The Godfather

We went to see Emery's drama performance last night at school. They did a version of The Nutcracker (as a play not a ballet) and Emery played Godfather Dross. He was just wonderful. Doug and I so, so, so enjoy watching him perform. He has a great presence on stage and a lovely, clear voice that projects so naturally. Great, great, great.

Hate the Sinner, Love the SIN

All of my growing up years I heard this concept repeated over and over - that we hate the sin but we love the sinner.

I've been so troubled by the setbacks in this ridiculous debate over gay marriage and the salivary glee conservative, religious heretics of this nation experience in denying some Americans their civil rights. They love to practice this exclusivity, this us-and-them thinking. They do it in their churches. They do it in their private pseudo-christian schools. And I am so sick of the separate-but-equals too, who propose civil unions and everything but marriage type of legislation. Sick, sick, sick.

I think they love the sin. I think they feed upon it. That sin, pretend and fake, keeps them in their exalted position.

I know I am not supposed to hate them. By their logic, I am to despise their sin and love them anyway. I am to love them, even as they spew their sin in public forums, with no shame for being BIG FAT Sinners. I feel shame that I don't love them as I should. I pray for forgiveness that I feel such pity and anger toward them. But their stupidity wears on me like a blanket of lead. And I loathe them.

Keep Abortion Legal

I have been mulling something over, wondering how to do it... What if, in response to the stupid Stupak Amendment, there were a non-profit organization that gave money to a woman seeking an abortion no matter what her circumstances? Then we don't have to care about government money or health insurers' money. Is that something that could be done?

What is the Problem?????

I thought I knew Maine and New York but they've disappointed me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/new-york-gay-marriage-fai_n_377385.html

I feel so disheartened.

APPROVE REFERENDUM 71!

About Referendum 71: Voting APPROVE on Ref. 71 is a vote to keep the domestic partnership law that provides legal protections for lesbian and gay couples and seniors who are in committed relationships. To be able to take unpaid leave to care for a critically ill loved one, without being fired. To be able to cover a partner in family health insurance. To make sure hard-earned pension and death benefits protect children when a parent dies. Approving Ref. 71 ensures that important protections are not taken away from committed couples, so that they are able to take care of each other, especially in times of crisis. Keep the domestic partnership law - Vote APPROVE on Ref. 71 by Nov 3.

Zen. Don't Even Think About It.

I saw this on a bumper sticker today.

My friend Ken used to have this on his fridge:

your karma ran over my dogma...

Just love her...

There is a chapter early on the The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck where Peck is counseling a friend who says that he has fallen out of love with his wife... they've been married a long time and the friend just doesn't feel that feeling anymore. Peck advises him that love is action and also feels that the friend is letting himself off too easy. Peck says, "Don't feel it, do it. Just love her. Just do it." Peck says that doing is what produces the feeling - love the one you're with. Love him.

That opened up a lot of doors to me when I read it 20 years ago. The idea that I could act instead of feel or do instead of react -- it was empowering.

I was on my walk the other day and I thought that same thought about myself. What if I didn't wait to outgrow the things I dislike about my appearance, or about aging. What if I didn't hope that they'd go away but instead just loved her - all of her. It felt so silly to delve into new age affirmations while walking about, but I thought the same passage in that book could apply to my relationship with myself, my love for me and my acceptance of myself. Instead of bemoaning that I used to be cuter or younger or thinner, what if I just loved myself?

Halloween Poem by Emery

Emery wrote this for the newsletter at school:

I come back home
When the darkness
Is churning
I think I see
The doorknob
turning.
Out comes a
Nocturne,
Whose face
Unknown.
All that
Is left
Of me,
Is a pile
Of bone.
By Emery Arementrout

Periodontal Dis-ease

A Dentist's Night'mare'
Originally uploaded by :: R(c) Photography ::

So, I am trying very hard to keep all of my teeth. In my family, we all have deep pockets; and I'm not referring to our generous natures... No, in my lineage the word pockets is always referring to that space around the roots of our teeth which shouldn't be there - that space that dentists and periodontists call Gingivitis.

To ward off its effects and to keep my own teeth for as long as I'm able I go to exhausting and terrifying lengths. First, I go to the periodontist every 3 months for a deep cleaning. Those always involve gas, numbing (read: shots in le mouth), and an hour's worth of scraping and torture. My periodontist's hygienist actually sharpens her tools many times over as she works on my plaque.

Then, every so often, as I did yesterday, I get a DEEP cleaning. This involves total numbing (not just partial) and the shots are in the worst part of my mouth - like the roof of my mouth. But yesterday, the lower jaw would not get numb - no matter how many shots she gave me.

I also floss, stimulate, brush, and use all sorts of instruments designated for home dental care to ward off the formation of these hard and calcified spots under my gums which really, really want to grow on the roots of my teeth.

All this is to say: I do a lot of work on my teeth. A lot.

Meanwhile there's Doug.

My husband brushes once a day. He rarely flosses, he has sweet breath (except for how much he loves raw onions) and he may make it to the dentist once a year. Sometimes he skips a year. But when he goes? When he does go to the dentist, guess what they say! "Doug, just perfect, as always!" No pockets, no gingivitis, no periodontal disease.

If that's not unfair, I don't know what is.

Cartoon History of the Universe

Cartoon History of the Universe
Originally uploaded by Michael Vance1

Emery's favorite book

Reinvention

I was just talking with some friends about how I reinvented myself when I left Texas and moved to Ohio for graduate school. Looking back on it I realized that although I had been a fairly unconventional Texan when I lived in the Lone Star State, once I left the constraints of its borders I became a walking example to Ohioans of all that a Texan is. I became someone who always wore make-up, always wore an 'outfit' (so much so that people often asked me where I was going, sure that I couldn't have arrived at my final destination when I was clearly so overdressed for where we were and what we were doing). I was a girl who always had her hair done - and done big (the higher the hair, the closer to God), favoring a high ponytail accessorized with a bow. I relished my Texas accent, used the phrase 'fixin' to' as often as possible and stuck a "y'all" in whenever appropriate.

I extolled the virtues of the Texas landscape, her people, her cultural institutions and culinary gifts - missed the Texas Two-Step and Country music; even though I'd been a fan of none of these things while growing up...

The opportunity to be a stranger in a strange land offered up the chance to be a curiosity and I loved it. I got to shed the things I'd carried around with me that I didn't like and take on new characteristics that were off-limits to me when I might run into someone I'd known since the third grade. On the Ohio University campus I was never going to run into someone who'd known me my entire life -- no one was going to say, "Wow, what happened to you?" It was a freedom that is lost to me now. Now I'm part of a community: at church, school and work. That's why it is so important to do it while you're young - and I hope my boys do that too. They should go away to college, to the East Coast or the Mid-West. Maybe when I retire we could run away again, Doug and me. Maybe we'll find that freedom again. Sometimes you wanna go where nobody knows your name...

"Doug is just like Poppa. He even has Poppa's sweet little smile..." That's what I thought to myself early this morning. I thought about the most important men in my life and they have shared some really startling qualities, given that they're all from parts rural - either in Texas or Iowa. Poppa grew up in Paris, Texas on a farm growing cotton and sorghum. That sorghum was used to make syrup (and TJ Blackburn syrup is still made in Jefferson, Texas; that was one of his cousins, I believe). Daddy grew up in Temple, Texas and my grandaddy coached football and was a school teacher. Both my poppa and my daddy read poetry. My poppa was an artist and a poet himself. He had a beautiful singing voice and sang on the radio in Dallas with his brother and two other men in a quartet. My father could quote all the great poets and knew all of Shakespeare's sonnets. He sang beautifully and loved opera. How do men who grow up in Paris and Temple love these things? We never listened to country music in my home growing up in San Antonio. We listened to classical music and opera. We listened to Perry Como. But we never listened to country music. I don't remember either of my parents ever reading a trash novel. The book I can picture in our bookcase at home is Jude the Obscure.

Doug grew up on a farm in southwest Iowa. He loved poetry and playwrights and is gentle and sweet like my poppa. Doug is the first person in his family to go to college, and then he went on to graduate school, where I met him. I don't know why it never occurred to me before, how much like my poppa he is, his sweetness and his gentleness. I am sure I went looking for that. Children react to Doug just exactly like they did to my poppa - like moths to flame.

why is everyone a whisperer?

Is it just me or is there too much whispering going on? Why is it just because you say you whisper to a horse, dog, ghost, child, mentally disturbed person somehow you are the great communicator? I have always been more of a yeller myself.

Fatter Somewhere

funhouse mirror self-portrait
Originally uploaded by craftivista

I grew up in San Antonio and I am fatter there than I am anywhere else. I am a little fatter in Austin, where I went to college, than I am in other places, but I pull it off better than I do in San Antonio. I am always very fat in my mother's house. I am fatter in Seattle than I am on the Eastside (where I currently reside). I am thinner downstairs in my own house than I am upstairs. I am always thinner in church than I am out in the world. Feeling forgiven makes me feel thinner.

I have accepted that it will always be so: being fatter some places and thinner others. I have understood that my perception makes my reality and alters it according to my mood and my circumstance. I am not an objectivist. I like Ayn Rand, but I don't subscribe to her theories, at least not where my belly is concerned. My upper arms vary minute by minute, mirror to mirror. I can gain 200 pounds in the span of an hour. I can acquire a pound per mile as I travel from one part of the country to another. Memories and insecurities add fat as surely as the lack of them slim me down to my true size.

I take my clothes off in the middle of the day to check their size. Not that it matters. The 4s or 8s or 6s don't matter. the P after the 8 makes me feel no better or a little better depending on my mood. Everything is judged by what is better a 4 regular or an 8 petite... Everything is that kind of trade off. I see what I want to see. I see what I can't bear to see.

At the dentist office I ask him to turn up the Nitrous because I'm not feeling it. I feel drunk when he says, "are you sure? You're pretty small." I say, I'm not paying extra for that, right? I wonder why he tries to flatter me, what his agenda might be. He's tricking me. They're laughing at me behind my back, he and the hygenist, that's what I think.

Sometimes I go into the bathroom and do what I need to do without ever catching my reflection in the mirror. Sometimes I can't stop staring.

Post Your Secret

This is incredible:
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Ugly, ugly, ugly

Jon Gosselin
Originally uploaded by argo21

Ok, I can't figure this out. Why would one woman (much less three or four) show even a passing interest in this loser?

For one thing he's as ugly as homemade sin. Those puffy eyes and that squashy face. Ugh. He's soft. He's got a fat neck and a weak chin.

For another he has a brood of kids and a lot of baggage. He'd better be makin' a lot of money because he is going to be paying a fortune in child support. He's going to have to keep drumming up the drama just to keep the payola flowing in to support all these kids and exes.

Just gross.

The point is mute

Moot is what he meant but mute is what he said. Moot: meaning debatable - like a moot court, not important, or just academic -- it doesn't mean soundless...

I can't tell you how often I hear someone say, "irregardless" which, of course, isn't a word. They really mean irrespective or regardless.

But, when people say, "the point is mute" I either want to laugh or scream.

Don't look... but stay right there

My children are ridiculously modest. They can't have anyone be in the bathroom with them, no looking while they get dressed - all that. But they've been that way since each was about 2 1/2. So, it's difficult with a small, boy child not to help at all in the bathroom. I mean if you care anything about the walls and floor of your bathroom.

So Wilbur wants me to go with him to the bathroom, but he doesn't want me to come in, and, in fact, he locks the door as if I might want to terrorize him by popping my head in mid-stream. But he also does not want me to go away. What he wants is for me to stand outside the bathroom door and wait. What he says is, "Don't look. But stay right here."

It struck me this morning that this is a metaphor for parenting. As my children grow up they say that to me in many different ways and sometimes it's hard to hear. The 'don't look' part feels like, 'don't meddle, don't be in my life.' I have to remind myself of the 'stay right here' part that comes after.

Cuckoo Puffs

Cocoa Puffs Combos
Originally uploaded by danajohnhill

Wilbur has asked me for this cereal, insisting that it's called Coo-Coo Puffs. I tried to say that the bird says he's cuckoo for cocoa puffs but he gets very frustrated with me and says, "No, it's COO COO FOR CO-CO PUFFS!"

Seattle Pride

Our church marched in the Gay Pride parade yesterday - Doug stayed home with the boys and I marched. It was a beautiful Seattle day and it was a great parade. We waved and blew kisses and tried to show the gay community that there are churches where they are welcomed and wanted.

That was the cap to a wonderful weekend. We saw The Tempest on Friday night with our friend Bradley Goodwill as Alonzo. We stayed out until almost 2 AM that night. We had taken Leigh and Alex with us and they took us out to Via Tribunali after the show. Matt, in town for Catch Me If You Can at the 5th Avenue, met us also. Matt brought the musical director for Catch Me (his friend John) and we all had a marvelous time.

I hope that Leigh and Alex think it's fun to meet these people - these friends of ours. I hope we don't make them uncomfortable. Sometimes I wonder about that. We have all these friends who are theater people and I hope they find it fun and not tiresome to hang out with us.

Saturday the boys went to the Doyle's for brothers' day - an annual event now with them. Brian and Brandi Doyle are lots of fun and their kids and Wilbur are bosom buddies. So, I dropped them off at noon. We spent a little time alone, just the two of us, and then we went by a graduation reception for a boy who has done some sitting for us. Then we went back to the Doyle's for dinner and to pick up the boys. Wilbur cried his eyes out when we left - a total melt down. "I don't want to go-oh-oh-oh!!"

Yesterday was the pride parade. I feel like thank god it's Monday, because I am exhausted.

I got posted on Hey Rude!

Check out my friend Helene's site about rude behavior in New York City! You'll see that they posted one of my submissions:

http://www.heyrude.com/2009/06/who-are-these-people-clean-up-after.html

City-sponsored meetings for gays trigger showdown over privacy vs. public records

City%2Dsponsored%20meetings%20for%20gays%20trigger%20showdown%20over%20privacy%20vs%2E%20public%20records

Shared via AddThis

This is why I'm marching in the Pride Parade here in Seattle on June 28th. Not b/c I care about private vs. public records, but because a guy like this is out there spending all his spare time making sure no one is getting ahead of him in his race of rats.

Sage about Age

Wrinkled Elegance
Originally uploaded by Athary

I think this is what's hard about aging: the -ing. It continues and it's ongoing. It's in process. It's not done.

I look in the mirror and I don't like a change I see. I realize the inevitability of the new wrinkle or the sag or just the alteration in the nature of my skin. Then I come to acceptance - of that, the way it is that day. But then I realize that I am not frozen in time and it's not going to stay 'this good'. That's what happens. I have never aspired to look like I'm in my Early 40s. But now, given that I'm almost in my mid-40s and then I'll be in my late 40s and then my early 50s (and the beat goes on), hanging on to the early 40s look sounds good.

100 dollar words

Yesterday Emery was upstairs trying to watch a program 'On Demand' and he was struggling with the remote. I heard him grunt and get mad and I asked what was up. He said, "It's this remote! I can't get the infernal thing to work!"

This morning Wilbur is watching his requisite Backyardigans before school (it seems like they watch a lot of TV)... It's the Viking Voyage episode. Wilbur called out, "It's a whirlpool!" and Emery said, "It's more like a maelstrom. A maelstrom is even more powerful."

Happy Birthday Son

Today my oldest boy is 10 years old. I can't believe it. How can I describe how much joy this child has brought into our lives? We call him our good luck charm because it seems that after he was born, everything fell into place.

It is certainly a journey that I couldn't imagine before I had him, and it's a journey that is so different today than when he was a baby. I used to see families with their children in the 'tween years and think that wouldn't be as fun as when they were babies. But it's much more enjoyable as they get older - the struggles grow, too. Not being able to protect my son, seeing his friends' influence outweigh ours, realizing that there is nothing I can do to make him a popular kid or the leader among his peers (that they have something to say about that), is not easy. It was certainly much easier to dress him in something adorable and ask him to smile.

Now, he has awkward moments and goofy moments. He is silly in that funny way boys have as they figure out how to tell a joke and then practice being un-enthused (oh. cool. -- I hear that a lot); they do that thing where they act like they are nonplussed and unimpressed. There are moments when I want to be able to punish him the way I used to and still punish Wilbur, sitting on the steps and taking a time out. But by the age of 9 and certainly now that he's 10, that just doesn't cut it anymore. The consequences require thoughtful consideration for every infraction, and every infraction can't warrant punishment. If I punished him every time he rolled his eyes at me there would be no 'time in' -- it would all be time out. So, I choose my battles and focus on the heinous deeds; a particularly nasty tone, complete refusals and uncompleted but required tasks (homework). And I try to stay the one he wants to talk to about hurt feelings and disappointments. Someone told me once that with boys you should be doing something alongside them to open up a conversation about feelings and needs - and she was absolutely right. If I'm not looking at him, he'll open up and tell me about the hard time someone is giving him, his first crush on a girl way out of his league (two years older, a 6th grader!), and how he wants to be part of a tougher crowd of boys at school but he's not quite making it.

It's not really something I could imagine 10 years ago as I labored for 36 hours without so much as a Tylenol, asking for street drugs or a sledgehammer. And truthfully, it's better that we don't really know what we're getting ourselves into, what we'll feel, how we'll struggle. You wouldn't have the energy for that journey at the start of the trip, and you'd set yourself up to fail. The only way to do it is the way we have to do it, a day at a time.

TEAM me

Bicycle Built for Two - Tintype
Originally uploaded by photo_history

Doug and I have this thing that makes us laugh and it happened this morning. We imagined we were teamed up on that old game PASSWORD. I would be giving clues that I thought clearly indicated a word or concept and he would answer with something completely out of bounds, something that would make me think he was from another planet.

We first laughed and got hysterical about the concept of us as Le TEAM when Doug said one time that we'd never make it on a bicycle built for two. I would be all the time trying to wrest control from him although I wouldn't want to be the front rider. We said I'd be saying things like, "SLOW DOWN! You're going TOO FAST!" Doug would be sure we should go one way and I would know we should go another. The idea of that made us fall apart with the giggles.

Doug and I are a great team if we each do what we do best. But we aren't a real work-together kind of team. We are both really stubborn about how we want something done and we are complete opposites about how we approach even the simplest task. Doug is thorough, plans before he begins, is painstakingly methodical and does things in a certain order. I am quick, dive in without a plan, impulsive and impetuous and do things in no order at all - I may have to stop in the middle to preheat the oven, know what I mean? I hardly ever follow a recipe completely, to great acclaim at times and alternately resulting in disaster. It's why I can't bake. I start a crossword in the middle. I start things and tire of them and quit. Doug doesn't stop because it's dark out and he'll weed tomorrow - he stops when he gets to a logical stopping place. That is not me. If I don't want to do something anymore, I don't.

The way we are is good. Sometimes it's good to be a quitter like me (If something's not working for you, get out of it, move on). Sometimes it's good to have stick-to-itiveness. Sometimes it's advantageous to have a plan. Sometimes it's nice to go off the grid. But, after 15 years together, we know the couple we are. We couldn't go on Password and we would never make it on a bicycle built for two.

Don't forget your mother! Give her Jesus!

The Mother's Day Gift To Make Her Say Hallelujah
Originally uploaded by sudergal

I used to think Mother's Day was a nice thing to do. Now I realize what mothers really do, what they set aside, what they give up; and how much they love doing that. It's hard to explain how you give so much of yourself away and that you find you want to do it - it's hard to say that without sounding like some kind of martyr... or sounding like you think your Jesus.

I remember my first week of motherhood after Emery was born. I was so overwhelmed with love for him. And sadness for the loss of myself. I kept thinking, I will never be just me. I thought, I will never just do something I want to do or go somewhere I want to go without considering this child first. And that is a loss, particularly for someone in her 30s at the time who was accustomed to going and doing where and as she pleased.

Maybe all mothers don't feel that way, but I certainly do. I would walk through the hottest fire blah blah blah, as any mother would. I would lay down my life. And I do it in little ways each day. This is not to say I don't want to - it makes me aware though, the commitment you make before you have any idea what you're getting into.

There is a kind of vulnerability, too, that comes from loving a child so much and realizing how you could crumble into nothing if any hurt or ill came to that child. It was difficult for me, in the early days of parenting, to feel so raw and vulnerable. That is something I've adjusted to over the years. I used to have this insane vision each time I pulled into our driveway that I would run over one of my children. I think the true nightmare of worrying over your kids is that you might be the one to hurt them and cause them pain. I still have that vision but only now and then...

So don't forget your mother.

This flickr image reminds me of a time when my Poppa was alive but ailing in the hospital. Mother, Granny and Garland had been visiting him. It was around Christmastime, and they left the hospital to grab a bite to eat at a Whataburger across the street. The Whataburger was decorated for Christmas, but in a haphazard and half-ass way. There was a manger scene, but it was divided up and distributed over the entirety of the restaurant, as if they didn't have enough decorations so they decided to split the members of the scene up and have them take their places all over the restaurant. They made the entire restaurant the stable. But the thing that made Granny and Mother and Garland laugh, made them actually get hysterical (the way you do after death or suffering when you are so tired and sad) was where they had decided to put the baby Jesus... He was laying face up on the cash register - no manger, no straw.

TA$TE

My mother has always hated to go shopping. It was one of the anomalies I experienced as a child growing up in Texas -- my mother was not a typical Texas mother. Other people's mothers loved to shop, shopped on vacation even. My mother couldn't fathom shopping on vacation! Why, that's what you went on vacation to escape, mundanities such as shopping. She didn't like to shop (a bore, it made her feet hurt), didn't want me to be a cheerleader (it's silly, beneath you), begged me not to join a sorority (all that singing together and iced tea), and offered to give me the money she'd spend on my wedding if I'd elope (buy a house! are you sure you don't want the money?). My mother is a pragmatist.

So, when we went shopping we always got tickled about something in the dressing room and completely lost control of ourselves. Regardless of whether she enjoyed shopping or not, my mother, like my grandmother before her, would not buy cheap clothes. And never, NEVER, buy cheap shoes. My mother would rather go barefoot than wear cheap shoes, and she got that from my Granny. Granny never told me that I could learn a lot about a person by walking in his shoes, she said, "You can tell a lot about a person by the shoes they wear." I think she was wearing Ferragamo's when she died.

When we went shopping, it seemed that we'd look and look for something (we were always shopping for something specific; my mother didn't just shop for no reason, she hated it too much) and I'd invariably find one single thing I liked -- and it was always the most expensive thing in the store. My mother used to always say, "Well Paige, you've got good taste" or, "Paige, you sure have expensive taste" or finally, "you have your father's taste."

My father always said you couldn't buy taste - you either had it or you didn't, it was either bred into you or it wasn't. He grew up not rich, but his father had a college education and was a teacher and his mother loved the finer things, she adored china and silver with such a passion that I have full sets of china and crystal for any occasion. Dessert teas, ladies luncheon, you name it: I have a specific set of china for the occasion. Daddy used to point people out at our country club who were rich rich rich but whose taste was all in their mouths. Those were the people about whom he said, "Squirrel, money can't buy taste."

I have those same eyes now. I see these awful, gargantuan houses and I hear my father's voice in my head, 'money doesn't buy taste.' I hear my mother's voice in my head when I browse online at Nordstrom.com and finally see something I think is cute and it's always like $498 bucks. "Paige, you sure have expensive tastes." I'm not saying I spend that on a wear-to-work dress, I'm just saying, that's what I like.

La Bikina

My father loved mariachis. The first time Doug met my daddy we were in San Antonio. Daddy had it in his mind that we'd go to Paisano's but I was thinking La Margarita and if you knew my father you knew that he was pretty stubborn. So he agrees to go to La Margarita for 'a drink and let's see', he says. But once we get there, there is one of those incredible mariachi bands - one of those with like 20 guys - and the lead guy, the singer, he can really sing. Really. And, to top it off, there is an engagement party going on at the next 2 tables and they are paying these guys to play over and over again. So, it was a good night. My father sat back in his chair, across from Doug, and chewed his ubiquitous cigar and kept saying things like, "They don't make 'em like that anymore Squirrel" -- his pet name for me.

Fast forward to this past Christmas and my mother gives me this Luis Miguel CD, with La Bikina on it. Now La Bikina was my daddy's favorite mariachi song. He requested it if he felt like the mariachi singer could really sing it. And it's the song he requested that night at La Margarita when he started paying the mariachi band. We ended up closing La Margarita that night and my daddy and Doug became as thick as thieves. So, in preparation for Cinco de Mayo, and in honor of my father, I share with you, "La Bikina!"

Lichen a Challenge

Sysiphus
Originally uploaded by k4cay

People always say that they like a challenge. They often say it when they are interviewing for a job. They claim to work well under pressure, better in fact than without any pressure. They say they like deadlines. "I work well on a deadline." "I like a fast-paced environment," they'll say.

I have discovered that I do not like a challenge. I really don't. And I'll tell you what else, I think there are more people out there like me than you'd think. And, I bet other people like me SAY that they like a challenge, but they don't. They say it because they think they are supposed to like it.

But why would I want to do something the hard way if I could have it easier? Wouldn't I rather have the luxury of time? I am often lamenting to myself, as I hurry around my house trying to leave on time, that haste makes waste. I'll admonish myself for trying to yank on pantyhose only to ruin them with a run, or practicing some clever step saving that costs me extra time in the end (once I went through this whole elaborate routine to try to get out of washing my hair and I just had to go all the way back to step one and get in the damn shower)... I don't work better under pressure or deadline and I don't like a challenge. When I have the luxury of time and a pressure free mind I come up with a great comeback that I would give anything to have said to that boorish colleague who has been irritating me for months.

The next time I interview someone for a job (and that's going to be soon, I'm hiring) when they say that they like a challenge, as they invariably will, I'm going to say, "Really? Do you really? Because I don't..."

There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste. Goethe

"Der moderne Buchdruck" - Modern book printing, Berlin

I often think that Goethe's statement that there is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste is a singularly perfect thing. More of that has been seen in this country during our most recent boom times than perhaps anytime in recent history; what with our McMansions (ugh. shudder at it) and big toys (I never refer to any purchase of mine as a toy. Toys are for tots); the gross and exuberant displays of bad taste and absolutely no taste have been flaunted as shamelessly as a coed at her first Mardis Gras.

So, when I consider another famous Goethe quote, "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free" it all knits together so nicely. It's almost as if Goethe knew us, intimately.

I write about these things so the children will read this later and be reminded of How To Do Things. Some things are not ok and never will be. Exercising some bad taste option that entails more than $1.59 is not worth it.

Sad Today

Today is the second anniversary of Granny's passing and I miss her as much today as I did that day two years ago. I've experienced a wave a grief lately - the kind of grief that made me wonder if this was only the 1st anniversary... I had to think about it, no, no, this is two years.

My friend Jon once said that as time passes a new kind of grief comes from getting by without the person you miss. You almost feel sorry that you haven't collapsed and been unable to continue because that would be a reaction commensurate with your love and longing for your loved one. He's right. Sometimes it feels so bad to have gone days without thinking of Granny.

But it's just a cycle and it ebbs and flows like anything.
Today it's very present.

Is it my imagination...

Or does every gay man have a close friend named Zoe (Zoey, Zooey)?

Stop the Insanity

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090422/ap_on_re_us/us_fed_up_mom;_ylt=AlX0B6fzoXSf1tFkONazZzcDW7oF

Ok, I would never do this but who wouldn't show up in court for this woman to say, "I've thought about it."

It's like a baby crying - it has this sort of dual effect - you have this overwhelming sympathy and concern and somewhere on a lower, baser track in your brain you just want to get it to stop. After months of little sleep and this crying that has no explanation (you go through your litany, wet? no. hungry? been fed. tired? just woke up.) and you find yourself thinking, "What?" to your baby. What in the world have you got to cry about?!

It's the same with the bickering. God! It's awful. My kids have this way of saying each others names in disgust that might as well be a screeching sound or nails on a chalkboard. "Wilbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrr!!!!!" "Emeryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!"

It's terrifying.

And in the car it's always the worst. They want to bring a book a toy a lego guy a whatever in the car, even though we have a rule about no toys in the car. But I'm late, we need to get to school, I sigh, "Whatever! Fine! Bring a lego guy, bring 10 lego guys, let's just go!" Then in the car they fight over the LEGO GUYS! It's insanity. Absolute insanity.

So, would I pull the car over and say 'get out'? No, but I can imagine this poor woman. Gripping the steering wheel, trying to drive, she keeps calmly reinforcing to her children that they must stop fighting. And then, if you don't stop fighting I'm going to pull this car over and leave you wherever we are to duke it out. And suddenly in her head, as the incessant bickering continues over some bullshit that the children don't actually even CARE about it occurs to her to just do it. The little devil says, "you told them. You said if they didn't stop. Follow through for once in your life. Do it!"

Mari's Beehive

I patterned myself after Mari Wilson off and on through college. I did the beehive, cocktail dresses (although I paired them with combat boots)... And I loved this song. I bought this cassette tape while I was in high school (1983? 84?) and I remember riding around in Susie Shearer's Honda Matic with the sunroof open and this blasting.

What Rich Is

"I'm not after sympathy. We are blessed. What I want is a reality check on what rich means," Ms. Parnell says. "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without, but I'm not living a life of luxury."

This is from a woman whose family earns $250,000 per year...

http://finance.yahoo.com/retirement/article/106934/Wealth-Less-Effect-Earning-Well-Feeling-Otherwise

There is this article in the WSJ about whiny-pusses who make at least 250K and don't want their taxes to go up because they are barely eking out a living.

Please.

It's hard for me to even know where to start with these people. I feel so rich, so blessed, so privileged - because "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without" to quote idiot-woman Ms. Parnell. And if she wants a reality check, I submit she look no further than within. What is it about Ms. Parnell that makes her feel less than rich in the midst of all that abundance? It seems more a spiritual quandary than a tax issue. Compared to most people in this country she's rich. Certainly when you scan the globe, she and the other 250K/year earners are among the Super-Rich. Do we now define Candy Spelling as rich and anything less as middle class? I guess I thought when you could do all those things (am I a Depression baby all of a sudden?): Pay your mortgage, go to resorts for vacation, have 5 kids (these people had 5 kids! My mother is an only child because my grandparents couldn't afford more. All those kids were a choice!) and have $1,200 left over every month ---- YOU WERE RICH. Yes, Ms. Parnell, I think you do need a reality check on what Rich is. You are but you didn't have the sense God gave you to enjoy it.

FOR THE EYE and The sun doesn't move

Emery has to take these eye drops every day for his allergies - it's called Pataday and it comes in this teeney little bottle that you'd swear holds about 3 drops. The last time I refilled the prescription they put the bottle in a pill bottle (it usually just comes in the Pataday box, which is also teensy weensy) and on the pill bottle was a sticker, larger than the eye drop bottle, that said, "FOR THE EYE" . And I just thought, what else would you do with this? Or would it be so harmful to accidentally swallow it? Or is it that it wouldn't be effective if you took this some other way? I pictured people putting it on their skin as a topical or putting drops on their tongues and screwing up their faces in consternation, saying to their significant others in a twangy voice, "I cain't figger this out, it jus' ain't workin'! These gol' dang allergys is jus' as bad as before!"

On another note, it was a very sunny morning yesterday, the kind we live for here in the Seattle Metro but as we left for school the sun had briefly gone behind a cloud. The clouds were thick enough that you could stare right at the sun and see this shadowy round thing up in the sky - a perfect outline of the sun. Wilbur asked me what that round thing was in the sky and I said it was the sun, that the sun had gone behind a cloud. In a very concerned voice Wilbur said, "the sun doesn't move!" He said it like I was messing with the laws of the universe and shaking the very foundation on which he based his understanding of this world. So I said, "yes, you are right, the sun doesn't move -- I should have said the clouds came in front of the sun..."

Holy Week

I love Easter and especially love all of holy week. We are going to communion for Maundy Thursday at church tomorrow and then for Good Friday we are doing a dramatic reading that I put together. We rehearsed last night and I think it's going to be very good - moving and solemn.

The thing about Iowans...

Atlantic Meat Locker
Originally uploaded by mcrriowa

They are stubborn, independent thinkers. Meredith Wilson was right, there is an Iowa kind:

Oh, there's nothing halfway
About the Iowa way to treat you,
When we treat you
Which we may not do at all.
There's an Iowa kind of special
Chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.
We've never been without.
That we recall.
We can be cold
As our falling thermometers in December
If you ask about our weather in July.
And we're so by God stubborn
We could stand touchin' noses
For a week at a time
And never see eye-to-eye.
But what the heck, you're welcome,
Join us at the picnic.
You can eat your fill
Of all the food you bring yourself.
You really ought to give Iowa a try.

I have found every Iowan I've ever met to fit this bill in some form or fashion. I have loved every minute I've spent in that beautiful state so I understand why my husband loves it so much. I also understand why he left, not so much Iowa, but the small town life he knew there. Being a very private person and having everyone in town know all your business all the time was a kind of torture to him.

I've gotten a first-class education in all things Iowan from my Iowa-born-and-bred farmer husband. They would give you the clothes of their backs but they wouldn't want you to mention it to anyone. They don't put on airs but they are proud, proud, proud. And they may pick at each other but they wouldn't want to be anywhere else. They aren't hick-ish or uneducated, the state of Iowa may have the best public schools in the nation and their students are industrious, well educated and resourceful.

So, it was a surprise to me that they passed an amendment banning gay marriage. I am just glad that sitting on the bench of Iowa's State Supreme Court are some independent thinkers who are now protecting their constitution and the rights of many of their citizens.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_us/iowa_gay_marriage

White Like Me

Both boys desperately needed haircuts. For the past 8 years I have cut Emery's hair and for the past 4, Wilbur's too. But they've gotten too squirmy and there's too much complaining and I'm sick of sweeping hair into the yard... So, I started taking them to this little neighborhood 'Hair and Nailz' kind of place. But I want to be able to walk in (their signs always say, "Walk-Ins Welcome") but this last time no one was available to cut their hair. Plus, they'd each had their hair cut at this place once and they hadn't done a great job. All I ever did, and what I wanted done, was a buzz. They both have perfectly straight hair and until they are ready to groom it themselves the only haircut that keeps it neat and tidy is a buzz.

So, out we walked. I told the boys that we were going into town to see if we could find a barber to cut their hair and low and behold as soon as I got downtown in Woodinville I saw a barber's pole. I swear I've driven that way a hundred times and never noticed it, but there we were. I parked the car and we all went in. There were 4 black men getting their hair cut by 3 black men and one black woman. I registered this information - we were the only white people in there - and then realized that one of the guys getting a haircut is a guy that works in my building. So, we spoke and laughed for a moment and I made arrangements for the young woman to cut the boys' hair. We sat down. Emery has been giving me looks and then when he's out of earshot of the barbers and customers he says, sotto voce, "Are we going to get our hair cut here?" I said that yes, we were.

Well, it only took about 10 minutes and the boys were comfortable (there is a chess set and a pool table and they wanted to do both) and they got the best haircuts they've ever had and they were more comfortable actually getting the hair cut (she was good with the clippers I mean). We talked about the experience on the way home. I asked Emery, "were you uncomfortable when we first walked in?" and he told me, "yes - I felt like we didn't belong there" -- I pointed out that any one of those people in there might feel the same way anywhere else in Woodinville. It was very likely that they were surrounded by white people and one of them might be the only black person in the room. I told the boys that it was a good thing to be in a situation like that where you were the 'other'.

I asked the young woman her name as she finished Wilbur's haircut and I paid her. She said, "Mess" and handed me her card. I thought I'd misunderstood her. But sure enough, that was her name.

I Can Read

I remember the mobile library in San Antonio and going to get books there. They always had those books that said "an I Can Read! book"...

Wilbur is just on the verge of reading. He writes, almost compulsively, letters in strings that mimic words, he asks me what every single sign says - along the roads, in the grocery store, everywhere. But he just isn't quite getting it. It's so odd how something doesn't make sense and then one day, it does. I never went through this with Emery because he read so early. I keep worrying that Wilbur won't read or that there is something wrong. It's sort of maddening.

I should just enjoy this and not worry. I should just be where we are and quit trying to get somewhere else faster.

A Rooster Crows in Brooklyn

Years ago Doug lived in Los Angeles - before I knew him. He was deciding whether or not to go graduate school, trying to decide if he should leave LA; and one morning in the middle of LA County he was awakened by a rooster crowing. I often make him tell me this story... and the end of the story is that when he hears that rooster crowing he thinks to himself, "I've got to get the fuck out of here." Like that was the signal it was time to leave Los Angeles, the big city, the excess, the current road trip, all that; and go back to school.

When we lived in New York in Hell's Kitchen I heard roosters crowing all the time. I wanted to leave the City; nothing was going my way and things hadn't worked out the way I supposed. Every time we heard a rooster crow in the morning I would say to Doug, "See? We've got to get the fuck out of here. The rooster is telling us. The rooster is telling us to go." But Doug would remind me that the California rooster was the harbinger and a rooster to be obeyed because his crowing came out of nowhere. And that's why it was a sign. "These roosters crow all the time" he would say as salsa music blared from the apartment building behind us. "Castro had chickens in NY, it's not so unusual here."

I was reminded of all this by this story of a woman getting shot by an arrow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/nyregion/17arrow.html?ref=nyregion

This woman was getting out of her car and as she opened the door she got hit in the gut with an arrow. I think if that happened to me, and Doug were there with me at that moment, I would say, "OK, are you satisfied? It's the wild west in Manhattan. Can we go now?"

Bye Bye Seattle P-I

I've been listening to this series on KPLU (the NPR station at Pacific Lutheran U) on the last days of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, and our last days as a 2-daily-newspaper city. (http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1478803) The broadcast yesterday focused on investigative journalism asking who would be our watchdog if newspapers couldn't anymore.

They had a blogger named Scott St. Clair who posited that the blogosphere (a loathed word) fills this function and there is no need for professional journalists. He spoke of the inanity of 'professional' journalism with such derision that it caught my attention and I started rolling his name around in my mind. And when he talked of representing the Evergreen Freedom Foundation I knew exactly who he was.

Whenever the word Freedom is used by an organization, you can bet that 7 times out of 10 it's some rabid right-wing cabal. And this time was no exception. This fool, Scott St. Clair, was one of the major opponents of Tent City, and, no surprise - the Evergreen Freedom Foundation is a conservative think tank.

That the irony escapes Mr. St. Clair is also no surprise; I mean the fact that he is publicly associated with a conservative think tank and yet proposes to fill the role of an unbiased journalist.

Motel Living

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/us/11motel.html

Our family has been involved in the horror of homelessness since 2004, when the Tent City IV encampment first moved to the East Side of King County. At that time, while we weren't in a recession, while we were all living high on the hog and while the high life we enjoyed seemed never to end, people here expressed vitriolic rage that any roving group of homeless people would be given comfort in our suburban neighborhoods.

I bet some of those people are now facing the prospect themselves.

For some reason, being homeless myself is one of my long-term fears. I have been afraid of ending up with nowhere to go since I first left my parent's home in 1984. I don't know why, it's not always a rational fear, but I think about it. I used to think about who I'd call to ask for help. Maybe it's because I always felt it could happen to me that I felt compassion for people in that situation - I don't know. I had some of the same fears that opponents expressed. But in the end, I'm mostly afraid I'll be one of those people who needs help one day, and if I did, I would hope to find compassion.

Squre Root Day & Give It Up for Lent

Today, 3/3/09, is Square Root Day. Just to mark it and make mention.

And now, Give it up for Lent...

I am going to abstain from Facebook for Lent this year. It just came to me in church on Sunday that that is what I should do. I sit in front of a computer all day and maybe I could get tuned into the lengthening of the days and the season of Lent by not getting online in the evening.

Working Title

I have started trying to figure out what the children will do all summer. This is an annual task, fraught with pitfalls. The school offers day camps and we have some college student nannies who like to pick up summer work. Historically, whatever ratio of home care to school care I've tried I hear complaints. If they are home more than at camp they get bored. If they are at camp more than at home they miss the comforts of home. One thing I have begun to figure out is that I should just ignore all that bitching and not take it so personally. But both options are pricey and when they complain I feel bad that they aren't enjoying their summers and then I feel resentful because I've spent all this money - blah blah blah.

I am going to try and find some more challenging options for Emery - either technology or science camp - for part of the summer.

What's a whorehouse?

New Store in Denver: Men's Whorehouse
Originally uploaded by Jeffrey Beall

So yesterday Emery is watching TV upstairs - some program called Kirby, which I have never actually sat down and watched. I hear parents all the time saying, "I watched the program and felt it was ok..." Well, I really have never done that. I have listened to the program from another room and the program is on Noggin or PBS or Nickelodeon. I have overheard the program. I trust it's ok.

But yesterday, Emery comes down the stairs from watching this show and says to me, "Mom, what's a whorehouse?" I start to wonder if giving him my secret code was really stupid or what in the world is he watching up there? I ask him that, "What are you watching up there?" Kirby he says, but they may have said the H word. And something about a whorehouse. What's the H word I say? I tell him to just say it - it's only a word. And we don't want him to go around saying Hell, not because it's a bad word but because it's common and sounds low rent for kids to cuss. Doug and I stumble a bit trying to explain a whorehouse, and we say things like house of ill repute which really doesn't go any further in explaining the concept, in fact it is obviously purposefully vague.

Finally I say that a whorehouse is a place where someone can pay for sex. Someone can pay someone else to have sex with them. I've always tried to be very factual and even casual about the topic of sex or our anatomy or procreation. But I have to admit, explaining deviant behavior, something lusty and illicit, is a different proposition.

In end, Emery has the show paused upstairs (it was OnDemand) and he says, "Let me just show you." As he's rewinding he's saying, "I think they said something like Hell up in a whorehouse" and I am trying to imagine the innocent circumstance that would permit Kirby or any show to throw around the word whorehouse. When the snippet plays I realize the animated character says, "Hello poorhouse" as in "if such-and-such happens it'll be Hello Poorhouse!"

I am relieved (that he wasn't watching a dirty, damaging show) and then immediately realize that we explained this whole thing about whorehouse to him when we really didn't have to. Really though, explaining a poorhouse is much harder.

forgiveness

There are certain things that I've never forgiven myself for and they often come into my thoughts early in the morning when I'm just waking up. No matter the 12 steps, no matter how sick they made me, nor how long I've carried them around, I just can't bring myself to let them go. I can't get past the notion that I've not attoned for these things and that somewhere the people I've wronged, some of whom are dead, remember these things against me; even in death. And they have not forgiven me either.

There's a notion promulgated by therapists and mental health professionals that I must forgive myself and accept forgiveness from others. But I don't see how. As I get older these things get more pronounced. The one that awoke me this morning was making someone give up something for me, a high school boyfriend... And he missed something that he shouldn't have. And a year later he was gone. I torture myself with that and I have for 25 years. After 25 years it seems more important, because I'm a parent and I think of all the things I want for my children. This boyfriend's mother must feel that kind of regret about me: why did I hurt her son? Why did he die? If he was going to die, couldn't he have had a nicer girlfriend who would make sure he did all the things he should have done before he died, instead of one who held him back? She held him back out of selfishness and insecurity. Shame on her.

The rational part of me (or I might say the evil part) tries to say that it was just as much in his control as mine - to say whether we stayed or went to that dance. It says that I can't make up history and decide that this was an all-important life experience that he regretted missing. I really don't know what he thought of it. All I know is that it was a puppy-love, teen-age romance that is forever colored in my mind because he died. Because of that, everything I did or didn't do, all of my insecurities that played out on someone else's life, my inability to be a normal teen-ager at that time have tormented me. I think, 'I should have done things differently'. I wish I could call him up and laugh about it now - how I wouldn't go, how strange and wierd I felt inside about all those budding feelings, how I hated all that and just wasn't ready for it. I think now how unprepared I was to have any sexual feelings and how I was overwhelmed by growing up.

I realize now how all of this was fertile ground for growing mental dis-ease and disorder. And they grew tall and put down deep and substantial roots. No wonder I was so sick. Sometimes I think I could so easily get sick all over again. Like a mouth sore that I wish I could avoid, I'm drawn to this pain over and over; I keep sticking my tongue in it, making it hurt more. I had a dentist once who said the toungue is an exaggerator; a sort of drama queen, enlarging everything it feels. I don't want to be indulgent with this painful memory or the many others that I dredge up. There's the whole bit about my best friend in high school - that mess. I don't want to be indulgent, but there are things that happened, that I felt and did, for which it seems there is no forgiveness.

Susanna Kaysen

I am reading Susanna Kaysen's book, The Camera My Mother Gave Me... And last night we started watching Away From Her, the film for which Julie Christie received an Oscar nod. Aging is bringing about a whole slew of insecurities and troubles for me. The notion that your body or your mind can just turn on you is truly frightening. The changes in my skin and hair bother me already, I can't imagine if my mind began to go - it's truly terrifying.

The Susanna Kaysen book is all about her vagina and the fact that something went horribly wrong with it - it hurt all the time. But no one can find anything wrong with her - it's like a phantom limb. So, it seems that it's not necessarily her body turning against her. Her mind might be doing it.

Months ago I read this fascinating article in the New Yorker about itching. It recounted the story of a woman who had this phantom itch on her scalp and an uncontrollable desire to scratch it. She managed to control the urge while awake, but once she fell asleep all bets were off. She finally scratched all the way through to her brain fluid - all the way through her scalp. The thing is, it was all neurological. Some scientist doing research on phantom limb pain figured out that one thing that seemed to work was using mirrors to give the illusion that the limb was there. When the patient's mind was fooled into seeing the limb and the person could scratch the phantom, the brain let go of the itch or the pain or what-have-you.

Because a Great Nation Deserves Great Art

There's a whole lotta wrangling going on with the stimulus bill and some 50 million (0f the more than 800 billion) going to the National Endowment for the Arts. Now I know that even a sum so small, when multiplied many times for many "pet" projects adds up. But, if there were ever a time in our history when we need museums, libraries, theatres, art programs in schools, opera, symphony and the like, it is most certainly now. We need our spirits nourished and lifted. And there are so many communities across this country who could lose their art presence with this economic downturn ne'er to have it return.

We don't really have to worry about the New Yorks, the LAs, Seattles, Houstons -- we have to worry about Omaha or Midland or Jacksonville or Springfield... And it's not just how many people are employed downstream of the NEA, it's really about holding on to who we are during tough times.

So, pony up. I am tired of republicans throwing around the acronym NEA with derision like it's so ridiculous that we spend money on art and culture. Who are we without it?

My Big Break

So This American Life's theme this week was all about people who'd gotten their big break only to find that it was probably the worst thing that could ever happen to them. One story was about a couple who had a sketch comedy act and their big break came being on the Ed Sullivan show the same night as The Beatles. The Beatles first time on TV in the US.

It's funny to me because I recently thought that I was glad that some of my dreams didn't come true - that I didn't really know what I was dreaming about when I was hoping for them. I've discovered, for example, that in a lot of ways I'm a private person and being famous is probably something I would hate. Although I dreamed of being famous when I was a little girl. I don't like to travel all that much - more of a homebody, but I used to sort of fancy myself someone who'd travel the world. I now realize I probably would hate that.

Anyway, it's interesting... the synchronicity of the universe... that just when I was thinking that I heard a whole show about it...

This is the day...

It's Inauguration Day! It's Inauguration Day! I have a song in my heart:

This is the day
(this is the day)

That God has made
(that God has made)

I will rejoice
(I will rejoice)

and be glad in it
(and be glad in it)

This is the day that God has made
I will rejoice and be glad in it

This is the day
(this is the day)

That God has made


Happy Inaugural 2009!

Harald the Shaggy

This morning Emery was telling me all about Harald the Shaggy, who was some Norse Mythological figure who would not let his facial hair or the hair on his head be cut or combed until he conquered all of Norway . Emery said all that and then Wilbur said, "Big hair."

Andrew Wyeth

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.”

Andrew Wyeth

This is why Doug loves Andrew Wyeth's paintings so much. Doug loves any movie or story that is set in winter - stark, cold - not lush and green. When we start a movie, in the theatre or at home, if it's cold he'll say, "I love a movie that's set in winter." A Simple Plan, Fargo, Affliction. There are many, but those come to mind at this hour.

I don't mean that any movie set in a cold climate is a great movie to him, nor does he dislike movies where climate isn't a factor or where it's warm or what-have-you... It's just that he particularly likes what happens when there's shivering and snow and wind. And a starkness to the landscape. I think he likes what Andrew Wyeth likes. The thing beneath and the promise of what's coming but isn't visible. And that idea that the whole story doesn't show.

Goodbye to Andrew Wyeth, whose art is loved by us.

Traveling Wilburys Wisdom During Tough Times

Well it's all right
Riding around in the breeze
Well it's all right
If you live the life you please
Well it's all right
Doing the best you can
Well it's all right
As long as you lend a hand

You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring
(at the end of the line)
Waiting for someone to tell you everything
(at the end of the line)
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow'll bring
(at the end of the line)
Maybe a diamond ring

Well it's all right
Even if they say you're wrong
Well it's all right
Sometimes you gotta be strong
Well it's all right
As long as you got someone to lay with
Well it's all right
Every day is judgment day

Maybe somewhere down the road a ways
(at the end of the line)
You'll think of me and wonder where i am these days
(at the end of the line)
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays
(at the end of the line)
Purple Haze

Well it's all right
Even when push comes to shove
Well it's all right
If you got someone to love
Well it's all right
Everything will work out fine
Well it's all right
We're going to the end of the line

Don't have to be ashamed of the car I drive
(at the end of the line)
I'm just glad to be here happy to be alive
(at the end of the line)
And it don't matter if you're by my side
(at the end of the line)
I'm satisfied

Well it's all right
Even if you're old and gray
Well it's all right
You still got something to say
Well it's all right
Remember live and let live
Well it's all right
The best you can do is forgive
Well it's all right
Riding around on the breeze
Well it's all right
If you live the life you please
Well it's all right
Even if the sun don't shine
Well it's all right
We're going to the end of the line

Whatever

Wilbur always puts his shoes on the wrong feet. I don't know why, we've gone over it a million times, he's a very capable, smart child... But for some reason he really insists on putting them on the wrong feet. If we are just headed out to school I don't really worry with it anymore. He looks a little like Eugene Levy in Waiting for Guffman and his two left feet, but no matter. When he gets to school he's going to change into his 'inside' shoes anyway. But if we are going somewhere together in public I have to insist that he change them; I think people will think, "now why wouldn't his mother put his shoes on the right feet?"

Yesterday, Emery had to stay after school to finish his geography work and Wilbur and I went over to Starbucks (a sign he instantly recognizes) to kill a half hour. As we walked from the car I told him that his shoes were on the wrong feet and couldn't we stop and switch them? He kept saying "no they're not" and I kept saying "yes they are" and finally he sighed and said, with great exasperation, "Whatever..."

Global Storming

As we flood in Western Washington and people are evacuated from their homes and all the major highways that lead to Seattle are closed, I think back to last week when we had record snows - there are a lot of people around here of a conservative ilk who said, "Global Warming, heh!" I had a science teacher in 7th grade who used to ask us tricky questions and when anyone gave an answer that wasn't well thought out or too obvious he'd say, "you can pick the dummies out of the crowd..."

That's what I think about people who, during bouts of intense, abnormal and devastating weather, say, "Global warming, hmph." As if they are somehow the scientists. As if it's really that simple. Wow, more snow this year, I guess that hot planet theory is all wet.

The predictions about global warming, from what I've read, predict more hurricane activity, intensified storm systems, and hotter heat waves. Cold snaps and snow falling in the Southern reaches of the US isn't evidence against the warming of this planet.

The thing is, if I were God and I created the world and the heavens, I would get pretty sad and hurt and angry seeing people crap on it. I would get pretty tired of all their carbon footprints marking up the beautiful home I made for them. And I think that would make me more disappointed than anything else human beings do. Except maybe war. War and crapping on the beautiful world I gave my selfish, petty, ungrateful children. I could do without praises and lauding if the the people in the world I made would just treat it and each other decently.

Little Brother

Wilbur just asked me, "Am I a little brother?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "I have a bigger brother?" And I said, "Yes."

Loving Lent

I love Lent. Growing up we didn't really observe lent - it seemed distinctly Catholic and Baptists didn't really want to have anything to do with that. But I love the 40 days (minus Sundays) that make up lent much more than I enjoy the 12 days of Christmas. Christmas feels public - as it should, bringing a baby into the world ushers you into community even if you've kept to yourselves prior to that event. Lent feels private. Lent feels like meditation and reflection.

I am working on something for Good Friday that really excites me. I saw this incredible documentary about a death row minister in Texas and it's a Good Friday story. I will work on that through Lent. That's my lenten project.