REVEALED! Part 2

Well, well (yawn), is it November 30th already?

Heh. Kidding.

OK, where we we? Oh, yes, the Velvet Finger...

5) True. I was not some horrible Bridezilla, I swear. But the gorgeous park and reception hall that we chose for our wedding came with an event/catering company that provided the food, chairs, linens, sound equipment, etc. And, although I could write a NaBloPoMo's worth of posts on this alone, suffice to say that they were...less than pleasant to work with. They basically did a bait and switch about the cost, then told us that they weren't sure that working with us would be worth their time, since we were trying to work with a budget. THEN, they proceeded to screw up about ten things on the day of the wedding, including serving the wrong food and having a failing sound system (luckily, I had actors in my wedding party who were able to project across a large space without such piddly things as microphones). Anyway, being the kind of Virgo, first-born, anal person that I am, I brought my contract to the wedding, and so was able to make note of all the things that were wrong. When we got the bill, they had overcharged us by over $1500. Is this a good time to mention that I had worked in an accounting office for a while? So I pulled out my handy Excel spreadsheet and went line by line through the bill and the contract and e-mailed them off to Lynn, the coordinator. When she called to go over the bill, she clearly was hoping that we could just breeze through things like $200 for printed napkins ("I didn't order those." "Well, we had them printed, so we're out the money for the printing now, so..." Like I was going to say, "Oh, well, I didn't realize! Let us pay for those. And here's a C-note, just because."). Instead, I kept her on the phone for an hour, disputing each and every inflated or mistaken charge. Politely, but very, very firmly. By the end, I did feel bad, because Lynn was in tears. To her credit, however, when she made a statement to the effect of how stressful this was and how her boss was really riding her, I started with, "I'm sorry, but--" and she finished for me: "...it's not your responsibility." Booyah.

Hm. I've just realized that story is really only interesting to me, and possibly to my sister, who is getting married next fall. Ah, well. I've typed it all out and I'm not fool enough to try revisions at 10 PM, not with five more questions to answer! Onward!!

6) False. False, false (slight gag), false. I have many texture/flavor issues with food, and if it's white and creamy and not vanilla frosting, I want no part of it. Exception that proves the rule, and possibly eliminates me from your fancy dinner party invite list: I do enjoy a healthy dollop of Miracle Whip on sandwiches, in tuna salad, etc. What can I say? I'm a sucker for the zip. Of the Whip.

7) True (allergic to cats), false (allergic to shellfish), and true (refrain from consumption of either). I am well aware of the miracle food that is fish, omega oils, blah blah blah, and am really working on expanding my seafood repertoire. It currently includes canned tuna, ahi, mahi-mahi, and swordfish (why, hello, mercury poisoning...loved your work with Jeremy Piven...). I can occasionally enjoy shrimp (the plural of which I like to believe is "shrimps," as is written on the menu of my favorite Thai place), but I confess to squeamishness about all other manner of seafood. Scallops, for some reason, especially give me the wig, as they resemble marshmallows. Salty, fishy marshmallows. Urp.

8) True. Well, mostly. I believe we attended a Peter, Paul, and Mary concert with our parents when we were small, but I'm counting "first concert" as the first concert I chose to attend. My sister and I discovered the Monkees through Nickelodeon's re-runs and were fanatic about them, in the way only prepubescent girls can love something. Like, we bought the re-issues of Tiger Beat that had run back in 1969. You know, when the Monkees actually were twenty. Somehow, the "flashback" aspect of all of this eluded us. Like, I knew that the show was old, because no-one wore plaid bellbottoms and Nehru jackets anymore. But somehow there was road construction in my brain between that thought and the idea that this meant that Micky (the wacky comedian, my personal favorite at the time, although as an adult I adore Mike, the deadpan Texan) was not actually twenty, but forty. And thus, old enough to be my dad. I suspect it was this leap that my brain was unwilling to make, and so I just plastered my walls with their pictures and listened to the albums until I'm sure my parents, having already lived through Monkeemania--you know, the first time--were ready to put me on that last train to Clarksville. Anyway, God bless my dad, who braved squealing preteens and their screaming moms (!) to sit through three-fourths of a band from twenty years ago performing schtick that wasn't original then. Preceded by Weird Al Fucking Yankovic.

9) True. I dunno. I was two when the first movie came out, and then...I was into the Monkees, apparently. So I never saw Star Wars. What? It was only in college, when I began to find my geek posse, that this became an issue. For guys. This was incomprehensible to them, and explaining that I'd seen all the John Hughes movies seventeen time each didn't cut any ice. And yet, those guys who were most insistent about the need to show me this pinnacle of filmdom were the ones who made me think that it was romantically cursed.

First, there was Jeff, who I fell for in a stupid, moon-eyed way. I'd visited Chicago on school breaks, and we'd been hanging out and I was absolutely besotted. So imagine my surprise (read: dramatic tears and Tori Amos songs playing in my head) when I came home for the next break and learned he had started dating this redheaded waif and that she would be joining us for movie night. So yes, technically, at 19, I was in the same room with Star Wars playing, but I didn't watch it. I was too busy watching this couple across the room, this couple that I had been a month earlier, only now my part was being played by someone prettier, skinnier, hipper (and, as my well-meaning friend pointed out in a colassal foot-in-mouth moment: "just a very sexually...open...person." Oh. Good thing those words won't, like, haunt me for the next three years, or anything.).

Fast forward two years to Matt, my boyfriend at the end of college. We were dating as the prequels/sequels/whatthefuckEVER, Lucas were about to come out, and he had this whole plan to show me the three existing SW movies. I explained the Jeff story, and he reassured me this would be a very different experience. Oh, the plans we made!

Then he broke up with me. On graduation night. While my sister slept in the other room. About four hours before he was supposed to help me and my family move out of my apartment. Because--get this--he was "a different person" when he was with me than when he wasn't with me. "Well, do you like who you are when you're with me?" Pause. "No."

OK, then! I'm sure that won't do any lasting damage to a young woman's self-esteem! Thank you for your candor!

Given this as a background, you can imagine my reaction when, a few months into dating, MOTH was all, "You haven't seen Star Wars?!" I did eventually watch all three movies with him, but only after I'd secured a promise that he would not break up with me in some horrible way. So far, so good. But if we split up, you know why...the Curse! (cue lightning flash, maniacal laughter)

10) Um, true, but you knew that anyway, right?


Ta-da! Done, and just a click away from successfully completing NaBloPoMo! I feel like this is the place for some reflection on the past month, on my foray into blogging, on the joy and honor I feel, being so welcomed into the blogosphere...but hell, I gotta save something for December, right?

REVEALED! Part 1

(First, if you didn't read yesterday's post yet, you may want to go there first, lest I ruin the huge, huge, pleasure you indubitably receive from reading my every word in exactly the order in which it was written. Ahem.)

Without further ado, the answers to yesterday's quiz! (UPDATED TO ADD: Um...some of them. Sorry, but I started this five hours ago and now it is getting late and I have to work tomorrow and I don't want to rush the rest of the stories and yes, yes, I admit I am a bit pleased that means that the final NaBloPoMo post is also taken care of, but that's not the real reason I'm doing this, you gotta believe me...)

1) True. My future roommates and I were looking at apartments in Chicago. Another friend was living in a women-only artist residential center at the time and called us to say that the center was having a fundraiser and Robert Downey, Jr. would be there as the celebrity auctioneer and would we like to come by? Hell to the yes, we said (or something that was hip slang at the time). So we all perched in one of the large windows of the courtyard, self-conscious because we were a) far less fancy than the attendees of the fundraiser under the best of circumstances, and b) having planned on perusing affordable apartments that day, this was hardly the best of circumstances. I'm pretty sure I had on lipstick, but that's all I can guarantee. T-shirt, jeans, and Chuck Taylors were the rest of my outfit. Precisely what you want to be wearing when meeting a cute celebrity manchild with a penchant for illegal activities. Anyway, he came in with his handler or whoever and just...sat on this big ol' couch, waiting for the fundraiser to begin. We all nonchalantly stared at him for a few minutes, before I finally said, "Well, this is stupid, we're here to meet him, let's meet him!" and walked over to basically acknowledge "Hi, we're staring at you, could you just meet us and get it over with?" He was, as I mentioned, terribly sweet and funny and did very little to discourage undying junior-high-girl-quality devotion, what with the big brown eyes and throaty laugh and all. And, after a few minutes of what I have no doubt was the most sparkling conversation in which he'd ever partaken, we stood up to go, and--allegedly--when I stood up, his eyes...traveled. My friend A-E, who was sitting on a chair across from us, said, "They kind of defy gravity, don't they?" (It's worth noting that I was 21 at the time. They did. Then.) Aaaannd...the rest is a blur. I'd be more mortified, but he relapsed and got sent back to jail a few weeks later, so I'm guessing that getting busted for checking out the boobs on some chick ranked rather low on his list of embarrassing transgressions, right below being in The Shaggy Dog.

2) True. When we lived in Chicago, we ran a small theatre company, and the annual fundraiser always included at least one puppet number. So a few years ago when MOTH's agent asked him, "You don't happen to know a female puppeteer who sings, do you?" MOTH was all, "Lemme make a call." And next thing I knew, I had an audition for Sesame Street, which happened to fall on my 30th birthday. Sadly, I kinda bombed the audition, because it came up just as we were leaving for Burning Man, and a week in the dusty desert had thrashed my voice, plus I didn't get the audition materials until the day we came back, which was 24 hours before the audition. So I didn't do well, and was really, really upset about the whole chance-of-a-lifetime-blown thing, until I stopped by my friend's apartment on the way back from the audition. I should probably mention that while we were out partying in the desert, Hurricane Katrina was happening. So my friend was watching the coverage of the Katrina refugees and I was suddenly quite humbled, realizing that I really had nothing to complain about.

3) False. I started knitting right before my 30th birthday (and the fateful audition). My mom taught me. I was back visiting her and she wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday, and I told her I was wanting to learn how to knit. So she dredged up what she could remember, we bought a book and supplies, and for the next year or so we showed each other our unfinished projects. I have made some progress since then (read: have actually finished approximately five items in four years), but haven't picked up needles since the night before Tankbaby was born. Somewhere in this house there is the first half-inch of a hat for him.

4) True. I went with my first gay friends (hee--new from Fisher-Price: My First Gay), Matt and Dave, while we were visiting Matt's hometown. Matt was delighting in taking us wee sheltered Midwesterners into The Velvet Finger. I was stunned and overwhelmed, but managed to hold it together better than our friend Andrea, who was even more sheltered than me (she once had to ask me if what she'd done with a guy "counted as sex") began to quietly sing "Jesus Loves Me."


More tomorrow! Probably with more parentheticals!

True or False: A Quiz

OK, this is like ye olde Highlights quiz. Get your pen and paper, and begin! (Do not, however, turn your computer upside down to read the answers. Because they're not here yet. I'll post 'em tomorrow. Also, that is probably bad for your computer.) Go!!


1) I met Robert Downey, Jr. at a fundraiser several years ago. He was very sweet and accommodating of us goggle-eyed girls, and my friend A-E totally called him out for checking out my rack. He made headlines a few weeks later for relapsing yet again. I blame myself.

2) On my 30th birthday, I auditioned for Sesame Street.

3) I have been knitting on and off since I was a teenager and my grandmother taught me in an effort to get me to help make holiday knickknacks.

4) My one and only foray into an adult store was while I was in college. It was called The Velvet Finger and it charged an admission fee. I still have the receipt.

5) I made the event coordinator of my wedding cry, using nothing but my indoor voice and an Excel spreadsheet.

6) I love mayonnaise.

7) I am allergic to cats and shellfish, so I don't eat either of them.

8) My first concert was during the Monkees' reunion tour in the 80s and I was kind of shocked that they were all...old. Like my dad's age, or something. Also, Weird Al Yankovic opened for them, so I got two surreal experiences for the price of one.

9) I made it to the ripe old age of 22 without ever watching Star Wars, much to the consternation of various boyfriends, and prompting a five-page letter from my friend Dennis about why it was the best movie ever made.

10) I am totally gleeful that, by using this format to post the answers tomorrow, I already have tomorrow's blog post figured out. Take that, NaBloPoMoPo!

Leftovers

Well! *claps hands briskly* Let's see if the Thanksgiving elves left something more cheerful in the blogosphere today, shall we?


Tankbaby talks! Well, babbles, really. This is just your basic language milestone--stringing together consonant sounds in repetition: But the Tank, while performing operatic arias for quite some time now, has yet to offer up much in the way of consonants. MOTH heard a "ga ga" a few weeks ago, but nothing since. Until yesterday, when he busted out these long babbling strings--"ma-ma-ma" and "ma-ba-ba" or "ah-ba-ma" (Obama? Let's hear it for mama's little Democrat!)--out of nowhere. Now, this may seem like no big deal to you, but that's because you're not an early childhood specialist, mentally cataloguing every possible sign of development as either "typical" or "atypical" because you are also a whackjob. Poor baby. He's just trucking along, moving at his own pace, giving me those big gummy grins, and I'm all, "That's great, kid. MAKE WITH THE CONSONANTS, ALREADY." The good news for him is that my professional training tops out around kindergarten, so when he's eight, I'll be off his case. I don't know what a typical eight-year-old is supposed to be able to do. Read? Long division? Change the oil on my car?


I have a Hershey's bar sitting in my candy jar. I won't tell you how many bars there were in the jar at the beginning of the week. I did warn you.


My friend E's three-year-old told me yesterday that she wasn't going to have a baby. Instead, "mine brudder will be mine wife and we will just live together, wif no baby." When I asked her why she didn't want a baby, she informed me that "sometimes they have to cut your tummy open if the baby gets stuck." Point taken. I reminded her that neither her mommy nor me had needed our tummies cut open, which reminded her to offer her periodic check-in: "Does your vagina still hurt from when the baby came out?"


Are you watching "Modern Family"? Are Cameron and Mitchell totally your new imaginary best friends? Just me, then?


Let's say that you are going through baby clothes and putting too-small clothes (or "alphits") away. How many times can you sing "Sunrise, Sunset" and find it amusing? MOTH and I apparently have different algorithms for this number.

Thanksgiving, Plus A Little Bit About Nazis!

Ah, the ubiquitous Thanksgiving post. I believe that I’m contractually obligated to write about either what I’m thankful for or what I’ve cooked/plan on eating today. Neither are what I really feel like writing about right now. So I will go with my usual method: Try to Please Everyone A Little Bit, Thus Actually Making No One Really Happy But They Can’t Complain Because Hey, You Tried. (Note to self: may want to investigate coming up with either a new method, or a snappy acronym for this one.)

Of course, I’m thankful for so much. I have my health (and health insurance in case that changes—no small thing, that), my family, this little baby who’s sleeping angelically, if corpulently, on my lap as I write this. I like my job, which is more than many can say, and I have ample opportunity in that job to note how very, very lucky I am. In fact, as I list things, I become irritated with myself for not being happy all the time, singing to the little birds that alight on my finger and feeding my pet unicorn, for so blessed am I.

We’re having Thanksgiving with some very good friends of ours. This will be our third Thanksgiving together, and my friend E and I delight in the fact that we’ve created a new tradition from what started as an idle conversation wherein we realized that neither of us had family-related plans for the holiday. (You might think that looks like a huge run-on sentence, but lemme tell you, I’m writing this in Word, so I can copy and paste it later, because our internet is currently down, and Word’s little grammar Nazis* don’t seem to think that’s a run-on. On the other hand, they also didn’t flag that last sentence, either, so perhaps they’ve taken the day off.) Our friends have two little kids who love Tankbaby and like to bring him toys that they think he’ll like, much like my parents’ yellow Lab used to do with new visitors to the house. We’re having your basic turkey-mashed-potatoes-pumpkin-pie meal, with various accommodations being made for lactose intolerance (E and the kids), geographically-influenced taste requirements (E’s husband), and overall pickiness (the kids and…um, me). It will be everything a family meal should be: lots of work for one grand meal, of which the kids will eat three molecules between the two of them, and then the formal Packaging Of The Leftovers ceremony will commence. I am beyond touched that we have created this family out here, that E’s kids talk about Tankbaby as being their “little brother.” Please don’t let anything that follows make you think that I’m not grateful for this. Because I really, truly am.

And I’d trade it all to get to have Thanksgiving with my mom again.

Mom died in April of 2007. That year, the holidays were a bit subdued. That Thanksgiving, Dad went out to Iowa to be with his family, my sister went with her now-fiance’s family, and that was the first year we went to E’s house. At Christmas, I flew home, but as a family my dad and sister and I agreed: no tree, no decorations. Not in a “Fuck you, Noel!” kind of way, but just because that was Mom’s thing, the holiday decorations, and it didn’t feel right to do them without her. Also, the year before, what had turned out to be her last holiday season, Mom had been really sick and trying to cover it and…well, those were best memories left buried a little longer. So we gave gifts, we went to my aunt’s house on Christmas Day, and we celebrated in the way that felt right to us.

When I came back to town, my friend J asked how my holidays had been. I explained that they’d been nice and it was great to see my family again, and that of course there had been kind of a shadow. “But the first year is always the hardest, huh?” J hesitated and said, “Well, not to scare you, but I’ve actually heard that the second year is the hardest. You know, because the first year, everyone is thinking about it being the first year without the person, and so there’s extra care taken, blah blah blah. But by the second year, a lot of people have moved on and are ready to go back to the way things always were, and you’re left being like, ‘but um, she’s still gone and I’m still sad’.”

She was right. Each holiday, each birthday, each life event that happens without Mom still hurts. Maybe not as freshly as the first, when the grief is still so new, but in a different, more subtle way. Because each event or season that passes reminds you that, not only is that person not here for this, they will never be here for this again. Ever. And you think that you understand that, but it still grinds into you with an insistence that makes you realize that, for a little while, you’d forgotten that. It’s not the heavy black grief that sends you weeping into the bathroom at Aunt Linda’s house; it’s a very light, silvery cloak that covers you for a couple days. It makes you sleep a little less well, makes you a little less hungry. You find it hard to care about whether the turkey is brined or basted, or whether you can get SuperSaver shipping from Amazon.

(And at this point in my thinking, I always imagine the voices of those who would say well-intentioned but awful things like, “But you can’t always be sad about this,” or, “But can’t you be happy for what you have?” or “But you don’t want to ruin your holidays being sad.” To which I say, “Watch me,” and “Yep, sure, I can be grateful while still being a little sad,” and “You’re right, I don’t. I sure do wish I wasn’t so sad.” And, oh yeah, BITE ME, ASSHOLE. Talk to me when your mom dies. Or not, because maybe you’re not as close to your mom as I was to mine. But surely there’s someone you’re close to, someone that you would still be mourning, even after some magical 12-month deadline was past. I’ll bet that you’ll find that someone telling you to not be sad only makes you a) still sad and b) also angry and wanting to punch that person.)

Does that sound awful? I don’t mean to imply that I plunge into a dark despair around mid-November. I still love this time of year. I am a sap for Christmas-themed commercials (remember that coffee commercial a few years ago—maybe Folgers?—where the older son comes home and starts the coffee and the little sister comes downstairs and hears him and then the parents come down and he’s surprised them by coming home for Christmas and oh Lord, someone get me a tissue), I love It’s a Wonderful Life and turkey and stockings and the whole shebang. And of course I’m delighted at the idea of Tankbaby’s first holidays (THAT HIS GRANDMOTHER WILL NEVER SEE—oh, you get the idea). It’s not that I don’t get the joy out of the celebration, but there’s an…awareness of The One Who’s Not There that is impossible not to feel. Not instead of the joy, but in addition to it. It just means it’s impossible to feel the one without the other.

So don’t feel bad for me today, or anything. I’m OK. I’m happy and I’m sad and that’s how it is. Now go and hug all your people, because you can bet I’m sure as hell going to hug mine.

*About the use of “Nazi” as a term meaning “strict police-like force”: Last year at work, someone had gathered all of the various lunchbags, Tupperware, etc, that had been left in the kitchen and put it all out with a note that said, “If this is yours, you have until Friday to take it home or it will be THROWN OUT! Love, the Kitchen Nazis.” I waited until after that Friday and noted that this very cool thermal lunchbag was still sitting there. I left my own note that read, “Dear Kitchen Nazis, I have taken the yellow bag, since no one has claimed it, and given it a good home rather than have it be thrown out. If someone comes looking for it, send them my way! Love, Falling.” A few hours later a co-worker approached me and told me that he had been in the kitchen when someone from another department saw my note and began loudly talking about how inappropriate it was to use the term “Nazis” and how offensive that could be to people. Co-worker defended me, saying he was sure I didn’t mean it that way as I myself am Jewish (I’m not, but for some reason he thought I was). Turns out the original note had gotten thrown away, so it wasn’t apparent that I was addressing an entity who had chosen to call themselves Nazis. Anyway, I was mortified, and am now terribly conscious of any time I use the word Nazis that I am being offensive, or, at the very least, inconsiderate. So, if any of you are Jewish and offended, I apologize. If you’re Nazis and offended, well, fuck off, Nazis.

The Closest Yet to That Promised Knock Knock Joke

Back in undergrad, I thought about doing my honors thesis about humor. I am fascinated by what people find funny, where that comes from, how a sense of humor is "installed," for lack of a better term. For myself, I know that no one can make me laugh more than my dad and my sister. Well, that's not entirely accurate; it's just that no one can make me laugh as consistently and as comfortably as my family. We share the same sense of humor, because I learned funny from my parents.

In my family, there is nothing so sacred that it can't be laughed at. The night before my mother's funeral, my dad was telling MOTH and me about a conversation he and my mom had had with a group of friends about dating again after losing a spouse. My dad's response? "I'll see who shows up at the wake."

Lest you think that humor a little too black, I will point out that it wasn't just Dad. Picture this: my mom and I are out shopping for blenders after an appointment with her naturopath, who has advised daily smoothies with various supplements. Mom has started yet another chemo regimen, after yet another earlier medicine worked for a while, then stopped working. There's a short list of chemotherapy drugs that can be used for her, and she's more than halfway through that list. But she's willing to try other things, too, so we're out shopping for blenders. Amid comparing puree speeds and ice crushing capabilities, Mom looks at a couple choices and says, "Well, heck, it's not like I need the lifetime warranty. Where's the one that's only good for a year or so?"

All this is not to say that we didn't all do (and continue to do) our fair share of crying, as well. But what I saw growing up was that if you could laugh, you could survive. And that, if well-timed and witty enough, a snarky comment could form a connection that transcended awkward, sad, or difficult moments. (See also: Tankbaby's birth. I have been pushing for two hours after about nine hours of labor. My friend E smooths my hair away from my face, rubs my back, and gently whispers, "Is there anything you need that you don't have right now?" I whisper back, slighlty less gently, "A fucking baby.")

Henry Rollins does a spoken word piece about music as the great equalizer, basically saying that "If you dig the Ramones, and I dig the Ramones, as far as I'm concerned, there's no problem we can't work out." I agree, but also feel the same way about humor. If you love this, if you can't stop hitting repeat on this, if you are clapping in your own living room during this, and if you walk around quoting this, you're very likely My Kind Of Person. If, on the other hand, you love "Jackass," well...we probably would have to work to find some kind of common ground.

(Am now secretly terrified that all four of my readers are stalwart "Jackass" fans and I have alienated you all.)

So, if you were making a list of "Dat's Some Funny Shit,Yo," what movies/TV/books/blogs/etc. would you include? What has informed (or malformed) your particular brand of humor? What falls in the category of Sorry, I Just Don't Get It? Any deal-breakers (for example, "If I found out you loved/hated __________, you would be dead to me.")?

If You Drink At Every Parenthetical in this Post, You Probably Should Not Drive

How awesome is my sister? You haven't heard the last of her...I have a few other e-mails (including one with the subject line "Why I Am Not Allowed to Have a Blog") saved up. I can't believe I didn't think of this before...I could have meted them out throughout November and saved my own thoughts--all six of them--for later, once the NaBloPoMoPre (National Blog Posting Month Pressure) is over.

I haven't told my sister about this blog. What do y'all do about the whole anonymity issue? Do you have a chosen circle? Are you totally incognito? Reasons for/against?

Personally, I have told only three people about this blog, for a number of reasons:

1) Truthfully? I wasn't sure I could stick with it, and thought it would look quite lame to make this announcement of My New Project, only to have my enthusiasm wane once it became hard, time consuming, etc. (see also: guitar, knitting, learning Spanish, shaving my legs on a regular basis).

2) I wanted the freedom that writing anonymously would provide. I like that I can write for my loyal cadre of readers (you don't mind if I call you loyal, do you? I mean, I know you haven't had to prove your loyalty in a fight or anything, but I choose to believe you'd totally have my back) and just come at this in a very tabula rasa (oh, that's right--I went to the Latin. Booyah.) way. I'm not thinking about "well, I can tell Person A this, but if I tell Person B this she's gonna get all..." Not that I want to offend anyone, but I tend to be a very people-please-y person, so just having a little interweb distance is incentive to be a little more honest. Should I offend you and you decide you don't want to read anymore, you can just stop and I can just assume you were struck by lightning or something. No pressure.

(On the other hand, when I read up on how to start a blog, I kept coming up against the warning that you should always write as if people you know will find your blog because [ominously] they will. Which is kind of a buzzkill, really, albeit probably good advice. Not that I planned on slandering my nearest and dearest, of course, but you know when you have that interaction with a friend and you still love them and it's all fine but you really, kinda just want to vent about it for a while? And be right, even though of course we're all unique snowflakes with our own fresh perspectives...anyway, I do try and keep in mind that anything I write could someday be found by someone who knows me. I dunno...is this something y'all worry about?)

3) It's nice to have something private and my own, you know? Something I'm doing just for myself and only I need to know about its success or failure.

That being said, of course, I did tell three people (MOTH and my two oldest, closest friends) and the reason for that is simple: I cannot SHUT UP. Not that I can't keep your secrets, of course, but I sure as hell struggle with keeping my own. I totally would've caved eventually, either to be all, "Yay! I-have-a-blog-and-all-these-readers!!" or "Waah! I-have-a-blog-and-no-one-reads-it!" and then I'd have to explain why I didn't tell them earlier.

So I don't know. I'm thinking about telling my sister, if for no other reason than I should probably get her permission before disseminating her writing all over the web. On the other hand, she might start her own and then you'd all leave me for hers. Hm. Maybe I haven't thought this through enough.

(P.S. Just look at that last line: thought, through, enough. Can you believe any of us learned to read/write/speak this completely disorderly language of ours? I mean, I consider myself a grammar and spelling nerd, but even I have to admit that English is all effed up.)

Creepoid FTW!

So, the comments y'all left were 100% in favor of me not being a bitch about this whole Facebook request thing (extra points to those of you who signed comments or e-mails "Love, Greg," which I found HI-larious). I have not yet responded to Stalky McClueless, but I did e-mail my sister with the dilemma. She e-mailed me yesterday with this possible response:

Dear Greg,

Thanks for your persistence. I was waiting to see if you truly wanted to reconnect. Of course I've missed you, oh how I have. I've never stopped thinking about you. When I think of all the nights I lay awake just wondering if you were thinking of me too...

I know what you’re thinking: Why didn't I respond to your first message? Well, of course I just assumed you only wanted to reconnect as casual acquaintances, and I couldn't bear to suffer that pain. Then I got your second message. I know, why not respond then either? Well, I had to carefully weigh whether or not it was worth it to leave my husband and child and this life that I've built for only a slight possibility that you truly had "missed" me. But then I got your third message, and I knew. I knew that you have truly missed me with the same intensity I have you. I mean, we were so close in high school, spending each day together, and hours at night on the phone. And though we kept in touch through college, all those weekend trips back and forth to each others’ schools? Eventually, we drifted apart. Lost contact. And know I could've taken the first step to find you again, but I was afraid to put my heart on the line just to have it stomped on, to find out you had moved on...forgotten about me...

But now I realize this is our chance! I've left a note for my husband, a video tape for my son so that he will always remember me, and I've got my plane ticket. Meet me at our place, you know, that place we spent so much time together during high school. We'll catch up on everything we've missed and start anew, as the duo we once were. I'll be waiting for you. See you soon...

Love,
Falling

She added at the end:

Yeah, there was going to be a line in there about the shower, and how you were there just hoping he would be there with a camera, but every time the dialogue started to sound sexual, it got too icky, even in ubersarcastic private e-mail form. Anyway, I think platonic stalker is even creepier . . Hope I've been helpful.

And this is why I love my sister.


In other news, my pants no longer fit. Seems that the combination of breastfeeding and regularly hoisting a 25-pound baby have worked for me, fitness-wise. And I'm not complaining, Lord knows, but it means that, unless I wear a belt, my pants are constantly sliding down past my hips, thusly rendering me constantly ready for cracktion (my friend E's term: crack + action = cracktion). And I can't help wondering how all those thuggy teens do it. Shit is annoying, yo.

Interweb-Un-Savvy-Newbie Unknowingly Ignores Honor!

I have been twice given an official award-trophy-shout-out for this, my wee little maiden blogging voyage! I'm so terribly excited about this that I keep telling my husband about it (he being one of three people in the three-dimensional world who know about this blog, so once I've told all three, I just start at the top of the list again).

I don't know how to make the badge thingy show up here (Submom? Jen?), but I sure do want to thank you guys for giving me the bloggy love. I have always loved writing, but I enjoy writing for me very differently than writing for others. And since if I was only writing for me, I'd be using some bound book with a sad kitty and a lock on the front, I am so honored and grateful to have found some readers so quickly. And the idea that I'm making other people laugh is really my idea of heaven.

I think that part of the dealie with this is that I also get to give the trophy to blogs that I adore. My (needs to be updated) blog roll has the blogs that I read for years and years before I took the plunge myself, so I think I'd rather take this opportunity to testify about the blogs I've discovered just this month (and yes, I realize that this is basically a masturbatory exercise, considering that I've found these blogs through my tiny-but-mighty cadre of readers, so y'all are already familiar):

The Absence of Alternatives--My inaugural reader, Submom has been giving me encouragement on a near daily basis, while still managing to post daily herself. I am still working my way through her archives, but so far I can see that she covers parenting, race, politics, all with equal insight and humor. I love that she has a category called "Mark my word, Twitter will doom us all." Plus, Venn diagrams!

Nathan Rising--Of course, being a new mom, I'm going to want to read what another new mom writes. And there's the fact that (from what I've gathered) our sons are about the same age. Also? Check out that baby. That's is one nom-nom-nomable baby right there. But if you want to know why I started reading her? Poop.

The Kitchen Witch--Caution: do not visit this blog if you are hungry. Or are ever hungry. Or have eyes. Because while at first you will just be reading along, snickering, soon you will be hit with photos of glorious food and then come the tantalizing recipes and then your whole day is shot, what with the drooling and making shopping lists and all.

Naptime Writing--Just found her today, via TKW. Excellent, funny writing that makes me feel all, why bother writing, I'll just send people to her, because she's already written it. Better. Also? Is Good Person. Check out how they've handled the Santa Conundrum in her family.

I am equal parts excited and overwhelmed at being on the verge of this wonderful community. Now I just need to figure out how to get my baby to do my job so that I can eliminate two time-sucks in one swell foop, as they say, and thus have more time for reading, commenting, and learning how not to be so ignorant as to not know what to do with a trophy.

ETA: Thanks for the instructions. Here goes:

Creepoid vs. Bitch

So, back in August, I got an e-mail through Facebook from a guy I went to school with. It was all, "hey, are you the Falling who went to Certain High School I'd love to catch up blah blah." I didn't respond to it, because I really had no interest in reconnecting with him. We did know each other for several years, because we were in the same activities and went to the same junior high and high schools. But we weren't friends. We didn't hang out outside of school. We tended to bicker. I would call our relationship "grudgingly tolerant." Plus, my freshman year on an overnight choir field trip, he and this other guy busted in on me in the shower and took a picture. I got the picture back (luckily, this was a Polaroid, so I'm sure there's no other copies floating around out there, in case I decide to run for office), but, dude...that is not easily forgiven, you know? If you were ever a freshman girl, I think you probably understand. So when I see this guy's name, my first thought is, "That little shit."

Good thing I'm letting that go, huh?

What was weird was that, just a week or so before I got the friend request, the shower thing (hereafter referred to as The Incident) actually came up in conversation with MOTH, and the embarrassment flooded over me all over again.

(Not-so-quick aside: The reason it came up? I was taking a shower and MOTH came in with Tankbaby and had him peeping over the top of the shower curtain at me. I didn't hear them come in, so when I pulled the shower curtain back, I kinda shrieked, then glanced up at Tankbaby, shrieked again and batted out wildly at the shower curtain before I realized it was the baby. Poor Tank, of course, burst into terrified tears. MOTH was all, "What was that about?" and I had to explain a) that you just don't sneak up on people in the shower, because they're Naked and Vulnerable, b) you particularly don't sneak up on me, because of already-cited traumatic Incident, and c) I certainly didn't expect to see my son hovering in mid-air, seeing as how he has shown no talent for levitation thus far. I said, "I didn't realize it was the baby!"

MOTH: "What did you think I was holding, an angry badger?!"

Me: "Why would you be holding ANYTHING over the shower? Baby or badger, both are equally unexpected!"

MOTH: "If it was a badger, screaming and whapping at it isn't likely to be effective, anyway."

Me: "Noted. Now get out."

Fast forward to a week later, when MOTH was taking a shower and I decided to show him what it felt like, so I went in there with Tankbaby. MOTH heard us, and pointed out--rightly--that I probably didn't have the upper arm strength to get our giant baby that high and that maybe I should just cut my losses while no-one was injured. I conceded, and pulled the curtain aside just so Tankbaby could say hi. MOTH leaned back, his hair slicked back and his face covered in soap...and Tankbaby once again burst into terrified tears. Scarring shower associations: 2, Tankbaby: 0.)

Where was I? Oh, right, so I told MOTH the story and it all came rushing back. I still vividly remember the absolute mortification I felt when the curtain was suddenly pulled aside and I saw a flash. Then the outrage as I demanded the picture back (after who knows how many of the other kids had already seen it) and the quiet, impossible, stomach-churning ookiness of staring at that picture, at my horrified face, at my own body just...there...without clothes. Not that I thought my body was awful, or anything, but at 13 (I skipped a grade, so I was younger than my classmates), I was in that no man's land of being acutely aware of my changing body, but still wary or grossed out enough by the impending changes that I preferred not to be confronted with them.

So. No Facebook friend for me, thanks. I deleted the message. A few days go by and another message shows up in my inbox:

It's Greg ______ from _HS. Now, that I know that it is you I was hoping to become friends, so we could chat and catch up. You look great. Anxious to see what you have been up to. Hope to hear from you soon. Love, Greg.

I ignored this message as well. Not because of the poor use of the comma, or the creepily familiar "I know it's you" and "anxious to see what you've been up to" (anxious? really??) and "Love, Greg" (!!), but because I really haven't missed this person's presence in my life. I have never once said, "I wonder how old Shower Perv is doing," nor really given him much thought at all, save for remembering the Incident as part of our discussion of future household rules around shower etiquette.

So, life goes on. I e-mail my sister and my friend about this weirdness and they both take advantage of my discomfort by signing various e-mails and text messages "LOVE, Greg."

Then, yesterday, I log on and damned if my inbox doesn't hold the following:

Hey-It's Greg ________ from _HS and I would love to chat and catch up. Hope to hear from you soon. Miss ya.

The hell? I mean, if your e-mail is ignored twice, what does that tell you? Dude, take the hint! Also? "Miss ya"?! Even if I ignore the annoying "ya" business, what the hell do you miss? The long walks we never took? The heart to heart conversations we never had? The places we never went together?

So this is where I find myself tonight--framing possible responses in my head and wondering if he's being as creepy as I think he is, or if I'm being a big bitch. And yes, I'm aware that the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. What do I do now? Ignore again, and hope that this time he finally gets it? Write back and pretend I don't know who he is? Politely turn down his friend request? Those are all the nicer options, ones that are in line with the kind of person I'd like to be. However, that humiliated girl in the shower wants to write back:


Look, jackass--I ignored you twice, because I was trying to be polite. But since you can't take the hint, let me spell it out for you: WE AREN'T FRIENDS. WE WEREN'T FRIENDS. I AM NOT INTERESTED IN BEING FRIENDS. EVER. ALSO, YOU ARE CREEPILY OVER-FAMILIAR. Now stop it, because you're embarrassing both of us. Well, mostly you.

What do you think? Is 20 years too long to hold a grudge for something like this? Do you think he even remembers the Incident? I know WJWD, but Jesus was never a 13-year-old girl.

Inside My Brain, as Performed by Dinosaurs

So, this might be cheating a bit as an entry (don't tell the National Blog Post Month Police, or the NaBloPoMoPo), but once again it's 11 PM and I am staring blankly at a screen, drooling while my lids drop shut.

There's a comic by in our local free paper called "Dinosaur Comics" and it is brilliant. One in particular is clipped out and stuck to our fridge, and I use it as a reference point to explain how my brain works (you may need to click on it to see the whole thing in a new window):



This is exactly what happens in my head when confronted with any problem, question, or even slightly unsettling fact: I rage about the unfairness, then begin to plan for the worst and then, when I realize (or it is pointed out) that I can't, in fact, control everything, I just opt for paralyzing panic and doom.

I think this will serve me really well as a parent, don't you?

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

Today, one of my kids was having a hard day and everything was frustrating him. He was at our "job board," trying to decide between line leader and cup helper. Finally, he burst out, "Fuck this job!" It took every ounce of restraint I had not to respond, "Amen, brother."



Aaaand...that's all she wrote tonight, folks. I have a headache that I'm hoping is just a headache and not some harbinger of doom. We've had a lot of staff out sick lately (the reason for today's headache...we weren't short-staffed enough to warrant canceling the group, just enough to make it completely chaotic and Lord of the Flies-y in my classroom), and I'm really, really, really hoping that this headache isn't the beginning of illness, swine-related or otherwise. I have all of next week off, and I'd rather not spend it miserable and sick. I have big plans to clean and childproof my house to that I don't have to call Child Protective Services on myself. Any suggestions for what to do when you live in an old house with limited outlets, necessitating the use of surge protectors and extension cords, and your baby wants to teethe solely on power cords? When we had a rabbit who chewed cords, we used a bitter apple spray to discourage the behavior...

It's Been a Long Day

Do you think, if I posted as my Facebook status: "is tired of passive-aggressive Facebook status updates," people would get the irony?


Hey, you guys? Merging from the on-ramp? I know it's hard to tell, what with the MILLIONS OF RED BRAKE LIGHTS and the fact that THIS HAPPENS EVERY DAY AT THIS TIME, but there are an awful lot of cars right in front of me. I actually can't go very far ahead. I'm not purposefully keeping you back from your obviously very important organ donation appointment just to be a jerk. You still want to zoom past me on the shoulder, just to cut in thisclose to the front of my car and then slam on the brakes? Fine, but I'm gonna assume you all have small penises. Especially the women.


I went to my car after work today and saw a large dent and scrape on the back passenger door. My heart dropped, because I just had the whole back end of my car repaired back in May after I was rear-ended (note to self: if you are going to be rear ended by a giant RamThunderEgostroker truck, do not drive a prissy little hybrid made of crepes and fairy dust. You will get smashed to bits, while the truck rolls away without a scratch, picking your brake lights out of its teeth.) and I couldn't believe someone had hit my car and driven away and...wait, there's my car over there. Thank God. No, wait, that's not my license plate. Dammit! This is my car. God--no, wait that's not my license plate, either. Oh, there I am. Ah, Pacific Northwest, where any given parking lot has at least three blue Priuses (Prii? Prium? Where my Latin peeps at?) within a fifty-foot radius.


I had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for two of my three meals today. I could do the same tomorrow and feel just fine about it.

I am part of an online discussion board for parents and teachers, and someone recently posted about the trouble she has getting her kids to get ready in the morning. She wrote, "I give her a choice between 2 -3 alphits and she usually gives me some resistence and then finally picks an alphit." Luckily for her, many, many wonderful people wrote in with suggestions, all of them avoiding using the word "outfit." I'm not sure I could have done so. "Alphits"? Is this a regionalism I'm just unaware of, or are you guys as baffled as I am?

(Also, by "you guys," I mean Submom and Jen. I have readers! You are them! Come in, come in, find a seat...anywhere. I can't wait for NaBloPoMo to be over, so that I can divide my limited blog time more equally between reading and commenting elsewhere and posting here.)


I spoke to a cheerful, helpful real live person on the phone today when I called my insurance company. I'm pretty sure that's one of the signs of the apocalypse.

This Is Not Tonight's Post

I came home after a long day, in a grumpy, exhausted, pissy mood. MOTH had to go to work, so he handed off the Tank, who I put in the Ergo so that I could take our woefully under-exercised dog for a walk. Said dog was so delighted at the idea of A Walk! O Joy A Walk! that she kept jumping at me and the babe and I was so frazzled that I had to aim a kick at the dishwasher just to let out some frustration, thus greatly (and perhaps rightly) alarming MOTH, who I'd thought was out of earshot.

I leashed the nutbag dog and muttered goodbye to MOTH and stomped around the windy dark for a while. While I walked, I composed a lengthy, venty post in my mind about how hard it is sometimes, how frustrated I get with myself that I can't pull it together enough to be a good mom and a good wife and a good teacher and a good friend and a good dog owner and a good citizen...

Then I came home and, while nursing Tankbaby, read this post from Aunt Becky (found via Submom at the Absence of Alternatives, thanks!) and I shut up. I thought about how lucky, lucky, lucky I am. I have this gorgeous (albeit non-sleeping) baby boy who was born full-term and without any medical issues. I never had to face the NICU, I got to take my baby home after my three-day hospital stay, and we never looked back. Lots and lots of families aren't that lucky.

So I shut up. And I watched my boy crawl around the kitchen, consistently going over to the dog dishes, and I smiled. And I gave him a bath and watched him figure out how to pull to a stand! In the tub! (Um, don't do that, dude.) And I did his nightly massage and I looked at his fat, fat legs with their very first bruises and scratches, courtesy of his new mobility. And I watched him nurse, pulling off every few minutes to give me his gummy grin, to stare deeply and solemnly into my eyes so that I'll lean close and he can bat my glasses off my face, finally falling asleep as I sang Aimee Mann songs to him. And I shut up.

Tomorrow I'm sure I'll find something to bitch about. Tonight I'm going to try to breathe deeply and shut up.

Why This Post is Lame

(last night)

9:37 PM: Baby is asleep. Blog is posted. Time to go to bed...early, even!

9:37:30 PM: Ooh, the last half an hour of Moulin Rouge! (I'm sorry, but if that "Roxanne" tango number doesn't give you the shivers, you have no soul.) OK, so I'll watch for a bit and then go to bed. It'll be fine. 10 PM is still early. Ish.

10:12 PM: OK, now to bed. Great. All primed for Ewan McGregor, color-saturated dreams. Excellent.

10:27 PM: Go to sleep. Go to sleep. You're finally here. Go to sleep.

10: 34 PM: Sleep. Sleeeeeeeeep. Sleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleep SLEEPDAMMIT!

10:35 PM: Perhaps agitation isn't the best way to point myself toward dreamyland. Breathe. Relax. Smell the babyhead. Ahh...

12:55 AM: What? Shit. OK. Nurse. Where's Daddy? Home yet? Yes, in the kitchen. OK. He needs to stay there until you're done nursing and have gone back into a deep sleep. Stay, MOTH, staaaayyy.

2:31 AM: You can NOT be hungry again. You just nursed. Dammit. Fine. Have a boob. Be quick about it. Also, can I just move this arm? Because the nerves are--no? OK, then. It's my left one anyway. Not like I use it much.

3:01 AM: THE HELL? Fire? Flood? What is producing that siren? Oh, it's you, Tank. OK, lemme get the weasels that are clearly chewing on your face...hm. No weasels. Diaper scorpions again? What in the HELL is wrong? Here, have a boob.

3:02 AM: Ah, back to sl--

3:02:15 AM: Ouch. Not so much with the gentle releasing, there, huh? OK, no boob. No problem. Goodnight.

3:03 AM: Fine. Boob.

(Over the course of the next 45 minutes, boob is alternately accepted and rejected a dozen times. Withholding of boob leads to increasingly frantic cry, but boob apparently offers no comfort. Tankbaby repeatedly appears to go back to sleep, only to semi-wake five minutes later with moans, snurfling noises, and aimless flailing of arms. Finally, cuddle position #347 appears to work, and he quiets and stays quiet.)


4:04 AM: Seriously? GOD DAMN IT!!!

4:15 AM: Here. Sleep on my chest. Look. We're all cozy and warm and I've got you. Shhh.

4:25 AM: Oh, baby. You poor thing. All sniffly. Yeah, go ahead, rub your face against my chest. OK, get comfy. Go ahead. Go ahead. Come on. Settle down. Get comfy. Go for it. Just settle down. OK. Come onnnn....

4:27 AM: OW!! OWOWOWOWOWOW!!! Dude, headbutting is NOT COOL. Especially if you insist on headbutting me in the exact spot where you grabbed my lip UNTIL IT BLED earlier today.

4:52 AM: That's fine. You just keep flipping sides every seven minutes. I'll adjust. The good news is that, by now, I've given up on going back to sleep, so my expectations are mighty low.

4:55 AM: Not that I don't want to go back to sleep. But what if I do and he rolls off me and I roll onto him and somehow, despite the fact that he is the world's lightest sleeper and also a whole lot more than pea-sized, neither of us wake up until I smother him?

5:07 AM: Swell. Now both baby and husband are snoring. This is juuuuusst great. Smothering not sounding so bad now. For any of us.

5:30 AM: Wha? Did I just fall asleep? And then jerk awake for no reason? Terrific. Wait! He's asleep! Time to attempt the shift. Sweet Jesus, please oh please don't wake up don'twakeupdon'twakeup.

5:33 AM: Victory is mine! Ignore the light starting to come in from the window. It's still night.

5:40 AM: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... (snoring)

6:30 AM: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... (vibration setting on the cell phone, which is also the alarm)

6:31 AM: fuck.

Playdate for Mama

I had lunch with my new friend today, the girl who I met at a conference last weekend. It was delightful. She is fun and smart and basically has my job in another agency, so we got to geek out together. She played with Tankbaby, complimented my grilled cheese, and gave me a hug at the end. It was lovely and I spent the next ten minutes glowing and junior-high giddy about My New Friend.

And, of course, twenty minutes later I was all, did I talk too much? Did I ask interesting questions? Did she actually have to go, or was she just tired of me? Is she as fun as I think she is? Did I inadvertently insult her agency with that one comment? Was that question about kids too personal?

It's weird, making friends once you're past, like, 20. It's so easy (she says, with the glaze of hindsight cleverly blurring away any details that would contradict her) when you're living in the dorms and there are thousands of other people in the same situation and everyone is all about meeting other : "You like U2? I love U2! Wanna be roommates?" It's low-risk, because there's always a June around the corner, an opportunity to shake the Etch-a-Sketch and start over. Wanna be Goth now? No problem. Ran out of eyeliner? That's OK, you can always join the patchouli hacky-sackers outside the cafeteria. Whoever you are (at whatever moment), you can find a group.

What's weird is that I'm actually less shy now than I was when I was in my 20s. But for some reason, I find myself doubting my own, well, for lack of a better term, coolness. This results in a strange equation, wherein I am more outgoing, thus creating more opportunities for me to doubt my Every Thought And Deed. Whee!

Hmph. I wrote this earlier, and then there was baby-tending, lunch-making, dinner-eating, and dog-feet-wiping, and now I fear I've lost the thread. I'd love to say that I'll sit here until I remember what my big, fancy, perfect ending was, but let's be real: the babe is asleep and I have the opportunity to go to bed early. Good night!

The Law of Inertia

You know that satisfied feeling you get when you cross something off a to-do list? I am so enamored of that feeling that I will occasionally--OK, frequently--add already-completed tasks to a list, just for the sheer smug pleasure of crossing them off.

Today I accomplished the following: walked the dog (while wearing a 25-pound Tankbaby, so I count it as exercise) to the library so I could return a CD (are you paying attention? That's three things right there), did two loads of laundry, swept and mopped the kitchen floor, vacuumed, made baby food, and wrote a card to my aunt. I also learned that, while imitating Tina Turner doing "Proud Mary" will greatly amuse a baby the first time you do it, repeated shimmies lose their power and the best you'll get will be a slightly condescending gummy smile.

So by five, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I cleaned up the dishes from the baby food while Tank sat on the newly-cleaned floor, pulling plastic storage containers out of a drawer and spreading them out around him, a tiny King of Tupperware, surveying his domain. He squawked and banged and had a delightful little burgeoning-object-permanence time.

By 5:15, I was surprised to find myself feeling a bit at sea. Jumpy. Wondering what else I could get done. Then, by 5:30, feeling anxious about what else I could/should do.

I am, whether through genetics or experience, terribly predisposed to fits of inertia. You know, a body in motion, etc. Before having a baby, I definitely tended to, um, "stay at rest." Which is code for "be a lazy, unmotivated ass." On a day off, if I had no plans, I could easily sleep in until 11, start a book at breakfast and sit on the couch with it until I fell back asleep. Rinse and repeat. Even in the moment, I realized how much I was wasting, what I could be doing, but it just seemed so...(whining) hard to get started.

And, of course, that was all the more true when I was trying to avoid something. I spent I'm too annoyed to think about how many hours staring blankly at a TV or book, just to avoid thinking about Mom being sick, halfway across the country. To avoid thinking about how far away I was feeling--well, not just feeling, moving--from my husband, who was embracing his new life here and never seemed to care about what we'd left behind. To avoid questioning the impulsive decision to move here in the first place. Of course, looking back now, I can see some of the hallmark signs of depression, but my, well, slacker baseline made it hard for me to see the difference at the time. I just knew that all of my thoughts at the time were unpleasant, so I was doing what I could not to have them. Besides, that couch was so comfy! And, ooh, a Law & Order episode I'd only seen four times!

Now, I've run a theatre company, studied voice and guitar, and gotten a master's degree, so clearly I can get motivated. The problem is that, the flip side of the inertia coin is that, once I get going on tasks, I get so revved up (Accomplishing! Things!) that I get hyper and tend to, as my husband puts it, jump on his head. I get annoyed at any obstacle to my efficiency, and woe betide you if you cross my Donna Reed On Crack path.

And, as I've noted, having a baby has forced me to be efficient if I have any hopes of accomplishing anything. And things suddenly seem more important. Before, if my kitchen floor wasn't clean (and, make no mistake, it wasn't), it didn't matter, unless you were a fervent believer in the Five Second Rule. But now, I have this creeping, mouthing little amoeba whose sole purpose in life is to try to reverse Darwinism, so a clean floor is at the top of my list. And the time I have to accomplish things is limited to naps or contented baby moments where he will tolerate not being in direct bodily contact with mama.

And so this evening, having accomplished everything on my list and then some, I found myself stupidly, pointlessly antsy, wondering if I could bake some cookies, back up my hard drive, and repaint any chipped lead-oozing doorframes before bed. Not because I wanted to do those things (well, maybe the cookies), but because I was in the mode and couldn't shake the must-do jitters.

But I try to remember that he's only going to be this age once, that I don't have to do this all myself, and that dirt builds the immune system. I took a deep breath, sat down, and watched my son learn about gravity. And that, while I'm all for him exploring his environment, I draw the line at licking the dog bowl.

I Got Nothin'

Whee! Completely blank! I'm all empty in the brainbox, and yet I'm here.

So...whaddya wanna talk about?

Tell you what. I'm hungry and daydreaming about dinner. The MOTH is working, so I'm on my own with Tank tonight, so dinner will likely be something quick and boring. Something I can cook and eat with one hand. Hopefully without dripping (much) on the baby. But here's what I wish I were having:


Sweet Potato Ravioli with Balsamic Butter Sauce...and no mini-marshmallows whatsoever.

Take a couple sweet taters (now, there are sweet potatoes, which are yellowy-white, and sweet potatoes that are orangey, and yams that are orangey-to-red...I don't know the difference between 'em all, but there is one. I know because I asked my friendly neighborhood grocer. I just can't remember what he said. It was a few years ago, when I apparently had less on my mind. Anyway, for sweet potato fries, I like the yellowy-white ones, 'cause they're less sweet. For these, I often use orangey sweet potatoes, because they're more colorful).

Where was I? Oh, yeah...take your taters and poke 'em full of holes. Microwave them for several minutes until you can mash 'em. I end up needing to add a little butter and water to get mine mashed, and there are still lumps. I don't know what to tell you about that, except to wish you better luck and great tolerance for lumps. Once you can mash them up, do so, mixing in about 1/4 tsp of nutmeg. Unless you don't like nutmeg. Then you can just use the .04 seconds you would have spent adding spice to work more on that lump thing.

Now, take your wonton wrappers (what? You didn't buy wonton wrappers? Fine. Just use your home pasta machine. I'll wait.) and put about a tablespoon of sweet potato filling in each, then brush one edge with egg white and fold that bad boy in half, pressing the edges tightly to seal (if you don't do this, the ravioli leaks when it cooks and creates a messy, cloudy orange mess. Um, I heard). Make as many as you want to eat, or until you get bored of making tiny tuber origami. Then line 'em up next to a large pot of boiling salted water. Boil the ravioli in batches, for about 3 minutes, knowing that when you take them out of the water, they will want to stick to each other like crazy, so you may want a large serving plate ready to spread them out on.

In a small saucepan, put 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar in with a mashed/diced up clove of garlic and a couple pinches of brown sugar. Simmer and reduce until it gets nice and syrupy. While it's simmering, go ahead and chop up some butter (some recipes call for 1/2 cup of butter; I used only about half of that because I like my sauce balsamic-y). This is where I screwed up the first time...TAKE YOUR TIME WITH THE BUTTER! When your vinegar is ready, put a few cubes of butter in at a time and stir them in until they melt away into goodness. You'll know when it's done well--the sauce will be shimmery and velvety and mmmm...

(A word of caution: fight the temptation to take a nice deep sniff of your gorgeous sauce. I know, I know, you'll think, "But it looks pretty and it's got garlic and butter and why don't I just lean over and...AAAUGH! AAUGH! MY NOSTRILS!!!" because the acrid vinegar steam will have melted your sinuses.)

A small bed of spinach (wilted or otherwise), a handful of raviolis, and the Amazing Sauce of Goodness* drizzled over the top, and you've got yourself a schmancy little meal. I generally add some shredded Parmesan cheese and just a tiny bit of drool running down my chin. Because I am klassy.

*I originally wrote "Sauce of Love," but decided that seemed...a little...well...

Still No Knock-Knock Jokes

When I was in college, I dated a guy. Let's call him Eric, because that was his name. He was actually a really good guy, but a really lousy boyfriend. He was only my second boyfriend ever, and I was caught up in a typical sheltered-girl-who-read-too-many-YA-fiction-novels' ideas about love. When Eric said he was falling in love with me, it never occurred to me to think about things like, um, how little we actually knew each other. I was the lamest of those cliches, in love with the idea of being in love.

So I dated him for three years (in which he broke up with me three times, by basically ignoring me until I forced a conversation where he mumbled monosyllables in answer to my desperate questions about what he wanted). I wish I could say that when we were together, it was wonderful, passion-filled, worth all the awful weeks that followed each break-up, but it wasn't. It was...comfortable. It was nice to be part of a couple, a couple that was part of a crowd. And, in my inexperience, I didn't know what I was missing. Well, I might have imagined it, but to question what else I could have, to take the risk of confounding the status quo...it just didn't occur to me, as stupid as that seems in retrospect.

The last time he broke up with me, I was just as devastated as the times before, but some good, honest, and gentle friends helped me finally, finally realize that I wasn't missing much. So when he came around with the roses and the sad eyes again, I didn't take him back. He claimed to be devastated, but as the weeks went on, I realized, the hell? We hardly had a relationship at all. He didn't miss me--he didn't even know me. As the months and then years passed, I kept wishing I could go back in time and cuff myself soundly in the back of the head. I wasted so much time with this schmuck. I could have been having adventures, stupid college romances, making the mistakes you make when you're 19.

Strangely, at no time was that feeling of regret stronger than in the beginning of my relationship with the man who I eventually married. I think seeing how good it could be just threw into sharper relief how terribly, stupidly LAME it had been with Eric. And now that I'm in my mid-30s, with a kid, I look back at my early 20s and sigh, wishing I'd had more...well, experiences, I guess. Good and bad, just something other than the stupid complacency.

I was thinking about this the other day in relation to having a baby. Before I had Tankbaby, I was so complacent about that precious commodity, time. I look back now and could just smack myself, thinking about all that time and independence I wasted on lazing about. I could have been traveling, could have been writing, could have been making clothes...a thousand "could have been"s. If only I'd been brave enough to risk upsetting the status quo. To risk failure. To break out of my cocoon of comfortable enough to try new, scary, or different things. Because now there's a baby. And while I don't buy into the "have kids and your life is over" idea, I am also realistic: kids come first. My time to be indulgent is past.

And just like I don't regret getting married when I did, I don't regret having a baby now. But I do look back and want to grab that girl by the scruff and shake her, because she's wasting so much...on so little.

Giving the People (or, um Person) What They Want

The Absence of Alternatives (Hi!!! Hi!!!) commented on my post from Monday:
"I am amazed at how you keep your professional life apart from your emotional life. I can't even imagine how hard it is. AND you don't sound jaded at all. You sound sincere, genuinely enjoy and believe in your work. How do you do that?"

Why, was that a blog topic just handed to me, not-even-halfway-through NaBloPoMo? Yes, I believe it was!

I should put out there, first, that there are people with much more emotionally taxing jobs than me. People who deal with life-or-death situations on a regular basis, like surgeons and EMTs and, um...hostage negotiators. Hell, a lot of people who were in that room with me on Monday deal with this kind of stuff all the time. I deal with it more often than, say, Joe the Plumber (remember him?), but I should point out that, on many days, my job is full of cuteness and wheels on the bus and the negative stuff is more about the unending paperwork than the possibility of tearing a family apart.

However, some days I do have to call and report suspected abuse or neglect. Some days I am on the phone with tearful parents whose neighbors won't let their kids play with the "weird" kid next door. Sometimes I see my kids' lives in their play schemas, like when a child from what you know to be a chaotic home looks at a game with pictures of an adult and a kid and--rather than talking about "old" and "young" or "big" and "small" as the creators of the game intended--says, "That's the dad and that's the baby. The dad forgot to feed the baby."

So, the question of how to keep professional and emotional lives separate sort of butts up against the question of jadedness. In my experience, people become jaded as a form of self-protection. Because it is hard, to see these human struggles every day, and even harder to see their effects on innocent kids. So you start to come to expect it, so that you don't suck in your breath every time you see a bruise or hear about hot sauce on the tongue. And you know that the other professionals you deal with, those souls who work in The System, are likely to be jaded, and you want to be respected by them, so you try and match their level of detachment.

And, to be totally honest, a small bit of the jadedness comes from an ugly superior disdain. I think that even the most non-judgmental, most compassionate of service workers (and here I include medical professionals, social workers, nursing home attendants, teachers...anyone whose job includes taking care of other people in any way) have days or occasions where they react with revulsion. Especially when you work with kids and you become so invested in them. It's very easy to become impatient, frustrated, or just plain PISSED OFF at the adults who are making choices that negatively affect and sometimes outright harm these children. And then you feel it: the bile in your throat, the righteous speech full of condemnation, the sheer sickness that comes from seeing what Robert Burns* called "man's inhumanity to man." Hopefully it is short-lived, dealt with in formal or informal therapy, and kept far away from the actual people you interact with.

So that's reason/way number one that I try to avoid becoming too jaded. I don't want that nasty superiority to get a foothold in my psyche, because the reality is, the difference between me and "them" is basically luck. I am lucky that I have no cognitive processing issues or overwhelming mental health problems (panic attacks and a tendency toward anxiety notwithstanding). I am lucky that I got through childhood with no major trauma or loss. I am so, so, so lucky that I had great, wonderful parents. I am lucky that I am white and middle-class. I have overcome exactly no odds. So, as far as I'm concerned, I don't get to judge.

(I do, however, get to vent. I think that's also key: a good bitchfest every now and then, with confidentiality and caveats in place, is sometimes a necessary way of emptying the ol' brainpan.)

So how do I do this? I am, obviously, a more highly evolved being than most. Hee. Kidding. Look, I love these kids. Which is, for me, the biggest and simplest way to avoid being jaded: spend time with little kids. These kids don't know that they're getting the raw end of the deal. Well, I shouldn't say that. A few of my social skills kids, I suspect, are able to realize that not everyone lives in four different foster homes before they're four years old. I should say that they don't dwell on it, that it doesn't define who they are. They're not comparing themselves (or their parents) to someone else and getting mad about what they deserve. When I lived in Chicago, I worked in a day care for kids who were either HIV-positive or lived with someone who was. Sound depressing? Yes, it was certainly sad to see what these kids had to go through, but this was the only life they knew. Yes, they didn't like the constant medical procedures or the instability of their homes. But they didn't feel sorry for themselves, so--most of the time--I didn't either.

And finally? I am terribly self-indulgent. Bad TV, candy, pizza...I'm not above both escapism and rewards when I get home. Obviously, a young baby (plus giving up cable) has put the kibosh on some of my more sloth-like habits, but then, I have a chubby soft baby to snoogle with, which is indulgent in a whole different way.

Speaking of which, he's now up, bringing a rather abrupt end to this ramble.

I think I still owe you some knock-knock jokes.


*Don't be too impressed--I totally had to Google that.

Because Every Freaking Day For a Month is A LOT OF DAYS, YO

This is likely to be short and a little lame...it is already past bedtime and I hit a wall back around 2:30 PM that I haven't quite managed to climb, lo these eight hours past. You know when you get suddenly overwhelmed by a tiredness that is almost in itself relaxing? When your body feels almost like it does after a massage or (if you're a hair slut like me) after getting your hair brushed? It's a liquidy heaviness that saturates your limbs and slows your reflexes. You can still speak, but a little more slowly and a little less coherently than you can at the top of your game. It's the point where you can maintain a conversation, but find yourself needing to prop up your head on your hands, your elbows on your knees, your body on a table...yeah. I'm there.

So forgive me and I promise that tomorrow I'll write something a little more engrossing. For tonight, I leave you with the following installment of Preschool Kids with Special Needs Really Say the Darndest Things, So All You Typically Developing Kids Best Step Off:

Scene: social skills group, me and a particularly spunky 4-year-old

Me (flashing the lights): Clean up time!

E: But I wanted to flash the lights!

Me: Sorry, E, I didn't know.

E (with an almost frenzied reassurance, the way you'd try and convince a child to stop crying): That's OK, that's OK, I still love you.

Me: Um...good to know. Thanks. I'm glad you still love me.

E (matter of factly): Yeah. That's what I tell all my adults.


End Scene.

Mother's Little Helpers

So, for once, I had a topic all picked out for my daily blog. That family I mentioned? Today I attended a meeting with DHS and the other service providers (community health nurse, respite care, etc.) and we all shared our experiences with the family. And those kids may end up in foster care, in part as a result of this meeting. Which is...kinda heavy, really. Some people at the meeting were very clear and direct about their opinion about pulling the kids. I hedged a bit. For one thing, that's outside the scope of my job to express such an opinion, but for another, I found it hard to whole-heartedly endorse the trauma that will follow. Do I worry about the safety of the kids? Absolutely. Do I think pulling them from the home is the answer? Well, not a good answer, but short of inventing the ability to turn back time and re-raise their parents, I don't know what answer I'm looking for.

I guess it comes down to: I hate that this is where we are, but I would (obviously) hate even more for something to happen to those kids.

I tried to make it clear that, whatever happens, I think it would be good for the 4-year-old (who I case manage) to be able to continue attending my class. He's made such progress, and, while I fully expect regression if he does go into foster care, at least he'll have some consistency. It's not that he needs me as a teacher, that I'm some miracle worker, it's that I'm here. Day after day, trying to convince him that an adult can be trusted. And I think he might be starting to believe me.

So, anyway, I came home a little...pensive, let's say. And then, in fairly rapid succession, a number of events conspired to cheer me up:

1) Tankbaby smiling through the window at me as I walked up the front steps. You have to understand that I have produced the fattest baby in history, so when he smiles, you get, like 30 chins and cheeks that go up and out and threaten to eclipse his ears. I defy you not to smile back at him. He could cheer up Morrissey.

2) MOTH's executive decision that our evening dog walk should be to the Thai place, where we would pick up Hot Food Prepared By Others, one of my favorite meals.

3) Tankbaby crashing out on the boob while I listened to Aimee Mann and re-read Sundry's blog archives, hoping to be reassured that it takes a while to get the hang of this blogging thing (Instead, I just muttered to myself, "well, someone certainly never heard of humble beginnings..." Side note: She was writing about how, in 2002, she was late to the blog party. What does that make me?)

4) Pulled up my little zygote of a blog and found my first comment! The Absence of Alternatives likes me! She really likes me! Not only that, she reads me! There's someone out here! Hi!!! Hi!!! (waves frantically)

All in all, a lovely evening to put a balm on my morning.

Because the Idea of Coherence Makes My Head Hurt

If you are going to feed the baby prunes, you will need to remain within diapering range of baby for the duration of prune expellation.


I adore the person I met at a conference this weekend, who, when I attempted a sort of lame business card exchange in a furtive effort to maybe, possibly, start an interaction that could one day lead to coffee or something, said, "Hey, do you want to be friends?" and just took a much cooler short-cut around the awkwardness. So, now I have a new friend!


Also at the conference, we did this touchy-feely closing exercise where we passed a ball of string around a the circle. The facilitator chided us to get closer, until we were actually touching each others' shoulders. Many people laughed a little self-consciously and moved closer, because, as people who work with young children, we generally are folks who are used to physical proximity. Not so for the lone male participant: "Sorry, I'm an accountant."


Have you had a graham cracker lately? Because you might be missing out.


Always have your baby about 18-24 months after a friend or two has had their last kid. Our lovely friend Jo--whom I adore even though she ALWAYS, ALWAYS looks radiant and put-together, even at 9 on a Sunday morning after two weeks of house guests and with her 2-year-old in tow--brought over yet more clothes and baby equipment today. I literally don't know how we could have afforded a baby without the generosity of people like this. Well, the baby was covered by insurance (because I am lucky), but the baby-related stuff came from generous, done-breeding friends.


One of the things Jo brought us was a Pack'n'Play (or foldable playpen, for those of you kickin' it old-school), which I have begun to call Baby Jail. I am mostly being facetious, although honestly, I generally sort of hate the idea of plopping babies in little mesh cages. However, that being said, it was realllly nice to have a safe (i.e., void of power cords and slobbery dog maws) place to set the baby for a second while I printed some pictures to send to Grandma.

On Monday, Tankbaby started to crawl. While this was every bit as miraculous--Dig it! He's like a real baby!--and moving as the cliches would lead you to believe, I am now obsessed (OK, even more obsessed) with how fraught with danger my seemingly-pleasant, formerly-innocent little house is. Who built a house with all these freaking CORNERS? And why make the floors so SOLID? Who turned up the gravity in this place, anyway?


Attention, doctors and media and CDC-type folks: either the swine flu is a Really Big Deal and you encourage vaccines and then actually manufacture enough of the effing things or shut up about it. Because to encourage panic and fear and then have all of us scrambling to find a clinic that has the shots only to be denied them because we're not "priority," well...that's tedious. And it encourages people to take medical advice from Jenny McCarthy.

Rambling to Self, Part the Second

Where was I?

Ah, yes...so now I had this writer that I loved, but she couldn't write enough for me to spend hours at a time reading. But what's this? A little list in the corner of other funny, smart women writing! Whee! Who cares if I don't have cable?

And so I worked my way through Julia's list. In this way, I became immersed in the world of infertility blogging (so much so that, when we started trying to get pregnant, I was sort of convinced that we wouldn't be able to, just because these women with whom I so identified in other ways had struggled to conceive. And then when I did get pregnant right away, I felt like a traitor. Which is kind of insane, because...well, they don't know me, they don't care, even if they did, yadda yadda insanecakes). My husband would walk by and wonder, "Why are you reading about infertility? We're not even trying yet." And I tried to explain, it's not the topic, it's the writer. I would read these women writing about infertility, parenting, car repair, Middle Eastern politics, Dadaist art, library fees, honeybee mating habits...a good writer, to me, can make any topic interesting.

Then, by nature of the evolution of the bloggers' lives and by following more links, I started reading parenting blogs. But, of course, calling it a "parenting" blog is generally a vast oversimplification: these women wrote about their lives, and their kids were (and, um, hopefully still are) part of that.

So I come back to: do I need a niche? Does that make it easier for readers to identify with you? Or for other bloggers to connect to you? I do envy and covet membership in some of the wonderful communties of bloggers that I read about, but am floundering at the idea of trying to figure out exactly where I belong. I will certainly write about parenting. But I'm also a special ed teacher and feel passionately about that. More specifically, I work with preschoolers with social and emotional issues and I want to compare notes and share resources. I am the daughter of a woman who died of cancer and am now mothering without my mother. I want to connect with other people who are doing the same thing. I am writing just for the sake of writing, and want to hear from people who are doing that. So can I be this spread out and still find the community I seek? Is there an online network of blogging schizophrenics?

Hm. So much for getting a few more days out of this topic. Tomorrow, knock-knock jokes!

In Which I Link…and Link…and Link…

Recently the lovely Jo at Leery Polyp wrote about losing her niche. She started out writing about, among other things, her infertility. Now she has two gorgeous daughters and is, in her words, “blundering niche-less through parenting bloggery.” I, along with other commenters , hastened to point out that, niche or no, Jo is a wonderful writer and we’ll all read whatever she chooses to write about. And, lucky us, she agreed to do so.

Which begs the question, do you need a niche to be a successful blogger? (My immediate reaction is, no, but you do need to start blogging about six years ago.) And, if so, what’s mine? I don’t remember how I found the first blogs I ever read (Poundy and TranceJen). I read them in the months when I was in grad school, living across the country from my sick mom, and feeling bleh about one and horribly, unwaveringly miserable about the other. I loved these funny women, who were willing to be so open about their lives, who distracted me from mine. Coincidentally, they were both in Chicago, which nicely fed into my homesickness.

Then, I stopped reading. Probably because I got a job and some therapy and started leaving my apartment, you know…ever. A few years ago, while reading Salon.com, I just randomly clicked over to A Little Pregnant, and happened upon this entry. I laughed out loud, showed the entry to a dozen people, standing over their shoulders while they read it, and laughed out loud again each time. So I read the archives, mostly laughing, sometimes crying. I am, if I do say so myself, a ridiculously fast reader, and I always have a book going. But this? This was appealing in a whole different way. When I read a book that I enjoy, I always have one eye on the pages left, aware of the impending ending (hee). I loved the idea of reading excellent writing with no set ending. But then I caught up to her, and wondered, “What now?”

Aaaand…I’ll have to finish that thought tomorrow, because the baby is now awake. Also? If I’m going to post every day, there’s no point rushing anything. Maybe I’ll get two or (checks calendar, counts days) twenty-four more posts out of it.

Times Are Tough All Over

In the city where I live, it is quite common to see homeless people standing at intersections, at on- and off-ramps for the highway, etc., with cardboard signs, asking for money or food. This was odd to me when we first moved here. Not that Chicago doesn't have its share of homeless people, but a) they tend to work high-foot-traffic areas, like downtown, instead of car-traffic areas, and b) they usually skip the cardboard sign and just come out and ask you for change. Possibly with some colorful language, or, alternately, a compliment. There's enough variety to always keep you on your toes.

But here, it's a magic-marker-and-cardboard kind of city, apparently. Most of the time, the signs just read something simple and poignant: "Need food-God bless." "Can't work-need help." "War Veteran." Sometimes there is a refreshing directness: "Why lie? I need a beer."

Today, though? The kid on the off-ramp stood impassively in the drizzling rain, hood pulled up, shoulders hunched slightly, with a hangdog expression on his face. I couldn't read the entire sign as I turned past him, but caught enough to get the gist:

"Parents killed by evil ninjas..."

Not Included: Suzanne Vega's "Luka," Fetal Position

Today I went on a truly depressing home visit.

Home visiting is part of my job; kids 3-5 come to preschool groups, kids birth-3 are seen in their "natural environment," which is usually their home, or maybe their day care. I like the phrase "natural environment," though...it makes it sound like the toddlers are feral, and we're approaching them in the woods with clipboards and ID tags.

The idea about going to the home is that you get to work with the families as well. We only get to see kids for an hour, once or twice a month (due to budget and staffing constraints), so ideally, we are also teaching parents how to interact with their child in a way that helps them reach their developmental goals (the kids' developmental goals, that is...we're not responsible for the parents' development, but more on that in a bit). This process works fairly well when the child is in a stable home, with a motivated, committed parent who has the desire and capability to take in our instructions and apply them. I still wish we could give the kids more hours of service, but I don't mourn for them.

I mourn for this house I was at today. Four kids under the age of five, all of them with some sort of identified special need or delay. They are the product of multiple generations of poverty, mental illness, drugs, incarceration, abuse...and, statistically, they are likely to continue these cycles as they grow up.

It's easy (if not exactly pleasant) to think that the answer is to have the state pull the kids out of the home. Break the cycle, right? And that may be what happens in this case. I do fear for the children's safety, and have reported my suspicions to the state (as I'm mandated by law to do). But--ignoring for a moment the fact that the mom, as crazy and damaged as she may be, is holding it together as best she can for her kids and it would destroy her to lose them--the sad truth is that kids feel most secure with what they know, even when what they know is hell. And anyone who's read a newspaper knows that there's no guarantee that they'll avoid a frying-pan-fire situation by getting put into the foster care system.

Hoo, boy! Cheerful, huh? See how I lure you in with three days of cutesy posting and then: WHAMMO! LIFE SUCKS AND THEN YOU DIE!!! But, while I come home from days like today with slumped shoulders and extra-tight hugs for my own little boy, I also need to remember that, while I can't do enough for this family, I'm not doing nothing. Throwing one starfish into the sea, and all that shit. And my kid from that house? He's making gains. He is still a very angry boy, one who's still likely to greet any disappointment with "Fucker!" and a swift shove of whoever's nearest him. But he's seeking positive attention from adults and peers alike, which tells me that he finally is understanding that he is worthy of that attention. And I helped show him that.

So that's why I love my job. Well, that and the fact that I get to wear jeans and sneakers. Oh, and? All the Goldfish crackers I can eat, baby!! That's right, mama's got the real cheddar taste hook-up. Aw, yeah.