Keep going

This morning, by 8 a.m., I had uttered the phrase "Keep going" no less than twenty times. Close runners-up included "Please, please keep going," "Just finish your freaking vocab; no one cares if your Os look funny," "Why are you still wearing your pajamas?!" and "No; I'm NOT going to make a less-angry voice. I'm angry!"

Keep going. I've mentioned that in addition to intelligence, stubbornness and an unhealthy fondness for cheese; attention deficit disorder runs in our family; or at very least, in my son and me. Perhaps the most insidious manifestation of it is the impulse that cloaks itself in perfectionism.

The thing about our brains is that they're unpredictable. Quite aside from the Herculean effort it takes to finish even the simplest of tasks, I find myself afraid of how I'll do them, of the outcome. Our brains make messes. One minute, my mind is flying a mile a second, surveying terrain no one else sees and making connections no one else has considered. The next, my mind is on standby and won't boot back up no matter how much I wiggle the mouse. One minute, my mind's enthusiasm and refusal to conform is solving a friend's dilemma with ease. The next minute, the enthusiasm gets a bit too impulsive and I choose the most uniquely detrimental thing to say at the moment, and say that. One minute I'm winning an essay contest; the next my editor's furious that the article (due Monday) may or may not be in by 5 (on Wednesday). One minute I've made the perfect dessert and blitzed the house in a rampage of maniacal panic-cleaning; the next, I'm an absolute parenting failure, and my house looks like I'm auditioning for Hoarders.

Yes, yes; I know. We all go through these things. I am sure you all do. But if I remember my freshman psychology DSM-IV-skimming properly, the difference is that someone with a particular disorder does/has these things to the extent that they consistently screw with that person's personal and/or professional life. My husband, for example, blurted out that the cat "was being an asshole" to our son, but I am skeptical of his claims of temporary Tourette's.

Let me tell you, it screws with our lives.

We are afraid of the mess our brains will make, so we don't do anything. As it happens, this dovetails quite nicely with our other ADD impulses, which all result in lots of talk, rampant obsessing, and not much doing.

We say we're holding out for perfect, but perfect doesn't exist, so we're really just being cowards.

Keep going. I hadn't remembered it for a few months, but I was telling my son this morning: My mentor and one of my thesis readers for my MFA, Thomas French, must have said it to me at least as often as I say it to my son. We'd begin nearly every conversation thus:

Him: "What am I going to say?"
Me: "I know. I know. 'Keep going.'"
Him: "Well?"
Me: "It'll be done tomorrow. Promise."

(Sometimes, it even was.)

It was pathetic, really. A grown-ass adult being told, basically, to turn in her homework. I was afraid. I was afraid of turning it in. What kind of mess did I make? What if the allegory I used this time fell as flat as that other one I thought was so awesome? How could I turn in something so second-rate, so rough, so imperfect? Anything's better than this pile of shit. Nothing. Even nothing is better.

Tom French is on The Colbert Report tonight. Everyone, if you haven't already, ignore me and go watch it right now. I'm positive he has cooler, more insightful things to say than I, and that's not self deprecation. It's a fact. He's very cool. He goes to very cool places and writes, very well, about very cool things. Also, he likes the same music, comedy, and books as me; so clearly, he's a genius. Still, the single biggest thing I'll carry with me is the mantra to keep going.

We practiced something in the program that we liked to call the "shitty first draft." I don't think Tom invented it or even said it much, but it's the same concept. Turn in your shitty first draft. Don't hold on to it. Don't withhold your ideas because you ramble when you talk about them.

Sometimes, my stuff was crappy. My favorite lines got axed. And you know what? I survived.

Keeping it in robs me of the one thing that can kick-start me out of my ridiculous spirals -- the input of others. Writing, and living, is a dialogue, even when I contribute most or all of it. Especially then. It's change, ideas, people, feedback. It's how most people ignored my essay about black widows and my reference to Queen's "Fat-Bottomed Girls" (except for a constant stream of disturbing traffic that seems to interpret the song title in ways that have little to do with Queen's intended meaning and even less to do with arachnids). It's how a throw-out essay gets a hundred hits in the first few minutes. Writing is failure, sometimes, but that's OK.

I told my son to write his funny Os and his weird vocabulary sentences that always seem to involve me, wizards, and flatulence. I hollered at the top of my voice last night that Your writing is better if you just speed up, if you just KEEP GOING. It was only then that my brain booted up out of standby mode and made the connection. Hello kettle; my name is Kim. You're black.

This essay is a shitty first draft, and I'm posting it anyway.

I want to do things. I want to do a collaborative mother/son children's book, with art by him and words by me. I want to look into displaying my photos. I have an idea about the insect-human relationship that I want to write. I have other ideas. I haven't developed or looked into any of these things, because I'm afraid to put something out there if it turns out to be lame. But I'm saying right now, I'm going to do these specific things, or at least try. So if you can help me with these goals, by all means, feel free. Even more than that, however, nag me. I need to keep going.

Life is a shitty first draft. You're not really living if you're afraid of that fact. Besides, sometimes, it's not so shitty. It's pretty great.

It's all a game: Pass it on

(Essay by me. Pictures, not necessarily related, by him. So this sort of counts as Snapshots.)

Have you ever played that old reading game "Apple Butter?" It's supposed to go like this: You're reading aloud, two or more of you, in class or at home (because all families worth the name read together at home), and when you want to pass the turn on to the next reader, you say "apple butter," as in "I do not like green eggs and apple butter." You get to name the next victim person to read.

My dad introduced me to the game, along with everyone else who was a fifth- or sixth-grader with me. We mostly played it at school. I never had him as my "main" teacher, but we split up for a few specialized subjects. I had him for mythology and health. And detention, sometimes.

I always wondered why the game was dubbed Apple Butter. I didn't know what apple butter was -- I always had this rich, buttery, sugary, appley confection-condiment in mind -- but I imagined it had very little to do with Madeline L'Engle, the American Revolution, Poseidon, or health class. Still, the game rocked. (To be fair, "quiet ball" rocked in sixth grade, so we may have been an easy audience.) It always became a bizarre hybrid of bonding, learning, connecting, and tormenting one another. A game of pass it on.

I've since asked around, and almost no one remembers the game by this name. Maybe you called it "popcorn" or "the game that means, thank god, that I don't have to read for very long." Who knows. Memory is a funny thing.

In his class, it wasn't called anything. Instead of saying "apple butter," we'd call out the next person's name, as in "There was the brain, there was IT, lying pulsing and quivering on the dais, soft and exposed and KIM!"

Or "The digestive system is made up of the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, the rectum, and the DAD! I mean ... oops. The rectum, and the Mr. Hosey."

(Much class laughter. The dad-as-teacher thing never quite got old.)

The game was lame, sure, but you should've seen it. Pass it on. It's a great game.

Have you seen a kid who can barely read squirm and fidget and physically ache for his turn to read aloud? I have. (His turn ended with "Athena burst forth from the head of Travis.") Pass it on.

Have you seen sworn enemies (at least, it was sworn before morning recess) make up over the personal grooming unit? I have. ("Make sure to clean your ... Melissa! Heeheehee.") Pass it on.

Have you seen weird kid -- the only kid whose presence still made his classmates want to pantomime "sanitize" a chair before sitting, the one who smelled kind of like waffles and always wore the same dingy Bart Simpson shirt and didn't talk, just chewed his knuckle; the kid you didn't want to offend but, by God, you weren't going to be seen liking -- have you seen that kid get picked by the cool one, and get his moment in the sun? I have. (His gem: "Mucus is secreted by Mr. Hosey." Heaven only knows where the reproductive unit would have taken us.)

We pass a lot of things on around here, and I don't just mean my chinless profile, pale skin and nasally voice. Sarcasm -- from my father's every-ready remarks to my own sardonic take to my son's emerging wit, which would make me strangle him if it didn't make me burst with pride. Reading -- from my father's love of the classics, mythology, L'Engle, and baseball stories and my mom's obsession with Stephen King (no one ever sees that coming, somehow), to my and my son's devouring of anything written.

We pass on compassion -- my mom for the environment and cats, my dad for an entire community that somehow became his family, my son's almost-painful concern for all animals. He cried when a cricket died on his thumbnail tonight.

Sometimes, though, I think we mostly pass on plain old passion -- for learning most of all -- and the deeply rooted conviction that for anything to be worth doing, you should be learning something, and if you're learning anything, it is by definition fun.

I was discussing my son's progress so far this year. He's got 99s and 100s on nearly every assignment, but he's dragging. He's bummed.

If he's not learning something new, he can't really see the point. It should be exciting.

"I wouldn't worry," someone told me, "It happens all the time. If it's not too awful, I wouldn't worry."

What? What kind of a half-assed standard is that? If it's not bad, it's fine? No. Sorry. And why would it happening "all the time" make me happy?

If it's wonderful, great. If it's provocative, fine. If it's difficult and infuriating and frustrating; if we cry and yell every day for a week, great. Well, not great. But maybe necessary, definitely important. The fun always comes after those times. It's certainly better than "not too awful." "Not too awful" is stagnation. It's self-centered I-don't-have-to-learn-ism. It's getting by. It's less than your best, which is never even close to OK. I don't want my son to get by.

My son loves learning. He writes, reads at least a few levels above his grade, sees things in ways no one else does, and has an imagination like you wouldn't believe. He created an entire fantasy universe -- completely original, not a riff on an existing one -- when he was four. He's amazing. I'm going to go out on a limb (we pass that on too) and say he got it from me.

He's also pathologically inattentive, impulsive, and stubborn like you really wouldn't believe. It's like arguing with an eight-year-old male version of myself. Which makes me realize: Damn, I'm an asshole. I'm going to stand on firm, well-trodden ground and say he got that from me.

It's easier to leave well enough alone. Just do your dang work. Get it freaking over with. Get by.

This morning he was gasping, writing, gasping, writing, and gasping. GASP. Writewritescribblewrite. GASP. Writewritescribble. GASP.

"What on Earth are you doing?" I asked.

"I made a game out of it," he told me. "I can do three of them before I have to take another breath. It's fun."

Oh. Right.

"Hey, Mom? Can we read out loud tonight? Can we take turns? And then, can we take the camera you passed on to me ... can we take it out before the sun sets?"

Later, he happened to ask for the "old kind" of sandwich, and I remembered: the first food he "made" himself was a peanut butter and apple butter sandwich, ages ago.

Turns out, apple butter is this cinnamony applesauce-type spread thing. It's really pretty gross. Somehow, I still imagine it as the best treat in the world.

This totally counts as Wordless. It's me, after all.

First off, thank you times a whole bunch to everyone who sent me blog comments, Flickr comments, Facebook comments and private e-mails after yesterday's parental whining. It helps. At first, I didn't like it -- everyone was all "Yeah; it happens to everyone," and my brain was all "NO! It doesn't happen to everyone! Boo! They don't understand!" A few minutes' of deep breathing and junk-food-eating later, however, let me gain a tiny bit of perspective. Which was all I really needed. So thanks. Much love to you all. You totally do understand.

And now, I'm shutting up. Because it's Wordless Wednesday, and I'm not being very wordless. That part above doesn't count.

OK. Shutting up for real now.

Promise.

Really. How DO you do it?

My son hates me.

Well, no. That's overly dramatic. (Surprise!) My son doesn't hate me; in fact, he tells me every day how much he loves me. I still get to tuck him in. We have "No, I love YOU more" contests in the car.

(Here's where you're nauseated, if you're not a parent yourself or in some way invested in me/my son.)

Rather, in between these things -- and by that I mean for huge, tedious chunks of each day -- he acts like he hates me. It really sucks. Homework is a chore. Bedtime is a chore. Not wiping one's nose on one's shirt is a chore. Why we can't rescue every cricket on the planet is a major issue. Chores are really a chore.

I don't mean the usual "Oh, you know how it is; he never wants to do his homework" chore. I mean ridiculous. Epic battles. Beyond the bounds of reason. To the point where I have to completely abandon, at least for a moment, being his friend; where I have to turn all medieval and tell him, at the top of my lungs, where the rubber meets the road/how the cow eats the cabbage/how the third grader better do the freaking homework right freaking now if he wants to live to see fourth grade.

Naturally, I want him to develop his own identity. In a way, maybe it's my fault. I encourage talking about everything. I love explaining. I love being asked for explanations. I love receiving explanations. I'll talk all night long. I really kind of abhor the "because I'm the parent" conversation ender.

David is EXACTLY like me, in way too many ways. Meaning, he wants to talk and talk and talk, and if he hasn't seen the wisdom of a particular course of action, he wants to talk (read: argue) some more. Which would be fine, I really think it would, in an adult. I'm coming to realize, however, that this isn't so fine in an eight-year-old who simply doesn't always possess the faculties to understand the consequences of his actions. We reach an impasse every single night. He cries. I get aggravated. He argues. Digs his heels in. I yell. I feel awful. He says something -- usually some little, totally dumb kid thing -- and my feelings actually get hurt.

I know how to love my kid. I know how to keep him safe. I know how to set down the rules, and usually he follows them. He's brilliant, and funny, and kind. I know how to nurture all those things.

But I think I'm supposed to know how to fight with my kid. And win. And have him, at least sometimes, acquiesce cheerfully. I hate that he doesn't right now. HE hates that he doesn't.

I'm good at this. I'm a natural mom, at least until this thing. I'm not being facetious in the least when I say I totally suck at this part. How do you do it?

Please tell me this is just a phase. Please tell me there are more tranquil phases to come.

I'm supposed to be the one making this go the right way.

Because I'm the parent; that's why.

Phases of my life (this post has nothing to do with sunsets)

I became who I am in chapters. Everything happens gradually, of course, but there are phases in my life in which I've really become, when the real scaffolding of who I am was erected. It doesn't have to be anything glamorous. Peanut butter M & Ms first taught me about fleeting popularity.

I was thinking about this because my son -- who has recently been infuriating, confusing, and inspiring in equal measure -- has entered what I consider to be my own first big becoming phase. I came to be rooted in who I was, and who I would, in many ways, return to being, between the ages of 8 and 12. This was when someone other than my teacher, mom, or dad read my stuff, and I decided I wanted to be a writer. This was when I really got into animals, even after my gerbil tried to maul me and also seemed to interpret competent mothering to include cannibalizing one's young. It was when I first hiked the Grand Canyon, hiked to the top of the Superstitions, and ate leeches (the last one, unintentionally). It was when I saw someone's house burn down. It was the time during which, after a very unfortunate incident with an evil yo-yo and my face, I realized "coordination" for my body most closely resembled "OK, limbs, everyone do your own thing!" It was when I was first bullied, when I first stuck up for someone, when I had my first crush, when I discovered the word "fuck," when I developed acne, and when I realized, to my great personal anguish, that certain things about me were abnormal, some OK and some not.

A few things happened between 12 and 15. Not much. I got my period, way after everyone else. (I was thrilled. Why would you want it earlier? No, I don't "feel like a woman" now. I feel like shit. Now quit looking at me.) I read the collected works of Christopher Pike. This was not a defining time.

Phase Two was, I would say, between 15 and 18. This was the first time I suffered a great personal loss. It was when I decided to rebel, learned I really sucked at rebelling, my boyfriend and I ran for our lives from a bear (which may actually have been a squirrel), I barfed lettuce out of my nose, I got religious, I began to get nonreligious, I got engaged, and I decided to get unengaged.

Later, I got popular for a few minutes. I got pregnant. But that wasn't really a phase. It wasn't even particularly life changing.

Having my son was certainly life changing. I became a mom, and that is and forever shall be my most defining charcteristic; and screw you, everyone who says that means I'm giving up some part of my identity. I'm certainly no perfect homemaker, as anyone who knows me can attest. For one, I spend WAY more time reading science fiction fan forums than I do cleaning my own house; and also, I had a cookie for breakfast this morning because I was too busy doing other stuff -- which, now that I typed it, doesn't look like something that should make me proud, but, well, so THERE.

Wait, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. Phases.

Anyway, after that, there have been plenty of big things, but they tend to fall back to parameters set in place in Phase One or Phase Two. And you know what? I don't talk much about those times.

So now, to fill up my blog posts, I shall bore you with the entirety of my childhood.

No. Kidding. KIDDING! Please don't go away. You'll make me cry, and then I'll eat a whole pie, and then I'll feel sick so I'll look for something to drink only all we have is sugary soda because I'm too crappy of a homemaker to go buy diet soda even though I want it and my husband's diabetic so he needs it; and THEN I'll enter into a Phase Three, which will be comprised entirely of weight gain and visits to my husband's doctor, and you don't want that on your conscious, do you?

I will share brief snippets from those times. They're actually all pretty short, but they're the things that drive me. Some are sad. Some are funny. Even if they're not particularly life-shattering, they're the stories that live in my head, and thus, who I am. I'm thinking of starting with the rabid squirrel-bear. What do you think?

**I'm still doing snapshots, or going back to them, I guess. You seemed to like them, and David's got a TON of shots I need to share.

**I'm thinking of making some kind of schedule, you know, themed posts of one type or another on certain days. What do you think? (I'm thinking Snapshots, Things I love/hate, critter day, maybe even Wordless Wednesday. I can be wordless. You know, mostly. Sometimes.)

**I'm throwing in pretty sunset pictures because you all seem to like that. This post has nothing to do with sunsets. I could draw again, I guess, but I'm not sure if the kudos on that was because you were humoring me, or what. Or maybe you think my family really does have Jack-o-lantern heads, so the drawings were accurate. I did kind of like drawing, though. It captured how correct I was, right?

Things I Hate-with-murderous-rage-for-no-good-reason Thursday

I wrote this Thursday, but now it's the wee hours of Friday. Bah. It's not a Things I Love anyway.

The thing about me is I'm really pretty good at bad stuff. Like, actual bad stuff. I'm sad/angry/scared/whatever just like the next person, but I go into action. I react later, if ever. In an emergency, I'm your lady. Well; if there are no paramedics, police officers, firefighters, emergency-trained civilians, or my mom available; then I'm your lady.

But little stuff drives me INSANE. This leads to a curious contradiction in my personality, and I'll say things like "No; he's not going into a coma. Let's just keep an eye on him and if he's not better by 6, we'll go to the hospital ... HOLY CRAP; I RAN INTO THE DOORKNOB! AGAIN!!!! AND NOW MY HAIR'S IN MY FACE! THE WORLD HATES ME!" (Actual example.)

So this is more of a Stupid-crap-that-shouldn't-bother-me-but-does post. Enjoy my impotent rage.

• I was woke up with a HUGE headache, like worse than my usual ones, like my brain was trying to punch my skull and poke out my right eye from the inside. Naturally, my husband saw fit to remedy this by flopping over on top of me, before shoving me out of bed entirely. He didn't even have the courtesy to wake up and see my death glare.

• The door burst open.
"Mom!"
"Meow!"
"Mom! Mom! Mom?"
"Meow. Meow Meow! MEOWWWW!"
"MOM!" [I was grabbed.]
"MEOW!!" [I was bitten. Scratched. Generally assaulted.]

• The toaster burned my toast. It also burned my fingers, because I don't stick utensils in the toaster because you're not supposed to, but I can't help thinking sticking my hand into burning metal isn't much better. The toaster's a bastard. Also, I can't ever clean it completely. What the hell, toaster.

• My son was behind on his homework ALREADY. On the second day. It was only because he hadn't brought home the ridiculously easy worksheet the first day, and when I told him "Just think to yourself, 'What is it that I need to bring home?' before you leave each day," he looked at me as though this had never ONCE occurred to him.

So the next day he had double homework. But this is double easy-beginning-of-third-grade-BS homework. I reasoned with him. I told him it was only a few minutes of work, then playing and frolicking fun-time.

(Because another fun part of my day was receiving a scammy phone call that made me paranoid that I owed my student loan people tons of money, I called the real company and was on hold for a bazillion hours. In this time, I drew a depiction of my reasoning with my son. Few minutes of work, blissful kid-type hi-jinks):


He opted for a different approach:


He decided to do this FOR THREE HOURS.

• I had to retrieve the trash can, naturally, in the swelteringly-miserablest part of the day. By the time I got out to the curb, I was sweating. By the time I grabbed the trash can, I was playing reluctant host to a curious wasp. Also, the can lid fell apart. By the time I had properly abused, cursed, and reassembled the can and was hitching it back to the yard, I realized I'd been standing in an anthill this whole time and was now the proud owner of two living socks. Much leaping about and shrieked obscenities ensued.

• As I headed upstairs my husband asked, in a funny voice, "Do you want some company?"
Me: "What? Are you offering?"
Him: "Huh?"
Me: "I said, are you offering? Are you trying to hit on me?"
Him: "Uh, no, not exactly."
Me: "Oh. OK then." [I turn to walk away.]
Him: "Where are you going?"
Me: "Oh, so you ARE trying to. OK, then! It was just off-putting when you said no."
Him: "Never MIND, then!"
Me (crying): "What? Why? I was happy about it!"
Him: "You said you were turned off!"
Me: "I did not! I said put off! Actually, I said YOU were off-putting! Totally different!"
Him: "Not to me!"

It devolved from there. I have a depiction of that one too (I was on hold for a while):


I tried to make it better by explaining the difference. Somehow, this didn't help:


• Later, someone with whom I've been trying to meet rescheduled his already re-re-rescheduled appointment, then e-mailed later and canceled that one.

• I needed to finish a query, but I couldn't find my latest document because, like a fucking genius, I named the last three documents "Document1," "Document2," and the super-specific "Article."

• The computer erased all my work (all 45 consecutive minutes of it!) and informed me that I had "chosen" to do something that made it crash. (Apparently, making something italic is verboten.) Which, by now, the computer might as well have grown a giant middle finger. I get it, computer. F me.

• The cats both did their best to help me concentrate: "Meow. Meow. Meow. [Second cat joining.] Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. [Cats beginning to fight. Murderous yowling.] MeowMeowMeowMeowMeowMeowMeowMeowMeow Meooooow. MEOW. MEOWWW!"

• I craned my body around the bend in our stairs to look at the front door, and bashed my head on the ceiling. This happens often. It is, of course, the ceiling's fault.

• My husband tried to proposition me again, more directly this time. Unfortunately for him, verbal repartee is not his strong suit. He used the word "boobies." He tried to make up for it by telling me how nice I smelled, how I smell unnaturally great for so long even between showers (kind of odd, but good so far), and that it stays wonderful "after you shower, for like a week and a half!"
Me: "Wait. A week and a half? You think that's how often I shower?"
Him: "No! I just meant..."
[Crickets chirping]
Him: "I mean, not that you don't..."
[Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.]
Him: "I only meant that you smell SO nice..."
[Chirp. Chirp. ChirpChirpChirpChirpChirp ChirpChirpChirpChirpChirp ChirpChirpChirpChirp.]
Him: "You're sexy?"

• And now I can't go to freaking sleep.

Things I love, summer edition

Did I mention I was taking a break? Sorry. Break over.

It is Thursday, so here's what I love today:

Vacation. Family. How traveling to another place, carrying all your stuff in a sack, and being disconnected from most of your everyday life reminds you that really, you've brought the best parts with you.

The ocean. The ocean frickin' rocks, especially to a desert dweller.

French silk pies. I've eaten at least three this summer. The guys might have helped, but not much.

Arizona insects. What, you mean you don't brave 115-degree weather to tote around a heavy lens for hours and muck around for giant-mandibled arthropods to hold? Your loss, I suppose.

Parenting. I do it right every once in a while. I only hope it makes up for the 90 percent of the time I seem to screw up royally, and also for my complete inability to pretend that I enjoy tickling or video games. But the incident with the cat, the spoiled milk, and the plastic planets? Nailed it. The question -- "Is God really really real? How can we know if he's real or fake?" -- posed while we were covered in sweat, dirt, camera gear, and the aforementioned giant-mandibled arthropod? Postponed thirty seconds, then nailed, I think. The extended middle finger behind my back? Happened to "miss" that one, which I think is nailing it, given the apology/hug that quickly followed.

Netflix.

Tom French. He was one of my MFA mentors, and I believe I've rhapsodized about the guy before, on other blogs if not this one. He's got a new book out, and you really have to read it. If you like animals, if you like zoos, if you hate zoos, if you're not sure. Whatever. Just go read it. I remember Tom telling a story during residency about when he was a kid -- he would climb trees, hide up there for hours, snoop on his neighbors, and become simply enthralled by their lives and their stories. ALL their stories. I think that's the thing. He doesn't take sides, or rather, he takes all sides. I don't know anyone better at getting to the heart of a story.

Finally sort of getting this marriage thing right. We're keeping the house clean! Without fighting! PLUS we kiss passionately enough each day to gross out any 8-year-olds in the vicinity.

Octopuses. For everyone who booed my booing of Paul the Psychic/Prescient/Whatever Octopus, I really really love cephalopods, kind of more than is normal. So there. P.S. It's "octopuses," not "octopi." The "i" is only used to pluralize an "us" if it's a Latin word; whereas "octopus" is more of a Latinized Greek word. I'll accept "octopodes," in a pinch. (See; you can be sure it's still me. Who else is so pedantic about these things? Well, half of you, probably. But my husband and his friends the other half likes to make fun of me.)

I love lots of other things, but I'll want to be even longer-winded about each of them. Also, snapshots to come. How's everyone's summer going?