Thought Concoction

An Endorsement

2011-04-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

I just spent 15 minutes learning what items are not to be bought at Forever 21, because of the compromised quality. They are: jeans, shoes, earrings, and everything else sold in the store (the last part inferred by me, because of the severely disgusted look on the face of the model). This morning I also spent 15 minutes doing the following:
- learning why one shouldn't just let a fire in your car engine "burn itself out"
- eating two eggs
- sitting on the toilet, lid down, fiddling with a funky toenail and thinking about important things
- helping Quinn and Madeleine retell the story of The White Lion (happy that Quinn didn't cry quite so vigorously in the retelling) while Jim flipped pancakes

I'm not used to having more than 5 to 15 minutes of time, and so my day-off activities are scheduled like commercial breaks. Fifteen-minute increments of my Saturday are stretching ahead of me right now, and I'm already planning how to fill those bite-sized snippets of my completely unscheduled day. Because, hoo-boy, this past fall and winter, they were full. In a way that put undue stress on everyone in our house. Even the hermit crabs were filled with deep sighs and eye-rolls.

To note: I have a permanent eye twitch and tendinitis in three separate joints. Madeleine may or may not have a spider nest somewhere in her room. Quinn has been having nightmares about the mummy, and the best we could do was rearrange the junk on his shelf so it didn't look like a person in the dark. I haven't seen the surface of the dining room table, my dresser or the front passenger seat in my car since before the world knew what Brett Favre's weiner looks like.

Poor me. I'm busy. (You have to say that in Squidward's voice, by the way.)

Everyone's busy. Everyone does a lot of stuff and gets tired and doesn't clean behind the toilet and then feels guilty about it. Most people want to re-read the books they hated in high school English and finish knitting that Scandanavian sweater. Everyone wants to teach their kids to like kale and figure out what's going on in Libya. Every person in the world wants to be better.

And that is why Al Gore invented magazines. The world will always need quick, glossy verification that there is a 15 minute solution to all of our problems and that tell us what music we're supposed to be liking. There are millions of people who need a quick way to hem pants or give a handjob, and pretty recipes that will make us fit into pants we bought 12 years ago. Sure, the internet provides that as well, but most of us can't read the internet on the toilet or while we're waiting for the kids to finish gymnastics. Because we're all trying to better ourselves in the commercial breaks. The internet gives us google, imdb and song lyrics. Magazines give us therapy.

And it's fine, actually. It's not always condescending and Oprah-y, and I'm happy with the guilt and frustration driven by excessive dog hair and dried out mascara. Because magazines also give us Lindsey Lohan and Mel Gibson. Magazines are the tactile yin and yang that keep our ships upright. While the internet screams at us all day, all bright and pixelated, up in our grill, magazines snuggle up in our laps and stroke our egos and gentle nudge us towards being better. ... Evidenced by my 15-minute break in which I now know that Dennis Hopper has a son who is an actor and that cute lesbians are the only people capable of sporting "The Bieber." See, my life is a tiny bit better, isn't it? Isn't it??

Filling in the blanks.

2010-08-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

I can play guitar now. That's new. If you give me a song I can sing, and the corresponding chords, I can strum along, slightly off beat. And with the same up/down/up/down tempo that matches hardly anything. Except Neil Diamond songs.

I am having ankle surgery in September. It appears my tibia was sorta crushed in a bad sprain a couple years ago. It validates my hunch that the pain was more than tendinitis. The doctor will drill a hole in my bone until he reaches healthy tissue, so that fresh blood can travel down the hole to regenerate dying bone. He calls it gopher surgery, which I find comforting.

I'm writing a book about a girl with a crappy, dysfunctional family, who reconnects with her mom, who has come back into her life after finding Buddha. It's fun to write, but I may to step out of first person. She's too annoying, this girl. I like the idea of multiple points of view, but I also think that's a cop-out.

My favorite song to play thus far is Slip Sliding Away. It's easy. And sad.

The other day, in a soccer game, a woman charged at me as I was clearing a ball out of the back. When my ball flew by her (not necessarily that close, but it was a hard-struck ball). She yelled, "JESUS CHRIST" at me and cheap-shotted me later in the game. I saw her on a TV ad last night. She's a hospice chaplain for a charitable end-of-life care facility.

Everyone in our house has had Rotovirus (or something similar) in the last month. It causes early morning diarrhea. Madeleine has twice walked upstairs to complain of stomach aches at extremely inopportune moments. We don't have a door.

I don't watch tv, except for the local news, but when Carrier comes on, I just can't stop watching. Is this how reality shows are for everyone else? You just can't stop watching?

I'm trying to get a job at the YMCA. Where I'll get paid to people-watch. Have you seen the YMCA? It's like the DMV/post office/mall. With occasional hotness.

I also like Lucille. Again, easy and sad.

Lady Gaga is just fine. So is Yo-Yo Ma. So are sweats. And so is not waving and saying HI to my neighbor every single time he leaves his house.

2010-06-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

Thirty-seven seems to be a good year to let the whatevers settle where they settle. Meaning I can give in to a few harmless vices, and discard some literal and figurative baggage. I eat raw cookie dough. I throw away magazines I've paid for, yet have no interest in reading (i.e. Writer's Digest and Some Preachy Cooking Magazine). I play my hand-held, $7 Yahtzee game until my neck hurts from the required hunching, and I don't download apps on my phone. I cook a lot of breakfast-for-dinner (like, every night or thereabouts), and I fart. It feels like I'm being self-indulgent or neglectful or both, but really, since 37 is kind of kicking my ass, I'm going to rationalize it as self-preservation.

I don't care if I'm supposed to be friends with that one mom from my school who has very bright children and is very involved with the community and shares a huge number of mutual friends. I don't like her. She's sour. I don't care if I say the wrong thing at social gatherings if my statements aren't hurtful to anyone. What, we're not supposed to have opinions and heaven forbid we air them in public?

I want people to know when I like them, or when I'm supportive of or impressed by what they do. I want the checker at Shopko to know that I think she has beautiful skin. And conversely, I want my neighbor to know that, no, actually, I don't like it when they wait so long to mow their lawn that the gazillion dandelions in their yard begin populating the entire block.

So that's my parenting formula as well. Tell them when you're pleased as much as you tell them when you're displeased, because how else will they know you mean it?

Thirty-seven. The year I quit faking. Also the year I legitimately began turning into my mom and grandma.

I don't think the snappy insults would come in handy right now.

2010-05-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot to sign up my women's league team for summer soccer. Sorry, all 18 of you expecting to get some fun summer exercise. I was really busy eating and playing my hand-held electronic Yahtzee game.

In addition, I haven't sent two checks and two letters I said I would send weeks ago. And I have stamps (that's my normal excuse).

I also haven't written much or put away my clean laundry.

I suck at the above.

I don't suck at making snappy little insults or buying gifts. I'm also good at mimicking voices on the radio and making 8-year-olds be quiet.

I'm mediocre at personal hygiene and enforcing bedtime.

Hopefully, I'm really good at sucking up to the Missoula Parks and Rec soccer guy.

Oh yeah. February.

2010-02-24T12:44:00.000-08:00

I've had all sorts of hand-wringing questions and dilemmas in the last month. Nothing that can't be resolved with a couple good afternoons-lazily-leading-into-evenings and glasses of wine spent with friends, but those didn't materialize. I tried to make do with evening-time glasses of wine spent with my children and my hand-held yahtzee game, but the latter two didn't have much to say about uterine polyps and protein-heavy diets.

After 17 years of togetherness, I know better than to expect Jim to be my girlfriend. His mind doesn't swing that way. If I want to talk about my period or complain about the parents in Quinn's preschool, I have to call up a friend, arrange a playdate, or send an email. But, well, my arms are kind of ineffective this time of year. February is the month when my limbs and social skills go into hibernation.

Whine. Someone come over and listen to me be inarticulate about my parenting concerns! Nod sympathetically while I bumble through a description of my THREE visits to the gynecologist, wherein my hou-ha got about as much attention as it did during four years of high school. None. (I wasn't particularly anxious to air my 'gina to the Future Loggers of America.) Which, back to the gyno visits, it's byarkity hem-ha jinka yo yo where gyno visits himiny grograx shrang glef. This is what I talk like in February. Hence, hand-wringing. I was just thinking that it's surprising the skin isn't pulled off of my fingers, but then I remembered teenage boys.

Hells bells I need a night out, but ALL my nights are out. Coaching, playing stuff, watching others play stuff, Board Meetings. This month sucks.

Mignon is..

2010-01-14T19:59:00.000-08:00

How do you decide what to worry about? Child abuse, drunk driving, genocide in Darfur, climate change? Do you pick one and shrug off the others? Do you unconsciously prioritize? What's your criteria, most to least helpless, what cause has the biggest impact on the world, where can I get the most return on my investment? Which wheel is the squeakiest? Most likely.

I have a browser tab with the photo stream from Haiti open all the time, and I refresh it every five minutes, hoping to see something that will make me feel better. Or worse. I just want to be able to feel for them, either happy and devastated, because if I am being mindful of them, each of the people I see in those photos, then they have had an impact. Their lives have rippled, in such a way that my little boat, floating across an ocean, is drawn closer. The world had collectively placed Haiti on the bottom shelf, along with endangered elephants and drug crimes in Mexican border towns. We decided to volunteer locally, give money to our neighbors, worry about our communities. And we were doing a good thing, we thought. I thought. That's what I thought.

But right now I'm thinking about the Haitian man I saw unloading bodies from a truck, picking up the boy in the navy blue shorts and white t-shirt by an ankle and a wrist and throwing him onto a pile of crushed Haitians in front of a make-shift morgue. I'm thinking about him and what he has to go home to tonight. About how he's going to lay down under a tarp to rest, but will hear only moaning and crying and singing, and how he's going to wash his face in the morning and do it again. And again and again and again. Some of the bodies he loads into his rusty black pickup will be friends and family. Some will be very young children or great-grandparents and most of them will be rotting in the next few days, and he'll be sick with the smell and lack of food.

I sent my money to the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. I watch the news, I refresh my browser and look at the pictures. I read about Haiti and why it is abjectly poor. But mostly, I try to remember the faces I see, even the dead ones. And I just keep looking and feeling. Individually, it's not much, but I bet I'm not the only one.

So that's my status.

Giving Up, But Not Really. Because I'll be back at it later, probably.

2009-12-26T14:04:00.000-08:00

Wow. I spent way too much time on this today. There are toys and drawings and empty candy wrappers stacked up around me from the kids' never-ending hovering and demands of attention.

All I want to know is, who is the TV sitcom actor with a very gravelly voice who looks a lot like Dennis Franz. If you don't know him (or even a single show he's been on), don't bother looking it up. I think I broke google.

Update: He yells a lot. In his gravelly voice. And now I broke Yahoo, and for the record, it's not these guys:

2009-12-14T11:26:00.000-08:00

Our Home Ice

2009-12-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

I read this book, Home Ice, in which a hockey writer for Sports Illustrated detailed his passion for his backyard, homemade ice rink. No, it wasn't remedial, and it wasn't just for hockey nuts. It was about how a neighborhood and friends are drawn together by something. In this case, a flooded backyard brought good, hard-working people together, but it could just as well have been a zucchinis-for-apricots exchange or a 4th of July barbecue. Neighborhoods and communities are pulled close by tragedy or activity, the former connecting people on a deep emotional level, the latter just makes you wanna share a beer and laugh.

You might say it was a story about a cliche, as well, though. "When times were simpler we would..." or "Back in my day, we used to be able to..." It could have been a Readers' Digest Chicken Soup for the Too Lazy to Buy a Decent Book with Real Conflict in It kind-of-story. But there were the hockey bits, and there's nothing Chicken Soupy about hockey. And the "when times were simpler" line of thinking is bullshit. Turning off the TV and saving a couple nights and weekends for ourselves is still achievable. I may not be able to say that in several years, when both kids are scheduled up to their armpits, but right now, we're just not THAT busy.

The book inspired me, and by association, inspired my task-driven husband. Jim is nothing without his jobs. He wakes up every weekend morning itching to put on his dirty work gloves and build, deconstruct, plant or fix something (unless it's in the house). I usually come downstairs at around 8:30 smacking the nastiness out of my mouth and tying my bathrobe, and he's there perched on the edge of our black leather chair, three cups of thick dark coffee coursing through him, waiting for the starter's gun. His work jeans are pulled up to his bellybutton and his wool sweater is tucked in tight. All he needs is a head-waggle from me, and he's out the door. But winter is hard on a guy like this. He can only arrange so much hay around the chicken pen, he can only shovel so much frozen dog shit. The idea of a homemade ice rink was manna.

So, to sum-up my idle chatter and Jim's in-earnest planning for the last couple weeks:

And it did bring over the neighbors, working and planning and fretting and musing and laughing. It did force us to be at home and talk over dinner and pat ourselves on the back. So it worked. I'm happy to fulfill this cliche. Maybe I can write a book about it and make a bunch of money, too. That'd be killer.

(Special thanks to Dave for the photo and for sacrificing his left eye for our first noteworthy rink injury. And for helping. And for the book.)

Things

2009-11-08T14:53:00.000-08:00

Isn't it a letdown when you see a hot movie star running like a third grade girl? This weekend, both Hugh Jackman and Ben Kingsley applied. Sir Kingsley, I'll excuse, because he's Gandhi, but Wolverine? Unforgivable. He's all duck-footed, arms flailing awkwardly. Or perhaps it's hard to run with Adamantium daggers sticking out of your knuckles?

This morning I made a fresh pot of coffee and poured in some cream only to see it congeal into tiny little sperm-like clumps. I dumped it down the drain, and started anew: clean cup, fresh pour of coffee, another pour of cream. Same thing. What gives? The cream wasn't sour. The coffee was fine yesterday. I'm still in the Northern Hemisphere. Why would it do that? I ended up chewing my way through it, but it was like a cement mixer with my toasted baguette.

Jim took the kids to his parent's cabin for the weekend and I watched two movies and read two books. It was really boring and quiet and awesome.

On Friday I had a discussion with Janet about the prohibitive cost of college, specifically private schools. At this point, I have no intention of encouraging my kids to apply to Yale. It just costs too much, and the debt incurred isn't worth it. But Janet pointed out that, unfortunately, the Ivy Leagues still get you that extra-special goose when you're looking for a job, and I sadly agreed. It's just not fair... but wait. I don't think I actually agree. Because that may be true for certain fields (academia? law? I don't know...), but I think it's really an east coast phenomena. While my degree got me a few raised eyebrows in Portland, it definitely didn't open any doors or do me any special favors. I couldn't even get a good alum contact to help me out. But I did have an engineering manager ask me in an interview, "So... you went to Yale, huh? Does that mean you think you're smarter than everyone else?" So yet another east coast/west coast disconnect. That, and asian food/italian food. And sidewalks.

I worked outside for about an hour today, clipping dead stuff and putting away hoses and all that. When I came in, all ruddy complected and refreshed, it would have been awesome if someone handed me a cider and rum and the Sunday crossword puzzle. But instead I tracked chicken shit across the kitchen floor and gagged down the rest of my congealed coffee. But in my mind it was different and I was still happy. So maybe that's the secret to life.

Mommy coaches soccer 'til her head pops off.

2009-10-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Ah, my blog. I've missed it in a distracted, unacknowledged way. I realized many many posts ago that this is not where my fortune would be found, and so I wrote for practice and for friendship. Blah blah blah, repeating exactly what every other person who ever wrote, then quit, then wrote again on her blog ever said, blah blah blah...

I like it. I like the subjects I can write about here, that seem too personal and flip for fiction. So yeah, a half hour, I get to talk about assholes (big and small), cute track jackets, the guy who just now walked by me who looks exactly like motherfucking Christian Bale I'm not even kidding you (and too bad I had a mouthful of lemon bar or I would've surely said something clever) (oh never mind, he walked by again. false alarm) (holy shit dude, quit walking by me). I feel like doing it again, is what I'm saying. I think I want to blog.

So here we go.

You know how it's kind of a funny old joke when a former athlete coaches his/her kid in their former sport and has all these crazy expectations and gets very/too invested in the kid's performance and the outcome of the games, even though the kid probably can't even tie her shoes properly yet? Oh, what? That's not a funny old joke? Good, because I was starting to feel like the butt of it. Me = too much. Madeleine = not so much. It kills me. I just want SALDFJDLSFJKWNCNAV KL FUCK!!! That's how I feel each and every minute of every game and practice. The anxiety I feel when I see her dribbling the ball towards the goal and another tiny little girl from the other team runs toward her, makes a feeble attempt at taking the ball away, and Madeleine slows down and lets her take the ball away - let me repeat, lets her take the ball away - I lose my shit. And I just spazzy sweated all over my keyboard thinking about it. At least the fucking not-Christian-Bale guy will quit stalking my table (but he's really not, because I just realized he works here and is Doing Something). That happens. And other, equally maddening things happen, like her not wanting to play when it's really cold. And her falling down. Yes. Believe it or not, I lose my shit when she falls down.

And I try to keep it all on the inside. But it's boiling and festering, and I know as a good coach you should always couch a criticism inside some positive feedback so mine comes out through clenched teeth like this, "Well you did a really nice job on your throw-ins today and I sure wish you could be a lot more aggressive and dribble the ball when you're out in the open and not pass to your teammates directly in front of the goal and the weird thing you do with your arm when you're running probably slows you down and thank you for helping me pick up the granola bar wrappers." It's probably not what the YMCA had in mind for a positive youth soccer experience. Please don't tell them. Or maybe you should, but just don't tell that guy who may or may not be handicapped, because I'd hate to be fired by him.

I have to quit. I have to. I have to. My throat is raw after every 40 minute game, which is some indication that perhaps my "encouragement" is a tad too vociferous. The only other times I get that hoarse is when I'm drunkenly heckling the opposing kicker at Griz football games, which is a 3-hour whiskey-fueled affair.

I just reread that last paragraph. I can't - wait, what? - is that? - I mean, wow.

Artificial tears.

2009-09-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

Feel like crying? I haven't lately, so maybe that's why I've been seeking and devouring this kind of thing. I think sadness is an itch I need to scratch.

What else did I do?

2009-08-05T09:58:00.001-07:00

Crud. We've got money issues in August? What has this world come to? Oh yeah, a depression. Money worries make me feel like I'm 20 again, powerless and immature. Because we (me and him) are educated and gainfully employed, any money issues we have are a direct result of our own inability to budget and act fiscally responsible. I was hoping as I typed that last line that I would feel better. Absolved in some way, but it didn't work. Maybe if I type it again... nah. You know what would make me feel better? A nice hot cup of coffee.

And so there you have it. My tiny-life drama in a world of inequity and poverty. I'm sad because I can't go to sushi for lunch, but Oh-Ho! my coffee has been replenished and Isn't everything awesome!

Things are a little turned around lately, people doing and saying the (sadly) unexpected, less cracking up and more pensive contemplation. So I don't want to be pissed at anyone else any more. I think it's much healthier to irrationally direct my anger and frustration at myself. I am actually the mastermind behind the Boko Haram killings in Nigeria. Madeleine's sheets are taking on a brownish tint because I'm an inadequate homemaker. I'm not being politically active enough and have caused the drop in Obama's approval rating.

I feel much better now.

Fine. And not.

2009-06-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

I say 'we should' too. Monday I decided it was time to address the we-overusage and it was laughable, the conversation. He defensive, me clamming up, him trying not to be defensive, me trying to meet in the middle, resolution, then a frank discussion of everything 'we' needed to do to get ready for our trip next week. Shit. What the hell? I couldn't stop saying it.

We need to fix a thingy for the chicken coop to make it easier for the chicks to get out in the morning.
We need to call someone to feed the gerbils.
We should prepare to stain the deck when we get home.
We blah blah blaahhhbity blah blah hell junk piece of shit blahbity blah.

Okay, fine. Let's just say, sometimes 'We' can be an effective conversation starter. Sometimes it's fine to be vague about a task that needs gettin' at, but nobody wants anything to do (read: finding a new home for our noisy dirty-ever-crapping parakeets).

On another note, I sprained my LCL badly yesterday. Add this to the growing list of injuries incurred this year - injuries that can't be laughed off with a long pull at an ice-cold IPA. In fact right now I'm printing out rehab exercises that I'll have to do on vacation next week. I'm falling apart this month and it's making my stomach sour. Body, what's wrong with you? What have I not done for you lately?? Sure, I'm getting older, but the number and severity of injuries this spring and summer is Shock and Awe instead of Going Gentle into the Night. It's a real bummer, dude. But at least I have a soft baby.

Happy Father's Day

2009-06-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day honey. You look a little femme in this picture, but I know you're not. Femme. Because I am wishing you a happy Father's Day, thus I have direct experience with your not-femme-ness. So. I love you. You do great things and you do them with determination and integrity.

xo,
Mignon

Important Information Regarding Nookie Skills

2009-05-18T08:44:00.000-07:00

Someone bought me a shot this weekend called The Vegas. The purchasing and consumption of the drink were unremarkable, but the ensuing game invented by two drunk girls (me and someone) has got me thinking. Can you tell if someone is good in bed by just looking at them? Yes. Of course you can. See for yourself:

Characteristics of Bad in Bed:
1) backwards hats (unless it's a pirate's hat, because how do you tell if it's backwards - plus points for being a pirate)

2) meticulous facial hair (because he wouldn't want to muss it, plus it goes without saying but I'm saying it anyway, too much time in front of the mirror means too much time spent in the bathroom, means he's been in close proximity to a toilet for too long, means he's been virtually bathing in a pool of airborne fecal matter, which, hello? UTI? that's why we wipe front to back in the first place!)

3) gay (I'm sure he'd be good in bed for someone - but I'm guessing that person would not be a hetero female, even if she can throw a football really far)

4) pants pulled up too high or hanging too low (up too high is repellent in a way that screams "I have Oedipal issues" and too low screams "check my ID" or, conversely, "can you please help me find my way back to the nursing home?" - which neither necessarily indicates bad in bed, but they may result in a) jail time or b) future dates being planned around dialysis appointments)

5) playing pool well (a guy that can cradle a cue with finesse and maneuver the balls in perfect coordination has spent WAY too much time with similarly shaped objects in his hands, or he's just a dork that avoids personal interaction by playing a meaningless bar game that is cool only when you're drunk or impressing your nephews at the Elks Club at your grandparents' 50th Wedding Anniversary)

Characteristics of Good in Bed (These are less funny, I assure you, because at this point in the evening there was only one guy that didn't fall in the categories of 1-4 above and he was):
1) With a woman

A poll.

2009-04-28T12:57:00.001-07:00

What's your favorite book cover, or a really good book cover from a book you've read recently? Actually answer both, if you dare!

Here's one I liked recently (regardless of how I felt about the book):

Here's a classic I've always liked (and I liked the other cover, with the diagonal stripes in the corner and the plain text):

I Kissed a Girl, with a banana.

2009-04-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

I posted this on my FB page, but for some reason the thumbnail is a tiny, illegible word verification word. I asked the internet why, and it didn't understand my question and rambled on and on. Thanks.

To catch you up.

2009-04-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

I just got home from a hockey game and I have a big bubble in my stomach from the celebratory can of MGD I drank afterwards with, um, those 10 other people... huh. I have no idea except for Lisa and Holly. I have not had an MGD for... 15 years? I remember the last bottle, and how the liquid sat on my tongue like piss (presumably) until I finally gulped it all at once, causing a lump to form in my esophagus that felt like a Rubik's cube. I can't burp. It's a condition with a name and everything. The name means this: one who can't burp. This causes my stomach to swell to immense proportions when I eat or drink anything. That's right. Every day, swollen belly.

Moving along...

I thought I was going to be published for a couple weeks. It was really exciting, and at night when I snuggled my pillow and listened to Jim snore, I imagined what the phone call would sound like. How I would react. Whether they would need a picture and how I would smile. Or not smile. But I was wrong and I had read (WAY) too much into a mildly misleading rejection note. So that was a couple weeks ago. Now I snuggle my pillow and listen to Jim snore while thinking about White Cheddar Cheezits.

Moving along again...

Today we went to the Missoula County Something Something Farm. The field trip included pigs and sheep and a zebra hide and a tour of the metal shop. The pigs are bred for show and for breakfast, and in the center of what you might call a courtyard (if you're James Herriot), but I would actually call The Area with the Least Amount of Shit, there's a metal contraption in which a pig is confined when she's giving birth to 8 or 27 piglets. The students giving the tour were very excited to show us the latest addition to the Mildly S&M Birthing Cages, in which all the latest technologies were instituted. I asked, because I like to be on the cutting edge, and it turns out the biggest improvement in the new cage is that the bottom is not made of metal mesh. Why? So that the mom pig's nipples don't sag down into the mesh and get stuck and ripped off. So, yay for that. Welcome to 2009!

2009-03-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

I imagine if my blog could illustrate itself, this is what it would say:

ETA: This is Madeleine's artwork. She's a nightmare when she gets home from school, and I strongly encourage her to take out her pissiness with a pen or pencil rather than screaming at Quinn when he doesn't want to pretend he's a fairy princess baby. After three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, two glasses of milk and a half hour of Arthur, she drew a picture of a fairy princess baby with a flower in its hair riding on a flying unicorn.

This is how we do it.

2009-02-26T10:41:00.000-08:00

I waited until the kids were gone, got my coffee, put my feet up, and finally started watching a movie. The Big Easy. Or, shall we say, Angel Heart, as re-scripted by Diablo Cody. Dammit! It should say in the synopsis where the doing-it part is, so I can skip the crappy acting, snappy self-conscious dialogue, plot holes and poor accents. And Dennis Quaid is way sexier as a 50-something than he was a skinny 30-something with yellow teeth.

Aaaannd now it's snowing and time to go get Quinn and his playdate. Morning shot.

(But for those of you keeping track, I hit Mignon-style rock bottom and busted out a good story. So yeah, life has to get its hands dirty. Now I know.)

But, what the hell? Everyone liked Hemingway before they found out he was... unstable.

2009-02-20T10:51:00.000-08:00

And here we are. I'm a cliche. I've got writer's block. I'm misunderstood by editors. My family doesn't actively support my art. What else... Um, I struggle in anonymity. I retreat to the internet as a form of avoidance. I have no original thoughts. I bridle at criticism (see the misunderstood thing, above). I doubt my abilities.

It feels awesome to be a cardboard cutout of a struggling writer. You can probably guess what I had for breakfast, what I watch on TV, what I'm wearing. And you would be right. Predictable. Like a cold french fry. This is the way we like our writers, isn't it? Nobody really wants a well-adjusted healthy writer of literary fiction. We don't want our doctors to have acne, we don't want child abusers to be young and attractive, we don't want our writers happy.

So is it a product of the art, or is the art a product of the funk? I guess we'll find out, now that it's breaking me down.

Reminders

2009-02-12T08:47:00.000-08:00

Life is fine here. Nobody's too sick, the dog quit having seizures. I'm not even hating on February as much as I've led you to believe. Feb's all right, just, you know, mildly irritating. My car runs. The coffee I've been drinking for the last half hour is still pretty hot. So writing suffers. There's no drama, I'm not pissed at anyone, not elated with shape of my eyebrows, not sick with sadness (that was last month).

Yesterday I got talked into signing up for Skype, an online phone-call thing. Calling and talking to people on the computer, my face all blown up on their laptop. Their giant face on mine. It seemed superfluous, because, um e-mail? Facebook chat? An actual telephone that doesn't shove your sleepy face and unwashed hair into someone's computer monitor? But I did it because he kept insisting.

And now today I'm thinking about things that I've neglected or thought I grew out of that are important...

First, hanging out with my friend Fred. He was one of my closest friends in high school and we did a lot of pointless hanging out. And yesterday we Skyped and basically hung out for 15 minutes. This time we both had kids climbing all over us, but we kinda just sat around, chillin, while looking at each other on the computer. It was weird, but instantly comforting. I write a lot of stories about young people and their insecurities, awkwardness, angst, but in reality, hanging out with Fred reminded me that it didn't all suck. (This is him, he's a photographer. Call me if you need someone to take a picture of you jumping through the forest.)

Second, candy bars. Why, if I crave a slab of chocolate with hazelnuts, would I stare at the candy rack with chaste longing, like a retired arthritic longshoreman in the front row of a strip club. It was a dollar and fifteen cents and it totally made my morning. A candy bar now and then is really fucking good. And not illegal or potentially disease-ridden.

Third, Queen. A big part of why February is pfft. (And also perhaps why I spent 2 minutes in the penalty box last Friday night.)

Fourth, totally offensive humor. Andrew Dice Clay, Sam Kinison, and this guy, who makes me laugh like a kid hunkered down with a sticky magazine in the back of the bus, and also directly led to my gesturing at my crotch and saying "Turn THIS" when Jim asked me to turn up the volume on American Idol last night.

And, lastly, weight lifting. I'm doing it again.

Looking back at a couple of these, I think the inversion in the Missoula valley has caused a dangerous build-up of testosterone.

More Ways to Exorcise February.

2009-02-08T15:39:00.000-08:00

Just found this on my hard drive. heh heh.

And beware what you wish for when you go searching for nekkid famous people. (Dude, it's February. Of course I'm searching for nekkid famous people.) I'm also drinking cooking wine, wearing my swimsuit in place of a bra, and cleaning random brown marks off the bathroom floor with spit. Also? I cheated on the crossword puzzle, told Quinn I couldn't read a story because reading makes one of my eyes hurt (? - he bought it) and scooped some half-melted snow into the dog's bowl because I didn't want to pick it up and carry it 10 steps to the sink to fill it with fresh water. But I did diligently apply 5 different ointments to the little coldsore on my lip every two hours for 4 straight days. I pick my battles. And I'm still picking a fight with February.

Fighting against February.

2009-02-05T09:07:00.000-08:00

I'm not giving in to her this year. Screw you, February, you mean nothing to me. You may as well be March, for all I care.

February is like that party guest that you invite, but are really hoping is busy or out of town. But then she's not, and she comes and is passive-aggressively needy and ends up making your other guests feel uncomfortable as she talks about her cat and that guy at work that may or may not be eating her food out of the refrigerator. And then she (Feb) insists on helping a bunch in the kitchen, where all the fun people are hanging out and drinking wine, but whenever someone sloshes a little on the counter she hustles over to wipe it up with a stinky dishrag... you get the point. February is that girl.

So what do you do with a guest like this? You hide from her and make jokes about her stanky cat and when she finds you to tell you that someone has clogged the toilet, you ignore her and turn up the music really loud until everyone is dancing and spilling wine and tipping over the coffee table and she can't keep up with her dirty dish-rag and her tsk-tsking, so she just sits in the corner nursing her tepid chardonnay until she realizes everyone is wandering into the bedrooms to hook-up or pass out and she leaves. So here's to you February!

And if that doesn't work...

There's Good-ish News and Bad News

2009-01-26T09:27:00.000-08:00

I've registered for a coaching certification class this coming weekend. Friday, 4 hours. Saturday, 10 hours. Sunday, 6 hours. That's a tad crazy, don't you think? Not One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but something more Shirley MacLaine-esque. Should I wear a turban? Maybe just for warm-ups. At the end of the marathon, instead of a crown of thorns, I'll receive an E Certificate, which will reassure concerned parents and high school athletic directors that I can tie my own shoes and stamp an envelope in a timely fashion.

I guess I'm a sports elitist/egomaniac. What the hell can this guy, Ric (note the absence of the 'k' - idiot!), teach me about coaching that I haven't learned on my own (from the internet)? The clinic is in the gymnasium of a Catholic elementary school! Ha! More sanctimonious-ness! On the other hand, as I said a while back, it's time to gussy up my resume with items that don't include "statistical control" and "plasma etch." Or, alternately, "diaper" and "Lego." E Certificate is a place to start.

But, now the bad news. I joined the Y. And I started jogging on the treadmill. And I jog in front of a giant window that reflects my own image back at me. And there's nothing on TV except Family Guy and bad NBA games, and anyway when I watch TV I have a tendency to veer off-course which isn't bad on a sidewalk, but can have disastrous effects on a treadmill. (I'm stalling, because I'm embarrassed about what comes next.) I've made a very troubling discovery: I run knock-kneed. I don't/can't say anything more about this yet, except to say that it's as if someone told Miles Davis his horn is always flat. Can you fix a flat horn? Maybe, but suddenly Miles is thinking back to Kind of Blue, going, "Fuck. I sold a million copies of an album that was flat?" It's very much like that.

So now you know two things: I run funny, and I equate my athletic prowess to Miles Davis's musical abilities. Not a proud day.

My Sentiments, Exactly

2009-01-24T12:06:00.001-08:00

On metaphors.

2009-01-21T12:33:00.000-08:00

Lately, in lieu of actual writing (where words are put on paper, not including milk, bread, my signature on an Old Navy Visa charge, etc.), I've been generating metaphors. This is like writing, in that it takes creativity and a certain amount of literate brain cells, but it's totally bullshit cheating. A metaphor is not a device I use in my writing, like ever. Because I think it's bullshit cheating. Unless the metaphor so obtuse that I've completely lost the point, and by the end of the book I can't remember if a broken jukebox in a bowling alley was supposed to be like life or supposed to be like death and whether or not that even applies to the kid with the garbage bag taped over his car window, and by the way, was the garbage bag supposed to be a metaphor for his ambition or his relationship with his brother?

See, it's cheating (or trying too hard ex post facto), because it's totally unintended. The kid's kind of a low-life, and one night after drinking too much at Ole's he busts out his passenger window with a brick because he thought he locked his keys in his car, when in fact they're still in his dirty down vest, left back in the bar. So then, fuck 'em. The metaphors, I mean. What should I do, go back and plant busted car windows in other scenes with other wandering low-lifes, so that the image is driven home and it's clear to my three-year-old that I'm using a Literary Technique? Nobody wants that. And nobody wants to read a story wherein every visual detail has a tacit asterisk next to it: *may be a metaphor - be vigilant!

But then, every once in a while a really good one hits me - too good to not repeat. But try rolling over on your beach chair at a Mexican resort and saying to your sunbathing sister-in-law, "I think clouds are a little like life. You're staring up at something that looks like a T-Rex with bunny ears and you're watching watching watching, the bunny ears growing bigger and his little baby arms are turning into something more like pom-poms and then you notice his tail has become larger than his body, and all this is over the course of about 15 minutes and then you look away to take a sip of your Pacifico and you look back and Holy Hell! The T-Rex is something completely different and you can kind of pick out his big muzzle and rabbit ears but he's dwarfed into something more like a school bus with big meaty tires and fat guy sitting on the top. Life is like that, if you don't stop to sip your Pacifico often enough." And your sister-in-law gives you that 'You're so funny' thing that doesn't include a laugh, which means something more like 'what the hell, you're weird,' and you realize, you can't just pull a metaphor out of your ass and throw it at the closest person and have them react in satisfactory manner.

Metaphors have to have a context. They have to be a touch stone, or whatever that metaphor is. You can't just throw a headless metaphor out into polite conversation like a Transformer at a zoologist convention. The good ones need some air. They need a person, a tragedy, a sunset color, the taste of a good meal. There's too much going on the world to just say, "dinner was salty." Salty, really? How clever! No, it's gotta be, "dinner made me feel as if I'd been waterboarded with a bucket from the Dead Sea." (I know - simile. Bwah.) So for the sake of all the metaphors, I've decided to find them a home. I'm going to make a place for them, nourish them and let them exist outside my mind. So what if they're a bonafide Literary Technique. So is punctuation. But nothing fancy and obtuse. That would mean I'm actually trying, and shit. Once you start trying, the expectations. Well, that's all. There would be expectations.

My resume needs What Not to Wear.

2009-01-09T12:05:00.001-08:00

See that profile picture over there to the right? That's what you call the bait and switch. Or False Advertising. There aren't a lot of tan, buff people in Missoula these days, unless you head out to the suburbs. The sun must shine out there a lot more than on the crunchy people in my neighborhood. And what do they put in the water out there that makes all their teeth so white? Me and my yellow-toothed, glow-in-the-dark friends
will just go back to our little houses next to noisy rentals and laugh at them and their beautiful bodies. Fuckers.

Anyway, about the bait and switch, so goes my resume. I gotta get a job. My resume is jam-packed with great work history and impressive degrees that are as relevant to my ideal career path as mid-east peace was to George Bush. Well, maybe not that bad (nobody will die or starve from my 1998-2003 employment), but I don't want to be an engineer any more. Ever again. Please, let's not talk about it. The thought of creating a statistical process control spreadsheet makes the bile rise in my throat. What is that? Oh, yes. Hives. I remember now.

So I'm going to add a few creative touches to my work history. I'll give it a little spray-on tan, have it do a couple situps and maybe some squats, and then take it out to the clubs. It'll chat gaily and make witty banter with the guys working on the electrical panel by the beer freezer. It'll look so suave, in its sensible shoes and too-high-waisted pants, I'm sure it will garner interest from all the right people. The club management. And they will ask me to fix their HVAC. I gotta move my resume to the suburbs.

Resolving to suck, somehow.

2009-01-02T11:19:00.000-08:00

The Office was a rerun last night. It was Toby's send-off party and Michael was preparing to conduct Toby's exit interview. When the new HR woman and the receptionist (I clearly don't watch often) joined him, his plan to smear and degrade Toby was foiled. Hilarity ensued.

Michael had prepared a few questions on notecards, which he reluctantly read aloud, in front of the group. First, "Who do you think you are?" read with as little enthusiasm as possible. Toby's response: "Toby." Second, "What gives you the right?" Toby's response: ... Then Toby opened his parting gift, which was a rock that said "Suck on this."

And so today, after 112 hours confined to the house with semi-sick kids and a pre-occupied husband, I was convinced life threw the "Suck on this" rock at my forehead. I'm mad at all of them for the things they do, and as I constructed the elaborate arguments and accusations in my head, I realized it all sounded like Michael, railing against a harmless HR guy. If I were to utter them out loud, they would be as effective and accusatory as Michael's "What gives you the right?" - read in a calm voice, drawing out the 'you,' accent on 'right.' It sounds like nothing, ridiculous tiny fists, flung at a stuffed Curious George.

I've been asked three times in the last week if I'm still writing. If it was you that asked, I lied. I'm not. I've half-finished a couple stories that are not good. I've got four stories I've put in one basket, and they've squashed each other and are beginning to stink like rotten eggs. I'm going through magazines like cheap toilet paper, submitting the same four stories and getting the same four rejections. I shovel the walk twice a day, complaining in my head about the time I had to shovel the walk when I was 6 months pregnant, complaining in my head that I had to put up the Christmas lights, complaining in my head that Kerry didn't cut my bangs quite short enough.

What the fuck, you idiot? What the fuck's wrong with you? Get over it, dumbass, and do something. Tell somebody else to shovel the walk for once and don't care if somebody else gets mad. Get over the Christmas light thing. It's been 12 years and by now what's the big surprise? Bangs? You're shitting me. You're fussing about fucking bangs? You're not writing because of what? That's what I thought - no reason. Life didn't throw you a rock - it threw you a gigantic gift basket from Harry and David, delivered by five hot guys who like to talk about their feelings and pop culture. And it's always your 22nd birthday (the one that's still fun, and you aren't made to drink Cement Mixers or Sex on the Beach until puke comes out your nose), and you won a Major Award that may or may not be a lamp fashioned from a fish-net-stockinged plastic leg. Dude (me), life is starting to get pissed and look around for a rock.

Here's my resolution for '09: What are you waiting for? Suck it up.

The Power of Negative Thinking

2008-12-26T09:42:00.001-08:00

I'm one of those people that sets herself up for disappointment. What's that called? Oh yeah, female. I lie in bed on Christmas Eve, imagining the looks of wonder, joy and happiness of Christmas morning. And then I chastise myself. "Shut up, Mignon. What you imagine is not possible. And if it were possible, you just jinxed it by imagining it." So then I imagine the kids puking in their sleep, the tree bursting into flames, all the stockings falling on the floor, the dog eating all the candy out of them and then dying a tragic death in front of the Christmas tree from chocolate poisoning and smoke inhalation.

Our Christmas was closer to former, with elements of the latter. In the middle of the night Madeleine woke up twice, feverish and sick, and Quinn woke up once coughing and bleeding from both nostrils. When morning finally came, Quinn was up first, disoriented and still sick. We all went in to wake up Madeleine (also disoriented and sick) and then to the living room. Quinn was convinced Santa had mixed up his and Madeleine's stockings (no comment), pulled the first toy he found off the top and hurled it across the room.

So, after the requisite three minutes in his room, a cup of milk and copious threats, the Nice Christmas began. Wonder, joy and happiness. It actually happened. The kids are still sick, but it's that low-grade kind, where they're happy to stay in their pajamas, except when battle gear is required...

I hope yours was what you secretly hoped for, too.

Whassup.

2008-12-19T15:45:00.000-08:00

Wednesday was Madeleine's Christmas show/ Sam's funeral/ Sam's post-funeral potluck - slash - family reunion / Madeleine's 7th birthday party / an unscheduled playdate with the most difficult party guest whose mom was late picking her up at our house after the party and Jim had to carry her upside-down out to her mom's car because the little fuck wouldn't put her stuff on and we were ready to go to bed. And that's pretty much what this month has been like so far.

What do you say when your mouth is full of Safeway cold-cuts and your great-aunt-in-law comes up and gives you a hug, squishing your paper plate loaded with macaroni salad and fudge against your sweater, and says, "How are you doing?" My standard: "Pretty good, considering. How are you?"

I wish you could say "I'm sad, but also pretty stressed and confused about why Catholics sit in a silent room for hours on end with their dead loved ones laid out in front of them until their throat hurts from crying and they get eye infections from the bleeding 3-year-old mascara which has coated their retinas." That's what I'd like to say to one of the 45-or-so aunts/cousins/friends that have hugged me in the last three days. First off, Sam is not my son, so I've grieved mostly for his dad (our really good friend) and Sam's mom (Jim's cousin). I'm really really sad, and that's it. I'm sad. But really? I've got two pretty awesome kids that need a bunch of stuff (including a mom that's not all wigged out and talking about dying and bringing them to wakes to see the corpse of their dead cousin), I've got three birthdays to juggle, I've got other random and asundry holiday preparations to manage. I'm fucking busy, yo.

So that's how I'm doing. If you were wondering.

Finally

2008-12-13T10:23:00.000-08:00

It's here, finally. Like that beer you've waited too long for, after an incredibly bad day. Snow makes cold weather bearable. Until June, and then, holy shit. The second-to-last day of school in 2007 was a snow day. Instead of walking a couple blocks to Dairy Queen for their final field trip, Madeleine's class watched a beat-up copy of Say Anything and drank Goldschlagger straight from the bottle.

The kids are at a birthday party now, and I'm supposed to be doing errands, like buying stamps and getting myself a new hockey puck. In fact, this morning I woke up excited for this purchase. My very first hockey puck. Will it be black? Will I write my name on it? Will I look silly with a brand new puck - should I artfully scuff it? It's so reminiscent of buying my first Trapper Keeper. Or bong. The Trapper Keeper wasn't black, and was a serious disappointment. Whoever invented the shitty plastic that makes up 75% of kids' school paraphanelia must have known it was going to one day poison the earth or at least anyone who breathed in its general vicinity. BPE in school! Don't worry, our product is so crap, it will fall apart and scatter your report on flying squirrels into the Cowlitz River before you can die from BPE cancer!

The bong, on the other hand. I was not a good pot smoker. Did you hear a repetitive thumping sound at about 2 am EST on May 13th, 1992? That was me, kicking a baseball against a 200-year-old wooden door in the dorm room of Saybrook College, while The End played on repeat and my future husband sat on his stanky couch smoking out of a bong fashioned from a 5-gallon water bottle. And that was one of the better sessions. (Hi Mom! Remember when I came home from school in spring of my senior year to interview with a future employer and I had that huge scab on the side of my face? That was the result of a less-good sesh. Sorry. At least you know my hard-earned cash from David's Deli was only going towards legal stuff.) The purchase of that bong was as ill-advised as the Chinese chocolates on sale at Walgreens last summer. But hey! It was buy one tub of Chinese Formula, get a vintage Thomas Train kit free!

So anyway, I shoveled and I chilled, and now off to get those stamps. And pucks. Puck. Do you buy two at a time? So much to learn. Maybe I should google it. Ooh - something tells me this could get me beat up at Stick and Puck, unless I get an elk head pasted on it.

Keeping On

2008-12-11T14:55:00.000-08:00

Thank you all for the kind words and thoughts. We've been doing alright. It seems Jim, Madeleine and I are similar in how we deal with sadness, and we've been brought together by this, for sure. Quinn understands what happened to Sam, but only by definition. I don't think we'll bring the kids to the funeral service. In fact, no we definitely won't. Jim and I agree on that as well. The service is being held at the same time as Madeleine's school Christmas program, and a few hours before her 7th birthday party. It's not that I think or worry that it will disturb her Christmas party, I just think the kids can remember Sam in their own way, without being exposed to heavily grieving adults.

I appreciated Orange's comment to my last post. In the last few weeks, several other middle school-aged kids in our town were hospitalized from choking accidents, so this thing is making the rounds again. Last night, Madeleine wanted to talk about how Sam could've accidentally choked himself, so I explained to her how kids are not very good at foreseeing the outcome of risky behavior. Like how Quinn likes to run through the house with his eyes closed, and repeatedly wang his head on the kitchen door-jam. Like how teenagers drive too fast while talking to friends and fiddling with the radio. Like how Charlie cracked his head open from diving head-first off the school play-structure.

Madeleine wanted me to describe something she does that is risky and potentially dangerous.

I thought for a long time.

"Ummmm.... sometimes you ride your bike too slowly in the alley so that you tip over into the gravel..."

*silence*
*she frowns at me, her mouth scrunched up to one side*

"Is that it?"

"Ummmm... sometimes you climb too slowly and your arms get tired..."

*still frowning*

"So my risky behavior is all stuff that I do too slowly."

"Well, yeah. I guess you're a cautious risk-taker."

"What does that mean?"

"It means Thank God."

Hug the one you're with.

2008-12-06T09:24:00.000-08:00

He died yesterday. Sammy, the kids' cousin, was found with a belt around his neck on Monday night. His brother tried to revive him, and he was able to get his heart beating with CPR, but it was too late, and he died yesterday. He was a great kid, and many of you who know me may have heard me talking about him. He was only 11, but he knew exactly who he was and what he liked and didn't give a shit if anyone thought he was different. Sam's mom gave birth to a baby boy about 10 hours before her son was taken off life support. Impossible - the whole thing is just fucking impossible. For a terrible few days we thought Sam had committed suicide, but now we know he was a victim of self-induced hypocapnia.

We've been keeping the kids as informed as they need to be, and things around here are okay. Any time Jim or I get alone, that's when we're sad, but Madeleine and Quinn are wonderful little people, and my knuckles are sore from knocking on all the wood surfaces in our house.

Hug the one you're with today.

2008-12-02T12:04:00.000-08:00

How you process really terrible bad news.
First you want to call someone. Your mom. Your friend you see every day when you pick your kids up from school.
Then you don't want to. You don't want to talk to anyone about it.
You get angry. Angry at your kids for wanting to set up Christmas decorations. Angry at them for whining.
Then you feel bad about that anger. They're children. They're small and need you.
Angry seems wrong and you feel bad about feeling wrong.
You want to tell them the bad news so that they'll hug you. You want to hug a child, not an adult.
But then you don't want to tell them, either. You will have to later, but not now.
You make them dinner and listen to them make up jokes. You oblige when they want you to make up jokes.
You tell them to eat their oranges and you empty all the garbages in the house.
You let them eat fudgsicles while you do laundry and wash the mirror in the bathroom.
You help them brush their teeth and you clean the bathroom floor while the fiddle with legos and Playmobil.
The phone rings and you drop it, fumble it and lose it under the bathroom sink.
You finally retrieve it, then get more bad news.
You lay next to your baby, letting him rub the crook of your arm while you think of terrible things.
You kiss his eyes and his cheeks when his breath rattles through his stuffy nose.
Then you lay with your daughter while she reads to you.
You kiss her forehead and nose and tell her you love her.
You turn off her lamp and push her hair away from her face.
Then you go out to your husband and stand apart, staring at fixed spots on the floor, the wall, your reflection in the window.
Neither of you know how to soothe the other.
You go up to your bedroom and lay on your side, your arms and legs wrapped around a pillow.
You don't want to hug an adult when you're sad. You want to hug a child.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T09:05:00.000-08:00

Mignon is thankful for: scarves, seat heaters, sharp ice skates, health, good luck, scalding hot food, nice kids, the thing that allows me to play my iPod on the car stereo so that I don't have to listen to Jim's entire collection of live Dave Matthews and Bob Dylan which could take us all the way to Winthrop and back with just Disc 1 of each album. And my friends and family. They're really good too.

Madeleine is thankful for: "Pooey, rings (the playground kind), good people, PollyPockets and Playmobil and Plastics, my family"

Quinn is thankful for: "football, baseball, candy, cows, baby monkeys, beetles, owls, lizards, and I wish I had a flying donkey"

Next Pivotal Video Post

2008-11-20T15:39:00.000-08:00

I'm always going to be someone's little sister.

2008-11-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

I am not willing to go gentle into the night. I won't rage, but I will give getting old the finger.

I will hurl myself around a hockey rink and wear shiny lipgloss. I will pull my giant sweats down to my buttcrack and hunch my shoulders in a huge hoodie. I will say "retarded" and "cocksucker." I will read gossipy websites and text my friends. I will download Kanye and crank Alanis in the "when you fuck her" part. I will neglect thank you notes and RSVPs. I will go to TJ Maxx too often and eat instant cinnamon rolls.

But also I will show my daughter how to do a headstand. I will have a beer with friends on the back deck before a football game. I will join Facebook and reconnect with Fred. I will write funny and sad stories about being poor. I will skip making dinner when Jim's gone and take the kids to get burgers. I will make sand castles and ride water slides. I will watch Youtube videos of Ninja Warriors when I'm home alone. I will fart to make Quinn laugh.

I don't care if I'm young around my eyes and on the backs of my arms. I want to be young when it matters. For me, I guess, it also means being young when I shouldn't.

There's a lot going on here, but I finally get to a point at the end.

2008-11-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

Over 15,000 people have watched a video I posted on Youtube a couple years ago. I also posted here, back then, but I think I may have taken it down, as it embarrassed Madeleine. It's a video of her singing a made-up song in her swimsuit. So last night I checked my Youtube account and found that it had become moderately popular. I had disabled comments and ratings, yet its viewership keeps climbing. Fifteen thousand people? Huh. Who woulda thought?

This is what I imagined for my blog, when I started almost 4 years ago. People would just show up. After two days (yes two days), I had received a couple spam comments, and knew it was time to revisit my business model. Hey look! No advertising budget! So I hit the airwaves, commenting here, there, saying clever things, being brash, clever. All the things that people love in one-line, self-absorbed comments. And then I waited some more. Still no customers at Chez My. I wrote some more. I thought some more about content. Less openingyourmind, more randomfunnytidbitsandlinks. Maybe a comment. Then I just said Fuck It. I gotta go door to door.

And I did. I went to a couple sites and made a couple sincere comments, and then ta-da. They came. Those two. But it was good. I made friends. At that point is wasn't about being all bloggity bloggity famous, it was about making some connections, because I had a teeny tiny baby and a 3-year-old, and I just needed some dialogue. It was great. Perfect. Jim totally didn't get it, the world chuckled at us bloggers and our "friendships" but I was sane and writing. And we appreciated each other, laughed and frowned together. Met each other in real life and hugged and laughed and frowned some more.

Flash forward three years, and I'm still blogging, but less so about the friendships and staying-sane-ships, more about writing, but it's okay. It's evolved. Except my real-life, real-world has hit a funky pot-hole. The kind of pot-hole wherein you actually have to stop the car and get out to make sure all the random pipes and black thingies under your car seems to be in the same intact random order. Looking under my car, I realized my real-life relationships had turned into the "revisiting the advertising budget" period in my blog life. I was being flip, brash and self-absorbed with my friends. I wasn't giving them and their problems the respect they deserved. I was going for the easy laugh, expecting them to not take things to personally, knowing my rapier-sharp wit was winning friends and influencing people.

Only it wasn't. I've been a jackass for the last 6 months. Maybe a year? I don't know what the hell I've been thinking these past several months, but whatever it was, it was clouded by shit, because I've had my head straight up my ass. I'm sorry to my friends and my family. I'm sorry to my husband and kids. I'm sorry to myself. But if we're not recognizing we're making mistakes, we're not getting better, so I've been thinking about that a little bit. Not dwelling on the mistake, so much, but the fix.

I think all this was prompted by a Prop 8 discussion board. Some religious loony couldn't let go of his Christian stranglehold on "truth" and "justice," as defined by his interpretation of the bible. I realized I'm just the type of atheist he was railing against. An individual with no defined and active sense of right and justice. Sure, I know what's right and wrong, but I want to be a woman with a moral compass that is inarguably precise.

If you're not a Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan, or whatever, you better at least live your life like you know what you're doing, or else the Atheist Police will come and peel your Darwin Fish right off the back of your Subaru. I don't have the Fish with Legs, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let them kick me out of the club. I know what's right and wrong, and I don't want to be wrong any more.

Hubba hubba

2008-11-06T10:40:00.000-08:00

Thank you America, for making my newspaper look like this:

From here and here.

And this one. THIS ONE!

From this site, which has made me cry.

I don't know how it's happened, or what exactly is happening, but I feel like it's something big.

Just hang with me for a sec. I got a few things.

2008-11-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

I can't write any more. I've completely lost it. Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah writers' block blah blah blah no inspiration, blah blah. No, it's not that. I just don't want to. I'm just pissed and irritated and hyper-critical and about as productive as Sarah Palin at the U.N. I have a pretty good start and something I like, but the thought of writing from point A to point B makes my brain go..... Just like that. That's what my brain does. I'm living in the space between the words right now. And they're angry crackling spaces.

I hate that Burger King commercial with the two Renaissance Fair guys singing to the ugly 70's guy. I hate it. It makes me angry, it's so repulsive.

I'm tired of submitting work and not hearing for more than 5 months. After that long, you gotta throw me a bone or something. Or a boner. Throw me a boner! That's better than a form letter and a "Sorry for the delay." I'd rather get a boner in the mail.

Madeleine's first grade teacher sucks. There. I said it. Madeleine dropped her head-band on the way out of class yesterday, and when I went back to retrieve it, Mrs. I said, "Oh yeah, I found it." She went back to her desk, reached down and pulled it out of the garbage and handed it to me.

In addition, Madeleine's new best buddy is a twin. He and his brother are not identical and are very different. Yet today, when I went in to help, after two months of teaching both these boys, Mrs. I still has to go back to their desks to read which is which before picking out one of them to do a project with me. The boys are half Filipino, and last week, instead of picking one of the twins, she grabbed an extremely tall Native American kid in the class, and only after he said, "I'm not Ricky," did she realize she had the wrong child.

Dude. She's not good. And her class smells like cheap candles, and the windows are open all the time, because, as she tells me often, she has frequent hot flashes. Dude. It's like 22 fucking degrees outside!

Also? This guy I went to high school with who friended me on Facebook is a serious asswipe. That's all the space he deserves. Can I un-friend him? He's probably everything I dislike in the male gender. And I think he whitens his teeth.

More? Okay.
Red wine is making me not sleep at night and have perverted dreams about inappropriate people. I'm constantly walking around tired and freaked out by what I did last night with the 80-year-old crossing guard.

How many times is it acceptable to ask one's spouse to not use my towel/toothpaste/deodorant/drink all the fizzy water? I have hiding spots for each of these. I feel like every day is an exercise in espionage as I eat breakfast and clean myself.

Why is my hair still falling out in spurts and shoots? The dog and I are battling to see who can carpet the dining room the fastest. He's got a slight advantage on volume, but I'm making it shag, baby.

Inhale, exhale, vote.

Treacherous.

2008-11-02T16:56:00.000-08:00

Madeleine was punched in the face two weeks ago by another first grader. He hit her so hard her cheek swelled up and left a black and blue reminder for a week. She and Sean were playing some kind of aggressive chase game, which of course doesn't excuse his behavior, but explains where it came from, I guess. And when I say I'm explaining why he punched my little girl in the face, that is the nicest thing I can possibly come up with about the incident. I was ready to punch him in the face. I mean, fists flexed, jaw tight, lips pinched, ready. His blue eyes were big and he was talking talking talking about what happened, why he did it, what she did to him, etc etc etc, but I only remember her hand to her cheek, her face pressed into my stomach, my fists balled up, and, afterwards, carrying her the two blocks home. Trying to figure out why somebody would do that.

And then last week something worse happened. Her good friend was a snot and told Madeleine she was a baby during a playdate at the girl's house. I didn't know until the next day, because we had a busy evening, but the next day, when Madeleine asked her, point blank, why she didn't want to play with her any more, I could see her roll her eyes from across the playground and walk across the top of the play structure to another friend and whisper something in her ear. The other girl looked at Madeleine and they turned their backs on her. That girl, that scene. It was so much worse.

In fact, we're pretty much over the Sean thing. His mom called and was mortified and told me all the punishment he'd received (somebody else had told her what happened at the park). He's an okay kid, but clearly has some impulse control issues, and now we know.

But this other girl? I'm not a saint. Or maybe even a really nice person, because I never want to talk to her again and want terrible things to befall her. Things that don't cause bodily harm, but something really bad, nonetheless. I hope the back of her pants tear apart in the middle of a school assembly. I hope she barfs in front of a crowded lunchroom. I hope she's dumb. Do you have to take the high road when it comes to 6-year-olds?

It took me a long time to remember ellipsis.

2008-10-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I got pretty loaded at the UofM football game, and I just now remembered that I showed off to my in-laws and Jim's 50-year-old cousin and various acquaintances by stuffing an entire can of Bud Lite in my mouth. No, I'm not a reptile, it was one of those Red Bull-sized cans, but still. I distinctly remember my father-in-law saying, "You're a lucky guy, Jim," and everyone kind of snorting. But in hindsight, they weren't snorting at the obvious innuendo, more at the fact that Jim's drunk wife was stuffing a beer can in her mouth as a clever party trick. Now I'm not so much embarrassed as, how would I put it? Umm. Oh, I know.

I remember one night in college after partying until Dem's closed, we stood out in front of the bar, wolfing down our enormous slices of pizza, and I noticed a girl walking towards us. She was coming from the direction of her dorm, and she was holding a leash attached to a tiny ratty-furred dog. The little rat dog looked just as dour and undernourished as its owner, and I'm sure I nudged Janet and pointed as the girl came toward us, pointedly ignoring our snickering and drunken swaying. Then, just as she reached us, and the scattered clusters of drunks all took notice of the ugly little dog and the angry sober girl, the dog decided to squat and take a crap. In the angry girl's concerted effort to ignore us, it didn't register that her 10 ounce rat-dog was pulling against the leash, so she continued on, until the laughter of the crowd made her finally turn around to see what was so goddamn funny. Well, her rat-dog had been crapping across the entire sidewalk in front of the bar, leaving a trail of rat-dog pellets, so the effect was this:
Ugly Angry Girl - Long leash - Ugly Angry Rat-Dog . . . . . . .

I think I feel like that girl, the moment she noticed the shit-ellipsis. Is there a word for that?

VLog: The Return and The Finale

2008-10-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

Failed experiment. I'm not sure why I thought that would be so cool. I started in on my own personal video log complete with commentary on music, winter hair-loss, and my neighbor's car accident, and lo it was all junk. Me talking, looking washed out and as if I were retaining water in my 11th month of pregnancy, not what I had in mind. Here's a portion of the transcript:

[clears throat and tosses hair]

[tosses hair again because first hair toss resulted in all hair hanging in front of her face]

Mignon: [In sotto voce, as a result of the 16-day cold] Here we are, at home.

Audience Thought: Well, thank you for that. Your couch and pajama-clad children led me to believe you were in a subway.

[clears throat again, this time catching hold of something, ruminating on it for a moment, then swallowing - grimacing at her mirrored-self swallowing something she just coughed up]

Mignon: The kids don't have school today, so I didn't get to do... [looks skyward, trying to recall if there is anything noteworthy to have skipped out on] ... anything.

Quinn [stage left, in his fake-baby voice that actually sounds just like his real voice, except he talks with his tongue stuck out to his chin]: MOMMY I WANT TO TALK YET ME DO IT BYAH BYAH BYAH YOOK I'M A BABY YET ME-

Mignon [motioning for the child to go away, then, when motions are ignored, shoves him off the back of the couch]: So I wanted to talk about the car accident my neighbor got in yesterday. [stops to think, Why am I talking about this? What can I make up about this event so that it is worthy of describing out loud - Ooooh, let's say - oh wait, I'm still here in front of the camera not saying anything!] It was a bad one and-

Audience Thought: Oh crap. I didn't sign on for this. Is my coffee still hot? Shit. I hate reheating coffee. [leaves to reheat already-reheated coffee, returns with hot stale coffee and a piece of toast]

Mignon [tossing hair, then uses both hands to smear it back behind ears]: -and so it really made me contemplate the defendant side of the aisle.

Audience Thought: Phew. Dodged a bullet there.

Mignon [leans forward to fiddle with iTunes, putting on something super-trendy, tries to sing along, then erupts in a coughing fit while attempting to ska]: HACK HACK HACK

Madeleine [enters from stage right, by hurdling over the side of the couch onto the laptop in Mignon's lap]: MOMMMYYYY, I want to be a-

*screen goes black*

Audience Thought: zzzzzZZZ*snort*KNXX Crap. My coffee's cold again.

Well that was a blockbuster.

2008-10-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to do a video blog for a while now. At least 35 minutes. But I couldn't wait for the kids to get occupied by Playmobil and fighting, so here's my cherry-popper. I'll do one later wherein I'm not wedged into my chair with children and actually have some coherent commentary. On books, music and passive aggressive behavior.

Here's the appetizer...

Wherein I ramble on about stuff with respect to smartness and junk.

2008-10-07T12:57:00.000-07:00

I'm not feeling particularly charitable towards the disadvantaged these days. Not poor or handicapped or minorities. We're good. Me and poor, handicapped minorities. I mean ignorant people. People that parrot talk radio, people that speed on my 25 mph street, people that pick up something from the produce department that they later decide against buying and leave it on the shelf in the bakery. Lazy people. Inconsiderate people. I'm not forgiving and I swear at them. I shake my virtual fist at them. If I had their audience, I would say, "You. You're fired. Pick up your things and go elsewhere and don't bother asking for a reference."

Mostly because of the election. I just can't abide by the uninformed lazy voter. Sure, disagree with me, but don't rely on the hackneyed lies and innuendo you read on your mechanic's blog.

Last night Jim and I were discussing stupidity (i.e. ignorant, uninformed, carelessness). I said, "What if you were wrongly accused of some kind of complicated crime. Bank fraud or patent infringement on a registered process, and you had to pick 12 peers that would judge you based on technical and complicated evidence. And also you were a racial minority. Or poor, or super rich, but still innocent. Where do you wish you were? What pool of people would you feel most comfortable judging your innocence or guilt in the face of mind-boggling evidence? We decided New York. Both of us. So I guess I'm saying stupidity, as defined earlier, tends to be a result of a sheltered existence, where you get your news from the radio or from your uncle the tire shop owner. To be smart, you need to have experienced... stuff. Right. Stuff, you know?

Little help here, people?

2008-09-29T20:33:00.001-07:00

Does anyone know what this bailout is going to do for us? Main Street vs Wall Street, as they say?
An article, an opinion piece for laypeople, anything that can shed some light?
I don't like feeling dumb, and this makes me feel dumb as shit.

Fall-ing

2008-09-22T15:36:00.001-07:00

We were in Pendleton a couple weekends back for the Round-Up (of which I have spoken in the past), and I just finally got over the alcoholic malaise that lingers for many days afterwards (this lingering period that grows exponentially with each year). Highlights this year include: everything. It was all great, even the part where Jim rolled around in our pop-up camper for 13 hours going oohhh ohhh, aaaa, I'm so sick, do I look sick, I must have caught Madeleine's bug, ohhh, honeyyyyy. Really? Since when does Madeleine drink beer all day in the hot sun then slow down in the evening with several shots of Beam? As I recall, she's more of a wine drinker... All I can say is this: it wasn't me. If it were me, the depletion of the National Guard would have been a (more) serious issue, as my stomach illnesses reach FEMA proportions.

Damon and Tobin each took home a medal in the Wild Cow Milking Extravaganza. One medal, awarded by the Pendleton Round-Up and another extra-special honorary recognition by PETA. Apparently Pamela Anderson isn't down with the choking of lactating cows. I bet Tommy Lee is, though. I bet he's down with anything that has tits. Teets, technically, but I don't think Tommy Lee can spell.

Now fall has hit, Jim is following horny elk in the woods somewhere east of here and I'm trying to stretch a pack of hot dogs and a box of Honey Bunches of Oats for four days worth of dinner. So far so good, but tonight will be the real test. No milk and no ketchup. Hm, I'm thinking of a little favorite I call Honey Bunches of buttered hot dog surprise. With applesauce!

The Perks

2008-09-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

I volunteered to be co-chair of the board of directors for Quinn's preschool for this and next year. I'm not much of a volunteer, you might say. I mean, I'll do it, but everyone better sit up and take notice and give me cool stuff. Yes, I'm an asshole in that way. Last year a group of parents bought me a nice hanging plant for coaching Madeleine's soccer team. That's what I'm talking about.

This preschool thing sucks though. No gifts, the other parents don't care, no free cookies at our monthly meetings. Why do people do this? The teachers see us as a necessary evil, but balk at any changes we propose, such as the suggestion that we offer an after-school Spanish class - Oh MY WORD NO! they say. That will surely make all the kids retarded! I mean DELAYED - what the hell do we say now? I forget - is it delayed? That can't be right, because sometimes they don't catch up. Anyway, the Spanish thing wasn't well-received.

So we meet once a month and discuss what color the t-shirts should be, what date we should take class pictures, what color play-do is the best, whether we should purchase a Swiffer for the 3/4 classroom. Oh my goddamn hell. It blows.

But yesterday, I finally got my gift. One of the teachers called and left me a message that in her 3/4 class, a pair of twins were having difficulties adjusting to school. Specifically, they both shit their pants. She was pretty reasonable, and thought it had to do with the excitement of their first day, lack of familiarity with the bathroom facilities, um, some other excuse that I ignored. But she did point out that both kids crapped in a strangely deliberate and defiant manner. Aggressive shitters! Anyway, my response?

"Well [teacher's name], since I'm the official Voice of the Board, I say two craps and your out."

I got to be The Voice of the Board! I got to be the person that says, "Sorry, as much as we enjoy your children when they don't smell, their behavior is detracting from the abilities of the teacher to teach, and the rest of the class to learn." So I'm still the asshole, but I'm also the asshole that gets to tell a parent (this parent in particular, who noted on her registration that they have a 'very unstructured' household to allow their children to be free-thinkers), that her method of parenting sucks. In not so many words, I get to say, "Remember when [teacher's name] asked us as a group if we were okay with the fact that she will keep our kids inside during recess if they repeatedly exhibit disruptive behavior in class and you were the lone parents to say, 'No, that won't work for our twins. They need to express themselves physically or they get stifled creatively.' Well that line of thinking, interestingly enough, will require you to keep your free spirited shitters at home for a few more years so that the rest of our children don't get Rotovirus." I get to be that person. I am so very down with that. If only I could volunteer to be the Co-Chair of The World.

There's a reason I've forgotten about the whole thing already...

2008-08-31T18:52:00.000-07:00

I'm over it. For all the good reasons, not the least of which is my best friend Janet who totally got the whole thing when I called her crying and she was supportive and funny and rightfully indignant. If I could wish one thing for my kids right now, it would be to have a best friend like her. Well, but that would be a wasted wish if they were injured in a go-kart accident and then forced to be homeless because they let their insurance lapse while they were trying to afford speech therapy for their children with cleft pallets. Then they'd need more than Janet. Sorry Janet.

But I also just realized why I forgot the whole incident so easily.

This evening we had a date night planned, which was to include a little tennis and a little dinner, but it was pouring. We stood on the deck in our tennis clothes, arms akimbo, trying to convince ourselves that it was just a drizzle, but when my teeth started to chatter and rain dripped off my nose into my cleavage, we finally gave up and went straight to dinner. At 4:00. Nothing was open on Sunday afternoon except the restaurant attached to the Doubletree. It was Jim and me and a few 90-year-olds celebrating their survival of another day. Jim and I spent the better part of the hour trying to remember the name of the girlfriend of a friend's son. And then I gave the waiter a credit card that had expired last year, and we brought home three enormous boxes of food. Jim is downstairs right now watching a PBS telethon, I'm peaking through the blinds watching the neighbors argue in their backyard, tomorrow our AARP cards come and I'll start washing and reusing Ziploc bags. Time to go take my pills...

My So-Called Life

2008-08-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

Someone told me to Fuck Off yesterday, and not the kind of Fuck Off you say when someone tells you an incredible story (as in, "And then the hot cop let me go with a WARNING!" "Fuck Off! He did NOT!! You are soo lucky!") The kind of Fuck Off wherein the person is completely pissed at me and ready to end any relationship we may have had. Or not. I mean, she might not have meant it. It might have been a joke. Isn't that so funny? Ha ha, such a funny joke. So I have to call her tonight to clarify, and how excited am I about that? So much. So excited to confront someone who told me to fuck off and to tell that person that they made me cry. And then call the three other people that were in the car with her at the time she left me a message. To clarify that when you tell someone to fuck off it's hurtful and not funny.

At least in high school you could go home and cry and daydream about Charlie Sheen and how life was going to be so much better when you were an adult (married to Charlie Sheen) and people weren't cruel.

Update:
So apparently the woman who made the comment had the impression that the group of people I was with were being clique-y. We weren't. She also had the impression we were talking about them in a derogatory way. We weren't. So her Fuck Off was in defense of others. I, in a round-about way, respect that. She had their back. She and I have made up, and I've done my best to convince her that what she and the others were seeing as slights were not. I don't know if I was successful, and I don't know how I'll ever tell.

Updated again:
I took out a bit of melodrama. See the thing is, not everyone is me. If someone makes fun of me, I laugh if it's funny, if it's not, I say "hey, that's not funny." If I tease someone, they may laugh whether it's funny or not. I have no way of knowing. Apparently I teased a friend, a woman I like very much, and she didn't think it was funny, but waited 6 months and a big Fuck Off to let me know. So now I know how it feels to be a guy. Women are mysterious and strange creatures. There should be a manual.

When the Olympics are on...

2008-08-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

Blogging Olympics style here. I already got all chill-bumped from Tom Brokaw's (wait, must interrupt - are our world-class athletes wearing golf hats?? what the hell are those? Kobe and LeBron and Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh - they look like Jiffy Lubers). Okay, so anyway, Tom was spelling out the drama of the Olympics in China, what with the death toll from the earthquake, human rights violations, suppressed protests, and I got all chilly. First of many moments I'm sure, for the next 17 days.

Jim and I were discussing our mutual potential for Olympic stardom. See, back in the day he was a stud wrestler. Yeah, I recoiled a little too, in the beginning, what with the leotards and cauliflower ear and all, but there are few, if any, sports requiring that level of bad-assness. They starve themselves, sweat themselves dry, grapple for hours on end (when a normal individual would peter out after three minutes - no shit, three minutes is the most pretty much anyone can take), and do it all with strange illnesses and neck and back injuries. Tough. Weird, yeah, but tougher than leather gum.

That said, Jim is no Olympic wrestler, even given the perfect storm (which in our conversation means unbending desire to be the best, fully-funded by some non-creepy benefactor, and given the best coaches), it wouldn't happen. He doesn't have that level of athleticism for that sport. But I believe he could be a world-class athlete. I do. My 5'9" 185 lb, 35-year-old retail management husband could be in the Olympics. We discussed baseball, soccer, tennis. No. Maybe badminton, ping-pong or rowing? Maybe. Possibly any of those. Or something else entirely, possibly. No, Probably!

And I stood there on the front porch, still holding the bag of chips and dip I'd picked up at the corner store, watching him. He continued watering the hosta and ferns on the side of the house. A neighbor started up a lawn mower and another neighbor reached over our back fence to pet Ali. And Jim and I shared a moment, imagining him walking into the arena with Dara Torres and Serena Williams. In my mind, it had happened. Jim was an Olympian. Or I was. Or Quinn was or Madeleine was or Peggy, back there petting Ali over the fence, was. Because for me, when the Olympics are on, disbelief and doubt are suspended. When the Olympics are on, I dream every night of what I could be or even if I were average, but still in the starting blocks next to Allyson Felix. For me, when the Olympics are on the fantastic seems possible. Probable. And I smiled and nodded to myself.

Damn. What in the world is cooler than the Olympics. What?

It seemed like a big deal when I started the post 10 minutes ago, but now I'm having second thoughts.

2008-07-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

Woot. We won again. Me and me mates destroyed all the other bored housewives of Montana and are going to Salt Lake City for the regional team tennis championships. I won't fill you in on the details, because they're boring. I mean really, really. I got another cups, though. See...

It should be full of Makers Mark - I need some o' dat. But if Ifs and Buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry christmas.
My psych song for the weekend? This little slice of genius.

Edited to Add: My kids are not impressed by the cup. Why not? What is so terribly underwhelming about a cheap tumbler, tell me! If it were my mom, I tell you. I mean it, yessir. I'd be super whelmed. Full of whelm. Whelmful. About a cheap tumbler full of water. You could knock me over with a feather if my mom showed me a glass of water that someone had just give her FOR FREE!

Also, I'm a Leo, and I believe this means my birthday is in August. Also it means I like it when people take note of me. I hope this explains why today, in a short tennis skirt, I climbed a 12 foot chain link fence to unhook a US Tennis Association banner for our team to pose with for our team picture. Leo = climbing fences in front of people. I read that somewhere. But seriously, we all had some boob sweat going, as I was explaining to myself as I was hauling my ass up that fence. I was doing it for the boob sweat.

My first and last post about Richard Dreyfuss.

2008-07-19T12:47:00.000-07:00

Golly I've got a short fuse. I had a dream that a Danish guy told me I made him feel small. Like Richard Dreyfuss. So my temper is thusly small like Richard Dreyfuss. Once I lied to a group of new coworkers about my role in Mr. Holland's Opus. Meaning, I said I had a role. Because I wanted them to like me. Or no, I actually just wanted to take part in the conversation. Whatever the motivation, right? Because I lied about being an extra in a shitty movie starring Richard Dreyfuss. That was a low point. Small and low. But today, yelling at the kids because they were making silly echo noises in the bathroom at a coffee shop downtown - that was pretty low too. Equally Richard Dreyfuss-y.

Jim and I won the mixed doubles and my friend Suzy and I won the women's doubles final at the Western Montana Open. I got a pint glass and Jim got a bj. Ha ha. Just kidding mom and brothers and close friends that see me often! Also, I totally got duped yesterday by the hunky, balding gymnastics coach and I wrote a big-ass check for the kids to go to gymnastics camp next week. Because he asked me if I was a gymnast. I demurred and then showed off on the rings. Today I can't raise my arms above my head and I'm checking to see how soon that check's gonna bounce. Boing boing. Checks on Trampolines. That's the song of the day.

Except it's not really the song of the day, because instead I'm listening to 27 Jennifers. And Chaiyya Chaiyya. Lawn mowing, you know, really takes me back to my Bollywood roots.

Because dancing naked in your underwear is for Scientologists.

2008-07-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

The kids are at pre-school summer camp today. Madeleine went with Quinn to introduce him to the staff and go over the syllabus. According to her. I believe it had something to do with it being Ride the Trolley Downtown to the Carousel Wednesday. So shit. I came home from tennis and the house was empty and so I ate all the leftover pancakes. Things to do when you're home alone: eat cold dank baked goods - check; sit on the toilet for a long ass time reading the comics - check; finish a cup of coffee while it's still warm - check; clean, pay bills, finish editing story, read intelligent websites about deforestation - hell to the no.

Now I'm sitting on the front porch watching the garbage guys and my 70-year-old lesbian neighbor talk about her pet pigeon. Which is why we don't live in the suburbs anymore. We've got a middle-aged couple living across the street who keep to themselves. Which is my way of saying they're virtually mute. I say hi, she says meep. I say How ya doin Tom, he says half smile, half shrug. It's all right. Not everyone runs off at the mouth like mi when confronted with new social situations. Jim and I had a discussion about how we would behave on Letterman (after watching Julia Roberts totally bomb and make Dave ask her stupid questions about her hair). Jim said he would answer in grunts and shrugs. Hm, that's so surprising. I would tell embarrassing, revealing stories in quick succession, so that during commercial breaks Dave would wander off-stage to talk to Paul while I tried to collect the dirty laundry I'd scattered about.

And there you go. Time for lunch. Oh yeah, peanut butter and jelly crusts, I hear ya. Come to mama.

Jim, this post is not about you. Someone else named Jim. Someone else entirely.

2008-06-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

I'm really not supposed to be saying this, but come on. It's just too easy.

Jim just got his nutsack stuck in his beard trimmer.

Commence sympathetic painful histrionics.

Good Times

2008-05-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

I'm playing in a tennis tournament tomorrow, perhaps. It's been raining steadily for the past couple days, and will likely continue through my 9 am match. Which means it will be rescheduled and I will sit on the couch eating the kids' leftover chocolate chip pancakes and reading the comics. Which, hello? Saturday? I love you. Even you, boring afternoon hours, where the kids fight and I'm sick of all the CDs in our 300-disc changer. I even have a little crush on you.

Today I got a rejection e-mail. Nothing unusual there, except for it coming 9 DAYS AFTER MY SUBMISSION. So I guess they didn't like my name and address? Hmmm, Mignon. Sounds like a bitch. And what the hell? She lives on a street?? Fucking loser! REJECTED! That's how I imagine it goes at literary magazine these days. A bunch of former homecoming queen runner-ups at a lunch table picking through the literary offerings of the Latin Club. It makes me feel better, anyway. Because I know what the homecoming queen runner-ups thought of me. They thought I was a foreign exchange student, that's what. And no, in Kelso, Washington, that doesn't get you any play. It gets you the opposite of play. Friday nights playing Yahtzee with your 8-year-old brother. That's the opposite of play. Oh, and you lose, too. And you never get any Yahtzees or the fucking large straight, which is the biggest pain-in-the-ass category. Which is why tonight, in remembrance, we played a little Yahtzee. And I still didn't get Yahtzee or the Fucking Large Straight, but I still kicked Madeleine's ass. Ha ha! Take that crappy Texas State MFA Literary Magazine! Texas. Snort. Whatever. Huh.

Here's the fruits of our spring labor (all safe-for-work, in case that sounded overly intriguing):

The good ole concoction

2008-05-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

Have you been celebrating? I have. I love Passive Aggressive Day! Wading through our overflowing laundry basket to only wash my clothes, putting dirty wine glasses back in the cupboard, covering up the dried remnants of doggie diarrhea (contracted from eating bones which someone gave him even though someone totally knew that bones make the dog shit like a squirt gun) with someone's comfy sweatshirt. But wait, there's more. Why celebrate with just one member of the family? Madeleine's fancy dress (which has its own spot in the only closet in our house) stuffed under her bed with all those other dress-up crappy clothes I find everywhere, Quinn's 4 bags of art projects (read: cut up sections of coupon circulars, dried glue sticks and lots and lots of really really bad kid art) hidden in the closet behind the vacuum, and a huge handful of molted bird feathers collected from all corners of the kitchen dumped ceremoniously back into the cage, on top of the birds.

What are the other options?
-Nagging? Lovely.
-Empty threats? Been there. The fancy dress should've been cut into pieces/given to Goodwill/used to clean up dog diarrhea/thrown in the trash four or five times by now.
-Asking politely? Only on crappy cartoons where the kids always learn their lesson and apologize to their friends for being disrespectful (coughcoughCLIFFORDcoughcough - suckiest cartoon ever and I hate Jetta and her asshole dog Mack - they should not be forgiven and neither should have any friends - especially not by TBone who always gets screwed somehow).
-Reward system? The reason there are enough art supplies to fill four enormous canvas library book bags in the first place.

Nope. Passive Aggressive is the most consistent and satisfying system in relationships and parenting. Next up, Guilt Trips! Wheeee!

And some other stuff:

Here's how Madeleine looks while playing Marble Quest:

Here's how Madeleine looks when I ask her to smile while playing Marble Quest, proving that video games kill brain cells (and possibly cause facial tics and/or loss of teeth):

And yeah, this is what Jim was doing all day while I was throwing his clothes on top of dog crap:

And also this:

From the beginning of time I have called underwear Panties and diapers Didey-pants. Is it such a bad thing for a little boy to tell grown-ups that he's a big boy and he wears Panties? Good. I didn't think so.

About the kid.

2008-04-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

Me: Hey, what're you doing in there? It's time for lunch.
Pooey (fiddling with some paper in the other room): Just a minute. I'm shooting animals with nails.
Me: Okay. Take your time.
Pooey (handing me a crumpled section of a Target ad): Okay. I'm done now. Will you hold my nail gun?

...

(Pooey, pulling his arm back, as if to strike his mom with a dirty dust pan)
Mom: Don't even think about hitting me with that.
Pooey (pausing, scowling): I AM thinking about it.
(Nods his head, looks satisfied. Yes. He thought about it. That will certainly teach her.)

...

(Walking home from dropping Madeleine off at school, Mom and Pooey are hit by the unmistakable scent of garlicky chicken frying at El Diablo down the block.)
Pooey: Ew Mommy! Something mells disgusting and delicious!

One for the kids.

2008-04-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

Winter. I warned you.

Fuck it all to hell, it's snowing again, and I just wasted my 2 hour babysitter time submitting four stories to a contest, wherein afterwards I realized all my stories were too long for their ridiculously short guidelines. Four stories, times 10 bucks each. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. And fuck you too winter. You suck.

Updated to Add: Shit. I just submitted another story to a journal, with the name of the wrong journal in the file name. Fuck shit. Bastard cocksucker. Someone throw me a bone here.

Winter

2008-03-28T10:16:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. Winter gets around. He's a man-slut, but I'm worried a little. I warned him. It's over between us, I said. I'm just not in that place anymore, I told him, faking tears. But he hasn't gotten the hint, and now I'm considering a restraining order.

I had a stalker in high school. Corey. He was in my electronics class. He was a geeky, baritone-voiced sophomore. He dropped a pencil in class once, and the asshole behind me kicked it to his buddy, who stomped on it with his steel-toed boots. I turned around and told the steel-toed kid that he was an asshole, and gave Corey one of my pencils. And a stalker was born.

He had a sweet Barracuda, black and chrome, with black leather interior, and he'd drive up and down my cul-de-sac, hardly inconspicuous amongst the Tauruses and Civics. He was like a pet, an entourage and fan club, all rolled up into one skinny white kid. Well things got ugly - not with him, his actions were limited to driving and pretending to not be watching me - but with me and a friend, trying to get him to leave me along. It was a half-hearted attempt, because in Kelso in late spring, there's not much else to do, and watching a Barracuda drive up and down your cul-de-sac is high entertainment.

But the bad part. My parents were (rightfully) disturbed by the Barracuda, and he was warned to stay away. Which he did. He wasn't a bad kid, but a year later I heard from a friend that he started following another girl, and when he was warned again he drove that pretty Barracuda through a plate-glass window in downtown Longview. Then he ended up in a psych ward. I'd do it again - stick up for him, give him a pencil. But as an adult, I also have to shoulder some of the responsibility for his downturn. Sure, he was a screwed up kid, but I wasn't, and today I'm sorry about it, for my lack of compassion.

So this winter has been reminding me of Corey.

Babysitting, part Never

2008-03-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

I can't do it. I've composed the remainder of the story in my head many times. I've fictionalized it, I've embellished it, stripped it down, beat it up, cut it into little chunks, stuck it in the freezer, took it out, thawed it, and then beat the shit out of it again. And it's still just too damn depressing. Well, here: the boy was neglected, emotionally and physically, the father was strange and lonely, and after weeks of doing their laundry and washing their toilets and playing an ineffective mother substitute to Jason, I quit. I think it was the day the washing machine exploded all over the garage, my mom came over to help me clean up the mess, saw the depressing and forlorn state of affairs and gave me the okay to quit. So I did. I quit. And now, perhaps because my daughter is approaching Jason's age, and a sad, blond little boy in her school is giving me a daily reminder of Jason, I resurrected him. I want to think positive, dude. Imagine that his mom remembered her responsibilities, perhaps he went to a caring and nurturing afterschool program, maybe his dad remarried. Probably not. He probably never got a nice note home from his teacher, prompting his dad to hug him and take him out for ice cream. Was I just lucky?

Today Quinn was feeling peckish. His cold was getting him down and he didn't want to be shopping for new ski pants with me. I distracted him with a fancy pair of goggles, and he fell asleep in the hot car on the way home. He napped for two hours on the couch in his snow boots and goggles, and didn't even stir when I picked him up to go get Madeleine . I carried him the few blocks to school, and Sonny, the crossing guard, nodded and smiled at me. Quinn and Sonny usually have a little conversation about what they ate for lunch or elk hunting, and Sonny nodded at him quizzically. Misunderstanding his expression, I said, "Yeah, I know. It's strange to see him quiet."
He's hard of hearing, and continued to peek in at Quinn, who was still wearing his new goggles. "It's good for us to see this, you know."
I had no idea what he meant, to be honest. He saw me frown, and said, "Men, you know. We don't understand how hard it is to be a mother, most of the time. Like this here. It's not like you can just up and go wherever you want."
And then another group of kids came, and Sonny walked out into the street with his giant stop sign.

I didn't really mean to infer some sort of condemnation on the mother in the story of Jason, because clearly both parents were responsible for his well-being. I guess, more than anything, Sonny's comment was at least a validation of my own efforts. Perhaps that's the only thing I can take away from Babysitting Jason. I just won't make the same awful mistakes.

So it's not luck, then, is it? There's no Ooops! I raised my kids awful! Ironically, it's a concerted and exhausting effort by one or more parents that makes happy adults think back and say, "Wow, I was a lucky kid."

Memoirs of a babysitter. Part I

2008-02-28T12:23:00.000-08:00

I lost my first tooth in first grade – my teacher pulled it and sent me home with the little white nugget taped to a note. She put the note in an envelope in my backpack and told me to give it to my mom. I thought I was in trouble. Something about her fingers pinching and tugging at my loose baby tooth felt odd, and I was sure she’d been angry about the inconvenience and the blood. Turns out she wasn’t. The note was addressed to the tooth fairy, and relayed to her how well I was doing in school and what a pleasure I was to have in class. My mom smiled and hugged me and she and my brothers and I got on our bicycles after dinner and rode to the neighborhood ice cream store for a treat. I was proud, my mom was proud, my two big brothers were probably proud.

So that’s how you made a kid feel good, I decided at six. You pull their tooth and write nice things about them in a note to the tooth fairy. Simple stuff, really. It should be simple, making a kid happy.

Ten years later, a colleague of my dad’s was going through a divorce. His wife, a cold and busy therapist, and he, a withdrawn and awkward civil engineer, had decided just a few years prior to adopt a young boy. As I recall, the woman was actually a child psychologist, and the young boy they brought home was clearly troubled. A seemingly perfect fit for their quiet, intelligent house. Her training and his awkward compassion could help this kid. We lived down the street from them at the time, and I remember when he was new in the neighborhood. He didn’t play well with the other children, and he was often sent home for being to rough or downright violent. The boy, Jason, was disturbed and angry, even at four.

Three years after he’d been adopted, in the midst of the divorce the man hired me to help care for and tutor Jason after school. I was to pick him up from school, 2nd grade – the same as my little brother, walk him home, fix him a snack, and review his school work with him.

But there was more than that. When the woman left (for another man, I think), she took most of the furniture and housewares. Jason stayed mostly with his dad, so in the last few years I’ve realized that she probably didn’t take his toys, and that perhaps he never really had any to begin with. The house was a cheaply made ranch home, straight out of the early 80s. Orange glass in the door and light fixtures, rust-colored carpet, stain-glass patterned linoleum everywhere. With the majority of the furniture gone, it felt like I was walking through a house in the midst of a move. Living room, empty. Spare room, empty. Beds and side dressers, a cheap dining room table, a washer and dryer – that was about it.

I should say here, I grew up in the generation of young women that really knew how to babysit. We didn’t need CPR classes or babysitting certifications from the YMCA – we had task-minded parents and heavy sibling-care responsibilities. My mom was single with my older brothers and me for many years, and I knew what it meant to her to come home to a clean house and fed children. That’s what women of my age know about babysitting. You cleaned all the dishes, tidied up the kid’s room, read stories, played games, made dinner, cleaned up after yourself. If something looked like it needed to be done, you did it.

At Jason and his lonely dad's house, everything needed to be done. Life needed to be done. I was getting paid six dollars an hour to do it.

The Start of My First Book

2008-02-17T09:46:00.000-08:00

When we were kids my second-oldest brother was secretly caching information that would someday allow him to rule the world. He read and pondered like a fiend, sitting by himself on his top-bunk, thinking for hours and scheming about the information he had collected. His primary source? The Book of Lists.

A sample:
Famous people who died during sex
Breeds of dogs which bite people the most, and the least
Ten outrageous song titles (including, It's Hard to Say I Love You When You're Sitting on My Face)

Lately I've been having trouble sleeping, and my old stand-by fantasies aren't doing it for me any more (it's hard to imagine yourself preparing for the Olympics when you've got The Gout), so I've been coming up with lists. Here are a few, in order. Ha ha, what order? Just order.

Top Three Girl-Crushes
Marion Jones
Norah Jones
Julie Foudy

Four Things I Would Do More Often if They Weren't Socially Unacceptable/Disgusting/Embarrassing
Smoke
Go Topless
Pee Wherever
Photograph Funning-looking People

Three Things I'd Like to Eat/Drink Any Time of the Day, Even if I Were Really Full
A tiny foil-wrapped Reeses Peanut Butter Cup
A glass of cranberry juice with lots of ice
A corn chip expertly stacked with a little taco meat, a little cheese, one tiny wedge of tomato and a dollop of sour cream

Two Movies I Could Watch Beginning to End on Repeat all day long
Hoosiers
The Black Stallion

Three Things that Bothered Me A Lot This Morning
Dog hair stuck to my bathrobe
Boring letters to the editor in the newspaper
Getting comfortable snuggling with a little naked Pooey and realizing his butt stank

Two Things I Wish Were Done that Aren't Really that Hard to Do but I Just Don't Want to Do Them Right Now
Emptying the dishwasher
Giving Pooey a bath

Three Passive-Aggressive Things I Do that I'm Not Really that Ashamed About
Throwing Jim's shit-pile of clothes in the back of his closet where he can't find them and then pretending I don't know where any of his climbing stuff or jeans could be
Putting dirty wine glasses back in the cupboard that I find next to our bed
Parking my car in front of our house instead of in the driveway so that our neighbor can't park right in front of our house

Four Things People Said to Me in the Past Week that I Know Aren't True
That looks really cute on you
You'll like it - it's full of tomatoes
You're mean
Pooey is always clean

You just don't throw your arms in the air on this roller coaster.

2008-02-15T12:55:00.001-08:00

Today the Curious George narrator said, "Winter is like a rollercoaster of Blah." And I said, "Yeah." But then they went on to give George hot chocolate and he made a set of bowling pins from frozen milk jugs of water, as if that wasn't completely impossible and blah at all. Still fucking blah, as far as I'm concerned. The Man with the Yellow Hat was probably inside in front of his light box, going, "At least I got the damn monkey to go outside." That's what I'd be sayin.

All right, here's the second part.

2008-01-23T13:19:00.000-08:00

I got some good comments from a friend already. Thanks friend. Those of you so inclined, please chime in.

Part Doo, of How I Got Better in Shop

The neon sign glowed on the black shiny seats of his pickup. We made out for a little while and then I pulled away and said I was hot and wanted to walk up on to the dike. He said I can’t. I gotta go, which was all right, because I don’t think I could’ve walked anyway. My legs, my arms, my head – none of it was working right. It all felt disconnected. So we didn’t go and instead we made out some more, and then some more, and then some more. It just kept going farther and farther. I didn’t stop him, even though he gave me a chance. More than once he asked if I was okay. I guess he was nice about it. I think that’s about the best you can ask for, for that kind of thing.

And then he drove me home and I went around the back door so I could clean up a little in the downstairs bathroom. Mom yelled down to me What are you doing down there? Where have you been? And I called up that I was helping with the varsity practice and that I was sorry I forgot to call.

When I went upstairs I had changed into my sweaty clothes from practice and they were all sitting at the dinner table. I think they knew. I’m sure they could tell by just looking at me. You’re supposed to look different, aren’t you? I’m sure I did. My mom never talked to me about that stuff, but I know which girls in school did it with their boyfriends without them telling me. It’s like you’re marked. So I guess I was marked after that.

A couple weeks later I was done with my lamp. It looked pretty crappy, but the light came on when you pulled the chain, and the puppy looked more like an animal than a vegetable. I had moved on to a little oak shelf, and I thought I knew what I was doing in shop. Mr. Moffet only helped a little with the router bits, and only then because I liked to watch him demonstrate on some scrap wood how to cut the grooves and fit the pieces together with his careful hands. Shop was actually all right, I guess.

My friends were getting used to me being with Jeff, sort of. I mean, sort of being with him. We didn’t talk during school or go to dances or anything like that. He picked me up after basketball practice (I made the JV team in that too) and we’d make out and stuff in the mall parking lot on the way home. Not too long to make my mom worry any more, though. She would’ve freaked if she knew and my dad. Well, my dad wouldn’t have it. Not with Jeff. Kevin probably knew, but he didn’t care. He’d started seeing some girl from Rainier and wasn’t around much anyway.

Jeff and I didn’t talk much. The music was too loud in his truck, and he only called me on the phone once in a while, when his parents weren’t home. He mostly just wanted to see if I’d come over. Sometimes I did if my parents weren’t home, but if not we’d talk a little about stuff at school, then I’d get off the phone. My mom would’ve said something, but she was getting more and more distracted by my dad. By Thanksgiving he was getting some chemo because the cancer wasn’t just in the places they thought it was. He was at home a lot. He’d sit in the basement on the couch with some water next to him on the TV tray and watch the news.

That’s where he was the day Jeff came over. It was a Saturday and my mom had gone to the big craft show in Portland. I had just brought my dad some saltines and was playing with the cat in my room. The doorbell rang and there he stood in a sweatshirt and jeans. The same ones he wore all the time, baggy and kind of dirty. He said What’re you doing? I said Nothing. He stood there and I stood there and then I said You want a brownie? He said Whatever and came in and sat at the kitchen table. His hair was a little wet. I could smell the shampoo when he walked by me. I cut him a brownie and brought it in on a napkin and he grabbed my wrist and pulled me down to kiss me. When I pulled up my dad was standing there in the kitchen doorway. He had the afghan pulled over his shoulders, held together with one hand. His other hand lifted up through the opening and grabbed the door jam. He opened his mouth and then closed it and turned around to go back downstairs.

We ate our brownies and Jeff said Let’s go up to your room. I wanted to really bad, but no way could we and I told him my dad was downstairs. He turned quick to look behind him, as if he’d heard my dad coming up the stairs and I couldn’t help but laugh. I don’t know if he was scared of my dad being my dad, or my dad being my sick dad. He said I’m gonna go and I said Okay and then he left and I went downstairs.

Dad had fallen asleep sitting up. His head was tipped back and his mouth was open. I could see the ridges on the roof of his mouth and it made me run my tongue back and forth on the roof of my own mouth. The chemo made him thirsty all the time and his mouth was always dry. His lips were grey and cracked. I went to the bathroom to find the Vaseline and when I came back he was awake and blinking at the TV.

You two are an item, I see, he said. I just shrugged. He said What do you mean? and then he shrugged like he was copying me, but he didn’t take his eyes off the TV. I said We’re pretty close, I guess. You guess? he said. I said He helps me in shop a lot and he’s really good at it and he’s really nice to me. My dad nodded, but he didn’t say anything else. A commercial came on for some kind of camera and he closed his eyes and tipped his head back and I went back upstairs to my room.

Jeff didn’t pick me up after practice the next week. He wasn’t in shop either and Mr. Moffet finally moved the pieces of wood in his workstation to a little cart from the back room. He asked me if I’d seen Jeff and I said no, but I had. He drove in and out of his driveway every day at the same times, probably to make his mom think he was always at school. Mr. Moffet asked me if everything was all right once when I got a little spacey later in the week. I do that sometimes. Just kind of get lost staring. I said Yeah, I’m fine and smiled at him. He smiled back patted me on the shoulder.

Jeff called me that weekend, after my mom left for another craft fair. She wanted me to go, like we sometimes do, but I said I had too much homework. I was hoping Jeff would come over again like before. My dad was going to be gone all day at a new treatment place and Kevin was across the river as usual. But Jeff just called. I asked him where he’d been all week and he said he was helping his brother work on his car. I kind of laughed since I didn’t really know what to say and he didn’t say anything either. It sounded like he was banging something with a hammer and I asked him what he was doing. He said Nothing. I said Do you want to come over and he said I can’t. I listened to the clanking for a while longer and then I said Why did you call me? He said I don’t know, to see what you were doing or something. I said I’m sitting here watching a movie. He said Oh, well I gotta go. And that was it. That was him breaking up with me, I guess. That’s what this other burnout told Michelle, so that’s how I knew.

So he started coming back to shop after a couple weeks again, but he only stayed for a little while, and he wouldn’t look at me. Mr. Moffet asked me if everything was all right again because I kept screwing up on my shelf measurements and I nearly sanded off my thumbnail. I said Yeah, I’m just thinking about my dad. He nodded and patted me on my shoulder because he thought he knew. Everyone thought they knew. I’d skipped a day to spend some time with him in the hospital and then all the teachers knew about that and then Mr. Moffet gave me that sad pat like it was so simple.

When I got home one Friday night after a home game my dad was in the living room, on the couch. Lately he’d been upstairs in his room most of the time. There was usually a nurse around when I got home, if my mom was running errands or something, but this time my dad was alone on his old recliner with a quilt on top of him. He was staring at the fire in our fake fireplace, and in the shadows he looked like Grampa. I sat by him on the floor and started to tell him about the game, how I’d played and such, and he put his hand on my head, as if he wanted me to stop. He said Hi Baby. I smiled at him, but I was a little freaked. He didn’t call me that. He asked me if I had plans and I thought he meant for the weekend so I told him I was going to Michelle’s for a birthday party on Saturday. He said No, I mean with the Kent boy – Are you two still serious?

So then I knew that he knew, but I guess I’d known already. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen us before, but mostly I just didn’t want to think about it. No, I said, I don’t have plans with Jeff - There’s nothing going on with Jeff and me. And then I’d said it out loud and that felt bad and good. Bad enough to make me cry, but good to finally talk about it. I cried on the arm of my dad’s recliner. He cleared his throat a little and I looked at him. His eyes were half-closed and I thought he might be sleeping, so I moved to get up. Don’t go, he said, I’m awake. I’m just thinking. He cleared his throat again and said, He’s not a bad kid, you know. I sat back and looked at the fake fire. It reminded me of chemistry lab. He said, I just want you to be happy, Sweetheart. His voice was weezy and faint and when I looked back at him and his eyes were closed. I waited for my mom to come home, then went to my bedroom.

So he made it past Christmas, but the last couple weeks were pretty bad. At first they brought a big hospital bed and put it in my parents’ bedroom, but my mom couldn’t sleep in there, because the thing took up too much room. So she’d sleep on the couch with a baby monitor next to her. I know because I couldn’t sleep either. My dad’s room was across the hall, and I could hear his breath from there and from the baby monitor in the living room. It felt like the house was weezing, and sometimes my dreams would have the sound of hard breathing in the background and I’d wake up gasping.

I guess during that time something was going on with Jeff and this girl on the dance team. Everyone was talking about them getting busted in her hot tub. I laughed because someone said the girl’s dad made Jeff run naked out to his truck, but it wasn’t funny, really. The dad had thrown a rock and cracked Jeff’s back window. Anyway, she was a junior and kind of slutty. It made me wonder.

After a week with the hospital bed in the house my mom agreed to have my dad moved to this old-folks home close to the hospital, and that was the last time he got moved. I went to see him every day because school was out and I had taken a break from basketball. I’d go and sometimes just sit there for a couple hours reading or something. Sometimes he’d be awake, but not usually. It was quiet there. I think everyone was dying. And then one morning, a Monday, when I woke and went down to the kitchen, mom was gone and there was a note on the table. I called the hospital, the number she’d written, and she said Dad had died in the night. Kevin got up a little while later, and I told him. He just nodded, and then frowned and sat down at the table. I sat down too. I’m glad he was there because it sucks to cry alone about your dad dying.

When school started everyone knew and nobody talked to me, except Jeff. He saw me in shop on Tuesday and said he was sorry. He said That sucks. I said Yeah. It did suck. But I had basketball practice that night, and after practice, when I stepped out the side door it was pouring, and Jeff’s little truck was there with the loud crappy music waling out of it, and so then at least I had a ride home. I was bringing my woodshelf home with me that day. I was getting a lot better at shop. Mr. Moffet was a good teacher, I guess.

I wrote this whole thing listening to the soundtrack to Once. And the soundtrack to Elf.

2008-01-17T19:02:00.000-08:00

This is the blurb I submitted with the story:
You can look at high school in a few different ways. It's either a meat grinder, chewing up already-fragile adolescents and spitting them into a society that's equally ready to eat them alive. It may be a condensed evolutionary test, pushing us along diverging paths of success or failure. Or it could be a big, no-stress party scene, full of good times and good lovin. The last view is wrong. Adolescence is hard, and we grasp at invisible branches to help us pull through, not noticing the scars these thorny limbs have inflicted until much, much later. If at all.

And here's the story, posted in two parts, because nobody would read the whole thing if I posted a 5k word story, admit it. And don't feel bad if you don't wanna read it. I probably wouldn't, because I like my internets short, sweet and satisfying. Not long, sour and shallow. Which would be a wading pool full of lemon-juice flavored cross-country skis. Anyway.

Working title: How I Got Better in Shop

The kids in Mr. Moffet’s class would’ve called him a fag or something like that if he’d been any other teacher, because he acted like a girl. He had thick glasses and a high, gravelly voice. But in shop, when he ran the Skil saw or helped us sort through the scrap pile, it was different. He was still careful and kind of prissy, but not really. I mean, it was like watching an old nurse take your blood pressure. Slow and sure. Plus, well, it’s hard to make fun of someone who can run huge sawing machines. Maybe sometimes it was frustrating waiting behind him in the cafeteria line, but I think most kids liked him. I did.

The thing was, he was a lot like my dad. It would come to me at times, like when I’d get stuck behind Mr. Moffet going up the bleachers before a football game. Dad was the same way at home. Picture me waiting for him to find something on TV or to finish washing a pan so I could dry it. It was a drag, but he had a way of setting the table on Sunday evenings after church. I had to stop pouring water and watch. The way he placed his fingertips in the top corner of the cloth rectangle and moved it down, just so, and folded each paper napkin square and set the fork and spoon next to each other, spaced equally up and down, side to side, on the napkin.

He must’ve always been like that, careful and slow. My dad was the guy who graded the wood at the lumberyard. Like This piece is for a desk, This piece cut up and make into toilet paper. I don’t know how it works, but they say he was the best. They say guys have to go to school and get certified for that kind of thing now, but Dad never went to college or trade school or anything. When I was little I always imagined him sitting at a giant desk with piles of boards and logs in front of him, like a teacher grading tests. So I guess he and Mr. Moffet had that in common.

Kelso is a logging town. Everyone’s dad or uncle or next door neighbor either logs or works at the mill. I signed up for wood shop sophomore year because of Jeff Kent. He was a burnout, and hung out on the smoking dock with the rest of them, but he was also my neighbor and had caught me changing out of my training bra the summer before 10th grade. I was on the back patio, in the middle of mowing the grass. I had just been to Bernice’s for a hair cut, and all that grass and dust and sweat and splinters of fresh-cut hair were making me itch, so I tried to do the bra trick my mom did at the Y, but it was too hot and sticky, and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing, and before I knew it, Jeff was coming around the corner from the side gate and I was standing facing the sliding door with my shirt up around my shoulders and my elbows and wrists trapped in the elastic and polyester of my dirty old training bra. I saw him in the reflection. He stopped and put his hands in the pockets of his dirty jeans and laughed, I guess waiting to see what I was going to do next.

I should have been more embarrassed, but it was just dumb Jeff from next door, and as far as I was concerned he was just being a big jackass. I tried to hunker over a little and shoot him a dirty look over my shoulder, but he stopped laughing and rubbed the back of his neck. I wriggled around some more, trying to get it all back on. I stretched and pulled, sweating more, and in the window I could see him take his other hand out of his pocket and walk to me, looking at my back. I told him Get out of here!, but he pulled my arms up and held them together with one hand, then pinched the bra together somewhere behind me. I felt the clasp come apart (the part I’d forgotten), and I pulled my arms down fast, adjusting my t-shirt around myself. I didn’t look back, and went inside to get the damn bra off in private.

In the downstairs bathroom I pulled off my shirt and bra, shivering in the chill of the basement air. I hugged my arms to my chest, and I could smell the faint tang of cigarettes on my arms where he’d held them. Later that night in bed I played the scene again and again, hugging my stuffed seal between my legs. That look on his face.

So when I didn’t get signed up for choir in time, I told the guidance counselor I wanted shop instead. I knew it’d be full of burnouts, and I’d have to make some excuse about it to Michelle and Bethany and the rest, but at night when I was trying to sleep, I relived the scene on my patio over and over. Sometimes I’d even wear my bra to bed, with the clasp undone in the back, to remember that feeling, like fingertips on my skin. His hands, his face, that smell. I never saw him at school, and he was hardly ever home, so I’d have to settle for shop.

That’s how I met Mr. Moffet. Our first project was a lamp. I was to shape a piece of wood into something interesting, glue it to another piece of wood and then screw in a metal rod and the chord and some other pieces and end up with a lamp. It was hopeless. I was ridiculous. The belt sander scared the crap out of me, and my puppy, traced onto a block of wood and cut with some giant machine I forget the name of, looked like cauliflower, and then the whole electrical part was a complete mystery. So I had to stay after twice a week to get help. So I wouldn’t flunk shop. You just don’t flunk shop in Kelso.

The first day was a Tuesday, and I only had an hour because I had volleyball practice. Mr. Moffet showed me how to used the big sander. He stood next to me, showed me where to put my fingertips so as to guide the wood slowly towards the spinning machine. As I was working on the edges of the lamp base he left for a moment and came back holding a new pair of safety goggles. He motioned me to turn off the machine and pulled my enormous scratched pair off my face and handed me the new ones. They were fresh out of the box and smelled like plastic, and when he slid them on I could see everything with a slight yellow tint. Mr. Moffet’s green sweater looked like fresh cut grass. He smiled and I smiled.

The next class was Thursday, and Jeff Kent was gone, again. He showed up about once a week and worked on a cabinet that looked as if it might go above a bathroom sink. It was his independent study project, and Mr. Moffet left him to it, unless he needed help choosing wood. It was going to be nice, even I could see that. The wood was light and freckly, and it was going to have glass in the door. Jeff Kent ignored me whenever he was in class or if I saw him in school, and I pretended that I didn’t care. But I know that day, the one when I got my yellow glasses, I know he looked at me twice, because later when I was helping my mom unload groceries in our driveway he stopped next to me in the road. He leaned out the window of his little truck and asked me How’s your ugly lamp? I told him to shut up and turned away. My face was hot for an hour.

Jeff Kent hadn’t always been a burnout. His brother was a football player and went to some little college in Montana to play. Whatever Barry did was big news in Kelso, and everyone knew it when he screwed up his shoulder in his second college game and couldn’t play any more. He quit school and moved back to work with his dad at one of the pulp mills. He worked shift and had just that summer moved out of the Kents’ house over to Longview. Everyone expected Jeff to be like Barry, and he was until Barry left for college. Then Jeff quit everything and spent lunch and study breaks on the smoking dock with the burnouts.

My dad used to be a big fan of Barry’s, but just kind of put up with Jeff. Jeff never offered to help my mom carry groceries like Barry used to, and even if Jeff had played football, he never would have started. But now we never talked about either of the Kent brothers any more. My brother Kevin was between the two of them in school, and at least he was taking classes at the local community college, even if his grades sucked and he mostly partied with Shane and Willis all week. That seemed to be okay.

After that day, the Thursday when I had the new glasses, Jeff would say hi to me in class. He’d say something mean about my project and poke my arm or tug on my hair. And Mr. Moffet would ask me to come in after school to work on my lamp. I was sometimes playing varsity in volleyball, surprise surprise, and it seemed like a lot was going on. So my dad’s announcement that he had prostate cancer just came and went. I knew what it was, of course, and cancer was that big scary word, but everyone recovered from prostate cancer. It was a jokey kind of thing, getting your prostate checked. I didn’t even tell Michelle. My mom went to work, my dad went to work, Kevin did or didn’t go to class and got drunk with Shane. And Jeff asked me to go to the movies on the Saturday after Homecoming.

I didn’t tell my parents. No way would that go over just fine. It was drizzling, and I rode my bike to Michelle’s and he picked me up there at seven. He was playing some metal and it was too loud to talk on the way to the mall. I couldn’t have anyway. I was nervous. I didn’t want to say anything stupid or act like a dork. We just drove and I watched the windshield wiper drag a leaf back and forth, back and forth. I imagined I could hear it scratch over the screeching of the guitars.

The night ended with us driving back to Michelle’s with the music still blaring. We’d barely talked the whole evening. Whole evening being three hours. He stopped across the street, in front of the Wilson’s, and put the car in park. I smiled at him and said Thanks for the movie. He laughed kind of, because I’d had to yell over the noise, and then he leaned in suddenly and grabbed my shoulder, pulling me towards him. It was wet, tonguey, hard. His teeth bashed my lip, and I didn’t know what to do with my hands. After a minute I felt his hand pushing up the corduroy of my thigh and I flinched when he touched my zipper. Not a bad flinch, but he jerked back anyway. His eyes were big, but then he frowned, and moved across the seat to me, this time putting his hand directly on my zipper. The music was so loud and he tasted of popcorn and old cigarettes. He worked both hands inside my clothes, and I was pressed back against my door. As he pushed towards me harder my seat belt strap rubbed my neck and I said Ow. He pulled back again, realizing I was trapped in my seat belt and he reached down between us to press the button. When the belt loosened I reached behind me and opened the door to the rain, but not really wanting to get out. But I think I was supposed to get out then.

I stood next to the truck with the door open and leaned in to tell him Thanks again. He had scooted back behind the wheel and was putting the car in gear. He leaned over to pick up the baseball hat that had fallen on the floor on the passenger side, and when he looked up at me, his dark eyebrows pulled together and his wet lips shining under the street lamp, it was something. It was an unforgettable something. He pulled his hat down low, raised a hand and said See ya and drove off. I wanted to run after his little truck, to let him do whatever it was he was going to do with his hands inside my clothes, but there was that feeling in my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad.

So I went back to school on Monday, my guts all knotted up, hoping I would see him at his locker, at his car, through the back door windows, hanging out on the smoking dock, but he wasn’t any of those places. And he wasn’t in shop on Tuesday. So after wasting half the class sanding the edges of my puppy with a dull piece of sandpaper, I told Mr. Moffet I was ready to get started on the electrical bits of the project. He showed me on the handout he’d given us on the first day of class the supplies I’d need, and where the electrical parts were in the cabinet in the back of class. He drew me a picture, his hand curved around his mechanical pencil, like lefties do, and labeled the parts A, B, C and such. I was trying to figure out how to cut the power cable off a big spool in the cabinet, when I smelled Jeff’s breath. He was standing behind me, and when I turned he looked away. I said Hey. He said Hey, Whatcha doin? I shrugged and he nodded and wandered off.

Mr. Moffet brought me a pair of snippers and helped me get the metal leads hooked up to the other lamp parts, and when the bell rang, I realized Jeff was already gone. Earlier in the day I’d imagined he would walk me to my locker, but then he didn’t and I was relieved. Some kids made out at their lockers and what if he’d wanted to do that? I didn’t know if we were going out, or what. I don’t think you’re supposed to ask things like that.

Anyway, it didn’t matter. When I got out of volleyball practice, he was waiting. I could hear the music as soon as I walked out the side door, by the gym. Shelby, this girl on varsity, started laughing and said There’s your burnout. I pretended like it was no big deal and said My mom asked him to drive me to youth group. Only she didn’t know he didn’t go to our church and that it wasn’t youth group night. We went and parked by the dike next to Liberty Lanes.

Now where do we put it all?

2008-01-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to Rockin Rudy's to buy some earrings for a friend. It was a belated Christmas present (I'd originally wrapped up some CDs I'd burned for her, but it felt cheap and lazy to be giving her something cut'n'pasted from my computer screen). It took me 30 minutes to pick a simple teardrop-shaped garnet and silver earring. I mean SUPER SIMPLE. The point of this story? Gift giving is hard.

So, I will be forgiving about this (I agree, the grimace is probably from the rod stuck up her 'gina):

But, when my skin crawls off my body from the zombie stare, I watch this:

Year-end post gone horribly wrong.

2007-12-28T10:58:00.000-08:00

First, I don't know why it says I'm from Montana, Afghanistan over there to the right. I didn't do that. If Montana was in Afghanistan it would be much more difficult to get drunk on Christmas with Granny and Grampy. Or have Christmas. Or have Granny and Grampy. They bounced up our street in their Jeep on Christmas Eve Eve and we've been enjoying them daily, much like I enjoy Sees chocolate suckers and magazines in my Christmas stocking. Aren't Jeeps bouncy? Are they bouncy in Afghanistan? I think not! But I'm not sure. Let's just say no. Jeeps are not bouncy in Afghanistan. And toilets probably don't swirl in the opposite direction (a la Australia), but just shoot straight down the whole so you don't get to admire the fruits of your labor at all. Like in airport bathrooms. All the bathrooms in Afghanistan are probably like airport bathrooms, complete with really annoying automatic appliances where the water isn't hot enough and the dryers don't dry your hands so your forced to wipe them on your pants. Or robes. I guess in Afghanistan you'd wipe them on your robes. Jeeps don't bounce and your robes are always wet.

Madeleine's birthday was on the 21st at a bowling alley. It was great until The Toothless Invasion of '07 happened at about 7:00. The Invasion brought their own Santa and our urchins were strongly discouraged from fraternizing with him. That's right. We were asked to keep our kids away from Santa. So we pulled out the hole card: "Don't worry you guys. That's not the real Santa. That lady has been naughty and The Real Santa won't come to her house." Oh yeah.

Here's the birthday present in action:

Also, for Stella, here are my spaz and mellow mixes of '07.
Mellow:
Father, Son - Peter Gabriel
Messages - Xavier Rudd
After the Gold Rush - Neil Young
Throw Me a Rope - KT Tunstall
Harvest Moon - Neil Young
Teach Your Children - CSNY
If You Could Read My Mind - Johnny Cash
Superman's Song - Crash Test Dummies
Trouble - Ray LaMontagne
Cheapest Kind - Greg Brown
Danny's Song - Loggins & Messina
Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Brother Is
Chaiyya Chaiyya - Sukhwinder Singh
My Morning Scene - Jonah Smith
Save Me - Aimee Mann

Spaz
Rehab - Amy Winehouse
Short Skirt/Long Jacket - Cake
Change - Blind Melon
Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well - Mike Doughty
Gold Digger - Kanye
Bohemian Like You - The Dandy Warhols
Can I Get A... - Jay Z
End of the Line - Traveling Wilburys
San Franciscan Nights - The Animals
Angel From Montgomery - Bonnie Raitt and John Prine
Irreplaceable - Beyonce
Going Up the Country - Canned Heat
Gin and Juice - The Gourds
Crank That - Soulja Boy

Did you eat a lot of nuts over the holidays? I did. I can say, definitively, that I would enjoy Macadamia nuts much more if they were half their size. Brazil nuts suck and walnuts are like pecans on steroids. All bloated and agro and shit. Pecans are Lance Armstrong and walnuts are Floyd Landis. Allegedly. Hey, Happy Holidays!

Much Ado about Birthdays

2007-12-10T19:10:00.001-08:00

I just won something on ebay. It was just like those commercials and there was a lot of shouting and arm-waving and cheers and champagne crashing on the helms of boats and black fists raised at Hitler and so forth. It were rocks. I won some rocks.

Jim built a climbing wall in the backyard this weekend (foreplay for Missoulians) for Madeleine's birthday. Please quit with the eyerolling. It's unbecoming. Yes. We built our daughter who hates climbing and heights a climbing wall to mock her. Ha ha ha you little shit! Climb THIS!

No. That's not it. She likes it now. Apparently she climbs up to the top of the climbing wall in PE every Monday and Thursday (except Thursdays in which the week is shortened wherein PE will be replaced with a long after-lunch recess and all of the parents look at their watches at 2:05 and go Oh Shit! it's early-out! and then we rush to pick up our kids with their little brothers and sisters half-dressed and missing a mitten and complaining that they have to pee. Which is why on those Thursdays a lot of little brothers and sisters pee behind the sandbox in a corner of the playground.) AND she jumps off the wall backwards while doing macrame and humming the Hungarian National Anthem. Which is to say, she seems to have overcome her fear. In PE.

When the ebay rocks come, we'll see how she does at home. Also, apparently, we'll see how she likes getting rocks for her birthday. And I already know I will be mocked for this at family dinners for the rest of my life. Much in the way my mom is mocked for allowing the tooth fairy to give my brother a banana. Under his pillow.

The Information Superhighway sometimes turns into an unmarked road through the Idaho panhandle.

2007-12-04T17:46:00.000-08:00

"you dont argue with people who are athiest, or strung out on drugs, right??? why or why not??? because they are not of the majority.. they are screwed up upstairs.. as too are racists..."

As stated in a recent online discussion about why Will Smith inadvertently gave away the ending of "I Am Legend." Racists, druggies and atheists. Avoid discussions with these people at ALL COSTS.

This is why I love the internet by the way. I miss the DMV conversations during the years I'm away.

Decision-making, Mignon style.

2007-11-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

I just spent the last hour tearful and angsty, trying to decide what to do with our conundrum of holiday plans. We had decided months ago we would wake up this Thanksgiving Eve, pack up the kids, car and asundry pets and drive nine hours to Portland to celebrate and gorge ourselves at my brother's place. But then there was this:

So the nine-hour walk in the park became the prospect of a 12-hour holiday icey, snowy, screaming children, armaggedon-like family fun ride. There and back. Twenty-four hours of OHMYGODWHATTHEHELLAREWEDOING? So then we looked at plane tickets. Leaving today, leaving tomorrow, leaving in the middle of the night, routed through Phoenix and Sacramento, flying the plane ourselves after a brief instructional video (the Big Sky air option), or perhaps utilizing the special skills of David Copperfield. Anyway way we looked at it, two thousand dollars, or sucking up to David Copperfield (which is perhaps why he's in trouble these days, what with the sucking up, and all).

I cried a little because I do that. Jim paced and threw the stick for Ali. Then I wiped some dog hair off the floor with the sleeve of my dirty sweatshirt and ate some toast. Jim chewed his cuticles and yelled at the children for laughing. I searched IMDB for pictures of Javier Bardem. Jim paced and threw the stick for Ali (he apparently lacks some creativity in the brooding behaviour). Then we decided. I will fly to Portland with Madeleine tomorrow for one and one half day. Now I have to poop.

Can you help a sister with a word?

2007-11-07T20:25:00.000-08:00

I need a little help. What did you call the smokers in high school? The kids that worked on their cars and dressed like future night shift employees at the local lumber mill? My brothers called 'em Grits. At Jim's school they were Slippies. Did yours have a name?

One of these kids is doing his own (frightening) thing...

2007-11-01T15:39:00.000-07:00

Here we are. A turtle, a kitty, a fairy godmother, and a serial killer.

And some more fall fare:

Y-soccer. Here I am telling them to "get out there and kick some fucking ass you little motherfuckers!" YMCA, instilling respect and tolerance, one little motherfucker at a time.

They're never to young to feel humiliated by their parents.

One of 48 self-portraits on a long-ass car ride to Winthrop.

October Twenty-Six, A Day in the Life

2007-10-26T19:38:00.000-07:00

Sounds around Missoula...

At the outdoor store, buying Jim his bithday present:

Late 20-something cute outdoor store, wishing he was telemarking with a hot chick with dreadlocks instead of selling me a over-priced fleece something-or-other, guy: Can I see your ID?

Me: Sure.

Guy: Oh! That's my mom's name.

Me: You mean Mignon? Wow, that's the closest I've ever come to a Mignon - this is, what, 2 degrees of separation?

Guy: Uh...

Me: Did she go by Mignon?

Guy: No, we call her Na-Ni.

Me: Oh. Wait - you call your mom Na-Ni?

Guy: No, no. I had a cousin by the same name, so the family calls my mom Na-Ni. You know, it can be confusing.

Me: Na-Ni. Huh - I guess that's kinda like Mignon.

Guy: Yeah, but, you know, I call her Mommy.

Me (and the other cute worker guy behind the counter): *blink*

Me: You, uh, well. Thank you very much.

---Later, Jim and I come home from some beers and dinner.

Quinn (as we walk in the door, running toward us sideways, butt out): Look at me! I'm Super Bum!

---Later, Jim, Babysitter/Nice Friend Girl, and I sharing a beer

Babysitter (as Jim hurriedly poors my beer into a glass): Ah man. Now she's gotta suck the head off.

Another thing to fret about.

2007-10-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

It's everywhere, and it's not fair. Personally? I don't know whether sports make it better or worse. I'm surprised I think this way, because I'm like some kind of sports automaton. Must play sport. Must play sport. Sport good. Must run jump hit kick throw MUST MUST MUST..... But girls in sports have to get naked in front of other girls. They wear small-ish outfits in front of stands of people. They compulsively monitor their weight and fitness level.

As soccer players, we used to mock the OCD girl who used to sit in a pool for hours and hours just kicking her legs while she held onto the wall. But we were just variations on her theme. We ate as OCD as she did. We thought as OCD as she did. We even dressed as OCD as she did, hiding our big legs and strong asses. We just pretended we were better because we were all so much bigger. She could afford to tread water for three hours and eat lettuce and low-fat Wheat Thin sandwiches. We couldn't. We had to run jump hit kick throw, etc etc. So we would HA HA THAT GIRL IS SO CRAZY!!! at her. And be secretly envious.

Whatever it takes, I will make my daughter know that she's all that, because we all are.

(from Jaye)

My Stove

2007-09-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

It's taken me thirty-plus years to understand my body. Like when you've got a temperamental camping stove that needs just the right TLC to get the thing started. One burner might appear to be broken, but in actually just needs a set of pliers to turn the gas, and the match has to be held just right, and, so on and so forth...

Wait - I'm not done. My cook stove isn't one of those trendy little two-burner hotties you find in chi-chi outdoor stores. It's a four-burner, sausage chili, eggs, bacon, coffee pot affair. And it suits me. Do you know me? You must know how I like to play things that are hard and physical. I prefer to be bruised and scraped. Mornings in which I awake pain-free and fresh are a disappointment. Clean and unblemished campstoves are for debutantes and wannabes. My stove looks like it survived the Oregon Trail, and can still cook up a mean-ass elk steak with a side of something brown. When I go camping with the other ladies (i.e. changing into my Speedo at the water slides), the women I respect probably check out the goods and nod knowingly, if not aprreciatively. The little two-burners turn up their noses and smirk, but then hide their unused and ineffective stoves behind designer towels. No dings? No burnt remnants of ten-year-old trout omelettes? Yeah, I'd hide that shit too. Pshht - probably can't even boil water. (Yesterday in the grocery store Madeleine was sitting under the shopping cart and announced to the entire produce section, "Mommy why are you always beat up?", which is only slightly better than the time I was trying on some shoes at Bob Wards, and in response to my removal of my rank running shoes she called out, "Mommy your 'gina stinks.")

But I have to say, each month there comes a time that throws everything out of whack. The burners don't start, the latch sticks and the cover doesn't close properly, the card table tips over spilling singed oatmeal all over everything. You know. I should recognize the warnings, but it's always a sneak attack. This month, however, I think I got it. It's probably a good indicator of what's to come, when Brett Favre's routine touchdown pass makes me cry. Well yeah, it's the record and all, but, it's a football game. Although, it was his 421st, after they'd just shown the highlights of the Monday Night game after his dad died, and then Marino spoke, and then. Now I'm tearing up again. Okay, the first time may have been legit, but these tears? Clearly time to head to the drugstore. SOS pads.

This is what I have to offer.

2007-09-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for the kind words and e-mails. I appreciated everything each one of you said.

Last night Julie and I went to see Once. Please go see it and come back and tell me you liked it a lot.

Sometimes I see a movie I don't want to share. This is one of those, but I consider all of you the kind of people I would like to share this with. It is my thanks for being nice, thoughtful people. Thanks.

2007-09-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

My dad died yesterday. He had prostate cancer, and it took him relatively quickly. I went to see him a week ago, we visited over the weekend, and I tried to get ready for what we all knew was coming quickly. I feel like there should be some kind of Queen for a Day button to wear when stuff like this happens, but instead I got up at 7:33, made Madeleine's lunch and took her to school. Later I did some grocery shopping. Tonight I have a soccer game, and Jim will get home late after being on the road. Tomorrow, wash, rinse, repeat. He was a good guy - someone you'd want in your corner.

Here's the link to a blog I started for him several weeks ago. Why don't you go on over and see what he was like. That'd be nice.
http://drdavisfromthemethow.blogspot.com/

Bonding

2007-09-03T09:52:00.001-07:00

Last night I was dreaming I was lying in bed scratching my butt and found it was covered in butt zits. No matter where I searched, my fingertips found painful little bumps. I woke suddenly to the sound of Quinn hollering in his room. It was 3 am and he was screaming, "NO WASHEE ABBLES MOMMY NO NO NO!!" I went downstairs to soothe him, assured him I would not wash any apples, and went back to bed.

Just now, standing here in front of my computer, I was reading e-mails and daydreaming and found myself scratching my butt. As you can guess, there were bumps. Mosquito bites, actually. I was covered in them. After a good healthy scratch, I went to the kitchen sink to wash my hands. There was a bowl in the sink, so I picked it up to move it, and Quinn walked in the kitchen calling my name. I turned around, water running in the kitchen sink, and he stopped short and looked at me strangely. Yes, it was a bowl full of apple slices he had been eating last night. They were floating in soapy water.

I exchanged a queer look with my two-year-old son. After a full five seconds, he gave me a little tip of the head, turned and walked back into the other room and stood in the center of the carpet and crapped his pants.

This shit's startin to piss me off.

2007-08-29T16:14:00.001-07:00

I've taken this damn quiz three times now. Three different websites with three different sets of questions. Every damn time. The same thing.

You're Anne of Green Gables!

by L.M. Montgomery

Bright, chipper, vivid, but with the emotional fortitude of cottage
cheese, you make quite an impression on everyone you meet. You're impulsive, rash,
honest, and probably don't have a great relationship with your parents. People hurt
your feelings constantly, but your brazen honestly doesn't exactly treat others with
kid gloves. Ultimately, though, you win the hearts and minds of everyone that matters.
You spell your name with an E and you want everyone to know about it.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Perhaps I read the book as a kid and perhaps I loved it and perhaps I loved the PBS series too, but all that don't mean shit, hear? I ain't no Anne.

Cottage cheese? What the hell?

Halcyon Days

2007-08-08T12:03:00.001-07:00

I considered naming this post "Things I'm Not Proud Of" and then I'd chuckle because ending sentences with prepositions is one of them. But really it's just Thing. One thing right now.

Several weeks ago I wrote and photographed glowingly the mountain-scaling prowess of my 5-year-old daughter. I carried the pictures around in my bag to show people in case the first few times I told them about it and then sent them the online photos they didn't quite get the scale and magnificence of her feat. I was so full of myself I kept purging my pride like a bulimic after a wedding buffet.

And just as I thought, things I dream and fantasize about Do Not Come True. After four or five subsequent visits to the climbing gym in town, Madeleine is now paralyzed with fear when reaching the height of, say, a handicapped toilet seat. Every visit got worse and worse, until finally I found myself climbing up next to her (approximately 3 or 4 inches off the ground) and talking down to her in a way that had the climbing gym aide, a 19-year-old with nothing better to do than tape and re-tape his thumbs for hours on end, worried and disapproving. Yes, I achieved an all-time lowpoint in five years of parenting. I garnered the disdain of a teenage stoner gym rat.

I have caused this. I have, with each boast and every hoist of the climbing rope, grounded her. Now we go to the climbing gym as a family and she gives me worried looks and speaks brightly of how wonderful it is to play in the gravel with her little brother. She offers to chaperone him around the cavernous gym and help him climb in the bouldering cave. Where there are no ropes and no heights greater than 7 feet. She's so afraid to disappoint me she'll do anything but get on that wall again. She's like a dog licking the hand of Michael Vick.

I'm trying to reform - believe me. We talked and talked about how Mommy was not fair, Mommy was just so excited from her earlier success, Mommy just wants her to be her best. But really, Mommy just sucks. Go ahead and say it. I do, and in doing so, hopefully we'll avoid this again in a couple weeks when fall soccer starts. Mommy just sucks. Mommy just sucks. Mommy just sucks. Mommy will not

[Edited to add: Apparently Mommy will not finish a complete thought in her apoplectic condition. Also Quinn was eating Floam.]

Choose your own adventure.

2007-07-17T08:04:00.000-07:00

In the darkness of our bedroom, in one corner a noisy box fan rearranging the 88 degree air in our bedroom, on the bed two sweaty adults lying awake...

"Come on - give me a kiss."
"No. You smell like a Phish concert."
"Aw, quit being so sensitive."

And what would the appropriate response be?

(The best I could come up with at the time was sanctimonious, piercing silence, which is rarely perceived as "sanctimonious" or "piercing" and seen more as just "silence" to those that smell like Phish concerts.)

Yeah, I cried a little.

2007-07-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

We went to Winthrop over the 4th again this year. It was beautiful fun stuff. I'm slowly recovering, mostly from a swollen head and heart. Can you blame me?

If pride truly is a sin, I'm goin straight to hell.

It's a new day.

2007-06-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

I'm on a regime. It goes like this:

- Stop eating before I get to that point where my stomach is hideously distended and I want to puke. (Good one, don't you think? Hideous and puke are not words one should associate with mealtime.)

- No more than three slices of bread per day. (My first thought was to buy un-sliced ciabatta and cut it into thirds. I guess I'm the Barry Bonds of regime-making.)

- No cookies. (After the first day you'd think I was coming off meth.)

- Do something aerobic at least three times per week for more than 25 minutes. (This does not include walking around the house looking for my coffee cup, standing in front of the sink washing the endless stream of sippy cup rubber stopper things, swinging on the porch swing, no matter how vigorous the sway, or anything that is not jogging or biking. So that leaves jogging and biking.)

- Alcohol consumption is limited to two nights per week only. (Last night we went to a bbq with a keg of PBR and foul-tasting mojitos served from a mix out of a bucket. AND I HAD SAVED UP FOR THE FUCKING THING TOO. I must learn to ration better. PBR. Christ. I almost went in search of some old-school cough syrup.)

Jim is very excited for me:

Madeleine and Quinn seem to be unhappy about the cookie thing:

These are my peers.

2007-06-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

Snippets from Sunday's critique group meeting.

Before we got started

Me: Larry, if you don't mind me asking, how much do you pay for your office space?

Larry: Oh! It's not really an office space. It's very small, you know. It's $159 a month.

Me: Well that's not bad - I was guessing 200 or more. Huh.

(discussion continues about office space needs for a minute)

Me: Well shoot, if I could find a space for a hundred fifty, I'd be tempted.

Larry: One hundred fifty-NINE, and yes, it was a good find - I found it from an ad in the Missoulian.

Theresa: A hundred fifty bucks? Does that included utilities?

Larry: One hundred fifty-NINE. Yes it does.

Me (now bored with this): Hmm, a hundred fift bucks is definitely managable...

Larry (looking at me as if I have a disability): One hundred fifty-NINE. It was a good find...

Mid-meeting

Me: Theresa, do you have another pen? Mine died.

Theresa (handing me a ball-point from a tire-shop in town): Sure

Larry (sitting up quickly, scowling at Theresa): Oh! Didn't you get my message? I asked that you return that pen to me - remember? I loaned it to you last week?

Theresa and Me, in unison: Uh...

At the close of the meeting

Theresa: So can you all write your addresses for me again - I seem to have misplaced them.

Me: Email or home?

Theresa: Home, please. I'm not very good at email.

Me: So you haven't received the messages we've been sending?

Theresa: Oh yes, I got those on the computer.

Me: Uh.

Note: I should probably mention, Chris, Theresa and Larry are all in their 70s. We have had to stop twice in the middle of a critique for Chris to find his glasses, and on Sunday, although it was 55 and raining, Larry was wearing womens' size 6 OP shorts. And he sat across from me. And there was no table. Are you picturing it? Yeah, like that.

There will be more where this came from.

Swimming noodles and uppercuts.

2007-05-31T15:28:00.000-07:00

I got my first rejection. The first of a lifetime, you say? Yes, I know. But I'm not ready to get used to this. I mean, how many times did Lyle Lovett hit on his favorite waitress at Olive Garden until he finally got a record contract and a mini-marriage with Julia? A lot, I tell you. Would you giggle and flirt with Lyle Lovett at an airport bar if you thought he was a dentist? Only if he carried nitrous in a Camelbak, I tell ya.

What are we talking about?

Oh. So I've got a friend who writes and we realized a couple weeks ago we had submitted pieces to the same magazine. I told him last night I got rejected, and he did a little victory dance because he'd not yet heard back from the editors. I didn't think I was competitive about this particular pursuit, but I felt my shoulders hunch and my fists clench as he hopped around in a circle. When things go badly somehow my body wants to box. I had a dream about him last night. He was taunting me from very far away with a big swimming noodle. A big green foamy swim toy. And this is what it means: I want to punch him in the face and then go swimming.

So with this type of insight, you'd think I'd be wowing editors right and left. Maybe I need more punch in my stories.

You want updates?

2007-05-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

I suppose there's a worn-out plotline for the psychotic episodes of a wanna-be writer. I'm at Act II, Scene 7: Heroine Reads Recently Completed Story and Chokes on Her Own Bile. I've become so sick of my own syncopated style that I rebel by talking in drawn-out James Joyce paragraphs when I interact with people in real life. My children. They think I'm like some kind of haywire Happy Meal toy that won't quit talking about Shreks farts. The tellers at Missoula Federal Credit Union draw straws to see who has to put up with my babbling commentary on the relative merits of chained-up pens vs. a cup of complimentary pens. All because my so-called style is a Hemingway/Carver ripoff. Short sentences. Succinct details. Lots of dialogue. Plenty of headaches. Much hand-wringing. Never satisfied. Act II, Scene 8: Heroine, Recovering from a Near-Death-By-Bile-Strangulation Experience, Joins a Merry Band of Recycling Hippies and Grows Out Her Armpit Hair and Sells Hemp Sunglasses. Pictures to follow.

Last Post (for at least a very long time)

2007-04-12T14:25:00.000-07:00

First, let me say thank you all for reading, whether it be just this once, or since the inception (which would be nobody, except for Generic Spammer - a belated thank you, Generic Spammer, for commenting on my original blogposts). My writing here has run its course. My original idea was to be all political and socially edgy and shit and suddenly I find I can't talk about my husband's nuts or how thoroughly annoyed I am by people with Support the Troops stickers on their cars. Which leaves me stuck with complaining about the new dishwasher and discussing the relative merits of morning and afternoon kindergarten. Dammit! I don't want to suck.

I realized the other night, as I washed, rinsed, repeated, that when I have moments alone I don't plot and invent people for fiction any more. Instead I find myself trying to compose humor into a story about a late-morning visit to the yarn store. After I replayed in my mind the sight of the enormous swaying breasticals of the kooky yarn lady and Pooey trying to stick a Hershey's miniature into her Giant Schnauzer's asshole, I realized my creativity was being sapped by my blog. Sometimes my life just isn't that entertaining, and my brain was suffering the strain of trying to make it so. After the revelation I mentally put the yarn lady and her breasticals on the soap dish and instead worked on a little scene in which a woman and man argue about the best way to landscape their yard while their grown children suffer from lack of adult-parent attention. It's a killer story, and as soon as I hit publish here I'm going to work on the opening scene in which the husband and wife wake up to find all their early spring lilacs tipped over to the point of snapping from a freak snow storm.

I'm sorry to those of you I know personally that use my blog to keep track of me and my kidlets. For you, I invite you to email me. Please? And if you're just visiting for a good, regular read, there are several blogs over on the sidebar that offer much more than I can these days (I'm not going to quit reading them - they're a bunch of clever, interesting and inspirational writers). In the event I find I'm working on some fiction and I need some input, I'll post it here with a little personal update.

Huh - what a terribly fractured farewell... oh well. That's it.

Love,
Mignon

Second to last post.

2007-04-05T15:22:00.000-07:00

Mamalujo is some kind of Probing Questions savant. I will answer him because I have no energy to talk about the minutiae of life right now. Suffice it to say "I am here. We are well." (As I side note, I've never verbalized the unpleasant feeling I've been tip-toeing around since we made the offer on our new house. To be direct, I felt like there was a sexual predator in our neighborhood. I avoided the website wherein I could check the area for registered sex offenders - I just didn't want to know. It turns out I was right, but the man is dead and gone now. He was the former occupant of our house. Do I feel icky? No. I feel like we shooed him out.)

1. How well do you sleep?
Not. The baby still sleeps with us, and he preferes to be perpendicular to the flow. If it weren't for him it would still be Not. I have extremely vivid, plot-driven dreams and wake up frequently, shaken and scared. Or sad. Or ecstatic. Or thoughtful. Regardless, there's never a dull moment in my bed. Ha.

2. Do you like backpacking?
Literally? Yes. I love accessories, and backpacks are high on my list. It's very satisfying to feel the cushioned curve of backpack straps slung over my shoulders. I never did the one-strap cool kid thing. Backpacking in nature? In theory yes. My husband is a mountaineering sort and yearns for the day when the kids are old enough for us all to do the Swiss Family Robinson thing. At this point there's no opportunity and so I don't even think of it. But the idea of not showering for several days and eating hotdogs by a campfire is lovely. Just don't say the word T-I-C-K. That'll turn me into a quivering mound of chickenshit girly-girl in a heatbeat.

3. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?
The Ngorongoro crater. I don't think it will ever happen.

4. Is there a hobby you want to take up, but never have?
No. Well, yes. I've pretty much tried everything I'm even remotely interested in, but never to the point where I've been able to say "I can ___" whatever. Play guitar, do HTML, bead, skateboard. I want to be the best at something the minute I try it, and at this point in my life I can't be. So I quit before I struggle. I want to take up guitar. I want to be able to play Closer to Fine and scream out "I'M TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHIN ABOUT MY LIFE"

5. Have you seen someone die?
Yes. Two people. Once, in college during an intramural basketball game, a seemingly healthy 19-year-old boy had a heart-atack running back on defense and was dead in less than 15 minutes. I watched him get shocked by the paramedics twice before anyone thought we should clear the gym. Purplish foam bubbled from his mouth. That's what I remember. I don't recall what he looked like, but he was wearing red nylon shorts and a black t-shirt. A year later I was the afternoon weight-room attendant in the same gym complex and a 65-year-old man running laps in the humid track above the amphitheater-shaped swim stadium dropped dead of a heart attack. They yelled for help and I ran from across the hall. Another jogger was giving him CPR, but the old man was so terribly ashen and limp. I went back to work, knowing he was dead.

There's of course some bad news too...

2007-03-27T10:46:00.001-07:00

...but I couldn't be all Debbie Downer from the get-go. First, the house is old. A hundy, abouts. So in the remodel they jacked up the floors while reinforcing the foundation, all in order to keep the pritty pritty hardwoods. Apparently it's not an exact science, so walking in a straight line from the front door to the back gives me Mardi Gras flashbacks. I have yet to get my sea legs, and I'm blaming my first-morning-hangover on motion sickness. No way was it the three beers. Three beers. Number two in the sad state of the union. I have lost my tolerance for alcohol. There will be no lazy afternoon sipping IPAs on the back deck, unless I nurse one pitiful little Coors Lite until it's just warm piss water. Which is marginally worse than the cold fizzy piss water it starts out as. They call it the Silver Bullet, but everyone knows Coors is shootin blanks.

Number three... downsizing and the invevitable overflow of incredibly confusing belongings. If my key bowl could talk, it would be speechless. If my desk could communicate, it would cry. And if Pooey's room weren't inanimate it would apoplectic.

But we got this going, which is nice. The books are still on holiday. They will return happy, as we all do when we take a long vacation in a storage unit.

Alas, my house is a lesbian living in a straight appliance world, like sending Ellen and Porscia to Utah. She digs this stove, also a lesbian, but I'm afraid the Appliance Church will send them to Reconfiguration Camp, or whatever the old boys are calling it. (Secretly, the stove will just buy a strap-on and they'll go on as spinster roommates to appease the Appliance Elders.)

Mission Accomplished

2007-03-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

Yeah, Mission Accomplished - I should be shouting it from the deck of an aircraft carrier. Which is to say, we are officially out of the other house and officially splattered all over the new house. The dishes are in the cupboards, and the beds are made. The rest of it looks like the factory where the Ark goes at the end of Indian Jones. Except imagine all those boxes in one room the size of Chevy Suburban. Madeleine knows better than to ask me to find her rain boots, scissors, alarm clock, little brother, etc.

A few signs we've left the suburbs:
-Our new neighbor with the hubcap art is a professional piano tuner. His wife is an urban gardener. Her friend across the street is a bird rehabilitator and the guy two houses down makes hand-carved birdhouses. They carry their groceries in cloth bags and pretend not to notice when the temporary paper shades fall down in the bathroom mid-BM.

-Yesterday when both toilet were plugged (damn Heffeweizen) we all walked to the corner store to get a plunger (our two are probably packed with the champagne glasses and antique linens, given the spastic packing in the final days). The store didn't have one, but the owner offered to lend us hers. We declined and received two other offers on our walk home. Yes, I did openly advertise our over-active bowels. Apparently this is how you make friends in the city.

-We've taken to locking our cars at night. The first night we did this, and neglected to see that the passenger doors were wide open on the opposite side of both cars. The urban gardener shut them for us. I was a little disappointed, hoping someone would come along and steal the 800 lb hand-me-down sewing maching. What the hell is a sewing maching anyway?

-Sirens. Last night there were many. A guy a mile from here blew himself and his garage up while tinkering with homemade fireworks. Jim and I, not less than one hour earlier, were wondering if we could implode OUR garage like they do with old buildings. Now we know - yes, but we may have to be airlifted out of the wreckage.

-Birds live in the city. Lots of them, but they all stop singing when the unruly pack of crows come along and crash the party. Crows are the Hell's Angels of the avian world.

Moving wasn't terrible, and the new house fits us. I'll be back later when I feel more articulate. I seem to have lost some of my faculties in the sea of cardboard and crumpled newspaper.

A deluxe apartment in the sky.

2007-03-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

We're all movers and shakers these days, aren't we? Thursday's the day. We're closing in the afternoon and need to be completely out by the evening. How much have I packed, you ask? Does throwing away ten pounds of ugly preschool art from the back of our Subaru count? This afternoon, after we go sign Madeleine up for soccer at The Y, we're making the rounds to the print shops to get boxes. Then they'll sit in the living room, collecting stray Playmobil parts and uneaten chunks of cheese until Wednesday night, at which point my period will start, as will the moving angst and irrational crying. I'm saving up the champagne for the grand fete!

Madeleine whimpered herself to sleep last night, as she finally realized we're not going to be in this house at the end of the week. No amount of cajoling would shake her sadness (Dairy Queen will be two blocks away! The new house has mice in the garage! You can hide Pooey in the closet!). But I get it. It IS sad, and we've decided to have a Moving In party to welcome our new house into our family. (Heretofore unparalleled levels of sappiness. I know.) I'm sure House will be an exemplary family member, what with the sheltering, warming and allowing us to wash and poo in it properties.

I've gotta cut this short. Madeleine overheard me talking about soccer sign-ups and donned her fake jersey (#8 taped on the back of a t-shirt with electrical tape and silky shorts that are most likely swim trunks) and tiny soccer shoes and is practicing against the dog.

Here's the new place...

The first thing Jim said was, "Well, at least the tree is leaning away from the place..." That's high praise.

The view through the front window, better known as "The view the neighbors will see in the morning when I run down the stairs half-dressed to a wailing confused child or to take out the trash. Depending on the day."

Cool. There's hubcap art next door. I fucking hate neighborhood associations.

The view through the back window, or better known as "Mignon, buy yourself some goddamn clothes. You're not always on your way to soccer practice any more."

Hurling, hurtling, hurting, and in between there were sandy beaches and laughter.

2007-03-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

Well, that was different. I woke up the morning we were to leave for Portland with that familiar unwelcome tickle in my throat. Three hours later my nose was full of cement, not to be breached for another five days. It serves me right for my repeated criticism of the piss-poor restaurant selection in Missoula. I flew to Portland, to partake in the culinary ecstasy, only to be denied my sense of taste. And to reinforce how wrong I was to say Missoula's beloved Noodle Express sucks ass, my kids got sick too. Fevers, bloody noses, buckets of snot. All of it.

In between the fitful nights and glassy-eyed afternoons in front of Nickelodeon in the hotel, it was good. My mommy was there.

But then came the flight home. First a nasty altercation with the manager of the ticket desk for another airline. Apparently they should add the warning "May cause inarticulate speech and irrational anger" to the side of Dayquil. Then I got dumber and confuseder before going through security and had to pour out two bottles of milk and two sippy cups of juice, still reeling from the other-airline-desk-clerk -altercation.

Finally we were on the plane - or was it? It reminded me a lot of the cheap plastic toy planes I bought for the kid at the beach. The kind that are shot into space with a rubber band, only to come crashing to the ground because there's nothing remotely aerodynamic about them. That's what our plane was like. First the turbulence hurtled Quinn across the seats while I was simultaneously changing his diaper and trying to clean the spilled milk out of the crevices of my computer bag. Hurtled him across the seat into Madeleine's face, which immediately gushed scarlet blood all over her coloring book. Whee! Then Quinn settled down and fell asleep, just in time to miss the excitement of Madeleine vomiting all over everything. A grande hot chocolate. Am I a fucking idiot or what? At least I caught the majority of it in her sweatshirt. The rest will be left for the kind people at Big Sky Air. Dude. A flight should not be that bumpy, and there's no reason the entire plane needs to be heated by a 6000 Volt space heater strategically placed under Row 9. I stripped her naked and put my sweatshirt on her and we de-boarded sheepishly, leaving a trail of curdled chocolate milk and bloodied diaper wipes. I can think of no better way to put the exclamation point on such a frenetic, yet enjoyable, vacation.

Mom, let's do it again next year! I'll bring the Airborne, you get the gin. I think they'd mix nicely.

Let's get this straight.

2007-03-04T13:20:00.000-08:00

First and most importantly, can we please ignore Ann Coulter so that she may go away just like playground bullies do when their victims just walk away? If she calls, hang up. That's what you'd do with a telemarketer, right? She's no better. She's a kid with a microphone, showing off for her friends. Hang up.

Second, we sold our house and bought another. It's great. It's also a shoebox and every piece of furniture we put in it must have a drawer. I'm trying to figure out how to fit the bathtub with drawers. If diapers had pockets, Pooey would carry his own raisins. We may have to put this in the kitchen so it can double as the guest room. And if a pile of money falls from a hijacked airplane, we'll get this for Madeleine so she has a place to play on the floor of her ~~cubicle~~ room.

Third, my friend and her husband have a brewery here in town. This is good. Ask your local retailer (I say that only because I feel like I've heard it on TV. In reality you'll probably just have to come here and sleep in our fold-out bed/desk and drink it on our back deck while Jim bbq's some elk steak and the kids take turns screaming about stuff). It's in cans so you can drink it on a river-raft, because on the river bottles are bastard step-children.

Fourth, we're going to Portland for a week. We're leaving Tuesday. To mark the occasion I just went to Target and bought a pack of multi-colored pens for a dollar. I also bought some tiny hand-sanitizer bottles, a pack of cheese and a 98 lb bag of dog food. And a stroller. Target, I may stray on occasion, but you will always be my One and Only.

Fifth, one more in the series of The Ugliest Shoes Ever Made.

2007-03-03T14:50:00.000-08:00

I posted Madeleine's American Idol audition tape a couple minutes ago, but when she realized the world was watching, well, that was not okay. Sorry Tiny. All pictures and videos must be cleared by management henceforth.

This one got the stamp of approval.

Sing it with me: If I were a bendy-straw, I'd bend in the mo-or-nin....

It's called CREATIVE writing for a reason.

2007-02-25T13:25:00.000-08:00

The unfortunate thing about the oldest and most worn-out adage for writers, "Write What You Know," is that the truth is unbelievable. If I wrote what I know, about the people I know, the places I've been, readers would yawn, roll their eyes and say, "that goddamn James Frey has ruined literature." My life, everyone's life is just too damn colorful for fiction.

I keep a notebook of snippets of dialogue and descriptions of characters and places. I can't say I've ever consulted this book when I'm stuck - I don't write that way - but it helps me to see in writing what seems interesting in real life. And what I've found is the people I know well make terrible fictional characters. Putting them on paper is like paint-by-numbers. The same with real-life drama and conflicts. A couple I know in town has recently separated. They have five kids and the husband is a raging alcoholic. When I have only that much information, a story immediately germinates in my mind. But I know much more about the situation than those few facts, and as a result, I have a hard time inventing dialogue and quirky details about them. I can't write real-life people into my stories (by law), and I can't fictionalize people I know.

My first short story started out many years ago as a funny vignette about a friend of my husband's and mine. He's one of the most interesting people I know, living a life full of twists and turns. After writing one page about him I quit. He's too big for paper. In the original story, I kept his real name, which of course was a terrible idea. I couldn't riff on the real guy. Then, a couple years later I met a guy named Lanny. He was an immature, indolent surgeon. Such a perfectly bizarre combination of charactistics! A perfect character! Then after a page, his story stalled too. I had come to know him too well. Jimi Hendrix can spice up The Star Spangled Banner because he's a genius. I am not, and could not stray from real-life personas of these two men.

Somewhere along the way, maybe as a creative writing exercise, I married Lanny and my friend into a different guy, and it worked. I didn't rely on either one of them in particular for a characteristic or a detail. The character became his own man and I had a well of ideas and details from which to choose. But I won't do it again, if I can help it. Occasionally the fictional Lanny would do something in the story and I'd get confused, thinking to myself, "the real Lanny would never do that." Or the fictional Lanny would say something strange - out of place in the story - that my real friend might say. It was disorienting.

Now my characters are independent. I get details from real people, but people I don't know, real places I've driven through, but have never lived in. So I'm not sure if I'm writing what I know, but it's a hell of a lot easier. I don't have to be Jimi Hendrix, I can just make stuff up.

Edited to add: I'm working on a story now about some cashiers working in an all-night drugstore. The youngest is new and learning the ropes, but there's a dispute amongst them about something. Let's make this a little interactive: tell me a detail about these women (3 of them) and the night-shift pharmacist. A physical descriptor, a bit of their history, maybe a bad habit. Anything. What do you think these people are like?

The Endorsement: Toast

2007-02-22T08:38:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I eat toast for breakfast. And then again for lunch and dinner. I think toast is yummy and there are parts that get stuck in my teeth, therefore it is also healthy. By this reasoning I should eat Butterfingers for every meal, but that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about toast!

First, let's discuss the substrate*. There are classes of toast, from fresh challah to week-old Wonderbread, which has the consistency of the dingy plastic food you find in a box of toys at the pediatrician's office. Each has its place and time, none more important than the other because even dry wheat toast, the boring know-it-all of the toast world, has a niche. If you think about it, there's a caste system to toast, which leads us directly to the epitaxial layers.

Challah gets special treatment - no margarine or jam from tiny foil packets for him! We're talking ricotta with honey and cinnamon, or fresh whipped sweet cream butter and homemade marmalade. Stale Wonderbread gets the crap jobs - kids' grilled cheese sandwiches that won't be eaten because kids (in this house) hate food. And margarine. Margarine, I'm convinced won't cling to anything except nice dress shirts and cheap white bread. The upper echelon toasts shun margarine like the plague. I rather like that analogy, actually. Margarine equals The Plague.

Toast can be a meal at any hour of the day. It can soothe, nourish, tease, or compliment. It's eaten by children in between vomiting up pink jelly beans, it's eaten by fancy guys of ambiguous sexuality in exclusive clubs. From beans and toast, to toast with images of the Virgin Mary. There's a reason the penultimate moment of a wedding or joyous feast is called The Toast. It's the water and wine of food.

So let's hear it! Three cheers for toast!

*That's a fancy word for toast that I've dredged up from my past life. I've decided to recycle some of these useless syllables, otherwise I just picture them hanging around my brain like engineers hang out at company parties. Which is to say, antisocially because they talk about things like substrates and epitaxial layers.

Boxing in the Floodplains, The Final Round

2007-02-18T16:19:00.000-08:00

My last practice was like most others. I showed up early to warm-up with a jump rope, shoot the shit with Coach and his boy. The kid was excited for the smoker in Hamilton that weekend. He'd be fighting up a weight, having grown and noticably filled out over the summer. The other two boys showed up a little late as usual. The 8-year-old's mom dropped them off in her beat-up Taurus. He looked just like her, dark-haired, sallow. But he always smiled like there was good news around the corner. He and the other 8-year-old would be fighting in their first smoker in Hamilton and they were a blur of anticipation and little-boy bravado that day. It was a Thursday, my favorite day. I was probably looking forward to getting drunk and Moose's that night, then driving down to watch the kids fight on Saturday.

The smoker, it was well worth the three-hour drive, too. The Eagles club in Hamilton hosted, and the place was packed with parents and old men with memories. The regulation ring took up the majority of the meeting hall, and metal folding chairs were packed in all around it. When I got there most of the chairs were already rearranged into haphazard bunches and circles. I found my coach and the kids' right away - the coach's kid had bright orange hair and it was easy to spot him bouncing around while the coach tried to wrap his hands. All the boys were bouncing, actually. Maybe fifty of them. In head gear, in sweats, huddling with their coaches, getting last minute instructions from their dads. The tension was palpable through the stale smoke and fake buttered popcorn stench.

I don't remember the details of the fights - I wasn't sure I wanted to watch in the first place. As much as I'd come to like those boys and respect our coach, I was not especially hopeful for their chances in their bouts. The littlest 8-year-old didn't like to jab, going for the knock-out uppercut even with the heavy bag. He was so small, but so sure he was going to slay giants. The coach's kid just didn't like getting fatigued. He was the one that taught the others to dangle their skinny arms when the coach wasn't looking. The other kid, he's hard to remember. The three of them together just seemed like any posse you'd see punching buttons at your local arcade.

But damn it, if all three boys didn't kick some fucking ass that day. Technique, finesse, to hell with it. Those kids fought like it was born to them. At the end of the first round of each of their fights, all three of their opponents looked scared, and that, as we all know, is the thing. The final two rounds for all three boys were just formalities, but they all continued to bring it and bring it and bring it. The coach was quiet during their matches, encouraging them and massaging their bony shoulders while giving instructions. Each boy looked him in the eye and nodded at his words, aware how important it is to have someone in your corner. At the end of the little 8-year-old's first match I had to walk outside for air because I felt tears coming. I cried because I was so overwhelmingly proud and amazed at these kids and my coach. They surprised me that day more than anyone ever has.

After winning their first bouts, each kid advanced to the next round, but I had to leave early, to get back up to Kalispell that night. A big thunderstorm was advancing up the Bitterroot Valley, and I didn't want to get caught driving in it. So I told each kid how impressed I was. I slapped high fives and socked them in their stringy little arms, and they were each gracious and thanked me for coming. Then I stepped out of the Eagles Club and got into my truck for the long haul back home. And that was the last I time I ever saw any of them. The storm that threatened the Bitterroot did in fact come to be. It traveled all the way up north to the Flathead Valley and dumped an uprecedented quantity of rain on the hard-baked summer ground. It rained for three straight days, and by the time Tuesday rolled around for practice, the Whitefish River was still swollen and muddy. The lowlands around our boxing shack had been evacuated and nobody could get in.

It wasn't until the following Tuesday that the muck and debris had been cleared away from the little dirt road that ran along the Whitefish, and when I drove in at practice time, there was nothing. It was as if someone had pinched it up in their giant fingers and plucked it from the earth. In fact, there wasn't even a foundation. I searched through my truck for the paperwork I had filled out on my first day, looking for my coach's phone number, and when I found it I called him from the pay phone at the closest 7-11. Disconnected. Everything was gone. I didn't know the other kids' last names so I couldn't call their parents, I couldn't find a number for Jesse, the Golden Gloves champ, and the friend of a friend that had directed me to the club in the first place had moved to Phoenix. That was the end. I couldn't believe it. I kept calling the coach's number, for so long, in fact, that eventually it was given to someone else.

It was real, right? I have to ask myself this, but then sometimes when I'm searching for a boot deep in our shoebox I'll find one of my old hand wraps and my hands will remember the abrasions. Or Jim's brother will bring up the name they used to call me - Minnie-Bang-Bang, and I'll think about the boys and our playful camaraderie. Or during my workout I'll go at the heavy bag for a couple minutes, and my shoulders will remember those old satisfying pains. But mostly I think about how so many notions I had at the age of 23 about people and life and hard work were shattered. Broken down, punch by punch. I think about how people rarely surprise me any more, and this makes me sad, but only because I know what it feels like to be truly surprised by the greatness of a kid. It happens like that sometimes, you know. You start doing something simple, like taking the bus on occasion or reading a different newspaper and you realize, maybe not for a long long time, that you took a fork in the road. Boxing in the floodplains was a fork in my road.