(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.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
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.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
A little more conversation
My son asked me if I was working this afternoon. I had been. But I was taking a break from "real" work, and after answering businesslike stuff via phone and e-mail, was now looking at the following crucial e-mailed nuggets:
(Well, at least the last one got my gender correct.)
Naturally I answered, "No, sweetie, I'm not working. What's up?"
"What happens when we die? Is there a heaven we can see, and is it like the Spirit World on Avatar?"
That's the thing about kids. You never wade into the deep end. You dive, head-first, and usually smash your skull a few times before swimming competently. But that's the thing I love the most too. There are so many times I've been thinking about some issue or other, and want to just broach the topic with someone. But with the possible exception of my mother, whose brain patterns, at least insofar as their irregularity and abruptness and things-connected-to-things, happily coincide with my own, no one is very receptive to my tendency to come out with "Sure, I'll pass the bread. Speaking of the death penalty..."
We're swimming now. It's tough. But it's pretty sweet.
And it's easier than answering the other question he asked: "Why do you have two e-mails with the word penis in uppercase letters?"
- WARNING: I will get cancer from heating anything in the microwave.
- WARNING: Homosexuals, because they cannot reproduce, are out to "recruit" children via our public schools.
- I can increase the size of "that special male member." By up to two hundred percent!
- WARNING: Dora the Explorer is actually just a mouthpiece for propagandists to "Latinize" our society.
- Obama is counting on me.
- McCain is counting on me.
- A college political club whose table I once stopped at for two minutes in 2005 is "counting on the unique difference that YOU, [insert first name], can make come November." (I'm not kidding. This was the exact wording.)
- No, really. I can increase my size. Tonight!
- I've been missing out by neglecting to visit something called Girlz Camz.
- I can still find that Special Someone, even though I'm a single woman over 40.
(Well, at least the last one got my gender correct.)
Naturally I answered, "No, sweetie, I'm not working. What's up?"
"What happens when we die? Is there a heaven we can see, and is it like the Spirit World on Avatar?"
That's the thing about kids. You never wade into the deep end. You dive, head-first, and usually smash your skull a few times before swimming competently. But that's the thing I love the most too. There are so many times I've been thinking about some issue or other, and want to just broach the topic with someone. But with the possible exception of my mother, whose brain patterns, at least insofar as their irregularity and abruptness and things-connected-to-things, happily coincide with my own, no one is very receptive to my tendency to come out with "Sure, I'll pass the bread. Speaking of the death penalty..."
We're swimming now. It's tough. But it's pretty sweet.
And it's easier than answering the other question he asked: "Why do you have two e-mails with the word penis in uppercase letters?"
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Random notes I would write
To the Lady at Walgreens Yesterday: I've donated to medical research of one kind or another three times in the past two months. My husband is a Type I diabetic. After I politely decline to donate a buck at the checkout, you don't need to ask "Are you SURE you can't spare a dollar for diabetes research?" Especially not when the tone so clearly says "You obviously don't care a whit about diabetics, you sugar-swilling, cold-hearted bitch, you."
To the Lady I Usually See at Walgreens: Thanks for not doing that. Also, you sounded sincere the other day when you said "Have a nice day." That's pretty frickin' rare. Thank you.
To My Husband: When I said "I really don't do the married thing," I was trying to illustrate how much I love you. I mean, if we hadn't married each other, we wouldn't have married, I bet. Because we really kind of suck at the whole wifey/husbandy thing.
To My Son: You danced with abandon under a mammoth skeleton the other day. I can't express how cool that was. Also, you're in first grade. So cool. But at the rate you're growing, you'll be sixteen by tomorrow morning. Stop that.
To the Folks at Verizon: If you knew I was getting a new phone; and you knew my old one was stolen; and you are in possession of my physical address, e-mail address, other e-mail address, land line phone number and husband's cell number (you recited them all to me so I know you are): Does it really make sense to call me ON MY VERIZON CELL to tell me you couldn't deliver my Verizon cell phone?
To My Fellow Gophers: When I checked my messages today there were three messages from three different friends from Goucher. It made my afternoon. Y'all almost make me wish I was going on another semester. Almost.
To My Sometime Editors: I sure hope I haven't turned into persona non grata in my mad, out-of-contact rush to finish my manuscript. I hope I hear back from some of you. Because I really have some good material ready.
To My Son: I heard about another child abuse case last night and it made me want to come get you out of bed and hug you nearly in half. I love you so much, it really seems excessive at times. But I really do. Then, you woke me up at four this morning, covered from your hairline to shoulders in nose blood and from your waist down in pee. I still love you, and just as much. But I'd really rather you not do that again.
To My Cat: You woke me up at 4:30 this morning, licking my ears. I love you too. But 4:30? Are you kidding? Plus, you snore. Since when do cats snore?
To My Husband: You woke me up at 5:10 this morning, snoring and pushing me up against the wall. You know I love you. But if you do that again, I may have to put you in our son's room, with the cat, and barricade the three of you in there until at least 6 a.m.
To My Readers: This is me, getting back into blogging. Bear with me. It'll get better in coming days.
To the Lady Who Puts Out the "Early Release Today" Reminder Sign As We Drop Our Kids Off Wednesday Mornings: You've saved my ass from being late on more than one occasion. I'd feel really terrible about that. So thank you.
To Whatever Genius Put Pro Wrestling on the Sci-Fi Channel: WTF?
To My Mom: You are really super-amazing. I don't ever tell you that, except when I sign a hokey card for some occasion. And if you read this, you'll surely brush it off. But it's true. Even all those things I used to hate you for doing: Thanks. I'm starting to get it.
To the Guy in My Complex With Apparent Hypertrichosis: I understand not shaving. Really. But what's with the hot pants and no-shirt policy? And what clothes can you possibly be washing all the time?
To Paris Hilton: I defended you several times (I know, I surprised myself) over the past few weeks. I would've blogged about you, except I'm a lazy ass and several, several people beat me to it. But well said.
To the Person Who Said to Me, "We need to get someone to run this country for Jesus.": You do realize that would be a theocracy, right? Which you're against? Faith can't be mandated. It's kind of not faith any more.
To My Kitchen Cupboard Doors: I know you're cheaply made, but can you stop falling on my head? I darn near got a concussion last time.
To the Apartment Repair Staff: When you put my doors back on, you put 'em on backward. But I don't care. We won't be here much longer, with any luck. So nyah nyah.
To the Jehovah's Witnesses Who Visited Yesterday: When you heard me shout to my son "No, I'm going to beat you!" and he retorted with "I'll beat you harder!" and I retorted with "I'll beat you so hard!" we were talking about Monopoly. Sorry about that. Also, you should know I hardly ever read the Watchtowers you give me. I read part of yesterday's, but only because I was on hold with the geniuses at Verizon. I tried to tell you this, but you give them to me anyway. I might read them at some time, but things tend to get lost around here. Sorry. You really are very nice.
To My Son, Husband, Mom, Sister, Brother, Friends, Colleagues, Mentors and Countless Others: Thanks for sticking by me these last couple of years, even when -- especially when -- I've been a neurotic pain in the ass. I don't know how accomplished I am or will be, but it's thanks to all of you.
To My Readers: Thanks for sticking with me. And sorry about the whole ending-on-a-sappy-note thing. It's a bad habit. I promise the next entry will have 33 percent more bodily fluids and fart jokes, or your money back.
To the Lady I Usually See at Walgreens: Thanks for not doing that. Also, you sounded sincere the other day when you said "Have a nice day." That's pretty frickin' rare. Thank you.
To My Husband: When I said "I really don't do the married thing," I was trying to illustrate how much I love you. I mean, if we hadn't married each other, we wouldn't have married, I bet. Because we really kind of suck at the whole wifey/husbandy thing.
To My Son: You danced with abandon under a mammoth skeleton the other day. I can't express how cool that was. Also, you're in first grade. So cool. But at the rate you're growing, you'll be sixteen by tomorrow morning. Stop that.
To the Folks at Verizon: If you knew I was getting a new phone; and you knew my old one was stolen; and you are in possession of my physical address, e-mail address, other e-mail address, land line phone number and husband's cell number (you recited them all to me so I know you are): Does it really make sense to call me ON MY VERIZON CELL to tell me you couldn't deliver my Verizon cell phone?
To My Fellow Gophers: When I checked my messages today there were three messages from three different friends from Goucher. It made my afternoon. Y'all almost make me wish I was going on another semester. Almost.
To My Sometime Editors: I sure hope I haven't turned into persona non grata in my mad, out-of-contact rush to finish my manuscript. I hope I hear back from some of you. Because I really have some good material ready.
To My Son: I heard about another child abuse case last night and it made me want to come get you out of bed and hug you nearly in half. I love you so much, it really seems excessive at times. But I really do. Then, you woke me up at four this morning, covered from your hairline to shoulders in nose blood and from your waist down in pee. I still love you, and just as much. But I'd really rather you not do that again.
To My Cat: You woke me up at 4:30 this morning, licking my ears. I love you too. But 4:30? Are you kidding? Plus, you snore. Since when do cats snore?
To My Husband: You woke me up at 5:10 this morning, snoring and pushing me up against the wall. You know I love you. But if you do that again, I may have to put you in our son's room, with the cat, and barricade the three of you in there until at least 6 a.m.
To My Readers: This is me, getting back into blogging. Bear with me. It'll get better in coming days.
To the Lady Who Puts Out the "Early Release Today" Reminder Sign As We Drop Our Kids Off Wednesday Mornings: You've saved my ass from being late on more than one occasion. I'd feel really terrible about that. So thank you.
To Whatever Genius Put Pro Wrestling on the Sci-Fi Channel: WTF?
To My Mom: You are really super-amazing. I don't ever tell you that, except when I sign a hokey card for some occasion. And if you read this, you'll surely brush it off. But it's true. Even all those things I used to hate you for doing: Thanks. I'm starting to get it.
To the Guy in My Complex With Apparent Hypertrichosis: I understand not shaving. Really. But what's with the hot pants and no-shirt policy? And what clothes can you possibly be washing all the time?
To Paris Hilton: I defended you several times (I know, I surprised myself) over the past few weeks. I would've blogged about you, except I'm a lazy ass and several, several people beat me to it. But well said.
To the Person Who Said to Me, "We need to get someone to run this country for Jesus.": You do realize that would be a theocracy, right? Which you're against? Faith can't be mandated. It's kind of not faith any more.
To My Kitchen Cupboard Doors: I know you're cheaply made, but can you stop falling on my head? I darn near got a concussion last time.
To the Apartment Repair Staff: When you put my doors back on, you put 'em on backward. But I don't care. We won't be here much longer, with any luck. So nyah nyah.
To the Jehovah's Witnesses Who Visited Yesterday: When you heard me shout to my son "No, I'm going to beat you!" and he retorted with "I'll beat you harder!" and I retorted with "I'll beat you so hard!" we were talking about Monopoly. Sorry about that. Also, you should know I hardly ever read the Watchtowers you give me. I read part of yesterday's, but only because I was on hold with the geniuses at Verizon. I tried to tell you this, but you give them to me anyway. I might read them at some time, but things tend to get lost around here. Sorry. You really are very nice.
To My Son, Husband, Mom, Sister, Brother, Friends, Colleagues, Mentors and Countless Others: Thanks for sticking by me these last couple of years, even when -- especially when -- I've been a neurotic pain in the ass. I don't know how accomplished I am or will be, but it's thanks to all of you.
To My Readers: Thanks for sticking with me. And sorry about the whole ending-on-a-sappy-note thing. It's a bad habit. I promise the next entry will have 33 percent more bodily fluids and fart jokes, or your money back.
Friday, August 1, 2008
A big nanny nanny boo boo to my friends/family in AZ
It's 82 degrees where I am right now. Should barely hit 90 today.
And I just read about Arizona's twenty-first day this year with temps 110 or above.
Tee hee.
That is all.
Oh, also: My reading went well last night for anyone who's wondering, I've had a great time seeing all my Goucher buddies, and David made it through the night without wetting the hotel sheets. Life is good today.
And I just read about Arizona's twenty-first day this year with temps 110 or above.
Tee hee.
That is all.
Oh, also: My reading went well last night for anyone who's wondering, I've had a great time seeing all my Goucher buddies, and David made it through the night without wetting the hotel sheets. Life is good today.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
I'm still out here
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 wasplaying 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.
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
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.
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