UPDATE: Herein I agonize a bit about voting and political choices, and wonder if the box I marked today will have any ramifications. Let me just say that I can answer that question already: it did. Long story short, my husband and I made up after a semi-long discussion/fight/reconciliation/more fight/more discussion that peaked with me screeching "I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE FOR WHO I VOTED FOR!" and storming outside to throw the trash away with severe prejudice while muttering dirty words.
(Yes, folks, it was that bad. I was so upset I didn't even notice my sentence ended with a preposition.)
So yeah, I voted today, and it occurred to me that more of my online acquaintances would have been able to predict which box I marked than the folks I see regularly in "real" life. This would be true even if I wasn't a computer nerd who needs to get out more. And it didn't really seem right.
I have a colorful political heritage, both in terms of my family background and personal journey. I won't bore you with details (largely because if I ever see you or currently do already, I'll gladly bore you in person), but suffice it to say that most members of my close and close-ish family, my husband's entire family and most of my social and professional circles are vivid, dark shades of red or blue.
My dad, for one, was a through-and-through conservative Republican and huge Reagan fan. I actually have a shirt I inherited from him hidden somewhere, emblazoned with large red letters "Top 10 Reasons to Elect Rush Limbaugh for President." ("Knows it was 'Adam and Eve,' not 'Adam and Steve,'" and other such gems.) To be fair, this was before Limbaugh was a total raving racist. Also to be fair, my dad usually had well-reasoned thought behind his opinions, even if he opined just a tad too loudly and obnoxiously. And I ... well, I totally and completely (and with considerable justification) idolized my dad, pretty much always. So even as I was developing my own views, that colored them considerably.
My family has left leanings as well, to be sure. My uncle, for one -- my dad's brother -- is a Democratic committee member on the west side of Buffalo. It sounds like he and my dad, even growing up, sort of made a career out of playing each other's devil's advocates. I respect the hell out of them both, and it is/was edifying just to listen to what they have/had to say. The tradition throughout my family tends away from the "Don't talk about politics or religion at the dinner table" and closer to "Hash out politics, religion, and everything else over dinner, breakfast, lunch, snacks, beer, tea, coffee and coupon cutting. Make up with sarcasm and humor."
I could go on about family political ties: my mom's a beautifully nuanced political landscape: Republican but a member of Greenpeace, conservative on most moral issues ... but progressive on race and gender politics. My brother is conservative, usually, but has some of the most well-thought-out opinions of anyone of whom I consider myself a peer. My friends are liberal, about 95 percent of them. My husband's family is incapable of separating religion from politics, and thinks it should be that way. But my story is everyone's story. Few of us come from a monochromatic background. I will say that times like this tend to be slightly more ... volatile in my experience than maybe in those of some of my friends.
(I promise, this graph wraps up the preamble.) I remember when I was in grade school, we did one of those "Kids Pick the President" things. We had to fill out dummy voting cards. I knew my family's political leanings more or less, especially my dad's. But I didn't usually hear party-name talk. So when I had to bubble in an "R" or a "D," I chose the latter -- because, I reasoned, I believed in democracy above all. My dad, understandably, was crestfallen when I told him this later. I was "set straight" at the time, and spent a good several years pretty much living on the Republican party line. But I always sort of wondered about that "D." What if it was better, sometimes? I have a strong opinion on nearly everything about which I bother to have an opinion. But I wouldn't say I'm a raving liberal or conservative. I guess maybe left of center. It's not that I'm wishy-washy by any means, just that maybe if you took all my views on various issues, it'd more or less average out to there.
So here goes.
[Deep breath]
I voted for Barack Obama.
Um, yeah. I know. Big huge news, right? Well, not to most of you who follow any of my online goings-on. (I swear I have a real life. I just think it's such a rich life, why not share it on my blog? And on Facebook? And on Flickr, and science forums, and reading forums...)
The thing is, this may possibly be news to one or two people, which is shameful, for someone who's proud of being opinionated and revelatory in her writing and all that jazz.
Obama is a statesman. He's a family man. He's got growing to do, but I can see his growth enlightening rather than endangering the country. He's intellectually curious (which, really, is a biggie) and honest. And regardless of who gets the blame or credit, followers and supporters of Obama have largely behaved more respectfully and productively than many McCain supporters, which I tend to think is instructive of how the worst and best of Americans would act under either candidate as president. It may not be fair, but to some extent I bet McCain's supporters have cost him the election (along with Palin, of course). I mean, with friends like these...
And inspiration, and hope, and eloquence are not empty baubles that make Obama merely seem better. They matter. The same appeal, rhetoric and communication skills will be in play in his role as president. Yeah, sure, he rehearses the speeches and sure, McCain's slip-ups of "My fellow prisoners," "I couldn't agree with him (the guy with whom I totally disagree) more," and "cunt" instead of "cut" are just that, slip-ups that garnered way more reaction than was warranted. But McCain practiced too, didn't he? And wouldn't his future speeches be in front of a hurting country or on the precarious international stage? Are you telling me that communication, rhetoric and inspiration don't matter there? That slip-ups won't get blown out of proportion?
My husband used a good analogy the other day (though he will surely object to it being appropriated here). "Obama's got him intellectually," he admitted. "Obama would be the guy who could build a chemical treatment plant from scratch, could probably draw up the chemical structures and how they interact on the spot. But McCain's worked in them; he'd be the guy who could tell you how it all works and how it runs and what to do when the front part breaks down." That may be a fair point, and insofar as time clocked and miles walked can qualify a candidate, McCain might edge him out. But first, I think Obama can run the country capably and has had relevant experience, albeit for a shorter span of time. And second, what we need right now is some fresh air, some rebuilding, some straight-up building. We need the guy who can draw up the plans and work out the equations.
Silly as it is, I'm still nervous about this post, even though my worries are probably largely unfounded. Will I have to have the abortion argument with my husband again? (EDIT: Yes, yes I will. That and more.) The experience argument with part of my family? Will the other portion of my family be chagrined I haven't resoundingly denounced McCain? Will my extended family just outright disown me? What of the arguments of Arizona and veteran loyalty? The ethical debates? Economy issues about which I still feel unqualified to even have opinions?
But it is my choice, and I have labored long and hard, if only in my own head. And it feels disingenuous to conceal it, even by omission. Hell, it feels downright chicken shit. And though each vote counts and I feel my vote is undeniably essential, it's just like everyone's. I'm not special. I'm not anyone. Today, I'm not a writer, or a snarky conversationalist, or a long-suffering intellectual among people I secretly (and perhaps wrongly) think are less intelligent than I. I'm not the conservative one among my writer and liberal arts friends. I'm not the raving liberal among my and my husband's immediate family. I'm not the one who dare not even open her mouth among certain extended family members for fear of the fallout. I'm not the one who accidentally bubbled in the "D" instead of the "R" and spent the next two decades wondering if it was a providential slip. I'm not the pathologically conscientious mom who wonders what, if anything, to tell a six-year-old about candidates' differences.
I should never have been afraid to voice this, in real life, loudly. I'm just me, deciding here, today. I'm Kim. Not everyone will agree with me. And I voted for change. Hopefully for myself as well.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Glazed
If you're wondering why I'm semi-quiet on the blog recently, I actually have a real excuse this time. Aaron and I are looking to buy -- buy, as in our own, not renting -- our first house. I know, I know, buying a house in THIS market? But it's turning out to be relatively in our favor, providing we can manage our budget. The prices in our neck of the woods are pretty good right now, and since I'm hopeful the market will improve at least some in the next few years, it should turn out to be a decent buy.
I've been working on a few articles in the scraps of time I have between looking at houses, discussing terms, debating it with my husband and the realtor (playing the go-between, since he's virtually always at work), and reading a War and Peace-sized volume called "Disclosure Materials," but other than that I haven't been too coherent or eloquent. I'm not dumb, or irresponsible or naive, but I have to work to get a firm grasp on these kinds of things. Give me astrophysics or classical literature any day, but start talking EEM and FHA and NINA; SISA, SIVA, LPMI, BPMI, LPMI difference, and whatever else, and I start to glaze over a little.
More, and more interesting, posts to come.
In the meantime, if you were wondering what I did while waiting for callbacks on three house contracts and two interviews, or if you were wondering if I'm as nerdy as you remember, I leave you with this:
I've been working on a few articles in the scraps of time I have between looking at houses, discussing terms, debating it with my husband and the realtor (playing the go-between, since he's virtually always at work), and reading a War and Peace-sized volume called "Disclosure Materials," but other than that I haven't been too coherent or eloquent. I'm not dumb, or irresponsible or naive, but I have to work to get a firm grasp on these kinds of things. Give me astrophysics or classical literature any day, but start talking EEM and FHA and NINA; SISA, SIVA, LPMI, BPMI, LPMI difference, and whatever else, and I start to glaze over a little.
More, and more interesting, posts to come.
In the meantime, if you were wondering what I did while waiting for callbacks on three house contracts and two interviews, or if you were wondering if I'm as nerdy as you remember, I leave you with this:
Monday, October 13, 2008
50 things to do in the near to not-so-distant future (let's say within ten years)
This post is courtesy of my friend Mary, who posted her list with an open request that we follow suit. I'm posting mine here because 1) I'm selfish and want it for my own blog; and 2) I tend to publish really long comments in other people's blogs and have begun to feel silly about it.
There are a ton of things I have done, even a bunch that are popular items on "things to do" lists: I've become a parent, married, hand-fed dolphins, seen a Shakespearean play at a theater where I had to dress fancy and felt the "theatre" spelling was totally appropriate, met Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokaw in the same evening, watched the sun set countless evenings from countless locales, read several classic novels, been to both the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, climbed a mountain (several times, and got lost one of them), volunteered, gone horseback riding, slept under the stars, visited several museums and art galleries. There are also a few other "experiences" which shall remain nameless here, owing to the mixed-company readership of this blog. (Don't worry, Mom. Nothing too mortifying.)
There are also several things that by definition can't be on this list, owing to the nature of reality or my fantastic ineptitude -- things I can never do: Perform any kind of dancing, see a World Series with my father, meet Madeline L'Engle, play any sort of professional sport, sing, be a perfect housekeeper.
So, without further ado, here's a list of fifty things I haven't done, but can see myself accomplishing:
There are a ton of things I have done, even a bunch that are popular items on "things to do" lists: I've become a parent, married, hand-fed dolphins, seen a Shakespearean play at a theater where I had to dress fancy and felt the "theatre" spelling was totally appropriate, met Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokaw in the same evening, watched the sun set countless evenings from countless locales, read several classic novels, been to both the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, climbed a mountain (several times, and got lost one of them), volunteered, gone horseback riding, slept under the stars, visited several museums and art galleries. There are also a few other "experiences" which shall remain nameless here, owing to the mixed-company readership of this blog. (Don't worry, Mom. Nothing too mortifying.)
There are also several things that by definition can't be on this list, owing to the nature of reality or my fantastic ineptitude -- things I can never do: Perform any kind of dancing, see a World Series with my father, meet Madeline L'Engle, play any sort of professional sport, sing, be a perfect housekeeper.
So, without further ado, here's a list of fifty things I haven't done, but can see myself accomplishing:
- Take up a martial art, and mean it this time.
- Go on the honeymoon we never took.
- Nurture David's animal mania. Volunteer together somewhere that rehabilitates or rescues animals.
- Adopt a dog.
- Get scuba certified.
- Hang glide.
- Have an article published in National Geographic.
- Be important enough to be on the other end of a big-time interview.
- Speak fluent, not just passable, Spanish.
- Learn how to play at least one instrument well.
- Continue to improve my writing, so that five years from now, I feel about today's writing like I feel today about my five-years-ago writing.
- Publish a book.
- Stop being pathologically self-conscious. (Regular self-consciousness is plenty.)
- Have another kid or two. Or don't. Either way, continue to realize how incredibly privileged I am, and how perpetually perfect (though far from flawless) our family is.
- Travel outside North America. (15b: Convince Aaron to travel outside North America.)
- Run a marathon.
- Buy a house.
- Buy a better car. Take really good care of it this time.
- Learn all the major constellations by season. Teach David.
- Get better at using my telescope; learn to take non-lousy astrophotos.
- Learn to drive a manual transmission.
- Learn to wakeboard capably, without wiping out before I'm fully up and having my nails ripped from their nail beds by the rope handle.
- Teach David all the cool little things I know, or at least all the things that excite him: origami, how to safely catch and release any of a hundred different kinds of critters, how to build a sand castle that stays up, the bajillion different versions of poker that my father taught me.
- Become more involved in my son's school activities. (While still avoiding becoming THAT parent.)
- Write that piece on Dad, religion and baseball that's been knocking around in my head, and actually publish it somewhere.
- Get an article and photos published in a quality magazine. That pays.
- See whales in the wild. Take at least two great photos of them, then put away the camera and savor the experience.
- Dive with whale sharks and manta rays. Also, see great whites from a diving cage.
- Take my husband and son down the Grand Canyon for a trip that's at least partially as awesome as I remember it. Take a zillion pictures of the falls. Watch David swim in the falls, right where I did as a kid.
- Write some poetry again, except don't suck at it this time.
- Teach David how to tie his shoelaces properly, even if none of the shoes they make have laces anymore.
- Grow my own tomatoes.
- Tell, and more importantly show, the people in my life that I love them, and do it way more often than I do now.
- Do those photo collections I have in mind, if for no other reason than to please myself.
- Be brave enough to really surprise my husband. Preferably, make it a pleasant surprise.
- Give yoga a try.
- See the Northern Lights.
- Travel somewhere completely foreign in every sense of the word, and truly live like the locals.
- Vacation in Hawaii.
- Explore a rain forest.
- Teach college writing.
- Be able to handle: Basic car maintenance (beyond just the battery and spare tire), saying no when I mean no, in-depth conversations on the economy, deadlines, intimacy.
- Fix and actually develop my defunct website. Also, come up with a better title for my blog.
- Look into my son's eyes; see myself, my husband, my parents, and the totally individual being he is all rolled up together; and bask in it.
- Horse around with my husband and son when they ask me to. Even if I don't feel like it at first. (Remember that I really love it after, like, a nanosecond. And that they don't care if my ass looks ten kinds of fat as we roll around on the bed.)
- Get to really know someone who is so different than me in life outlook or circumstances that I cannot now imagine wanting to know them.
- Read all the books on my to-be-read list. Or all the ones that are currently on my list, at any rate. I'll have added just as many more by then.
- Spend more time with my mother out in nature.
- Become competent at managing my own time.
- Stop second-guessing myself. Start now, by posting this list without going back over it to see how eloquent my goals sound.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
My meager contribution to political bloviating
I will leave the commentary on the campaign, election, presidential candidates and vice presidential candidates to more qualified bloggers, pundits, and the less-qualified who just can't help themselves, both because I'm not qualified beyond the oversaturation of news I take in each day and the stuff I subsequently look up to decode the news I take in each day; and because I'd like to sort of get my blog to a regular schedule and sort of on a consistent topic.
But I have to say this: Why does Ms. Palin think it's "time that normal Joe Six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency?" Really? Why on Earth would I want Joe Six-Pack, or any of his inexperienced kin, running this country? Shouldn't we rather prefer a president and vice president who are not the everyman? Who are better, or more experienced than the everyman, at least with regards to running a country, working with the judicial and legislative branches, foreign policy, the economy, and understanding both the power and responsibility that goes with such a role? I mean, McCain, Palin, Obama, or Biden can be dumber than me about literature, or computer code, or plumbing, or the exact science behind science, or how to make enchiladas or the relative hotness of actors appearing on the Sci-Fi channel, or really any number of other things, important or unimportant, so long as they're smarter and more experienced than me where running a country is concerned. I would assume most people who happen to be both smart enough to purchase a six-pack and not possessing any special political or executive administration expertise or knowledge -- which is most people -- feel the same way. I mean, if we're going with that philosophy -- it being time for everyone to be represented in positions, to hell with experience or qualifications -- then how about preacher with chronic Tourette's Syndrome? How about junk-food-addicted nutritionist? Why should my doctor have to have studied and practiced before he operates on me? Hell, I should've skipped the master's degree I just got; why not just start teaching college courses right now? I'm sure my opinions and vague forays into writing qualified me completely before I ever started my more intense studies or got any real professional chops. And besides that, aren't we kind of at a point where we'd like to erase the picture the international community has of Americans as a bunch of Homer Simpsons?
Does she really think we'll all say "Oh gosh golly gee, she's a commoner! Let's elect her right away!" (To which I'm sure Ms. Palin would respond "You betcha I think so! It's all about shoring up support for the common folk, and ... Alaska ... Job creation ... See, it's all about being a maverick! And if you want examples, I'll bring 'em to ya!" Or something like that.)
I think the American people are smarter than that, even if we all act like Joe Six-Pack.
EDIT: Read this article, which is far less bitchy and brings up an even better point, one that was bothering me even though I wasn't smart enough to articulate it. People are people, after all. I don't think voters much appreciate being reduced to a one-liner, like we're that supporting character on a show whose only role is to be the wise old guy or send the kids off or show up and say "Did someone say sausage?" We all have richer lives than that. Even if the candidates don't have time to address all the nuances of our different lives (and they don't), they would do well to acknowledge they exist.
But I have to say this: Why does Ms. Palin think it's "time that normal Joe Six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency?" Really? Why on Earth would I want Joe Six-Pack, or any of his inexperienced kin, running this country? Shouldn't we rather prefer a president and vice president who are not the everyman? Who are better, or more experienced than the everyman, at least with regards to running a country, working with the judicial and legislative branches, foreign policy, the economy, and understanding both the power and responsibility that goes with such a role? I mean, McCain, Palin, Obama, or Biden can be dumber than me about literature, or computer code, or plumbing, or the exact science behind science, or how to make enchiladas or the relative hotness of actors appearing on the Sci-Fi channel, or really any number of other things, important or unimportant, so long as they're smarter and more experienced than me where running a country is concerned. I would assume most people who happen to be both smart enough to purchase a six-pack and not possessing any special political or executive administration expertise or knowledge -- which is most people -- feel the same way. I mean, if we're going with that philosophy -- it being time for everyone to be represented in positions, to hell with experience or qualifications -- then how about preacher with chronic Tourette's Syndrome? How about junk-food-addicted nutritionist? Why should my doctor have to have studied and practiced before he operates on me? Hell, I should've skipped the master's degree I just got; why not just start teaching college courses right now? I'm sure my opinions and vague forays into writing qualified me completely before I ever started my more intense studies or got any real professional chops. And besides that, aren't we kind of at a point where we'd like to erase the picture the international community has of Americans as a bunch of Homer Simpsons?
Does she really think we'll all say "Oh gosh golly gee, she's a commoner! Let's elect her right away!" (To which I'm sure Ms. Palin would respond "You betcha I think so! It's all about shoring up support for the common folk, and ... Alaska ... Job creation ... See, it's all about being a maverick! And if you want examples, I'll bring 'em to ya!" Or something like that.)
I think the American people are smarter than that, even if we all act like Joe Six-Pack.
EDIT: Read this article, which is far less bitchy and brings up an even better point, one that was bothering me even though I wasn't smart enough to articulate it. People are people, after all. I don't think voters much appreciate being reduced to a one-liner, like we're that supporting character on a show whose only role is to be the wise old guy or send the kids off or show up and say "Did someone say sausage?" We all have richer lives than that. Even if the candidates don't have time to address all the nuances of our different lives (and they don't), they would do well to acknowledge they exist.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
On not taking pictures
(Moved from my Flickr page because it's more writing than picture, and because Leslie's right. Flickr, if you don't know, is a photo-sharing site that sees entirely too much of me. Of course, if I was a photographer instead of a writer by trade, I'd probably find some way to write stuff while neglecting my photography. I am indeed a moron.)
We went on a long walk the other day and we both brought our cameras. He's got my old H2, which is hella camera for a six-year-old, but between its past performance and his growing skill, it seemed like a good marriage. And it usually is. But this evening sucked for picture-taking. His battery was half-dead, my lens had a grain that I could see but not locate, all the bugs flew away as soon as we neared, a veritable throng of kids descended from seemingly nowhere making this noise, scaring away any remaining wildlife. The light sucked. Finally, out of frustration at his frustration (he looked like he wanted to murder the camera, but refused to just let it be and enjoy the scenery -- stubborn? just a tad), I mandated that we put the cameras away. (I wanted to keep mine out, but figured I should set an example.)
The evening opened up for us. The sky deepened to melon-orange and this vivid purply shade that was the exact color of an eye shadow my best friend and I wore when we were David's age and convinced it was exotic (I secretly still think so). The clouds, boring and grayish only a minute earlier, took on a bruised, brownish indigo look. I wanted to take the camera back out, but then he leaned on my shoulder. So we just sat. The most gigantic darner I'd ever seen landed a few feet away from us. We didn't care that it was now too dark to get a good shot. We just watched it. A cormorant appeared at unexpected places in the water at our feet, periscoping up right in front of us, diving and popping up almost a full minute later off to our left, then down again and up in thirty seconds, so distant now it was barely visible.
This is the only shot I took and saved that night. On our way back a tiny something streaked into our path. I thought it was a grasshopper at first, they're so abundant lately, but it was this young gecko, almost too small and fragile to pick up. We did anyway, because it seemed to have a baffling affinity for hiding under folks' feet. It clung there, making David's tiny hands look giant, until he relocated it safely to the brush. A half-dozen other people walked by, and he didn't even see them.
"This one's special," said a passing man, nodding to my son. I got a little choked up, so only nodded and smiled.
Taking pictures has helped me notice things I never did before. But sometimes, putting the camera away helps me really see them.
We went on a long walk the other day and we both brought our cameras. He's got my old H2, which is hella camera for a six-year-old, but between its past performance and his growing skill, it seemed like a good marriage. And it usually is. But this evening sucked for picture-taking. His battery was half-dead, my lens had a grain that I could see but not locate, all the bugs flew away as soon as we neared, a veritable throng of kids descended from seemingly nowhere making this noise, scaring away any remaining wildlife. The light sucked. Finally, out of frustration at his frustration (he looked like he wanted to murder the camera, but refused to just let it be and enjoy the scenery -- stubborn? just a tad), I mandated that we put the cameras away. (I wanted to keep mine out, but figured I should set an example.)
The evening opened up for us. The sky deepened to melon-orange and this vivid purply shade that was the exact color of an eye shadow my best friend and I wore when we were David's age and convinced it was exotic (I secretly still think so). The clouds, boring and grayish only a minute earlier, took on a bruised, brownish indigo look. I wanted to take the camera back out, but then he leaned on my shoulder. So we just sat. The most gigantic darner I'd ever seen landed a few feet away from us. We didn't care that it was now too dark to get a good shot. We just watched it. A cormorant appeared at unexpected places in the water at our feet, periscoping up right in front of us, diving and popping up almost a full minute later off to our left, then down again and up in thirty seconds, so distant now it was barely visible.
This is the only shot I took and saved that night. On our way back a tiny something streaked into our path. I thought it was a grasshopper at first, they're so abundant lately, but it was this young gecko, almost too small and fragile to pick up. We did anyway, because it seemed to have a baffling affinity for hiding under folks' feet. It clung there, making David's tiny hands look giant, until he relocated it safely to the brush. A half-dozen other people walked by, and he didn't even see them.
"This one's special," said a passing man, nodding to my son. I got a little choked up, so only nodded and smiled.
Taking pictures has helped me notice things I never did before. But sometimes, putting the camera away helps me really see them.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Come on get down with the sickness
I've been battling a cold/general suckiness for a few days. I finally gave up and took some cold medicine, but since I: a) have nothing but drowsy-making stuff and b) waited until it got so bad I didn't care and took it anyway, I'm really struggling now to maintain a modicum of competence and non-idiocy. (Cold meds affect me like a tranquilizer dart would affect a normal person.) So I hpoe you'll all excuse any missssssssssspellings and forgvie me if I seem out of.
dfaasd;klfjasfoweiruj?;;;;;;;asdfiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
Aaand we're back. Sort of.
I was going to finish a list-type essay dedicated to my husband (who is freaking out about his upcoming 29th birthday; apparently 29 is the new 30, which is the new 70), but I'm stuck about halfway through. Until my neurons fire up once again, please accept this illness-themed story in its place.
When I was a few days shy of eight years old, to celebrate the end of school, my mother took my brother, my sister and I to Fiesta Mall.
(For any Arizonans who might remember, this was back when the neighborhood of Fiesta Mall and the vicinity was considered semi-upscale, at least by us. I once went, hold onto your hats, all the way to the top (sixteen stories!) of the neighboring Bank of America building. These were indeed happening times.)
The outing was doomed. As we walked across approximately fifty-seven miles of boiling-hot parking lot toward the mall entrance, either the heat or the long day or a heretofore undetected bug got the best of me. I staggered to the nearest curbed-off island of gravel and oleanders (this is considered fancy landscaping in these parts) and abruptly emptied the contents of my stomach into the rocks.
My mom was mildly concerned about this, and asked if I was OK. I told her I felt better, but thirsty. Needless to say, she wasn't overly eager to bring a potential vomit-time-bomb into the mall, so we piled back in the car and headed home. During the trip I whined, no less than four and a half billion times, that I was really really thirsty.
When we arrived home my mom gave me a glass of water.
"Sip it," she advised. "Sip! Slowly!" she repeated as I gulped it.
"But I'm sooooo thirsty," I whined in a cracked whisper, in the tones of someone who is moments from death by dehydration -- for I knew this clearly to be the case, however ignorant my mother was of the fact.
"You just threw up. Sip. Slowly. Slowly!"
I gulped it. Naturally.
Approximately thirty seconds later, I beat it down the hall for a very urgent appointment with the toilet, vaguely wishing I'd had knee pads for my crash-landing.
My mom, of course, showed the proper amount of sympathy -- or rather, she displayed what she deemed the proper amount of sympathy. Here is how she showed just how very concerned she was: While I was in the bathroom, presenting my copious offering to the porcelain god, she walked in with a purposeful stride and a gallon jug full to the brim with water.
"Here," she said, plopping the jug on the bathroom counter with such enthusiasm that its plastic sides bowed and rippled, and had it not been securely capped, its contents would have fountained upward in eerie synchronization with the contents of my stomach.
"Here," she repeated. "Drink up. Drink all you want."
(My mom claims not to remember this, but says she believes it, as it sounds just like something she'd do, and just like something I would have done.)
With that, she turned on her heel and left again with my brother and sister. I assume now that either a) they only retired to the living room, front yard, or swimming pool; or b) she arranged for proper supervision before departing, but I was too busy feeling sorry for myself and entertaining notions of witch-mothers abandoning their dying progeny to notice which of these scenarios actually took place.
Miraculously, I survived.
But here's the thing: I think she was exactly right.
My mom was pretty consistent in this attitude -- she showed considerable concern if anything was really wrong with any of us; say, the time I broke my arm so that my wrist neighbored my elbow, or the time my sister went careening down a tree and slashed her thigh open, or the time my brother came down with some disease, which remained mysterious in nature or origin but which left him bearing a striking resemblance to Jeff Golblum's character in The Fly, mid-transformation -- but unless there was something really wrong, in her view, there was nothing really wrong.
What constituted sick and/or injured, and garnered a modicum of sympathy, in my mom's view:
Of course, if we had a real illness, one that could be infectious, she'd keep us home from school. But "real illness" was defined as "something more serious than the common cold, with demonstrable symptoms, that was not brought about by the sufferer's own stupidity."
To her own credit, my mom applies these standards to herself with even more stringent adherence than she uses on anyone else. She recently got out of the hospital, where she spent a month in what would have been a completely incapacitated state for any normal human (not just laid up, but laid flat-out, wiped out, bodily rebellion). But my mom is not any normal human. She wrote thank-yous, kept in touch with just about everyone, made sure things were running smoothly at work in her absence, and actually made an effort (and succeeded) to entertain my sister, my brother and I when we visited, so that it felt more like an afternoon chatting on the couch than an afternoon in a hospital room.
My mom, incidentally, will deny that it was a big deal: Some garbage about how she didn't write that many thank-yous; or that she only checked on work, didn't really do much; or that we were the ones going to the effort during visits. She lies. She's amazing.
She's always been like this, at least for my entire life. It was about more than just her high standards for herself, though she has that in spades. And it was about more than just her disinclination to allow us to skip school, though there certainly was that.
Because of my mom, I've tried to apply the same standards to myself for years. I woke up today with -- in addition to a burgeoning cold -- a migraine and, er, bathroom problems, and went about my day, as much as I wanted to melt into nothing. I also apply them to my family. This isn't always always a popular policy; just ask my husband ("So your blood sugar's low. Here. Sugar. Eat."), or my son. ("You still have to brush your teeth, clean your room and pick up your dirty socks, no matter what aches.") My heart is full of nothing but mushy, cheesy emotion for my son. It's where I keep the squeaky clean language and knowledge of cartoons, where I store comforting songs and tricks for making it feel better. It's covered in crayon-written messages and drawings of dinosaurs and hearts. Big googly-eyed turtles hold the whole mess directly against my heart with the strongest of magnets. But my mama, as you might guess, didn't raise no fool.
For instance, my son wanted to say up late last night. He is evidently of the opinion that we hold secret nightly parties as soon as he closes his eyes. One of fastest ways into my sympathies, the little sucker has figured out, is to have something wrong with him. And sympathy takes time, and time means later bedtime. So he played pathetic.
"Moooom, I have a sniffly nose. And I feel funny ("Funny" turned out to be "tired" when I asked him to describe it. Tired at bedtime. Go figure.) And, I have a leg ache, and my feet itch."
"Do you have a gash, a rash and purple bumps?"
"What?"
"Nothing. You're fine. Bedtime."
But it wasn't until recently that I figured out what I like best about my mom's philosophy: It's a whole outlook on life, an all-encompassing; straightforward; no-bullshit-taking approach to everything. My son might occasionally try to play sick for sympathy, but his heart isn't really in it. Being well is so much more fun. And sickness, well, that's just life. I took him with me to visit my mom in the hospital. She had managed to procure a second hospital gown to layer over the first and so was afforded some small amount of dignity, but otherwise was as you'd expect: wires, tubes, IVs, beeping stuff, blinking lights and digital readouts, the hatrack-looking thing that all the bags and tubes hang from.
"Oh," a friend comented when I told her later about the trip. "Wasn't he scared?"
"No, it's fine now. My mom'll be in there for a little while longer, but she'll be fine. David knows that."
"I mean all the hospital stuff. Wasn't he scared of all that?" (She pronounced hospital stuff the way you might pronounce leprosy lesions.)
"Nah. We explained it all ahead of time. He had a great time."
"Are you kidding?"
"What?"
"'A great time?' You are joking, right?"
"Uh, actually, no. After talking to her for a minute, he wanted to know about all the stuff attached to her."
"So he was scared."
"No, he thought it was cool."
She didn't believe me. But it's true. He was fascinated. We must've heard about a billion times: "What's this one, Grandma? What does this one do? So if that's the reading for this, then this one must be..." He was enthralled.
That's the thing. Sickness, even death, is just a part of life. Some parts totally suck and are to be avoided at all costs. But almost all of it is fascinating. Welcome to the reigning philosophy in our family. Intravenous anything? Fascinating. Vomit? Enthralling, at least up to the age of ten or so. Viruses, bacteria, childbirth, disease progression, emergency medicine shows at dinner? Sign us up. Just make sure we don't miss the part with compound fracture.
Also, I realized the other cool part of the no-acting-pathetic rule as I watched a child play with my son on the playground. This child is sometimes, but not always, in a wheelchair. I don't know his exact deal, injury or disease or what, if it's permanent or not, but I do know from the mother herself that his only impediment is that he sometimes has a little trouble using his legs. But because of this, she babies him every waking moment. She opens his food, does his homework, comes on all the field trips (but only to follow him around and get him special treatment), cries foul if he ever gets in trouble, pre-chews his food ... you get the idea. (OK, I made that last one up. The rest are from direct, annoying obsesrvation, though.)
This child was coming off the playground, quite happily and ably, to start the school day the other day, and his mom rushed over as if he were on fire. "Oh, poor baby. Do your legs hurt? Here. Let me help you." With this, she carried him down the sidewalk baby-talking all the way. He looked absolutely miserable. (Disclaimer: I know I'm talking out of my ass about children in wheelchairs, as mine isn't. Still, I think I can confidently say she does this boy no favors, and would be the same way were her son running marathons. Take my bloviating with a grain of salt, of course.)
My son, on the other hand, had to make his own darn way through the crowd to say goodbye, despite being knocked down by another child en route. And he was overjoyed to come to me. (Disclaimer 2: I made sure he was OK, though he didn't see me checking on him.)
Life goes on. And life is infinitely cooler than the miniature not-so-miniature roadblocks we encounter. And if my mother was a wicked witch, I certainly hope I've inherited the tendency.
He already knows he'd better make it to the bathroom no matter how sick he is, so I'd say we're on the right track.
dfaasd;klfjasfoweiruj?;;;;;;;asdfiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
Aaand we're back. Sort of.
I was going to finish a list-type essay dedicated to my husband (who is freaking out about his upcoming 29th birthday; apparently 29 is the new 30, which is the new 70), but I'm stuck about halfway through. Until my neurons fire up once again, please accept this illness-themed story in its place.
When I was a few days shy of eight years old, to celebrate the end of school, my mother took my brother, my sister and I to Fiesta Mall.
(For any Arizonans who might remember, this was back when the neighborhood of Fiesta Mall and the vicinity was considered semi-upscale, at least by us. I once went, hold onto your hats, all the way to the top (sixteen stories!) of the neighboring Bank of America building. These were indeed happening times.)
The outing was doomed. As we walked across approximately fifty-seven miles of boiling-hot parking lot toward the mall entrance, either the heat or the long day or a heretofore undetected bug got the best of me. I staggered to the nearest curbed-off island of gravel and oleanders (this is considered fancy landscaping in these parts) and abruptly emptied the contents of my stomach into the rocks.
My mom was mildly concerned about this, and asked if I was OK. I told her I felt better, but thirsty. Needless to say, she wasn't overly eager to bring a potential vomit-time-bomb into the mall, so we piled back in the car and headed home. During the trip I whined, no less than four and a half billion times, that I was really really thirsty.
When we arrived home my mom gave me a glass of water.
"Sip it," she advised. "Sip! Slowly!" she repeated as I gulped it.
"But I'm sooooo thirsty," I whined in a cracked whisper, in the tones of someone who is moments from death by dehydration -- for I knew this clearly to be the case, however ignorant my mother was of the fact.
"You just threw up. Sip. Slowly. Slowly!"
I gulped it. Naturally.
Approximately thirty seconds later, I beat it down the hall for a very urgent appointment with the toilet, vaguely wishing I'd had knee pads for my crash-landing.
My mom, of course, showed the proper amount of sympathy -- or rather, she displayed what she deemed the proper amount of sympathy. Here is how she showed just how very concerned she was: While I was in the bathroom, presenting my copious offering to the porcelain god, she walked in with a purposeful stride and a gallon jug full to the brim with water.
"Here," she said, plopping the jug on the bathroom counter with such enthusiasm that its plastic sides bowed and rippled, and had it not been securely capped, its contents would have fountained upward in eerie synchronization with the contents of my stomach.
"Here," she repeated. "Drink up. Drink all you want."
(My mom claims not to remember this, but says she believes it, as it sounds just like something she'd do, and just like something I would have done.)
With that, she turned on her heel and left again with my brother and sister. I assume now that either a) they only retired to the living room, front yard, or swimming pool; or b) she arranged for proper supervision before departing, but I was too busy feeling sorry for myself and entertaining notions of witch-mothers abandoning their dying progeny to notice which of these scenarios actually took place.
Miraculously, I survived.
But here's the thing: I think she was exactly right.
My mom was pretty consistent in this attitude -- she showed considerable concern if anything was really wrong with any of us; say, the time I broke my arm so that my wrist neighbored my elbow, or the time my sister went careening down a tree and slashed her thigh open, or the time my brother came down with some disease, which remained mysterious in nature or origin but which left him bearing a striking resemblance to Jeff Golblum's character in The Fly, mid-transformation -- but unless there was something really wrong, in her view, there was nothing really wrong.
What constituted sick and/or injured, and garnered a modicum of sympathy, in my mom's view:
- Blood spurting so copiously that you resembled some sort of festive lawn sprinkler.
- A broken, severed, or severely cut body part. (Where "severely cut" is defined as "laceration twelve or more feet in depth and two or more miles in length.")
- Any body part actively on fire.
- Simultaneous vomiting and explosive diarrhea (providing you make it to the bathroom; if you didn't even death throes wouldn't save you).
- A fever exceeding two hundred degrees.
Of course, if we had a real illness, one that could be infectious, she'd keep us home from school. But "real illness" was defined as "something more serious than the common cold, with demonstrable symptoms, that was not brought about by the sufferer's own stupidity."
To her own credit, my mom applies these standards to herself with even more stringent adherence than she uses on anyone else. She recently got out of the hospital, where she spent a month in what would have been a completely incapacitated state for any normal human (not just laid up, but laid flat-out, wiped out, bodily rebellion). But my mom is not any normal human. She wrote thank-yous, kept in touch with just about everyone, made sure things were running smoothly at work in her absence, and actually made an effort (and succeeded) to entertain my sister, my brother and I when we visited, so that it felt more like an afternoon chatting on the couch than an afternoon in a hospital room.
My mom, incidentally, will deny that it was a big deal: Some garbage about how she didn't write that many thank-yous; or that she only checked on work, didn't really do much; or that we were the ones going to the effort during visits. She lies. She's amazing.
She's always been like this, at least for my entire life. It was about more than just her high standards for herself, though she has that in spades. And it was about more than just her disinclination to allow us to skip school, though there certainly was that.
Because of my mom, I've tried to apply the same standards to myself for years. I woke up today with -- in addition to a burgeoning cold -- a migraine and, er, bathroom problems, and went about my day, as much as I wanted to melt into nothing. I also apply them to my family. This isn't always always a popular policy; just ask my husband ("So your blood sugar's low. Here. Sugar. Eat."), or my son. ("You still have to brush your teeth, clean your room and pick up your dirty socks, no matter what aches.") My heart is full of nothing but mushy, cheesy emotion for my son. It's where I keep the squeaky clean language and knowledge of cartoons, where I store comforting songs and tricks for making it feel better. It's covered in crayon-written messages and drawings of dinosaurs and hearts. Big googly-eyed turtles hold the whole mess directly against my heart with the strongest of magnets. But my mama, as you might guess, didn't raise no fool.
For instance, my son wanted to say up late last night. He is evidently of the opinion that we hold secret nightly parties as soon as he closes his eyes. One of fastest ways into my sympathies, the little sucker has figured out, is to have something wrong with him. And sympathy takes time, and time means later bedtime. So he played pathetic.
"Moooom, I have a sniffly nose. And I feel funny ("Funny" turned out to be "tired" when I asked him to describe it. Tired at bedtime. Go figure.) And, I have a leg ache, and my feet itch."
"Do you have a gash, a rash and purple bumps?"
"What?"
"Nothing. You're fine. Bedtime."
But it wasn't until recently that I figured out what I like best about my mom's philosophy: It's a whole outlook on life, an all-encompassing; straightforward; no-bullshit-taking approach to everything. My son might occasionally try to play sick for sympathy, but his heart isn't really in it. Being well is so much more fun. And sickness, well, that's just life. I took him with me to visit my mom in the hospital. She had managed to procure a second hospital gown to layer over the first and so was afforded some small amount of dignity, but otherwise was as you'd expect: wires, tubes, IVs, beeping stuff, blinking lights and digital readouts, the hatrack-looking thing that all the bags and tubes hang from.
"Oh," a friend comented when I told her later about the trip. "Wasn't he scared?"
"No, it's fine now. My mom'll be in there for a little while longer, but she'll be fine. David knows that."
"I mean all the hospital stuff. Wasn't he scared of all that?" (She pronounced hospital stuff the way you might pronounce leprosy lesions.)
"Nah. We explained it all ahead of time. He had a great time."
"Are you kidding?"
"What?"
"'A great time?' You are joking, right?"
"Uh, actually, no. After talking to her for a minute, he wanted to know about all the stuff attached to her."
"So he was scared."
"No, he thought it was cool."
She didn't believe me. But it's true. He was fascinated. We must've heard about a billion times: "What's this one, Grandma? What does this one do? So if that's the reading for this, then this one must be..." He was enthralled.
That's the thing. Sickness, even death, is just a part of life. Some parts totally suck and are to be avoided at all costs. But almost all of it is fascinating. Welcome to the reigning philosophy in our family. Intravenous anything? Fascinating. Vomit? Enthralling, at least up to the age of ten or so. Viruses, bacteria, childbirth, disease progression, emergency medicine shows at dinner? Sign us up. Just make sure we don't miss the part with compound fracture.
Also, I realized the other cool part of the no-acting-pathetic rule as I watched a child play with my son on the playground. This child is sometimes, but not always, in a wheelchair. I don't know his exact deal, injury or disease or what, if it's permanent or not, but I do know from the mother herself that his only impediment is that he sometimes has a little trouble using his legs. But because of this, she babies him every waking moment. She opens his food, does his homework, comes on all the field trips (but only to follow him around and get him special treatment), cries foul if he ever gets in trouble, pre-chews his food ... you get the idea. (OK, I made that last one up. The rest are from direct, annoying obsesrvation, though.)
This child was coming off the playground, quite happily and ably, to start the school day the other day, and his mom rushed over as if he were on fire. "Oh, poor baby. Do your legs hurt? Here. Let me help you." With this, she carried him down the sidewalk baby-talking all the way. He looked absolutely miserable. (Disclaimer: I know I'm talking out of my ass about children in wheelchairs, as mine isn't. Still, I think I can confidently say she does this boy no favors, and would be the same way were her son running marathons. Take my bloviating with a grain of salt, of course.)
My son, on the other hand, had to make his own darn way through the crowd to say goodbye, despite being knocked down by another child en route. And he was overjoyed to come to me. (Disclaimer 2: I made sure he was OK, though he didn't see me checking on him.)
Life goes on. And life is infinitely cooler than the miniature not-so-miniature roadblocks we encounter. And if my mother was a wicked witch, I certainly hope I've inherited the tendency.
He already knows he'd better make it to the bathroom no matter how sick he is, so I'd say we're on the right track.
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