I'm still out here

See? Still alive.

I know I've been neglectful of this blog -- in fact, of most of my online connections -- for a big chunk of this summer. After finishing my manuscript, I wanted to take a breather from living in front of the computer monitor, and aside from keeping a few magazine queries out there, have been pretty quiet lately. Plus, I wanted to spend as much time as possible with my son, and he pretty much does his best to make it impossible to blog during daytime hours anyway.

Example: While I'm typing this, he is asking about what people believe regarding the Trinity, and how Jesus and God can be the same person, and not. I am trying to explain nuances of different beliefs, but have realized this is futile. So I'm just answering any questions he chooses to ask, and explaining it six-year-old style. His conclusion, thirty seconds ago, went something like this:
"So, they're the same person, sorta, but the parts that make them them are different and separate too?"
"Yeah; you've got it."
"So, it's like when Goku and Vegeta get together to make Gogeta?"
(I'm still trying to figure out how to answer this. But this is representative of how most of our conversations go.)

But, the school year is starting soon (about which I'm simultaneously happy and sad), and I'm stepping up my freelancing, so it's back to our regularly scheduled blogging.

So, to get myself back in the blogging spirit, and a by way of a mini-update on my frame of mind and activities lately:

Five things that make me happy today:
1. David. I gave him Pop Tarts this morning, which earned me the designation "the best mom ever."

2. That I signed up with YouTube at some point (though I didn't remember doing so), prompting it to suggest a whole string of engaging political videos for me this morning to listen to in the background while I was playing around with pictures preparing to get some work done. Now I just have to make sure that 1) I do in fact get work done; and 2) I don't let my husband catch them before he's fully awake, lest we start the day with a nuclear-level debate about whether Bill O'Reilly or Christopher Hitchens is the bigger pompous douchebag.

3. That I had an excuse to watch the movie Happy Feet for the umpteenth time with my son. (Think March of the Penguins, only more exciting, presented sort of as a halftime show. It's a lot more fun than you might think.) Any movie that can channel The Beach Boys; Sinatra; Stevie Wonder -- sung by Pink (!); Bread; Queen; Earth, Wind & Fire; The Beatles; Elvis; The Jackson Five and Salt-n-Pepa ("Let's talk about eggs, baby; let's talk about you and me...") deserves a chance.

4. That my hair color, which I thought yesterday looked basically OK, still looked non-freakish this morning. Plus, I only dyed a small section of my skin, which is fading nicely. On a related note, some lotion that was supposed to give me a "summer glow" but instead made my legs the color of basketballs has also worn off. This is nice, since I'm going to graduation in a few days. I'm not super nervous or conscious of my appearance, but I'd just as soon not look like an Oompa-Loompa the one time a year I see these folks.

5. That maybe someday soon, my husband and I will be looking seriously at moving into a house. We've started looking more seriously now that prices are going down, and even more seriously since our stuff/family has grown to exceed the capacity of our apartment. We bottlenecked in the hallway the other day -- literally got stuck -- and almost in unison decided we need to look for a larger place. The lease runs out in November, and we're determined not to sign on again.

...and Five that bug the living crap out of me:
1. Asswriting. You know what I mean -- the shorts/pants that have words across the butt cheeks. For some reason, there seems to be an invasion of it here lately. There's the usual Juicy (on girls as young as seven, which seems so wrong), and a plethora of others that range from funny to just incomprehensible: Juicy land, Bad Ass, 1892 (So... what? Your butt has a vintage?), Bull Dog (Asswriting for men! At last!), Pink (I don't get it -- the color? the singer? US porn network? Calvinist theologian?), aneteclilpse (goth boy asswriting), Love pink (with a butt-crack space break; apparently it's punctuation now), Love (crack-break) Hate, Lifeguard (on someone who clearly wasn't one), Alo (butt-crack break) ha, Sw (break) im, Hottie, Flirt, and recently, Grrrl (you're not as punk as ya think you are, OK? Especially when you're 10) . It's written, screened on, beaded, rhinestoned, embroidered, .... and how is it good that your butt is "juicy"?

2. In a semi-related item is the weird preoccupation with making kids, even babies, sexual. It long ago stopped being novel enough to be cute; it's just creepy now. I saw bikinis for eight-year-olds in the store the other day. Maybe innocent enough. But then I come home to find an article about high heels for infants. And that evening I get an e-mail advertising something about "painted babies" and "natural beauties" in a photo retouching service. I checked it out and not only is it inferior to what I could do with my own photos, it's the single creepiest thing I've seen in a while. I could rant about this, but others have done it much more eloquently. Just, eww. I'm glad I have a boy.

3. Graduation. This doesn't really belong in the things-that-bug-me category so much as things-that-are-causing-some-stress category. I'm stoked to graduate, for sure (well, stoked to get the degree, I don't much go in for the ceremonies), but I have to read from my manuscript and still haven't settled on a selection, mostly because we're limited to four pages and none of my vignettes are self-contained in less than ten or so. I feel like I need to give a preamble, something like "This really is more interesting than my reading makes it sound; I just chose a less dramatic, though no less exciting, topic for my manuscript." But I think that might be kind of lame.

4. That summer vacation is almost over. Overall, it's been an awesome summer break, but I feel like I haven't taken full advantage of every day with my son. And I even, in my darker moments, feel like I want a few moments all to myself, and then I feel bad for that. I guess any parent worth his or her weight in Pop Tarts would feel this way, but still.

5. Healthy eating. Again, I suppose this belongs in the first list. I've been eating much healthier foods and portions lately, especially since I wrapped up my manuscript and stopped living like one of those Hot Pockets-munching Red Bull-drinking computer nerds you see in movies. But I just baked a fresh batch of brownies and seriously want to eat like half the pan.

That's it for tonight. More posts to come soon (promise). Possible topics include the recent awesomeness of certain people I know, why I would like to hogtie my cat, the day recently my car became a boat and how to change pee-soaked sheets in one's sleep.

He cannot tell a lie

This afternoon, as I was supposed to be working:

(Video game noises emanate from the living room. I hear the someone-drowning sound effect.)
David: Argh! SpongeBob! I hate when you do that!
(Same sound effect, moments later.)
David: SpongeBob! Quit it right now!
(Same sound effect.)
David: Stupid freak SpongeBob! Stupidstupidstupid. Stooooooopid!
(Same sound effect.)
David: Grrr! (Really. "Grrr." As in, "Frosted Flakes! They're Grrreat!") Grrr, SpongeBob! Why do you keep doing that?

Me (after mumbling a few verboten words myself, wrapping up with "just want five freakin' minutes"): David! Why don't you put that down and come back to it some other time, when you can enjoy it.
Him: I am enjoying it! (Throws murderous glares toward the television.)
Me: You don't look like you're enjoying it.
Him: Well, I am. SpongeBob just keeps being stupid.
Me: Why don't you just play it later? Maybe practice that part.
Him: SpongeBob is just stupid right there!
Me: You know SpongeBob isn't real.
Him: Well, he's stupid anyway.
Me: I think you've said that word enough.
Him: No!
Me: Excuse me?
Him: SpongeBob made me. He made me say stupid. And freak. And he makes me want to keep saying it. Stupid! Stupid! Freak! Stupid! Freak! Freak! Freak! stupidfreakstupidfreakstupidstupid!
Me (Later, as a teary, but much calmed face turns to emerge from the corner): Do you know why you were in the corner?
Him: Because I said words I shouldn't. And because I acted like a baby about the game.
Me: Good. Are you going to do it again?
Him: Probably.

Writerly stuff and stupid husband tricks

Did I say a day or two? I really took longer than I expected and am a little freaked out now meant to say a week or two. Yeah.

Until then, a couple of things:

First thing: I love this guy. If I had the free time, this would totally be me. According to my friends, it already is me.


And second: My husband, for as long as I can remember, has done this ridiculous noise where he grabs his throat skin and muscle tightly over his Adam's apple, wiggles it in and out, and says huunngh haaahhh huuuungha in a strained, high-pitched tone while his voice wiggles as he assaults his own neck, but which he insists sounds "just like" bagpipes. It actually sounds a little like a flock of violently ill, asthmatic geese, and a very little like bagpipes, and a whole lot like the voice of someone who you are not surprised finds the bagpipe term "blowstick" extremely funny. He and one friend who used to "accompany" his performances were, I thought, the planet's sole self-injuring bagpipe-imitating artists.

Turns out I was wrong. This video was on my homepage the other day. If you go to Youtube and do a cursory search, there emerges a whole bizarre community of folks who have cultivated this, um, "talent."

I made the further mistake of showing this to my husband, who now seems to think this is a talent clearly worthy of cultivation and, heaven help us, practice. And lest I get bored of bagpipe ambiance, he's expanding to include several other sound effects. He seems to fancy himself the next Michael Winslow.

Sigh.

Oh well. At least I'm safe for now, since my demeanor ramping up to submitting my manuscript is well above Don't-even-look-at-me and just south of Keep-sharp-objects-away-from-Kim. I'm sure he'll redouble his rehearsal in a few days, though. Lucky me.

I'm still here...

I'd meant to blog long before this, about a whole host of things (which I will do, eventually, providing I remember) and then finally just to say that I'm too busy to blog for a few days, but it appears I failed to do even that. Sorry all. (All ... three? Four fair readers? I can hope.) I'm trying very, very hard to wrap up my very nebulous manuscript for my graduate program (due, basically, momentarily), without losing too large a portion of my sanity, and that's taking up pretty much all my writing time. And when I'm at home, darn it, my family has the irritating habit of wanting to, you know, be with me and stuff. So. Manuscript craziness for a day or two more. Then, hopefully, blogging before the real craziness sets in ramping up to revision and graduation.

Every single day, and every word you say...

I talked to a couple of people recently who had kind words about my humble blog and humorous writing therein. Despite very gracious protests, I was trying to assure them that the humor, alas, is not mine. It's my son. I could choose to be jealous that it comes so naturally to him -- I mean, his idea of humor is the following joke:

"Knock knock"
"Who's there?"
"Me! Bwa-ha-ha!"
(Repeat for half an hour.)

But, in his natural moments, I think I might just be able to transcribe the words that come out of his mouth, and it would fare just as well.

Exhibit A (in the school parking lot, after picking him up):
Me: What were you talking and laughing about over there?
Him: Weiners!
Me: (Ignoring and changing tracks, or so I thought) So what did you learn about today?
Him: Weiners!
Me: Do you know what that means?
Him: Yeah. And I have a weiner! You wanna know who else has one?
Me: I think I have a pretty good guess. Did you learn anything else? Did you have music class today?
Him: Yeah. We learned a song about a cat. And we made up a song afterwards. Wanna hear it?
Me: Sure.
Him: Weeeiner, Weeeeeeeiner, Weiner-weiner-weeeeiner! Weiner-weiner bo-beiner...
Me: Let's hear the cat one now.

Exhibit B (as I prepared to cut his hair and he debated whether to don a shirt):
Him: I just don't want the hair to get on those pointy things.
Me: You don't have to worry about the clippers. They're not that pointy.
Him: Not those pointy things. These pointy things, on my chest! My ... pimples?

Exhibit C (while exiting the bathroom):
Him: Will you get mad if I tell you the truth? It's something that happened just now with poop.

Exhibit D (regularly):
Me: It's time to clean your room.
Him: Eeeeeaaaanghh! Wauuuugheeeeah! Waaaaahh!
Me: David! I think we're beyond whining, don't you?
Him: What whining? I wasn't whining.

Exhibit E (on a Ferris wheel):
Him: Hey! Look at all the people down there! Hey people! Hey. HEY! Aaahhhhh!
Him (a few seconds later, concerned): Why are they all looking at us?

Exhibit F (regularly):
Me: If you do that again, I'm going to holler, OK?
Him: OK.
Me: Got it? Because I'm done talking about it. Next time, I'm going to holler, and I will be mad.
Him: O-Kaaay, Mom.
Me: I don't want you to be surprised. Because I will yell, and I will be mad.
Him: Al-riiight!
(Does it again)
Me (Hollering): David! Stop it right now!
Him (Crying, totally shocked): Why are you mad?

Exhibit G (at a school book fair, after looking over a Harry Potter book):
Him: Wanna know how to play Quidditch?
Me (Unsuspecting. I should know better): How?
Him: Well, you stick a broom between your legs, like a ... like a boy part (here he gestures, quite pointedly, to his own, as if that's better than naming it in public), only you stick it coming out your butt, and you zoom around and grab balls and hit balls and try to catch that really little ball.
Neighboring child: Balls! Bwaah-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaa!
Him (to me): Wait, what are balls on people again? You don't have them, right?

Can I rest my case?

Happy Birthday, Dad

My dad would have been fifty today.

Actually, I'm ashamed to say I didn't remember this until partway through the morning. Yesterday was a mad dash of writing, revising, driving, waiting, mailing, writing, submitting, driving, waiting, driving some more, writing some more, speaking, teaching, learning, and more driving. (I also managed to squeeze in time to read a Magic Tree House book to my son, wash some urine-soaked Superman sheets, engage in an overly long tickle fight at his behest, and have a spirited debate on whether I will or will not purchase any more frickin' Kid Cuisine meals if a certain person only eats the smallest portion of each.) Tomorrow is likely to be more of the same, and by this time next month I will need to have reached some pretty significant milestones that I'm not sure I can reach. So this morning was more of an in-between, a respite. I wrote, but not as feverishly. I took my son to school. I answered a few e-mails and received my daily dose of frustration that comes from speaking to a particular editor. I noticed that the grackles in town seem to have learned to use a local crosswalk, and resolved to write a short piece about it. And then I typed the date on a document. February 28, 2008. Wow.

Today my dad would have been fifty.

This June 30, he'll have been gone thirteen years.

In ten years, I'll be as old as he was when he died.

That second figure startles me the most, actually. Thirteen years. That's almost half my life, yet it seems as if it's only the tail end of my time-on-Earth-so-far that has been spent without him.

Apparently, I'm not the only one. In third grade, I got my dad in a bit of hot water for repeating this joke to my teacher (his coworker):

"Hey! You know why a pool table is green?"
"No. Why?"
"You'd be green too if someone was knocking your balls around all day! Bwahaha!"

A few years ago, I was stopped by a school counselor I hadn't seen in ages. "Did you hear the one about the pool table?" she asked immediately. Apparently it's now part of school-district lore.

But it was because of who it came from, though I'd dearly love to take credit for my stand-up-comedy prowess at an early age. My dad was so many things to so many people: a father, husband, coach, community organizer, teacher... I could go on. But his memory and legacy deserves far more than to be reduced to a eulogy or annual tribute. He'd likely be telling me now to wrap it up, or maybe to tell the one about the dwarf at the circus.

My dad is responsible for so much of who I am. My determination. My love of reading. My stubbornness. (My mother will call me "Brian" on occasion, when she's contending with some bull-headed, unbending stand of mine. I choose to take it as a compliment, although this may not be the effect she's going for at the time.) My total inability to sing, but total love for it. My style of expressing opinions (though not all my opinions, which made for some, um, enthusiastic communiques between my father and me). My overly thorough knowledge of baseball stats and Marvel comics. Pretty much all the mathematical knowledge I ever acquired. The only way of looking at religion and faith that has ever made sense to me.

I could go on. Even my writing comes from him, and though he never pursued publication, I'd venture to say he'd have far surpassed any of my meager efforts. Here's a piece he wrote as a high school senior, of which I keep a copy, tattered from reading and re-reading:

Sphinx Day

Awaking in a foreign world,
Pulling off eyelid blankets.
Crawling and groping through early morn,
New sensations thrilling the infantile mind.

Rose petals are his playmates,
Eternity his backyard.
Dressed in his mother's branches,
This new, strange creature called Youth.

Morning leaves, and youth follows,
A mature afternoon creature comes.
The rose petals are scattered,
Like so many problem seeds.

Standing upright and proud, so proud,
Not looking back to morn,
Nor gazing ahead to night,
This independent afternoon, manhood.

Now manhood becomes aged,
Back to Mother he goes.
A cane gives him three legs,
And this life day sees its end.

The sun goes down on life,
Age has dreams of morning and noon.
Night comes on, final enveloping,
And these dreams become sleep.

My dad was known for things. And even when the thing itself wasn't good, somehow he'd turn it into an endearing eccentricity, a positive. Case in point: his singing. He could read music forward and backward, and played the clarinet beautifully, and he liked to sing ... but I don't think anyone has had the same odd combination of talent in music and total lack of vocal cord cooperation (though the torch of singing passion-with-suckitude has been passed on to me). It's a standing joke in our family; we have only to hum the smallest snippet the song Gloria in Excelsis Deo! to send each other into waves of eye-rolling laughter. This is because my sister and I remember Dad belting out the song in Mass as if it were being sung by a reverent, overzealous, slightly neurotic Santa Claus: "Glo! Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho, Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho, Ho-ho-ho-ho-hooooor...ria!"

We remember him scrunching up his long face until it was all lines, pretending he can hit the high notes in a Beach Boys tune.

There are countless other memories, too, as I'm sure there always are with good fathers. I remember reading and re-reading a twenty-year-old copy of A Wrinkle in Time, remembering how my dad and I read and re-read it all summer one year, just to see how it came together.

I remember this awful thin, gaudy, too-tight red and yellow T-shirt he had, emblazoned with "He who dies with the most toys wins," with actual toys (he managed a toy store before becoming a teacher). He'd wear it with even more awful too-short shorts. My mom happened to lose these types of clothes with startling regularity, which was odd because she never lost anything else.

My dad's legacy was one of fascination, humor, total abandon, willingness to look silly. It was unabashed wonder.


David wants to know as much as he can learn about my father, his grandfather. Today I took my son to the Four Peaks Elementary School softball field, named Brian Hosey Field in honor of my father. We were the only ones there. My son walked over to the sign honoring my dad, felt the raised lettering. We talk quite a bit about his grandpa and how proud he would be of his grandson. David read the sign a few times -- he can read now, something about which I'm sure my dad would be particularly pleased -- turned on the balls of his feet, and ran with total abandon over the field. He coerced me to run too, and we ran until we were both winded. We collapsed on the field, and just laid there for a long moment.

We came home, made some ridiculously rich brownies, and I left the room to get a few things done. From the living room I hear this:

"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you; Happy Birthday dear Grandpa; Happy Birthday to you."

And then: "Mom, when am I going to be old enough to watch X-Men?"

My dad lives on.

And I know he would appreciate this: on the way home, my son asked me, "Mom, what are huevos?"
"What, sweetie?"
"I heard someone say this morning that he has huevos grande. What does that mean?"
"Uh ... eggs. Big eggs."
"Oh. Like at breakfast?"
"Yep."
"OK. Because I asked the recess teacher what huevos grande were, but she just said it was time to go inside."

The one about the pool table can't be far behind.

I'd rather have some other superpower

I took my son to the park yesterday for an hour or so. He hasn't ridden on those giant springy things for ages, but got the urge, so off he went, leaping onto a truck with eyes.

"Mom! Jump on that one and race me!" he squealed. No one else was there to get annoyed with a grown woman on the kiddie toys, so I obliged, climbing onto the nearest plastic animal. I didn't bother to check what animal it was, but I found out soon.

"Race me Mom! Ride you beaver!"

(Do I even need to add my commentary at this point?)

I kept it together, but then, about halfway through the "race":
"Mom! You're too big! Your legs go way down both sides of your beaver! But you're not doing it right. Make it go back and forth, like this:" (Here he demonstrated with his bouncy eye-car, making a loud "Unh Unh!" noise that attracted the attention of a passer-by. Which was great, because then the pièce de résistance had an audience.
He leaped off his eye-car, declaring the race over (won, of course, by him).

"But Mom almost won," he announced to the amused gentleman. "She has the fastest beaver ever."

More on recent expolits later. I'm going shopping with my son. I was going to pick up some hot dogs, but I'm not sure if I dare.