WTH to Call This?

I wonder and obsess about all sorts of random things and have been known to babble on about the most inconsequential of these. But there are always a few things that I don't talk about at all. These things are put in their proper place. You know, that place somewhere inside where you tuck away your secrets and hurts and disappointments, behind your scariest hopes and fears, usually deep in your heart or in some recess of your brain.

Today I had to firmly put one of those things back in its place when it dared to poke its head out of the shadows. Using the firmest voice in my head, I told it that while I appreciated it venturing forth when I wished I had someone to talk to, it seemed to make more sense that I find a new friend or interest rather than wondering about one I had lost. It is welcome to wish me goodnight once in awhile as I drift off to sleep, but otherwise it needs to remember to stay in that place where I have put it. You know, that place where you put perfectly polished memories and other things that are better left alone.

A Formal Affair with Chuck Taylor

One spring day, sometime after Spring Break but before I was otherwise attached, I was waiting in the hall for the class before ours to let out. I was watching for a break in the tide when one of the faces was right in front of me.

It was a guy named AD, whom I had met earlier in the fall. I had ended up going to his dorm room with him, but nothing happened and I split as soon as I could. We had seen each other around campus, but not been at any of the same parties or said more than "hi", so I was a little surprised when he invited me to his fraternity's spring formal. I agreed to go, not so much because I liked him but because I didn't not like him, and I was curious what a fraternity formal would be like.

I was a little nervous, but excited like any female would be about dressing up and going out. I wore my pink and black tuxedo dress, and boring black pumps, although I toyed with the idea of wearing my Chuck Taylors just to let them know I didn't take all of the fraternity/sorority self-importance and drama that seriously.

Turns out the sneaks would have been a better choice. Had I been wearing them, I would have seriously considered walking home at one of the following points in the evening:

• After I sat through dinner with the people all around me talking only to each other. They already knew each other, and I was dismissed once I said I was not in a sorority, as if that determined whether or not we had anything else to talk about.
• After he danced with about the fourth person who wasn't me.
• After he had his picture taken with about 20 people, who also weren't me.
• After we went to the room he rented for the night and it became obvious why he had invited me. He used the argument that we had done it before (we hadn't), he had rented a room (so?) and why not? (he was an asshole). He finally gave up and passed out. 

I laid there and tried to toss and turn without crinkling my dress, which I slept in, wishing I had just worn the f***ing Converse. I couldn't possibly have fit in any worse. I couldn't have looked any more stupid walking back to campus in a formal at 3:00 a.m. than I looked walking past the front desk at 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

Todd B was on desk duty and had probably seen it all. He just raised his eyebrows and asked if I'd had a good time. I smiled and kept walking, thinking "Thank God at least I don't have a hangover".

The Spiderman Kite is Gone

The bad news is that the Spiderman kite we lost on Sunday is no longer in the tree and nowhere to be found.

The good news is that is the only thing so far that I have noticed just completely missing. Blown off the porch into the yard or across the driveway, check. Pulled up by the roots and lying across the yard, check. Peeled off the roof and dangling over the side, check. Under three inches of water, check. But missing? Nope, all of our junk seems to be here.

Well, there. I am writing this from my in-law's house where we are spending the day. Our whole town is without power until probably tomorrow. School is cancelled of course, and I rescheduled the dentist. Baseball is also cancelled again because of weather and damage. Will go home long enough to regroup and get the generator going full power, but will probably put off much heavy cleanup until the next round of storms passes.

Thoughts going through my head today include of course gratefulness for minimal damage, but also complete boredom because there isn't much to be done yet except entertain kids and wait it out. I am also tired, just because last night was a long night. One would think that a total absence of light and sound except for the hum of a generator would be soothing, but it wasn't. It was just that feeling of helplessness I hate when I know there must be something more to see and do, but not knowing yet what it is.

Four Going on Forty

Shut Up!
L - Mom, D said shut up!
Me - We don't say shut up. It's not nice.
D - I wasn't telling her to shut up. I was telling the world to shut up. I hate the world.
Me - That doesn't sound very nice either.
D - OK, I love the world. But I just don't want to listen to it right now.

At four, he's too young to understand that if you don't want to listen to the world, it's up to you to choose when and how to tune it out, especially when everyone and everything is competing for your attention.

At forty, he'll be back to wishing it was possible to get the same results just by shouting "Shut the hell up already"!

Moderation My Eye, It's Been All or Nothing

Yesterday was a day of excess, in the best kind of way -

• It was my turn for Sharing Time, so I did an Easter lesson, twice.
• Hid and hunted for seven dozen Easter eggs, two and a half times (side note: I knew we hadn't found all of the eggs, but the kids had lost interest. I made sure no one had stuck one in a tailpipe, and then we quit. The dog will find the rest.).
• At this point there were only nine eggs that hadn't been touched and three preschoolers who needed something else to do. So we dyed eggs. Then stamped and painted on them. Then stuck every sticker we could find on them. Then, since most of them had been dropped at least once, we peeled them and ate them.
• Flew kites so high we ran out of string. Didn't quit until we lost Spiderman in the neighbor's tree.
• Ate/drank so much sugar that it is a wonder I didn't go into a diabetic coma.
• Watched not one, but four episodes of Rescue Me, trying to get caught up before the final season.

Now to maintain that kind of energy during what is going to be a crazy week of baseball, dentist, work and family in town!

Picture This

I have drafted this post in my head a few times, but haven't written it until now. Something about committing it to "paper" makes it more real, and therefore more pathetic. So why now? To take my mind off the pain where I whacked my wrist reaching for the knob on the radio when it turned out I could not in fact listen to that song subjectively.

So, things that I used to think made people white trash, until they happened to me but are now things I try to laugh at, so as not to cry:

• One of my children came home with head lice.
• The dog shredded the mini blind on the big window facing the street. I left it up way too long because I couldn't afford to replace it, not even with a Confederate flag or a pee-stained Spiderman sheet.
• I took the insurance check and paid bills with it instead of getting the hail damage on the Mom Mobile fixed. (Because why spend money on body work when your hub cap is held on with zip ties?)
• I instinctively look up when I see water on the floor because it is only a matter of time before the roof leaks in a noticeable spot.
• I sent Little Debbie snacks that had been salvaged from the expired bin for my kids' Easter party contribution.
• For that matter, I have convinced my kids that Vienna Sausage and crackers with cheese spread is a treat reserved for once a week.
• And yes, I am still married to a man who wears a uniform with his name on a patch sewn above the pocket. (On the "plus" side, I am now greeted as Mrs. Monkey by the hag customer service rep at the wholesale filter supplier.)

The Word of the Day is "Stupor"

The world is actually a pretty fascinating place, if I pull my head out long enough to notice it. I know this, but it takes something to tap my consciousness once in a while. Today I had it pointed out to me by a relative stranger. My first instinct was to just write him off, but I didn't. Instead, I have had his comment on my mind all day.

He's right about me being in a stupor and needing to just get over myself. I have no problem with him being right. What I am wrestling with is how to deal with it. Ordinarily, I am pretty choosy about who I let get close enough to get away with making statements that blunt and still remain a friend. But I invited this "relationship" and now it's up to me to decide how to proceed.

I need someone who is able to see through my bullshit and call me on it. I am just trying to decide if I am brave enough to accept it or if I am going to back away from what I started.

The Rules

So I am hanging out reading when D runs in the room with B right behind him, lightly punching him on the arm. "Stop hitting your brother", I say, but he keeps doing it. "He didn't call safety", says my eleven year-old, still tapping on my four year-old. "I don't care, STOP hitting him", I say. "He farted on his way through the room and didn't call safety or touch a door knob yet". I am thinking that I have never heard of this game, and I am guessing D hasn't either. I say as much to B, and reiterate my rule that if both people don't know and agree to the rules, it's the same as bullying and he needs to quit.

D is sniffling and looking at me, so I tell him to come on up and snuggle. We talk for a minute about how it's not nice to hit, or to expect someone to play a game without knowing the rules. "Yeah, and it's not nice to hit a little guy", he says pitifully. I agree and pat him some more. I am enjoying just lying there with him, knowing he isn't really hurt, when it occurs to me to ask "So...did you fart?".

He sits up, and his face does that thing it does, where it transforms from serious to a smirk to total grin. "Yeah". We both giggle a little and I get up too. I hold my arms out for him and say "Let's go get a fudgesicle".

Random Thoughts

No time to blog. For that matter, barely time to sit down, and when I do I fall asleep. Medicine makes me thirsty and sleepy, but doesn't solve the problem, so I quit taking it (mostly). Stinkin' allergies. The longer I live in the south the more I hate it.

No time to clean up the ginormous wolf spider that I captured under a plastic travel cup. No worries, not home long enough to sit at the table for meals anyway. Baseball season kicks off with a tournament this weekend, then games starting next week. Half the practices have been rained out and I am still exhausted. Might help if I didn't spend so much time trying to keep L out of the infield sand. Or infield sand off of my floors.

Finally took time to post this:



The Dylan version is still the best, and the Clapton version on You Tube is a cleaner recording, but this one was my favorite I could find.

Happy Weekend

Oh, and I almost forgot - I think I am planning a birthday weekend to go to the Johnny Cash Festival :)

Clueless in Paradise

When I was in sixth grade, my parents sold the Milk Creek place. It was the first time in more than three generations that it didn't belong to someone in our family. We bought the Home Place from my uncle, keeping it in the family for awhile longer. We didn't exactly lose ties with the property up on Milk Creek, though, as my dad still leased the pasture from the buyers.

We had to go up there sometimes to check on the sheep and the herder. One time, he told my dad that the new owners had asked him to help them plant some little plants. Between his limited English and my dad's limited Spanish, my dad figured out that they had asked our sheepherder to help them plant pot. My dad was furious. Not that they were planting pot, but that they had asked his illegal employee to help, effectively ensuring that he would not report them, had he been so inclined. Instead he called them and informed them that if they wanted to employ said sheepherder any more then they could start paying his salary.

Another time, the lady owner asked if I was interested in a box of hand-me-down clothes. I was game, 'cause I was 13 and hoped to score some grown up clothes from the hippie chick. Most of it was junk, but there was a very cool t-shirt that I loved.I loved it so much that I wore if for gym class as often as possible. It was a light green color. It had a bright pink circle on the front, with an outline and a silhouette of a palm tree in dark green. The label didn't say Op, but it looked close enough to fool a bunch of label-conscious 7th graders who thought Magnum P.I. was the bomb-diggity in his Hawaiian shirt, ball cap and Op shorts.

One day my mom was doing laundry and asked where this shirt had come from, did it belong to a friend, etc. I told her it had come from the hippie lady and it was my gym shirt. Her reaction was too much. All the begging didn't stop her from getting rid of the shirt because it turned out I had been blithely wearing a shirt with a giant pot leaf on it every day.

The moral of the story: I would buy the cabin on Milk Creek in a heart beat if I could, but I should have known sooner that I could never pull off shorts that short.

Like!

Hearing this song everywhere and liking it very much:




I reserve the right to replace this with the James Taylor version if I find it :)

Lacking in all Motivation

Weekend with family was nice. Today is back to being dark and dreary and my sinuses are still killing me. It would have been a perfect day to stay home and catch up on TV work on important stuff around the house. Instead, I put on my favorite voodoo doll t-shirt and headed to work, determined to quit moping around feeling pathetic.

And here I sit, STILL trying to get my computer back in proper working order. Since I have to keep checking and clicking, I am not working very hard, just surfing the net and thinking random thoughts.

Things I am considering:

• trying again to cut back on the caffeine
• which sounds less like the way I want to spend tomorrow evening, Math & Literacy Night or having new people see my crappy house
• chopping my hair off
• adding a new page dedicated to people who think these are cool:

Things I can't believe I am even considering:

• K asked if I would be interested in being her model for her class on Brazilian waxing

OK, with that very scary thought in mind, back to work I go.