to-be, and rode one down the fallopian tube where it got coated with the albumen, and then they stayed there while the shell formed around them, and then the chicken **SQUEEZED THEM OUT OF HER CHICKENY VAGINA** , in a close-up, albeit animated shot, both inside and outside of the chicken. Oh the indignity! The poor thing then laid them, still inside the egg, mind you, into her nest.

Oh.
My.
God.

I'm so glad I wasn't tripping.

I got really worried when they started talking about how that particular egg wouldn't turn into a chicken, because the rooster has to "add his part" to the egg for it to turn into a chick. And the kids walked over to a pen where there were hens and roosters together. Jesus, chicken porn coming up, I thought. But they just glossed over that part.

So later, Simon announced that he wanted his "Robot Fairy Godmother" (I have no idea, this is a new one on me) to turn him into a "chicken embryo in an egg."

Like, was there something about all that hot, soft-core chicken action that stimulated some little rudimentary male instinct inside him, that made him think that being an egg squeezed around inside a chicken sounds pretty neat? I can't quite figure it out. Of course, this is the kid who, whenever he gets a random erection, walks around crowing proudly, "Look at my bigBIG weiner!" HA!

I just tried to point out that chicken embryos can't dress up as Blue Power Rangers and go trick-or-treating.

I hope that did the trick.

BWAH!

2005-10-31T22:10:00.000-08:00

You must read this or it will be the death of you. Oh yes.

HA!

2005-10-31T15:15:00.000-08:00

SUPER-FRO!

Misfit's Meme

2005-10-31T15:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Suburban Misfit for the 7 questions meme. I've seen these around, but I've never felt the urge to participate until now. Fall motivates me.

I'm supposed to tag 7 people with these questions. I won't be all chain-lettery about it, but you know who you are.

7 things I want to do before I die:
1) play the harp 2) travel to India 3) publish a book 4) have a honeymoon with Andy in Europe 5) see my kids self-sufficient and happy 6) tell my uncle what I think of him 7) get my master's degree

7 things I cannot do:
1) forgive certain people 2) ignore my mother's passive-aggression 3) drive 55 4) stop buying books 5) eat broccoli/lima beans/oysters 6) enjoy exercise 7) let someone else have the last word

7 things I can do:
1) cook 2) play piano 3) sing 4) teach 5) use big words properly 6) type 90 words a minute 7) plan a killer kids' party

7 things I find attractive in a partner:
1) good hair 2) chivalry 3) protective instincts 4) funny-ness 5) intelligence 6) well-read 7) emotional maturity

7 things I say most often:
1) You hate me. (It's our-Andy's and my- special little way of forcing each other to say I love you. Aww.) 2) What up, yo? (I'm urban, yo.) 3) En Francais! 4) Charlotte! No No! 5) *YAWN* 6) What makes you think I won't CUT you? 7) Everyone just be quiet for 5 minutes... just 5 minutes, please. PLEASE.

7 celebrity crushes: (well, 10. I couldn't stop with 7)
1) Alan Rickman 2) Ralph Fiennes 3) Robert Downey Jr. 4) John Cusack 5) Hugh Grant 6) Colin Firth 7) Nicole Kidman/Vivien Leigh/Sherilyn Fenn (I just grouped the girls together, there.) 8) Harry Connick Jr. 9) The lead singer of My Chemical Romance 10) Gene Kelly

7 famous people I'd like to kick:(this one is my own addition)
1) George Bush 2) Barbara Bush 3) Ann Coulter 4) Britney Spears/Kevin Federline 5) Jessica Simpson 6) Jim Carey 7) Dakota Fanning (she's a robot, people!)

Whoopsie-Daisy!

2005-10-31T13:43:00.000-08:00

Last night at Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre, working job #3 as Assistant House Manager, I FELL in front of an entire theatre full of 390 people. I know there were that many people there, because I counted them.

It's funny for many reasons, not the least of which is that I've been thinking about my many falling humiliations lately, as evidenced by my little "About Me" epigraph over there to the right.

I wrote that while remembering last year, when I was hugely pregnant with Charlotte, and I had just purchased some Hostess Donut Gems (delicious, waxy-chocolate variety) at the gas station, and couldn't wait until I got in the car to dig in, so I ripped open the wrapper as I walked to the car, and right as I jammed one in my mouth, another fell out of the package and started rolling across the pavement, and I was so damn desperate not to lose ONE SINGLE DONUT GEM that I lunged after it, and my off-kilter pregnant center of gravity caused me to lurch foreward and sprawl ridiculously on the ground, and NOT ONE SINGLE GAS-PUMPING ASSHOLE moved a muscle to help the poor, starving-for-doughnuts, pregnant lady.

I also like to remember the time in 6th grade when I was waiting for the school bus in the middle of winter, and when it got there and I stepped up to get on, I instead slipped on the icy curb and slid completely under the bus like I was on the luge.

So last night, I was feeling all confident and full of bravado, as I get when I'm finessing a huge group of amenable Hoosier senior citizens, and I was larking around the theatre, which is constructed in 5 successive tiers of tables, flirting with the old guys and chatting cutely with their wives, and flattering the groups of red-hat women, and cozying up to the grandmas who'd brought their little grand-daughters wearing poodle skirts and ponytails in honor of the show, "Grease," when I received a request from the wonderful quadriplegic guy who's been coming for years to tell his server he wanted another rum & Coke. So I went jauntily frisking up the stairs to give the server a heads up, and I was feeling all adorable in my sassily professional black pants, and black and silver, vertically-striped, nicely-tailored shirt, and my pointy-pointy black high-heeled boots, and then? right at the top of the stairs, in full view of everyone?

I took a dive.

I face-planted specTACularly, to the hearty, appreciative laughter of the rowdy over-50 girls-night-out women, and all the Mexican busser guys in the vicinity.

OhmygodIthoughtIwasgoingtodie.

For the rest of the night, Raoul and Andres and Julio and Lazaro and Francisco and Henry wouldn't stop talking about me in really fast Spanish, and chuckling, and asking me if I was ok.

Sigh. My knee hurts.

I dedicate this entry to my lovely bestest friend in the whole wide world, Jenny, who, since we were in 5th grade, has been LOVING all of my humiliating stumbles, to the extent that, when she's present for these events, which is eerily often, she cannot possibly even consider helping me up, or mitigating my embarrassment in any way, because of the insane laughter that overtakes her, body and soul.

This one's for you, Jenny. Happy birthday!

Grrrrrr..

2005-10-31T12:54:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so Andy comes home from the Halloween party and tells me that his friend's wife overtly hit on him all night long. Drunkenly, but overtly.

Two things occur to me:

1) Poor Toby. I feel badly for him. This has been obvious to Andy and me for quite a while, but now she's waving her torch in public, in front of his friends and hers. That's just sad.

2) It's now exponentially harder for me to continue to laugh at this.

It was funny before. It was! But now, that door is open. It may be a door Andy would never walk through, but it's open. And with my history of being cheated on, this just isn't very funny to me anymore. I trust Andy more than I've ever trusted any other person, and I don't think he'd do anything so vile to his friend, let alone to his kids, or, I guess, me. But still.

It's... disconcerting.

Now, in the back of my mind, I'll be thinking things like, "She's skinnier than I am. I'd better lose weight, or else." Ooo, and, "I'd better not make him mad, or else." And of course there's always the old classic, "We'd better have as much sex as he'd like, or else."

Ah. Baggage. And just when I was starting to get all zen.

OK, well, 3 things occur to me:

3) Next time, I'm going with him.

Halloweenies!

2005-10-29T20:55:00.000-07:00

We have had the Halloweeniest weekend ever!

I LOVE Halloween. And not just because of the chocolate, or the way it has of reconnecting me with my gothy-witchy roots. Although those are very important, of course. Fall is my absolutely-lutely favorite time of the year. The humidity finally drops away, so I can have a few good hair days. Also, sweaters and boots! Yay! My fall/winter wardrobe is SO much better than the spring/summer stuff.

Friday, after helping out with Ethan's Halloween party at the International School (I put gummy worms in cups of apple juice and chatted amiably with the rich, French moms), the whole family went with Andy's mom and BGH to the Headless Horseman festivities at Conner Prairie, the local living history museum. It's just the cutest thing! We go every year, and gorge ourselves on freshly-popped (by pioneers, people!) kettle corn, and hot apple cider, and do the barn dance (Andy and I can bring the barn DOWN, people. We rock it!) and listen to the storyteller tell the Legend of Sleepy Hollow around the fire, and go on the scary scary hayride out in the woods, and get chased by the Headless Horseman on his horse, and screamed at by pioneer witches, and stick our faces in the cut-out photo-op facade thingies, and try to pretend that BGH isn't looming around after us.

It's awesome!

And then, today was the Irvington Halloween Festival! Irvington is a neat little neighborhood on the near East side of Indianapolis that was named for Washington Irving. The settlers who came there thought that the rolling hills in the area reminded them of Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow! It's a bit tattered around the edges now, but was once a thriving and prestigious area of town, with big old Victorians and pretty gardens and such. It's ripe for urban renewal, and we live right on the northern edge of it.

Every year they close off a section of the street in the shoppy part of the neighborhood, and the vendors set up the elephant ear and gyros booths, and the local church preschools and Catholic schools set up booths with free games for the kiddies, and the jewelry and candle and purse and sketch artist people set up booths, and the face-painters come out in droves, and all the kids wear costumes, and it's just so fun! The library on the main thoroughfare gets into the act with storytelling and crafts, and bands play on the street across from the coffee shop, and at 4:00 p.m. all the children line up in the church parking lot according to age, and then march in a big old parade, to the accompaniment of the bagpipe and drum corps. After the parade, they give out costume awards. I love to go just to see how clever people are with their costumes.

There's this one kid in a morotized wheelchair, and every year he blows me away. I swear he and his dad must work all YEAR on the stuff they build for him. This year, he had this helicopter contraption that was, no lie, as big as a CAR, constructed over his freaking wheelchair, and he was dressed up as, like, an army guy inside the cockpit, piloting the thing with his wheelchair joystick. Now, whether or not I agree with the military stuff, it was a DAMN impressive "costume." I always get tears in my eyes when I see him, because that kid's parents LOVE him, and that's beautiful.

This year, Simon was a Blue Power Ranger (we obviously only love him to a store-bought degree), with ludicrous muscles built into the costume, and during the parade he made friends with a Red Power Ranger, and they were SO hilarious, I was laughing the entire time. They walked together, doing Power-Ranger-hiya!-karate moves in unison, and WORKING the crowd, parade-waving non-stop and high-fiving the spectators on the sidelines. Red Power Ranger's mom and I were practically in tears by the time we got back to the church parking lot.

And I took a few pictures (the camera was malfunctioning, so not as many as I'd have liked), and finally opened a Flickr account, and you can see those pictures over there on the right! Cool, eh!?
(Let me know what you think, or if you have any trouble viewing them. I'm kind of excited about Flickr!)

Then we came home and whipped up some home-made pizza, the dough and everything, and carved all of our fafillion pumpkins. Andy is so multi-talented! He used to work at Noble Romans in high school, so he can twirl the dough circles up in the air. And then, he can carve Cyclops Were-Rabbit pumpkins like nobody's business. I am the luckiest girl alive!

**At this moment, Andy is getting ready to go to his friend Toby's costume party. Toby is the one whose wife LOVES Andy. Remember? At their wedding she totally delivered her vows while looking directly at Andy, who was a groomsman. You can see it in their wedding pictures! See, originally she had liked Andy, oh so many years ago at IU, but Andy didn't like her back, and was annoyed by her, and so he fixed her up with his friend Toby to get rid of her. And now they're married, but she still carries a really obvious torch for Andy.

So Andy comes out of the bedroom just now, where he's supposed to be getting ready, and he's wearing nothing but his Speedo (remember, he was a swimmer/diver), with a towel slung over his shoulder, and asks me how I like his costume.

HA! I told you he was the funny!! It's a good thing for him I'm not jealous! Otherwise I might worry about that Halloweenie!

Ta!
Apple-Cider Wishes and Candy-Corn Dreams, everyone!

Caution! It's all zen up in here.

2005-10-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

So the first step on my path to peace and serenity is to live in the now.

I know that sounds really cheesy. Trust me, I know.

But I think I can see the practical usefulness of that idea.

For instance, sometimes I get frustrated by our teeny tiny house. It's a little 1950s brick bungalow, and it's pretty packed with 5 of us. There's only one bathroom, and the boys share a bedroom, and there's no place for a piano.

But, I got to thinking about how one day, we'll be in a bigger house, and the kids will all be off in their separate bedrooms, and we'll have to yell to hear each other, and we won't be all up in each other's space every moment. And in this future time, we'll look back on where we are now, and we'll remember how these were the good old days, when we were forced to live in REALLY close proximity to each other, and had to get along, and spent all our time together. We'll reminisce about this.

And so I decided I would try to live as much as I can, right now, in full awareness of how great this time together is. And I will try to remember that it won't be like this forever.

I will be cognizant that I am living in the good old days.

I know why Maya Angelou sings

2005-10-29T20:18:00.000-07:00

I heard Maya Angelou on NPR the other day, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to be old.

If you look back to my very first post, I described the sort of person I most want to be: pointy, pencil-thin, sarcastic, remotely amused, above-it-all, aloof, and disdainful.

After hearing Maya radiate wisdom and compassion and warmth and love and wise-woman good humor, and after marvelling over the slow and easy, confident way she spoke, I have decided there is another option for the coolest way to be.

I want to be old and wise enough to just take for granted that every word I speak comes from experience, sympathy, knowledge, and deep affection for my fellow human beings.

I want to speak truth with a kind heart.

I think I'm growing up.

Shaman-ette

2005-10-27T22:55:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness! The most awesome thing happened this afternoon!

I was able to pass on valuable, ancient lore today.

Noah, this kid in our carpool, is a freaking riot, DEEP in the throes of puberty and first girlfriend PDA, and I just love him. HI-larious, gangly, stick-figure-esque, zitty, shaggy, and adorable. Love. Him.

A smart, relatively innocent private-school kid, but a wisecracker, with HUGE potential to be a total stoner boy some day. Like, in a band.

Get this.

I was able to clue him in that if you watch "The Wizard of Oz" with the sound turned off, and you start Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" cd right at the MGM lion's third roar, they totally match up in the trippiest way, dude!

(If you've never heard of this before, check it out!)

The kid had never heard this before, and I could tell he was aware he was being passed some VERY IMPORTANT TEENAGE KNOWLEDGE right then. It was sort of a sacred moment. Seriously. And now he totally gets to go pass this along to all the International School kids, who may even pass it to their friends and loved ones across the globe! All because of me!

Best of all? He thinks I am the Queen. Of. Cool.

Hee!

It was seriously awesome. I feel like a tribal elder, a wise woman of sorts. If you will.

I RULE!

Madonna Bonding

2005-10-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

The other day, driving Ethan home from his choir practice, I changed the radio from NPR because hello! pledge drive! (I'm a bad bad woman, mooching from the public airwaves year after year without contributing.) and I was caught by surprise by the very exact beginning of a song that sounded extremely promising.

There was a sudden vacuum in the van as Ethan and I simultaneously pricked our ears foreward and sucked in our breath with excitement.

"Is that ABBA?!" I wondered aloud with wonder. "I think that's ABBA!"

(Oh. You don't even know. I wish I could provide you with a verbal montage here, set to the tune of "Waterloo," of all my hilarious, crucial, and heart-warming childhood moments that were soundtracked to ABBA.)

"Wait a second... is that Madonna?"

"I don't know Mom, but it's really good."

"I think that's Madonna. AND ABBA!"

"Shhh, Mom, this is a really good song."

"Oh my god. ABBA! And that IS Madonna! I know it is! She sounds great!"

"MOM!"

So we pulled up into the driveway, cranked it up, and just sat there in the van until the song was over. Well, I wasn't ONLY sitting, of course. I was actually dancing while sitting down. Spastically. I'm sure anyone driving by would've had a nice chuckle at the nondescript little mini-van rockin' out in the mild-mannered driveway. And you know what? That song, to me, hearing it for the first time and being all on-the-verge-of-a-heart-attack over the sheer dance-club awesomeness of it? Was just about as good as sex.

No lie.

Back in my single days, I used to go out dancing to the same club every Saturday night, all by myself, just for the euphoria of dancing for hours. Being blissfully trance-dancing to really good dance music has always been akin to spiritual ecstasy for me. And, ridiculous as it may sound to some, the new Madonna single brought that all back to me. I would work out WILLINGLY to this music, and I hate working out with the fire of a fafillion suns.

But best of all? Was Ethan's reaction. He LOVED it, just as much as I did. He ran inside with me, right to the computer without either of us saying a word, and stood by me as I found Madonna's website and then we listened to it again, over the shoddy little computer speakers.

I was an opera major, originally. Have I disclosed this yet? Yes, I am an erstwhile opera diva.

I still do weddings, occasionally, but that's about it. Other than my occasional shower concerts. It's generally okay, but sometimes I miss it. Keenly.

So it's exceedingly cool when I am able to share musical moments with Ethan, who has inherited his vocal talent, and his musical taste, I feel safe in assuming, from me.

This is new, this bonding over shared amazement at new singles; this unspoken understanding of the lure of heavy bass lines, sparkling ABBA samples, and irresistible chug-chugging percussion.

My boy likes dance music! I'm so proud!

I can't wait to take him to his first real concert. Viva Madonna!

Chocolate cream, raspberry cream, HAIR CREAM?!

2005-10-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

Proud to have passed on:

1) Ethan, at the age of 10 5/6, still believes in Santa Claus. I'm sure he's heard rumors, but he's not taking any chances. I have fiercely guarded his innocence, and it makes me REALLY happy that he's still essentially a kid. Sadly, these days, so many children at his age are not.

2) Simon, in the car or down time at home, will pick up a book or two or eleventy to pass the time. This makes me insanely joyful! Of course, it doesn't hurt that virtually every horizontal surface in the house is covered with reading material, but still. Yay reading!

Nervous that I might inadvertently pass on:

3) Hair issues. I fear I am already beginning to pass on my hair issues to Charlotte.

I HATE my hair. HATE! LOATHE! DESPISE! My hair is Marcia Brady straight. I know those of you with curly locks out there are like, "Lucky!" No. It's not attractive, Jennifer-Aniston straight. My hair has wispy ends, so it just looks flat and straggly naturally. Plus, I was imprinted in the 80s, as far as coifs go, so my preference would be for BIG! Not mall-hair big, (of course!) but rather: Thick, full, cascading, Renaissance-princess, Venus-on-the-half-shell, mermaid tresses. Big old loose waves. Romance-heroine hair. That's what I want. And not grey.

I can't wait for perms to come back in. I loved my spiral perms. *sigh* Good times.

So consequently I spend a LOT of money on cuts and colors and products, and a lot of time in the bathroom endeavoring to give my straight-straight hair some body and volume. I blow dry with the round brush. I hot roll every day. I spray it like your mother does. And then, I step outside in the Indiana humidity, and it all falls out. Flat again. And I spend the rest of the day cursing about it. Sometimes I come home and do it all over again. More than once. This is one of the many reasons I am miserable all summer.

I have never been, nor will I ever be satisfied with my hair.

So there Charlotte is with me in the bathroom this morning, watching like a hawk everything I'm doing, and when I mousse my hair, she reaches up and puts her wee hands in my hair and fluffs it with me, and then she reaches to her own straight little pigtails and applies the product to her own hair. Cute, right? But also? Scary. I want her to be more satisfied with her own natural attributes than I am.

I feel helpless about this. How can I instill good hair esteem in my daughter, when I hate and stress out about my own so very very much?

Do you have one of these too?

2005-10-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

Confronted with Simon's floating head in our doorway, we wondered aloud,

"Where did his body go? We can't see it! It's invisible!"

We've almost got him believing it. This is totally going to be our Christmas card photo.

I'm Jo March

2005-10-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

Am I a mommy blogger? At what point did I become a mommy blogger?

I set out to write this blog to exorcise my many personal grudge demons, so that I could escape the endless tape loop in my head, the one filled with the scripts of stuff I wish I'd said, and stuff I will say if ever I have the chance.

I've managed to purge a few. It is now easier to go to sleep at night. Thank you, internets, for contributing to my sanity quotient.

But I've still got a couple of WHOPPERS ricocheting around in my psyche, and threatening to bust out as we near the holiday season. These grudges involve my horrible Uncle Bert, and his daughter, my cousin Sarah. They are very long stories indeed, and pretty soon I might have to lay them down in some installment posts, because they can be crippling. Last year, for example, I single-handedly ruined Christmas. Because I'm so immature. According to my mother.

Just wait.

But one thing that blogging has helped me to realize is that my life is definitely composed of a greater measure of joy than of pain, mostly because of the family I've created with Andy, and the great big ball of hilarity and sleeplessness and annoyance and happiness that that entails.

I mean, in between the grudge catharses, I ended up documenting the random funny and/or freaky elements of my daily life as mom and wife. And these seem to have asserted themselves as foremost in this blog.

And that's... ok.

It is! It's so weird, to have once been this person who didn't even like kids, who felt so completely lame and retarded around them, and to have gradually become this total whizbang pro that I am today. I can multi-task like a supercomputer; nourish my kids' bodies, minds, and souls; and still retain a fairly significant cool factor.

So I have learned, much like everyone's favorite _Little Women_ protagonist, (well, I personally like Amy best, because Meg is boring and Beth- sigh- is insipidly and gag-worthily angelic, but whatEVER. JoJoJo!), to write what I know.

And I know mommy stuff.

I'm more than that, of course. We all are. I'm friend, and wife, and teacher, and artsy-fartsy girl, and bookworm, and black sheep, and geek, and scaredy-cat, and traveler, and fabulous diva, and loyal sister/daughter/sister-in-law, and writer.

I'm a writer.

Blogging has helped me realize that I'm MORE than just a grudge girl. I used to feel like all that emotional baggage and anger defined me. Writing this blog every day has helped me to uncover and discover the truth that I was living in all the time.

Ain't art grand?

Sunday Morning Dilemma

2005-10-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

Relevant Factoid #1: Andy and I, when we were first dating, discovered each other to be sleeping soul-mates. When Ethan was at his dad's for the weekend, and Andy and I were able to bunk together (EUPHEMISM!), we could easily pass 12 hours at a time snoozing in each other's company. It was delicious to find someone else who found the idea of rising and starting the day at 2:oo p.m. perfectly acceptable. Usually, our potential life partners would find such behavior alarmingly slug-like and would flee from the Vortex of Morpheus where Andy and I dwell. What a relief to have found each other!

(Tangent: Do you know what we serve in the Vortex of Morpheus? Brownies. With entire big-block chocolate bars melted over the top in lieu of icing. And that's it. We're fat in the Vortex of Morpheus. Seriously? Andy and I each gained like 10 pounds within our first 2 weeks of dating!)

Relevant Factoid #2: Unlike all the good and attentive parents of the world, who rise to greet their small children's first stirrings and plaintive calls on weekend mornings, and who immediately attend to said children's needs, such as diaper changes and breakfast... Andy and I, loyal denizens of the Vortex of Morpheus, roll over and drowse until the plaintive calls transform into demanding shouts. Then, we merely haul small children into our bed with us, tuck them in between us, and hope that they fall back asleep. This never works. The children crawl all over us, and anoint our heads with drops of milk shaken out of their bottles. They tumble perilously close to the edge of the bed, until finally we let them climb down to roam around our bedroom floor in the dark.

Relevant Factoid #3: Andy has lots and lots of pocket change. Andy's pocket change is probably breeding, there is so much of it. Mostly pennies. Andy's pocket change is strewn about our bedroom because when he changes out of his work clothes, he is in such a hurry to don his lounge pants that he rips the work pants off all Chippendales-break-away-pants style. And the pennies fly free!
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Please process all relevant factoids before attempting to comprehend the sheer scope of the hilarity that is to follow.

SCENE: This morning, about 8:30 a.m., dark and chilly bedroom.

CAST: - Two sleepy-sleeperson, lazy-ass parents wrapped up in the bedsheets like mummies.
- One small, wakeful, fearlessly acrobatic one year old girl shaking milk out of her bottle onto her parents' heads, tweaking their noses, pulling their hair, and stomping on their tenderer body parts.

ANDY: Just put her on the floor.

ME: What if she eats a penny?

ANDY: Then she'll poop out 60 cents.

ME: How will she poop out 60 cents if she only eats one penny?

ANDY: The same way she turns raisins into grapes*.

...aaaaaaand - scene.

BWAH! My husband is the funny. Also, we're SO LAZY!!!

O Vortex of Morpheus, will you ever release us from your clutches?

* If you've never witnessed a baby's wondrous ability to rehydrate dried fruit through the miracle of digestion, I highly recommend it. It's magical! It doesn't work with banana chips, though.

The spoils of war

2005-10-20T14:48:00.000-07:00

I feel I must preface this post with the I-shouldn't-even-have-to-say-it assertion that I love my kids. All of them, equally. Fierce love.

OK.

Simon and, to a lesser extent, Charlotte are driving me INSANE today, and have been for a while now. I'm freaking out to the point that I feel like I want to peel my skin off, if it will only STOP THE CRYING!

There is a war being waged between these two, and I am the prize. I'm Jerusalem. Simon is the Palestinians, and Charlotte is the Israelis, and I'm Jerusalem. I used to belong to Simon. Charlotte invaded. I'm the capital to both peoples. They both have legitimate claims to me. They cannot seem to split or share me. And so? The louder shall win. The one with the more advanced weaponry.

Is this metaphor in poor taste? I'm sorry. My brain is so addled from THE CRYING--DEAR GOD THE CRYING-- that I can no longer discern relevancy or employ tact. You have my sincerest apologies. Please forgive any gaffes I may commit. My brain has been shaken loose from its moorings in my skull by the supersonic and endless wailing.

Charlotte wants me to hold her 100% of the time, apparently. And something else. The old me would've cringed to admit this, please understand. The girl is a screamer, like nothing I've ever experienced from the boys, and I think it's because she's a girl. I don't behave any differently towards her, I promise. I don't snap into action at her every shriek, because that would just encourage this behavior. I only respond to the genuine emergencies, needs, and/or fears. I'm no puppet. She's just LOUD! And she screams ALL THE TIME! God. I really do think it's a girl thing, the piercing, angry-dolphin screams.

And, like any decent mother, biologically programmed to be upset by and respond to these sounds, I CAN'T CONCENTRATE ON ANYTHING when she's in this mode. Which is all the time. I pretend to ignore the blatantly manipulative fit-screams. I respond in a calm, quiet, rational voice.

I'm faking it.

Inside, I'm a giant ear in a chasm filled with fingernails and chalkboards.

And then there's Simon.

Simon, bless his heart, is not adjusting very well to being a middle child. At. All.

He is so desperately needy with both Andy and me that, honestly, no matter how much I empathize and understand where he's coming from, it's... distasteful to me. Like that one pitiful boyfriend you had where he liked you WAY more than you liked him, who made himself so totally your slave that he completely turned you off.

Uh oh. That was another inappropriate comparison, wasn't it? But this one was a simile! I know this because for two hours today I was a poetry teacher, and some residue of those two hours has remained in my consciousness. It won't last.

Simon cries at the drop of a hat, usually when Charlotte is also crying. He physically inserts himself between me and the baby whenever possible. He's incredibly clingy. Sometimes I catch him snatching things away from Charlotte, or, like, poking at her. I often discover him thwarting her movements around the room. And, for about the past 2 weeks, he has been getting out of his bed, in which he's been sleeping without a problem FOREVER, and creeping in between me and Andy at, like, 4:30 a.m. EVERY MORNING.

Most troubling, he's SO desperate for attention that he will act out in ways totally uncharacteristic for him, and you can see in his eyes that he's MISERABLE while he's doing it, but it's like a compulsion and he can't stop himself.

It's hard to watch.

And, trust me, Andy and I have been going out of our way to lavish him with alone time, and special outings, and story-readings, and everything else, but it's not enough to fill this black hole he's got going on where his former youngest-child certainty used to be.

He's got playdates with grandparents, and aunts and uncles, and his best friend, and special art classes at the children's museum, and cuddle sessions, and sometimes I even pick him up and just hold him in my lap like a baby, so desperate is he for that intense attention that babies demand.

And yet it continues. At this moment he is pawing at me and making sad, nonverbal, whiny-puppy sounds.

I don't know what else we can do. I'm so exhauted and spent at this point, so completely addlepated and high from lack of sleep and ministering to other people that I'm vibrating with anxiety and, like, seeing dead people.

But the crying continues.

Jerusalem endures, right?

Right?

Or does it get blown to smithereens in some apocalyptic end-of-the-world scenario?

Maybe it's better not to know.

Re-Direct

2005-10-19T14:40:00.000-07:00

For those of you who've been wondering about Luka, she's not Luka.

I took your advice (thank you so much for your intelligent replies, by the way), and spoke to the director of the school, just voicing my concerns (luckily she's someone I'm friendly with, and have known for a long time, so I was able to speak with her in an informal sort of way) and what led me to my suspicions.

I was so off.

Luka has breast cancer. She is having a mastectomy this week. It's not common knowledge, and she, for reasons I certainly would never quibble with, didn't share her medical trauma with me. We're only playdate-mom-friendly; not best-friend-friendly, you know?

That's why the dad was weird with me. He wasn't sure what I knew, and (respecting his wife's privacy) didn't want to overshare if I was clueless. It also explains his being around all the time, and preoccupied, and his shepherding hand on her back. And why she's lost a lot of weight recently. And has seemed oddly distracted. And why my something-isn't-right-here radar was bleeping so loudly.

And why the little girl hasn't been in school. She's too freaked out by everything her mom is going through, and wants to be with her all the time.

I'm so glad I was tactful and restrained. Let this be a lesson to all of us to proceed with caution. When you're working a puzzle, the picture doesn't always turn out like you thought, does it?

I am happy to have been wrong, though I am concerned for her on an entirely different level now. I hope everything works out for them. That's serious business.

It's weird to know that someone you only know casually is going through something so upsetting. I don't know them well enough to be of any comfort, or to matter in the slightest. But I will be saying some non-institutionalized-religion prayers anyway. Because, like any English major worth her salt, I believe in the power of the word to affect reality.

New Style Anti Sag Superhero Pants

2005-10-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

Kapow!

Hi-Ya!

Once, I saw a picture of Robert Frost in his twilight years, and his pants were pulled up about 2 inches higher than Andy's pants in this picture.

There's something so... striking... about a man with a 4 inch torso, don't you think?
Witness how we torture our oldest boy.

HA!

Okay, I know I said before that my see-through-shirt picture was the funniest picture in the world to me, but I guess I was lying because really, these 2 take the proverbial cake. Of hilarity!

My husband is the MAN!

Barmy Cat and Dust Bunny

2005-10-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

Today Spooky lost her marbles.

The. Pat. Mat...

Cannot. Look. Away!
It looks like water, but my paw isn't getting wet!

Heh. About an hour ago, I looked over and noticed that Spooky had poofed up all big and scared, and was twitching at Charlotte's pat mat. Every once in a while, my poor little freaked-out feline would bat at it with a frightened but inevitably curious paw. And then jump back and watch the mesmerizing foam sea creatures float around in the incomprehensibly un-wet water.

An hour later, she's still at it.

There has been no diminishment of her interest or intensity. Simon and I are sitting here watching her. This is hilarious! She's digging under it now, trying to feel the water that she can see, but not touch. She's circling it, and working up the courage to walk on it... I do believe she's learning cause and effect!

You know, Charlotte won't go near it. She's too busy strewing the bathroom trash around the house, and climbing things.

I'm glad it's amusing somebody!

Side note: Charlotte has a compulsion to squeeze herself into the darkest, tightest nooks and crannies. She is like another dust bunny. Wherever we go, she will head immediately for the perimeter of the room, and sequester herself in a dim corner. She tries to crawl back behind the toilet, for goodness' sake! She also has to manically investigate any container of trash she comes across. She just digs right in, and wings things over her shoulder in her quest to reach the bottom of this! No pile of rubbish shall go un-rooted-through! Same thing with full-to-overflowing laundry baskets! What's under there! What's behind that! What are you hiding from me?!

I'm wondering if her fascination for places we don't normally inhabit, and things we throw away, is going to translate into some future career path.

PI?

Scientist?

Anthropologist?

Found Object Artist?

...

Bag Lady?

A few weekend projects...

2005-10-17T17:35:00.000-07:00

Look what I did this weekend:

Family Tree Project Extraordinaire!

La Nourriture de la Chine! En Francais!

Well, of course, these are Ethan's projects. But you know how that goes. They were my projects too. My entire weekend was consumed not only with these two whoppers, but with all they entailed. I feel like noting those particulars here. Shall I? I think I shall.

Schedule time on Saturday for Ethan to meet with Becky, his partner on La Nourriture de la Chine project. (Please forgive my lack of accents and proper symbols. I don't know how to make those work here.)
Spend Friday night combing French websites for relevant information.
Extract and print information.
Help Ethan to translate information, so that he can pick and choose what he'd like to include.
Work together with Ethan to build text on La Cuisine Chinoise pour les Occasions Speciales, comme les mariages, l'annee nouvelle Chinoise, et les fetes pour les nouveaux-nes.
Search Google Images for workable pictures of moon cakes and dragon & phoenix cakes, and red eggs, to embed in the text.
Work with Ethan to translate our fried rice recipe into French, and then type it up.
Email these documents to my dad, because 1) we are conveniently out of printer paper and 2) we do not have a color printer.
Put together a craft sack to take to Becky's house.
**On Saturday, Andy spends the morning with the 2 smaller kids, as Simon has a "Spooktacular Science" class at the Children's Museum. (The Indianapolis Children's Museum rocks, people!) He then spends the afternoon with them in the company of his mother at the Hoosier Storytelling Festival. Which Ethan and I would've loved to attend. But such was not to be.**
On Saturday, Ethan and I go to the cute little Oriental grocery store by my house, and locate giant sack of chopsticks, good soy sauce, 25 individually-wrapped fortune cookies, and some miscellaneous decorative paper thingies, the actual use for which totally eludes both me and the store owner, but which will look kick-ass on the posters.
Drive to my mom & dad's to pick up copies of the text to cut up and use on the poster, and also for Ethan to read in front of the class.
Ask mom & dad to find cool old family pictures for use on Family Tree Project, which we will come work on on Sunday.
Head to Becky's lovely house 45 minutes away out in rich-people-land, in beautiful rolling foothills, with the meandering creek through the neighborhood, and help the kids sort out who will do what on the project, and how to lay it out.
Discover that they have so much information, that they will need one of the other special foam-core project boards that are back in my basement.
Leave, run a few errands, return with second project board, go over plans, glue down corners that Ethan has missed, shake off extra rice that has been used as a decorating element.
Home, dinner, send Andy to the grocery store for a few necessities, including the ingredients for the fried rice, which Ethan and I are making for the entire class, as a component part of his project, put the kids to bed, work on my freelance project (I'm writing an online speech course for a local textbook publishing company to sell to an online university that's located in Virginia) that's due to the client Monday, until 1:30 am.
**Side note: Andy comes home from the grocery store with a gorgeous bunch of flowers for me, just because he knows I'm working my ass off this weekend and every now and then he brings me flowers because I'm a sucker for them and I love them. Nice!**
Up early on Sunday, to help get Andy and the kids out the door to Waterman's Farm, for their fall festival including corn maze, various pumpkin and apple-related activities and hijinks, and the pumpkin patch.
I work on my freelance stuff until they get home around late-lunch time, at which time I break for a much-needed shower, with hair-washing!
Ethan and I revise and correct his two family "stories" he had typed up and turned in a week ago, final copies of which are to go on the family tree poster.
Email finished stories to my dad because we're out of printer paper and I forgot to have Andy get some at the store last night.
Ethan and I (still wet-headed) go over to my parents', last blank project board and craft supply sack in hand.
At my parents', we sort through the millionty-hundred fabulous old pictures my mother has selected, as she tells Ethan who the people are, and shares a bit about them.
Give precious pictures to my feverish and ailing father, who dutifully scans them for us, so that we won't be sticking the fragile old photos to a freaking poster board with glue.
Cut out the scanned pictures.
Type out captions for the photos.
Cut out the captions.
Create layout.
Glue the eleventy-seven pictures and captions painstakingly onto the project board.
Glue the stories to the project board.
Google-Image some maps of all the countries from which our people hail: Ireland, England, Holland, Germany, Sweden, and Spain. (Dang! I forgot Scotland!)
Staple the maps together and glue the packet onto the project board.
Spend like an hour using a ruler to measure out the lines for the family tree diagram, trying to space them correctly across a 9 1/2 by 11 inch piece of construction paper so that you have one, centered, 2 1/2 inch line for Ethan's name on the left, and end up with 16 evenly-spaced 2 1/2 inch lines for the great-great grandparents on the right. It's WAY harder than it looks, especially if you're an insane perfectionist type person.
Ethan fills in the tree diagram with names and birthdates, and creates a title section, and we're done! And it's 8:00 pm! And we haven't eaten dinner!
Hit KFC on the way home. Get home, hug the 2 smaller children I haven't seen all day, eat dinner, make sure Ethan showers, it's now past bed-time and there is still fried rice to be made! I decide not to make Ethan stay up late with me.
Send Ethan to bed, put in a load of laundry, ask Andy to iron Ethan's Chinese outfit my brother brought back from Hong Kong for him, so that Ethan can wear it to school in the morning instead of his uniform because Ethan and Becky are presenting first, because they will have hot food to serve to everyone.
Make fried rice which, happily, turns out perfectly.
Dust off pyrex hot food carrier thingie.
Refrigerate rice.
Remember to thaw ground beef for a quickie dinner tomorrow for Ethan. (I'm actually flabbergasted that I remembered that!)
Remember to fill out the advance paperwork the skin doctor people sent to me a month and a half ago when I made the appointment for tomorrow's date, so that I wouldn't have to sit around for half an hour in the office doing it before I could go get my foot plantar thingie (left over from my pregnancy with Charlotte - ew!) removed.
Remember to put this in my purse so I won't forget it in the morning.
Take pictures of poster boards so I can remember these touching moments in the future.
Get together Ethan's uniform clothes that he will need to change into, the bag with the chopsticks and the fortune cookies, and the ladle for the rice.
Telephone my sister-in-law to tell her I will drive Ethan in the morning, because he's got so dang much to bring with him, and I'm hoping I will be able to catch their presentation before I have to jet off to get Simon to preschool on time, and then go to my doctor's appointment.
Work on my freelance work until 4:00 am, at which point I zip all the files, attach them to an email to my supervisor lady and my instructional designer, and go to bed.
Two hours later... hit snooze alarm a couple of times, get out of bed at 6:22 am.
Grab the baby, her milk bottle, her clothes, shoes, diaper and wipes and deposit her with Andy so that he can help by getting her ready.
Grab clothes for Simon out of the drier, and steer him into our room with Andy for supervision of the self-dressing process, which would never occur unless someone prods him with a hot poker.
Make sure Ethan is up and moving. Ask him to fix his own lunch aujourd'hui.
Take shower and get ready.
Meanwhile, Andy has helped by making breakfast for the smaller 2 kids, and making coffee. Ethan is eating an apple. Make him also consume granola bar, and take his medicine.
Warm up rice and hot pack thingie in the microwave.
Jackets! It's suddenly 40 degrees!
Get all eye makeup done except mascara.
Load all stuff into van.
Have all kids locked and loaded into the van by 7:45, which is 15 minutes later than we should be leaving, to get to school by 8:00 am.
Apply mascara on the way!

... And this is how I managed to pass an entire weekend without feeling like I experienced a weekend at all. My heart is beating really fast, and I still have work to do! Rushrushrush!

And then I ended up not being able to see the presentation, because the class first had to do their dictee, and corriger le, and by the time that was over I had to go, or I would've been late to get Simon to school, and also, then, to my doctor's appointment!

ACK!

Man. I'm sorry to have inflicted that ludicrously long list on you all, but I think I had to get it out of me, so that I could think about anything else at all. I was beginning to feel like my mind and soul and inner being was nothing more than a bullet-pointed to-do list.

*Breathe*

Thank heavens for blogging!

It's all worth it. I'm losing my mind, but it's all worth it.

10 Days After Her First Birthday...

2005-10-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

Charlotte Walks!

(Well, not in these pictures, obviously, but right after this! These pictures were just for gratuitous cuteness' sake. And the frog bootie. Which, incidentally, looks quite hilarious when she's walking. Which she's doing! All by herself! YAY!)

Next Stop, Terrible Twos.

OMG!

2005-10-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

Did you all know that Harriet Miers has a blog?

BWAH!

(My favorite part is the your/you're confusion in the intro material at the top. Heh.)

10 Year Old Boy Gives Mother a Break

2005-10-14T08:35:00.000-07:00

My green-eyed good-hearted boy

I was tootootoo busy yesterday to post this, but something happened that was so awesome I have to note it here.

We usually have to get up and going really early, because Ethan's school is about 30 minutes away, and even EARLIER when I drive the carpool, because I've got to dress and feed all 3 of them. So mornings are hard.

Yesterday, I was SO tired, because I'd been at one of my eleventy-hundred jobs until 11:30 pm, and it too is a half an hour away (as is EVERYTHING except downtown Indianapolis, from my house), so I didn't get home until midnight.

So when the alarm went off at 6, and I hauled my sorry self out of bed, imagine my surprise to find Ethan up, dressed, and sitting quietly on the couch playing with his Tamagotchi! He informed me that he had made his own lunch, fed himself breakfast, and was ready to go.

!!

I was able to give him a BIG hug, take a breath, make some coffee, and sit quietly with him for a few minutes before my sister-in-law arrived to take him to school.

What a lovely morning. What a lovely child.

My best friend who's known me since 5th grade likes to remind me that when we were little, and mapping out our imaginary futures, I used to always say that someday when I was 26, I'd have a blonde-haired, green-eyed Scorpio boy child. It's weird to both of us that I was right.

He's so wondrous, so composed and kind, so exactly what I wanted, that sometimes I think I may have imagined him into being.

File This Under What Was I Thinking

2005-10-13T00:20:00.000-07:00

Introducing... PALS! BWAH! Hahahahahahahaha!!!

This is seriously the single-most hilarious picture in the whole freaking wide world to me. It's actually Philbug's photo, but I requested he send it to me, so I could post it here and mock myself. Phil used this as the wallpaper on his computer for the LONGEST time.

Hee hee hee hee hee! Oh. My. God.

Okay, in my defense, the bra TOTALLY DIDN'T SHOW THROUGH when there was no camera flash to illuminate it. I swear. Heh. This was fairly recently after I had had Charlotte last year, and I had gotten my Mrs. Robinson streak freshly updated in my former assymetrical bob, and I was feeling all sassy, and I was out with my very special friends Phil, Ashley, and ErinP, and sometimes I will dress extra sassily around them because they humor me.

I told you I was always overdressed.

The 3D glasses were for Cirque de Soleil's "Journey of Man" at the IMAX. We forced the usher to take this picture. HA! What must he have been thinking?!

I got that jacket at the very same store where Madonna exchanges her pyramid jacket for the sequined boots, and Rosanna Arquette picks up said jacket, in "Desperately Seeking Susan!" It's called Love Saves the Day, and it's in Manhattan. Very cool vintage store.

Even funnier to me at this moment is that I discovered today that my youngest brother (owner of Biskit, spaz-hound extraordinaire) checks in here regularly, and now I have made his eyes bleed!

Made you look!

HA HA HA HA HA!!!! *sigh*

I totally needed that. Thanks, Philbug.

Je Suis Une Dork

2005-10-13T00:05:00.000-07:00

Simon and Charlotte are leaning back on her lavender fuzzy pillow. This was her birthday present from both the boys, because every time we go to Meier, and pass the bedding aisles, she goes INSANE for these things, and pats them, and strokes them, and makes cooing noises, and lays her head on them in the sweetest fashion. The thing looks like someone skinned a muppet, but that's okay. It makes her really really happy. And that's a good thing.
Striped Tights!

New Birthday Rug!

Because I had to cheer myself, and not think about Luka for a few minutes.

You know what I do with the carpool kids when I am in a bad mood in the mornings? It started last year one random day, when some muse of dorkitude sat on my shoulder and whispered in my ear. As I whooshed down the highway, I pulled up even with this, like, 24-ish year old guy who looked just as grumpy as I, and, to the shock and awe and utter embarrassment of all the kids (7 including Charlotte - though I guess she was too little to know what was going on) I proceeded to wave spazzily at him until he noticed me, and finally cracked a grin and waved back.

I was in my pyjamas, with my bed head and my glasses on, and I looked like total hell, waving like a loon at this guy. But it was fun!

Salute, my brother!...working for the man! But random joy still reigns!

I talked the youngest kids into doing this with me, and pretty soon they were ALL into it, with the right and the left sides of the van vying to see how many people they could get to wave back at them. Once we were off the highway, and stopping at stoplights, they included pedestrians in their contest. HA! The hilarity of these peoples' surprised faces, and then near-universal delight at the sight of a vanload of kids waving maniacally at them. It was so bitchen!

I have to be in the right mood (sleepy/grumpy but ready to laugh my way out of it), but we still spread the love in this fashion every once in while. It's quite the mood elevator.

I think I'll have to be proposing a game when next I drive. Because I feel like I am living in an after-school special, and it's seriously bumming me out. (See below.)

Her Name is Luka

2005-10-12T14:15:00.000-07:00

I am going to put a serious call out for advice right now, because I'm pretty sure I'm having my first encounter with domestic violence and I don't know what to do about it. At all.

There is this mother of one of the children at Simon's preschool who I'm pretty friendly with. She has even watched Charlotte for me a couple of times, last year. Which, oh my GOD, totally gives me the shivers now. I also had lunch with her a couple of times.

Once, last year, as I was entering the church (early) to pick Simon up, she ran in all freaked out. She had a black eye. She was shaking. She told me that she had been returning a book at the library, and a scary homeless guy came up to her in the parking lot, and punched her and stole her wedding ring. !! I remember giving her a hug, and expressing my shock, and offering to do whatever she needed to do, but I also remember wondering why she wasn't still with the police, filing a report, or doing whatever one does when one is beat up and mugged. Also, I remember thinking that she just wasn't acting exactly as I would act if that had happened to me. Like, she wasn't upset enough, if that makes sense. No tears or anything.

But that's as much as I felt. I bring it up now, because it's a piece I am putting into a puzzle.

Last year, I never really saw her husband very much. But when I did, he seemed very quiet and mild, and he is cute, with this very baby face, and soft, clear skin. He also looks REALLY young. Honestly, my sometimes ESP was not pinging, even a tiny bit.

But this year, suddenly he's around a lot, like, shepherding the woman through the halls, with his hand on the small of her back, and when I go to talk to them, he never makes eye contact. Which is HUGE creepiness factor for me. (BGH does it too.) He never says a word. He's just there. I just thought maybe he's got a night job now, or something.

Normally this woman is very very cheery and friendly and happy and she LOVES Charlotte SO much. She brings her 4 year old daughter to Simon's class 3 days a week, and her 2 1/2 year old boy a couple of days a week. A couple of weeks ago, the daughter had been absent from Simon's class like twice in a row, but the mother was there delivering the boy, and I asked her what was up with the girl, and she told me she had woken up screaming and crying, and they don't know what's wrong, yada yada, they're doing tests and think it may be migraines.

In a 4 year old? I asked. Wow. Weird.

And she agrees, and says she has them herself. And the mom seems really... tired? down? introverted when usually she's quite extroverted? I don't know exactly. Just different. Less.

Then, out in the parking lot, we were talking and she was kind of distracted, and said she herself wasn't feeling well, and said goodbye. After I strapped my 2 into the van, as I was driving off, I noticed that she was still there. Her little boy was sitting in his car seat, and she was in the driver's seat, with the seat reclined, and her sunglasses on, and her hands up on her forehead.

And something about that day gave me chills of weirdness. My spidey sense was tinging in a major way.

That was Friday. I haven't seen her, or her son or daughter since.

Today, though, as I was going in to pick up Simon, I saw her husband taking the boy out. I stopped him with a friendly "Hi!" and here's the conversation that ensued:

ME: "How are xyz and abc doing?" (big friendly smile on my face - names changed, obviously)

HIM: "....................with?............" (it was a long, drawn-out 'wiiiiith' that had a questioning tone to it, like he had no idea to what the fuck I was referring.)

ME: (BIG CHILLS AND TINGLES UP AND DOWN MY SPINE BECAUSE CLEARLY THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE MOTHER ARE NOT SICK AT ALL--REMEMBERING XYZ'S BLACK EYE LAST YEAR AND THE SHEPHERDING SMALL-OF-THE-BACK HAND AND THE LACK OF EYE CONTACT) "Um... well... abc hasn't been here in like forever and xyz told me last week that she was sick."

HIM: "Uh yeah, well, she's, uh, doing better, yeah."

ME: (knowing I've got an opportunity to watch his reactions here while seeming completely clueless) "And when I saw xyz on Friday, she wasn't feeling well either. "

HIM: "Yeahwellshewenttothedoctorandgotsomemedicinesoshe'sdoingbetter. Come on 123, let's go."

ME: "Tell xyz and abc I said hi, and I hope they feel better soon!"

I think that abc might have a black eye too, and that's why she hasn't been to school in 2 weeks.

All my instincts tell me something is very wrong here. My bullshit detector has been going off since the beginning, but now I have more pieces, and I definitely have a puzzle.

My fears are:

(1) I'm totally off-base.
(2) There is something wrong, but it's not what I think. I suppose they could be in the witness protection program, or something.
(3) If I dig around, or let her know of my concern, or clue him in that I'm aware something is up, mom and daughter and possibly son will bear the brunt of my nosiness/concern.
(4) If there is domestic abuse here, and I suspect it but don't do anything about it, one of those children, or the mom could end up seriously hurt.

Check out #s 3 & 4 there. That's my dilemma. If I do something - they may be hurt. If I don't do something - they may be hurt.

Also, I wouldn't want to blow the whistle on a situation I am TOTALLY misreading. That would be terrible!

I feel like I don't know enough to call it either way. I can't just call the police and be like, "Officers, my womanly intuition tells me there is something amiss here. Would you please disregard probable cause and check it out?"

Ack!! I quite sincerely am at a loss.

Please let me know what you think I should do, if anything.

A Must See and A Vision

2005-10-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

This? Completely and utterly rocks.

WORD!

I don't intend for this to be a political blog, but every once in a while, I might celebrate a searingly-well-said expression of something I'd like to say, but don't have the necessary political vocabulary to do so.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

This morning on the news, there was footage of a little 4 year old Pakistani boy being rescued from the rubble. They showed the micro-camera footage from that teensy wire-like thingy that they lowered through the cracks to see if anyone was down there, and there he was. After how many days?

Simon's age.

BIG eyes and beautiful, this little little boy, still alive, and dearmercifulspiritIdon'tevenbelieveinanymore - what that innocent child must've gone through, huddled there for days all alone in the dark, with no food or water, I don't even want to comtemplate.

It really got to me. Thinking about my own small boy, and how I would feel, and how he would feel.

Or if I lost him.

And there are entire schools filled with children who are now gone. Those buildings are just dust. Flattened.

Sometimes, the sadness and the helpless fury over what goes on in this world, whether through natural phenomena or man's inhumanity, they make it difficult to breathe.

On a lighter note...

2005-10-11T13:16:00.000-07:00

Birthday Poncho!

Before Charlotte was born, I completely vetoed pink. I was all phobic, and righteously indignant about how I refused to quarantine her in the rose-colored box labeled "girls." I would have panic attacks every time someone gave me a sleeper with tiny rosebuds, and the word "pretty" scattered all over it like salt in a wound.

Why don't they say "smart?!" I would huffily exclaim to whomever would listen for .07 of a second. "Simon's and Ethan's clothes never said "handsome" all over them!"

Look at her now. She's wearing a big old pink poncho, and I LOVE it.

I'm still leery of the pink, in large doses. I still absolutely veto any article of clothing with the words "Princess," "Angel," "Cute," "Sweet," or, like, "Shopaholic" on it. Etcetera, etcetera.

But that flowered poncho snuck in right under the radar, yesiree.

Merci bien to Ashley, a true Southern lady, make-up artiste, and style maven extraordinaire who knew a Flapdoodles bargain when she saw one. And a miniature fellow fashionista.

Mission Fairy Party - Complete!

2005-10-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

Winsome little fairy - I SWEAR I didn't pose her!
Fairy Girls - Charlotte and my niece Annabelle
My artistic youngest brother Chris spends time on the scrapbook
Craft Table! That's my niece Gaelle helping Simon, my nephew Gage saluting someone in the distance, Ethan in turquoise at the end, our neighbor Aaron in the navy, and Simon's best buddy Matt with his dad in the distance. The kids are decorating their masks.
Masks Complete! Hee!
Simon, Charlotte, ErinP, and a BIG bunch of balloons!
Photographatrix extraordinaire and incredibly wonderful person Julie, having HER picture taken for a change, with Charlula the gay pride fairy. (Is that redundant?)

Also: please note BGH (!!) looming in the background on the left. With his brand new big gay mustache! (See my Un! Comfortable! entry in the September archives for explanation of BGH.)
Sometimes she just doesn't even look real to me. I swear. How did that achingly adorable little creature come from me? I am so lucky.

The party was a great success. We are wallowing in an embarrassment of riches. Charlotte passed out at 5 pm on the way home, and hasn't woken up since. We just finished our pizza, and soon we shall be slumbering all. I'm exhausted. I was up until 2 am last night getting everything together, and going over my to-do list, and worrying, and checking out new blogs. Hee! Oh, and watching Saturday Night Live, which was hilarious for a change! (I have a tiny crush on Jon Heder now.) I'll have to provide party particulars tomorrow.

Nighty Night!

Overheard at Breakfast

2005-10-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

My husband and Simon were having a conversation this morning. I was listening. Guess what I learned?

Simon has monster friends. Here are their names:

Giant Tarantula
Blue Power Ranger
Really Strong Light
Door That Whacks You
TV That Stings You
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First of all, I don't think that the Blue Power Ranger would enjoy being characterized as a monster. Sure, he wears a mask, but he's a crime fighter, and thusly wears the requisite uniform!

Secondly, TV that stings you? Surreal. Creepy. I give it a 9 on the unintentional irony scale.

Door that whacks you? Understandable. Especially when you're 4. That one's a mutha.

But I gotta say... Really Strong Light?

BEWARE the *Really* *Strong* *LIGHT*!!!

I wonder what happened to him to engender the Really Strong Light monster. And then what happened that allowed him to befriend it. In his MIND.

Heh. I love my small boy.

Naked Jakes

2005-10-08T11:20:00.000-07:00

My husband has no idea at all how cool I am.

Well, he used to, sort of.

We met initially in film class, when he was like, all of 21, and I was, like, 29, and dating some 19 year old I had met at the coffee shop where I studied late at night and graded papers and stuff. I know... You don't have to say it... LUCKY! Hee. Well, ok, it was sort of lame. But also fun!

Anyway, husband was this shySHYshy Eddie-Vedder-looking long-haired hippy boy who always wore the same brown cords and forest green zip-up sweatshirt jacket, and had little round glasses. He and I and some crazy dude were the only 3 smokers, so we met on smoke breaks. And as it was an evening class, after a bit, he graciously offered to walk me to my car. Sheniqua, I called her. She was my giant, ghetto, white 1986 Mercury Grand Marquis with tan leather interior. Which used to belong to my grandma. Loved that car.

I could sort of tell he had kind of a crush on me. I was all busy being my flamboyantly-sexy-dressing, gothy self. All up in fishnets in the middle of summer. You know. Plus, he was just sooooooo shy, and cute, but in more of a awwww-little-puppy-can-I-pat-you-on-the-head sort of way.

So we went our separate ways.

A year or so later, I saw him again, working in the campus coffee shop, and he had cut his hair, and it was like when Jon BonJovi cut his mop off and suddenly he was cute! It was like that! Andy was rowr! Meow! CUTE! (Which is the total opposite of how it usually works with me, in that boys usually have to grow their hair OUT for me to find them cute. Hmmm.)

So I began flirting with him hardcore, and stopping in all the time, remembering how he had this little shyboy crush on me and thinking I could just snap my fingers and whisk him into my lair or something. But, curiously, he DID NOT FLIRT BACK WITH ME!!!

What is this?

Who is this boy who thinks he can resist me?

I was hooked.

Andy says now that he was totally doing that on purpose, that playing hard to get, but I don't know if I believe him. He might have been just too shy to flirt. Maybe. I still don't know...

See how he still keeps me on my toes? Smart, that.

Anyway, so here was this meek little shyhippyboy who wouldn't flirt back with me, and was now more irresistibly cute than ever, and so I began pulling out all the stops to try to attract his notice. One time, I was outside in the courtyard smoking, and I noticed him come out of the building and sit down right outside it, on the steps, and so I thought for sure he would notice me, as I WAS wearing my totally noticeable blue velvet ensemble, and so I affected a wan and sad pose, and stared sadly at my feet, and the sky, and sighed a lot -- clearly an open invitation for him to come over and ask what was wrong and attempt to comfort me -- but he TOTALLY IGNORED ME, finished smoking and went back in the building!

What EEEZ THEES?! Does. Not. Compute!

And he never gave me free coffee either. Which I found out later was standard practice, the free coffee, amongst the coffee shop employees, for their friends and acquaintances, and potential lovahs. But not me. Harumpf. I'll never let him forget that.

So then later I signed up for a Dickens and Eliot grad seminar, and lo and behold there he was in the class, and I had just broken up with cheater-cheater-pumpkin-eater from my Grad School Grudge entry, and was smarting hard from that whole experience, and so I basically cornered him and forced him to go out with me. And he went home and changed into a big, creamy fair isle fisherman sweater, and was all creamy and chocolatey and delicious and the rest is history. Pretty soon we were rockin' Sheniqua and drinking bottles of wine on late night playgrounds and getting married, and stuff.

So he used to know I was cool.

He says that he signed up for that seminar in the first place because he knew I'd be in it. *blush* *grin* And he was right. The Victorians, they are my peeps.

He did this because I was interesting and attractive.

But lately I'm so freaking domestic and rushed and busy and mom that I don't seem so cool anymore. And most of those old sexy clothes don't fit any more. (For NOW! They WILL AGAIN!!)

So I'm only cool and fun when I go out with my theatre friends (because I met them at the dinner theatre where we all worked - Beef & Boards), Erin P., Ashley, and Philbug.

We are, respectively: Pregnor, Adultor, Lesbor, and the Sodomite. PALS. So christened by Andy, the ever-hilarious. I'm Pregnor. Those names reveal something about us. Can you guess? HEE!!

With these people I am still hilarious, and I feel great about myself. I bask in their good company. So last night, Andy and I went to the opera (Bizet's The Pearl Fishers), in which Phil (the Sodomite) was a chorus member, and then met Ashley (Lesbor) for after-show drinks at the Red Key Tavern. At like 11:30! At night! The Red Key is a delightful little old-skool imbibing establishment where the jukebox only plays 40s standards, and the cranky owner is this WWII buff, who has all these model airplanes hanging from the ceiling, and all these rules about proper behavior on the part of his patrons, and he WILL kick you out if you don't hang up your coat on the coat rack or say thank you to the waitress. He's sort of like the Soup Nazi, but more loveably curmudgonly, and has quite a cult following.

Anyway, sadly ErinP (Adultor) couldn't join us, but 2 out of 3 ain't bad. So I was determined to 1) prove to Andy how cool and funny I still am and 2) have a fantastic date night followed by some good good lovin'. I had gotten my 15 year old niece, who owed me babysitting time because I bought her a black arm band at the Green Day concert, to agree to stay pretty late, and we were set.

SO. MUCH. FUN! From the diva's boob almost popping out on stage; to the boy dancer almost dropping the girl dancer on her head; to Andy's hand on my thigh in the darkness during the performance; to the waitress making fun of me for ordering a slow gin fizz; to the 2 "Naked Jakes" I actually drank; to the happy buzz; to the 2 cigarettes Andy lit for me and I smoked (I KNOW! Shh! I'm not starting up again, I promise); to regaling everyone with stories about how back in the 90s when I was the most. affected. thing. ever. I used to totally and quite seriously use one of those telescoping cigarette holders to smoke, even in the CAR, and I used to use a MUFF instead of gloves or mittens in the winter; to laughing until I cried off half my eyeliner; to the *ahem* *wink,wink, nudge, nudge,* it was PERFECT! Yaaaaaaaaaaayyy!

My husband still loves me, and still sees me! Wahooooooo!!!!!

God I needed that.

Plus: I'm still cool. What a relief!

Can't Stop!

2005-10-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

Goodie Bags!
Centerpieces! With fairies and birdies!

I've been running around like a crazy person the past few days. Too much to do! Too little time!

And I can't stop now! Going on a date to the opera with handsome husband later!

But I had to take a sec and post these pictures because I'm all HIGH from the creativity. Seriously. I'm not a very original person at all. I can play any piano piece you stick in front of me, but I can't make stuff up. I can follow any recipe, but I can't experiment. I can fix stuff, and improve it, but can't imagine it.

Except for now. I went to JoAnn's Craft store and found a clearance bonanza and totally made the centerpieces for the fairy party all out of my head. And they're so cute! And the goodie bags with the blank masks attached? Craft for the kids to do at the party. LOVE!

And the rest of the decorations are going to rock. I can't wait to post the pictures. Fairies!

I truly, actually feel high. I made something!

Whisper to a Scream

2005-10-04T15:10:00.000-07:00

Why is there New Order on a Payless commercial?

Why is there Talk Talk and Soft Cell and Split Enz wafting through the aisles at Kroger?

When did MY 80s music become muzak?

I think I'd understand better if it were the lame 80s music that were being piped into elevators and on-hold systems. You know, main stream pop like Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, and DeBarge, and Night Rider, and Survivor. Even the Thompson Twins. That's what most people were listening to in the 80s, right? And wouldn't the advertisers and marketing folks of today prefer to reach the widest possible audience? So wouldn't they want to play the bland, mass-airplay stuff that most people are familiar with?

Because I'd really like to go on believing that I was extremely special and arty in my taste in music in the 80s, thank you very much. I was the ONLY one at my school who listened to Modern English, and General Public, and English Beat, and Joy Division, and Bow Wow Wow, and Ultravox, and Icicle Works, and OMD. I totally WAS! Probably one of the very few in Indiana. Perhaps one of only a score or so in the Midwest. Right?

Right.

Stupid advertising/marketing morons.

#1 Baby

2005-10-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

Aren't the neighbors' flowers tasty?
HA! She looks possessed... with cuteness!
Sweet Charlotte is one today.

This calls for some lists:

Nicknames for Charlotte -
Lula
Lulu
Lula-Finula
Lula-Petula
Lula-Pula
Lula Bird
Lottie
Lottie-Lula
Little Miss
Miss Baby

Words and Phrases Charlotte Hears Most Often -
Hushie
No No
Charlotte!
Good Girl!
Where's my nose?
Yay!
It's ok - just one step - come on - you can do it...
Don't eat the book! (picture/cd/phone/gravel/kleenex/soap...)
Make a drum! Bang bang!
Be gentle with the kitty
I love you
Who's upside down?!
Jump!
Where's your shoe?
What's that in your mouth?

Things Charlotte Can Do -
Say mama and baba and uh oh
Point
Wave hello and goodbye
Find your nose
Climb down from the couch
Climb up the baby gate
Climb up stairs
Unroll an entire roll of toilet paper
Brush her hair
Wash her tummy
Get food on a spoon or fork into her mouth
Take down Simon in a wrestling match
Play a cd on the stereo
Make a random phone call
Dance
Make brothers play fetch
Flirt

Reasons Why I Love Her -
She is hilarious.
She loves me back.
She cries when I leave.
She has chocolate brown eyes like her daddy.
She likes shoes and hats.
She twirls her pigtails.
She wrinkles her nose when she smiles.
She points her toes.
She loves pickles.
She's fearless.
She's teensy.
She reminds me what it is to be a girl.

Happy Birthday, Charlotte.

It took you only an hour and a half to make your way out of me. You seem to be in rather a hurry to make your own way in the world, eating, crawling, and talking faster than your brothers. I hope you won't be in such a hurry to grow on up and out of here, though. Because I love having you around, you sweet, smart, silly, sassafrass baby.

Senior Smack Down!

2005-10-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

I was going to write about how when I went into the MAC Cosmetics store this weekend for some eye shadow refills and a new brush, I discovered a whole room full of other girls who, like me, clearly believe they are big old drag queens.

But I got dissed by an otherwise perfectly friendly old lady at the bank, and that just takes precedence.

Charlotte was squirming and babbling cutely and climbing me as I waited in line, with Simon weaving figure 8s around the rope-divider-pole thingies, totally not obnoxiously. But this type of behavior is difficult to ignore, particularly when the children are as charming as mine (hee), so we usually make friends with several older folks whenever we spend time at the bank.

So perfectly friendly old lady gets to her teller window just as I get to mine (Jim, the fellow who obviously has a big old, sad crush on me. Not bragging. Just saying.), and she's making conversation and asking about Charlotte, and I mention that Charlotte is turning one tomorrow. And everyone around expresses congratulations as well as disbelief, because Charlotte is just so teensy weensy. So I say, yes, she has always been little bitty. She's just a petite little thing.

And then it happens.

Otherwise perfectly friendly old lady says, "And she came from you?!"

!!!

Excuse me, but WHAT THE FUCK?!

Am I Jabba the Hut over here?!? (Actually, I guess I'd be Gardula the Hut, because she is the female Hut from the recent SW films, and I've just revealed to you exactly HOW giant a nerd I really am.)(And a humongous nerd I may be, but I'm not a freaking HUT!!!)

Little old lady just called me a fat ass! To my face! In front of Jim, the 53 year old bank teller who crushes on me! And cute gay Todd, the snappily-dressed drive-through teller whose approval I am trying so hard to win! And everyone else!

I know she wasn't saying I'm tall, because I'm 5'2, people.

I'm a Hut.

Jesus. And I kind of thought I was lookin' alright today.

Little Pitchers

2005-10-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

Something Simon said a while ago has been haunting me.

That's my cue to write it down, I'm beginning to figure out.

Andy and I were fussing and arguing in front of him, as he sat in his place at the dinner table.

His comment?

"Stop it. You're taking the love out of my heart."

...

Pretty eloquent, that.

I remember how I used to feel - so scared and unmoored - when my parents would fight. Simon summed up that hollow-chested, elemental fear brilliantly.

I WILL think about this next time we grown-ups need to have a "discussion."

Monkey Trampoline is totally the name of my next band

2005-10-02T23:06:00.000-07:00

Look at that blue sky. Look at it. Gracious!

This unbelievably gorgeous day was followed by one of those Midwestern sunsets that has only been rivaled, in my experience, by the sun sinking into the ocean, framed by the cliffs, on the isle of Corfu, in Greece.

Here in Indiana it's so dang flat that the horizon goes on forever, and the late summer sunsets look like a giant celestial rainbow has lowered itself and stretched out for a lazy pre-dinner nap. And at the very end, just before it's alltheway dark, there is this amazing imperial purple stage, with just a hint of a poppy red semi-circle where the sun has sunk below the horizon.

There's a lot I dislike about Indiana, politics and humidity and rednecks and too-much-sports-not-enough-arts issues, but the sunsets rule.

... As do enormous, inflatable monkeys on trampolines.

And little monkeys too.

Strange Girl

2005-09-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

Top Ten Weird Things About Me

10. Some days I eat nothing but chocolate and coffee.

9. I often think I'm really a gay man in a woman's body.

8. I can't fall asleep with the closet door open because the monsters might get me.

7. I bite my toenails.

6. Sometimes I listen to the TV on the car radio. Even "America's Funniest Home Videos," which I would never watch on the actual TV.

5. I cry tears of queerness when I watch cheerleading competitions, because I'm just so darn proud of those hardworking kids.

4. I can make myself believe my own lies.

3. I love to smell my husband's forehead. Mmmmm... sunshiney!

2. I have ESP. Sometimes.

1. I am terrified of Chuck Woolery.

T.M.I.

2005-09-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

I just went and got some rather heavy-duty birth control.

Hold on a sec... I have to take a couple of deep breaths and center myself.

OK. I got an... *shiver* Damnation! I can't say it.

Even though I like to consider myself a pretty cool, liberal person, I cannot talk about my... hoo hoo, and its goings on.

Can't do it.

My upbringing, I guess. When it came time to have the talk with my mother, she drove me to the library, the one with the red-headed, bespectacled librarian man I had known all my life, and sat me down and spoke to him in hushed tones that were nonetheless clearly audible to EVERYONE IN THE LIBRARY about how I was so very smart and advanced, and that it was time for me to learn about... grownup lady things like MENSTRUATING VAGINAS and INTERCOURSE FOR PROCREATIVE PURPOSES and stuff like that, so would HE please point out some suitable educational non-fiction for me, at an appropriately challenging AND AGONIZINGLY EMBARRASSING reading level, please. Thank you very much.

Dear God, are you there? It's me, Grudge Girl.

So even though I can DO things, and I believe I can do them quite well (judging from reactions), and I very much enjoy doing them, I certainly can NEVER TALK ABOUT THEM.

Perhaps I can write about them?

Here goes. I. Got. An. IUD. (and... cleansing breath)

Of course, I have to be careful when I DO do things, because I am the most fertile person alive. Well, except for that wack fundie lady who was on that reality show, "15 Children & Pregnant Again" (I think - I'm not checkin' - I'm lazy). But I have a sneaking suspicion that if I had dropped the pretense of birth control a few years ago, I'd be neck and neck with her. Or uterus and uterus. I'd probably be winning. Or losing, depending on your point of view, I guess.

Oh dear, I'm instinctively tangent-ing away from hoo hoo talk. So yeah, birth control. NOT VERY FREAKING EFFECTIVE for me. My three kids? Conceived on the pill. Condoms? I scoff at condoms. Plus, they're just SO ludicrous-looking, and kind of yucky and slimy, and poor Andy, I KNOW he doesn't like them - what guy does? And, yes, he's really weirded out by the idea of being snipped himself, because what if I die or something and he wants to start another family with his new wife? (That's what I like to tell myself his reason is. Because I'm a masochist.) And now I'm too old for the pill anyway, so Dr. Bean, my hilarious and probably gay OB-GYN (who I have a massive unrequited crush on anyway) recommended the Mirena IUD.

I resisted the urge to Google myself into oblivion, what with the too much information, and the scary stories, and stuff. I just read the promotional materials and listened to my doctor (whom I really do trust) like a good patient.

But when it came time to go do this today, I started freaking out. First of all, you have to have the things inserted when you're (breathe) on your period. EWWWWW!!!!! Nobody sees that but me!!! Secondly, I think I internalized a fear of IUDs because of the weird Dalcon Shield problems, and some scary IUD stories that happened in the 70s, when I was just a wee grudgeling, but a well-read and alert one, so I paid attention to stuff, apparently filing it away for just this moment in my future.

But thirdly - and this is the weirdest of all - this is a commitment to 5 years of no more babies. Like, it's DONE. No more surprises. Not that we were planning on having any more! Of COURSE we weren't! My God, we'd have to go live in a Dickensian poorhouse if we had another baby. But still. Mentally, I had to surrender fully to that no-more-babies plan. That means I will never get to be pregnant again. For real. I can't even dream about it now. And the weight is here to stay, until I get off my ass and make the time to work it off, because I can't get pregnant and put off the weight-loss until after the baby. And I won't get to experience carrying babies any more. And you know what? I LOVE being pregnant. (I can hear Andy laughing) I know it gets rough towards the end, but still. Being pregnant rules.

And I won't get to deliver another one, and witness Andy's raw love for me in the delivery room. He's the type of guy who doesn't express WANTON PASSIONATE LOVE all the time. He's low-key. Not so verbal. Not Gothy-romantic-poet-ish. So I only get to experience expressions of big, teary love at the births of babies, or, presumably, if I got in a car wreck, and he were worried he might lose me. I guess I'll just have to wait for that, then.

And - no more babies. And I love my babies. They're beautiful! And smart and wonderful and charming and... cool. Andy and I have talked about how if we were rich, we would SO have another one, because we make really good babies, and I'm pretty darn good at havin' em. Plus, there's a part of me that wonders what another one might be like, you know?

So I guess I'm a little sad. I feel slightly ridiculous, but so what. I'm sad, damnit.

And (breathe) crampy.

And the (breathe) (ahem) insertion procedure was not blindingly awful. Just a couple notches above regular-old-visit-to-the-OB-GYN awful. With added cramps, for her displeasure! So now they have to check it in a month, and then I'm apparently good to go for 5 years. Lighter (in, out, in, out) periods and no extra precautions necessary. Lower levels of hormones than the pill. No added risk of cervical cancer or weepiness. (Shoot. I was kind of hoping for that excuse.) No weight gain. (Shoot. I was kind of hoping for that excuse.)

I guess we'll see. Dr. Bean assured me that I won't get pregnant. If there's a .0000006 chance of anyone getting pregnant with this thing in, though, it'll be me. Look for me on the Today Show, sitting Indian style in the chair (the only way I can sit when I'm pregnant), discussing my upcoming lawsuit against Mirena, because their faulty product failed me. Hey, we'll have to get money to support baby #4 somehow! How much do you think we can get for pain and suffering?

My Inner Smarm

2005-09-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

God. Three days of intense rushing about. The Indianapolis Children's Choir is going to New York in March, and the trip will cost $1700. DANG! But Ethan will be able to sing at Carnegie Hall if we can make this happen. He'll also get to do all the other New York-y stuff like seeing a Broadway show (lucky!), and touring Ellis Island, and Chinatown, and all kinds of other fun stuff. With his friends. Not his parents.

But $1700! Egad!

We could sell 5 million tons of candy, wrapping paper, plants, and baked goods, but I. REFUSE. I hate that shit.

OR... I could try to sell ad space in the program brochure, at $250, $550, or $1000 a pop, depending on the size, and Ethan gets 50% of each sale. So that's definitely the route we want to take.

I, however, being a fairly recent choir mom, was unfamiliar with this process, AS WELL AS misinformed, because I was told we couldn't start selling space until the spring. For some reason. But I found out on Monday that we could sell up until THIS FRIDAY! September 30th!

I have spent the last few days wracking my brain and my husband's brain, and hitting up every local business person I have worked for, or supported with my consumer dollars, as well as a few friends. I have run copies of contracts, and last year's program, and run around town getting lost delivering copies, and being late to pick up carpool, and spent countless minutes leaving messages and taking messages, and writing heartfelt (read: manipulative) two page letters to former employers, and now I'm just waiting... waiting...

Seriously, by yesterday afternoon, you'd have thought from my spiel that I'd been working in marketing for 20 years. I'm that good. Heh.

I've got pretty good prospects at: my son's school; a dinner theatre where I used to work; a local kids' haircut place; a darling, local, kids'-themed-birthday-throwing business; a generous and loving photographer friend of mine; and a mortgage broker gal who married my husband's friend even though she clearly still has the hots for my husband (as evidenced by the fact that at their wedding 2 summers ago, she delivered all of her vows to Andy, over her fiance's shoulder - and this hilarity was captured on film)(and don't think I wasn't ok with him using his masculine wiles to try to wrangle us some dough, nosiree).

I've got until Friday. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you are poor, and want to make something amazing happen for your kid. I can enter the capitalist marketplace with gusto, and an eerie acumen for confident salesmanship. Salespersonship?

Heh. Of course the lingo will trip me up every time. Silly me.

On a less boring note, Charlotte likes hats! She's getting her 8th tooth, and she's cranky, and as I was carting her around this evening, I pulled open her hat drawer (they have remained in the drawer up to this point because she has always had enough hair not to require a hat, even on the sunniest days, and also because she would immediately pull off anything I put on her head), and stuck a little pink jobbie on her head and showed her her reflection in the mirror, and she was enchanted! She points now, too, which is totally cute. So she was giggling and pointing, and I put another hat on my own head, which she thought was HI-LARIOUS, and pretty soon we were holding a fashion show for the boys, who humored us politely. Because we are fashion girls!

Hats! I wonder if I can pass along my obsession with vintage coats, too. Heh heh heh.

Sickies

2005-09-26T18:18:00.000-07:00

We stayed home from preschool today, and it would appear that Simon, in his delerium, is seeing things. See the red ear? Sure sign of fever.

Prescription? Simpsons, Spooky, Squirt bottle, and Squishy jacket.

Four is the loneliest number...

2005-09-26T16:16:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned that I count everything in fours?

My steps, my breaths, bites of food, M&Ms, strokes of a hairbrush, sneezes. EVERYthing.

I always thought this was because I had so many years of musical training. Four just feels complete to me, like a measure.

But then I read that obsessive counting of random things is a symptom of schizophrenia.

Uh oh.