No Need to Panic: Let Me Do It for You

You know the saying "Today is the first day of the rest of your life"? I guess it’s supposed to be inspiring, but today it came to mind during a wash of anxiety. We have plenty of good reasons to be anxious—we still have medical expenses to pay off after insurance, Dear Husband needs a deviated septum fixed, I still need to find a new psych to check my apparently not functioning too well meds, I need new glasses and dental work, Dear Husband needs to pass his teacher certification test and find a new job. And I’m, well, wherever. Standing in the limbo of 40something looking back at what looks like 40 years wandering the desert and looking forward to what may be more of the same. That gives me plenty of anxiety. I think it’s supposed to be a symptom of ADD that you tend to drift, all your goals ephemeral or gauzy and indistinct. It’s not as if you can just shake yourself and say, “Well, what do you really want?” I don’t know—a happy family, fulfilling work, meaning, world peace and the end of suffering. What do those look like broken down into actual goals? Sheesh. A million different decisions every day. I start to hyperventilate just thinking about it. It’s one thing to say “One step at a time.” Yeah, right. One step. Oh, what’s that over there? Wait, where was I? Another step. This doesn’t look right. Was I supposed to go right or left? Another step. Oh for pete’s sake I forgot to bingety bing. Another step. Jeepers, I’m tired already. The only thing I can be certain about is that I won’t miss the exit.

RevGals Friday Five: Labor Day

From the RevGals:

Here in the USA we are celebrating the last fling of the good ol' summertime. It is Labor Day weekend, and families are camping, playing in the park, swimming, grilling hotdogs in the backyard, visiting amusement parks and zoos and historical sites and outdoor concerts and whatever else they can find to help them extend summer's sun and play just a little bit longer.

It is supposed to also be a celebration of the working man and woman, the backbone of the American economy, the "salt-of-the-earth neices and nephews of Uncle Sam. With apologies to those in other countries, this is a Friday Five about LABOR. All can play. Put down that hammer, that spoon, that rolling pin, that rake, that pen, that commentary, that lexicon, and let's have some fun.

1. Tell us about the worst job you ever had.
I think canvassing door to door for a political group was probably the worst. It so goes against my introverted nature. I don’t like selling anything, even a cause I believe in, and no one wants a canvasser to show up at their door. On the other hand, I worked with some really cool people. So, perhaps the worst job was the time I worked for a researcher at Emory, where I had to dispose of the radioactive waste. I mean, it was low-level and all that, but still.


2. Tell us about the best job you ever had.
I’m not sure it’s happened yet. There are aspects of every job I’ve had that were positive. I worked at Cambridge University Press for a while—that was a connection with a prestigious history and legacy and knew we were publishing some of the best intellects around. On the other hand, the books were pretty boring. Working for a literary agent was kind of glamorous. I met some authors, even some Russian spies (and it’s pretty cool when you answer the phone and it’s Michael Nesmith on the line). But the husband and wife team I worked with were pretty much insane. Working for a Hispanic press introduced me to a culture I didn’t know much about, and the work atmosphere was very relaxed. The head of the press was completely nuts, and the managing editor was chronically late with everything (which is really not what you want in a managing editor). The computer publishing company sounds dull, but there were some very quirky and interesting people there. The educational publisher. Well, maybe that was my worst job. My boss had no ability to feel compassion. Even when Firecracker was in the hospital for a week she expected me to be at work. She never even asked about her. When I had the shingles, she expected me to be at work. So, I guess she was a . Where I work now is pretty cool. It’s not the work I thought I would do, but they have been extraordinarily understanding of my family emergencies, and despite the fact that some of their beliefs don’t sit well with me, I know that they have warm hearts.

Afterthought: Holy cow, I can't believe I forgot about working in Walmart summer of my senior year of high school. Walmart had just moved in, right across from KMart. It was so awful. I was in the fabric department, and I developed conjunctivitis from the dye. We had to take shifts as greeters--no one was used to that then, so they skittered around us suspiciously. Customers left stuff in an unholy mess, and we had to spend hours in the evening "zoning", putting everything back in order, labels facing out. I once had a freaky old man pray for me in the linens section, and there was a biker in automotives who took a shine to me. Whew. I'd never want to do that again.

3. Tell us what you would do if you could do absolutely anything (employment related) with no financial or other restrictions.
I would like to be a stay-at-home mom. That’s kind of ridiculous because I am horrible at creating a viable structure for myself, much less anyone else, but I have this longing to be there when the girls get off school and not having to rush rush rush in the evening. We can’t afford for me to go to part-time, even. Part of me wants to home school, which is probably even more ridiculous, given my chronic disorganization and inattentiveness (not to mention my distaste for the religious tone of most home school communities), but there it is.

4. Did you get a break from labor this summer? If so, what was it and if not, what are you gonna do about it?
Not exactly. I had almost no vacation time, and we moved. But I did take a Friday and head off with the family to Savannah and Tybee Island. Savannah is becoming a favorite place to visit. I’m not sure why. It’s not as if there’s tons to do there, particularly for kids, but we love the waterfront with its cobbled streets and the old, gracious houses.

5. What will change regarding your work as summer morphs into fall? Are you anticipating or dreading?
Fall is easier for me than Spring, when there’s a major conference to prepare for. The pace is pretty steady now. But, someone just retired, and her jobs are temporarily being spread amongst us. And then there’s the hurricane season. If there’s a major disaster, the work here will increase greatly. We also do a lot of projects for Thanksgiving and Christmas, fun stuff for us as well as community work. It’s pretty jolly, but it means the workday is a bit crunched.

Bonus question: For the gals who are mothers, do you have an interesting story about labor and delivery (LOL)? If you are a guy pal, not a mom, or you choose not to answer the above, is there a song, a book, a play, that says "workplace" to you?

Oh, do I ever have a labor story. Firecracker was determined to leave the womb early. It was so unexpected—DramaQueen had been full-term, healthy as could be. We had to go to the hospital twice. The first time the stupid nurse told me it was Braxton Hicks. The next day all hell broke loose when I got to the hospital. The doctors were in a kerfuffle figuring out what to do. They didn’t have the facilities to care for a baby born so early (26 weeks). Soon I was loaded onto a helicopter for transport to another hospital. Things were getting surreal. To this day the sound of helicopters is a little unnerving. They put off labor for as long as possible to give me various meds, but they couldn’t do what they hoped, which was to put it off for weeks. My room was full of hospital personnel for the delivery. I don’t know how they all fit. They warned me that she probably wouldn’t have enough lung power or energy to cry, but she managed it—feisty right from the start. I got to kiss her and she was whisked away to the NICU and oxygen and a heated bed. This was probably the single most frightening experience of my life.

Poem du Jour

Batter My Heart, Three-Person'd God

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

~ John Donne

I had forgotten how much I love John Donne. Reading him is like watching a juggler; you sit tense, a bit breathless, wondering if he will drop a ball, but no, he keeps them circling, then catches them all neatly and bows.

The Golden Boy

I stayed up way too late last night to see the closing ceremony of the Olympics. Wow. It was like a surrealist painting in motion. This was the first Olympics that I paid much attention to. I'm not really much into sports so I would usually either ignore them or perhaps check in on the gymnastics. But this time I got into it, as in I shouted encouragement at the TV screen. I saw Michael Phelps win several of his medals, and Shawn Johnson finally get hers, and Usain Bolt breaking the world record, and the US Women win the 400 relay.

But there was one medal win that really affected me. As I said, I’m not much of a sports fan, and I wouldn't normally watch diving, but it sounded suitable artistic, so I watched the men’s 10 meter. How anyone can stand on their hands and then push themselves into a dive amazes me. I also didn’t know that you could jump into a body of water without splashing. Sheesh. I didn't know who any of the major players were, and only recognized a few names from watching part of the semifinals.

Those who watched the event know how exciting the last few dives were, when the tables turned and the Chinese, who were marked to win the gold, suddenly faltered. Even before he won the gold I liked Matthew Mitcham. His performance was incredible, particularly at the end, but what stood out for me is how happy he looked, how downright goofy at times. He could win an award for all-around adorableness. He didn’t even seem to realize what happened when he surpassed Zhou Luxin. Someone had to come up to him and tell him he won, at which point he broke down. I found his reaction touching, not just because it was so fun to watch someone so deserving win, but because he didn’t stand there beating back tears, looking grimly emotional—he flat out burst into tears.

I didn’t know anything of his story (and I guess I've been living in a cave), so it was just today that I found out he was the only openly gay man to compete at the 2008 Olympics. Well done. And as one web site put it, Cheers Queers!

RevGals Friday Five: The Forgotten

1) Datebooks--how do you keep track of your appointments? Electronically? On paper? Month at a glance? Week at a glance?

I have a little datebook from the dollar store that I carry with me and usually forget to look at. I used to get the Franklin Covey planners, but I figured that I could just as easily forget to consult a much cheaper calendar.

At work I line up email reminders in my outbox and schedule them to blast off at future dates. It sometimes works.

2) When was the last time you forgot an important date?

I forget everything: birthdays, appointments, holidays. But I can’t remember what I’ve last forgotten.

3) When was the last time you went OUT on a date?

Sometime before we moved in July. I think we went to see Prince Caspian.

4) Name one accessory or item of clothing you love even though it is dated.

I’m not sure I would know if it was dated. My clothing hasn’t been adventurous since the 1990s, so I don’t think I have much that doesn’t look pretty generic. DH says that some of my nightclothes look like they belonged to a grandma.

5) Dates--the fruit--can't live with 'em? Or can't live without 'em?

Ick. They are way too sweet, and I can’t get over the fact that they look a bit like squashed dead cockroaches.

Some bits of the real me

Dear Husband recently got after me for hiding my true self. This followed him asking an Old Friend for some advice on encouraging me to write again. Old Friend seems to have advised him to not go there, as I was a suicidal mess when I wrote. Well, whatever. Maybe I’ve shut the door on my subconscious. I don’t have a solution to that. But I do hide my true self. How could I keep a job otherwise? How would I fit in most places if I didn't just sort of let my opinions slide?

So, in the interest of being authentic for a few minutes, here are some things that I tend to keep quiet about:

1. I’m an unabashed liberal. I keep that quiet at work, because they despise liberals as unchristian freaks of nature.
2. I don’t think homosexuality is a sin, and I’m baffled by people who do. I think gays should be allowed to marry and that their marriages should be recognized by the state as unions with the same status as marriage. If Jesus Christ himself came down to earth and told me differently, I’d tell Him He was wrong and should rethink the matter in light of the overall message of the scriptures.
3. I don’t believe in the headship of the husband as a biblical imperative.
4. I quite frequently have doubts about the existence of God and think we are all deluded.
5. I can’t stand Beth Moore. I can’t stand all those women Bible teachers who have seminars where they joke about women doing too much or whatever crap they joke about and then do a teaching on the scripture that is about as original as a cross-stitch sampler.
6. I hate contemporary worship music. I temper that by saying that I’ve definitely had some grow on me, but for the most part I think Christian worship music and Christian contemporary pop music are bland beyond belief and some of the most mind numbing junk I have ever listened too. Give me the Rolling Stones any day.
7. I don’t say grace at meals. I say it at work because if you don’t pause, bow your head and look serious for a few moments they get suspicious.
8. Every time someone says something about the sovereignty of God I cringe inside.
9. Every time someone says something about God having a better plan when some tragedy strikes, I want to slap them.
10. Advise me how to raise my kids and I can guarantee I will not listen to a word you say, just on principle.
11. Complain about how other people raise their kids and I will secretly hope yours join rock bands, color their hair purple and pierce their tongues.
12. I think sexual purity is over-rated. The church would still rather freak out over premarital sex than do something about serious suffering. And don’t start talking about unwanted pregnancies and diseases. If we had the right social infrastructures in place (see, that’s the unabashed liberal speaking) with appropriate access to contraceptives, universal healthcare and affordable childcare we wouldn’t have such a mess. When people get all freaked out about the sanctity of marriage and the glorious holiness of husband and wife and so on, I want to tell them to chill, take a few deep breaths, and remember that Christ’s mission was not to establish a kingdom of no sex without marriage.
13. I cannot comfortably use most stock Christian phrases.
14. Thomas Kinkade sucks.
15. I loathe the phrase “bible-believing church.” And the other kind are . . .? Country clubs? Social networks? Mosques in disguise? Communist outposts? Pits of iniquity? Or, just maybe, Christ-believing churches?
16. You couldn’t pay me to put my kids in a Christian school.
17. I’m not particularly interested in raising “obedient” children. Obedience is a code word for “shut up and accept the status quo because you don’t have the power to do anything about it anyway.”
18. Question authority. Always. If I can teach my children one thing it will be that power corrupts and they should always be aware that anyone in a position of authority can be corrupted.
19. I don’t really get the problem with secular humanism. Strikes me as way better than, say, fascism.
20. Let’s see, what disaster will happen if they remove In God We Trust from our currency? Oh, no, God won’t love us anymore. Help—we’ll be just like Europe! Doomed, I say, doomed! On the other hand, I think any self-respecting atheist could make better use of their time.
21. When did the Bible become an instruction manual? We are such a fraggin utilitarian culture. I mean, how boring is an instruction manual? Do you really want to read one?
22. When did poetry readings become “spoken word performances”? What—now you’re supposed to have a backup band? Whatever you call them, they are booooring. I have been to maybe one poetry reading that wasn’t a total drag. Poets have this voice they put on for readings. I wish I could describe it. But wait, I don’t have to, because I found this description: “The most common of these is the tendency to lapse into a sort of quivering, nasal incantation, in which the voice trails upward, uncertainly, at the end of a line. This mannerism lends an oracular cast to much modern poetry, as if the poets were delivering dire prognostications or trying to awaken in the masses some sense of religious awe.” Oh God, it’s ghastly. The description is from this article in the New York Times, which I happened upon through the wonderful portal of Google, and which expresses to a T my own thoughts about the utter absurdity of poetry readings.
23. Writing workshops were invented by the devil. I sat in a workshop where someone waxed poetic –ha!-about the writer’s use of prepositions. Prepositions, people. Poets aren’t normal, and when you put them all in a room and ask them to critique each other, there will be blood and a whole lot of nonsense.
24. I never want to hear the words “covenant children” again. Beware all you non-covenant children—the big bad wolf of secular humanism wants to eat you for lunch!

So that’s some of the real me. I’m feeling more authentic already.

Accomplishment for the Day

We just installed a toilet. It was not without incident. I now have a sopping pile of towels, and I'm in a bad mood because I can't find one of the plastic bolts that holds the seat to the bowl. Well, I'm done. Dear Husband will have to go to Home Depot, that's all I've got to say. I need a Dr. Pepper, a bowl of Cheetos and a good book.

RevGals Friday Five: Tranformations R Us

For this Friday's Five, share with us five transformations that the coming fall will bring your way.

1. We WILL paint our new house. We are living in the land of beige.

2. I will become Homework Monitor, not because I have to badger them to do their homework, but because the school requires me to sign off on every blessed thing.

3. I love the shift from summer to autumn. I will be able to walk outside without suffering from heat exhaustion. The air will smell different, crisp and smoky.

4. The leaves will be pretty and I think, I think, we have a maple tree in our front yard. I’m crossing my fingers that it will transform into a red-robed beauty. I’m not very good at recognizing trees, but they look like maple leaves to me.

5. Preparations for Halloween begin. Halloween is such a wonderful event. I’m not one for dressing up or such, but I love helping the girls find costumes and going with them door to door in the chilly air. And then we sort the candy and they give me the ones they don’t like. Yippee! I get all the Mounds bars, and all DramaQueen’s Snickers and Baby Ruths. If I was nice I would give them to Firecracker—but, heh—she’s got her own pumpkin full.

Bonus: Give us your favorite activity that is made possible by the arrival of fall.

I can enjoy the outdoors again. Just simple things, like walking to my parked car and it’s cool inside. Going for a walk without feeling like the sky has dropped down and wrapped around me like a woolly blanket. Or being able to take the kids to the playground in the middle of the day.

DramaQueen Reveals Her Practical Side

Not too long ago I was driving the girls back from camp via a road that runs by an old church. "Look," said DramaQueen. "There's a cemetery close to our house. If you guys die we can just drop you off."

Firecracker's New Teacher

Thursday I took Firecracker to her school orientation, where she got to meet her teacher. Her teacher has a rather difficult, hyphenated name, Potts-Datema. She told Firecracker that it was okay to call her Ms Potts.

When Dear Husband came home he asked Firecracker if she had met her new teacher. "Yes," she said, "Ms. Teapots!"

Road Trip to St.John of the Cross

To the left is an installation by Bill Viola, called Room for St. John of the Cross. This picture doesn't tell you much, but more about that later. Before I saw this installation, I had only vaguely heard of St. John of the Cross, and I had never experienced this sort of art.

In the winter of 1987, I decided to travel cross-country with a college friend. She was one of several exchange students from Scotland, and as part of the program, they were given a van for transport. For whatever reason, we lucked into having the van ourselves. Denise and I weren't close friends; we just hung out with the same people, so I don't know why she asked me or why I decided to go. Perhaps I just didn't want to be home for the holidays. It was dull and my parents found and I felt squelched and defensive. Maybe it seemed like an adventure.

The trip began auspiciously with me throwing up. I had gone out with a high school friend the night before and drunk too much of something very strong. Usually I avoided hangovers by drinking a lot of water before passing out and not eating the next day. But that morning, since I was going on a journey and didn't want to get a cold, I took my vitamin C. Never take vitamin C after drinking. Happily, throwing up seemed to make the world right again and I set forth light of heart and stomach.

This was a winter of storms and blizzards. We cautiously approached Tupelo in a deluge, listening to reports of flooding on the radio. We stood in the dark, soaking parking lot of the small house where Elvis was born. Denise was an Elvis fan, so this was a Special Moment for her. I was just wet. In Memphis it was freezing, and we ended up sleeping in the van in the parking lot of a 7-eleven. We could hear the Christmas Carols being piped through the streets of downtown. The next morning we stumbled into the Drake to watch the red carpet rolled out and the resident ducks make their way to the hotel fountain. It’s kind of amazing we were up that early. We went to Graceland, of course, and the Lorraine Hotel (surprisingly shabby and unassuming). Then we made our way along a route I don’t remember very well, except that at one point we were driving up a mountain in the dark with no guardrail and an ominously dark bunch of nothing past the drop-off, and one night we slept at a hotel for truckers—bungalows with space beside to park your 18 wheeler.

As we drove into Yorktown, a blizzard hit and it was like trying to drive in a blanket. Despite the blizzard, and because we were total idiots, we took the time to stop somewhere to buy cheap champagne, to keep us happy while we waited out the storm in a dingy hotel. The next day we visited Yorktown, where all the information was blatantly anti-British (as Denise pointed out repeatedly), and then Jamestown, by which time I was so cold I easily understood how an entire village could disappear. Denise knew someone who lived in Williamsburg who took us in a back way that avoided entry fees. The place was nearly empty, with a few workers dressed in period costumes and looking cranky about it. We took refuge in a hotel and drank hot buttered rum.

At some point we got ourselves up to New York state, where Denise had arranged for us to stay with one of her many contacts. She knew a lot of people because she was friendly and undiscriminating. This was often the cause of problems, or at least I saw them as problems. She seemed not to mind if we ended up in a pub with two drunken bikers after the buses stopped running or in a house full of rowdy and randy Scots on New Years Eve in Edinburgh. She was a friendly girl with a nice word for everyone. Which is how we came to be staying in Yonkers with a girl who had been over at St. Andrews for some study program. I disliked Yonkers Girl on sight. Then I met her friends.

OMG. We ended up in a bowling alley. A bowling alley. I was a bohemian kid with a pierced nose and a horror of suburbia, so spending time in a bowling alley was a soul shriveling experience. And here I was talking with an RN (an RN, I tell you) who was afraid of catching AIDS from a bowling ball. Anyway, boring suburban Yonkers girl took us into Manhattan and to MOMA. I have to think MOMA was my idea, as I don't think Yonkers girl had ever entered it before. And as fate would have it, we happened upon the last few days of an exhibit of Bill Viola's work. I'd never heard of him, but it was art, it was culture, it was a Manhattan art museum and not a bowling alley in Yonkers.


I walked into a dark room, with a small structure in the center, warmly lit from within. A video of snow covered mountains was projected on one wall of the outer room, the film jerky as if the cameraman had been running. There was a roaring sound like wind. As you moved closer to the structure, which represented the cell where the mystic had been imprisoned, you could hear a voice reciting poetry in Spanish. Inside the cell there was a desk with a pitcher and a video monitor showing the same mountains, only quiet and serene. The catalog explained who St. John of the Cross was and printed some of his poetry. Wow, I had never read anything like this. I had never heard anyone speak of God like this--it was erotic, sensual, surrendered, a love song. What, I wondered, would it be like to experience God that way?

I don't remember anything of the trip after that: what happened to Yonkers girl, how we got out of Manhattan, the trip back to Atlanta, if we ever met up with the other exchange students. The narrative unravels here.

When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.


I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

Tiddly Pom

I feel antsy today, unable to settle and concentrate. Nothing that should hold my attention does. I would so much rather be reading a book. Or napping. Or alternating napping and reading. Instead I am staring at emails, staring at my to-do list, working in fits and starts.

I hate being bored. My brain craves stimulation. I want to talk, I want to read, I want to listen to people tell me their stories. I want to bob along in the flow of ideas. Instead I’m plashing in the shallow here, just me and the dead frogs.

I look out my window. It’s hot and humid out there. The sky is dull with moisture. The clouds look sluggish. It’s the right kind of day to be bored. The heat inhibits enthusiasm, movement, vigor. In this weather, everything is itchy, including my mood.

I just stepped outside to see if I could scrounge some change from my car (in the hopes that a coke will bully me into productivity). Do you recall in Harry Potter the image of the Dementers sucking out the souls of their victims? Yeah.

God, I wonder what it would be like to have a work ethic.

James McAvoy

This is specifically to annoy Dear Husband, who thought it just fine to call the actress from Burn Notice "Hot" but whose feathers were ruffled by my enthusiastic response to this actor. This has to be one of the most romantic screen kisses ever. And if you haven't seen the movie Penelope, you should because it is utterly charming. And you get to see a lot of James McAvoy.

RevGals Friday Five: The Lockdown

From Songbird:

For some reason, Blogger declared this blog possible SPAM and locked us down yesterday. This morning, we're free to post again, but there was a fair amount of excitement last night among our contributors, who found a dire notice on their Blogger dashboards threatening that this blog might be deleted in 20 days!

We requested a blog review, and I posted a request at the Blogger Help group, where I found we were not alone. Many other perfectly nourishing and cromulent blogs got the same notice last night.

This turned out to be a very small barricade in our blogging community life, but it seemed appropriate to explore locks and blocks and other barriers this week. Also, I liked the picture of the security team above! Could they be Blogger's Spam Prevention Robots, working overtime?

In honor of their efforts, I bring you the "Lock Me Out, Lock Me In" Friday Five.

1) How do you amuse yourself when road construction blocks your travel?

If I’m by myself, I listen to the radio, flipping between stations as needed. If Dear Husband is there, it’s an opportunity for conversation. But if the kids are there, well, let’s hope they brought their doodle boards and don’t need to go to the bathroom.

2) Have you ever locked yourself out of your house? (And do you keep an extra key somewhere, just in case?)

I once locked myself out of my apartment in Brooklyn and my boyfriend had to climb up to the second floor and through a window. Happily, a burglar never had the same idea.

But the worst, the absolute worst, was when I locked my keys in the car with DramaQueen, age 3, inside. Somehow I managed to coach her to flip the lock. In the old days that would have been easy—remember the cars with the locks that looked like golf tees sticking out of the door? I don’t know how she finally grasped which of the buttons to press where with me shouting and miming directions through the window. This was in Arizona, so I was thankful it wasn’t summer.

I'm far more likely to lock myself out of my car than my house.

3) Have you ever cleared a hurdle? (And if you haven't flown over a material hurdle, feel free to take this one metaphorically.)

The mastectomy was a huge hurdle. Sometimes I forget what a big deal it was. Firecracker’s brain surgery was a hurdle. Her birth was a big hurdle. All my hurdles involve hospitals. I think we stumbled over them rather than cleared them, but they are at last behind us

4) What's your approach to a mental block?

Read something fun and surf the web, maybe write a bit, watch the home improvement channel, go to the library. Watch Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time.

5) Suggest a caption for the picture above; there will be a prize for the funniest answer!

I’m no good at this sort of thing. They look like old-fashioned paper dolls merged with Legos.

I always wanted to be somebody

I'm having one of those "What have I done with my life?" interludes. And then I ask myself, "What will I be when I grow up?" Oh damn, I am grown up.

As I mentioned before, it kind of freaks me out that I can now say "twenty-five years ago" and know that I was fully sentient at that date. "A quarter of a century ago, when I was in high school, before the advent of ATMs, DVDs and personal computers . . . when the woolly mammoth still roamed the earth. I've spent a lot of time trying to grow up, and I'm not so sure about the results.

I've never had a lot of ambition. I didn't so much navigate as float along wherever the current took me. Well, let me qualify that, I tended to buck the current, but that just meant that eventually I drifted off in some other, less mainstream direction for a while. Still, I had some ideas about who I was and what kind of life I would have. It turns out they were all off base.

For instance, I thought I was gay. I was pretty certain about that for a while. I also loathed the very idea of marriage, which seemed like such an outmoded institution. I couldn't figure out why that needed to be imported into homosexual unions. I was agnostic. Sure, I loved beautiful cathedrals and Christian art and so on, but if anything could destroy my faith, it was your average Christian. So, of course, I hated organized religion, which seemed to have organized for the sole purpose of putting republicans in office and ranting about abortion and sodomy. I was certain, beyond certain, that I would never have children. I didn't like them. I didn't get all moony when someone showed up with a baby. I didn't think they were cute, or the epitome of innocence, or any of that. I didn't understand people got all woolly-brained over them. I was fairly certain that I would always live in New York City, maybe Chicago or San Francisco at a stretch. I wasn't provincial enough to think that the world outside of NYC was not worth noticing--I just couldn't imagine living without the brownstones and Central Park, the theater and opera and the Village.

And here I am, straight, married with children, a Christian living in the same state where I grew up.

My previous self is practically a stranger. She doesn't really feel like home, but the current self feels like a default, a garment I happened across and it fit, but it isn't my style and it doesn't do a thing for me. Sadly, I am not myself around, well, pretty much anyone here outside of Dear Husband. I'm always being careful what I say at work, pretending that I'm just as pious and conservative and Reformed as they are. I don't know many other people here, so I tend to assume the mask of parenthood appropriate to my environment. Just your neighborhood mom here, listening to the local Christian radio station and standing behind good old fashioned family values. I'm not sure what happened to my more brash and defiant self. The protester. The one who dressed exactly as she wished, who liked to shock, to provoke, to push the envelope. I guess I still question everything. I just keep it on the down-low. I'm still restless. And you know, 42 years of being restless is kind of exhausting.

Revisted One Time Too Many

I've started a few posts and then stopped because I seem to do nothing but whine and flop about. I'm 42. That's old enough for a sentence that begins "Twenty-five years ago" to pack a whallop, because 25 years ago is now a real time.

Twenty-five or so years ago, I tuned in weekly to see the BBC adaptation of Brideshead Revisited. Twenty-five years must truly be a long time, because a movie producer somewhere decided it was time to mix things up and shove what took a dozen or so episodes to explore in 1981 into a 2-hour movie in 2008. Seeing as I think the BBC miniseries was the best of all possible adaptations, I'm prepared to be horrified by the film version. I've seen the trailer, and I have not liked what I've seen. I know they tend to sex up trailers to draw the viewers (though I don't understand why they need to sex up a story that's only drawing the literate artsy crowd anyway), but it seems pretty clear that they've beaten the plot into a love triangle with Charles Ryder, the protagonist, torn between Sebastian and Sebastian's sister Julia. This is so off target it makes me want to find the screenwriter and rap his knuckles. Charles doesn't give two hoots about Julia until halfway through the book, after they've both been stuck in disastrous marriages for years, by which time Sebastian is drinking himself into a stupor in Morocco and beyond caring. This change does nothing to enhance the story--it throws it off kilter. Motivations will change. The emotional landscape will change. Just how much I won't know until I see the movie, which I feel obliged to do even if it gives me apoplexy.

I pity the actors playing Charles and Sebastian, because they can never upstage Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews. But I gather Charles and Sebastian get to kiss in this version, which was more romantic action than they got in the miniseries, primarily because no such scene ever occurs in the book. This is hardly a story about gay liberation--Waugh's views are not calculated to make gays happy, since he believed that gay love was a mere precursor to a more mature love for a woman, and finally for God. Still, a kiss would have been a nice touch, given how pretty Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews were.

A Partial Accounting of My Life

1. The toilet sprang a leak.
2. One shower is leaking through the grab bar into the garage.
3. I don't know anything about plants and I have a half acre of land.
4. The switch has tripped and I feel like I'm dragging around.
5. I need to find a new psychiatrist to manage my medications.
6. My medications aren't cutting it.
7. I love the sunlight in the kitchen and the view from our windows.
8. What do brown recluse spiders look like, anyway?
9. What are all these odd little beetles that cling to my front door at night?
10. I have to recaulk the tub.
11. The plumber told us that was a waste of time and we should just pull of the tiles, bleach everything and redo the tiles.
12. I am not that handy.
13. Did I mention that my medications aren't cutting it?
14. Firecracker can't get to sleep and she wakes me up several times during the night.
15. I need a haircut.
16. I hate cooking.
17. I like being fed.
18. I have watched more Spongebob Squarepants than I ever thought possible.
19. I would be happy if I never saw Hannah Montana again. Or the Jonas Brothers.
20. I love my Mat Kearney CD.
21. Dear Husband surprises me with his enthusiastic embrace of home improvement.
22. Dear Husband is getting sick.
22. Oh, and my medications aren't cutting it.

We're In Our New House

We survived the move. Somehow. On Saturday morning DramaQueen boarded her flight to LA. While Dear Husband was doing that, I dropped off my car because the alignment was wacko and spent three hours at Wal-mart with Firecracker, wandering around toys and furnishings, getting her goggles and floaties and swim shoes for camp, and eating at McDonalds. The whole time she complained about her toe hurting. She told me that someone had stepped on it at camp, so I didn’t think anything of it.

Then I dropped her off to play with a friend while I went to the new house to wait for the cable guy and Dear Husband and friends moved boxes. And more boxes. When I picked up Firecracker the friend’s mom said it looked as if she had insect bites on her toe. Well, maybe that’s it, I thought—she’s having a reaction to ant bites or something. On Sunday morning I knew something was very wrong, because her toe had blisters all over it, so off we went to Urgent Care while Dear Husband moved more stuff. The doctor diagnosed a staph infection and put Firecracker on antibiotics.

Well, then she couldn’t go to daycare on Monday or Tuesday, and I had to bring her to work briefly because everyone who knows anything about my job is on vacation. In fact, I had requested the days off and couldn’t get them for that very reason. On Monday night Dear Husband broke the ball cock off the master toilet (I never knew the name until I saw the packaging on the replacement—I always called it the ball floatie thing) and on Tuesday he called a plumber to fix a leak in the laundry area. So we’re off to a rousing start with home ownership. Yesterday afternoon I lay down for a nap and didn’t wake up until 6:30. I don’t know how Firecracker amused herself during that time.

We did let the wormies go before moving, and this time Firecracker was fine with it, in fact she was eager to because it was raining and wormies like the rain. She called them all by name as they wiggled off (although some didn’t wiggle at all, which I didn’t comment on). She was then very concerned about the cats because we waited until last to move them, and she was worried we were leaving them behind forever. Then she made it her task to cajole, comfort and generally hound the kitties into acclimating to the new house. “They’re shy,” she said.

Tonight I am making another trip to the apartment to see what else could be left behind, and to empty the fridge. I know there’s chocolate mint ice cream, and I think I deserve it.

Who Let the Worms Out?

Dear Husband got Firecracker some worms this weekend. I had some reservations about this venture, mainly that worms give me the heebie jeebies. I’m all for supporting my kids in their interests, but I know my limits. I think the people at the pet store thought he was nuts. We have them in a little “critter box” that I covered with dark paper and a ventilated paper plate. Obviously that was not all that secure because this morning I found one by the sink and one on the living room floor, being stared at intently by one of our cats. Dear Husband was angry with me for waking him to take care of the matter. He kept yelling from bed that I should use the dustpan to scoop them up. Well, I figure he bought them, so he can deal with them, because I would never under any circumstances have bought a box of worms. I would have found a nice little plush inchworm or something like that, something cuddly to keep Gary the snail company. But the very idea of letting the worms go upsets Firecracker. Why not a fish? I asked. At this point I would be willing to undertake education in keeping an aquarium. Nice fishies. Firecracker’s response? “How about a spider?” Shudder.

RevGals Friday Five - Word Association

Think summer......are you there? Below you will find five words or phrases. Tell us the first thing you think of on reading each one. Your response might be simply another word, or it might be a sentence, a poem, a memory, a recipe, or a story. You get the idea:

1. rooftop: New York City. A house has a roof. Rooftops are for big cities, where you can actually climb out on them and set up a lawn chair.

2. gritty: New York City. In every sense of the word.

3. hot town (yeah, I know, it's two words): Phoenix. The hottest summers I have ever experienced. Not only can you fry and egg on the sidewalk (and I’ve seen it done), you can cook an entire dinner. Well, maybe not, but you can get burns from the metal parts of seatbelts and stores have warnings not to take your wine home in the trunk of your car, lest it explode. And boy, don’t ever leave crayons in your car. They don’t just melt; they liquefy and seep into your carpet and upholstery.

4. night: owl. That’s what I would prefer to be, but I am forced out of my natural rhythms by the demands of the work place and momdom.

5. dance: palace. I don’t know why I thought of that. It sounds like something from a Kinks song.

Twilight

The Art of Losing Things

"Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master."

Dear Husband is disgusted with me, because I constantly forget things--forget plans, forget to plan, mix things up, lose things, procrastinate, hesitate. Generally, I make things difficult to the point that he is always saving us from a muddle.

Right now I am sitting with my calendar open. It doesn't actually help me that much. I often forget to open it. Or I open it and the days are not real to me. How much time is actually between now and the next "thing"? I often write things on my hand, which drives him nuts. I know I won't forget it that way. It won't be closed up in an appointment book, or written on a piece of paper that will find its way under the car seat. I put alarms on my phone, feed stuff into my Outlook. But the problem is that something is always left out. I also don't have good recall. My boss claims to have given me a piece of software. I can't find it anywhere and don't remember the exchange at all. But I know from experience that she doesn't forget, and if she said she gave it to me then she did. But where is it? Will I ever find it?

I'm taking Adderall. It helps a little bit. I guess. But I am still a flake. Not the worst, but bad enough.

Boys and Girls

This weekend Firecracker had a playdate with a little boy from her class. They had a grand time, and Hunter was not too pleased when it was time to go. After he made peace with it, he tried to give Firecracker a kiss. She held him off, saying, "It's against the law!" This pleased Dear Husband very much.

It is odd how parents speak of boyfriends and girlfriends at this age. Would kids even think about it if grownups weren't asking "Is so and so your boyfriend?" I remember chasing a boy around the playground when I was in first grade and giving him a kiss when I caught him. He looked terrified. Where I got the idea to do that I don't know. It would never occur to DramaQueen, now entering third grade, to do anything like that. She has been completely impervious to the girlfriend/boyfriend nonsense that was already percolating in second grade. The little blond haired cheerleader (boy they start training young) already had quite a few adoring boys--isn't it odd how you can already predict the trajectory of certain children? It seems like not fussing about boys ought to be the norm for this age.

I fear a worm farm is in my future

The mourning for Wormy continues. I noticed a plump dead worm on the doorstep a few days back. I have to keep telling myself that no, Wormy did not find himself abandoned, get drowned out by rain, and try to crawl his way bag to his pining mistress. Dear Husband tells me that we are getting her another worm. I've been looking up how to make a worm habitat, and it all gives me the heebie jeebies. I mean, ewwww. But it's either that or go out each night to visit the little patch of ground where he was last seen. Today Firecracker dissolved in tears because her playmate had laughed at her for calling Wormy her friend. "He was mmmyy bbbest friend," and she looked up at me with such a heartbroken expression that I almost went teary myself.

On a lighter note, one of my favorite books, Twilight, has been made into a movie and is set to be released in December. After watching the trailer, though, I have my doubts. You can check it out here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1099212/

I was delighted to find that Cirque du Freak is being filmed, and it has a stellar cast, including Willem Dafoe and John C. Reilly. The series is great fun to read--like old fashioned cliff-hangers.

Oh, it's late and I need sleep.

All creatures great and small, but in this case very small

As we were leaving day camp today, Firecracker stopped to pick up a Styrofoam cup filled with dirt. "Is that a plant?" I asked. She examined the cup, looking for her name. "No, a worm!"

Hmm. I imagined running across a cup of dried up dirt with a dessicated worm several weeks from now. "I think we should let him go--so he can dig into the dirt and enjoy the rain." That's what we did when we got home. We tipped him and the dirt out into the grass behind our apartment, close to a little wooded area.

Later she asked to go back out to look for him. We took our flashlights and gently prodded the little mound of dirt with a twig, but worm had no doubt burrowed into safety (if a bird didn't find him, a possibility I did not mention). Well, not long after that Firecracker began sobbing, "I miss Wormy." I had to take her aside and say a little prayer for Wormy's safety. And again when I tucked her in she said that she missed him so much. I promised we would look again in the morning.

Did I mention that her sister will soon be off to Los Angeles for three weeks?

In which I whine quite a bit

Last night I dreamed I had a beard. That was a very unpleasant dream.

My life is filled with anxieties large and small. I’m so used to it that I think I’ve always told psychologists that I don’t feel particularly anxious, except at times of crisis. But really I am anxious about everything, from getting to work on time to calling the dentist to choosing the new daycare, to worrying about the next health issue the family could face. I’ve also admitted to myself that all the meds I’m taking aren’t making a big enough dent in the depression that drags at me. There are so many things that seem to have eaten up a little bit of me, starting with Firecracker’s premature birth six years ago all the way to my last biopsy last month (benign, thankfully). Instead of feeling that I’ve been through a lot and so I can handle a lot, I feel that one more thing will sap the last of my reserves. Perhaps I’ve never properly processed any of these horrible events. Maybe I just want to wallow in self-pity a while. I found myself crying one night because of losing a breast, something that didn’t particularly bother me at the time (which is probably abnormal, but I was so relieve not to have a raging cancer that a mastectomy sounded positively positive). Now I have this new breast that impresses the doctors but feels utterly alien to me.

Sometimes I tear up thinking of Firecracker’s surgery, feeling guilty that she went through all that and then there was nothing to be done, and it even seemed as if there was no reason to be there in the first place. No seizures and none since. A blessing, yes, but I would rather have felt the blessing firmly in place before they cut into her skull.

We have bought a house. Our apartment is filling up with boxes, and we’ve been dropping off lots of stuff at Goodwill. I don’t do change all that gracefully, more from sluggishness than anything else. So much effort required. Looking for a house was full of disappointments, and I haven’t become particularly excited about this one. It’s smaller than I had hoped for, but it’s in a good school district (or so say the statistics) and it was what we could afford. It has a yard for the girls to play in and it’s still close to my job. And really, you can make something out of almost any house, although that has never been one of my talents.

DramaQueen is flying by herself to Los Angeles to spend three weeks with her grandparents. I’m fretting over this to a ridiculous amount. I will probably have dreams of traffic jams and getting lost on the way to the airport. Firecracker had issues when DramaQueen went to a slumber party, so I’m preparing myself for a steady stream of “When is she coming back?” DramaQueen will miss the move, so she has made me promise that I won’t unpack anything that goes in her room, because she thinks it will be great fun to unpack it herself. I’ve been assigned to purchase a disco ball to hang from her ceiling.

Time and Transitions - the Rev Gal Friday Five Really Really Late

To help you adjust--and enjoy the process--here's a Friday Five about time and transitions....

1. If you could travel to any historical time period, which would it be, and why?
   Victorian. I’m fascinated by the Victorians. The popular image is of a very repressive era, but it was a very exciting and interesting time for artists, writers, and women. The suffragists were getting started, and more women were finding their voices. Industry and science were making huge strides (not without some bad consequences, of course). This was the last grand overflow of optimism before World War I. I would like to meet Dickens, Trollope, George Eliot, the Pre-Raphaelites and the Impressionists. As you can see, my interests are primarily for the arts and writing of the time. I find it difficult to imagine wearing corsets and multiple undergarments, or having to watch children eking out a “living” as street sweepers and chimney sweeps, or dealing with high infant mortality, or the dangers for women in childbirth.
2. What futuristic/science fiction development would you most like to see?
   Hmm. From a practical standpoint, I would like to see a cure for cancer. It’s odd, because I’m not sure the future I would like to see has that much to do with technology, which I always associate with science fiction. I would like a less frantic pace of life, neighborhoods where children can roam outdoors and play, more green spaces, an educational system that doesn’t focus on test scores, evangelism without intolerance masked as “standing firm on the Scriptures,” universal health care, enough food for everyone.
3. Which do you enjoy more: remembering the past, or dreaming for the future?
   Definitely dreaming for the future, unless I’m reminiscing with old friends. That’s fun. But day to day, I am much more future oriented. There’s much about my past that I don’t like. I don’t want to forget it, exactly, but I don’t want to spend much time wandering around it. The pleasant memories are, well, pleasant, but now I have today, and it’s heading in one direction only.
4. What do you find most memorable about this year's Lent?
   That I actually thought, “Hey, it’s Lent. Maybe I should do something special.” I have hardly ever given thought to Lent. I grew up in a tradition that ignored anything that smacked of high church or Catholic ritual, so Lent simply didn’t appear on my radar. This year I’ve been reading some scripture with the girls and talking about the days leading up to Easter. I can’t say that I’ve necessarily been more reflective, but I’ve been more intentional.
5. How will you spend your time during this upcoming Holy Week? What part do you look forward to most?
   I hope to do a prayer walk at my church. That’s something new this year, I think, sort of like Stations of the Cross. I will continue to talk with the girls about the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection. And, you know what? I’d really like to watch Jesus Christ Superstar again. I have fond memories of seeing it as a child, and although I usually have an aversion to that particular writer and lyricist (why can’t I remember their names?), I love the songs in Jesus Christ Superstar. I watched it last year with the girls. DramaQueen was a bit annoyed—“Why did it stop there when he died? Where’s the part where he wakes up again?” Very perceptive of her, because I didn’t think about it—I automatically fill in that blank.
   
   And then, on the crass materialistic level, I have Easter basket supplies to buy and Easter baskets to assemble. I don’t know when Easter became a second Christmas in terms of gift giving. During the years I wasn’t watching, I guess. But, I sheepishly admit, despite the fact that fatuous consumerism dimays me, I like Easter baskets. I like roaming the aisles filled with bubbles and activity books, jellybeans, outdoor play equipment, plastic eggs, sidewalk chalk, chocolate bunnies and all that. There’s an exuberance to it—misdirected and misplaced, but exuberance nonetheless. My compromise with my conscience is to include in the basket a couple things that will encourage exercise and play. I don’t see the point of all the bunny and egg-themed stickers, coloring books, do-dads, and such, since no one wants to see all that the day after. I find Jesus tchotchkes really annoying. We don’t need another 12-piece puzzle of the cross or “real meaning of Easter” gegaws. Appreciate the message—dislike the self-satisfied smugness of countering secular consumerism with Christian consumerism. And jellybeans. I love jellybeans.
   

Abby Update Links

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Rev Gals Friday Five - Hope

This Friday Five was conceived by Sally, who says: It has been a difficult week here in Dowham Market, and yet in the sadness there have been signs of real hope, young people, often criticised have shown us how caring and amazing they are. It has also been a strange week; it snowed for almost the first time this winter, and yet many of the spring bulbs are blooming, and the trees are blossoming!I believe that if we look carefully we can see signs of hope all around us.... as for signs of spring... well you tell me....Bluebells in my garden, before the snow!

What have you seen/ heard this week that was a :

1. Sign of hope?

I must not be very perceptive. Either that or my memory is particularly dull. There were a couple of bright sunny days that made me feel that spring approaches.

2. An unexpected word of light in a dark place?

Again, I think my memory is shot. I did hear something encouraging, not for me personally, but for a coworker whose husband has lymphoma of the brain. The latest MRI was clear. That was really happy news.

3. A sign of spring?

A few warm, sunny days with brilliant blue skies and puffy clouds. The days are getting longer, which gives me a boost on the way home.

4. Challenging/ surprising?

I am abnormally fatigued this week, enough to make a doctor appointment. My mind has wandered off into the world of possible ailments: Perimenopause? Cancer? Hypothyroid? Anemia? I have this dread that one more stone is going to be added to the heap of medical challenges we face.

5. Share a hope for the coming week/month/year....

Week: I have an excisional biopsy to get through, and I want it to be completely unproblematic. Month: We have to pay a number of medical bills to meet the insurance requirements for out of pocket expenses, so I hope we can deal with that this month. Year: I would like to buy a house, but it seems so far off financially. I want Dear Husband to find his career path.

Bonus play... a piece of music/ poem guaranteed to cheer you?

See my post below about Solsbury Hill, by Peter Gabriel. It never fails to make me feel hopeful.

Life's Soundtrack

When illusion spin a net
I’m never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free

In the series of books I’ve been reading, the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer, the author posts a playlist she listened to while writing the book, its “soundtrack.” What would the soundtrack to your life be? Would you play music contemporary with each stage of life? Or something thematically applicable? Instrumental, classical, alternative, pop, jazz, rock?

There are songs that can transfix you. Every element--your environment, your thoughts, the landscape before you, the lyrics, the music, your emotions, your longings—snap into place seamlessly. I suppose these moments are what James Joyce referred to as epiphanies. Life suddenly reveals a deeper meaning, but not one you feel like putting into words. A meaning that doesn’t explain anything or answer any questions.

My parents never turned on the radio when I was growing up, and they never listened to records, either. My mom would sometimes burst into song, but she rarely knew all the lyrics and would trail into humming. I was born in 1966, and there was quite a bit of interesting music, but I rarely heard it. The local radio stations weren’t very current, either. When I was five or six, I was sitting in the front seat of my dad’s car (in the days before airbags and booster seats), and he had the radio on. A song unlike anything I had heard before came on. I thought it was beautiful. The song was Light My Fire by the Doors. I didn’t start begging for an album—I wouldn’t have known there was such a thing to beg for—but I still remember that first encounter with music that made me feel excited and exuberant and different from my normal self.

My musical taste in the 70s was an embarrassment. I wouldn’t listen to any of that stuff now. I even had a Shaun Cassidy record. Sheesh. I didn’t have passionate feelings about music, and I thought most of the bands looked unwashed and unkempt, and not in a cool way, and the lyrics would cut out so you could hear endless guitar solos. I mean, Lynard Skynard seemed to be the soundtrack of Albany GA. I got so sick of hearing Free Bird.

On one trip, our car broke down in Dade County, Alabama. Some local law enforcement fellows had mercy on us and brought us in to the sheriff’s office to make arrangements. It was getting very late. My dad called one of my brothers to come get us, but he lived some distance away. So we waited and the sheriff talked to my parents. I had never seen anything quite as unsettling as that sheriff. He was portly, and he talked a lot about his big house with a fountain. He wore large gold rings on his fingers. As inexperienced as I was with the world, I was very uncomfortable and glad to get the heck out of there when my brother arrived. It was very late at that point, and I lay down in the back seat to sleep. As I was drifting off, Hotel California came on the radio. I had never heard it before. I ever after associated it with that ride through the dark, away from the probably corrupt sheriff.

Then came MTV. By the time it hit us, punk was just a memory, a bit of background noise to the New Wave, New Romantic sounds. Oh, man, British music floored me. Where has this been all my life, I wondered? And alternative music—whoa, no more Free Bird, no more KISS, no more AC/DC, hurrah! I chuckle when I hear our local station play retro 80s music. I’m already a has-been. And now the music does sound a bit quaint.

Since then I’ve gone through a jazz phase, a classical and opera phase, and a world music phase. And then I finally discovered the Beatles, the Stones, The Band—all the music I didn’t hear growing up and which I could finally enjoy now that I know longer had to be hip.

And now, I don’t know. I like to pick up the new U2 albums when they come out. I listen happily to samplers from Paste magazine, but I don’t think I’ve purchased a CD in over a year. Every now and then I will hear a new song that startles me. Or I hear an old song that I had forgotten and that still has the power to lift me above my everyday concerns.

The lyrics above are from Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel, one of my all-time favorite musicians. I did not hear this song when it first came out, but much much later, after the Shock the Monkey album and So. I don’t remember what was happening the first time I heard it, but from the opening bars, it had me. Something about this song makes me tense up expectantly. Expecting what I’m not sure. It’s liberating and joyful, looking out over life’s possibilities.

DramaQueen surprises me yet again

In an attempt to de-heathenize my offspring, I have been reading through a series of scripture passages for Lent. I grew up Southern Baptist, and Lent was one of the oddities we heard of only in connection with lessons about why Catholics got it wrong. Anyway, I’ve been reading these passages and meeting no resistance whatsoever, which has floored me. I mean, it hasn’t stopped Firecracker from reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom—she’s only interested in counting right now--but DramaQueen has been quite attentive, even asking a few questions. At one point she asked me if I liked reading the Bible, and I said that I did except for the parts with long lists of names. Her eyes lit up, “Lists? I love lists! Show me.” So for the past few nights she has been going over the genealogy in the opening of Matthew. She loves the odd names. She also started reading the Psalms, after I read one to her. I haven’t dared to comment in any way. For some reason a parent’s enthusiasm can completely stifle a child’s interest. I don’t know why, but it was true for me as a child, too. When parents get excited, expectations follow, and the burden is just too tiring.

I find it interesting that the parts of the Bible that I found most tedious and skipped right over, she seems to relish. Well, I haven’t tried her on Chronicles yet. Or Leviticus. I did tell her about some of the purity laws, which, being a typical young person, she pronounced “stupid.’

On another note, she came home from school one day and asked me if I knew about Bloody Mary, because her friend T had seen her in the mirror that morning. Might like to throttle T, who is obviously a little storyteller. I would have liked DramaQueen to skip hearing about that lovely ritual for a few more years. It doesn’t help that I still can’t look into a mirror in the dark because of that stupid story.

To figure out why the Bloody Mary story persists among young girls, I did some research and found an article about Bloody Mary as a ritual for pre-menarche girls: bathrooms, darkness, blood. Some variations of the ritual include flushing toilets, which I had not heard of before. An interesting, theory, I think. Of course there’s also the aspect of divination, which was probably associated with women anyway. None of this rational explanation will make it any easier for me to look in a mirror in the dark. A mirror seems too much like a portal. I don’t know why I’m so susceptible to this stuff.

Friday Five -- Heaven

This week's RevGal Friday Five is about Heaven--what do we find heavenly, perfect, etc.

1. Family get-together
The perfect family get-together would include my mom, who died in 2001. I would love for her to see how DramaQueen has grown, and meet Firecracker, whose birth she missed; and I would like them to meet her, to be able to hear her voice and sit in her lap. All my brothers would be there as well. They are all musical, and it is always so much fun to hear them play together. My dad would have brought in a load of vegetables from his garden for mom to cook, and even though I never particularly liked her cooking, it would be a joy to eat it.

2. Song or musical piece
Dead Can Dance make music that stirs in me a feeling of transcendence and eternity. There is usually an edge of melancholy. Why does melancholy seem to open the doors to the eternal?

3. Gift
Books. Always books. I hope the afterlife has a library. With a café.

4. You choose whatever you like-food, pair of shoes, vacation, house, or something else. Just tell us what it is and what a heavenly version of it would be.
Oh, yes, the heavenly version of chocolate would have no calories. We could eat simply for the sensual pleasure of taste and texture and variety, without worrying about sustenance and health. The vegetables will actually taste like something—no more cottony tomatoes or enormous flavorless cucumbers. Hmm, heaven will have a version of my dad’s garden.

5. And for a serious moment, or what would you like your entrance into the next life to be like?
Swift. No pain or suffering, of course. I would not like to experience what my mom did, dying of leukemia after a harsh round of chemo. I want to be old, I want to be at home, and I want to drift to sleep, and wake up happy.

What, from your vantage point now, would make Heaven "heavenly?"
I want heaven to be like earth as God meant it to be. I want there to be books, conversations, nature walks, music, art, dancing.

Life bites; if only I could bite back

As usual, when life gets stressful, I take refuge in books. Right now I’m reading the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer. I love books about vampires. I was really into the Ann Rice novels—such elegant vampires with such poetic and philosophical musings, not to mention an eroticism that was creepy and compelling. In the end vampire stories all seem to be about sex dressed up in gothic clothes with nowhere to go.

The Twilight series is about a teenage girl, Bella, and a vampire boy, Edward, who fall desperately in love. And I do mean desperately—teen love ramped up and kicked into overdrive. Then the novel piles on the complications, misunderstandings, danger and conflict. It’s all very Wuthering Heights, although Catherine would think Bella a wimp, and I always thought Catherine and Heathcliff were so immensely unpleasant that I grew impatient with the sturm and drang.. The books refer to both Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliet a lot, which is apt, since Bella and Edward think their lives will end without each other, which they demonstrate with much dramatic hullaballoo. Really, this is fabulous. I love this kind of stuff, even if Bella is a spineless masochist and Edward is unrelentingly gorgeous, annoyingly noble. They can’t do much in the way of physical contact, since his kiss could kill her. Talk about repression. Bella does a lot of swooning and Edward seems to be in a constant state of anguish trying to keep from loving her to death. Interesting, huh? He loves her so much his impulse is to kill her. Of course he doesn’t want to—it’s his biology he’s resisting. Well, I wouldn’t look too closely at the male/female dynamics here—it spoils the fun and critics are so tiresome when they start berating books for not being feminist enough. (I read one such criticism and wondered if the reviewer thought it would be best not to read Dickens because his female characters are ridiculous. But I could go into a long diatribe about those who think we should read only what’s proper and healthy for us in order to maintain a good literary hygiene.) There’s a werewolf vying for her affections as well. Talk about a tumultuous romantic life. As I said, vampire novels seem to be about desire that is never satisfied, which doesn’t really want to be satisfied because the tension of not being satisfied is so intoxicating.

There are other vampires out to get Bella, so you’d think Edward would just turn her into one to protect her, but he refuses. Why? Well, because if he didn’t there wouldn’t be a story, now would there? The moment they’re on an equal footing, the plot will have to find a new focus. Oh, and the werewolf is bound by pack law to kill any vampire who bites a human, so it looks like we’ve got a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation (ha ha). I have one more book of tortured indecision before the grand finale (coming out in August), and I think I’m 39th on the waiting list at our library. Edward, for pete’s sake turn her into a vampire already and hightail it out of werewolf territory. After a while a tortured conscience just gets boring. Bella, you’re going to have to decide between the vampire and the werewolf and just deal with it. If you want to be a vampire so badly, get one of the others to change you. Sheesh. It’s not like Edward is the only vampire in town.

Home Again

The moment we got home yesterday, Firecracker was knocking on our neighbor's door, eager to see her playmates. Except for the head full of staples, you would never know doctors had been messing around in her brain. She should be able to go back to school this week, with instructions to keep other kids from touching the incisions. The hospital gave us a set of staple removers, which we are to take with us to the follow up appointment. They look rather scary, and given how many staples I see, I'm a bit nervous about that appointment.

I can't wait to get home.

Yesterday afternoon they disconnected Firecracker from all the brain wiring. All that's left is to remove the connections from the brain. I could tell how relieved she was to feel a little bit more free. I hope the second surgery will be much easier, with less nausea and pain. She misses DramaQueen and her classmates. Her teachers came to visit. Both the morning and afternoon bus drivers called, and one came to visit. Church members have come with gifts, toys for the girls and time for Dear Husband and me to slip away for fresh air and a bit of normality. Her room is bright with posters that friends/coworkers made for her. All the doctors and nurses and visitors commented on them. MIL has been taking care of our house and DramaQueen. We've had a lot of support far and wide through prayer and gifts. I am thankful for that. I don't know how people cope with something like this on their own.

Now What?

So, in the 20 years that the neurosurgeon has been performing this procedure, he has only had to take out a grid without doing surgery a few times. Now he can add Firecracker to the list. What a ride. So now we have to think of other options. Oddly Abby has still not had another seizure, and now they've started her back on the meds.

Tomorrow they will take out the grids and we'll go home sometime this weekend. It's a disappointing turn of events. And we've missed Valentine's Day.

Aw Crap.

It looks as if they may not be able to go forward with surgery to remove the tuber. The neurologist came in and told me that they fear the seizure focus is too close to the motor area. I didn't get all the ins and outs of this. The neurosurgeon is going to come tomorrow and show us all the charts and explain it in detail. Part of the problem is that Firecracker has had only one seizure since we came in. That's just weird. But that one seizure gave them pause because of the way it spread. They won't remove a tuber if they don't get any return--decrease in seizures. So, here we are. Poor Firecracker is irritated beyond belief by this turban, and she's starting to get a bit restless. Dear Husband is beyond sad. I'm sad, too, although I tend to be resigned to these sorts of setbacks. I'd rather they called it off than damage her motor strip. But we were so hopeful that removing the tuber would help get rid of the seizures and thus give her a boost in development.

But, the neurologist did mention that there are other surgical methods besides resectioning that can be performed. Whether or not the neurosurgeon sees any benefit to any of them remains to be seen.

9:44 am Sunday

Firecracker is watching Mickey Mouse and nibbling at her breakfast. She is better today than I've seen her. She spent some time on Cartoon Network playing games. She's complaining of itching and trying to pull at the gauze turban and the fat sheet of wiring that's coming out. The room is decorated by may colorful posters from friends. We must have the brightest room here. And yesterday her nurses brought her a present and a balloon, and some cake and ice cream. That was sooo sweet. A friend from church brought her a valentine webkinz frog, which Firecracker has dubbed "Love." Next door is a family whose little boy is having the same procedure. He's ready to get up and MOVE, poor fellow, but he's stuck in the bed with the video monitor. They brought over a little stuffed rhino for Abby, which was awfully nice. We shared stories of bewilderment and struggles with diagnoses and mis-diagnoses. So many doctors know so little that parents end up having to educate them. Thankfully there are resources for that, but not all doctors are receptive or will take the time to do the reading and calling around to TS clinics and the like.

Dear Husband is bringing me coffee again. Last night the sweetie went out and got me Chinese food. Heaven. Cause the cafeteria food leaves something to be desired. It's not awful, but it has a reconstituted feel about it. The French toast and pancakes are a bit rubbery, and the sandwiches look like something I would put together at home when I'm running out of ingredients. The best thing are the potato chips--they have salt and vinegar and lime with black pepper.

Firecracker is missing her sister. She came by yesterday with a birthday present, bought with her own money. DramaQueen is such a lovely girl (most of the time). She got Firecracker a Batmobil. We certainly aren't hurting for amusements. The little hospital library has a nice bunch of books and videos for kids, and there are a lot of games available. I even found some books for myself. Of course, mostly I'm just tired, collecting various aches and pains. Thankfully a friend brought over an air mattress, which greatly improved my sleep last night. I can't seem to get quite enough, though.

No seizures yet.

Oh good grief. Somehow all my posts have gone to Baby Blessingway instead of to my Bad Alice blog. That's because there's a stupid (no doubt precautionary etc etc policy, but it inconveniences me so I'm selfishly cranky) hospital policy that blocks access to all personal networking sites. I'm having to post from Google Docs, and I'm hoping my setting will now stay put. Songbird, thank you for alerting me to this. Let me know if this goes to the wrong place again. I'm afraid I can't remove them from Blessingway until I'm away from the hospital.

Anyway, Firecracker is looking much better but still pretty groggy. No seizures yet. Yeah, we have to hope for seizures so they can get all the info they need. We could get out of here early if that happened. My sleep was just grand. Lights have to stay on for video monitoring, and it seemed like every few minutes an IV alarm would sound. I just pretended to be asleep because I was too tired to move. Firecracker slept through it thanks to morphine. For the most part. She woke up a few times having to go to the bathroom, which means wielding the strangely flimsy plastic bedpan, which seems designed so that your child's bottom can rest in whatever she yields. Everyone keeps fussing over how uncomfortable she looks, because her head keeps flopping down to one side. Well, what can I do about it? She has a mound of gauze and wiring around her head, which pushes it forward. Real comfortable. Now, if they had a memory foam pillow, perhaps it could accommodate this strange gigantic head.

Here come the meds. The challenge is to convince Firecracker that she needs to swallow them.

The Endocrinologist Revisited, or Dear Husband's Day from HELL

Friday was quite an adventure for Dear Husband, who had to take Firecracker to the hospital for presurgery assessment and a visit to the dear old endocrinologist. You can read a full report here.

On a positive note, Firecracker's birthday party was yesterday. A dear friend opened her house for the party, and her husband dressed up as a pirate. We had treasure maps for the kids, and they had set up an obstacle course and a bouncy room in the basement. The treasure hunt was kind of chaotic, and one little girl kept disappearing and once tried to insert herself between the couch and the wall. There was one total meltdown when a little girl called a little boy "baby", and the pirate had to comfort him. One child had a peanut allergy, which I only heard about the morning of the party, so the store-bought cake was off limits, and for some reason the ice cream we provided brought tears to her eyes. I also got to meet the little boy that Firecracker has talked about quite a bit "Today Eric was nice to me," "Today Eric was mean to me," "Eric is my friend," "Eric says he's not my friend" (said with sobs), and even "This Friday Eric is going to be mean to me." Already Eric knows how to string a girl along. You can tell he will grow up to be quite a heartbreaker--dark hair, big eyes, charming smile. A good party altogether. The kids seem to really like each other--every time a new arrival appeared at the door there was general hysteria, as if the latest pop star had appeared.

I never wrote about DramaQueen's party. We took 10 girls to see a local production of High School Musical. And survived. I was worried that we might need some entertainment, games or something during the home portion, but 10 8-year-olds need nothing. One wise little girl told me that she knew why Vanessa Hudgens got in trouble, but (whispering in my ear) she wouldn't talk about it.

Between these two parties and Christmas, the play room is about to burst apart. We have almost as much Play-Doh as Toys R Us, and DramaQueen has three Hannah Montana dolls, all slightly different. And the number of WebKinz is rapidly growing, because DramaQueen has saved up quite a bit of cash. Ganz has a good thing going: like beanie babies with their own internet site. DramaQueen frequently checks to see which ones are being retired, and bewails her fate, that she does not have the Pegasus, or the Unicorn, or what have you.

Well, off I go. Next week is going to be stomach churning.

Afterthought: If you are familiar with High School Musical, i.e. if you have girls between the age of 5 and 18, you really must check out this Indian version of All for One.

The Friday Five: Superbowl and Saints

Sally at Eternal Echoes writes;
There is so much going on this weekend that I thought I'd provide an options Friday 5!!!!

First Superbowl ( someone explain to this Brit the significance)- love it or hate it?

5 reasons please!!!!! I can’t explain it—I don’t like football at all and don’t know one team from another. I can give you 5 reasons it annoys me:
1. It’s taking up valuable TV time.
2. People talk about it as if it’s important.
3. Magazines and newspapers are full of dumb articles about how to host a Superbowl party.
4. I find the rules of football immensely boring.
5. The players are paid a ridiculous amount of money and the advertisers pay a ridiculous amount of money to inspire us to buy more stuff, and then we get to hear about how much a Superbowl advertising spot costs, and who paid the most, blah blah blah. At least some of the commercials are entertaining—but I can always watch those on YouTube later.
Second Candlemas/ Imbloc/ Groundhog day/ St Brigid's day- all of these fall on either the 1st or 2nd February.

I do, however, offer this link on how Famous Authors Predict the Winner of the Superbowl.

1. Do you celebrate one or more of these? Some of these I’ve never even heard of? What’s Imbloc? What’s Candlemas? Are they pagan holidays? And I imagine if so that there is a direct connection between them and St. Brigid. But no, I don’t celebrate any of these.
2. How? N/A
3. Is this a bit of fun or deeply significant? N/A
4. Are festivals/ Saints days important to you? Nope. I don’t know the saints and my Southern Baptist upbringing has imbued me with a resistance to the whole saint thing, not to mention paganism. It’s not that I have a problem with people celebrating saints or the great goddess, just that it has no appeal to me on any level. Except that I like the artwork inspired by saints, and I find syncretism interesting.
5.Name your favourite Saints day/ celebration. I don’t have one except Christmas.

Bonus- 2nd Feburary is also my Birthday- I will donate £1.00 for every comment on my Friday Five Post to the Methodist Relief and Development Fund.
That’s a great thing for you to do! As you can see, it inspired me to talk about football! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SALLY!