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« March 2006 | Main | May 2006 »

Battle Fatigue.

April 30, 2006

At some point, several months ago, Monk took to referring to me as "the old battle ax." Boy, do I ever feel that one today. It was a particularly difficult day that included as it's central focal point, a NINE FUCKING HOUR standoff with one Mr. Monk. About his chores. Specifically one chore. Cleaning his room.

Folks, this is where all of that egalitarian parenting crap breaks down. Anyone can talk a good game about taking children seriously or being respectful or what have you...but really in my mind when it comes to enforcing household participation, I don't fuck around. I just don't have time to be the person who does everything around here. And I don't think it's good for my kids (or, really anyone's kids...but you raise yours the way you want to) to just assume that they can get away without doing what is expected of them. I do listen to them when they have issues or complaints to raise, but I do NOT negotiate once an assignment has been given. If it is a reasonable request, I expect reasonable compliance. That's all there is to it.

So, for nine hours today, I had to face a child who absolutely refused to do 30 minutes worth of work, and was willing to lose all manner of privileges to prove some point that I think was totally lost in the shuffle. I STILL don't even know what his point was, other than he was hell-bent on defying me and gaining steam throughout the day.

My early strategies were simple and positive. "When you are done tidying your room," I said, "I can set up the TV and game cube in there." He wasn't falling for it, or the other 3-4 positive consequences. Nor did he particularly give a shit about the negative consequences. It was a full-on stand down. And my stubborn freaking child was NOT budging.

I was determined, too. I was determined to not yell. I was determined to not "kitchen sink" him (which is an unfortunate parenting strategy that involves reeling off a list of really abstract consequences. In my darker parenting moments, these have included such marginal threats as "I am going to burn every last one of your Goosebumps books" to "You will NEVER PLAY AGAIN." - Granted, that last one is usually shrieked humorously a la Burger Meister Meisterburger from the Rankin Bass Year Without a Santa Claus cartoon, but there have been times that it has been tinged with more hopeful truth than I care to admit. Even though I just admitted it.) and I did not do either of those things.

I did, however, spend all day inwardly bemoaning my predicament, questioning myself, feeling like the worst parent on the face of the planet - not to mention the most hypocritical anarchist! Did my mom have such crises of parenting? Did she ever spend an entire day questioning whether her tactics were going to damage her child for life? At one point, I called her and asked her. "No." was her short answer. The long answer was that she had seven children, and she just didn't have time to think about her parenting. Hm.

Late in the battle, I changed tactics. After Monk escaped confinement and decided to entertain himself by tormentnig his brother yet again, I sent him to The Room Without Books. Monk told me I could never break him! That he didn't care if he never played a computer game again or ever EVER got any allowance, he was NEVER going to clean his room! NEVER.

"In fact," said my young upstart, "I'm ON STRIKE."

Damn me for talking about the general strike on May Day earlier in the afternoon!

"OK, Monk." I said, in my explaining voice. "A strike is often a very noble thing...and I can respect you taking a noble stand. However, people who go on strike have to face consequences for doing so, and they need to be very sure that they are striking for a worthy purpose." And then I paused, and added. "I'm not so sure this is a noble thing to strike about."

I skipped the speech about arbitration. I figure there will be more general strikes from Monk in the future (maude help us all) and I can slowly mete out the lessons about labor negotiations and whatnot through his teen years.

Frustrated as I was, I called all of my support people that I could think of to avoid blowing my top with this kiddo - and, more importantly, to avoid giving in. I hate being stubborn like this...but worse than the idea that I spent an entire day battling with my son over 30 minutes worth of chores is the idea that I would battle with my son over 30 minutes of chores only to give in and do them for him. I had two things that were keeping me from bowing to the pressure. First, Monk has told me before that I too frequently give in rather than sticking to it and making the kids face the consequences of their actions. He has said that he actually doesn't respect it all that much when I do that, and that it confuses him. Second, I had spent way too much time the night before reading the blog of some dude who killed a little girl in his apartment complex and was all set to EAT HER and, as ridiculous as it sounds (some of you parents out there will get this) all day in the back of my mind was this idea that "Hell no, my kid is not going to grow up to be a freaking serial killer, and if I give him this battle, he's surely going to end up on a slow slide to sociopathy."

So, the important thing was to stay insistent, but stay as calm as possible. And I did.

Until NINE HOURS LATER. My darling son emerged. I had told him earlier in the day, when I was still in the "helpful suggestion" phase, that perhaps it would be a good idea to ask his little brother for help. So, as I sat here trying to keep myself from blowing my top by playing a mindless flash game over and over and over again, Monk entered his room and said, ever so politely, to Coley "Cole, if you help me clean my room...mom will give us computer time tomorrow."

Coley, somewhat distracted by his play, just said "OK." Simple as that.

Monk then approached me "Mom...is it OK if I PROMISE to clean the room tomorrow after I feed the pets and before I have breakfast."

My heart leapt, however..."Honey, we have an appointment in the morning. That's not going to work."

Monk accepted this somewhat downheartedly, but...still...he seemed to be coming around.

"I'll tell you what," I told him. "If you go take a shower, I will tell Coley that when you are out of the shower, it will be time to clean up and get ready for bed."

Monk lit up. "OK!"

Then he did something super amazing. He went back into the room and told his baby brother "Listen, it's not fair for me to get help from you for nothing...so if you help me, I will let you have MY computer time tomorrow."

Coley agreed to this, and Monk came back into my room, beaming. I have to admit, I was beaming, too. "I'm glad you made the right choice, Monkeyman. For a minute there...I thought you were going to make the wrong choice."

"For a MINUTE?" Monk said. "Maybe I should start this thing all over again!"

I chuckled, somewhat fearfully. "Um...no no no no! OK! For NINE HOURS THERE...I thought you were going to make the wrong choice."

Both of us sort of laughed uncomfortably...I guess we were both a little battle weary.

Damn, this parenting shit is hard!

When all was said and done and the room was passably tidy, I told Monk "You know...that stubbornness will serve a purpose someday, but I just wish you wouldn't practice it so much on your allies. I wish you would reserve it for your enemies."

Monk said "Yeah! Like when I'm protesting!"

"Yeah...something like that."

Woe unto the cop who tries to drag that kiddo off to the paddy wagon. Let me tell you.

Don't you wish you could be a parent, too?

And, with that, I'm totally going to sleep.

Ha!

April 28, 2006

[link via Shaula]

My weird children are at it again.

April 28, 2006

The kids got home from their dad's today WAY before I was ready to officially be awake, so I told them they could watch PBS.

When I woke up, I wandered into the living room and the children were crouched behind the chair, whispering war strategies to each other. There was a pile of socks in front of the TV. The Teletubbies were on.

They were engaging in a war against the Teletubbies, lobbing socks at the TV like grenades. I went to make my coffee, and Monk says to Coley in a loud whisper "Cover me! I need to pee!"

It's like a freaking live-action Calvin and Hobbes comic here, folks. Non-stop action and adventure.

Keep the bastards guessin'

April 28, 2006

I am for sure going straight to Craig's list hell for something I did today:

I am about to explode in a gush of menstrual fluid. Need sex. Pronto. Any volunteers?

I posted the ad at 3:30, and at 5:07 it was "removed by the craigslist community."

However, not before I received over fifty responses from some extremely kind men who were more than happy to volunteer for the task at hand.

And I thought men were squeamish about such things!

I kind of wonder why it was removed...perhaps it was because it was more of a hook-up sounding ad posted on the general board. I entertained the thought of posting a similar ad on women for women, men for women (perhaps with reference to seminal fluid or something, rather than menstrual fluid) and men for men (with the same change) to see if I got as many responses and, more importantly, if the ad would be yanked. But I decided against it.

I did not do this to make fun of those who responded to the ad. That would be kind of mean. However, I did get some pretty interesting responses. Only one person congratulated me for a "funny post" - the rest took me dead seriously. One guy endearingly typed "GROSS!" in the subject line of his email, but then wrote "but pick me!" in the body. I think I liked him the best!

It was an interesting social experiment, to say the least.

And it kind of made me wonder about people who have the mindset that allows them to have a totally random, casual sexual encounter...especially one that might include bloody bodily fluids. You know? And I want to be careful here, because I definitely don't think there's anything wrong with "hooking up" or whatever if that is your thing. It's not really my bag, but I can't hold anything against people who are able to honestly articulate their needs and have a respectful reciprocal interaction with someone that satisfies those needs.

However, as I've spent the past few months attempting to meet and get to know people, and finding that it's terribly difficult to get close to people in a completely non-sexual way...I wonder if sex is our only means of connecting with each other. And, if so...is that a symptom of a larger problem, or is it the cause? Or is it just normal? It seems like it's so fucking hard (pardon the punny innuendo!) to truly connect with people. People are SO PROTECTIVE of what is inside of them...that it causes us to grasp at the physical to approximate the spiritual/emotional connection. And then, when you do meet someone you can connect with on some level, it's all scarcity scare, you know? You can't possibly allow anyone else to get what you got...because you might never get it again - from that person, or anyone else.

I dunno, all of this stuff is jumbled around in my brain. I'm happy lately with all of the weird little social interactions I am going out of my way to establish in my life...but there is a part of me that still feels like I'm pacing back and forth behind the bars of a cage, swiping at people who are trying to feed me. Demanding more, and slowly starving. It is as if the more clear I am about what I need in my life, the more impossible it becomes to obtain it. And, really, what I want is pretty damn simple. Connection. For me, it's like a piece of cake. I'm happy to overshare and snuggle up in the arms of anyone who seems the slightest bit safe and non-ax-murderish. And I happen to know that I am safe and non-ax-murderish myself, but all I get is fear and hesitation from people. As if sharing what is inside of your soul is something that needs to be protected. As if somehow you can create safety in seclusion.

I don't get it, but I'm not really frustrated or annoyed by it. I'm a little amused. I'm terribly in love with people. I have at least one huge crush right now, and several smaller ones. I'm enjoying those feelings for what they are...and I'm wishing it wasn't so freaking scary for people to share. I know I didn't cause the fear, and I know I can't make it go away, but -oh- I want to! I want to cure and heal and in so doing be cured and healed. over and over again.

So, yeah. Funny how a silly little experiment can cause so much reflection. I should thank all of those horny craig's list boys for their contribution to my day. Thanks, guys! I hope you find what you are looking for! I know I did.

Random Thought From the Mind of a 9-year Old

April 27, 2006

"Imagine what would happen if a chubby baby had a boxing match with a wrinkled old man"

(And, yes, this tipped off a world of speculation from the 5-year old, and sparked a discussion about all of the possibilities - including false teeth going flying, and babies being punched in the gut. Why are my kids so weird?)

Greek Protests

April 27, 2006

Bombs and Shields linked up a couple of articles detailing protests in Athens directed at a visit by Condoleezza Rice.

Zeebah's Blogaversary!

April 27, 2006

4 years! Yay!

Unearthed by Search

April 27, 2006

I love seeing what kinds of posts are unearthed by search engine. Earlier this week, I was pleased to discover that I am the number 2 hit for the search term worst+girlfriend+ever with this post:

So, for the 2nd or 3rd time in the past month, I fell asleep during a date with J. Trust me, it says a lot more about me than him. He is not boring or unfun in any way, shape, or form...I am simply the worst girlfriend ever.

And today, I find this gem - which someone I'm sure was thrilled to discover when they haplessly searched using the terms zipper+rides+carnivals:

I had absolutely no idea why on earth Craig might be interested in me. I was gangly and awkward, having just entered puberty. My hair was goofy looking. I had absolutely no fashion sense. My teeth were crooked, and I'm sure I smelled funny. I haven't changed much.

I have mentioned, of course, that I spent most of my teenage years steadfastly refusing sex. Craig was certainly not going to go "all the way" with me.

Craig, however, was either desperate to try, or saw something in me that I did not see. He spotted me at the drinking fountain in the activity building while I was waiting for my friend Claire to use the bathroom. Or maybe I spotted him. Or, more likely, his cousin, Kip, spotted Claire, and I was just someone who had to be dragged along for the ride.

At any rate, Craig spent the day riding rides with me. He held my hand on the zipper (the RIDE called the Zipper, you perv! Not his ACTUAL zipper) and he shared his cotton candy with me on the ferris wheel.

I suppose I should keep these posts secret from my hypothetical responders to the Craig's List I proposed below. Although...they are pretty funny. Especially the second one.

Pre-Menstrosity

April 26, 2006

I have been pre-menstrual for a whole fucking week now, and I feel like I'm going to explode in a gush of menstrual fluids.

If that is disturbing to anyone, quite honestly, I don't give a fuck. Maybe if I am mean enough I will get my fucking period already.

Blah.

Cuteness

April 25, 2006

Coley came running out of his room naked, after I told him he needed to get dressed so he can go play at his friend's house.

"You better put some clothes on that booty, Coley, because I'm tempted to smack it!" Says I.

Coley's response?

"Smack it! Smack it and say 'hi ho silver!'"

WTF? Hahahhahahahaha.

Vaccinated at Birth

April 25, 2006

This article freaks me out:

But US scientists have found a way to stimulate an immune response in newborns, following the discovery of a type of molecule present at birth.

For a number of reasons.

I made a choice when Monk was 6 months old to stop vaccinating him, and Coley has not been vaccinated at all. Monk's vaccinations ended when the doctor who was going to administer them brought out a tray of, I think, THREE different vaccinations (some of which were vaccination coctails) and, quite honestly, though I did the research then, I don't remember enough about what gets injected into a child's body when to tell you which vaccines they were trying to administer other than the fact that one of them was the Chicken Pox vaccine which I had already decided was not on the menu for Monk.

When I informed the doctor that I didn't want Monk to get the Chicken Pox vaccine, I got a huge lecture and "talking to" from her. Which really pissed me off because I had done a tremendous amount of research and soul searching to make that decision, and I made that decision at a time when I was still recovering from the traumatic birth, and all of the hospitaly things that happened during the birth, and all of the questioning of myself and my decisions and everything. So, I was in no mood to be questioned by the medical establishment about my choices as a parent.

In the interim years, my ex and I continued to do research on the efficacy and potential harmful side effects of vaccinations, not to mention the harmful ingredients that are included in the mix. We stopped immunizing Monk completely in the meantime. When Coley came along, we had a home birth, so there was no pushiness from doctors, no eye drops, no push to get immunized...I allowed the midwife to administer the heel prick, but that was it.

We visited a family physician when Coley was an infant and asked his expert opinion on vaccinations. He went through the list of available/recommended vaccines with us and gave his opinion on which he absolutely thought were important, and which were not so important. This physician was very decidedly pro-vaccine, but he was known around Austin for his ability to understand and work with those parents who question whether vaccination does more harm than good.

In the end, we chose to not vaccinate Cole or Monk. At one point, Coley stepped on a piece of glass in the yard, and I had to bring him to the emergency room for a tetanus shot. I was pleasantly surprised at how polite the emergency room staff was, and how tolerant they were of my decision to not vax, considering all of the horror stories I have heard and witnessed first-hand.

At any rate, I mention my history hear as a disclaimer for what I am about to say. I am by no means an authority on vaccines, nor do I feel ANYONE can be an authority. The reason I have made the choices I have made hinges mainly on the fact that I am very privileged, and therefore the chances that I will encounter any of the serious diseases (polio, diptheria) that people use vaccinations for are practically non-existent. Some of the other illnesses (measels, mumps, chicken pox) are not life-threatening in healthy children and therefore I am willing to forego the vaccine. I have serious issues, especially, with the chicken pox vaccine.

All vaccines only provide temporary immunity. Only recovery from natural chickenpox disease will provide lifelong immunity. When the chickenpox vaccine was licensed for public use in 1995, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimated that it was 70 to 90 percent effective in preventing disease. A recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study (Dec. 2002) reported that "the effectiveness of the vaccine was 44 percent against disease of any severity and 86 percent against moderate or severe disease." Some are suggesting a second dose of chickenpox vaccine may be needed. Another study in 2002 confirmed that adults exposed to natural chickenpox disease were protected from developing shingles and that there is concern that mass vaccination against chickenpox may cause a future epidemic of shingles, affecting more than 50 percent of Americans aged 10 to 44 years.

Pertussis, or whooping cough, is not even fully preventable with vaccination. You might get a milder case of it if you have been immunized, but you will still catch it, and it will never be fully eradicated.

It is my opinion that we have no business introducing foreign agents into the tiny little bodies of infants. Bodies which are only just beginning to figure out how to function outside of the womb. Not only does it seem to be a dangerous idea physiologically speaking, but the psychological ramification of poking an infant with needles as one of their first experiences in life freaks me out. My decision to not vaccinate my children was not made with any degree of absolutism. In fact, now that Monk is older, I am going to be revisiting the information I initially visited when Coley was an infant to try to determine which, if any, vaccines I should recommend to him at this point in his life.

I by no means think that vaccines should be eliminated entirely, HOWEVER, I do feel very strongly that there are other methods of protecting our children's immunity without sticking needles in them. I also feel like many vaccinations enable us to overlook the fact that we live in a world in which some people are so poor that they are still dealing with diseases that most developed nations do not need to deal with. If we just blanket them with free vaccines provided by our multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry, we don't have to worry so much about the fact that some people don't have access to clean water or marginally decent healthcare or nutritious food. Not to mention the cessation of anti-breastfeeding campaigns funded by (surprise) the very same pharmaceutical industry that wants to force us to immunize our tiny babies against the diseases that are best prevented by natural antibodies that occur in mother's milk. Can't market that!

So, the idea that we are researching ways to not only immunize children at BIRTH - but also ways in which to mess with the body's immune system in order to do so - just freaks me out. I just don't trust an INDUSTRY to consider anything other than the bottom line when it comes to creating new ways to make us dependent on their product, particularly when it comes to manipulating parents about the healthcare needs of their children.

Naked Chimney Guy

April 25, 2006

Santa? No! It's Naked chimney guy!

"He told us he took off his clothes because as he was going down the chimney the clothes would rub up against it and slow him down," Branson said. "If it was skin on cement he felt he would go down easier."

Now, I'm not an engineer or anything, but...who on this earth thinks that removing your clothing will HELP you get down a chimney? That is, who, among people who actually think they CAN get all the way down a chimney.

Do you think HE'S one of the 30 some-odd percent in Bush's approval rating? That would explain a lot.

I am the decider.

April 24, 2006

I was watching the news shows this weekend, and I truly realized, yet again, why I'm so not wanting to pay attention to politics.

It's because...when I see the president of the united states on television throwing a total fucking temper tantrum and saying things like "I'm the decider! I decide things!" The absolute surreal ridiculousness of it all makes me want to hide somewhere.

And the danger inherent in that ridiculousness makes me want to do foolish things because, damnit, if we can really have a populace that supports a president that says such things (even if it is just 30 some-odd percent of the populace) ANYfuckinggoddamnthing is possible. Especially the Really Bad Things. You know, the ones that require leadership with actual BRAINS to stave off. And, not just brains, but...like, a sense of reality. Or SOMETHING.

"I am the decider." Holy sweet dancing Jesus...you know? And the newscasters listen to that reel, to that soundbite, and then just proceed with their little debate forum as if there isn't something horribly awfully unbelievably FUCKED UP going on. I seriously would feel a lot better right now if SOMEONE - ANYONE in mainstream media would just say "WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE? WHY IS OUR PRESIDENT SAYING THINGS LIKE "I AM THE DECIDER, I DECIDE THINGS!"

Gack. Just...gack.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

April 23, 2006

I have found...a housemate.

(commence immense celebration)

housemate ramblings.

April 22, 2006

I said something today out of the blue to a potential housemate that made me think "wow. That exactly describes my current experience in a way that I have never been able to describe it, and it's so simple."

We were talking about fixing things, because this particular potential housemate is handy about the house. She was asking me what kinds of things need to get done around here, because she comes with her own set of tools. I was telling her that it was going to be difficult to get me to let go of my tendency to not accept help from people. What I was saying to her, actually, was that I have been taking care of every little thing around here for so long that I'm not even sure I would know what to ask of another person who might want to take care of something. And it's not even that I'm taking care of everything...it's that I'm taking care of everything I can, and leaving the rest.

And it's so true. I can look around me and see the areas I have been forced to neglect out of sheer impossibility. I think this potential housemate was trying to tell me that she wanted to work WITH me to help out, and I think that is a very good thing, indeed. I might act like I have everything under control around here, but I just don't. I have what NEEDS to be under control under control. Everything else...I have learned to let slide.

So, it is with that thought that I am going to accustom myself to the idea of having a housemate, and potentially having a housemate that wants to actually pitch in around here. And it is with that thought, too, that I approach the other relationships in my life, evaluating how to make emotional ends meet without me going three-quarters of the way out to receive one-quarter in return. Because, like I told the potential housemate, when you get used to taking it all on yourself, it's amazing how much you learn to tolerate the bare minimum. And not just tolerate, but expect it and fully embrace it.

For those who care...

April 21, 2006

This is what we currently have on loan from the library:

My Picks:
Firefly world factbook Lye, Keith
Checklists for life : 104 lists to help you get organized, save time, and unclutter your life Lagatree, Kirsten M.
Whistling and other stories Goldberg, Myra
The Berlin stories : The last of Mr. Norris, Goodbye to Berlin Isherwood, Christopher
Killer market Maron, Margaret
Eat the rich O'Rourke, P. J.
Reefer madness : sex, drugs, and cheap labor in the American black market Schlosser, Eric.
You can do it! : the merit badge handbook for grown-up girls Grandcolas, Lauren Catuzzi
The Home answer book Wissinger, Joanna
"A" is for alibi : a Kinsey Millhone mystery Grafton, Sue

Cole's Picks:
Stone soup : an old tale Brown, Marcia
Amazing whales! Thomson, Sarah L.
Luther's Halloween Meister, Cari
Mouse's Halloween party Modesitt, Jeanne
Halloween day Rockwell, Anne F.
DK big book of trucks Bingham, Caroline
Bugs are insects Rockwell, Anne F
Koi and the kola nuts : a tale from Liberia Aardema, Verna
Lemonade for sale Murphy, Stuart J.
Vaqueros Rice, James

Monk's Picks
Ancient Rome Simpson, Judith
Black water MacHale, D. J.
The not-so-jolly Roger Scieszka, Jon
Hey kid, want to buy a bridge? Scieszka, Jon
Your mother was a Neanderthal Scieszka, Jon
2095 Scieszka, Jon
The Roman Empire Nardo, Don
The land and people of China Major, John S.
The Korean war McGowen, Tom
Aztec, Inca & Maya Baquedano, Elizabeth

In the past 12 hours...

April 21, 2006

I have had to clean up (3+) shitloads of doggy diarrhea, and I have set a pot of popcorn ON FIRE.

Needless to say, my house smells lovely.

And I have about a zillion people coming to look at the room this weekend.

I swear...the universe is conspiring against me ever finding a fucking housemate.

Fuck.

(or, more appropriately...Shit.)

The dog is staying outside for the rest of the day, and I am totally not going near the stove.

Holy Nerdiers!

April 19, 2006

Monk is so awesome (and, yes, as a matter of fact, I AM nattering on and on about my wonderful children). I turned on PBS tonight in hopes of distracting the kids for a bit so I could get some rest. I happened to turn it on right at the start of Holy Warriors. Once he determined it was OK for him to watch it, he became totally transfixed. Halfway through the episode, he said to me with awed hope "Mom...do you like this enough to BUY it for me?"

Ah, my little nerdling.

Diplomatic Negotiations

April 19, 2006

On the playground, they are playing a game of Coley's invention called "Andrewson 2" (which, I have been told, is MUCH better than the original "Andrewson"). Andrewson, you see, is Coley's imaginary knight.

Coley says the object of the game is "bloody murder."

One kid pulls out his gun and starts shooting, and this argument ensues:

Coley: You can't do that! Guns aren't allowed in this game!
Gun kid: Are too!
Coley: No. Only bows and arrows!
Gun kid: Starts pretending to shoot Coley with his imaginary gun.
...tensions rise...will someone go nuclear?
Coley: (more emphatically): NO. GUNS. IN. THIS. GAME.
Gun kid: YES. GUNS!
Coley: NO!
Gun kid: YES!
Coley: Well, I invented this game, and I SAY...NO GUNS!
Gun kid: OH! OK.

Gun kid tosses the imaginary gun to the side, pulls out his imaginary bow and arrow, and merry game playing ensues with only the requisite amount of imaginary conflict.

Oh, Coley...

April 19, 2006

Earlier today, someone came over to look at the room I have for rent. She seemed really nice - had a cute dog, was an artistic type...didn't seem to mind the chaotic state of the house.

We were standing in the room and discussing the possibilities for the space if I couldn't find a housemate when Coley said: "Wanna see something in a drawer in the refrigerator?"

I knew exactly what he was referring to. "Coley, no she most certainly does NOT." I said, thinking "ixnay on the efrigeratorray!"

"YES she DOES, mom!"

"NO...she does NOT."

The woman looks at me questioningly and I turned red. I had to explain to her that the thing in the drawer in the refrigerator he was insisting on showing her was a moldy orange.

I will never rent that freaking room out at this rate. Never.

At the very least, Coley is no longer allowed to be here while I'm showing the room.

Just some rambling, and a little complaining

April 19, 2006

So you know...I am really tired of spending my day going from one argument to the next about mundane shit like cleaning up the zillion and a half playing cards that are scattered all over the floor, and no you may not have sprite, and please stop griping about what you CAN'T have and appreciate what you CAN have, and oh, yes, you do have to brush your teeth, even if you are really tired, and now it is time to take a bath, and oh, yes...the hair must be washed because you smell like a puppy dog...and on and on. And. QUIT. FREAKING. MAKING. THAT. NOISE. And, dude...my bedroom is NOT in the middle of the house...please stop wandering in here.

Bah! Gah! I sincerely love being a mama, but these children...are driving...me...INSANE!

OK.

Now that that is out of my system...

I spent this morning cleaning up the kitchen and listening to the Go! Team. Damn, they are good. It makes the day happy even when I'm all aneurysmy. And PMSy...which explains the sensitivity I am having to sound. Does anyone else get that way when they are PMSing? any unexpected sounds make me feel tense and nervous. I swear Monk thinks I'm insane. I mean, I'm pretty sensitive to sound in general (which, I mean, try explaining to your 9-year old why clicking the top of a pen over and over again is driving you to the edge of your patience but, like, Einsturzende Neubauten is a pleasant listening experience. I can't do it. Maybe you can.) but at this time of the month, I am a TOTAL freak.

Speaking of freak, Monk has taken to calling ME a nerd. The king of nerds. Calling ME an NERD! Ha! I found out yesterday what happens when I beat him at Mario Kart Double Dash, though. I've been practicing every night after the kids go to bed just so I can beat him, and I DID yesterday. For the first time. It messed up his little world, too. He threw a ginormous temper tantrum and wouldn't talk to me for HOURS. Then he said he wished I would have a seizure because then I wouldn't be able to play the Gamecube anymore.

I thought that was an odd thing to say...but then today I was cleaning up the living room and I found the little "precaution" booklet that comes with the gamecube, and I realized Monk had READ the fucking thing. Ha! Talk about NERD! He will never hear the end of it.

My little reader.

He is now re-reading all of the Lemony Snicket books and finding little clues throughout. This morning, we had a long conversation about "what happens if" the Baudelaire orphans were to come and live in our house. Monk said that he would be happy to have some help with his chores and homework, but that he wouldn't make them work TOO hard.

OK, so I guess it's NOT so bad being here with the kiddos. They are funny and fun and all sorts of entertaining. I just need to pull my head out of my ass and enjoy them. Fully.

And listen to the Go! Team. Because it's impossible to not have fun when the Go! Team are playing.

The joys of working with youth.

April 18, 2006

This kid I work with just walked into the office, where I was listening to Beauty Pill. He says to me "Hey, have you ever heard Muse?"

I answer "Nah. Never heard them."

He says "Oh, because they're really good. You might like them."

"Yeah," I say. "What do they sound like?"

"Oh...they sound a lot like some of those OLD rock bands..."

"Old rock bands isn't descriptive...gimme a clue here."

"Oh, you know," He says..."Like RADIOHEAD. You know, like music from the NINETIES."

"Ouch!"

Thankfully, he at least had the presence of mind to realize how funny that was.

Ugh, though. Just...ugh.

I am an old fucker. I am. It's sad, but true.

Oh My God I Love Coley!

April 17, 2006

So, today marked the return of my favorite EVER coleyism. It's one of those mispronounced words that you just don't want to correct because it's so freaking adorable I don't think I can live without it. It's, get this...CONFETTITTY! We encounter this word every year around this time of the year because of the abundance of cascarones and, thus, lots of CONFETTITTY!

Also, Coley just got something stuck in his teeth and asked me to get him some of that..."what do you call it, mom? Sloff? You know, that string that you put between your teeth."

Ack! He's so freaking adorable. Must tackle him with hugs and kisses. Now.

Oh, ETA: I love, also, how filling a near-empty bottle of lavender with water and replacing the plastic cap with a cork turns it into a potion, and inspires a million devious plots of poisoning people "when I'm old enough to go on walks by myself."

Oh...now it's "the juice of the firefly" from Narnia...which I suppose is the anti-poison. Phew. Thank "God" for christian allegorical movies!

Another reason why last.fm rocks my world

April 17, 2006

Can I get THIS made into a freaking POSTER? How hot is that?

Seriously. Last.fm blows this "sliced bread" shit out of the fucking water.

Oh Thank You, Sister Novena!

April 17, 2006

Yes! this is EXACTLY what I'm talking about:

My friends are the most important people in the world to me -- I love my friends, I adore them, I would do anything in the world to contribute to their happiness. To be honest, I can be a lot more ardent about my friends than I sometimes am about my romantic relationships. According to a mindset that only recognizes couples and not-couples, that kind of affection makes no sense; it's the mindset that produces phrases like "just friends." I can't even comprehend "just" friends -- you can't get any closer to me than friendship. Who needs a boyfriend when you've got half a dozen real friends? Now, if one comes along, that's great; I'm not against the idea. But if he doesn't, my sense of self-worth remains intact. I am whole the way I am.

I love it! And, yes...there's room for romantic entanglements at some point, but I really find myself wishing to avoid them entirely right now. Not out of fear, but out of...well...apathy. For awhile there, I was feeling like it would be really nice to find a friend to snuggle with at night, but now that it's SO FUCKING HOT outside, that desire is quickly dissipating, as well.

Yay! I want to write more about this! Surely there are more out there! Let's start a revolution! Let's redefine relationships!

Wonton Soup...and being single.

April 17, 2006

I was rolling wontons today while the boys were playing with the gamecube, and I was thinking about all of these little miniature relationships I find myself embroiled in. Friendships...potential friendships...failed friendships...urban tribalism (!)...

...and I was thinking about how fucking delighted I am to be single.

When I broke up with J, I really thought about the way I've gotten involved in most of my relationships. What happens is this - for the most part, I stumble into them ass-backwards. With maybe one exception, I generally end up in a relationship RIGHT AT the point when I'm enjoying my singlehood immensely and never wanting it to change. And what happens is I unconsciously end up in a relationship mostly because I want to share the joy that I've been experiencing as a single person...with another person...in a relationship...thereby sacrificing the thing that made me want to be in a relationship in the first place.

So, when I broke up with J, I thought "What if I actually CONSCIOUSLY avoid relationships for awhile?" I'm talking, not just "not really want" a relationship...or "not actively look for" a relationship, but truly, truly, truly refuse to get embroiled in one. Make it a choice, and make it stick.

I'm talking like a committed, monogamous relationship here. And, me being who I am, that means no sex. Because I'm not really into the whole concept of casual sex. In fact, sex is like the least important thing to me when it comes to a relationship...and not-so-ironically, the reason I have so much trouble with my relationships also seems to revolve, to some extent, around sex.

So, anyway, I was thinking about all of this while I was rolling wontons, because rolling wontons is a totally meditative act. I was thinking about the perfect relationship for me right now. I was really thinking what would be cool would be to have a friend (and, for reasons that make sense to me but might not make sense to anyone else...and that's OK...this friend is ideally a male friend) who would be happy to come hang out in my house with me and just...be here...while I"m rolling wontons, or doing the dishes, or dancing around the living room. Someone who didn't have to talk all of the time, and who didn't require much of my attention, but would give and receive attention when appropriate...but, mostly, someone who would be happy with going about their business as I go about mine with no demands. And at the end of the day, I could maybe go for a walk with this person and send him on his way.

I get that I'm looking for someone to enjoy all of the totally mundane aspects of partnership with, without rewarding them with the exciting excitement of SEX and stuff. But certainly that's not a bizarre desire, is it? It's actually really simple, and, I think...kind of sweet. Think of it. I could be doing the dishes while this imaginary friend is doing laundry. I could be cranking music and cleaning the living room while this person reads the paper. And every once in awhile he would tell me something he just read, and I would stop dancing long enough to listen.

Doesn't that sound awesome? I wonder if I could put THAT in a Craig's List ad. Ha! I'd probably get like 50 million responses from horny internet dudes who think it's all just another way of saying I actually just really need to GET LAID!

By the way, the wontons kicked ass. I'll have to post the recipe later.

Dave Smith? Yeah. I slept with him.

April 16, 2006

ha! It's time for the annual peep off:

But Dave Smith, a Sacramento anthropologist who works with monkeys, has eaten hundreds of them, and not because he likes them.

Smith coordinates the annual Peeps Off in Sacramento, usually conducted the weekend following Easter. This year will be the 13th annual event, its sole purpose being to see how many Peeps a person can consume in a 30-minute time frame.

The record-holder ate 103 of them and kept them down -- one of the rules. He then ate a pizza on his way home to counteract any possible ill effects from that much sugar. And yes, he's still among the living.

The Peep Off doesn't have a lot of rules, and the ones it does have get modified on occasion. The first contests didn't permit the use of beverages to help wash the Peeps down. But now, contestants are permitted to drink Pabst beer, and teetotalers can use diet soda. No one remembers exactly why it has to be Pabst, but the basic idea is that it's not really helpful to the contestant.

The Peep Off -- one of dozens conducted annually across the country -- usually draws about 30 to 40 contestants and 20 to 30 observers, always at a private home. One year, the Sacramento police showed up after a rules debate led contestants to pelt each other with Peeps, some of which ended up on the neighbors' roofs (the Peeps not the contestants) and thus led said neighbors to call 911 and report a marshmallow riot.

Peace was soon restored to the neighborhood, although a few Peeps lingered on roofs until the return of the rainy season.

Smith doesn't himself care for Peeps.

"They are the gift you get in your Easter basket that you sort of blow off," Smith says.

He's at a loss to explain the popularity of the candy or the competition, although he seems to hit upon a given.

"If I had a Swedish Fish Off," Smith says, "I probably wouldn't get any publicity."

...you see? How charming he is? After all, I don't just sleep with ANYONE.

Lazy Sunday Blogrolling

April 16, 2006

I guess it's some sort of holiday or something. Well, OK, I KNOW this because I spent the morning coloring eggs with Coley. Not being a Christian-type...I haven't done this since I was, like 8 or something...but Coley was all into the idea of doing the easter egg hunt at church* today, so color eggs, we must!

Anyway, I'm going to spend the day surfing the internet, cleaning the house, making wonton soup, fiddling with last.fm (because I am fucking HOOKED) and maybe kicking Monk's ASS at Mario Kart Double Dash. Mwahahahaha. Oh, and fuck blogrolling! I just cleared out my one huge blogroll, and I'm not regathering blogs to link to. So, if I have never linked to you in the past, please let me know and if I think you are swell, I will add you to my shiny new fresh blogrolley thingy.

Here are the fruits of my linky labor:

Regarding the Lacrosse rape trial, Blac(k)ademic poses the question:

It is very disturbing that this case has become reminiscent of the O.J. trial where black "truth" is positioned in opposition to white "truth." If this were a team of men of color and another woman of color, would the media have given it this much attention? Would other bloggers have given it this much attention? No. Of course not–although I would hope otherwise, but that is the reality of this situation.

***

Weiss on Wall Street:

"It is the nature of financial journalism to glorify the powerful and the wealthy," Weiss said. "That's true in all journalism to a great extent. ... It has to the do with the pressures of the job, the pressures of advertising, although they are never spoken of as such. It is the nature of covering a beat where there are a lot of wealthy people. You tend to be hagiographic. Fear of lawsuits has increasingly become an issue. It discourages tough reporting. It has become a background issue. It's never spoken of. No one ever comes out and says -- we are afraid of lawsuits. It is never spoken. It is always in the distance. It's background noise. It's part of the culture."

***

RJ attempts to gleen some sort of logic from the "pro-life" movement:

Let's break that down Aristotle-style:

1. Abortion is murdering a child
2. Abortion is OK if you were raped
3. Therefore, murdering a child is OK if you were raped.

You got a problem with this? Huh? You got even the slightest moral scruple about killing children because of their parentage? Then you have three choices:

1. Give up and admit that abortion is not murder, Or
2. Write a letter to the editor explaining how it's just fine and dandy for first cousins to pull an Andrea Yates on their 8 year-old offspring, OR
3. Admit proudly to the world that you think 12 year-old rape victims should be forced to bear their attackers' children.

Good luck with that, RJ. My mom always gave me good advice with regard to dealing with the mentally ill - don't try to understand them, it will only end up driving YOU crazy, too.

***

I'll be back with more later.

*There needs to be another word for the UU church. Like, maybe chUUrch, or something. I don't want anyone to get the impression that I'm all pious and shit all of a sudden. Yes...I go to church. No, I don't believe in an external god character.

ahhhhhh.

April 15, 2006

I managed to get a ton of work done today, thanks to M, who swooped in, grabbed my kids and my automobile, and took everyone to the Bengalese new year celebration. I spent the afternoon making (fucking) phone calls for the program I work for. Even thought the procedure surrounding the phone calls is a humongous pain in the ass, it's always nice to talk to our clients, and it's especially nice to get work done without interruption, knowing that the usual interruptioners are off having fun throwing rocks in a river.

They came home, only to leave again back to M's house for more fun. Which leaves me...finished with work! Listening to music! Really really appreciating the extra help this weekend.

ETA: M just called and said all of the kids are having a BLAST and that I shouldn't worry about coming to pick them up. I guess I'll start making my wonton soup I have been meaning to make all week. Loud music, good cooking, no kids...what a freaking treat!

I am so obsessed with last.fm

April 15, 2006

It's not even funny. Now I have endless scores of people to gush about music with. It's an amazing project. Wow. Thank you, creators of last.fm! If I ever meet you, I will make you soup!

I know! Let's punish the mama!

April 15, 2006

I had the absolutely most stupid interaction with a health insurance provider yesterday. I swear, my brain almost completely exploded. I was intending to write about it all day, but every time I thought about it, I had to go lay down for a minute to compose myself.

At any rate, here's the deal. Like most divorced parents, at least those who are fortunate enough to have some sort of health insurance, my children are insured under their father's plan. It's pretty standard procedure for the non-possessory parent to provide that, and I sort of pay for it through a subsequent reduction in my monthly child support (the cost of the insurance is subtracted from the ex's income before the percentage of his salary on which child support is figured is figured.)

I, as the possessory parent...you know, the one who actually has possession of the kids during the times that they would normally go to see a doctor...am equipped with some (evidently very useless) insurance cards.

So, yesterday I finally had the time to go about setting up a well check up for the boys. (Gah - thank maude it wasn't an emergency!) and I called the insurance company to find out who their primary care physician is (we aren't huge "go to the doctor for every ailment" people here...mostly I just want to get Monk a referral to his eye specialist, and why not make an appointment for Coley while I'm at it?) First of all, I'm directed to a website, which allows me to input all of the information before it politely informs me that children under the age of 18 are not allowed to use the online services.

Great.

So, then I call. And I get this lady who informs me that due to the new HIPAA laws, she's not allowed to discuss my children's plan with me, since I am not the policy holder.

I was pretty furious. I mean, I know it's not the phone ladies fault, but she was so freaking glib about the whole thing. "Can't you just call the father and ask HIM who the PCP is?" She said.

Well, yeah. I probably can. The ex and I aren't exactly best buddies, but he's never been a jerk about anything like this. However, I'm too busy being furious about all of the women out there who are so fucking thankful that at least the system provided them with the right to demand health insurance from their abusive ex-husbands, only to be told that they then need to turn around and try to get information from them. You know?

I'm pretty sure that's NOT what HIPAA was intended to do. But the lady on the phone seemed so gleeful about her ability to make my life more complicated. Like HA HA! How DARE you demand privacy rights! You want PRIVACY rights? We'll give YOU privacy! We'll privacy you right into a total clusterfuck!

So, yeah. For me, it really only took an email to get it set right. The ex is going to look into the matter on Monday and it's no big deal. But I know there are people out there for whom making a request of the ex is a tricky, if not downright fucking scary endeavor.

Gotta love our government. Gotta love the fucking healthcare industry. Woo! Go Patriarchy!

All aflutter

April 15, 2006

I don't want to say this out loud because a) I don't want my enthusiasm to be misinterpreted and b) I feel like I'm a huge nerd for being all excited about this and c) it hasn't actually come to fruition yet and because of various things, won't until a couple of weeks from now...BUT I have to say that I'm totally psyched to have found a friend who has similarish taste in music to me who likes to go on walks AND has a headset splitter so two people can listen to the same media player at the same time.

You don't even know how many walking hours I have spent wishing I could just have a partner in music along with me! Yay!

OK. That's all I have for today. But, shit! Isn't that ENOUGH! Last week, when I discovered my little friend had a splitter, we contemplated the idea that if we obtained enough splitters, we might possibly be able to plug everyone in the world into the same walkman and achieve world harmony through shared music.

Ha!

However, I think my friend is a little more outwardly cynical than that, in that adorable way true optimists develop in order to avoid getting their hopes dashed over and over again. I say fuck that! Dream out loud! You never know when you might get what you ask for! Like finding a nice, non ax-murderer person who likes walks and music.

Or something. What do I know, though. I barely know this person yet! But...Walks! Music! What more goodness could there possibly be?!

Yeah. I think it's time for me to go to sleep. I'm getting a bit loopy. I blame way too much time spent tagging music on last.fm, and watching Narnia with the kiddos & "in your face"ing Monk about all of the Christianity that overflows from that flick...he kept telling me there wasn't a damn thing Christian about it. IN YOUR FACE, MONK!

Anyway, ahem. Yeah. I think sleep is in order at this point.

The Art of Losing*

April 14, 2006

I'm in love with a house.

Every night, when I go on my walk, I pass this house in the neighborhood that is like a fucking advertisement for the American dream. It sits there on the corner, and the windows are always wide open so you can see the perfect, always spotless, showcase kitchen. Sometimes the occupants of the house will be watching movies on their projection screen that seems to roll up into the ceiling when not in use, and the lighting is always just right so you can see the shadows of people but never really the people themselves.

I sometimes wonder about this house, and the people who live there. Are they really real? Why is their kitchen always spotless, and why are they inviting me to look inside. I think, if I were to meet the owner of this house, I might consider fucking him or her, just so I could say I had sex inside of that house. Seriously. It's that gorgeous.

And yet, the conspicuousness of the house makes me suspicious. Why are you tempting me, house? Why are you beckoning me to look inside and to envy the things I don't have. I look inside and I think about my house, the shabby furniture in disrepair, and I think to myself, why can't I have a house like that?

See what I mean! It's like the house is a capitalist plot right on my walking route! Damn you, perfect house owners! Damn you for having such a conspicuously sexy abode!

OK, this was a really crappy post, but, seriously, listening to the Ex makes me think "What the fuck ever! I am so just a hack compared to these geniuses!" So, pretty much it doesn't matter what I write at this point, anyway. hahahahaha.

*I don't have the lyrics handy for this, but...seriously...if you've never listened to The Ex's LP Starters/Alternators, you are truly truly truly missing the musical/lyrical treat of a lifetime. It's just an incredible aural experience.

Love anarchy, love revolution

April 13, 2006

Lately, I've been having some really awesome conversations with a friend of mine who I've been friends with for awhile, but I feel like we've only just recently started to connect. Ironically, the connection coincided with the disconnection from another close friend...although I think it was brewing for awhile before that point.

This friend has always been intellectually wise beyond her years, but I've only recently discovered that she is also emotionally wise beyond her years. And the best part is that she's always seeking more wisdom. And I love seekers. I love emotional wisdom. I love to share.

At any rate, the other day we were talking about anarchism, and how so often people who claim to be anarchists want you to discuss tomes of anarchist theories that are unwieldy, frequently elitist, and almost always just plain not interesting to me. The existence of such people have, for most of my life, convinced me that I am not an anarchist. I wouldn't know Bakunin if he kissed me on the lips, and while I appreciate Noam Chomsky and all he has done, I just can't sit down with a book about theoretical anarchism and get behind it. Bits and pieces, yes. Pages and pages and chapters and chapters and book after book after book? No fucking way! Yawn!

My anarchy is an anarchy of the self. My anarchy involves observing every so-called instinct that I have, and the ways I react to situations, and really examining where my thoughts and feelings originate. My anarchy is an attempt to truly embody spiritual, emotional, and intellectual freedom. It's a process. It's about as impossible as achieving an actual anarchist state, but it doesn't require a fucking degree in philosophy...it just requires a degree in organic humanity - which is really truly getting to know people, and really truly loving them...in all of their naked flawful states and through all of their silly foibles and inadvertant wisdoms.

I've really been thinking about this a lot lately. Monk and I have been reading the Tao of Pooh, and Monk has indicated that he wishes to read the Tao te Ching next. This excites me. I remember my first exposure to a world outside of my own little sphere of existence happened in a stuffy classroom one summer. I was enrolled in a philosophy class through the talented and gifted program at my jr. high school. Someone shoved a copy of the Tao te Ching in my face, and I think it really shaped who I later was to become. I don't even think I understood half of it at the time. I don't think I was fully capable of abstract thougth. But I do know that it affected me deeply, and it still speaks to me to this day.

I also know that as I am reading this book to Monk, I am recognizing that I am truly becoming a Taoist. There are still times when I am a reactive human being, but more and more frequently I find myself flowing like a river, or like leaves in a tree when the wind is blowing. I don't hold on to things. I tend to right myself rather quickly. I notice that I don't tend to judge my reactions as much as observe and accept them, even when they might be considered "unhealthy" or "bad."

I'm really very pleased with where I am right now. My little personal revolution has thus far been a highly successful coup. I know it's just a battle that has been won on a whole peaceful war that must be waged...but I feel like I am truly on the right path for myself. And, with that knowledge, I can find my center whenever I am knocked off kilter by whatever external event that seeks to do so...and move forward...or sideways...or backwards...or whereever I need to move to be where I need to be at any given moment.

Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

ETA: One thing, too, that I should add to this is that I am really working on, and being largely successful with really accepting WHO I AM, flaws, foibles, wisdom, and all. I don't know if I read this somewhere or if I just made it up, but when I was just on the toilet, I thought "The path is not the sojourner, and the sojourner is not the path." Recognizing that, my next step is to understand and fully accept that of other people, as well. Which can be both easier and more difficult, depending on the situation, I guess.

I am the evil homeschooling overlord

April 13, 2006

mwahahahahahahaha.

So, Monk and I have been studying classification for science. And I hit upon the perfect multi-purpose project for him to complete at the end of the unit. He's going to rearrange the refrigerator, pantry, recycling, or pots and pans into some semblance of sensicalness.

Considering he is the one who puts away the groceries and the dishes, and frequently does so in that typical "I am a 9-year old, and I will just throw everything in all willy-nilly without any thought for useful order" fashion, I figure this will serve at least 4 different purposes.

Is that evil of me, or what?

Unfortunate Gender Assignment

April 13, 2006

Coley has been working really hard to learn how to use his new sneaker skates. He takes every opportunity to pop out his wheels and skate around. Today, I brought him to work with me, and he had this lament:

"Mom...I wish I had been born a girl."

"Why's that, Birdy?"

"Because then I could grow up and be a ROLLER girl!"

Last.FM

April 12, 2006

I have finally joined the Last.FM revolution. Please be my friend in music.

Near Perfect Days

April 11, 2006

I think, as much as I have enjoyed the company of my guest families over the past few months, I hadn't really taken into account how disruptive it is to have several thousand children in the house all of the time. These past few days here have been nearly perfect. I have been able to plan our week, and have had things go off without a hitch and with no disruptions or chaotic interventions.

Of course, the variable here is that I don't seem to be watching anyone else's kids these days. Due to some interesting developments in my work and social life, I have not had to rely on other people for childcare as much...and therefore I haven't had as many people relying on me. While it's nice to not have unplanned interruptions during the day, I think I can bear to have one or two playdates a week in the house without messing the schedule up entirely. It's something I want to work on...making sure people know that I am available...and WHEN I am available.

That said, I'm really happy with the little rhythm we have going lately. The daily rhythm is gentle and fluid, and our weekly rhythm involves a really good balance of inside the house/outside the house time...as well as plenty of time to keep the place somewhat neat and organized, and to keep us engaged in learning activities all day long, whether I am facilitating those activities or not. Plus there's just more face time with my kids. I can have conversations with them, and truly hear what THEY have to say, without anyone interrupting or battling for inclusion.

It's nice. I want to say that I prefer to live collectively...that the experience of having multiple families/children in this house proved to be a really desirable situation. I can't say that it COULDN'T be, but I think in the end there needs to be a lot more commitment and planning and desire to make it work long-term than could have been feasibly nurtured in the limited time I had with the families I shared this home with. I want to blame that, or space, or perhaps even compatibility to some extent. Either way, whatever the reason, I'm totally content in this house without other children living here. I might try it again...and in an emergency, I WOULD do it again...but for right now I don't think I want to mess with that balance.

What the 9-year old knows about immigration reform

April 11, 2006

Since I'm a total goob and missed the Day of Action entirely, I figured the very least I could do was read some news stories about the important events of the last couple of days to the children as our morning circle reading material. I read this one first:

The crowds at many of the protests also cheered speakers who denounced a system that has driven more than 11 million illegal immigrants into shadowy lives of subterfuge, and who called for a new deal that would extend basic rights to them and a chance of eventual citizenship. Organizers said the protests would not stop until Congress passed laws to improve their lives.

Much of the anger yesterday and at the protests in recent weeks was directed at a bill passed by the House of Representatives last December. It would have authorized a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border; raised the crime of illegal immigration to a felony; and criminalized giving assistance, including food and water, to illegal immigrants.

After I read that article, I went to move on to another. Monk stopped me. "I get the picture, mom," he said.

"OK," I replied. "What do you think?"

That's a scary question for a parent. Asking what your child thinks, especially when at least attempting to run somewhat of an egalitarian household, opens you up to a world of shit. I want to support and encourage their honest opinions, but there is always a part of me that wants to guide the thoughts into "correctness."

Thankfully, Monk has played enough computer-simulated war games to know where it's at.

"I think that people should just be checked over briefly to make sure they aren't criminals, then we should exchange their money, then maybe offer some basic english classes, and that's it."

At that point, I attempted to play devil's advocate with him, but he stood firm. "Like the article said, mom...we're all immigrants."

I asked him what he thought of borders, and he said that borders were too much work (!) (my little anarchist!) and that they only served a purpose during war. So I asked him if maybe he thought borders might CAUSE war.

He said Yes.

"One time, when I was playing Civilization IV, Ghandi and I were always at war over our borders because I wanted to maintain my territory, and Ghandi wanted to expand. It was never ending. Borders are dumb. People should live where they want to."

DMBQ Video

April 11, 2006

I finally found a video that seems to really bring the DMBQ experience fairly accurately to a tiny little screen on your computer. Are you ready for this?

oh, and here's a video of the drum set destruction at sxsw...but I'm not sure when this happens. I don't know if it's an effect that makes it appear to be at night, but either this happened at the FXFY show, which was in the daytime, or it happened at yet another DMBQ performance that I didn't know about.

Body Image: Anorexia v. Obesity

April 10, 2006

What is my deal with titles lately? That one sounds like a Dateline special.

Really, I just wanted to link up this post on Feministe by Piny. I had really never thought about what Piny posits there...that there is a double standard in how health is measured in the context of the two eating disorders. Generally, anorexia is measured by death rate, and obesity is measured by a size/acceptability rate. There is not really a health-based measurement on either end of the spectrum. If you are fat, you are automatically unhealthy...if you are thin, you are generally not deemed to be unhealthy unless you are dead.

Wow. That kind of stopped me in my tracks today. There's more conversation about it here and here. And I actually wanted to link up this post by that smarty-pants, Stentor Danielson:

Information about the activities of other parts of the hierarchy is reduced to a few summary numbers (dollars spent or bushels of cotton grown or SAT scores, etc.). These few numbers become all-important, creating an incentive to "game" them in ways that make the indicator look good without actually improving the underlying facts that the indicator is supposed to be measuring. One of the key problems in the Soviet economy -- a quintessentially Hierarchist system -- was just this sort of number-polishing. This is exactly what the weight loss obsession does -- instead of addressing the underlying issue (health) in a holistic way, it sets up a single quantity as a measure of success, and then focuses on "fixing" that indicator.

Not bad for a toss-off response to Ampersand's epic tome about the weight-loss industry.

I Hear Goodnight

April 10, 2006

On my walk tonight, I was passing a house and the window was open. I turned my head to look inside out of instinct, and what I saw was so banally intimate that I had to turn my head away in an instant. What I saw in that instant was a bedroom through an open window. Clothes were strewn about the floor and the bedpost, and stacks of books and papers were leaning precariously against a wall. There was a woman in the bed, her back against the wall adjacent to the window. She was reading a book, her fingers poised to turn the page, her feet bare and her toes, painted, were rubbing against each other. The house was on a foundation, so she was raised above the ground, as if on a well-lit stage.

I trundled past dumbly. The screen that separated us seemed so betrayably thin. And I thought about our shells of houses and how tiny a vessel they seem, to contain such enormity.

I Hear... Goodnight
Low + Dirty Three

I hear the cars go by
I hear the baby cry
I hear the darkening sky

I hear the window shake
I hear the silence break
I hear the moon turn to blood

and it says
oooh oooh
and it says
oooh ooh

goodnight

Sometimes Life is Like This.

April 9, 2006

I spent all afternoon cleaning the kitchen and living room because someone was supposed to come over and look at the room today.

Thirty minutes before she was scheduled to arrive, I decided I had had enough cleaning, and that I would relax for a bit, satisfied at the way things looked enough to overlook a couple of long-term storage issues I have.

Fifteen minutes before she was scheduled to arrive, she called to let me know she changed her mind, and that she was going to extend her lease after all.

I plopped down on my bed. All of my meandering cleaning that usually takes all day Sunday to do is now done. I can only feel relief about this. I don't feel any disappointment.

I think I'm going to take a nice nap, listening to dirty three with the windows open.

Commercial Break.

April 9, 2006

I just realized the first line of the preceding reads like a fucking laxative commercial! Ha!

"Readers of drublood.com experience extreme regularity!"

Chaotic Collective Cacophony

April 9, 2006

Anyone who reads this blog with extreme regularity might have heard me mention a song called "Hope" by the Dirty Three. I mention it a lot, and I play it even more than I mention it. I've never quoted the lyrics, because it has none. The song consists of sparse drums and guitar, and rich strings, and one lone caterwauling stringed instrument that sounds like it's being bowed by a metal ruler.

In all of this talk lately about harmony, and different voices/many voices, which was the sermon today at the UU church, this song comes to mind. I think I finally understand why I love it so much, and, too, why I have been a fan of caterwauling, disharmonious music throughout my life.

That reason is...Fuck Harmony. Like the screeching strings in Hope and Nick Cave's plaintive wails in any Birthday Party song, my affinity lies in those who refuse to harmonize with everyone else. Why would I insist on harmony from others when I so rarely can muster the wherewithal to live in sync with myself? There are times when I, too, rise like the squeal of the misbowed violin, only to fall like the calm and gentle guitar. What's so great about "Hope" is that it's always sandwiched between these incredibly anchored atmospheric pieces that breathe music in and out like the winds that breathe in and out the tide...or more profoundly, like the gravity that perpetuates it.

Instead of longing for an unachievable state of harmony, why not embrace the din? The din of other voices, and that of my own voice, telling me fifty different ways to do the right thing at any moment. My thoughts like a zoetrope, spinning in seeming disconnection and only when it gets spinning fast enough does the picture become whole and unified...and yet there is beauty in those fragmented, still images. There is a strange sort of harmony in that disconnection, like guitars and violins - making combinations of things previously discombobulated. This puzzle I am trying to put together, and all my missing pieces - this puzzle we all are trying to put together, and all our missing pieces. We fill them in with light, air, waves, mist, rocks. We yell in different keys, we sing softly out of tune, we drift, and we return...and in the midst of all of the chaotic collective cacophony, we may find bits of melody to string into a song, or we may seek comfort in the tangible disarray around us which reflects that within, or we may sit in silence, humming with life.

Cole's first novel

April 8, 2006

Cole is working on his first novel. He's drawing the pictures and I'm capturing the words as he says them. Here's the text:

The Adventures of Weird Cole
Made by Cole and Lainie

The Adventures of Weird Cole
Book One: Traveling to Fate

Christmas Eve
We don’t know how we will
Our wills are stronger than yours
You have no power of us.

Chapter One
No one knows
Everyone Shows
Trick or Treats
On the beats
It’s Halloween
Something’s wrong
One house is alive
One house isn’t.
How will we survive?
Cole said “Well, we’ll survive somehow.”

Chapter Two
It’s still Halloween
But we got the Crystal Star
The FIRST crystal star
We don’t know how we’ll get the second
But, how will we survive
The Live House?
*sigh*
But we are really, really, REALLY scared.
I don’t know what will happen,
We don’t know how we’ll die
But the live house MIGHT kill us
Suddenly Cole was in the game Fate
And he had an AX in his hand
He saw a lady with a staff
And had a lot of spells
And he used his scroll of town portal
To go down in the dungeon
In fact, he can ONLY use it in the dungeon
But then, he turned back into his
Normal Self.

****

Whoah Whoah Whoah
We don’t know-woah
How how how how how
Will we doe?

Chapter 3
The diaper snake ws very bad for Cole, but he still could not resist, but he still could not get the diaper snake to lose. But he had an idea! He took off Felix’s diaper, because Felix had peed on it, and made the diaper snake smell it!

***'

What do you think?

There is no reason for you to hide.

April 8, 2006

The Dirty Three were again my walking companions last night as, after a day of deep thought and an evening of solitude in public spaces, I set about trying to process all of the thoughts that kept popping up throughout it all.

Seeing that myspace page of an ex-boyfriend and that quote by Tish about how we are all just doing the best we can and all of the other external but equally juxtapositional ideas and input I had been receiving all day was making me wonder about where I am, where I want to be, and, I guess, ultimately what is safe for me in terms of rectifying some of the current disharmony in my life.

What got to me about the ex's interpretation of our relationship was not that he felt angry and depressed about the relationship as it was happening. It was a pretty depressing relationship! But that in the ensuing years...all 15 or so of them...he did not once stop to think that perhaps there was something external to him that was driving that depression. And what's ultimately important about that is how it corresponds with the way *I* am living my life now that might be equally blindered and unforgiving of those who have injured me in the past - those who I perhaps feel a legitimate resentment or anger for...and whether or not I need to let go of those feelings.

And that's where we come up against the issue of safety. Because I can honestly analyze my relationship with that particular ex, and I see no reason why it would have been unsafe for him to approach me and attempt to deconstruct that relationship at any time. I had no power over him. I might have been an insane, workaholic, jealous, dissatisfied person, but I wasn't abusive. He was free to leave at any time - we had no ties to bind us together, and in deconstructing things - we have no current ties.

But, really, this has nothing to do whatsoever with that relationship. That person is clearly not interested in approaching the past with an attitude of forgiveness in the interest of self-improvement. In the present, however, I have at least one relationship that hangs in this strange limbo of discommunication. It's an important relationship. Perhaps the most important relationship in my life thus far. And in thinking about grudges and resentment and the power of forgiveness and the concept of "doing the best we can" I couldn't help but think about that relationship. Is it safe for me to untie that box again? What kinds of things might pop out of I do so? And what will remain contained?

I think the thing is that in order to mend those rifts, there needs to be absolute honesty. And how is honesty achieved when there is so much pain and suspicion? Am I capable of it? Is the other person? And, if so, am I capable of trusting the other person to BE honest...or will I just assume it is more of the same power/abuse dynamic that has ruled our relationship for many, many years now - even in silence.

This would be easy to drop if it weren't for other people who are waiting for this to be resolved. People for whom resolution would mean a lot more harmony and happiness in their lives. People for whom I want to set an example of forgiveness and love, but also for whom I do not want to set an example of two people yet again mistreating each other. And it's again...I run up against the issue of safety for myself, as well as for these other people.

So, I'm still thinking about it all. It's like my brain and soul are trying desperately to find the puzzle pieces that will make the picture clearer, and I'm having no success, so I'm staring hard at the picture, missing pieces and all, and trying to figure out what it all means. I don't have the answer. I don't have any of the answers. And yet, somehow...I know I have all of the answers.

Down By The River
Neil Young (as interpreted by the Dirty Three, accompanied by Low - it's an amazing fucking song)

Be on my side,
I'll be on your side,
baby
There is no reason
for you to hide
It's so hard for me
staying here all alone
When you could be
taking me for a ride.

Yeah, she could drag me
over the rainbow,
send me away
Down by the river
I shot my baby
Down by the river,
Dead, oh, shot her dead.

You take my hand,
I'll take your hand
Together we may get away
This much madness
is too much sorrow
It's impossible
to make it today.

Yeah, she could drag me
over the rainbow,
send me away
Down by the river
I shot my baby
Down by the river,
Dead, oh, shot her dead.

Be on my side,
I'll be on your side,
baby
There is no reason
for you to hide
It's so hard for me
staying here all alone
When you could be
taking me for a ride.

Yeah, she could drag me
over the rainbow,
send me away
Down by the river
I shot my baby
Down by the river,
Dead, oh, shot her dead.

Another book I need to read

April 7, 2006

An excellent post by Tish about Karen Armstrong's talk, and the Golden Rule:

I listen to friends talk about issues in relationship. It's so often about feeling like the other person doesn't get what they're doing to cause pain. People struggle to find the way to say the thing that will make it all clear and better and surely if you knew how what you do feels to me you wouldn't do it, right? Well. I'm not sure. I mostly think people do the best they can. And sometimes the best they can do is always (or often) going to be hurtful.

I don't think I have anything to add to that at this point, but I'll be thinking about this all day.

White Lillies

April 7, 2006

You know...it's really funny that this post received an errant comment yesterday, because I was thinking about the song yesterday. I was at a meeting on the campus of one of the schools I work at, and I noticed that there were white lillies planted in the courtyard. And I found it odd, considering the demographic makeup of the school. It was much the same idea as the song, only I don't think the wacky kids chose to plant the white lillies - rather it was the lilly white administrators. So, it actually wasn't funny at all.

Sorry I Drove You To Drink.

April 7, 2006

My life has suddenly become a country and western song.

I was so bored last night, having decided that 10 bux was too much to pay for Daniel Francis Doyle (and only Daniel Francis Doyle, because I wasn't in the mood for any other bands) that I was playing myspace roulette. You know...you type in a name in the search menu and see what kind of disasterousity pops up.

Among other folks, I was searching for ex-boyfriends of mine. There are, admittedly, few. Actually, there are really only two that I don't talk to anymore ever. And one of them is the father of my children. The other one, I discovered last night, is the one I drove to drink.

But, really, if this particular ex had pulled his head out of his ass, his dick out of the imaginary thingy of the 16-year old girl he was obsessed with (romeo and juliet my fucking ASS...more like pedophile and pedophilet!), or his mind off of the worry of whether or not I would get too fat for him (which, evidently I was - even though I truly wasn't) or his mouth off of the bottle of malt liquor (which is hilarious, because I don't even remember him drinking AT ALL, so I'm tempted to say "imaginary" malt liquor...but knowing the state of mind that I was in when I was with him, I probably just totally didn't even notice he was drinking himself silly) he would have realized that I was pretty severely depressed, having left behind my home and my family and all of my friends almost immediately after a close friend committed suicide and another close friend OD'd on heroin. So, yeah, I have no doubt I was a challenge to live with. I was absolutely insane. Perhaps if he wasn't such a selfish prick, he would have attempted to show some sympathy, rather than whining about how his girlfriend who paid all of the fucking bills was difficult to live with to any chick who would show him her boobies.

You know? You would hope that someone you once knew so well, but grew to dislike, would maybe change over the years and become more pleasant. Unfortunately, this dude is still bitter about "all of the women who wronged him in the past," just like he was when I met him and, mistakenly got involved with him. The only difference is that he's thrown me on that pile, too...and I have a little more empathy now for the others, having known him.

Since he is openly struggling with alcoholism now, I will give him a hint. STOP BLAMING OTHER PEOPLE FOR YOUR MISERY. Dude, it couldn't be any less my fault that you started drinking. You were unemployed for several years while we were together, and I paid yr fucking bills because I stupidly believed in your artwork. Also, I didn't freaking drink a drop. If you "stocked the fridge with malt liquor" (which, again, I honestly don't even remember) - it was because you didn't want to face life, not because I drove you there. I had my own problems to deal with. Yes, there were many. But I was 21 fucking years old...give me a break, dude. I know it's good story material, but LET GO. Let. go.

In the grand scheme of things, this doesn't matter. I remember driving late at night in your gigantic car. I remember telling you I was a virgin. I remember Wild At Heart, and the thunderstorm night you devirginized me. I remember sweat stains in the shape of our bodies on the bed. I remember swamp cooler and waterbed in Lubbock. I remember visiting with friends and a picnic on Buddy Holly's grave. I remember feeling totally alone and isolated from everybody. I remember what seemed like years of semi-OK sex. I remember living in filthy hovels with you. I remember being totally in love and being extra totally insanely crazy jealous. I remember being informed we were officially married by the food stamp counselor. I remember being embarrassed to be known as "that guy that hits on all of the women's girlfriend," I remember dead cats and skull rings, I remember your stupid gun, I remember realizing for the first time that I was pseudo-married to an absolute sexist asshole, I remember walking in on you having sex, and having her silently thank me as she was leaving. I don't even remember who broke up with who. I remember you telling me you were going to put your beloved dog Melvin to sleep because "he was of no use" to you now. I remember you calling me years later to get him back, most likely because you suddenly realized he was your "in" with the women, I remember chick dice - and all of my friends laughing at you - and feeling embarrassed for you and embarrassed of you at the same time.

And, oh, my friend who OD'd...the last conversation we had consisted of her totally yelling at me for ever getting involved with this guy. If I had taken her advice, I might still be in Chicago to this day. So, I guess I don't totally regret having known this dude...but I certainly haven't thought much about him in the past 10 years or so, and I certainly don't think I will think much more about him after today.

So, yeah...I'm sorry I drove you to drink. But I really think drinking is the least of yr problems. Here. I'm letting go of all of my memories of you today. Perhaps you ought to do the same, Mr. X.

Future Roller Dude?

April 6, 2006

I just walked into the living room, and Coley was TAPING hotwheels cars to his FEET.

"What are you doing, Coley," I laughed.
"I'm making ROLLER SKATES!" He exclaimed.
"Sweetie, I can probaby BUY you some roller skates if you want," (I am desperate to give my children wheels, remember...and it wouldn't hurt if they forced me to go roller skating with them on a regular basis)
"No, mom. These are easier."

OK, dude. Whatever you say.

BTW - It looks painful, but it seems to be working.

"The Look"

April 6, 2006

Janine posted a little something about Dr. Leary and post traumatic slave syndrome:

you know *the look* that all black women can give a child, whether hers or not, that will stop whatever behavior it’s aimed at? i know you know cause we all have it. dr. leary reminds us of how we don’t let our children play unchecked in public. white children are free to run about in a bank, for example, but we don’t allow our children to exhibit that kind of behavior in public and use *the look* to curb it instantaneously. her theory of PTSS posits that that behavior is an adaptive response to slavery when it wasn’t safe to let our children romp like that.

And it made me think about the conversation that erupted on this blog awhile back about children in public spaces and the expectations people have of parents to control their children.

I'm pretty sure we talked about how privilege interacts with child-rearing, and how lower-income mamas and mamas of color are more apt to feel pressure to force their children to behave in a certain way in order to feel "acceptable." But I had never considered the further-reaching implications of this. I really didn't tie it in with slavery and safety and an ingrained cultural response.

I think this raises way more questions than it answers, so I guess I need to read Dr. Leary's book.

Monk's first chat

April 5, 2006

I brought the kids in to work with me tonight, and me and monk had our first chat session:

8:07 PM Monk: hello
8:08 PM me: hey there, sweetie pie!
8:09 PM Monk: grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
me: awww.
wasssamatta?
8:11 PM Monk: dont you sweetie pie me mom.or else ill come over there
me: hahaha.
You are quite good at this chatting thing, cutie-booty.

***

It's enough to make me want to buy him his own computer so we can just chat all day. Are there any parents out there who chat with their children?

Chat me!!!!!!

April 5, 2006

I'm about to head off to work, where I will basically be babysitting a site for a sick management assistant. If there's anyone out there who wants to have a frequently-interrupted chat session with me, please please please chat me up!

I'm lainieoyst on yim
and drublood on google
I don't think I can reach aim from work, but in case I can, I'm lgbdozer on aim.

I am begging you to help me with my little boredom problem. Please! Please! Please!

I'll be there after 6 CST.

I Want the One I Can't Have

April 5, 2006

(I guess it's old crush week here at my blog. That's what comes from listening to old music.)

It seems appropriate that it was the Smiths concert we were going to when rob, aka robby, aka wobby the wabbit arrived to pick me up. With another girl.

I think it's also telling that I can’t remember if this was before or after our several thousand hot makeout sessions on my mother’s couch, or if it was before or after we went to my sophomore year prom and his fly was down the whole time and my white face makeup was all over his collar and no, we really never did anything but kiss and, well, maybe a little more, but not much. Certainly not enough to warrant anything but accidental fly-downness. That prom was funny. We sat around long enough for someone to take my picture for the yearbook, me in my black velvet dress and shiny vinyl rainboots and millions of necklaces and flammable hair, and robby looking amazingly cute in his little short jacket and sticky-up hair and his red-red lips that were not the result of all of my black/red lipstick. And then we set the balloons free at our table, and those balloons were stuck up in the rafters of the gymnasium for all of my high school years, and they are probably STILL there today, and then we left, and drove around talking to each other like we were in a soap opera.

At any rate, on the day of the Smiths concert, I do remember that when I got in the car. In the back seat. To be transported to the Smiths concert with my pseudo notaboyfriend at least not tonight, I cringed when SHE put her cold drink cup in his lap and said “That oughtta cool you down.”

And it really doesn’t matter if it was before or after our hot makeout sessions, because I was unobtainable. I wouldn’t have taken him up on it had he offered, and it’s definitely for the best that we never ever ended up hooking up in spite of several near misses spanning the entire 10 years or so of our friendship.

But it does add a certain lyrical charm to things that I went to a Smith’s concert with the boy I couldn’t have. The boy with the thorn in his side, thinking “please, please let me get what I want!” And sitting in the back seat, thinking I never had no one ever. (I probably COULD go on and on, but I won't.)

Seriously. How perfect is that?

I don’t really remember much after the “cool you down” thing. It was pretty silent in the car on the way to the concert, and once we got there I found Other Friends To Hang Out With and the weirdness with Robby was quickly forgotten. I spent the entire concert wondering how Morrissey kept his pants up, and sweating with another boy I had a crush on. It was so. Freaking. Hot. And we spent a good deal of the time in between bands trying to pretend like we were in the arctic and we were so cold that we could barely stand it. It didn’t work, but it was fun pretending.

I think that was the show, too, that I spat on someone. On purpose. Because she annoyed me. Maybe I was just sublimating.

At any rate, I didn’t end up hating robby after that night. I would hug him so hard if I could see him right now. He’s somewhere in Chicago being a daddy and a husband and I’m totally not jealous now, either. Like a lot of boys I knew growing up, I got to know robby in a way that I don’t think a lot of people ever got to know him. That might be true of some of the boys I have met in my adult years, as well. I have that. If nothing else. And that’s a terribly nice thing to have.

I remember when I first met robby. I was at McGreevy’s dancing and I accidentally dropped one of my pet rocks that I carried around with me. They had names. The plain one was Norm, and the other one was Bjorn. Bjorn had a bandaid, and I had scrawled “I am a gimmick” on him in permanent marker. If I close my eyes, I can picture my rocks. I really can. I carried Bjorn around with me for 2-3 freaking years. Norm, I lost him at the cure show. They made me leave him at the gate because he was an alleged “projectile object” – as if I would throw ROCKS at the cure! As if I could even throw hard enough to get past the middle seating section from way up in general admission.

At any rate, I had Bjorn and Norm, and I dropped one of them and there was a panic as I started crawling around on the floor of the dance club looking for him. It was dark except for the light show, and I was trying to avoid getting stepped on. McGreevy’s was at it’s hoppingest at that point. And as I was crawling around, this super cutie pie got down on my level and asked me what I was doing.

"I’m looking for my pet rock," I told him. He didn’t even hesitate. Not even to look at me funny. I probably, thinking back, might have hesitated a bit, if asked to look for someone's pet rock. Instead, he instantly said “Well, I’ll help you find him.”

Suddenly, it seemed like the entire place was crawling around looking for that damn rock. Robby found him, though. He held him over his head in victory! Hooray for robby! Now he gets the honor of talking to the crazy chick who carries rocks and teddy bears around with her everywhere she goes. Hahahahaha.

I remember robby referring to that incident several times as his “in” to talking to me. Because he had wanted to talk to me for awhile…and that was a way for him to cross the barrier. Shit. Robby could have said anything to me and I would have found it interesting. Not just because he was a super cutey pie, but because he was so so sweet and nice and interesting to talk to.

Well, OK, mostly because he was a super cutie pie, but he also ended up being sweet and nice and interesting to talk to.

Over the years, I made out with robby a lot. He was one of my very favorite makeout boys ever. He had really nice lips, and just…it was nice. I can’t even explain why. I think he was an ear nibbler. I like ear nibblers quite a bit, as long as they don't get all drooly about it.

I remember the last time we made out was the night of my housewarming party. I was feeling pressured to choose between two male friends of mine who were both potential makeout boys, but who probably would have been pissed with me if I chose to makeout with one and not the other. So, fuck it, I ran off with robby while everyone was getting drunk and we sat on a stoop outside of a hotel room near the shore and made out.

Years later, when I was married, I returned to Chciago and hung out with robby. We talked (a bit wistfully, I thought) about what good kissers we were, but nothing happened. I wrote about it. About the gaping maw of his open bedroom door. About how making out would have probably led to Other Things. And I still wonder if that would have been such a bad thing. Robby was always such a nice boy. I wonder where he is now. Because even when we weren’t makeout buddies, we were really good friends. He always wrote me nice letters and drew pictures and would illustrate anything I asked him to, and he was (and probably is) just an all-around sweetheart.

Hm.

Anyway, yeah. So, the smiths remind me of wobby the wabbit and his naughty bits being “cooled down” and making out and hot summer nights and blue velvets and partying and friends and decisions and all manner of choices and paths that twist and turn and one time robby wrote in a letter “May our paths be forever braided, my friend.” And I agree that I wish that this was so.

Robby, with whom my relationship was fluid enough to withstand the shifting shapes of desire and the lack thereof. Robby, who thought I was beautiful, and knew I thought he was beautiful, but somehow also understood that fact didn’t obligate either of us to fuck the other. Or fuck the other over.

Studying

April 5, 2006

I just walked into Monk's room to tell him that it's 12:45 in the morning, and I'm about to start my uninterruptable writing exercise and, really, it's getting super late and he has chess club in the morning...

And he interrupted me by saying "Exactly...I'm studying."

And I looked, and he had his Chess Strategies book out and all of his chess pieces and, holy crap, he WAS studying.

What the fuck can I say to that? Go to bed and stop studying chess strategies?

I just said "Well, whatever...don't interrupt my writing exercise. And goodnight."

Not a Self-Hating Fat Person - a Rant

April 4, 2006

Dear Person I have to see on a way too regular basis,

Do I LOOK like I care about your diet? I think you look fine the way you are. And, quite frankly, when I eat a carrot, I eat it because I like the way it tastes, not because some dude who will be dead someday (most likely because he is an evil fuck who makes a living perpetuating the beauty myth by selling his bullshit theories that actually result in less health and more sexism) wrote a book that told me carrots will make me Thin and Desirable.

I'm not thin, and I don't give a fuck if you or anyone else desires me.

You are not thin, either, and it makes me sad that you've bought into that bullshit, but telling you that is not my trip, either. When I eat a piece of candy or chocolate cake or greezy cheezy pizza, it's because I like the way it tastes and not because I feel bad about the fact that some narrow-minded ass won't fuck me because I'm too fat for him. Or, hell, because some ass-minded fuck won't even talk to me because I'm too fat. Fuck that shit.

I'm not a self-hating fat person, and I don't want to hear your soft hatred directed at yourself by your constant babble of size-obsessed bullshit, or your soft hatred directed outwards at the other people who also have to unfortunately see you on a way-too-regular basis. And, um, poking someone in the stomach and asking them how they got THAT if they can't even afford dinner is, wow...I mean, I've done and said some pretty crude and rude things in my lifetime, but that really fucking takes the cake. (sorry if that made you hungry.)

Believe it or not, there do exist people in this world who really don't give a fuck about how large they are and how other people perceive their size. I know quite well how I'm perceived. I enjoy experimenting with those perceptions, but in the end, it really doesn't fucking matter to me. So, again, no, I'm not interested in hearing about your diet, or about your fabulous partner who so open-mindedly supports you in your endless desire to be thin and fuckable, just like he likes you. Or, at least, not FAT and UNFUCKABLE...because he hates you that way.

Believe it or not, not everyone hates their body the way you seem to hate yours. Even us fatty fat fatties! So, here...have a carrot. Or a slice of yummy chocolate cake. I don't give a fuck, just as long as you are enjoying it.

Thank you.

April 4, 2006

One Good Thing

Despite the obviousness of the lesson, it is seemingly not taught or encouraged out in the real world where we all live. As young white men, you sit at the pinnacle of opportunity and privilege. All the power in the world can be yours, but as the old saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. You may be faced with situations where causing harm is an option. You may be faced with situations where refusing to cause harm may cause you to lose face. You may be faced with a situation where you know you can easily get away with causing harm to another living being. And when the road ends here, my sweet boys, I beg you to remember my words, and the example of Hugh Thompson: It is your duty to protect those who can not protect themselves.

[link via bark/bite]

Kicking ass. Taking no names.

April 4, 2006

Cheryl has an awesome post about Feminist Alliances up at women's space:

Life has taught me that when we, as women, stand up to ANY institution of male heterosupremacy — not just pornography, not just prostitution, not just sadomasochism, ANY: capitalism, racism, classism, the military, war, agribiz, the meat industry, patriarchal medicine, big business, psychology, the institutions of marriage and the family, the pro-life industry, the fashion, beauty and diet industry, heteronormativity, patriarchal religion, in any meaningful way, we are going to suffer for it. We are going to pay for it. Male supremacy will take us out if it can.

I concur wholeheartedly, and, too...I think we need to create spaces where we can call out racist/sexist/heteronormative/etc. behavior without invoking defensiveness. I keep thinking if people would only learn to listen and acknowledge our own imperfection without denying someone else's experience of it, we'd all be better allies.

This is a dorky, naval-gazing post. Ignore.

April 4, 2006

I have vowed to myself that I will not leave my house for any social purpose this coming weekend. I am going to spend the weekend luxuriating in my aloneness. I might have a friend over for dinner on Saturday or Sunday, but other than that, it will be me, my stereo, my cleaning supplies, my books, my journal...and my dog. It's like a retreat-in. Well, except for roller skating. I think I'm going to go roller skating on Friday night. But I might just end up doing that alone anyway, so it's not really going out for a social purpose so much as going out to ROLLER SKATE!

It's pretty cool that I need to force myself to do this. I don't know if it's fascinating to anyone else, but it's kind of fascinating to me that I find myself wanting to be among people all of the time these days. It's actually a tiny bit worrisome, too, but mostly fun and interesting. I feel like I need to impose forced solitude on myself mostly because the house needs a lot of attention and I think I need some time to process everything I've been experiencing lately, and to plan for the next few months. And this might be the last weekend I have the house to myself for a long time.

I just got the schedule of visitation for this summer from my ex. He wants them for 3 weeks in May, which is NEXT MONTH. Holy shit! And one week in August.

Three weeks without my little bundles of entertainment, joy, delight, chaos, catastrophe, mayhem, wisdom, sweetness, hugs, and kisses. Shit, that's enough to make me want to go out and find myself a man to occupy myself with while they are gone. Ar ar. Three weeks. Wow.

I'm just sitting here, alternately biting my nails and staring wistfully off into space, thinking "Three weeks."

It's both a "yikes!" and a "ahhhhhh."

I think I need to ponder that a moment, and then I need to go lay down with the bird and squish him until he squawks.

It's been an expensive day today.

April 4, 2006

Yeah, so...yesterday I was wondering what happened to my phone, and I found it. Um, it fell out of the pocket of my shorts as I was hanging them up, dripping wet, just out of the washing machine. Fuck.

$150 for a new cell phone later (and later in the day I had a moment of panic thinking I had thrown THAT phone into the dryer) and a new plan that includes INSURANCE for the phone and ROAD SIDE ASSISTANCE for me, I'm at work, and I'm actually leaving work, and I get the feeling that one of my tires is flat, which is a feeling I get a lot lately, because I really fucking need new tires is what I need. So I stop, and indeed the tire is flat. So I think "Sweet! I just got the roadside assistance plan!" but I find out it doesn't kick in for 72 hours. Thankfully, a friend from work stayed to help me, but neither of us were successful in getting the nuts loose (shaddap, you!) so I ended up calling roadside assistance anyway to find someone I could pay to change the freaking tire for me.

The worst part is I didn't learn my lesson after the last flat tire incident, and still didn't have a lug wrench (or, as I referred to it, "the nut thingy") or a jack. Thankfully, though, the tire changer guys were the nicest people on the face of the planet. It was a father/son team. They joked around with me a bit, and it was sweet. I mean, I know I was paying them and everything, but they were actually really nice guys, too. I was all "What the Hell kind of a tip to you give to 'savers of the universe'" and they both laughed. And when I was driving off, the young one...the son...was all concerned. "Be careful!" He said...two or three times. And I thought I should call the older one...the dad...and just tell him he's doing a good job, because this kid was genuine good-natured and seemed sincerely concerned and just, like a good kid. Which, I mean, I don't want to assume anything, but dad had some pretty gnarly prison-like-ish tattoos, so I felt like "Damn! Talk about turning it around and raising a sweet kid with sincere empathy to boot. This guy has some secrets he needs to share!"

So, yeah. I guess it doesn't hurt so much to spend money when you are at least forking it over to people who are nice enough about providing a really freaking useful service. And now, tomorrow, I am going to have to spend a little more money either getting my tire repaired or replaced...but the folks at Walker Tire Company are always so nice, too. So, there you go. I guess the secret to not worrying about spending money is by concentrating on the positive social interactions that go along with those naggingly necessary financial obligations.

And, you know what I think? I think we need to start a NICE revolution. You know? Like people just being nice to each other ALL THE TIME. Wouldn't that be absolutely rad?

I'll never see you this way again

April 3, 2006

I’ve been listening to a steady diet of nothing but the Cure (The Top and Pornography), Echo and the Bunnymen (Ocean Rain)…and that’s it. I just don’t want to hear anything else right now. This music is so amazing, and it opens up back huge floodgates of memory. Last night, a friend and I were talking about music and when we stopped listening to certain bands, and I told him that the Head on the Door was the last Cure record that I spent any money on, and I remembered then that I saw them on tour that year. I remember it really well because it was the first and I think last time I went out with the object of my crushy Freshman year desires.

I’m not even sure I know why it was the last time we went out together or even if there was a reason. I think he was just a painfully shy guy, and I didn’t have a car. But I am not sure how to place the context of his shyness. Was he painfully shy and therefore did not know how to ask me out somewhere? Or was he painfully shy and therefore afraid to tell me that there was no way he ever wanted to go out somewhere with me, so he ended up taking me out once in hopes of never having to do it again? Neither one of those would be a surprise to me, and kind of I wish I could find out. Ha! There are lots of relationships I feel that way about. Like years and years down the road, I want to ask the person what, exactly, that was about…and listen to their interpretation in the moment removed from whatever had occurred.

At any rate, this crush of mine actually had its own honest-to-god cheering section. Seriously. It was my friend Matt who designed the whole thing. We would all meet to have breakfast in the cafeteria, and Matt figured out that the object of my crushy desires would always buy something at the refreshment stand, and wouldn’t it be a good idea for me to approach the refreshment stand at the same time and maybe sneak a smile in there, or a little wave? Or whatever dorky new-wavish on-the-verge-of-goth girls do to get the attention of cute crushworthy males.

This is how I became addicted to ho-ho’s. For weeks and weeks I would go to the counter at the same time as the object of my crushy desires (who, hereafter will be referred to by his real name, which was Tom.) trying to build up the nerve to, like, look at him. But, instead, I learned to really seriously become familiar with the smooth, brown, chocolateyness of Hostess Ho-Hos.

One day we all decided that THIS WOULD BE THE DAY I would finally look Tom P. in the eye and say “Hello.” That would be it, and it would justify all the money I had spent on junk food those months and months it had taken to build up to this. This. Was. The. Day. And as Tom moved toward the refreshment stand, I reached into my pocket to fumble for my change and realized…I didn’t have any money.

Panic ensued at the breakfast table, but all was quickly resolved by Matt, who slapped a precious coin on the table and YELLED OUT “HERE’S A QUARTER, LAINIE…GO! GO! GO! GO!”

Dude, it is SO uncool to run up to a refreshment stand to stand in line next to the object of your crushly desires. But it's TRIPLE uncool to do so with a group of ten of your friends cheering you on. I saw Tom’s ears redden in front of me. A-ha! Proof that he knew I existed!

A few days later, with the same level of encouragement backing my movement, I actually approached his table to introduce myself. He looked up as I approached, and blushed. I was probably blushing, too, but I sat down across from him and told him my name and probably shook his hand and after that we officially "knew each other" so I could wave to him in the hallway and he could smile at me from the stage when his band played and we could call each other, and maybe even hang out together.

But we never did really hang out much. I think we talked on the phone a couple of times. He embarrassed himself at one point because he started talking about the film “Carnal Knowledge” and then he was all “What does Carnal Knowledge MEAN, anyway?” and I was like, “fuck! I’m just a freshman celibate virgin, and even I know the answer to that question.”

I could hear him turning red over the phone.

But he did take me out to see the Cure. I don’t even think I hung out with him at the show. What was up with that? It was the one and only outward gesture of possible datinghood, and after that summer, he was supposed to go off to college in Arizona, and I chose to run up and roll down the hill at poplar creek with a friend of mine…leaving Tom with his other friend he had brought with him.

Ah, well. Youth! You know?

I do know that Tom wrote me letters when he went away to college, but that stopped, too. And then there was nothing. And I haven’t seen him or heard from him in about 20 years. And I can't remember the last time I ate a ho-ho.

Shake Dog Shake
The Cure

Ha ha ha
Wake up in the dark
The after-taste of anger in the back of my mouth
Spit it on the wall
And cough some more
And scrape my skin with razor blades

And make up in the new blood
And try to look so good
Follow me
Make up in the new blood
And follow me to where the real fun is
Ha ha ha

As stale and selfish as a sick dog
Spurning sex like an animal of god
I'll tear your red hair by the roots
And hold you blazing
Hold you cherished in the dead electric light

Your face
I'll never see you this way again
I captured it so perfectly
As if I knew you'd disappear away

Shake shake shake shake
Shake shake shake shake
Shake dog shake
Shake shake shake shake
Shake shake shake shake
Shake dog shake

You hit me again
You howl and hit me again
The same sharp pain
Wakes me in the dark
And cuts me from my throat to my pounding heart
My heart
My shaking heart
My howl my shake dog

Oh shake dog shake
Shake shake
Shake dog shake

But we slept all night in the virgin's bed
And dreamed of death
And breathed like sick dogs
We slept all night in the virgin's bed
And breathed like death
And dreamed of sick dogs

Shake shake
Shake dog shake

Wake up wake up wake up
Shake dog shake
Wake up wake up wake up
Shake dog shake
Wake up in the new blood
Make up in the new blood
Shake up in the new blood
And follow me to where the real fun is
Shake dog shake

new photos up on flickr: Roller Girls and Black Irish

April 3, 2006

Check out the Roller Derby Shots:

And I have a new favorite Austin band, The Black Irish:

What a fucking awesome night.

Silly Rabbit

April 1, 2006

I was accompanied on last night's walk by the sounds of my friend Harold's band (well, I guess Music Project would be a better description...maybe?) Rabbitfist. And Twyla. The ever-present boxer. I also threw a few songs from the Under A Green Corn Moon Lullabye compilation into the mix. It was a nice walking mix - good for reflection. Good for observing the lines of the budding trees against the cloudy ink sky.

My thoughts were many and varied during the walk, but when I got home, I had a difficult time transcribing them to words. So I watched Dr. Phil instead. Which...holy fuck! Has television become an exercise in extreme surreality or what? Dr. Phil was talking to all of the menfolk about their women and their crazy business schemes. Which, like, totally cracks me up because just about every man I've ever known, from my father on up to...wow, just every single man, has had some weird idea that he can make a million dollars without ever having to work. And I'm not the only woman I have known who has been put in a position of having to stand there and listen to some really crazy-ass schemes, meanwhile doing everything in my power to keep us afloat. You know? Are you hearing me? So the weird flip of watching these men complain about the lack of planning on the part of their "girls" (Yes. The husbands of the business-partners-to-be women referred to them as "the girls"...just as if they were children. Holy shit, it's a good thing I already threw all of my bricks through random windows already or my TV would be toast right now, and if my TV was toast today, I couldn't have a) won Mario Cart Double Dash FLOWER CUP at 100 cc's - Because I ROCK, and Monk is so in trouble when he returns from his dad's because I'm going to totally show him how it's done! and also b) because if my TV was toast today, I would have missed yet another surreal television opportunity, namely this weird movie called _Addicted to Love_ starring Matthew Broderick and Meg Ryan (I think that's her name) in which, I GUESS the entire point of the story is that it's OK to stalk people if yr, like, really hot? I guess? And even though you are clearly nursing at least a sociopathology if not a full-blown psychopathology, fellow really totally hot people will fall in love with you in spite of (or maybe even BECAUSE of) your creepy stalkerhood. At least, I THINK that's what the movie was about.

At any rate, where was I? Oh, yeah...my thoughts last night on my walk revolved around friends. As I had dinner with a friend I haven't really hung out with for awhile, and who I would like to hang out with more. And I also said goodbye to R until next we meet. And I was thinking about my heart and my strength and all of my love and where it gets directed and misdirected. And I was thinking about how very wrong I have been about people...and yet, I also thought about the times when I have tenaciously clung to my ideas about who someone really was in spite of how they appeared. And I was thinking about this in terms of R, who has always been a friend who I love and would basically do anything for, and yet our friendship really seemed to reach a certain peak during her stay this time. After 14 years of friendship, I think I finally really know that my internal impression of R - all of the things I perceived as who I feel R is, I finally know those feelings are and were always correct. And it's nice. It's nice to be able to wait for someone to really bring herself to me, and perhaps for me to be there to receive. It's nice, but it also sucks, because I know at least part of the reason I ever half-assed my relationship with R was because she was always so in and out of my life. But even still, I remember the last time she stayed here, last year, I was crying over her departure before her car even pulled away.

Oddly enough, I'm not really mourning her departure today. I think my partial knowledge of her made me worry about her more than was necessary for me to be doing. After all of this month's long, revealing conversations with each other, I know that she is strong. She's going to be OK no matter what. And I love that. I also love that I can know she will be gone for awhile, and might not even be in touch, but I can love her with impunity because she will come back and we will always resume where we left off. More people need more friendships like that in their lives. I am truly really fucking blessed.

It's cool. I've been thinking a lot lately, actually, about the space in my life that is occupied by friends. And when I was at dinner with my friend K, and she was telling me about her really kick-ass girlfriend...I was able to actually feel really really glad for her to have someone like that in her life, but also totally content with myself for...not. And not because I'm particularly jaded or unromantic or any of that, but more because I feel like I need to spend a lot of time figuring out how to fully bring myself to my other relationships in my life - with my children, with my friends, and with my family (which, I mean...I'm not expecting any miracles there)...not to mention mySELF...so that those relationships don't suffer when other kinds of relationships present themselves.

So, yeah. It was a nice evening. Bittersweet is what I guess it's called. And the walk was beautiful, as always. And I suppose it was nice to have the music of a friend in my ears while I was musing about friends.

Saturday Morning Linkfest

April 1, 2006

It's Saturday AM, and it's probably too early for me to be awake, but I am. And the house is EMPTY, except for me. And...I'm reading blogs and news. Here's what's catching me:

Tiffany links up Rachel on the Duke LaCrosse rape case, and clarifies the origins of the term "wilding":

The cops ask “What were you doing in the park?” The kids — who are still working on their code-switching language skills — say, “”We was wil’in’” or “We was wil’in’ out.”

Because adults are effin clueless about youth slang, wil’in’ not only grew a ‘D’ and a ‘G,’ but was translated by the (mostly white, all adult) cops and the (mostly white, all adult) media to mean “going out with the intent to beat and gang rape (white) women.” (Shout outs to my social studies teacher for pointing this out to us at the time. We didn’t recognize “wil’in’” with a ‘D’ and a ‘G’ in it … lol.)

I do think, however, that because they were black, and bad and from the hood, we believed that a word for “laying in wait to beat and gang rape (middle-class, white) women” was a part of the NYC colored kids lexicon.

***

Anarchist=Terrorist?

An FBI counterterrorism official showed the class, at the University of Texas in Austin, 35 slides listing militia, neo-Nazi and Islamist groups. Senior Special Agent Charles Rasner said one slide, labeled "Anarchism," was a federal analyst's list of groups that people intent on terrorism might associate with.

The list included Food Not Bombs, which mainly serves vegetarian food to homeless people, and — with a question mark next to it — Indymedia, a collective that publishes what it calls radical journalism online. Both groups are among the numerous organizations affiliated with anarchists and anti-globalization protests, where there has been some violence.

Elizabeth Wagoner said she was one of the few students who objected to the groups' inclusion on the list. "My friends do Indymedia," she said. "My friends aren't terrorists."

Rasner said that he'd never heard of the two groups before and didn't mean to condemn them. But he added that it made sense to worry about violent people emerging from anarchist networks — "Any group can have somebody that goes south."

A personal note to the FBI: Keep up the awesome work, guys! However, if you are looking for a good vegetarian meal, I'd be happy to hook you up without, you know, wasting a ton of our resources and taxpayer dollars!

***

(I just realized I haven't had any coffee yet. And I think I really need coffee if I'm going to read the fucking news.)
(and can I just say "Yay for sweet Einstein's bagel guys who end the consumer exchange with "You're AWESOME!")

***

Dude, how many different ways can they find to say "Bush Lied, and, by the way, he's probably actually pretty evil" about this damn war?

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.

[...]

Mr. Bush agreed that the two countries should attempt to get a second resolution, but he added that time was running out. "The U.S. would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would twist arms and even threaten," Mr. Bush was paraphrased in the memo as saying.

The document added, "But he had to say that if we ultimately failed, military action would follow anyway."

And, oh by the way, he's also really fucking stupid:

The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable. Mr. Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups." Mr. Blair agreed with that assessment.

[...]

Summarizing statements by the president, the memo says: "The air campaign would probably last four days, during which some 1,500 targets would be hit. Great care would be taken to avoid hitting innocent civilians. Bush thought the impact of the air onslaught would ensure the early collapse of Saddam's regime. Given this military timetable, we needed to go for a second resolution as soon as possible. This probably meant after Blix's next report to the Security Council in mid-February."

***

r@d@r links to amp, who links to Brownfemipower, who seems to have deleted her blog and come back (for which I say "Yay! I didn't know about you before, but I will definitely read you now") on the subject of abortion, American Indians, sexism, and (surprise!) racism with regard to access to and need for women's health services.

American Indian women will be impacted, if the law takes effect, in greater numbers than any other group. According to national statistics, American Indian women are sexually assaulted at a rate 3.5 times higher than all other racial groups. That means there are seven rapes per 1,000 American Indian women [that statistic is per year, I presume. –Amp].

***

TX Feminist has a powerful post about believing rape victims, and "what she wants to hear."

This is not about what "we want to hear". I, for one, would like to stop hearing, day after day, about how many women are raped, beaten and murdered. I would like to stop hearing women called bitches who deserve it or what were they thinking or this is going to ruin those boys' future.

What I want to hear is that men who are guilty of these acts stop committing them, and men who have knowledge of these acts turn in the men who did it, and men who blame women for the abuse perpetrated upon women by other men, stop blaming us.

***

George has some post-sxsw thoughts here:

The one thing I feel compelled to say is I don't go to SXSW to be anybody's token. I go to meet my friends, make new ones in person and visit a city I learn new things about each time I return. I go so I can have a renewed sense of connection and ownership in the flood of ideas, products, services and partnerships on display. I go so I can talk about what I saw and learned to the super publics to whom I belong and with which I identify. I'm certain that's why Tiffany, Tony, Lynne and Jason go, and each of them knows to their bones that we are not there for our own personal glory and that we have to participate in what's going on in order to make a way for us and those we care about in what's to come.

***

And, last, the anti-war blog links up this video from US soldiers returned from the Iraq war.

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