25 things

So I've been tagged a bazillion times for the "25 things" meme, and posted one on Facebook, but I've been tagged several times since then, via Facebook, MySpace (to which I forgot I still even belonged) and e-mail. So, if you really can't get enough random, useless facts about me, here is a cheater post because I'm to lazy to write a complete blog entry the list from Facebook, with only minor edits.

25 Freakin' things about me:

1. I like the idea for this list, which is the only reason I'm doing it. I hate memes, as a rule. I know you've tagged me, and will continue tagging me, and want me to tag others. Bah humbug. I'm not tagging. Besides, I'm out of friends to tag.

2. Also, I don't mind doing this because it allows me to procrastinate. I procrastinate pathologically. (Below, one of the products of said procrastination. Real useful.)

3. I also multitask obsessively. It actually makes me much less productive.

4. I have three book/manuscript ideas in progress right now. I think they're all winners. None are near completion.

5. I'm changing the subject because my inability to be productive depresses me, so I'm going to avoid it now. I do that.

6. I never wear makeup. Ever. I really don't know how to apply makeup.

7. You know that dream where you realize you're in class with no pants on? I really did that. Yes, folks, I forgot to wear pants.

8. I'm having a hard time writing this list, as I discover there are very few things I don't share about myself. Perhaps this item would be that I overshare?

9. But that seems so weird to me, because in demeanor I am an extremely private person.

10. I guess it's that I'm blunt and straight-forward. I actually see brutal bluntness as a positive trait, and am proud of it in myself.

11. My husband does not share my opinion of blunt, brutal honesty.

12. No. 11 keeps our marriage interesting, to say the least.

13. I didn't see Star Wars until 6th or 7th grade, but I pretended to know all about it before then because a guy I liked loved it. (I love it now.)

14. I once sneaked onto a construction site to use the portable toilet. (14b: I'm ridiculously proud that I know to say "sneaked" and not "snuck.")

15. I trim the skin around my nails compulsively. I've already done it twice today.

16. I worry for a big part of every day that I'm really a total failure, and just managing to fool everyone. Sometimes I worry that I'm not fooling anyone and they're just being nice.

17. If I had a superpower, it would be the power to freeze time. I've actually had extensive conversations about this.

18. I just talked to an old friend to congratulate him on a milestone. I used to have this huge unrequited crush on the guy, and unlike other crushes, told no one. He's still hot, but there's nothing now.

19. I used to be Republican, but I'm not anymore.

20. I used to get my nails done, but I don't anymore.

21. I have a gym membership, but I don't really go anymore.

22. I love carbonated drinks. If I could buy carbonated milk, I would.

23. At one point in my life, I said I'd never want kids. I literally can't put myself back in that mindset. It's like trying to remember not being able to read. I just can't conjure it.

24. I just thought of a couple of things not everyone knows about me, but they're not going out to the Internet at large. Sorry.

25. I haven't eaten a proper meal all day. I tend not to when I'm alone, but I'm obsessed with cooking/eating proper meals as a family.

26. (Bonus thing): I promise (you, myself) my next blog entry will not be a list. I'm swearing them off for at least two weeks.

There. You officially all know way too much about me. Like I said, I ain't tagging. But if you've shared yours, post a link. I'm kind of addicted to reading the lists.

Our life: A very shot play in one and a half acts

Act I: Yesterday afternoon

(Scene: Car, filled with dozens of empty pop bottles, sticks and leaves gathered from the entire state of Arizona, various Nickelodeon paraphernalia, one six-year-old and two adults trying to make the most of the few minutes this week during which they might actually converse. Silly them.)

Me: So there was this online discussion about circumcision that was getting kind of out of hand.
Aaron: Well, I really don't see the big deal, I mean, to each their own, right?
Me: Some people were comparing it to female genital mutilation, you know, the total removal of the (I glance to the back seat, see the child who won't listen to 90 percent of what I say paying rapt attention) ... of the C-L-I...
Aaron: (Clearing his throat in embarrassment, cutting me off): Yeah, OK, I know what you mean. But it's not like that at all.
Me: That's what I think. Then too, some people are worried about sons looking like their fathers, the whole locker-room issue...
Aaron: So, what? Like he and I are going to line up in front of the mirror and compare notes?
David: Compare notes on what, Dad?
Aaron: Hairstyles, David. (To me): Besides, it's not like if they [makes the snip-snip motion with his fingers] when they're first born...
David: Why are you making scissors?
Aaron: No reason, David. (To me): So, if they, um, skin the snake...
David: What?!
Aaron: Nothing! It's just a silly phrase!
David: Well, I don't like that phrase. Poor snake!
Me: Yeah, Dad. Poor snake.
Aaron: (Shoots me the death glare; addresses David): I don't like it either. Sorry, David. (To me): So if they, er, remove a particular portion, it's not like they're any worse off or are even going to know the difference.
Me: Some folks are worried about loss of sensitivity.
Aaron: But it's kind of subjective, isn't it? I mean, each P-E-N-I-S...
Me: You do know he's been able to spell that for ages.
David: PENIS! You spelled PENIS! Bwahaha!
Aaron: Yes, I spelled penis. Tee hee.
Me: Hey, David, look at that horse! (Son distracted, I address Aaron): I can see your point, though. It's not like they could conduct a scientific study on that. It couldn't really be objective.
Aaron: Right. What, like, "OK subjects, every time you're H-O-R-N-Y, clock your speed of arousal, your partner's arousal, and how good it was for you?"
Me: Ha. Yeah.
(Conversation moves on to Harry Potter, pasta, and my son's new microscope.)
(Night ends peacefully, full of pasta and free from genital-themed discussions.)

Act II: Very, very early this morning

(Scene: The inside of my eyelids. Or possibly the first floor of a house on a mercilessly bright Arizona morning.)

David: Mom, what's H-O-R-N-Y spell? Could it be like for an animal with horns?
Me: Yeah, I guess it could! Let's just say they have cool horns, though, OK?
David (shrugging): OK, Mom.
David: Oh, and Mom? Don't use the hand towel in the downstairs bathroom. I blew my nose into it.
(He exits stage right in search of Pop Tarts.)
(I exit stage left in search of products with which to scour my face.)

The End.

20 things I still haven't learned

1. That some people will never agree with me.
2. That an increase in volume will not make them agree with me.
   
3. That telling someone "I never watch television" or "I read mostly nonfiction," however true, will not win you any friends.
4. How to make prodigious use of the Internet without losing untold hours and days to its distractions.
5. That hot surfaces are hot.
6. That jumping spiders jump.
7. That knives are sharp.
8. That solid surfaces are solid, and hurt upon collision with one's person.
   
9. How to navigate predominantly via map directions.
10. That "ponytail" is not a hairstyle.
11. That "whatever's clean" is not a clothing style.
    
12. How to read without skipping all over the page or screen.
13. That it's not a good idea to smell your hand to check out the nature of that carpet moisture.
14. That it's not a good idea to smell socks or undergarments to ascertain their before-laundry or after-laundry status. (But if you really have to, undergarments are still better than socks. Oy.)
15. How to stay on task.
16. That upholstery will get wet if the car is left in the rain with the windows wide open. And that sitting on said upholstery and then picking up a first-grader is sure to provoke much jollity. ("Mom! You look like you wet your pants!")
17. How to be funny.
18. That bananas really hate me. The love is unrequited.
19. How to make friends as easily as my son.
20. How to pound out blog posts in less than an hour without resorting to cheaterly lists.

Happy New Year, and things I've learned

We don't traditionally make a huge deal of New Year's in the Hosey/Wilson/affiliated clans. We recognize it. And today I'm going over to spend the day at my mom's for a relaxed excuse to eat ourselves silly visit. And I try to "ring it in," somehow, every year. Ever since I was 8, I'd creep back out of bed (I am decidedly NOT a morning/waking-up person, but can "program" my body to wake up when I choose). I'd pretend I'd been awake the whole time, and tiptoe to the living room, which everyone had vacated but my dad, who would pretend he'd been awake the whole time. I'd stretch the nightgown, the scratchy one that caught on my elbows but that I loved anyway, over my knees and sit beside him and watch the ball drop on the television. And it was plenty.

And I've had memorable New Year's moments since then. There was the New Year's Eve that I learned that Jell-O shooters are not equal to Jell-O Jigglers, the New Year's Day I discovered that neither tequila nor smooth talkers are anyone's friends, the New Year my husband (then my secret boyfriend) and I rang in with a kiss in the movie theater parking lot, when no one knew we were "back together" yet (except, I eventually discovered, my mom, who always knows such things).

Last night, we took my son to see a movie, and cuddled, all of us, in the back of the theater. We went out to eat, put him to bed (after reading the couple of pages I promised ten pages twelve pages a whole chapter of Prisoner of Azkaban.) My husband and I sat on the couch. We fell asleep and woke back up at exactly midnight to ring it in. And it was plenty.

But in the name of taking stock, it occurs to me that there are a few things I learned in 2008. Not much, really. But I did learn:

• That my son's capacity for wonder, curiosity and tenderness knows no limit.
  
• That it is possible for a child to be obsessed with a single body part for an entire year, and that I will get so used to it/fed up with it that I will shout things like "I don't want to be poked in the butt, slapped on the butt, hear about your butt, hear about my own butt, hear about any butts, hear words that mean butt, or hear the poop song EVER AGAIN, and I mean it!" in the middle of Target and not think there is anything odd about the sentence until I notice weird looks from fellow customers.
• How much I'd missed seeing the stars, really seeing them. And how clear the night sky is from our new house.
  
• A whole heck of a lot about mortgage rates, credit scores and loans; as well as how to bitch just enough at the Realtor and loan guy to get things moving, but not so much that they hate me.
• That my ex-landlord sucks big bovine gonads.
• That the view from our house totally rocks.
  
• How to fold killer paper airplanes, ones that stay in the air for at least 15 seconds.
• That, until very recently, my husband did not know about my webbed toes or my ADD. (Though, on the latter, he seems to think a lot of things "make more sense" now.)
• That my marriage still needs some work.
• That, generally, my marriage is pretty darn awesome.
• The meaning of the word "apropos." And that I'm the only smart person I know who didn't know the meaning of the word "apropos."
  
• How to work a Chinese yo-yo. Sort of.
• Did I mention I'm happy with the new house and its view?
  
• How to pack an apartment's worth of stuff in record time.
• That most of my family reads this blog, and that's a good thing.
  
• A whole lot about crickets, astronomy, child psychology, the education system, Nickelodeon cartoons, paleontology, eyeless albino millipedes, politics and economics (but probably not enough about any of those things).
• How to take waaay better pictures than I did in 2007.
  
• That, generally, my pictures still need a lot of work.
• To prioritize.
• That I should never, ever, no exceptions (I mean it this time, self) eat beef products after 8 p.m.
• That I don't listen to myself. Neither does anyone else. I must learn how to be stricter with us all.
• How to bake a number of really awesome casserole dishes, cakes, and breads.
• How to clean up in twenty-one minutes when six out-of-town family members are on their way and I only JUST THEN find out, and we've just moved in and just had Christmas and there's not one clean spot in the house. (Hint: Cupboard space, garage = your friends.)
• That I'm pretty down with the suburban existence.
• How to come to terms with my totally receding chin and those line-things on either side of my face.
• That sometimes, I just screw up with the parenting thing -- but usually, I'm pretty OK.
• That, as of last night, my son still wants to sit in my lap. And that I still get choked up about it, and that my husband still rolls his eyes about it (but secretly seems pretty happy when I lean over and we all end up in a cheesy, hokey pile of family).
• How to identify major constellations by season.
• To document, document, document everything. (Unfortunately, this lesson was learned by experience.)
• How to use teacher strategies to get my kid to listen to me.
• That I will not be excommunicated from my family for voting against the familial party (and that I should have known better, anyway).
• That worrying about things does not count as working toward their resolution.
• That I'm addicted to the show Lost (and Battlestar Galactica when it finally returns), but other than those shows, if the television disappeared I wouldn't notice.
• That traffic cops do not care if you're "very sorry."
• How to take chances on things that may not work, and what to do when they do (and when they don't).
• That I'm better than I think I am at some of the things I try to do.
• That I'm not nearly as clever as I think I am.
• How to let things go, and which things those should be.
• How to love a year, love the lessons learned, and hold my people so darn close I squish them -- but move the hell on from the crappy stuff, and tackle my life. I've got some plans for 2009.

Have a joyous, safe New Year and a better 2009 than 2008, whether your 2008 sucked or rocked. Happy New Year, everyone.

Search me

According to How to Blog gurus, good bloggers don't say "Sorry for the lack of posts lately." So, I guess this is sorry for the lack of posts lately, and sorry for not being a good blogger.

As I've mentioned, we just bought a house, and in between moving in, unpacking, searching for just about everything I thought we'd put in a convenient place so we wouldn't have to search for it, clogged toilets and fountaining poop water, being covered in cat vomit, and miscellaneous moving tasks, I haven't had much time or opportunity for blogging (I only just re-got the Internet). Also, my son has winter break, and has the annoying habit of wanting me to actually spend time with him.

I kid, of course. I have as much fun as he does.

I did make time for Christmas decoration, but most of the house is in various states of mess, so you just get to see a corner. (Who am I kidding? It's just an excuse to show off a kid Christmas picture.)


And in the meantime, until I have more meaty posts, I'll leave you with a smattering of search terms that result in this blog. It leaves me wondering, sometimes:

Arizonawriter: Woo! People are searching for me! Or, at least, a writer in Arizona. I'll choose to believe the former.

I just made you say underwear: Well, my son made me say "I'd better see those underpants where they belong and not on your head, in thirty seconds!"

A-Z of dirty words: Um, not that kind of blog. Sorry.

Dirty words A-Z: Really, it's not!

Surprised dirty words: As in, WTF?!

Half clothed: It's not that kind of blog either.

Stupid husband: I feel your pain, anonymous searcher.

Love husband: See, it's not all bad, right?

A-Z dirtywords: Back on that, I see.

Every single word in the universe A-Z: OK, even I'm not that ambitious. Even if I was trying to find all the dirty ones.

Shorts 1892 butt: Susan B. Anthony? Clara Barton? Calamity Jane? Grover Cleveland? Seriously, I'm curious whose 1892 butt you were hoping to see.

Nothing is as boring as a writer: Thanks a lot.

Poop: Heh, heh. You said poop.

Tahmoh Penikett is HOT: Oh, yeah.

Pink puke: I hope you're not searching out of necessity, kind reader. Because my experience with pink puke was not made any more savory by the pleasing pastel shade of the projectile, lemme tell you.

I love you: Aww, thanks. Now does that love come with a comment? A link, perhaps?

I will be back tonight probably. Until then, I'm sure I'll see you all soon, dear readers, since every person in existence will be in the mall parking lot.

4 hoseys

Little bit of a family resemblance

I can't talk about my father, or my grandfather, or my great-grandfather, without becoming lost in memories of the tastes and smells of my grandparents' home in upstate New York.

Every time we visited New York, my grandparents trotted out a long-standing ritual of herding every member of the family to the driveway. The practice traditionally took place on the hottest, most humid summer day, when everyone sported oily, reflective sheens of sweat and condensation over faces and heads topped by hair frizzing out and up at odd, unpredictable angles. It was under these conditions that the ritual began, every family member grouping and regrouping for photographs. My grandparents had a cherry tree, an oak tree, a lush lawn, and a rose bush. But instead of any of these verdant backgrounds, they invariably chose the white-paneled garage door as a backdrop. About an hour into the routine, everyone would persevere with grim-faced determination, and the countenances combined with the garage gave the shots the look of police lineups. My sister and brother and I have our growth recorded in a series of mug shots.

It is in this form that four generations of Hosey men were captured on film for the first and last time. My great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant who occasionally couldn't recall that I was not my aunt but could tell me the name of the woman who gave him a blanket on the leaky boat to America. My grandfather, a talented writer with a poetic bent (which I discovered, almost by accident, on my last visit with him) who always wore blue trucker-style baseball caps he bought on trips to Arizona, perched loosely on his head so you could see through the part between the top of his head and the top of the hat. My brother, who would one day roll a car at 90 mph and survive, would be homecoming king, would join the Air Force and almost die in training and would return to be an emergency medical technician -- but who then was just my dorky little brother. And towering head and shoulders and chest above them all, my father: math prodigy, winner of every Trivial Pursuit game, commissioner of his fantasy football and baseball leagues, cracker of horrible jokes (which, I've since learned, he learned from his father), terrible but unabashed singer, larger than life in many senses. All but my brother have since passed on.

After the shots we'd talk my grandparents into a shot or two in front of the rosebush -- which were always their favorite, although we could count on mandatory mug shots on the next visit anyway -- and sit on the bench with peeling red paint in their backyard, picking cherry tomatoes from the vine. The round fruits would burst with only light pressure, spraying sweet-tangy juices into our mouths. (Or out of them, if we were really lucky. A projectile tomato bite was one of the rare treats of a New York summer afternoon.) I still only eat cherry tomatoes, although they don't taste as sweet or moist in Arizona. I don't think it's entirely in my head.

It was my grandpa's birthday December 4, the same day we were closing on our new home. Right around that time, my son was making some of the worst puns I'd ever heard.

Damn, I miss those guys.

Happy Anniversary (Or, "See, I told you I post nice things sometimes")

Dear Husband:

I could, maybe, think of ten things I hate about you. But there will be another time for snarkiness and venting. Today is not the day for that. (Most days aren't, come to that. You're infuriatingly faultless sometimes.) Today is the day for the ten, or twenty-eight things (or at least twenty-eight of the things) I love about you:

1. Your tenderness.
2. Your conviction.
3. The way you regularly change the picture on your cell phone to different shots of our son, and you obviously don't do it for "points," as I had no earthly idea you did so until last week.
4. Your forearms. I mean, wow.
5. The way you act gooey-mushy-lovey to the cat when you think no one's looking.
6. Your ability to provide for us. And not just the money (though, yeah, I love that too).
7. Your patience.
8. The fact I never secretly think I'm smarter than you.
9. The way you tolerate it when I act like I am.
10. Your unending supply of euphemisms for making the, um, beast with two backs. (There's a new one for you.)
11. When you startle me.

12. They way you get all stoked and talk at the top of your lungs when you're excited.
13. Your stupid jokes.
14. Your dedication.
15. The fact that we can play.
    
16. How you play with our son.
17. How quickly, naturally, just like that, he became OUR son.
18. Your dorky laugh.
19. The fact that we can just be together -- not as in "be together," as in just be. And when we suck at everything else, that's enough.
20. Our history. Even the bad parts. Well, most of the bad parts. Maybe not that part in the parking lot. But you know, if things hadn't happened the way they had, they wouldn't have happened the way they have. Or that's what some dorky 16-year-old told me, anyway.
21. When you walk around in sock feet.
22. How you get all competitive about everything. Have you beaten my and David's Zoo Tycoon game yet?
23. Listening to you boss people around. Come on baby, talk managerial to me.
24. Your curiosity.
25. The way you order a dish at the restaurant, as if it's really your idea, and then "ask" me if I want to "try" some.
26. The way you lie when I ask if my hair looks nice. Good form.
27. Your love.
28. You.

Happy Anniversary.