Category Archive

A little over a month ago I purchased a bathing suit for the first time in years–a real, whole bathing suit, not just a tankini top here and a tankini top there from random department store sales that I would wear with shorts because I refused to let anyone see my ass. This was an actual suit, a two-piece tankini set with an attached sarong on the bottom half and a wild summer flower print in funky colors. I was excited, but also a little nervous. For one thing, although the sarong provided a nice visual block, for all intents and purposes people were going to have the opportunity to see my butt in a bathing suit. I had mostly talked myself out of caring about this, because in spite of that little round post-baby tummy that will probably never go away, and in spite of the long list of body issues I’ve been carrying around with me for years (tiny boobs, enormous feet, round bottom), I really don’t have room to complain about my body. Even better, I am finally in a semi-happy place about my body. I wear single digit sizes, I am comfortable in my pre-pregnancy clothes, and I fully believe that when I am ready when I have the time some sweet day I will start exercising regularly again and rediscover my rockin’ muscles. So yeah, putting on an actual bathing suit bottom made me spend a few extra minutes in front of the mirror scrutinizing my parts. But I was far more nervous about another issue.

We (assuming there are no men reading this, and if you are a man–Hi Mike!–you might just want to stop now and walk away, and if you choose not to walk away, don’t say I didn’t warn you) are all familiar with the required grooming that accompanies bathing suit season. Do we shave? Do we wax? Or do we wear shorts over our suit bottoms and forget the whole grooming process altogether? Alas, that’s what I’ve been doing for years, but my bathing suit investment (and I’m using that word literally–have you purchased a bathing suit lately?!) was going to require a change in procedure.

The week before I was planning to debut The Suit at my family reunion on Memorial Day weekend at Lake Hartwell in South Carolina, I decided I’d spring for a wax job. When was a senior in college I worked the front desk of a salon, and I very quickly became the willing salon experiment. If things were slow, one stylist or another, or sometimes a group of them, would suggest that I have something cut, colored, or waxed. It was free and fun, and it taught me three things: 1) hair always grows back; 2) having a different hair color every month is a blast; and 3) although I cannot tolerate wax on my face, my legs and other bodily regions don’t even register the tug. So on the Wednesday before Memorial Day, I left my salon with a pristine bikini line. Great, except that by the weekend I was already touching things up with the tweezers. I’m sorry, but if I’m going to spend that much money to have someone rip my pubes out of my skin, I want them to stay gone longer than three days.

A few weeks later I bought a membership at a local water park so I could take my daughter to the super-cool kiddie pools, and before our first visit I was faced with the grooming problem again. I resorted to shaving, and that is fine in the moment, but we all know the agony of the day after. And that is why I decided to try some nifty bikini line hair remover cream for my four days at the beach.

We arrived at the beach on Tuesday evening, and after the car was unloaded and everything was in its place, I took my little tube of cream and locked myself in the bathroom. I read the directions carefully, noting the bold print (DO NOT LEAVE THIS CREAM ON FOR LONGER THAN 10 MINUTES!), and got to work. I was well into the process, with one side completely finished and the other side still on the clock with about four minutes remaining, when the fire alarm at the resort started screaming and a voice came into our room from a speaker over the door: “An emergency has been reported. Please exit your room through the nearest stairwell and leave the building. Do not use the elevator. Repeat….” Having experienced an actual devastating fire at my place of employment, I wasted no time in hastily removing the remaining cream, pulling on my shorts, gathering up the crew, and jetting down the stairs. Forty-five minutes later we received the green light to re-enter the building.

And 45 minutes later I went back to my hair removal experiment, only to discover with horror and, I must confess, mild fascination, I had not gotten rid of all of the cream in my haste to get out of the building. And apparently while I was milling around outside, the remaining cream sort of…spread. And that is why, when I swiped my bikini line with a wet washcloth, I was left with a bald spot the size of my fist in an area where there should be no bald spots.

And in case you are thinking of trying something similar for your summer grooming needs, you should know that although the hair removal cream worked REALLY, REALLY WELL–TOO well, you might say–I have already had to tweeze and shave just to maintain the effect. Which is why I’m just going to have to suffer the razor for the rest of the summer, or next thing you know I’ll be telling you another story like this one, and I’d prefer to never mention my bikini area on the internet again.

If you order soup to-go, it is safe to assume there is a nifty plastic spoon inside the neatly folded bag. Right?

Apparently not. Which is why, a few minutes ago, I left my class in the middle of a lecture and sprinted through the rain to dig a plastic spoon out of the TRASH BAG IN MY CAR.

True confession: I am obsessed with Kleenex. Specifically, having them in every room of my house, and having their boxes match said rooms. You might say I’m a tissue snob. It’s not a brand thing–I can buy Puffs, or even a store brand if necessary. It’s all about the matching. Kleenex boxes are admittedly the most stylish, followed closely by Target’s trendy solid colors and occasional hip designs. Puffs brand ranks last on my list solely on the basis of appearance, although they do present a decent box from time to time. Laugh if you want, I don’t care. I firmly believe that if you’re going to have an object sitting around your house, however functional it is, it should blend with its surroundings. And as an allergy sufferer, I’m going to have a lot of tissue boxes sitting around my house. I spend as much time in the paper aisle at the grocery store choosing box decor as I spend in the produce section poking at tomatoes and squeezing oranges. I often move whole sections of boxes to access the good-looking ones in the back. I have, on more than one occasion, knocked a box or two over the top shelf and into the next aisle over. Are you still laughing? I told you, it’s an obsession. It doesn’t have to be sane.

The source of my quantitative tissue obsession is clear in my mind: when I was growing up we didn’t have any. Runny nose? Here’s some toilet paper. No toilet paper? Here’s a paper towel. When I started making my own money I started buying tissue. Lots of it. I never wanted to run out. And when I got my own place and took control of my own aesthetics, I got more selective. Kleenex made it easy. Their designs run the gamut, from Matronly Floral to Geometric Chic. You can get a nice pastoral scene, or you can color coordinate with solids. There are cute boxes, and there are simple boxes. Recently they introduced a box that appears to have been created for my shower curtain. When something so extraordinary occurs I stock up. I mean, stock up. There is a shelf in my hall closet designated exclusively for tissue storage. It is usually full to overflowing. Until this week.

I started getting sick the Thursday after Christmas. It began as a bad case of the sniffles; on Friday it became an annoying case of I-am-thinking-of-sticking-a-tissue-up-my-nose; and by Saturday, as I have already discussed in a previous post, it morphed into The Bronchitis That Nearly Ate My Lungs. By that time I had passed the snot torch to my daughter, and until yesterday when my cough began to subside and my nose started running again, she carried that torch high and proud all by herself. My point, and I do have one, is that we’ve been using a lot of Kleenex.

So much, in fact, that my room allotment is in jeopardy. I always make sure high traffic nose-blowing rooms such as the bathrooms and bedrooms are more fully stocked. The living room and kitchen areas see less action and thus need fewer boxes in the supply area. But when you are a) blowing your own nose several times an hour, and b) wiping a 1-year-old’s nose every 5 minutes or so, that delicate balance begins to crumble. It all began when I ran out of the cheerful, colorful under-the-sea boxes I buy for Mia’s bathroom and bedroom. I had to pull from my own bathroom/bedroom stock. Within two days my happy circle boxes were down to one. Then the neutrals started going. On Thursday when Gayle, who usually pokes fun at my obsession, picked up a new prescription for me at the drugstore, she bought a few boxes and apologized for their appearance. Matronly Floral. At least the tissues themselves were not pink or blue.

And so today, for the first time in a week, we are venturing out into the world, a venture whose sole purpose is the acquisition of tissue. Unless, of course, someone at Kleenex reads this and wants to make me a paid advertiser. I have plenty of experience, and I’ve even got a miniature trainee. We’ll be waiting for your call.

Now with pictures!

It’s New Year’s Eve, and I am finding it hard to type, what with being jacked up on Albuterol and all. I had heard that phrase before–”jacked up on Albuterol“–and I assumed it was some sort of anti-depressant. Turns out it’s an asthma treatment. Huh. And that’s the end of the story of my bangin’ holiday vacation. Considering that I can actually inhale now, it’s actually a happy ending. Oh! Did I mention? I don’t even have asthma! It’s been quite the series of primarily unfortunate events, with a few sunny moments thrown in. The following, for your entertainment on the last day of 2007, is the story from the top.

Wednesday, December 19: While not technically a part of my vacation, I discovered late Wednesday afternoon that the 60 holiday cards I’d ordered from one of the cheaper online photo places (instead of the more expensive place with the prettier cards, oh no! because that order would have been about 80 bucks) were indeed WRONG. As in, “Our wish for 2007…” You know, the year that’s ENDING in a half hour. My mistake. Turns out, I should have held out a few more wishes for 2007, as you will soon discover. Instead I reordered the cards with the correct year, thus bringing my total payment to Cheap Photo Place to–yup–80 bucks. On the bright side, my mom, Little Sister, Mia and I picked up Middle Sister from the airport, so things seemed to be looking up by the end of the night.

Thursday, December 20: This should have been my last day at work before the holidays, but I took the day off to accompany my mother, aunt, and sisters to my five-months-deceased grandmother’s house to collect what belongings her asswipe husband deigned to share with us after all this time. My father was with me, he who has space to store the furniture my grandmother left me, and we left my house right after he fixed my dryer, which had been broken for over two weeks. I was starting in the black, see. We got there and did what we went to do and we left, and that’s really all I want to say about that particular segment of last Thursday for the time being.

My dad left from my grandmother’s with a truckload of stuff, and I flew home as fast as my car would carry me because from my grandmother’s we were all going to Charlotte to have Christmas at my aunt’s new house. Charlotte is a little over an hour from my house, and my plan was to leave home in time to feed Mia dinner by 7:30, which is pretty much her absolute threshold for the evening meal. I left my driveway at 6:00. At 6:15 as I pulled onto the sideroad that would take me to the interstate, I heard a loud ka-thunk-ka-thunk-ka-thunk sound. At first I thought it was the annoying music coming from the car behind me. It wasn’t, of course. It was coming from my car. Specifically, what used to be the right rear tire of my car. 

I’ll skip most of the details. My roadside assistance service arrived 40 minutes later. In the interim I tried to entertain my kid, who was becoming hungrier by the minute and not at all happy about being stationary in a dark car. The tow truck sound scared her. She cried through the whole spare tire experience. I drove to Gayle’s and she fed Mia while I transferred all my crap to her car. My new goal was to be in Charlotte by 9. Having never been to my aunt’s new house, I set her address on the navigator on my phone and hit the road. At 8:45, a mere 19 miles from my destination, traffic came to a dead stop. I could see red taillights for what seemed like infinity. I called my family to tell them I was stuck in traffic, and it was during that conversation that I discovered the following: earlier in the day while we were still hauling stuff from my grandmother’s to my mom’s, my aunt and my sister Little NOTICED THAT MY TIRE WAS FLAT. BUT FORGOT. TO. TELL. ME. People, when I FINALLY discovered the state of my tire, the wall was completely shredded from the tread. I had to get a new one. There was no repairing the damage. I don’t know about you, but I think Aunt and Little owe me a new tire.

I arrived at my aunt’s house at 11. It was raining. My kid, who had been asleep for most of the traffic stall (apparently caused by some sort of explosion earlier in the evening–seriously, a part of the metal guardrail was melted) turned into the Energizer Bunny as soon as we walked in the door and went to sleep at 2:30 in the next morning. The next day was great; we celebrated Mia’s first birthday with the family and left around 4 that afternoon. At home later that night I remember thinking to myself, “This is good. Now I can relax. NOW my vacation can begin.” Stupid, stupid woman.

Saturday, December 22: I had a long list of things to do–unpacking, cleaning, laundry–and did none of them, opting instead to stay in my jammies all day long and play with my kid, who also stayed in her jammies all day long. Which meant that on…

Sunday, Christmas Eve-Eve: …all the things I didn’t do on Saturday had to be done, plus all the other things I’d planned to do on Sunday in the first place. One of those things was having the dog bathed. Suzanna has been living in the garage since September, when she brought fleas into my house (yet another saga from the past few months I won’t get into now), fleas she got from the stray cat I adopted last year and am now trying to relocate. Cat, anyone? Sweet disposition, updated shots, no uterus. But I digress. I unloaded a large amount of money at National Pet Chain Store to have my poor flea-allergic smelly itchy dog bathed, de-fleaed, un-hot-spotted, and settled into a brand new bed. That night she woke me up four times during the night begging to go back to the garage. And the scratching, good lord, the scratching. The stuff I sprayed on the hot spots made me sneeze, or maybe it was the shampoo, and yet, the scratching never stopped. I decided she was just readjusting to the house, gave her some benadryl, and tried (unsuccessfully) to sleep.

Monday, Christmas Eve: The stuff I didn’t get done on Sunday (do you see a pattern here?) was waiting for me on Monday. I was exhausted from the previous night of no sleep. Mom, Middle, and Little were coming for dinner, a dinner I was making and for which I had no ingredients. This would be a great time to sing the praises of the most wonderful child on the planet. Not one time during anything I have described, nor during anything I will describe in the next several paragraphs, did my daughter lose her cool. No crying (well, except for the tire-changing incident), no fussing, no public outbursts. If not for her, in fact, I would probably still be sitting on the side of the road next to my grotesquely flat tire.

I was halfway through dinner preparation when my family arrived with a moving van full of presents, and we had a nice meal–a ratatouille dish much like the one from the cartoon (laugh if you want, but it was amazing) on a bed of couscous with goat cheese and french bread. Little and I stayed up until 3 a.m. watching Harry Potter 5, and everyone, including my daughter, slept until almost 11 Christmas Day.

Tuesday, Christmas Day: It was wonderful–a bright spot in a series of distressingly eventful days. It is best viewed, not described.

Wednesday, Mia’s Birthday: Mia and I went to my mom’s to help her go through all the stuff we took from my grandmother’s house. Did I mention? I don’t want to talk about that yet. We hung out with my mom and were (I’m afraid) more messy than helpful. We got home just in time for bed, and I was welcomed by a puddle of pee next to the front door. By this time the dog was really starting to wear out her welcome. I didn’t sleep well because my throat was scratchy and my nose was a bit runny and I had a bit of a dry cough. The smell of Suzanna–I’m not sure if it was the hot spot spray or the shampoo from Sunday’s bath or just her own weird smell–permeated my room…and my sinuses.

Thursday, December 27: Mia’s 1 year well baby check-up was at 1:15. She got shots and cried pitifully. Gayle came over and we had lunch and went to Target to buy cute little plates and napkins for Mia’s Saturday birthday party, which was being held at my friend and coworker MJ’s new house (because I wanted to invite more than 5 people, see, and my house is TEENY). Late that afternoon my throat felt really scratchy and I couldn’t stop coughing. I said out loud at one point, “I feel like I’m getting sick.” Mia’s eyes were watery and she had a slight runny nose. I decided that Suzanna could not stay in the house any longer because I was convinced that her weird smell was contributing to our allergic demise. I felt horribly guilty about giving Suzanna the boot, but she seemed okay with the arrangement and I had a party to plan. I bought wine and beer, cake supplies, chips and dips, and ingredients for a baked brie and some spinach rolls I found in a magazine. I was pumped. And I felt like shit.

Friday, December 28: We didn’t leave the house. Mia had a fever; I couldn’t breathe through my nose and my cough had deepened. By dark I was wheezing and Mia was a veritable fountain of snot. I decided that if she had a fever the next morning I would cancel or postpone the party. Still, I stayed up late and made the cake. You know, wishful thinking and all.

Saturday, December 29: If you guessed that my kid still had a fever on Saturday morning, you guessed wrong. She was fine–a bundle of energy and all smiles. Snotty, but smiley. I, on the other hand, was having trouble inhaling. My cough had worsened. The wheezing was audible. My head ached. I seriously considered sending Mia to her party without me. But I didn’t. I went on with it. I hauled all the food and the drink and the kid to MJ’s house (thankfully no presents–Mia has a registry at Heifer.org and has raised almost $500 for the organization in honor of her birthday). 

Anyway. I think the party was a success. I think people had a good time. Mia loved her cupcake, and friends of mine from different circles were mingling and making conversation, and the handful of kids who were there played like the best of friends. But honestly, there are parts of the afternoon I don’t particularly remember. By now my chest was actually hurting, and inhaling deeply was a physical impossibility. I was starting to get a little freaked out. Which is how it came to be that immediately after the party I found myself at an urgent care center near my house. While Mia played with Gayle in the waiting room, I got a shot of steroids in the buttocks and received a 30 minute Albuterol treatment. Comedienne Suzanne Westenhoefer does a bit in one of her old shows about how some Amish people in a community near where she grew up in PA got addicted to crack, and how they must have been speed-quilting and putting up barns single-handedly in mere hours. That’s how I felt after the breathing treatment. Like I could have cleaned my carpet by washing each fiber individually in 15 minutes. My organs were trembling, and I could feel them. My hands and arms seemed to be propelled by forces beyond my control. It was horrible. But not as horrible as not being able to breathe. That part was an improvement. The doctor sent me home with a high-powered expectorant/cough suppressant, a five-day round of steroids, and an asthma inhaler. He didn’t actually diagnose me with asthma but indicated that I could develop a chronic form of it as an adult, or even just have an acute case in the event that my immune system had been compromised for whatever reason. You know, like dead grandmother stuff and sleepless nights and weird dog smells and flat tires and the general stress of the holidays. Or something like that.

Sunday, New Year’s Eve-Eve: The twitches finally wore off after midnight and I slept well for the first night in over a week. I figured out that if I take Tylenol when I use the inhaler, I’m not quite as crawly and my sleep is not as disrupted. Mia is still a little font of snot, but she is undaunted and is equally interested in her birthday balloon (under strictly supervised circumstances, of course) and crawling under the table as she is in playing with her load of new toys. We’ve been playing a lot, and she’s been napping well, which means I’ve been lying around watching lots of movies. It sucks to be sick, but–fingers crossed–the major drama seems to be behind us.

Monday, New Year’s Eve: Actually, according to the TV in the background, it’s no longer New Year’s Eve. I can hear fireworks outside, and the ball just dropped, and I’ve kissed my sleeping daughter on the head. Let’s put ‘07 to bed, people. Here’s to a brilliant new year.

My mother and youngest sister (Little) left my house this morning–actually, morning is a loose term for when they left unless you are, I don’t know, a senile rooster. Anyway, they left my house for the airport because they are spending Thanksgiving in California with my other sister, Middle. The rational, grown-up part of me thinks this is a great idea. I’m glad Middle will be spending the holiday with family instead of eating in some posh Orange County restaurant with Dennis Rodman, and I’m glad Mom and Little are getting a groovy week-long vaycay in the middle of cold, dark November.

But my inner voice, the one I don’t use much because of what I am about to tell you, sounds a little like a petulant 3-year-old who is stuck in the bank line chewing on the rapidly disintegrating paper stick of a cheap lime sucker: “But WHY do you have to go to California? But WHY, because I want you to spend Thanksgiving with ME? Why does California have to be so FAR?” It’s not pretty, especially since I’m actually going to be with family on Thanksgiving. I mean, it’s not like I will be sitting all alone with a single serving of ToFurky and a cheap beer, watching the parade on TV and randomly gobbling at my kid in an effort to interact with her from within my deep despair of loneliness. There will be good food and a number of crazy uncles and cousins, as well as my dad and my brother, people I just don’t get to see often enough. And also, a lot of cheap beer.

Just before Mia was born I declared to a number of people that my holiday traveling days were over. “I am about to have a baby,” I exclaimed. “The people will just have to come to me.” You’d think I was planning to give birth to the Hope diamond, the way I believed “the people” would flock to my door. The truth is, my house is about the size of a Ford Aerostar, so even if the people really did come to me, they would have to tent camp in my yard. And anyway, who am I? I mean, sure, I got pregnant as if by magic without the assistance of a man (It’s true! A female nurse practitioner performed the insem that worked. Dr. T. wasn’t even in the room!), but there’s no big star over my house, and sure, my kid is beautiful and funny and brilliant, but those people I mentioned before, the ones we’re related to? I’m pretty sure if they all flocked here for the holidays, they would not be understanding when I slept in with my kid until 10 or 10:30, refused to share the coffee, and served Eggo mini waffles for breakfast. So we travel. It’s much saner for me, really, because I get to be the one who goes home to the quiet sanctity of my undisturbed little house.

But I won’t lie to you. It’s different when Mom and Middle and Little are here. Sure, they take up a lot of space, what with all the suitcases (most of them Middle’s) and air mattresses and blankets and such, and yes, they use every single towel I own for one shower. But if I happen to fart over breakfast, or if I think it’s perfectly normal behavior to walk around wearing nothing but a bandanna and a bathrobe all day, or if I insist on watching this over and over and over, they’re okay with that. It’s that kind of familiarity I’m thankful for this year.

And also, cheap beer.

I was cleaning off my desk today and discovered a piece of computer paper with the following list scratched haphazardly in pencil and ink:

cookies/bakies
HP
2 brothers gored in ass–bulls
Blogger: real name?
tic-tac commercials
baby arms & legs –> crib
sickness
Astelin–taste
book 7, movie 5

I had to read over it a few times to realize that it was a list of things I wanted to blog about. It is a testament to their significance, or lack thereof, that I don’t even remember a few of them. The ass-goring, for example. I think that was a news headline that greeted me one morning; I was amused and thought it deserved some attention. Or not. I think, however, that the remainder of the list is intact somewhere in my brain, particularly the last item, as I am placing full responsibility for my weeks and weeks of silence on the head of Harry Potter. Perhaps I’ll start there.

book 7/movie 5: I started reading HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone in December, a few days after I had Mia. Let me clarify: I started RE-reading it. I believe this was read #5. I finished it sometime in early July. Don’t be alarmed, I am not a slow reader; there was a period of several months when no reading of any kind occurred in my house. I had stopped somewhere around the initial arrival at Hogwarts, and that’s where I started a few weeks ago. I sped through the remaining chapters. I moved on to The Chamber of Secrets. And then to Prisoner of Azkaban (my all-time favorite). And so on. You get the picture. My sleep suffered, as did my eating habits, fashion sense, and, on some days once I hit Order of the Phoenix, my hygiene*. Rest assured, my child did not suffer, unless you count that one day I was reading and forgot to give her the afternoon bottle. In my defense, she didn’t protest–she was in the process of self-adjusting some of her eating habits and had been showing little interest in that particular bottle, but I continued to offer it anyway. But on that day, when I realized that I’d read and she’d played right through a feeding, I freaked out a little. It was the same week of the news story about the couple who allowed their children to starve and be picked up by child services because they were too busy playing online video games. I could just see my own headline plastered on the internet: Mom Forgets to Feed Infant–Too Busy Reading Harry Potter.

Anyway. I mostly read during naps and into the night, and in spite of the 6 months it took me to re-read the first book, I sped through the others. I was preparing myself for the two big premieres. I knew once The Deathly Hallows hit the shelves I would have to read it as soon as possible, but I had read The Half-Blood Prince so fast that I had forgotten a great deal of it–hence my re-read campaign. And like many other Harry geeks, I wanted to re-read OOTP before I saw the movie, something I still have yet to do. When I finished The Deathly Hallows on Sunday it was like coming out of a dream–and in a way, that’s exactly what happened. When I read the Harry Potter books I am truly immersed in the fantasy. I want to have magical abilities, and I want to visit Hogsmeade, and I want (quite desperately, actually) to be able to Apparate and Disapparate. But when I read that final page, the regret I was expecting with the ending of the series didn’t come. I was almost relieved. Don’t get me wrong–nothing has changed, I still love the stories and will most likely read them all again, and probably again. But it was high time I started spending time with the three-dimensional people.

I will reserve my opinions about Book 7 for a later time, because, as I understand it, there are still a few people who haven’t read it yet.

On with my list.

cookies/bakies: Have you seen that commercial? The one where the guy doesn’t understand why cookies are called cookies, because cooking’s really got nothing to do with it? How true. Why ARE they called cookies?

HP: I believe this refers to my above epistle about the Boy Who Lived. I am sure I was going to use it as an excuse for not blogging. Which I have done. Did you notice the title? I feel certain it was not lost on my fellow Harryphiles.

Blogger–real name?: I had to think about this for a while, but then it hit me. Once upon a time, when most of us blogged at Blogger, my posts and comments were always signed hd. Now, suddenly and without any action on my part, my comments on Blogger blogs are signed with my real name. Why is this? Not that it matters, most of you know my real name anyway. It’s just a curious mystery.

tic-tac commercials: Clearly I pay too much attention to television commericals, but is anyone else as irritated as I am by those ads in which the people’s mouths appear to be possessed by something that’s trying very hard to escape? Or that girl juggles tic-tacs with her tongue? I want to throw things at my TV when I see those commericals.

Baby arms & legs –> crib: I have been meaning to seek adivce about this for some time, but since I scribbled that hasty little note I have had to solve this problem on my own. Thanks to mesh and velcro, I am happy to say I have not had to pry my kid’s arms and thighs out of the crib slats for some time. Has that happened to any of you? It’s damn scary. Of course, I always imagine the worst: tiny femurs snapping, limbs being torn from their sockets. See, I had to do something. For crap’s sake, it’s a crib, not a Rottweiler. So thanks to the taut mesh panels that now surround the crib, I haven’t been greeted by this in over a week:

sickness: I was sick. Now I’m not. It sucked, but it hardly seems important to mention now. I’m sure I was going to use it as an excuse for not blogging, but I believe a certain fictional character is shouldering all of that blame just fine, thank you.

Astelin–taste: However, thanks to the aforementioned sickness, which was either a cold or an allergy-induced sinus infection, I convinced my doctor to give me a prescription for Astelin. I was sneezing constantly and uncontrollably, and it was positively miserable, and I was convinced Astelin would solve all my problems. Admittedly, I saw an immediate change in my allergies, and I hardly sneeze at all anymore. But let me just tell you, there is no bold print large enough, no warning dire enough, to prepare you for the taste that is Astelin. Who knew a nose spray could taste so horrible? There are suggestions in the instructions for avoiding swallowing the spray and coming into contact with the taste, but if you manage, as I so often do, to get the stuff anywhere near a tastebud, you will taste nothing else for hours, and everything you eat or drink will be tainted. People, I’m telling you right now, Astelin is what evil tastes like.

And finally, off the list but significant nonetheless, my daughter turned 7 months old last week. Now I am not one but two months behind on my monthly updates. At least she doesn’t suffer the same neglect this blog has been suffering. Here’s proof. Does this look like the face of neglect? I think not.

*I forgot to add this footnote. Lo reminded me. Now I don’t remember what clever thing I was going to say about my neglected hygiene. Is neglected hygiene ever clever? I didn’t think so. I’ll leave it at that.

Calliope asks:

Who will win American Idol?

I am probably one of the only people in America–no, the WORLD–who doesn’t watch American Idol. I have watched the audition episodes exactly twice. I am extremely anti-reality show, and I don’t listen to much mainstream music or watch much mainstream television, so the show doesn’t really interest me. I didn’t even watch when Chris Daughtry, who is from a tiny suburb of the town where I live, was in the top 5 or 2 or whatever. That being said, I would like to CREATE a reality show. It would be called “American Classroom,” and it would feature an average American school, much like the one where I teach; the contestants would be “regular” people who get thrown into the classroom. No special challenges would be necessary, as the job is just full of them, and the participants would have to survive an entire semester with the same group of students. Points would be awarded and deducted based on temper management, student discipline, fulfillment of teaching and non-instructional duties, student grades, test scores, punctuality and attendance, timely completion of paperwork–just to name a few. The winners would be awarded the right to go back to their “real” jobs and shut the hell up about how great it is that teachers get all summer off and still get paid.

What are you doing this Summer?

Mostly I will be playing with my daughter. I would love to say I’m traveling some, but with gas prices creeping up to the 4 dollar mark, I’ll probably only go as far as the NC mountains and the Carolina coast. I plan to do a lot of reading and catching up on my Netflix viewing list, and I hope to hear some good live, local music. I won’t be taking any grad classes this summer–they are offering one I desperately need, but it is reserved for students from our cohort program in Asheville, and they won’t let me take it even if I’m willing to drive to Asheville for the class.

When will you be DONE with classes?

If you mean this semester, I will receive my pitiful B- for the class I just completed on Monday. If you mean for good, I lack two courses and a school media practicum for completion of the degree. I hope to have the degree completed by May of 2008 so I can start receiving a master’s salary in the fall of 2008.

Where do you get excited about taking Mia someday?

I can’t wait to take her to London. I also want to take her to Italy. I’m imminently excited about taking her to the beach and to my friend Nancy’s house in the mountains. I am extremely excited about taking her to the National Storytelling Festival, and to local concerts (she’ll attend her first in June). I’m also looking forward to taking her to Habitat for Humanity builds and other such volunteer events, because I want her to know how fortunate she is and how capable she is of contributing positively to the world.

Why are crocs so popular?

Dude, have you ever put your feet into a pair? They are SO. VERY. COMFORTABLE. They may not be pretty, but they feel so wonderful. They’re also perfect for people [read: me] who run into things and stub their toes often–they protect your [my] feet and keep you [me] from severely injuring your [my] lower digits.

Jen asks:

Have you had any other jobs besides teaching?

As an adult, no, unless you count coaching, but I think they are parts of the same whole. I was the night and weekend manager of a successful hair salon my last two years of college, however, and I loved it. Not only did I get lots of free services (hair color, cool cuts, waxing, manicures, tanning), but I also learned a lot about customerservice and PR. But the best part of all was that I got to attend an International Beauty Show in DC. It was Halloween weekend, and the big party on the show’s opening night was a masquerade party. Our staff went dressed as Little Bo Peep and her sheep. My friend Jeff was Bo Peep, and the rest of us–all girls–were the sheep. The salon owner, a wild Greek woman named Tina, was the black sheep. We had actual sheep costumes (my mom made them!). It was awesome. Ever seen a flock of intoxicatedsheep being herded by a hairy-legged girl with a mustache?

What surprises you (if anything) about motherhood?

I never thought I would willingly pick another person’s nose.

What do you imagine yourself doing 10 years from now?

I see myself living in my dream house–lots of glass and stone–next to a body of water, preferably a mountain lake, writing and editing for a living from my home office.

What’s your biggest vice?

I’m afraid I’m going to have to say mindless television. I blame work. At the end of the day I need unsubstantial entertainment to melt away the crazy I inevitably bring home every afternoon.

What author would you most like to meet?

Barbara Kingsolver. For some reason I think she is shy and slightly awkward like I am, and I admire her politics as well as her creativity, so I believe she would be good company.

What’s the best play you’ve ever made in Scrabble?

I have no idea, but I’m on a winning streak these days. There’s a great site where you can play online via e-mail. If you want to try to take me down, leave me a comment and I’ll invite you to a game.

If you could live anywhere where would that be & why?

London. I have a hard time explaining why, though. There just aren’t words to describe my love and longing for this place, for the sound and smell of the Underground, the confidence I discovered as I navigated the busy streets, the thrill of walking Portabello Road market or Regent’s Park. It’s been 12 years since I lived there and six since my last visit, and there’s still not a day that passes that I’m not homesick for London.

If you could only eat one thing for breakfast, one thing for lunch & one thing for dinner - for a month- what would that be?

Easy, as this is pretty much the case with me anyway.

Breakfast: a Zone Perfect fudge graham protein bar and a bottle of water.

Lunch: a plain bagel with cream cheese; a carton of peach soy yogurt; a small bag of baby carrots; a dill pickle; and a bottle of water.

Dinner: a bowl of campanelle pasta with butter and Parmesan cheese and a chicken breast with steamed broccoli or carrots; bread and butter; strawberries; and a bottle of water.

If you could create a fabulous summer music festival where would you have it & who would perform?

I have actually fantasized about this before. My dream job is to own a small music hall (like The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA or The Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC). With that in mind, my music festival would be small–only one stage, because I would want to be able to hear all of the musicians and not have to make difficult decisions. I would have it in the field behind my house a la Woodstock, because it’s all about me, of course, so I would be able to walk to the festival and get the best seat. Festival visitors could park in all the cul-de-sacs in my neighborhood. The performers could hang out in my house in between sets, and I would invite local restaurants like H*rsey’s BBQ and El*zabeth’s Pizza to set up shop in my yard.

The festival would last for two days, maybe three, and musicians would play full sets, not hourlongs like most festivals. The musicians, in no particular order, would be:

Tret Fure
Jack Johnson
John McCutcheon
Donna the Buffalo and Jim Lauderdale
Joan Baez
Mary Chapin Carpenter
The Indigo Girls
Dar Williams
Patty Larkin
Ubaka Hill
Willie Nelson
Josh Ritter
Girlyman
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
The Mosquitos
Erin McKeown
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
Johnny and June Carter Cash (hey, it’s a FANTASY!)

Okay, clearly it would last THREE days.

You have a dream of yourself in ten years. Describe it.

I am 41. I have been in public education for 20 years, the last 10 in the school library, and I am considering early retirement so I can get to work on my second career, which involves one, a combination, or all of the following: photography, writing, music (other people’s) and travel. My child (sometimes I see a girl, sometimes a boy) is 9, and we are excited because as soon as school is out we are going to London to visit Aunt Megan, who moved there a few months ago to work for a British publishing house; and then to California to visit Aunt Charity and witness the opening of her second art studio. Ma Gayle, Nonna, and KarKar are going with us. I have just finished building my dream house on Oak Hollow Lake, and every morning I watch the sun rise over the water, latte and Zone bar in hand. We’re having a party Memorial Day weekend, and when I close my eyes I can see clearly the faces of everyone I love gathered there in my home, smiling, laughing, dreaming right along with me.

This post brought to you by Cali.

What do you think about the new immigration laws the government is trying to put into effect? What do you think that will do to your classes as a teacher?

I get my news from two sources: the AOL startpage and NPR. And sometimes not NPR, depending on whether or not I’m addicted to some CD. That being said, I don’t know as much about these laws as I should. I have mixed feelings about what I do know, so I’m not going to address this question.

Instead, I would like to talk about how there are now only 21 school days remaining. I know I keep mentioning this, but sadly, it’s just about the only thing I can think about. There’s room in my brain for little else. I grow less patient with my students by the day. I’ve started speaking to colleagues through clenched teeth. I find myself wondering if anyone would miss me if I crawled under my desk. But don’t worry, I’m only like this during the month of May. Come June I’ll be back to my old self. I’ll have original thoughts and clever ideas. Meanwhile I’m still here (read: under a quilt on the couch watching “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns), and there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Am I your favorite student ever? Why or why not.

No.*

To repeat a question, what ARE you doing this summer? Are you working somewhere and if yes, where? Are you going to hang out with me?

This summer I plan to lie around in my pool** and eat banana popcicles and read. As for working, are you kidding? Have you ever known me to work during the summer? Ha. Haha. Unless you consider cutting the grass and planting things and transporting books from the library to my screened porch, HECK NO. No work for me. If you are interested in any of these activities then sure, I’ll hang out with you.

*See, now this is the kind of answer I normally get to these kinds of questions. No one EVER answers the “why or why not” part. But I have already answered this question. See?

**I buy an inflatable baby pool every summer and set it up on my deck. There is no cozier place to read. I know you can’t wait to see a picture of that!

This post brought to you by Feeny.

Most embarrassing moments make good blog fodder, if you have enough perspective.

There was a time when I was always embarrassed. I was painfully shy as a child; talking was embarrassing. Then I became a teacher. Nothing fazes me now. Nothing.

How about telling us about the time you almost chucked one of your students out the window when they…

During my first year I tried to be very serious, very stern all of the time. I had not yet developed a comfort zone in which I as teacher could talk and laugh with the students as humans AND teach them at the same time. But a kid named Gary shot all of this to hell. He was an average student in an honors 9th grade English class, and he was very chatty, so he sat front and center. I had a small table at the front of the room where I often sat to conduct class. Gary was maybe three feet away from me; I could have reached out and…smacked him. One day after the class had been doing some group work I sat on my table with my hand raised (my signal for order) and waited for everyone to settle and get quiet. It took several minutes. Finally the room was silent. I was irritated and they could tell. You could have heard a pin drop. Gary, from his seat right under my nose, where he sat with his hands folded looking for all the world like a picture of obedience and dedication, chose that moment to look up at me and giggle like the Pillsbury Doughboy. “Hee hee.” I lost all composure. I laughed. The kids laughed, tentatively at first, and then when they realized I wasn’t mad they lost it, too.

My favorite part of my job is talking with kids, playing with their minds and engaging them in intellectual battles. I find it’s not that hard to balance that with teaching, that the two are not really so different. I often think of that moment when Gary channeled the Pillsbury Doughboy, and I’m glad I laughed. If I’d chucked him out the window, which really was my first thought, I might have turned out to be a different teacher.

What’s your perfect moment? It doesn’t have to have actually happened, it can be your dream of a perfect moment. Who is there? Where are you?

My perfect moment is seeing my child for the first time. Or will be. I’ll revisit this one someday.

How about the worst vacation story you can muster. Could be yours, could be someone else’s. Always better if it’s yours though.

A Story of The Great Salt Lake
For Trista

Picture it: Nevada, July 1997. My best friend Paula and I are on a 21-day journey across the United States, and Salt Lake City is our respite stop before camping excursions at Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon. We have been driving for several days already, and we are tired. We have been eating lots of peanut butter crackers and Slim Jims. We need to do laundry. Lucky for us, Paula’s oldest brother Joel was living in SLC at the time, and he invited us to stay with him and his washer/dryer for a few days. It was grand. We slept late and washed clothes. I think we even cooked a real meal. By our second day in SLC we were feeling up to a day trip, so we consulted the AAA books and decided to spend the afternoon at Antelope Island State Park on the Great Salkt Lake.

We packed a picnic lunch, slathered ourselves with sunblock, tossed some beach towels in the back seat, and hit the road. I should have known something was not right when, upon crossing the threshold of the bridge that connected Antelope Island to the “mainland,” a smell worse than the worst dog fart infiltrated the car. We’d been riding with the windows down, of course, basking in the warm breeze, so the stench filled the car quite quickly. Rolling the windows up didn’t help, either…just made us feel more enveloped by the smell. Neither of us spoke (perhaps we were afraid of tasting the smell?) but I’m sure Paula was thinking, as I was, “What the HELL?” I’m not sure if the smell actually faded, or if we just got used to it, but we were buoyed by the sight of the beautiful blue lake. It’s really quite something, all white sand and water for miles. We were pumped. A day at the beach!

We got our stuff out of the car and headed for the shore. Both of us were wearing sandals (hello? it’s the beach? wouldn’t you be wearing sandals?). This turned out to be a grave error. Let me first explain that the beaches in the Eastern United States are packed sand beaches. Sure, there’s a stretch of soft sinking sand near the dunes , but once you get past it you’re on solid ground. This is where we’d come from, what we were expecting. Alas, the entire stretch of sand at Antelope Island was powder. Beautiful white powder. Beautiful white powder baking, blazing beneath the fiery sun in July. I think the temperature was 100 that day, but the sand must have been 150. And if you’ve ever walked in soft sand you know that once you sink there’s no recovery. The sand is inside your shoes, and you are inside the sand, and when that sand is just a small chemical reaction away from being a wine goblet, your exposed skin begins to melt. Okay, blister. Same difference.

By the time we made it to sand that was ever so slightly firm and had hurled our towels down so we could dive to safety, we were both in shock. We both just stared dumbly at the water for a while, and then Paula suggested that we cool off. Yes. Great. Let’s. We headed for the water, practically tip-toeing to avoid the Sand of Fire, and waded into one of the world’s most famous bodies of water. Someone later told us the stench we encountered driving in was the result of dead animals who had attempted to drink the water and had perished in the process. Apparently drinking salt water does not do a body good. Unless of course you are a brine fly.

The Brine Fly, according to my research, is predatory but does not prey on humans. This is a dirty lie. This noxious creature, which skims the surface of the water in search of food, produces the worst insect bite known to mankind. And thanks to their abundant population, they do quite a bit a damage in quite a short span of time. Don’t believe me? Look at the picture below. Note the lovely horizon, the purple mountain majesty in the background, the wispy white clouds in the azure sky. Now look at the water’s edge. See it? That wide black band? Think it’s a shadow? Think again. That there is bugs.

After less than five minutes in the water we simultaneously plodded to our beach towels (no words needed to be spoken), gathered our stuff, and walked to the car. We were blazing hot. Our feet were blistered. Our legs were covered with little red welts. Just before I got into the car and turned around and shot this picture. We drove back to Joel’s apartment in silence, rubbed Sting Ease all over our legs, and sat on Joel’s deck overlooking the city. We never spoke of the Great Salt Lake again.

The end.

This post brought to you by Sharon.

What’s your favorite color?
I always say my favorite color is blue, but that’s not really true. My favorite color is color. I love the green of early spring, when the leaves are so small individually that you really can’t call them leaves, but all together up there against the blue sky they are a brilliant shade that seems to glow sunlight. I love the silver taupe color of Chapin’s belly fur. It looks like art strokes from someone’s paintbrush. I love the color my toes turn when I have a tan. The produce section of a good grocery store makes me giddy. I am a whore for 10-pack colored Sharpies and Crayola crayons. When I was four I stole two handfuls of loose buttons from Jo-Ann Fabrics because the combination of their cool hard roundness in my hands and their bright primary colors was so beautiful that I couldn’t bear to leave the store without them. (I had to take them back, of course, but shortly after this incident my grandmother started keeping her buttons in a cookie tin, to which I had full access. It was way better than theft.)

You’ve never taken drugs. Why not? Would you, if you knew that your safety would be guaranteed and/or no one ever told? When I was in high school I didn’t do drugs because I was just plain afraid, and I didn’t hang out with people who did drugs. When I was in college I didn’t do drugs because I was afraid of losing control. I knew people who smoked pot, but again, I didn’t really hang out with the drug crowd. Now I would never do drugs because I teach high school students and I see the effects of drug abuse every day. I teach kids whose parents were users during pregnancy, and I teach kids who are so addicted to any number of substances that their only thought is where they’re going to get their next gram of whatever. It’s not pretty. So no, not even with all those guarantees.

What book has touched you the deepest in your life?
Most recently, Love in the Driest Season by Neely Tucker. I purchased a copy for myself, and the day after I finished reading it I purchased five more. I gave them to five people and told them to read the book and share, or read it and return it to me. The ones that come back to me get passed right along to someone else. I just gave a copy to a colleague this morning. If you’re interested, buy a copy or email me your address, and when one comes back to me I’ll pass it along.

The book that’s meant the most to me overall is Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees, which I dicuss here. I’ve read it numerous times, and each time I am different, so I see the story in a different way. Every single time, though, I am moved deep in my core by the characters and their stories. Seriously, read it if you haven’t.

This post brought to you by Lorem.

If Chapin and Suzanna were to converse (magically) for an entire day, and you could understand them, what would they say?
Suzanna: Um, you’re not supposed to be up there on the counter.
Chapin: Bite me.
S: Uh, I’m telling Mom.
C: Bite me.

S: Hey, you’re not supposed to be scratching the sofa.
C: Bite me.
S: I am SO telling Mom.
C: Bite me.

S: Excuse me, but that’s MY food you’re eating.
C: Bite me.
S: Your bowl is full. I can see it from here. I’m telling Mom.
C: Bite me.

And so on, until I finally arrive and Suzanna is so excited to see me that all of Chapin’s bad behavior is forgotten as she wiggles uncontrollably and smiles her freaky dog smile. Chapin is, of course, smirking and thinking to himself, “Stupid dog.”

If you had to choose between being blind, being deaf, or being mute, which would you pick, and why?
Mute. I didn’t talk much at all when I was a child; I learned a lot that way, keeping my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open. Lots of trouble is started by talking. I’m a better writer than speaker anyway, so if I couldn’t talk I’d never be put on the spot. I’d always be able to plan out what I want to say to people. I know I’m going to botch this, so maybe someone can set me straight, but in some culture you aren’t allowed to speak unless you are holding the talking stick or some other such object. I think this is a good idea and would serve our culture well, not to mention our government. It would save people from making big fools of themselves or saying things they don’t really mean. As far as I can see, talking causes a lot of trouble.

Of course, there was this one time when speaking would have saved me a lot of trouble. I was hiding from my cousin Tanya because I didn’t want to play with her. I could hear her calling me and calling me from across the street (we weren’t allowed to cross without supervision, so she was probably waiting for me to materialize so I could have someone escort me to her house) but I remained silent and hidden. Then another voice joined the call. My mom’s voice. Because I was a little bit afraid of Tanya back then, I didn’t answer my mom, because if I revealed myself then Tanya would know where I’d been the whole time, and she’d know I’d been ignoring her. My mom kept calling; I kept not answering. Finally my mom set out on a search of the yard and discovered me, curled up behind one of the big Maples in my grandparents’ yard. She had been worried, but when she saw me in hearing distance and realized I’d been able to hear her the whole time, she jerked me up out of hiding, broke a switch off the tree, and swatted me all the way back to the house. Tanya saw it all and was mean to me for the rest of the week. So yeah, talking would have been a good idea in that situation. But I could do without it otherwise.

Why haven’t you seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory, young lady?!?
Because Willy Wonka is a symbol of Fascism and his candymaking symbolizes his desire to lure people everywhere into the big trap that is Fascist society.

Actually, that is bullshit. I don’t know why I haven’t seen it. “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” was awesome, and I like the story, so I don’t know what’s holding me back. I think it’s coming up on my Netflix list, though, so I’ll be watching it soon.

Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?
Because on the day that I was born the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true. So they sprinkled moondust in my hair and golden starlight in my eyes of…wait. That’s not right.

Who is your favorite sister?
My first thought was Whoopi Goldberg, but she wasn’t really a sister, she was just pretending. I also like Julie Andrews, but her heart wasn’t in it and she eventually became a singer, so she doesn’t count either. So I guess I’d have to say Mary Patrick and Mary Clarence–I don’t know their real names–the chunky one who danced in the bar and the little one with the big voice. Oh, and the old one, the one who had a gravely voice and always had something sarcastic to say. Yes, those are my favorite sisters.

And last, but CERTAINLY not least, will you write my paper for me? Why or why not?
No, I will not write your paper for you. I will not write your paper for you for three reasons. First, I just finished writing a paper of my own. It was 21 pages long. I do not want to write another paper for a very long time. Second, I have no idea what your paper is supposed to be about. I mean, what if I wrote it on the life cycle of frogs, but it was actually supposed to be about the process by which beer is made? You would get an “F.” The third and final reason I will not write your paper for you is that you are a brilliant writer and should have no trouble chronicling the life cycle of frogs, or whatever it is you are chronicling.

This post brought to you by Megan.

How’s your house hunt going?
My house hunt has been put on hold temporarily. I am still, as they say, reading the market, but the job hunt has assumed top priority. Which side of the county I live in will depend on where I end up working. And don’t get me started on working. I know the time of year is working on me, but I could really not work and be happy. Spring break was ample proof that I could easily occupy myself and never get bored or feel shiftless. Of course, I’d have to live in a Maytag box and eat previously chewed gum and the occasional fast food joint discards, and this, my friends, is not what I have in mind when I say I’d rather not work. So yeah. I’m still job hunting.

If you were any animal other than a primate, which animal would you be and why?
A bird, I think. A wild bird–maybe a chickadee or a sparrow, something small. They get to fly whenever they want, most of them are beautiful, and for once I’d be able to sing without drawing frightened looks from innocent bystanders. Also, people feed birds, so there would always be an all-you-can-eat buffet around every corner.

What are you doing with yourself this summer?
Most likely more of this, minus eating after the cat.

Have you ever had one of those students who make you so glad that you became a teacher?
Several. There are a few every year. Usually not the goody-goody over-achievers, either, but the truly bright, real, funny, honest kids, the ones you can have actual conversations with. If you’d like to meet one of them, go here.

What was your favorite book when you were a tween?
In school media we identify tweens as kids ages 9-12, so I’m going to base my answer on that classification. With that in mind, I have to confess that I don’t remember much about my life between the ages of 9 and 12. I do know that I absolutely loved books like Charlotte’s Web, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and Stuart Little. See a pattern? I was the kid who had long, conversations and scripted “scenes” with her stuffed animals. (I taped these scenes with my portable tape recorder; I added music with my little Casio keyboard; each animal had a different voice. My grandmother still has some of these tapes. Can you smell the blackmail possibilities?) I wanted Ralph the mouse and Stuart Little to be real. I wanted to be extra small so I could ride around in my mom’s pocket and hide in tiny spaces.

This would be a good time to confess something. I was an awful student until I hit middle school. Awful. I almost failed 4th grade. I never did homework. I didn’t pay attention. I never, ever applied myself. On every report card from elementary and early middle school, the story is the same: “hd is not working up to her potential. hd could do better. hd is not nearly as stupid as she wants us to think she is.” It wasn’t pretty. I started life as a reader–my grandfather read to me all the time, books by Nostradamus, the Bible, and lots of other giant volumes I can’t name–and I have been a reading addict since high school. But in between I spent most of my free time outside climbing things, digging, making stuff, playing with my dogs, and having long conversations with my imaginary talking animals. I still do those things, but now I read, too. Part Tomboy Girl, part Book Worm. I like it that way.

This post brought to you by Trista.

I know. You were just sitting there thinking, “God, I can NOT go on with my day–my life!–without knowing what hd did today. And that’s what I’m all about here, helping people. So, in no particular order, I give you my day. You’re welcome.

1. I spent a considerable amount of time perusing this website. The answers to your questions are “yes, I am;” “maybe, I have to talk to my uncle, Contractor, and see if he is game;” and, “no, it’s not really because of the snake.”
2. I searched for over an hour for current web references to Barbara Mandrell, who was on my mind thanks to Crystal and her “an anomaly before being an anomaly was cool” comment.* This is what I learned: apparently Barbara Mandrell has fallen off the face of the earth. Her last public appearance as a mega-super-singer-dancer Entertainer** was in 1997, and she has sold her famous house, Fontanel, which is the world’s largest log cabin (and I use that word only because that’s what they are called, log cabins, but saying this place is a cabin is like saying Michael Jackson is a bit eccentric). Rumor has it NBC is releasing the DVD collection of “Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters,” which was one of my very favorite shows in the early 80s (it ranked right up there with “Hee Haw,” “The Janie Frickie Show,” “The Carol Burnett Show,” “The Muppet Show,” and “Little House on the Prairie.” How exciting is that? I can see my summer shaping up already: I’ll work my way through seasons 1-4 of “Magnum, P.I.” and then start on the Mandrells. God, life is good.
3. I walked out the door in the very first outfit I put on this morning. This is significant because Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings were Bad Clothes Days. Come to think of it, so were most mornings last week. I’ve been averaging 3 pairs of pants, 4 shirts, and multiple pairs of socks a morning, all of which are in a big tangled pile on my bed by the time I fly out the door cursing. This is my number one PMS symptom, by the way, and not because my clothes don’t fit right. It’s because for the few days before I start a new cycle, everything in my closet becomes unspeakably ugly, and when I put on something from my closet and look in the mirror I see a hag of mythical proportions. The only beautiful clothes in the world are those worn by the Pretty People (read: pretty much everyone else on the planet) and every outfit I don leaves me rocking in the corner with my hands over my eyes moaning, “Must…get…new…clothes. I…can’t…go…on… wearing…these…rags.” Fortunately my number two PMS symptom is exhaustion, so I never have the energy to actually go shopping for new clothes in an effort to become one of the Pretty People. By the time that new cycle has officially begun I have fully recovered and can comfortably walk out the door wearing a pair of camouflage capri pants with a tie-dyed shirt and a toboggan and toe socks and not give a shit. Which is exactly what I did today.***
4. I scheduled an HSG. Well, not exactly. But I called to schedule it and Nurse Peggy, who does all the surgery scheduling, wasn’t in, so she’s going to call me tomorrow, but HOLY SHIT, y’all, do you know what this means? The break is over!****
5. I all but licked the inside of a bag of Garden of Eatin’ blue tortilla chips. Earlier this week I was binge eating sugar, which is why I had to ask my neighbor to hide all of my Girl Scout cookies (O, Thin Mint, how I adore thee!), but now I am like a deer at a salt lick.
6. I updated my blog links, complete with alphabetization and several new additions. If you’re not there and you’re feeling left out, be patient. I was updating at work, and most of my regular blogs are bookmarked at home. Or, if you’re not feeling patient today, taunt me and call me names and throw things at me, and I will have a 3rd grade recess flashback and then add you because I’m afraid of you and don’t want to risk any more confrontation.
7. And now I’m going to watch “Friends”(Tom Selleck is on! Be still, my heart!) and periodically sprinkle Margarita salt in my mouth and hum “Sleepin’ Single in a Double Bed”***** and fantasize about my new house and send positive energy to my uterus and work my way through all your blogs. Man, I hope I don’t collapse under the weight of the purpose and import that are my existence.******

*If you were any kind of music aficionado you would know that Crystal’s comment reminded me of Barbara Mandrell because Barbara Mandrell wrote a famous song called “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.”

**How could I not capitalize Entertainer? Haven’t you seen her dance? And play two guitars at the same time? While singing? And dancing?

***No, not really, but how hilarious would it be to show up at work dressed that way?

****If you’re just tuning in, I’ve been trying to get knocked up since last May, but I’ve been on a break since November.

*****Really, people, am I the only Barbara Mandrell fan left on the planet?

******I promise on all that is holy that this is not my real life, but I am tired and fuzzy and cursing Eve for that whole womanly pain thing she landed us, and I really need to live the life of a slug today.

I woke up at 3:30 this morning. A few weeks ago my friend Joy told me she’d been waking at 3:30 since she returned from her Uganda trip in February. She told me she’d been getting up and practicing yoga instead of tossing and turning. I think she might have been smiling when she said this. Joy, if you are reading this, I was not smiling at 3:30 this morning. I did not get up. I did not practice yoga. Mostly I thought. And thought and thought. I thought about how annoyed I was to be awake. I thought about how bright the little lights on the DVD player, the air purifier, and the power strip are in the pitch black of early morning. I thought about the eight (EIGHT!) houses I looked at yesterday. I thought about how frustrated I am with the book I’m reading (The Jane Austen Book Club). I thought about “A Love Song For Bobby Long” and whether or not I should watch it for a third time or return it to Netflix. I thought about how heavy Chapin is and how impossible it is to move freely when his enourmous body has all of the covers pinned to one spot on the bed. You get the picture. At 5:30 I decided that at 5:38 I would turn on the Weather Channel, check the forecast, and get up at last. At 6:15 the piercing sound of my alarm woke me from my deepest sleep of the night, alerting me that it was, of course, time to wake up for real. It went downhill from there.

At 8:30 I made coffee in my classroom just like I do every morning, but this morning the coffee was so strong I think I saw it flexing and surveying the filing cabinet like it might try lifting it later. I was a twitching mass of nerves for the rest of the morning.

From 9:00 until 3:40 I worked on an assignment for my graduate class. My professor calls it an “integrated curriculum map.” I call it Satan’s idea of a sick joke. After six and a half straight hours of work I only finished 3/4 of the document. All things being equal, I should be able to complete it in two more hours, so maybe I’ll have time for, oh, I don’t know, eating and going to the bathroom tomorrow.

At 4:00 I left work and headed to the tanning bed light therapy, where I decided to up my time to 7 minutes. That’s right, 7. I inherited many things from my Italian ancestors: a healthy ass, abundant facial hair, an appetite for bread and pasta. I did not inherit nice olive skin that tans easily. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that the extra minute resulted in an irritating burn on every part of me that made surface contact with the bed, including my aforementioned healthy, uh, yeah, that.

By this time my four hours of sleep had definitely started to wear off.

At 5:15 I pulled into my driveway just as a steady rain started falling. A lovely, saturating rain, and me without a single one of my three umbrellas. Because it is genetically impossible for me to make more than one trip from the car to the house, I loaded up all my shit really important bags, lurched to the mailbox to get the mail, and attempted to inch my way to the door without dropping anything. I was almost home free when I realized I’d left my phone in the car, but rather than dropping off the bags and the mail, I went back to the car with my hands still full and reached into the car for the phone. I opened the door and leaned in for the phone at the same moment, and the corner of the door hit me square in the middle of my forehead. All of the mail and my glasses hit the driveway, and now there is a cut with a tiny bruise around it RIGHT BETWEEN MY EYES.

It is now 7:30, and just moments ago I nearly blinded myself when the juice from the grapefruit I was eating shot straight past the spoon and into my eye. Normal, well-rested Me would take a cue from Joy and head to the yoga mat for some relaxation and decompression. Sleep-deprived, sunburned, brain dead, half blind, head injury Me believes that attempting to practice yoga at this moment might result in severe bodily harm.

I think I’ll give that sleep thing another try.

Act I: First of all, I’m not really embarrassed by any of my shoes. My many many many shoes. I love shoes, and have been told, in fact, that I should be embarrassed to have so many. I’m not. That’s how it is with addiction. Only others can admit you have a problem.

But there does exist a pair of shoes in my collection that is embarrassing to other people, not because they are a strange color, or covered with odd markings, but because one of them is held together with hot glue.

My mom bought me these shoes at the L.L. Bean outlet in Freeport, Maine, and as you can see, I wore them, and wore them, and wore them. I wore them until the cork footbed sort of exploded out the back of the shoe. Did I stop wearing them? No, I did not. I fired up the hot glue gun and filled in the now gaping hole, and since hot glue is not really adhesive unless you use it on a surface that can absorb it, this repair only lasts for one good wear. Every time I want to wear these shoes, which is often, I have to get out the glue gun. I have no problem with this at all, but I can see how my companions might scoff at the ubiquitous string of hot glue hanging out of my sandal.

Act II: More embarrassing to me is a recent incident involving a shoe. It happened like this: I was getting ready for work on Thursday morning, and I was running late, as usual. I grabbed my shoes, and because I was in a hurry, I didn’t do “the shoe check.” Normally before I put on a pair of shoes I check them, you know, for spiders. I know I’m not the only person in the world who does this. Charlie Sheen admitted to it on “Ellen,” and I know for a fact my sister Megan does it, too. But on Thursday I forgot. I put on my right shoe. No problem. I put on my left shoe. All hell broke loose. Something was in there, and I just knew it was a spider the size of New Jersey, and it was biting me.

Some backstory. Several months ago I bought a package of pants/skirt hangers–the kind with the little clothespin things attached to the bottom–at the dollar store. Because they came from the dollar store they apparently could only hold half a pair of pants, and if I attempted to hang an entire pair of pants on one of them the clothespin things exploded. All the parts of the clothespin–the two plastic sides and the little metal clip holding them together, flew into the air, ricocheted off the ceiling, and landed in some unknown place in the bottom of my closet.

On Thursday morning the whereabouts of one of the plastic pieces was revealed. It was inside my shoe. As soon as the hard pointy side of it made contact with my heel I saw the spiders devouring my foot; I kicked the shoe off while simultaneously hurling myself backwards onto my bed and damn near fell off the other side in my enthusiasm to escape whatever was in my shoe.

Act III: These are the best shoes ever, hands down. Enough said.

I’ve been updating my resume. I’ve been at the same job and the same location for 10 years, so it’s been a while since I’ve conquered this task. I’ve accumulated a number of workshops, conferences, classes, presentations, and activities in 10 years, and I’ve been keeping track of them, but making them fit a specific purpose* is an exercise in creativity. A resume is, after all, an ad campaign, a sales pitch, a billboard on the side of life’s highway begging the right buyer to invest in whatever skill you’re selling. Suddenly, my role as English department chair becomes “Team leader responsible for the planning of meetings and dissemination of information for eight teachers; administrative liaison for department members,” and putting student grades into my gradebook software becomes “Organized student data, including demographics, assessment, daily progress, and behavior patterns using system-wide data management software.” I have turned a decade of teaching experience into a document that makes me appear qualified to run the FBI. It’s impressive, and most of it is true in spite of some mild embellishment, but it has me thinking–what if we told the whole truth about ourselves and our work experiences? What would unembellished, honest resumes look like, and would any of us ever get hired to do anything ever again? Something to think about. While you’re thinking, here for your enjoyment is an excerpt from my resume, the uncut, unenhanced version:

HD

1234 My Street, Medium-Sized City, NC, 12345 ~ (123)555-6789 ~ tbgdee@aol.com

Profile: I am a real bitch before 9:00 a.m.; I prefer to avoid human contact, including phone conversations and email, during the morning hours. I enjoy working with others as long as they are not stupid. I am easily distracted and suffer from ADD-like symptoms, especially when I am doing things that involve numbers or tasks that I find pointless. I have very little control over my facial expressions and so my opinions about most matters are clear even if not verbally expressed.

Skills Summary: Binge-eating chocolate doughnuts; extracting canine anal glands; making lattes; obsessive vacuuming; making up recipes; doodling during meetings; letter writing; people watching

Professional Experience

English Teacher, East Crazy High School, Crazy, NC, 1996-Present

• Tolerated obscene amounts of insanity, stupidity, apathy, and thick-headedness
• Became skilled through on-the-job training in the detection of lame excuses and shameless lies
• Made many noble attempts to convert chicken shit to chicken salad
• Developed extensive knowledge of contemporary language and culture, yo
• Attended numerous meetings lead by people who were being paid to hear themselves talk
• Supported the agendas of various administrators even though they were total idiots
• Attempted to present inordinate amounts of information to unreceptive subjects in a short time period, all in the name of a test, taken by the subjects at the year’s end, the results of which determined my own instructional abilities

Computer/Technology Skills

• Creation of superb South Park charicatures of friends and co-workers
• Surfing the net when there are other more important things to do
• Sending emails
• Instant messaging
• Capacity for spending long hours in front of computer completing totally mindless activities
• Setting the time on the VCR/DVD player
• Attained “Expert” level at online Scrabble
• Creative photo editing

*Don’t ask, because I might tell you, and then I’d have to kill you. Details forthcoming.

I never talk about my breasts. Never. Really, there is nothing to discuss. I’ve worn the same bra size since eighth grade, and no, I was NOT an early bloomer. I wasn’t a bloomer at all. Occasionally you might hear me explaining that my mother, who has a decent rack, divided her boob genes between my sisters and me; Megan got half, and Charity and I had to split the other half. When I lie on my back or wear a sports bra they disappear completely. It’s my butt that gets all the attention–it certainly has no trouble being seen [from miles and miles away].

But we’ve had a few interesting experiences lately, my breasts and I, and I think you should know about them, because it’s just not all that often they get this kind of attention.

The first incident occurred at work. I was putting away the literature textbooks that my single-celled shit-for-brains scholarly students had left lying around the classroom, and since I’m one of those people who tries to take ALL the groceries into the house in one trip, I was carrying about 10 books at once. Suddenly the four or five books on the top of the stack began to slide and I arched backwards to balance them. Apparently, the arching action caused the top books to bounce a little, and when they landed, my unfortunate left boob was smushed in the middle of the stack. Because my chest was suffering extreme trauma, I was not equipped with my typical grace and agility range of motion clear thinking abilities minimal brain function, so instead of placing the books on a nearby desk, or even dropping them to the floor, I pulled them away from my body and attempted to shove them onto the shelf in an effort to get them away, OH GOD, from my boob. As the stack of books traveled away from my body it took my boob with it. It was flattened and pulled and pinched all the way to its end, to the tiny tender part, until it finally sprung loose and retreated into my chest cavity. I haven’t seen it since.

Several days later I was awakened by my boobs. I had the distinct feeling that someone was giving me a breast exam with a nail gun. I hadn’t been dreaming of my doctor (or anything else of interest that might involve boobs and/or construction workers) so it was with great confusion that I shook myself awake. When I opened my eyes in the dim 6 o’clock light of morning I was nose to nose with my cat, and he was kneading his paws in true cat fashion, claws fully engaged, on my breasts. I thanked him kindly, explained that I had already taken care of that task for the month, thanks, and shoved him off the bed. I drifted back to sleep, only to be startled awake once more by the inability to breathe. Apparently His Highness was offended by my dismissal of his kind gesture; he had resumed his kneading, but this time his focus was my trachea. I don’t think he was trying to kill me, but I’m not so sure he wasn’t trying to knock me unconscious so he could have his way with me.

I know what you’re thinking…how sad, the only action she got in the past few weeks was from some books and a cat. I’m thinking…hey, at least someone noticed them.

***

I’m sorry I’ve been away so long. I’ve been a little too preoccupied for blogging, but the running commentary in my head could fill pages and pages. I’ll fill you in. I know you can hardly wait.

I’m starting at the end and working my way back to this morning. If you’re squeamish, even just a little, don’t read #5.

1. Thank God “Commander in Chief” just rescued me from American Idol auditions. Damn. I’m embarrassed for some of those people. Did you see that girl who wanted to kick Paula Abdul’s ass? And I’m pretty sure Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter movies auditioned. And didn’t you love the little boy who got all up in the camera to defend his brother. He was all “Oh no you DIN’T tell my brother he can’t sing!” Now that thar was some Class A entertainment, or, as Gold Bikini Girl might say, “Yo, you bitches gon’ be sorry you didn’t watch, yo!”

2. Oh, did I mention? Those American Idol auditions, the ones that were on tonight? That’s where I live. Hoooo dawgies.

3. I locked the cat in my closet for an hour. I might have done it [subconsciously] on purpose, because he’s been quite naughty tonight. He’s been knocking things off of flat surfaces (like full glasses of water) and biting Suzanna for no reason. I’m fairly certain he has a smirk on his face. But I didn’t actually KNOW he was in the closet because he was inside his shopping bag. That’s right, I keep a paper shopping bag in the closet for him; as soon has he hears the door open he flies down the hall and jumps inside the bag. It was only when I saw his paw snaking around under the closed door that I realized my error. Now he’s being even more of a brat. Guess I have to pay for my inconsiderate behavior.

4. I’m pretty sure I’m getting a cold. I’m achy and my nose is stuffy. My throat hurts. I’ve been telling myself all day that I’m just tired because a) it was the first day of a new semester and I got a new batch of students, so I did a LOT of talking today, b) I didn’t sleep well last night, and c) the really horrible thing that happened at school today, which I’ll tell you about shortly, really sucked the life right out of me. I’ll let you be the judge.

5. This morning when I got to work–an entire hour early!–I went into the classroom next door to mine to visit with my neighbor. As soon as I saw her I knew something was terribly wrong. She asked me if I’d come in the front door. No, I said. I parked out back like I always do. She asked me if I’d heard about what was in front of the school. I was starting to get nervous. You probably are too, and you should be. If ever there was a question about whether or not I needed to find a new job, it flew right out the window this morning.

It seems that during the night, some sicko killed and mutilated a fawn on the front steps of our school building, and then smeared its blood all over the front doors. According to my colleague (I declined a visit to the front of the building so I thankfully didn’t actually see any of this, although the images in my head are awful and frightening) there were bloody handprints all over the concrete around the doors and on the doors themselves. I don’t know about you, but if I were the principal I might have seriously considered sending my kids home. Instead, my principal–you remember Principal–ordered that “the mess” be cleaned up immediately and declared that she was not reporting the incident because “it’s just someone doing something mean, it’s not a crime.” Whaaaa?

According to my neighbor, several people were in tears and one of our colleagues, a woman whose children attend the school, freaked out and told Principal that if she didn’t report it she would go to the school board, the papers, the local news. Good thing the officer arrived before “the mess” was literally and figuratively swept under the rug. He assured Principal he’d be filing an investigation because a) it’s not deer season so the act was a violation of hunting law, and even more seriously, b) violent acts lead to more violent acts.

That’s the last anyone heard, because nothing more was said about the incident today. No email, no “FYI,” nothing. It’s a sad day for education when the reputation and public opinion of your school outweigh the safety of the students who attend the school, and that’s essentially what happened today, and what’s been happening all year. Let’s not report that fight. Let’s not suspend those students; I’m sure an anger management class will do the trick. Let’s ignore that gang display, the kids are just messing around. Look at our school on paper and you’ll think it’s a great place–low dropout rate, decent test scores, very few suspensions and expulsions, almost no violence. But walk in the front door–well, I already told you about the front door.

Ask me if I’m looking for a new job.

(Because all of my profile pictures seem to feature a fraction of my face surrounded by a hoodie or a cat, I’ve decided to reveal myself by telling you a terribly dull story about growing out my hair, and then asking you to make comments about it.)

At the end of the summer of 2004 I decided to let my very short hair grow. I had attempted a “growing out” experiment earlier that spring, but only because my friend MJ said I couldn’t do it, and I’m sorry to say she was right. By the end of the school year I had caved and my hair was back to its spiky short cut. But in August I decided on my own that I was ready for a change. I was about to turn 30, I was entertaining the idea of motherhood, and I was up for the ridiculously annoying task of letting my hair grow.

If you’ve ever let your hair grow you know of which I speak. There are good stages–times when you are sure you’re doing the right thing–and bad stages, when you ask your neighbor to come over and hide all your scissors. My hair is very fine, but I have an enormous amount of it, so during most of the growing out stage I felt like I had a live animal sleeping on my head. But I persevered, and by summer of 2005 all of my hair was the same length. I had managed to reach my goal, but I didn’t know what to do with the end result. It was too short for a ponytail, and too long for much of anything else. I also had an annoying flip/curl thing on one side, and the only way to get rid of it was to use a flat iron on my entire head. This was fine in the summer when I could wear a bandana every day, or hold my bangs back with sunglasses, but the day school started and I had to get ready for work I knew I was in trouble.

I don’t have any pictures of myself between June 2005 and January 2006, but basically I worked my way backward. Every month it got a little shorter until I finally caved and told my stylist to cut it all off, and now I am back to square one. The truth is, I like my hair short, but I also liked it when it was all one length. It is also true that thanks to prenatal vitamins, it grows like a weed, and were I to shave it off today it would be back to it’s current state within a very short time. So now, yet again, just a week after getting it cut short, I am considering letting it grow again.

Please feel free to give me your two cents on this matter.

Phase I: November 2004 (photo by Megan)

Phase II, or What am I supposed to do with my bangs?: March 2005 (I’m in the middle)

Phase III, or Ah..I’ll just put them here behind my sunglasses!: June 2005 (I’m on the far right)

 Back to Square 1: January 2006 (I don’t know why, but I often make that face when being photographed)