Lowering the drinking age

This topic from CNN news is one I’ve long debated over: should we lower the drinking age?  

On one side of the debate, the testimony from countries who allow kids to have a glass of wine with dinner, and they tend not to go nuts and die from binge drinking when they are suddenly let loose in college.

On the other hand, does it encourage kids to drink earlier?

On the other hand, I take great issue with the term “kids.”  Until a person is in their 30’s, they are girls and boys and kids.  Forget about the fact that, at 18, they can vote and fight for their country, they are tried as adults and can sign legal documents.  We insist that they are children who know nothing and should be treated with no respect.

Well, yeah, they know nothing.  I think most of us know nothing until we are probably 50.  And maybe not even then.  But to treat someone as a baby lets them off the hook (”Boys will be boys!” = there is no point in trying to civilize the young males.  This is crap.)

I have long been in favor of making the 18 year old cutoff age as the true threshold of adulthood.  At that point you are a grown-up, with all the rights and responsibilities that go along with this label, and if you mess up we aren’t going to smile and waggle our finger and say, “Kids will be kids.”  You will be busted.

And there will still be drunk drivers, there will still be people dying of alcohol poisoning, unfortunately.  But we will have consistent expectations of our young people.  They will know when they need to wise up and start behaving themselves, even if in reality it ends up taking them awhile to get there.

Dixie

We found Dixie.  Here she is with some of the people she will be ferrying.  

In a way it feels like I am moving in the opposite direction as the rest of the world.  I was a carless cyclist back before anyone gave a serious thought to global warming.  Then the public concern began, and I was part of a one car family.  Now the hysteria is mounting, and we’ve acquired a second vehicle.  Livin’ outside the box, baby!

Not that one can really live outside the environment.  We are all responsible for our Mother Earth, we are all responsible for the tools/toys we choose to use and how we may abuse them.

But I can’t help but feel that I can take better care of my family this way, given our situation.  Maybe in taking care of them I am taking care of the world in the most direct way possible.  This is the hope.

Tragic End to a New Life

I read a story online at CNN this morning about a baby who died from being shaken.  Normally I try to avoid these tragic tales because I empathize so deeply that it colors my whole day a dark depressing shade of gloomy.

But in this case I feel the need to give testimony from my own life that I wish would prevent this from happening to anyone else.

I remember among my life lessons with my first baby, stuck at home all day with this little being that depended completely upon my good will, the first time I got violently angry when she wouldn’t stop crying.  I remember there came a point when an clear image popped into my head of me throwing her against a wall.  I was just at the edge of losing control.

I wish I could tell new parents, this is okay.  This moment does not make you a bad human.  You are probably going to feel this angry, these feelings are normal, they happen, don’t freak out.

Somehow I knew to do the right thing.  As soon as I saw that image, I put her down where she was safe and I went in the other room.  She was still crying, but I knew she was safe, so I just sat by myself for a minute and tried not to be scared at how mad I was.  When I felt a little calmer a couple of minutes later, I went back in to her and I tried again to soothe her.  

I don’t feel proud of myself that I’ve never shaken or otherwise injured a baby, I just feel lucky.  I  know how strong the feelings of anger and frustration are, and I know how hard it is to be alone for extended periods with a baby.  To the people who have succumbed to the violent feelings, I feel the deepest sympathy.  I feel like it could have been me.

But no one ever talks about this.  No one ever admits to young parents how there might arise violent feelings, and how to just let them pass, which is not easy.  No one ever talks about how unnatural it is for a parent to be isolated with a young one; we are supposed to live in a tribe, are we not, with people all around to help us when life threatens to be too much to handle?  But too often we are separated in our own little box, expected to be independent and deal with things on our own.  

I am so sorry that this ever happens.  I cannot express that strongly enough.  I don’t feel like an ad campaign by the Department of Social Services is going to do the trick (I’ve seen the posters), though it might get the ball rolling.  I feel like we all have to talk about it, give genuine support to new parents and tell them the truth.  Not laugh and say, “Well, you’ll never get any sleep now!  ha ha” but tell them about the real frustrations, and let them know that we can offer advice and support if they’d like.  

I can’t stand to see this sort of tragedy happen and know in my heart that, if we behaved as if we were all in this together, we might prevent it.

Police brutality?

There is an article in the paper about a recent Taser incident that ended with the suspect in intensive care.  Some claim it is the result of racism, and while I acknowledge that there are unfortunately still problems such as profiling, I cannot help but feel for the law enforcement officers.  When they are faced with situations of non-compliance day after day, and when these situations are often dangerous to the officers as well as the general public, I have a hard time feeling terribly sympathetic for the non-compliant suspects, though I do hope that the young man in this case recovers from his injuries.

The only weak part of the story as regards the police officer was the fact that one of the Taser leads was in the back of the suspect’s head, and when he didn’t comply with the cop’s direct order not to stand up, perhaps the man was disoriented due to the jolt of electricity he had just received so close to his brain.  I can understand those who speculate that the cop might have done better to jump on the guy during the first Taser shock (a person cannot receive a shock by touching someone being Tasered) and put cuffs on him at that point.  

It is also true that his original charges were somewhat trivial, two misdemeanors for open container and possession of marijuana, but why not just show up for court?  Once you miss your court appearance, you must know that there will be a warrant out for your arrest.  So if the police find you and attempt to fulfill their duties by arresting you on that warrant, why run?  You must know that the police will chase you, that is the job we have assigned them, and that your situation will just become worse.  

At the same time, I know that we have to keep those with power in check.  We have to make sure that the police do not abuse their authority, that they are behaving in a fair manner toward the public.  It is possible to have a camera mounted on the end of the Taser so that the whole scenario can be replayed and investigated carefully, but the police budget won’t allow for it.  

It seems to come down to the fact that we the public expect the police to keep us perfectly safe using perfectly safe and fair methods, whether we comply or not, and to do it all with a minimum of funding.

Since Tasers are being more widely used, we hear more often about the dangers associated with them, but the truth is that any chase and any method of subduing a suspect is going to be dangerous.  Shouldn’t a lot of the responsibility for the consequences of these situations be with the runner?

Translation: The Ultimate Word Puzzle

I’ve started a new project that I’m liable never to finish, similar to most of the brilliant ideas I get.  I recently finished reading a book called “L’Oiseau de France” by Jean Jaussein, and I’ve now set about to translate it.  It is set in WWII and tells the story of a French soldier held prisoner by the Nazis.  

Surprisingly, it has a comic edge to it, not in subject matter but just in the way he tries to lighten up his description of the characters and the sometimes humorous things they do as they try to deal with their situation.

The writing style reminds me of Hemingway in its simultaneous depth and simplicity, which I always admire.

I am intrigued by the idea of trying to translate the slang of the period.  I wonder, should I use British or American soldier lingo from this era?  There is something distinctly false about substituting another culture’s slang for the original, since slang is such a personal form of communication that is quite rooted in a specific time and place.  But it would give the anglophone reader an atmosphere of WWII.

My main dilemma, as I work my way through page 3 of the original text, is that I still am not sure if there is already a translation published.  Not that anyone would publish mine, (not that I will even finish it!), but it would make it more fun to think that publication is a possibility.  I’ve looked online and come up with nothing.  About a week ago I emailed the publisher to inquire about the existence of an English version.  So far no response.

So until I find an answer, I will pretend that I am the only one, and I will gleefully struggle over every word, concentrating my mind not only on the true meaning of the work but also on the nuance of each phrase, the intention in each line of dialogue, never neglecting the suggestive importance of even a single definite article.

I am always aware that I hold in my hands someone else’s art, something they too must have struggled over and wanted to get just right.  And then when they’ve got it as close to perfect as it can get, someone wrecks it all by putting it through a mental wringer and squeezing it into a new-sounding shape that supposedly represents what they meant to say if only they’d been speaking that other language.  

How rude!

But I love it.  I love to teach people to understand another language so they can read it for themselves, but failing that, I love to bring a really great text a little bit closer to a lot more people.  And I love that this involves a brute force wrestling match with meaning itself.

Unless you too are a language aficionado (translation: nerd), you have not an inkling of the giddy, delicious fun of which I speak!

Trust me, dude, it’s awesome.

A New Spin on Cannibalism

My whole life I have had a fairly common neurosis: chewing my fingernails.  Except that mine goes beyond the nail to include the skin at the side of the nail and a fair way down the finger, especially on my thumbs.

Euw.

Periodically I go into remission.  Up until just recently I had managed to keep nice nails for a couple of years, so nice that they actually got filed and painted (with clear polish… that’s as froo-froo as I get!)

Then a few months ago I slammed the middle finger of my left hand in the car door.  Aside from feeling incredibly stupid and having to push my fingernail back down onto my finger (and my lunch back down into my stomach), it wasn’t a big deal.

Except then I had this awesome mangled finger to pick at.  And once I had the one, I might as well tug at another until it rips, and then I might as well straighten it out by removing more of the nail with my teeth, and then… 

I currently have four chew toys on my hands.  I don’t know how I manage to leave the other six fingers alone (when I was a kid I chewed all of them all the time.)  During the day I leave them all alone because I’m always doing something else with my hands… typing, cooking, changing dirty diapers, etc.  But when I sit down to watch tv or a movie in the evening, I won’t even realize I’m gnawing until I’ve already started in on the healed bits.

Once I bought myself a really cheap silver ring with a cool spiral on it and I made myself promise that if I wore it, I would have to stop decimating the finger it was on.  That made me quit for a while.  So I just need to buy myself jewelry?  What am I, courting my hands?  

Do I need to wear gloves?  It’s so hot, though!  Tabasco won’t work because I LOVE spicy food.  Do I need to include more protein in my diet so I don’t consume my own self?  Do I need extensive psychotherapy?  (Like THAT isn’t obvious!)

Could be worse, I suppose.  At least I have the opportunity to ponder the mysterious workings of the human mind.

I just can’t hold anything up for someone to look at closely or else they’re bound to remark, “Ooooh!  What’d you do to your finger?”

Sigh.  I ate it.

Yummy!

Here is how the bread turned out.  We haven’t quality controlled it yet, I figure we will wait and eat it with the roast and veggies tonight.

See, I really am nutty enough to celebrate my lucky number!

When I told the kids I was making “8 bread” they all thought I said “ape bread” and proceeded to jump around making ape noises for the next hour.  (Actually, I think I still hear them at it!)

I didn’t want to disappoint them, so I took half the dough and made this:

Yes, I know, it looks more like a cow, but what can you do…

The day of 8’s

Happy 8 Day to everyone!

In case you hadn’t read my previous post on the subject, today is the day of 8’s, which is special to me because when I was little I found 8 four-leaf clovers in my yard, and from that day on my lucky number has been 8.

I think I will make some kind of figure 8 shaped bread to celebrate.  

Not too many things have happened in my life to reinforce this attachment I have to the number 8.  The only one I can think of right now is that I waited tables at a Chinese restaurant for several years, and my waitress number was 8.  I wasn’t given the choice, either, that was just what the boss assigned me when I first started.  The cool thing was that all the numbers on the light-up board (used to tell you when you had food up) were sideways, so I liked to joke that my number was actually infinity.

My husband said he is going to buy 8 lottery tickets today.  I think lottery tickets are a waste of money, but it makes me feel good that he is playing along, and that he is always trying to be positive about the future.  I love that we are able to be silly together and keep life light when it is always trying to be overwhelming.

I wish I could say that the number 8 had always been so lucky for me that I could infuse this post with good fortune and everyone who read it would have a wonderful thing happen to them, or at least that I could somehow share the celebratory bread with you (I do make good bread…)  

But in a way, it seems lucky enough that we are able to make this brief cyber-connection, that even though the subject matter is goofy, we are able to play along together and enjoy each other’s company.

And know that I always wish the best for all of us, no matter how many 8’s are in the date.

(Okay, see I really am a goofball, I just remembered another big 8 in my life… I graduated high school in ‘88!)

Think Big

Occasionally my fantasies include teaching a high school English course.  (Is there any greater admission of nerdhood?)

I imagine how I would present the all-important lessons designed to develop a rich vocabulary, vital not only because an enhancement of one’s lexicon is generally recognized as a key to increasing intelligence, but also because I totally dig words.

Having a wider range of vocabulary seems to be especially vital in our modern world where language as dictated by pop culture becomes formulaic.  ”I’m lovin’ it!”  LOL   BTW,  ”Don’t just buy stuff- do stuff.”  

However, despite its power, vocab seems to be almost universally hated and resisted by students.

Perhaps a handout would convince them:

Reasons to apply yourself to the study of vocabulary:

1. To impress your girl-/boyfriend’s parents
2. To impress a potential employer
3. To be able to understand people who are smarter than you, or think they are, who are trying to manipulate you in person, in writing, or in a speech
4. To think deeper thoughts

Though I know the students would categorically refuse to be persuaded by any amount of reasoning, I myself find the last reason to be the most compelling.

Peter Gabriel expressed the idea on his album, “So.”

“The place where I come from is a small town/they think so small/they use small words/-but not me/I’m smarter than that/I worked it out/I’ve been stretching my mouth/to let those big words come right out”

No offense to small towns. I’ve spent some good years in a few small towns.  But you have to admit the perspective tends to be on the narrow side.  Though I believe the song has a sarcastic, almost satirical edge, still there is a grain of truth — when you use exclusively small words, you tend to think small, that is, shallow thoughts.  There is no nuance to the representation of your ideas, if indeed they are ideas and not just thoughtlessly repeated cliché.  IDK  ”Live well.”  WTF

In his novel “1984″ George Orwell told of Big Brother who sought to abolish “Oldspeak,” which is English as we speak it.  ”It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought… should be literally unthinkable… Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.”

Students who refuse to learn “big words” are unwittingly participating in this narrowing of thought; with fewer shapes to use, when we fit the pieces of life’s puzzle together, we can only create the same old tired designs.

Thus we must encourage the enthusiastic scholarship that seeks to master the utilization of a cornucopia of expressive terminology, that our most intimate mental machinations may emerge fully illuminated.

Or else, we all may as well speak in trademarked slogans with our brains turned off.

OMG.  Just do it.

Success

Instead of believing that publication is the prerequisite of success, I now consider the act of submitting my work for publication as the indicator of accomplishment.  And I find that I have succeeded yet again!  

Thanks to the inspiration of Kweenmama, Joy and Kimmelin, I have finally composed and sent out the manuscript for a children’s book that has sat unwritten in the back of my mind for twelve years now.

It occurs to me that, to get a piece of work in the mail, one has to believe that it is good enough to see the light of day.  But at the same time, believing in the merit of the work leads to difficulty in accepting its rejection by those who hold the keys to the presses.  I personally find this push and pull to be quite painful.  But if I play a trick on my mind, and tell it that the point is not to see the work in print, but simply to be bold enough to send it on a tour of the world, then maybe I can feel successful with the mere act of submission.

I would say I am keeping my fingers crossed, but that is energy best used on other things.  I have already done all there is to do: I have crafted the story to the best of my ability, I have researched the market, and I have mustered the gumption to seal the envelope and put it in the mailbox.

Now I can relax, take a breath, and decide on the next project.

To publish or not, that’s their problem now!

Insuring against reality

Ads for insurance assail us ceaselessly.  We discuss and debate the best companies, rates, deductibles.  We maneuver the labyrinth of policies and hope to emerge in a perfectly safe place where our lives are protected from any conceivable disaster.

But it’s the nature of insurance that gets me.  Doesn’t an insurance policy essentially reflect that the individual carrier has no community on which to depend in an emergency?  Doesn’t it mean that all I have is my house, and if it burns down then there is nothing else in this world for me?  No one will take me in or help me rebuild or otherwise shelter me from the elements.

Supposedly having insurance demonstrates individual responsibility.  I send all this money to people I don’t even know so as not to be a burden to those I love if I ever have needs.  But what if you were to give all those various insurance premiums to someone whose house had burnt down?  By that altruistic act, wouldn’t you be insuring that there would be folks who would help you out in turn, should you ever need it?

Do we not trust each other?

We like the idea that we are protected by our policies so that we aren’t at the mercy of family, friends and community, so we send our protection money to… strangers?  We hope that these unknown persons in the guise of insurance agents will deign to show up at the scene of our emergency, ask us a bunch of personal and accusatory questions, and then decide whether or not they will give us the help for which we have been faithfully sending them all that money.  This makes us sleep better at night?

When did we decide to progress to a stage in civilization where a contract is a closer, more dependable bond than blood and camaraderie (I invoke here the 19th century definition of camaraderie as “a feeling of close friendship and trust among a group of people”)? 

We feel better that strangers decide who gets what help?  That they get the interest on the money sitting in wait of a disaster to relieve?  

I don’t claim to have the answer to this dilemma, nor do I necessarily believe it is possible for us in our modern world to take care of each other’s crises in the manner to which we have grown accustomed.  

I am just bothered by the whole idea, and saddened that there does not appear to be a less corporate, more community-oriented way to feel safer in our reality.

Will the REAL me please stand up?

I think we have all experienced a change of personality depending on where we are and who we are with.  I’m not the same potty-mouthed moron in front of my kids as I might be with friends after we’ve had a few.

But are all these situational personalities me?  Is there just one that’s “real?”  Are the rest me being a poser of sorts?

I remember feeling  uncomfortable when someone I knew would come into the restaurant where I was waitressing because I had developed an almost airhead personality (Hey, I’m from California, it just comes natural…) It was a way to tap into a part of myself that had boundless energy to play along with people’s demanding idiocy.  

There were times it came in downright handy: once, I had a guy ordering a drink from me who I could tell had already had too much before he even got to our establishment.  Since I was too much of a wuss to refuse his drink order outright, I was able to avoid serving his drunk ass by responding to his repeated angry gestures with a spacy twitter that went something like, “Tee hee!  Oh yeah, I forgot!”  And then I flounced off again, avoiding his table as long as possible.

I didn’t want any real people to see me being such a bubblehead.  And I sure didn’t want to have to be my usual thoughtful self, because I would have taken a look around me at what I had to deal with and run screaming.

When I was an college instructor I went for more of a guilt-tripping mother role.  I would assign the class to pair up and discuss what they did last weekend to practice their French, but inevitably, words in English would glide through the air and I would have to confront the Anglocentric offenders.  I’d stare them down and say, “En français, s’il vous plaît!” in the same tone of voice I use on my son when he leaves a dirty  heap of clothes in the middle of the floor.  When the student looked down sheepishly and began emitting guttural syllables that vaguely resembled the vocabulary we had learned that week, I knew I’d been effective.

My other dominant personality in the classroom is the comedian.  This has to be my favorite persona.  It is similar to the airhead in that one must surrender all dignity to the almighty inspiration of goofiness.  The difference is, as a comedian you can retain a good measure of intelligence.  Whenever the opportunity presented itself, I would grab onto a mistake I’d made (NEVER one of the student’s mistakes!) or some lame part in the textbook (of which there was a veritable gold mine) and I would ham it up for all it was worth.  If I could even get a couple of chuckles it would make my whole day.

But which is the real me?  The snuggly mama?  The amorous wife?  The polite granddaughter?  The fearful doubter that turns some worry over and over in my head, destroying all hope of sleep?  

They could all be me, but there is such a wide variation that it almost makes the whole idea of “me” become phony.  A person is “supposed” to be able to be described by a few well-chosen adjectives, but you would get a different response depending on who you asked.

Perhaps the core of our authentic selves is adaptability.  Maybe we are diamonds who hold in each facet a reflection of the truth we see outside of us in that moment.  Perhaps the “real” me only exists as I interact with the present situation, and in the hermetic vaccuum of space, it doesn’t matter who I’d be anyway.

With this line of reasoning, the boundary between Self and Other becomes palpably porous.  The “real” me couldn’t possibly stand up without bringing along, through a chain of causality, the rest of the world.

As John Muir said, “When we try to pick anything out by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

(But if you still insist on finding adjectives to describe me, definitely ask my Grandma…)

The Envelope of Doom

Why be afraid of little pieces of paper?

Considering the possible attacks that we as a society have developed to be delivered in an envelope, it’s not surprising.

To name a few:

• Court summons
• Parking ticket
• Divorce papers
• Credit card bill
• Report card
• Pink slip
• Electricity shut-off notice
• IRS audit notification
• Returned submission with accompanying rejection slip

Why do we torture each other with documents?

When I’ve got one of these, or any other scary scrap of parchment, in front of me, and my fight or flight response is fully engaged, it’s hard to remember that the flattened fiber pulp can’t really do me bodily injury.

Sure, I’ve gotten a paper cut or two.  But boy did I teach that piece of paper a lesson!

My preferred methods of paper destruction:

1. Burning- There’s nothing like the instant gratification of watching the offending words be slowly eaten by the flames.  Take that!
2. Paper Shredder- It’s a lovely faux grass bundle that emerges.  It’s even better to go a step further and compost the shreds (assuming the paper has no other toxic content besides its message).  Something about watching a threatening communique succumb to the elements that reassures me as to Who is really in charge.
3. Recycled Art- There is a delicious, self-righteous pleasure in seeing it demonstrated that absolutely anything a two-year-old could scrawl in thick black marker is more pleasing and sensible than the original text.

When these methods lose their oomph, I peruse my alternate list:

Elimination methods I’m sure would be awesome but am loathe to attempt:

1. Large Dog’s Chew Toy- Bundled and twisted together, the papers would meet a fabulously agonizing end amidst sharp teeth and copious slobber. 
2. Decomposition by Shotgun- Oooooh yeah.
3. Human consumption- What can I say… the papers would eventually emerge, unmasked, in their true form.

Not a big fan of bureaucracy? you may ask.  Government forms give you hives?  Red tape cause your heart to palpitate painfully?

Well, yes.  And I can’t see our society ever reversing course away from our obsession with having it all down on paper.

And then hitting each other over the head with it.

Name that motor vehicle!

My husband and I have a tradition of naming our cars.

It officially began when I first met my husband, who at the time owned a white Ford Escort (I was a carless cyclist).  Though we hardly knew each other at the time, he loaned it to me while he was away for Thanksgiving (an omen of good things to come.)  I was given only two instructions: 1. Talk sweet to her.  2. She likes to be called “Abby.”

Growing up, my parents had a more offhanded approach.  My mother, when coaxing a temperamental vehicle, would always refer to it as “Nelly Bell” with plenty of affectionate encouragement, no matter if it were our rusty old pick up or our little Mazda GLC.

To my father, any vehicle that was acting up always earned a moniker that began, “Son of a…”

But my husband and I like to acknowledge each car’s individuality.  Maybe it’s our writers’ minds seeing character everywhere: the thrill of anthropomorphization (How often does one get to work that word into a post?).  When Abby gave up the ghost we bought another Escort, this time forest green and named “Bonnie.”  She’s been a good girl, taking us up and down the West Coast and across the continent to a new life in the South.  But since our fourth baby was born, Bonnie, who seats only five, bless her heart, just hasn’t been big enough.

Therefore, to visit my husband’s relatives last Thanksgiving (now I get to come too!) we had to rent a van.  An Uplander, it was a sweet ride and I got quite attached to it.  Within hours of pulling out of the rental agency we named him “Carl” and he made a ten hour roadtrip with four kids actually enjoyable.

Now we must get a grip, stop our small car idealism and purchase a van.  In case you hadn’t noticed the pattern, we’ve been naming in alphabetical order, so our next set of wheels must be D-something.

I pondered for days and finally came up with the perfect name: “Dixie.”  Friendly.  Sweet.  Acknowledges the Southern community we are now a part of.

And best of all, until we finally find her, we can appropriately sing… “Well I wish I was in Dixie!”

(No offense, Bonnie!)

First Anniversary

As I reflect on passing the one year blogging mark, I am humbled and grateful for the experience.

A year ago my husband’s best friend was visiting us from Wales. He showed me the blog he had just started ( Movie Waffle  – A more witty and intelligent film review site could never be found!) and the idea of having an outlet for my thoughts was irresistible.  I had to be a copycat right then and there.

At first, seeing my words “in print” online was just as excruciating as it ever had been to see them genuinely in print. I remember the first time I got an essay published in the local newspaper, I stayed up all night wondering what stupid thing I’d said that the whole town would laugh at (and not in a good way) over their morning coffee.  My heart was racing when I heard the paper hit the front door, and my eyes could hardly focus as I scanned over my article.  Other than the stupid title they had given it, there was nothing particularly ridiculous about it.  Nothing to lose a minute’s sleep over.

Nobody read any of my first blogs.  Literally.  Not a soul.  That’s the great thing about WordPress: you can see precisely how few readers you have.  You can watch that hit line drag along the bottom of the graph, trawling for discouragement.  

But after a while, maybe it’s the sheer consistency of its horizontal straightness, you start to feel comforted by the fact that you can say anything you want and no one is there to judge.  You start to loosen up, speak your mind, send your internal editor off to play on Myspace and just sit with your authentic self and her thoughts and emotions.  You keep writing, now not with a desperate longing to be read but just to craft what it is you really want to say, even if no one is there to hear it.  (Yes, a tree falling in the forest really does make a sound!)

Then, after months of cruising and commenting on blogs, you find you have commented on the blogs of some writers who actually come to check out your blog.  You find that you enjoy the companionship, that you derive just as much satisfaction from reading and commenting on their posts as you get from seeing your own blog read, something that might not have happened at the beginning when your blog was new and you were so focused on developing it.  As happens in so many aspects of life, you find that once you have let go of what you so desperately wanted, in this case a community of intelligent and entertaining folks, then it comes to you in its own time.  Perhaps it has to be earned, by hanging in there and not giving up.

Or so I like to think.  I don’t know how representative my experience is of the majority of bloggers, maybe there are those who are highly popular immediately, and contrary-wise, those who never find an audience.  But this year has been such a great learning experience for me as a writer and I am really enjoying this new phase of interacting with some wonderful bloggers.  I hope they are getting as much out of my blog as I am from theirs: this is my new goal for year two.

And my Year Two wish to myself and my fellow bloggers (forgive me on this sentimental occasion one appalling cutesification): May the words be with you!

Starting to Sweat the Summer

Well, I made it until yesterday.

I try not to whine about the heat… try and try… for as long as I can.

Yesterday, standing over the stove feeling stickier than the muffin batter, greasier than the oil heating in the frying pan, and hotter than the pre-heating oven, I had an involuntary longing for my long-sleeved flannel shirts.  It doesn’t help that my mother-in-law, through whose faithful yardsaling I am periodically supplied with a new wardrobe, has recently sent me some seriously snuggly new plaids.  

Now, like an alcoholic in a dry county, I am pining pathetically for what I cannot have:

• a chilly bite in the air that clears my mental vision (I often feel I cannot think in the hellish haze of summer’s heat)
• the welcome early darkness that justifies my homebody tendencies  
• the opportunity to snuggle with a family member without an accompanying shout of, “Bleh!  Get off me!  It’s too hot already!”
• the ability to ride around in our no-A/C car without being able to hear the important bits in my cranium sizzle (”This is your brain in an old sunbaked Ford Escort!”)
• a craving for stew and biscuits, hot cocoa and all those other cold weather treats
• and most of all, the chance to put on those soft comfy flannels and denims that right now are kryptonite.  

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get out there this morning and do the yardwork before the grass melts.

Damning Debt

How much does debt destroy a person’s integrity?  Is credit rating the new and improved way to judge a human’s worth, or is it just a shallow measure like breast size or bicep thickness?  Should I live in fear like the guy on the commercial who finds himself in a pirate get-up earning minimum wage, or is it all just an empty threat by the cruel credit industry to get us to slave our lives away to buy them more yachts?

About 8 years ago I was living debt free.  I was also living without a car, without cable or a cell phone or indeed most amenities that mainstream society considers essential to basic survival in the modern world.

But I was happy, and I was proud that I didn’t owe a dime.

Then, for reasons I will blame on the heartache of being dumped by my then-husband of 10 years, I went a little crazy.

Next thing I knew I was back in college, racking up student loan debt I never imagined possible, holding scary new credit cards that were used to buy food and other necessities for me and the kids.

And if anything is going to keep me up at night, it is thinking about money, most specifically the phenomenally huge piles of it that I will end up shoveling into the yards of those to whom I owe.  Despite my new husband’s reassurances that there isn’t a debtor’s prison in the US, I definitely feel shackled by the red numbers that haunt me.  I am simultaneously grateful and guilt-ridden to think of him shoveling next to me, trying to fill the holes I dug before he even met me.

The worst part of it, worse even than the bag of tater tots I charged way back when that I will have paid $49.73 for once it is paid off, worse than being afraid of the friendly neighborhood mail carrier, worse than the feeling that I will hyperventilate myself blind when I write out yet another check for nothing in particular except that I HAVE TO OR ELSE, the absolutely worst part is that I feel like the lowest kind of person.

I try to imagine for an instant that I am a murderer hiding out, then wave my reality wand and *POOF*  Now you are perfectly innocent of homicide!  Don’t you feel better now?  That trick lasts about 6 and a half minutes.

I imagine that my house has burnt down and I’ve lost all my photos and writings.  Then, *ABRACADABRA* your house is actually intact!  Doesn’t life seem more rosy?  That ruse is good for 11 minutes.

I picture what a debtor’s prison was actually like, the fear and shame and suffering.  The utter darkness of the body and soul.

But none of my extreme mental ploys can really dispel this little cloud that hangs about my head, casting gloom into the future.  Nothing gets rid of the certainty that I have signed on with the Devil, or at least some of his demon minions, and the road to eliminating the spot on my eternal soul will be long, difficult, and perhaps impossible.

What have we as a society done to ourselves?  Am I the only one who confuses my essential self with the paper trail that my material existence leaves behind me like the slimiest kind of slug?  Is there a way to take responsibility for the choices I have made without drowning in discouragement? Is there a way to set the debt aside as separate from me, to isolate it in a hermetically sealed section of my life so that it does not contaminate the flavor of food or the color of the sky?

I hope that someone somewhere is enjoying their yacht, and that guilt over their criminally high interest rate is not spoiling the caviar.

Noisy Chores

My chores each have a different pitch to their whine: that incessant complaint that each makes to get my attention and ruin any chance I have of doing something enjoyable until I’ve attended to the work at hand.

An unmade bed makes a soft noise, sounds kind of like, “I want to look priiiiiteeeee.”  Most days I just reply, “Hey, take a look, if I can’t be bothered with my own face then there’s no hope for you.”  Then the bed changes its tune.  Starts whispering, “Naaaaaap!” So I oblige.  Can’t be overly cruel to the furniture.

A full laundry basket makes a low moan almost completely below my radar, kind of a “Helloooooo” as though from a mole lost down a hole.  The mole isn’t really bothered about being lost down the hole, since it’s in its own territory, but it still would like some attention.  Clothes must like being roughed up a bit.

I can’t hear dust.  The thickness of the general household coating must result in the dust voices canceling each other out, a situation I highly recommend.

The dishes, on the other hand, have a high squeal.  I can’t even go near the kitchen without being assaulted.  It’s kind of an ear-piercing “EEEEEeeeuuuww!  EEEEeeeuuuww!”  Approaching this task requires that I steel my nerves in the same way I imagine an EMT might have to force themselves to save someone who had killed the EMT’s dog.  

If you haven’t guessed, I DESPISE the dishes.  I would rather clean the toilet… in a gas station bathroom.  I would rather clean out the fridge… in a frat house.  I would rather organize the garage of the worst pack rat in the world.  But please don’t make me do the dishes.  My goal in life is to learn to scream louder than they do and maybe scare them off.

I still feel guilty about a recent trade I made with  my 12 year old.  He was whining about having to mow the lawn, a chore which I absolutely LOVE, so I threw out the idea, jokingly of course, because who would be foolish enough to even consider such an idea, that we switch: I would do his weekly mowing if he took on another night of dishes.  He accepted without hesitation.

I must stand up for him and say that he is a very smart and wonderful kid, but he has apparently lost his mind.  I am very concerned.  We have gone through a whole week of this arrangement and he appears content with it!  I came in after mowing, glowing with the experience of sun and fresh air, and then stood proudly at the front window where my handiwork was laid out in public, to be admired by all of humanity, and I said to him, “You REALLY don’t  like mowing?”  I was giving him another chance, see.  I’m not completely heartless.

But he remained firm.  A day later when he was doing the dishes, I expected to hear the customary wailing and gnashing of teeth that I myself always emit when faced with such horror.  I came tiptoeing into the kitchen, arms shielding my head from plates that might be flying from his rage, bracing for the inevitable outcry of a tortured soul, and he turned to me and said, “Hey Mom.  You okay?”

Am I a bad person for allowing this arrangement to continue?  What am I going to do if Child Protective Services finds out how badly I’ve tricked my own offspring?  

You’ll have to excuse me… my radar is picking up a dirty diaper in the vicinity.  If you’ve never heard it, you really don’t want to know what noise THAT makes, but it is definitely NOT to be ignored.

Numbers revisited

I finally watched “The Number 23.”  I think it demonstrates a couple of important points about superstition and the human imagination.

First, we interpret.  From religious texts to emails to light conversation over coffee, we filter everything through our necessarily limited sensory perception.  Aldous Huxley’s book “The Doors of Perception” is a great illustration of the idea that humans must screen out almost all of the infinite amount of sensory stimulation coming at us at every second and focus on just the few details that have developed a particularly important meaning for us.  Being animals, we are programmed to watch for the glimpse of a tiger out of the corner of our eye and then spring into action.  Since there aren’t many tigers around in our modern world, perhaps we sometimes subconsciously invent danger signs, like superstitions, to give our systems a chance to rush with adrenaline.

Thus, having an infinite amount of material to filter through, we can always find what we are looking for, such as the number 23.

The other point the movie brought up at its conclusion, although stylistically I did not care for the end much, was the main character’s emphasis on choice.  We can choose our interpretation as well as our reaction to the meaning we have found.  Though we are animals and must deal with all our physical/instinctual programming, as humans we also have the right and responsibility to decide for ourselves.

I cannot argue with its star-and-a-half rating, but it was definitely an entertaining flick.

On a Hill

Sometimes I remember to look at the big picture.  

How many problems would be ameliorated or indeed solved if we could remember to shift the focus of our eyeballs, currently zoomed in on the little kid finger smudges covering the front window, and pull our perspective wider to see The Whole.

Not that we can ever precisely see The Whole.  I like to use the term “in geological time” to remind myself and the kids that there are other timetables in effect.  For example, when asked the question, “Can we go to Chuck E. Cheese later?” I am fond of replying, “Yes!” enthusiastically, then adding, “Later in geological time.”  We have had enough scientific discussions for them to realize that this might very well translate into weeks or months.  (Nobody ever said the big picture wasn’t a cruel view!)

The Whole is always fuzzy like that… weeks, months, years… when we try to see something so big as the Earth or the History of Mankind, all our precise measurements such as Tuesday the 12th of April or 321 Main Street become details too tiny to distinguish.  All you have is a slab of sedimentary rock that can be dated to within a few thousand years on a good day.  The weighty significance of the pebble in your shoe is suddenly reduced to tolerable.

When I lived by the ocean in Northern California as a teenager, I used to climb the hill and stare out across the water to let my eyes and my brain stretch.  A massive tanker ship was a mere dot.  A hulking humpback whale left only ephemeral spouted footprints to show its path.  In those moments, my overwhelming life was just another thin blade of grass swaying in the wind on that hill, whatever miniscule problem I thought was the end of the world became just a tick that could be squished between my fingers before it sucked any more blood out of my soul.  What a relief it was.

Sometimes I remember that a hilltop perspective is still helpful, even if I have to just imagine the hill.  To look closely at my everyday life and wonder why I am not in the midst of some large valuable project makes me feel very unaccomplished.  But to look at the last two years of my life and make a general list of events, I realize the following has occurred: got married, had a baby, survived five months of my husband’s layoff, found employment and moved twice (once across the continent, once across the state). And during this time I managed to have two articles published, posted several blog articles, kept the children fed in the manner to which they had grown accustomed, watched a little tv.  Grew a couple of sunflowers.  Ate a lot of ice cream.  Met some good people.

In geological time, I’ve been in overdrive.