Et al.

Hear me roar

2008-11-28T12:13:00.001-08:00

So guess who spent yesterday morning in a little frenzy of home care? Yup. One of the smart moms at ballet class suggested that blocked gutters could be at least partly to blame for the water issue, an idea I (internally) pooh-poohed--I just had the gutters done in February, and that wall is away from the trees on the West side of the house.

So, of course, you see where this is going. I spent 45 minutes yesterday perched precariously on a ladder scooping gunk, grit, needles and what looks to be new topsoil out of the gutter on that wall. I carried my cell phone in my pocket and left the 911 instructions by the phone, with strict orders for my daughter to call first. Inspired by my success, I then cut away a bunch of dead foliage from around the house and raked the leaves out of the driveway. I trimmed a bunch of other stuff, wrapped my outside pipes in case we get a freeze (usually I'm out there at 11 p.m. after the newscast urges us to do it on a particularly cold night), cleaned the bunny's cage, refreshed the cat facilities, and graded one of the multiple stacks of papers I am carrying around.

Might satisfying. Not sure if I'm going to attempt to clean the other gutters out myself or call the people who did them last; I'm sure the other side of the house is worse, although nothing has leaked. And I'm still going to call the roofer and/or masonry folks for a consult. My prayer is that I don't have to have the plaster replaced in the living room--an expensive mess.

And I am still dreaming of a bright, light-filled, cozy condo for my daughter and me. I grew up in a family that did not do much yard or house care. The projects my father undertook always became disasters that professionals then had to fix, and generally resulted in a lot of swearing, screaming, and scapegoating. My mother is remarkably handy--she had to be; my father was useless and we had little money--but her approach is slapdash, to put it kindly. Our yard care was minimal, at best. Plus it was California, where the long, dry seasons kept mold and rampant plant growth at bay. A little neglect went a long way toward keeping the yard from growing too avidly. As I am only now realizing, life in the wet, lush Pacific NW is largely a battle between a house and the elements. Water is forever seeping, leaking, corroding, and destroying anything it can find. A dry basement is a miracle, a thing of beauty, and a joy forever. Wooden shingles, decks, and pretty much anything else require constant coats of sealant or they rot. Sometimes they rot anyway. All of this is expensive, stressful, unpleasant, and potentially obscenely expensive. And, in the grand scheme of things, hopeless. Left alone, my house would probably disintegrate in five years or less. I'm not sure if this is a powerful lesson in the futility of human life, or a reason to move south. I'll keep you posted.

Things to do with the second half of my life

2008-11-26T10:35:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling bored, bored, bored by my life. This is a pattern for me; I used to move frequently, and then by the time I made new friends and got truly settled in, I'd be off to try something new and someplace new (but not too new--always an academic program and a restaurant job!). My father has told me about the AA truism, which goes something like this: "You get off the bus, and there you are." It's true; I follow me every where I go. But as it grows ever more impossible to delude even myself into thinking that if I'm sad, angry, and desperate enough my husband will come back, or that the universe will decide to take care of me with no effort on my part, I am thinking about what I want to do for ME in the next phase(s). With no time limits or commitment, here are the things I want to do:

1. Move back to SF/live in a "real" city again. I often wonder if the sheer joy of being in SF (which, for me, is tangible and genuine) could possibly offset the very real benefits of my life now: a nice, big house; a fabulous job that I love; good friends who support me and my daughter; a "community" that includes her Chinese program, ballet, and school; a lower cost of living that makes it *almost* possible for me to afford these things for her; a nice, small, easy city where the daily workings of life create minimal stress. Very few of these things would be remotely possible in an expensive city where even procuring housing--let alone finding a remotely suitable academic job--would be pretty much beyond my means.

2. Take an extended research trip. I'd like to take a semester, or summer, or whatever, and live in Boston, Philadelphia, D.C., or New York. I'd like to work in the archives and libraries during the day, and explore the city with my daughter the rest of the time. There are fellowships for this, but they don't cover child care. If we went during the year, of course, she could go to school...

3. Travel. The top of my list: Iceland, Scotland, Ireland; Macchu Picchu; Eastern Europe--especially Istanbul and the coast of the former Yugoslavia. Budapest.

4. Live/teach in China. There are exchange programs. Once I get tenure (if?) I am going to check these out in earnest; apparently, and somewhat oddly, my academic specialty is in demand in their universities.

5. Write a mystery novel. I'm considering taking an on-line course, just for the structure, practice, and feedback it would provide. And no, of course I don't have time.

6. Arrest my physical decline. I want to have a regular exercise program of swimming and yoga, at least, so I can be one of those women who feel and look better at 50 than at 35.

7. Find a second soul-mate who adores my daughter. I'd love to get married again, but even more, I'd like someone to go to movies with, to hang out with on Sunday mornings, and to travel to some of those places in number 3.

8. Live in a modernist dwelling and get RID of some of the stuff that weighs me down.

9. Volunteer.

10. Sort my photos and put together my wedding scrapbook. Finally.

I quit

2008-11-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

(Confidential to my sister: don't read this!)

I think I am going to throw in the towel on home ownership (I know, great timing, huh?) In the past year I have spent more than 30K on "deferred maintenance" for the rental house (and given the general financial scene, thinking of it as "capital relocation" is no longer funny...to me). In the past three years, I've put 20K or so into my house, and had signed on to teach summer school to get the wood floors (currently buried under carpet...yecch) redone--money that will now go to defray the consumer debt I racked up replacing the furnace in the rental. My trees/shrubs need professional pruning (haven't been done in 3.5 years), and today I discovered water damage on the wall with my fireplace (the masonry was part of what had been repaired).

I'm seriously thinking of selling both houses, if possible, and raising my daughter in a condo. I'm feeling pent up by the requirements of suburban idealism (house, yard, upkeep, pets), and also disappointed with how dull my life is (see next post; or previous post, or whatever).

Today, in a fit of displaced malcontentment, I had a very satisfying plant massacre. I have ugly plants for which I have cared ceaselessly and unenthusiastically. Some were abandoned by other people, foisted on me, or arrived upon my husband's death. But they were ugly, overgrown, straggly, yellowed, surrounded by dead foliage, in need of repotting, root-bound.

So I threw them away (I did put them in the city yard waste). I put the pots in the garage. I have one half as many plants now, a small amount of guilt, and a tremendous sense of FREEDOM.

Anger (Mis)management

2008-11-24T11:37:00.001-08:00

Congratulations to those of you who marked the third anniversary of my husband's death. Yes, it's been three years, and even the most patient members of my support group are visibly ready for me to GET ON WITH IT, ALREADY. I won't lie; the anniversary was easier this year--less fraught. No weeping. Very few phone calls or messages, but those that I did receive were lovely and necessary and reminded me that I am not the only one in the universe who is truly and deeply sorry that he is gone; nor am I the only one who remembers how smart, funny, and caring he was.

I even managed to "reclaim" my birthday, which, since it falls on the day after his death (his final gift to me was to try to live to my birthday, and he came so close), has been a dreary affair. This year I had a nice dinner, cake, wine, and good friends to help me move ahead into life with him.

Snickollet has a very moving post about anger (as always, she's a far more reliable, informative, and skillful writer about these things). I have to say that my own anger continues to sneak up on me and take me by surprise. Just yesterday we took our dog to the off-leash park. He's been woefully underexercised and undersocialized this term, because of the kindergarten commute and my schedule, so he needed to play. There were too many dogs there, which gets him excited. And while he's not vicious, he does seem to be sort of a provocateur--minor dog interactions sound a bit nastier and seem a bit more frequent when he gets involved. Combined with his pitbull heritage (those jaws are scary, whether or not he intends to do harm) and the fact that this is a "ghetto dog park" (lots of folks with very minimally trained, powerful breeds, and too many un-altered dogs), he's scary, especially to those who don't really understand dog communications. So I keep a close eye on him, and remind him constantly that I am there and that he can't be too rough. He's never rough with smaller dogs; he just tends to be annoying in trying to persuade others to play. After about 20 minutes, there was one scuffle which he didn't start but butted into. One dog assumed the submissive position, and mine was on top. I rushed over and called him off, and no one was injured--in fact, tails were still wagging. But this was clearly out of line. As I leashed him up, a fierce looking guy with a huge dog started chewing me out, rudely, and threatening to call the cops. I was leaving, so I said "we're leaving" and walked away.

But by the time I reached the car I was breathless with rage, and crying almost hysterically. I was furious at the guy, for being rude, at myself, for thinking my dog wasn't being a jerk, at the other owners, for not saying "hey, your dog is a little rough" if that was what they thought, or for not defending me, furious at my dog, for making trouble, at the world, for making life so hard.

This seems to be more common than not these days, and is, perhaps, one of the longest, slowest, most persistent manifestations of grief. As aware as I am that so many people suffer more, and that it's high time I got over myself and on with whatever the next phase of life is going to bring, I still get caught up short by rage: at never having a day off; at my daughter for her constant demands; at the house, which seems to be falling apart out of sheer spite; at the woman who wrecked my car and had no insurance; at my crappy health-care that runs out in November leaving me with $800 worth of sudden bills; at the delivery company that will only deliver during [my] work hours. But just as often, I'm angry about nothing at all. I use the film "Crash" in my teaching, and every time I am brought to tears (for myself, not for her), when Sandra Bullock's character admits that she is angry All The Time.

I know that even if my husband were still here, things would break, bills would come due, my daughter would be demanding (and, of course, she's supposed to be). But the anger doesn't really have anywhere to go, even if it's no longer serving whatever remotely useful survival function it used to serve.

And yes, my schedule next term should allow me to take a yoga class.

Hallelujah!

2008-11-05T13:02:00.000-08:00

I have never, never felt more proud of my fellow Americans than I am today, in light of last night.

Jesse Jackson and John Lewis brought me to tears.

It's been too, too long coming.

How I wish my husband were here to celebrate with me.

Alone

2008-10-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

I confess I have been having trouble following Snickollet's foray into dating. Of course, I am thrilled that she is having fun with it, and envious of her resilience. I trust her to be smart, and careful, and to make good decisions for her own future happiness and those of her beautiful offspring.

I wish I could try it.

The fact is, that I was horrible at dating before, and I deeply, deeply resent having to do it again, when I am more than a decade older than when I met my husband. I feel ugly, stressed out, drained, and tired, and I can't even imagine adding another person's needs and desires into the mix. Of course, a "real" relationship would provide comfort, and support, and some desperately needed fun. But I still don't feel like I am ready to get to know someone--let alone make the foray into online contact. My friends are surprisingly useless in terms of making matches for me; one friend tried, but it was abundantly clear that even if there had been sparks (there weren't), the guy was too hung up on his 8-year-past-ex-wife to even consider dating. Whew--at least I wasn't the problem.

I'm not, at heart, a very friendly person. I can be gregarious, in certain situations, but only when I feel completely in control of the level of contact (a friend and I joke that this is why teaching is so perfect--the illusion of great intimacy and affection with a bunch of students who go away after 4 months). I have a hard time "getting to know" people in any setting that is not entirely directed toward something other than getting to know them--work, say. And that is not going to happen at my current job. I know it's hard for everyone, and that it takes effort, but the real problem is that I rarely like anyone that well on first impression--especially if he is male and a potential date (however remote that potential may be). I realize it's some sort of immature self-protective device, but it's pretty firmly instilled by now, and I am not in much of a position to work on changing it!

So after finally braving Snick's blog, and cheering for her (she actually had SEX!), I'm feeling really, really bad. Because it's been almost three years now. And I'm pathetic. And I still miss him, and he's never coming back.

True Confessions, Part 741

2008-10-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

1. My little Chinese girl loves the Dixie Chicks and Dolly Parton. Seriously.

2. She also loves Obama. "We want Mr. Obama to win, don't we, Mama?"

3. I have to acknowledge that even though I'd vote for Obama anyway, based on his policies and the opposition, it doesn't hurt that I would totally like to date him--if, of course, he were single and local.

Dorcasina: the upgrade

2008-10-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

1. I am filled with embarrassing love for my ostentatious, heavy, pretentious, safe, solid, maneuverable, safe, easy-to-handle, slippery-road-proof and not-too-gas-guzzling German automobile, even though it makes me looks like the kind of woman who gives me hives. Y'know? Selling out is easy and fun.

2. My husband's beloved laptop (an early iBook--he was an early adopter, although of limited means) finally died--no screen, no booting up, no nothin'. Although they assured me at the Mac Store when I purchased its replacement that they could transfer the data, my own ineptitude and failure to upgrade the operating system often enough meant they were unable to do so. This rendered me temporarily and somewhat inconsolable. His emails, his file for me labeled, in his usual unsentimental and concise style, "Hereafter Notes," the animated tasmanian devil that he and my daughter once watched multiple times a day. [I can probably find someone to extract the hard drive and retrieve the data, but at much more expense and inconvenience. I suspect it's his way of urging me to be less maudlin, but I resist.]

3. That very evening, after asking the Mac Store guy about my 3 year-long struggle to retrieve or replace the Admin id/password for my "big computer" (the lack of which had prevented me from updating software, installing new programs, etc. for almost 3 years now), I figured it out. It was utterly logical and so typically my husband--he used a default name for the i.d., and my own usual password. It really felt like a gift from the universe, especially when updating the system did NOT erase every file I had (all my photos, for example) from the computer. Thanks, love!

4. I've taken to wearing my engagement and wedding rings (mine and his) again. Not every day. But I missed the sparkly cognac diamond ring we chose together--on eBay--and while wearing the wedding rings makes me sad sometimes, wearing the engagement ring is, at least right now, making me happy.

Today's lesson

2008-09-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

1. Capitalism is inherently competitive and produces vast inequities. Capital flows upward.

2. Democracies--at least the functional kind, in theory--are predicated on the fundamental equality of their citizens, each of whom has a potentially equitable say in the collective good.

3. The basic job of a government--its raison d'etre, the fundamental premise under which we give our "consent"--is to provide greater stability than individuals can achieve independently.

4. Our government is currently using our collective wealth to bail out private corporations, NOT so as to protect the small shareholders or prevent further foreclosures, but to maintain the obscene wealth accruing to the richest people in the nation. Why is it okay--even desireable--to "rescue" irresponsible corporations, AND simultaneously "infantilizing" to "rescue" the most vulnerable victims of corporate greed? If only we could borrow a page from Japan, where disgraced and overpaid CEOs routinely commit suicide when their corporate misdeeds are exposed? I'm only sort of kidding.

Your assigned reading? Naomi Klein's new book. Just don't buy it from a giant mega-chain bookstore.

As you were, everyone.

Somebody call Amnesty International

2008-09-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

We clearly need international intervention to have any hope of a "clean" election.

What's next, a revival of the poll tax?

AAAAAAAaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh

2008-09-12T13:08:00.001-07:00

I just spent the last hour trying to argue with my students' implacable insistence that "there is no point in talking about a movie and what it means, because it's fiction." They said this bemusedly, as though explaining something brutally obvious to a dimwitted 3 year old, for the umpteenth time. Thus dies a career.

I can't decide whether to laugh, quit, or get drunk.

I'm NOT gonna talk about Sarah Palin

2008-09-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

except for this:
The cynicism of a party that would put a woman on the ticket because presumably anyone with a vagina will vote for her, rather than for a candidate whose policies actually address the real concerns of women (healthcare, endless war, education, poverty, reproductive freedom) is simply staggering to me. And I thought I was pretty much bottomed out on some of the slimy tactics of *some* representatives of the party (illegal wiretapping, political litmus tests, illegal and immoral incarceration, pre-emptive war, etc., etc., etc.). I propose that the bumper stickers say "McCain/Vagina 2008"--since that's the premise under which she was added to the ticket.

And this: How is it possible for any commentator to, with a straight face, criticize Obama as excessively "rhetorical" in his platform (i.e., not enough substance) AND to accept Palin's "rhetorical" claims that she is prepared for the (Vice)Presidency simply because she says she is. WTF?????

Okay, and this: IF McCain is elected, it will be proof dispositive that Americans prefer rhetorical nostalgia over the survival of the species. We cannot and dare not spend another cycle of politics led by someone who believes his own mad fantasy of the America that--if it ever even existed--is long, long gone. When will we reach the limits of our nostalgic fantasies that we can continue to burn oil, kill people in order to burn oil, destroy the very earth that provides our existence, and see ourselves as an invincible force of good despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary? Snap the fuck OUT OF IT, people.

Mood enhancers

2008-09-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

My more-than-a-little-mortifying list of ultra-pop songs that instantly brighten my mood (and almost always get me singing along) when they pop up in car radio rotation:

"Wake Me Up Before you Go-go" (Wham)

"Irreplaceable" or "Crazy in Love" (Beyonce)

"Morning Train" (Sheena Easton)

"Bizarre Love Triangle (New Order)

to be continued...

"Crazy" (Gnarls Barkley)

"Hey Ya" and "The Way You Move" (OutKast)

"No Scrubs" (TLC)

"It Ain't Over 'til it's Over" (Lenny Kravitz)

Feel free to add yours!

Newsflash

2008-09-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

Being on sabbatical has caused me to forget just how badly many of my students write, and how carelessly they use words.

We now return to your usual programming.

Confessions of a carpool mom

2008-09-09T12:52:00.001-07:00

My daughter is still loving kindergarten. She has announced that she likes computers and playing on the playground best, and in addition to our carpool friend, she has two other little girls who rush up to her when we arrive. This morning, she entertained me with a recitation of the potential "boogers" and their origins: "Eye boogers; nose boogers; ear boogers..." This is the kind of thing that would have completely charmed her Papa, who would have entered eagerly into the game.

I, on the other hand, am finding myself stupidly resistant to her new school. This weekend, in addition to trips to her school, I found myself in two other bastions of white privilege: an impossibly expensive private school (where I attended a memorial service) and an "adult community" situated on/around a golf course. Since I live on the west coast, I should point out that none of the three settings was entirely "white"--there was a sprinkling of beige, some black hair, several Asians, and a small number of people perhaps best classified as "Hispanic"--that is, perhaps vaguely Latin in origin (given that culturally "Hispanics" include blonds with blue eyes).

And, of course, this has led to a further crisis of my benighted soul, and a backlash against the very group(s) of people I have intentionally chosen to educate my child alongside. To be fair, her school so far seems more noteworthy for its folksy hippie roots than for the wealth of its population, but we live in an area where the wealthiest among us seem to exist largely in (expensive, designer, or organic cotton) yoga gear and to drive Subarus. So it can be hard to judge economic status. And within a pretty wide range of income levels, one disheveled kindergartner looks much like (in terms of "status") another.

But I was struck, particularly at the private school where the memorial was held, by the nearly claustrophobic inevitability that obtains at this level of privilege. The students in attendance (mostly 8th grade and up) were articulate, confident, and emanated waves of self-satisfaction. It was very obvious that they were well on the way to the kind of social prominence, political power, and economic influence that their parents radiated. They were in possession of every advantage--exceptional dentistry, outstanding diet, a lifetime of lessons, activities, challenges, and opportunities, stylish and/or flattering clothes, good haircuts, etc., etc., etc. I don't mean to pick on these kids. Who among us wouldn't want to provide such advantages for ours? What disturbed me was the blatant injustice of such inherited status, and of the self-confidence it breeds.

I realize I can't possibly know which of these kids were on scholarship, or dealing with a serious illness or loss, or troubled by some secret despair. Others may well go on to rid the world of some scourge, to join the Peace Corps, to promote international adoption. But like their older versions at the adult community, these students clearly accepted their social position and its largesse with a comfort I confess to never having felt, even though my own life has been remarkably easy, by most people's standards. That sense of belonging, entitlement, and the expectation of it, seems particularly marked in the places I visited--including my daughter's school.

Part of me wants that for her--that confidence, that ease in the world. A lot of me wants all children to have those benefits. The problem is not that success is largely inevitable, or that kids have every opportunity. The problem is that the overwhelming majority of the people who experience those opportunities and successes look so much alike, and that inevitability is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I want those opportunities for my daughter, but I want her to grow up without that sense of blind entitlement, without believing that everyone in the world is as lucky as she is, or that such luck somehow makes her morally superior. That's a hard line to walk.

Do I even need to mention that in one of these bastions of privilege I encountered a public elementary school? And that it was named for a civil rights hero? The irony is all the more painful because it seems to go unnoticed by the residents.

Week 1 report

2008-09-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

My daughter loves kindergarten. She has gone off happily every morning, said goodbye without tears, and come home in a good mood (if more than a little tired) every day. She loves her teachers (a funny pair, and wonderful), the playground (spiffy new climbing structure), her Spanish lessons (common words), her PE class (fitness and spatial sense), her art class (color theory [!]), music (quarternotes and beating out a tempo), computers (including keyboarding [!!]), and pretty much everything else.

After a rough few days where I despaired of the commute and my foreshortened work day, I am loving it again, too. The commute is a pain: not far (22 minutes, about 13 miles), but with very erratic traffic. It's seldom really bad, but can be very stop and start. And it's in a sort of rural/suburban area (we have a lot of them here, and they give me hives), so we get stuck behind retired folks with all the time in the world, frazzled moms ferrying kids all over the place (it's inconceivable that anyone really walks much around here--there are almost no sidewalks), horse trailers, heavy equipment, and...well...slowpokes.

We start our carpool on Monday, which is what's keeping me sane. I started teaching this week, too, and between the freshman comp refusenik (won't share writing, won't revise, doesn't like to plan or organize essays, which pretty much negates our entire pedagogy) and a few lame students of the "there was a teensy bit of inconvenience involved in acquiring the reading so I just didn't bother" variety, things look pretty good.

I left a key date off one syllabus and got the course ID number wrong on another. Sabbatical is somewhat debilitating.

Kindergarten Assignment

2008-08-29T16:41:00.000-07:00

My baby heads off to her new fancy private school in the woods on Tuesday. I've attended the back-to-school info session, am halfway through purchasing the essentials (backpack, water bottle, etc.), and don't know which of us is more excited! My excitement, of course, is tinged with melancholy: it's almost certain that I will never again have my own snuggly, warm, chubby two-year-old, or three-year-old, and that our family of two is pretty much what I have. And I'm accepting it, finally.

One of my assignments is to identify 5 words that I think characterize or explain my daughter and will help her teachers get to know her. I'm enjoying this exercise, largely because it gives me opportunities to reflect on what an awesome little girl I have the good luck to raise, and because I can ask my friends to suggest equally laudatory terms.

So far, I am considering the following:

1. Agreeable; cooperative; adaptable--something that conveys her essential willingness, even eagerness, to participate in whatever activity is going on, and her cheerful good nature in the face of most obstacles.

2. Enthusiastic; inquisitive; curious: these words attempt to get at her lust for knowledge--how refrigerators, taste buds, and the internal combustion engine work; why the sun comes up in the east, not the west; why children don't drive cars; etc.

3. Generous: she almost always offers to share what she has, even if it's a special treat (like a piece of candy). She goes out of her way to get her teachers to wrap up whatever food she makes at school so she can bring me some.

4. Focused; determined; autonomous: She identifies things she'd like to do, and does them. If she's interested, she persists, and she generally does a lot of tasks without much help.

5. Cheerful. She's a happy, sunny, generally even-tempered little girl, who seems much more optimistic about life in general than her father or I ever was, even at age 5.

Now I just have to pick five of them....

Queens never negotiate

2008-08-23T09:11:00.000-07:00

(Or so says the license-plate holder I saw yesterday. I suspect that Elizabeths I and II, among others, would disagree, but I like the sentiment. I have a notepad that says, "It's good to be queen.")

Joe Biden, huh? I'm going to need to process that one for a little while.

Die-lemma

2008-08-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

I just had a phone call that despite being number 130 on the waiting list, my daughter has been offered a place in our local Suzuki piano program. On one hand, I'm thrilled--while I grew up being a snob about the "mechanical" quality of Suzuki (and while I'm still a wee bit skeptical of what seem to me to be its exaggerated demands), I've been really impressed by how it allows very young students to play real music, and to develop excellent touch and dynamics very early on (my friend's 6 year old has a much more nuanced style than I ever had). And my daughter has been asking for lessons for almost a year now. And I am in the midst of pretty major repairs on our 100 year old upright piano, that should make it playable and then some. On the other hand, I'm feeling more than frantic about returning to teaching, finishing the impossible article, figuring out what the commute and parent responsibilities are at my daughter's new school, and financing private school, Saturday Chinese and Chinese dance lessons (which will involve 5 different performances throughout the year), and her ongoing ballet classes. I'm already too busy and too broke, and the thought of two piano lessons each week (one group and one private) plus daily practicing that I have to enforce is more than a little daunting.

Plus, I realize that she is only 5, and that it's not as though her musical ability--if she has any--will evaporate if I choose to wait until she's 7 or even--gasp!--eight before signing her up. By then, I'll have tenure, and my fantasy about post-tenure life is that even though I'll be just as insanely busy, I won't be so perpetually anxious. (Those of you who know my IRL know that's a forlorn hope).

I just read this article about what sounds like a terrific book. As I've said before, if I still had my husband, I like to think my daughter would be in our local public school, and we would be among those committing to our community and working to improve our neighborhood schools (or, at least, those of the next-closest neighborhood!) And I am trying (not very successfully) to keep my own ego out of my choices for her, knowing at the same time that I want her to appreciate many of the things I appreciate (music, art, reading) as well as the things to which she is already drawn (insects! volcanoes! astronomy! gardening!) It's hard when there is only one of her, and one of me. I want to give her the activities I wanted to have had, and don't have my husband's voice of sanity and restraint. I suspect he'd tell me to wait on the piano lessons. Maybe I should listen to him.

Joke's on me...

2008-08-14T14:27:00.001-07:00

I have now discovered that the anonymous anthology on which I am constructing half of my article's argument was, most likely, authored not by author A, but, in fact, by author B. In some ways, this will make the comparison to author C easier....but Puh-lease. (To be fair, I have been continuing to check on the provenance of the text, since such a blunder would be more than humiliating--it would probably be immediately and catastrophically fatal, if one can actually DIE from being laughed at.

Not much

2008-08-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

Today I scrambled around madly to get to the grocery store, and then to go buy a new booster seat for the carpooling (rather than making my daughter lug hers in and out of school, I found one of the 1/2 boosters so we can leave it in their car. I'm hoping they will do the same, so that we don't have to move seats around every day). I even managed to take my own bags with me to mega-grocery store, which usually puts my groceries in about a zillion chintzy plastic bags that rip so easily they are not even fit for scooping poop. But today I wheeled on up and announced, blithely, "Oh, I have some bags with me." This did not bring joy to the checker's heart. He was already tossing stuff pell-mell into the chintzy pre-placed plastic bag, and even though I told him to "leave that--I have more than will fit in what I brought," he gave me a surly look and proceeded to slowly and v-e-r-y d-e-l-i-b-e-r-a-t-e-l-y remove every item and repack it in my motley collection of bags, and then to call for back-up because, presumably, it was so very taxing to use 4 large canvas bags rather than the 19 flimsy plastic ones. Other west coast cities have legislated bans or fines on plastic bags, but here in mid-sized, blue-collar regional city, such measures are considered foolish liberal coddling, at best, and a serious infringement of one's civil rights, at worst. (Remember, article 3 or whatever it is--right after the free standing militia, we have the right to waste plastic products. Is this a great country, or what?)

In a lot of ways, I like this town better than my former urban, liberal paradise. In general, daily encounters are friendlier--the service-industry folks around here have been at their jobs a long time, and are firmly entrenched in the community. I see the grocery checkers and mail carriers with their kids at the Y, run into campus colleagues at nearly every restaurant or farmer's market, and get a smile or hello from almost everyone we pass on the street. At least ten houses in my neighborhood are inhabited by local police, firefighters, sheriff's deputies, etc. But there's a certain entrenched defensiveness around here about that nefarious "liberal agenda"--you know, crazy stuff like not driving souped up trucks that sit on huge tires 8 feet above the ground; or neutering pets and keeping dogs indoors, rather than chaining them outside to bark all hours of the day and night; to recycling the numerous items that can be recycled (like a lot of cities, our recycling bins our free, and we pay for garbage pick-up. My next-door neighbors seem not to have gotten the memo: last week they put out plastic garbage bags *filled* with empty cans and bottles from their recent bbq. It was all I could do not to a) move it all to their recycling; b) leave them a nasty note; c) call the eco-police on their lazy, ignorant asses [hyperbole alert! I realize they may come from a more primitive planet where the resources are never renewable...].

I wonder if grocery clerks are like HMO doctors in that they have a certain time limit per order, and a minimum number of orders per day? If so, my heavily laden cart and persnickety bag requests probably do seem like the workings of an unjust universe.

Last word on the subject: these are the most beautiful grocery bags in the world, and they are eco-friendly, tall enough for all your stuff not to fall out, and produced by the aunt of a friend of mine. Go forth and purchase, y'all! These bags actually look good floating around in your car, instead of those grungy co-op-style canvas, the puny local-NPR-affiliate swag, or the lurid brand-advertising ones.

* * *

My daughter and I are reading James and the Giant Peach, which is the "everyone reads" choice for her new school. Frankly, I think she's too young to appreciate its subtle word play, ghoulish humor, and fantasticalness, but she's enjoying it--and so am I. She is fascinated by the fact that centipedes don't necessarily have 100 feet, and by the fact that "centi" means 100 and "ped" means foot. This morning, I blew her mind by telling her there were also things called millipedes. I'm really going to miss being the star of her universe and the funniest, smartest person she knows. But it was good while I lasted!

Hatin' on the Hype

2008-08-12T11:02:00.000-07:00

My Sinophilia is reaching embarrassing proportions. Would it be too much to describe myself as "Chinese-American" (that's a joke--I'm about as white as it's possible for even an Irish-extracted lass to be). How cheesy is it that I teared up while watching the Chinese men receive their gold medals for gymnastics, and while watching footage of the young man who found and returned a ring lost by one of the U.S. beach volleyball players? I think it's good for my daughter if I am excited about and interested in things that are Chinese, but I do realize that it can easily become one more arena of maternal embarrassment (hers, not mine), and that it smacks of all kinds of racism, fetishism, exoticism, etc.

On the other hand, I think my response is appropriate giving the freaking hype on American TV, where it's "All (and only) US, All the Time." Seriously: I had to watch the oddly charming Canadian affiliate to get to see most of the men's gymnastics team final, and there was nary a word in the local paper, since all the coverage was of Michael Phelps. I am not trying to diss American athletes--they are a talented group of folks, who have worked hard. But it's been a shock to see the Canadians cover the games without all that jingoism and "America first" crap. It was fascinating to hear their completely invisible announcers describe the strengths and weaknesses of each gymnast, without pretending that the American team was genuinely a contender for the top medals. They were generous about each athlete's strength, measured yet fair about his weaknesses, and said things like "this young man is holding up beautifully under the pressure." Not only that, but they showed almost all of the rotations, not just the top three scorers or the "western" teams, as is so often the case with U.S. coverage.

In general, I've been pleased by the generosity of most of the U.S. announcers toward our hosts. The world seems to realize how much these games matter to China--the spectacle, as well as the competition--and to respect the effort that has gone into them. But please, folks, a little more breadth in the coverage would be great. And did I mention that the Canadian coverage has far, far fewer commercial interruptions? I don't want to become one of those "bash the U.S. and love on Canada" liberals, and I can already anticipate the jokes about how the Canadians don't have enough viable participants to warrant the kind of hypernational coverage the U.S. demands, but a little perspective would be nice. I'm just sayin'.

Gray, gray day

2008-08-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

Warning: this is not going to be a post of sweetness, light, or cute things my daughter did (although there are some). It's a gray day, which matches my mood.

1. I had to (as in, felt compelled to, not as in, was forced to) stop this morning to move a dead cat out of the middle of the busy street my daughter's Chinese program is on. We passed it on our way to school, and I sort of hoped it would either have been moved out of traffic, found by its owner, or even smushed into cat paste that I would no longer feel capable of moving. No such luck. So I stopped the car, scooped up the poor cat, trying NOT to look at its injuries. (Just like I'm trying not to recount those injuries to you, now, especially the grotesque aspect that is stuck in my head right now. Why is it that we feel such a strong urge to share something particularly horrific, as though by making other people see what we have seen, our own burden of it is lightened?). Two guys in some kind of commercial truck stopped and held up traffic while I moved it, and gave me a thumbs-up, which I hope was for moving the cat--not because they thought I had killed it. A collar but no tag. Not a great start to the day.

2. I am delighted that this chubby kitty has found a home. But WTF, people? Note the final quote from the shelter director: "Thousands of people from as far away as London and California called to inquire about adopting the cat, Harr said. Unfortunately, she said no one who contacted the shelter was interested in adopting any of the more than 200 other cats and kittens in the shelter's care." This depresses the hell out of me. Not one person wanted a pet, instead of a curiosity piece?

3. Working at home today, while the piano repairs get underway. I am slightly cheered by the fact that a) when all is said, done, tuned, and paid for, I will have a piano worth playing; b) it looks like existing casters can be made to work, saving me a couple hundred dollars off a bill that skyrocketed when the tuner found some cracks in the sound board and some keys that are missing something essential to making them play.

But all in all, not a happy morning in Dorcasina-land. And now, back to my dreaded article.

Must...get...to...work...

2008-08-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

The battle is no easier today. The amount of inertia one lousy project can generate is amazing, y'know? How can I have so little gumption, discipline, energy, motivation, enthusiasm, etc., etc., etc.?

To scare myself straight, here's my to-do list for the duration of the month, with appended progress reports:

1. Overdue book review (due one week ago; book is 400 dense pages, unread).Revised to add: I guess it's two weeks late. I just got the reminder. My bad.
2. Long, long, long overdue article draft. Multiple missed deadlines. The first theoretical sections are a mess, and much of the "examples" section remains un-drafted.
3. Article 2 interruptus; I got stuck earlier in my sabbatical, which is why I put it aside in favor of what now serves as Article 1, above. I know it's something of a mess, but I don't remember exactly how bad it was.
4. Plan and prep day-long orientation session, using new materials. I have now missed the deadline for having those materials printed for me, so I also have to copy them.
5. Prepare syllabus, coursepack, and daily class plans for freshman course. Plan and schedule exciting extra-curricular activities "to enrich their learning environment." (Parents, the "enriched learning environment," and my attendance at it, is why you might choose to pay 40K for your beloved offspring to attend my school, not one of the excellent public universities for 8-10K. That's per year, btw.)
6. Prepare syllabus, coursepack, and daily class plans for intro-for-majors course. Of course, since I ordered my books late, I can't do this ahead of time, because I won't have pagination for the daily reading assignments until my desk copies arrive. The curse of the procrastinatory and under-prepared.
7. Prepare syllabus, coursepack, and daily class plans for senior seminar. See item 6, above. Note that items 6 & & do not involve extracurricular enrichment, per se. Thank the gods for small favors.
8. Complete fictionalized account of my sabbatical activities--the scholarly kind--to justify the time off and large amounts of travel money my university has invested in me.
9. Call someone about the rotting outer doors on my house, before they give way.Beg, borrow, or steal money to pay for major piano repair. Beg, borrow, or steal money to pay for it.
11. Arrange carpool for daughter's new, expensive school.
12. Host and entertain lovely friend from graduate school.
13. Host and entertain--and exploit--mother during her visit.
14. Attend numerous back-to-school functions, most of which take many hours that could be used for items 1-8, and only 2 of which promise to include alcohol.
15. Lose 20 pounds and arrange to look stylish and professional every day.
16. Write tenure, promotion, or evaluation letters for 4 colleagues.
17. Keep child, dog, cats, and bunny fed, exercised, and healthy.
18. Try to return enough phone calls and invitations that my friends and family don't utterly disown me.
19. Do something, for the love of god about my overgrown yard and bushes.

Beijing

2008-08-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

How do you spell "ambivalence" in Chinese? As this article suggests, those of us with children from China have a particular stake in the impending Olympics--and for once, it's not the gymnastics! My daughter is spending the summer in a Chinese program. She's learning songs, counting, writing, basic communication, painting, dance, and a bit of martial arts. She's hanging out with a lot of little girls who look like her, who have families like hers (i.e., white parents, or a single mom), and getting to know some absolutely lovely and loving women who were raised in China. This kind of exposure is something I have always wanted to give her, and I feel lucky to have a great program that is amazingly close to our house! And they serve lunch! (Other mothers will know exactly what I mean when I speak of the tyranny of the home-packed lunchbox).

Logically enough, the program is using the Olympic games to help the kids learn a bit about Chinese culture, both traditional and contemporary. This involves lots of logos, coloring, and 5 odd little mascot creatures that are sort of the Chinese Olympic equivalent of "Hello, kitty."(China is waaaaaay into capitalism, y'know). All this is fine. My daughter comes home and says, "Ni hao, Mama" (hello) and "xie-xie" (thank you), and announces at various times, apropos of nothing, that it is great to be "Chinese AND American."

At the same time, my in-box is filling up with anti-China propaganda--the U.S. should boycott the games; Bush is chastising China for its human rights violations; progressives want me to sign another petition for Tibet; etc. I am well aware that China is not above reproach. It's environmental and social policies are screwed up--my daughter is living proof of some of that. But I am surprisingly hesitant to criticize my, shall we say, "adoptive" country. Whereas the U.S. has had every opportunity--and the freedom, money, resources--to become a leader in these areas, China has not. And in those circumstances, given the desperate poverty many, many Chinese people still live in, I think we need to approach China's troubling aspects with delicacy, not brute force. Plus, as a country that relishes the death penalty, tolerates indescribable carnage from its guns, and bullies (or worse) sovereign nations in pursuit of our unsustainable (and I don't mean not-eco-friendly; I mean "will destroy the planet" unsustainable) and obscene lifestyle of consumption, I kind think we should be cleaning up our own house before throwing stones at the neighbors.

Selfishly, too, I worry that the fragile relationship between the U.S. and China will continue to decrease international adoptions there, and will resign even more thousands and thousands of children to bleak lives in orphanages--or worse. Those orphans are likely to be undereducated and, perhaps worse, undersocialized, so that when they age out of the system, they are incapable of meaningful relationships, productive work, or, I fear, happiness. So even when I wish the Chinese wouldn't hurt their own people just to "save face," I still wish our politicians--especially our idiot lame-duck president--would shut up. I don't want the Olympics to be an excuse to bash China, or to confirm our own anxieties about how the U.S. is still "the greatest" by denigrating their efforts at improving. I don't want my daughter's newfound pride in her heritage to be met with hostility, jingoism, and scorn.

Yes, China's human rights abuses need to be addressed (umm...can you say, "Gitmo"?) But let's not embarrass them right now, or try to bully them, just because we can. For my daughter's sake.

Hostage update: Day 233

2008-08-07T09:58:00.001-07:00

I am still held captive by the article that refused to die, gel, or even coagulate into something of both substance and structure. It seems we have been together, this ever-growing, bloated, over-written and under-thought sheaf of words and I, for all of time--as though I had spent lifetimes here, tinkering with its dangling modifiers and turgid prose, transplanting its misplaced paragraphs and repetitive ideas. I am becoming an academic cliche, now: the professor who is always and has always been "working on" something that will never see the light of day. My essay has assumed vampirean qualities that merely confirm the banality of my ideas: it sucks the life-blood from me; it rises in the night, haunting my fevered dreams; it is dead yet will not die. More prosaically, the best resists my best efforts to streamline, organize, and condense its mass into something smart, concise, and...dare I say it?...interesting.

Yet we struggle on for another day. If my metaphors weren't already so atrociously entangled, I'd belabor the whole thing further with some references to Sisyphus and his stone, and how every day when I sit down and look this damn thing over it seems bigger, less manageable, and, scariest of all, less worthy of all this effort!

I hear a local farm has an opening for an egg gatherer. I think perhaps I should consider a career change.

Shhh--my captor approaches!

"Re-gain Original Man of Stem!"

2008-08-06T09:28:00.001-07:00

That's the title of today's sex spam. I confess it made me laugh.

Panic is setting in--my sabbatical is effectively over, and, of course, I have various unfinished tasks (like, um, the TWO articles I had delusions of completing), house projects that I no longer have time or money for, and, of course, the impending arrival of my bright, shiny, eager new students, who will demand things like textbooks, course readers, and syllabi. As always, I'm not sure how I will manage. I feel as though I wasted a lot of my sabbatical; without a frantic schedule like the one I usually have, I fall pretty quickly into the doldrums. I wish I took myself seriously to stick to my ambitious diet and exercise programs, or my writing regimen. In retrospect, I feel like I have accomplished so little during a time when I could have done so much...I kind of always feel like that, I guess. I keep thinking I will grow out of this, or that someone will create a magic pill that will give me more gumption--or allow me to be easier on myself. Somehow my extra pounds, failure to cook vegetarian meals every day, overgrown hedges, peeling paint, and long-postponed projects (wedding album? Unpacking the basement and second floor of our house? doctor's appointment? window cleaning? re-balancing the washer? helping my daughter read more? cancelling cable and working in the evenings? mending?) become evidence of sloth and moral turpitude. But without the accompanying self-loathing, I fear I would get nothing done at all. Everything feels overwhelming. And yes, this probably sounds like depression. But it's pretty much the way I have felt my entire life--motivated only by fear of my own inadequacy or by hyper-exaggerated expectations of how great things will be if only I can...

Time to shut down the pity party. The damn article is not going to write itself--at least, it has shown no signs of doing so thus far.

Product placement

2008-08-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

Unlike everyone else out there, of course, I thought I would always be young. One of the casualties of my husband's illness and death was my own sense of perpetual youth--oh, sure, it would have died on its own, but losing him finally stripped me (or, perhaps, freed me?) of my sense that I was not yet grown up, that I still had most of my life before me, and that I had innumerable possible lives. And, of course, having a child is a pretty big wake-up call to mortality, and to the real meaning of permanent obligation.

But in the last year, I have started to be aware of how old I look. Like most women in what I choose to think of as the prime of life (a fantasy I can cling to only by considering those in their 30s as "young"), I weigh considerably more than I did in my hotter days, due to a slowing metabolism, but also to giving up the miles of walking I had always done as a waitress. I don't mind the lines around my eyes, or mouth, or even the grey hair, except for its tendency to stick up like little wires. But I have that kind of super-fair skin that is prone to redness, sun damage and (say it!) age spots. When I was a girl, I remember advertisements for something called "Porcelana fade cream," designed to bleach (?) away age spots on the hands. Do they even still make it? It's not in my drugstore. But I hate the way the backs of my hands look simultaneously wrinkled and sort of puffy, and the "freckles" that no longer look youthfully frecklish. My hands look like my mother's hands--like they've done lots of laundry, loads of dishes, plenty of careless and inefficient digging around in the dirt (since I hesitate to call my occasional forays into planting stuff and then letting it die "gardening"). And the wrinkly/saggy skin right under my eyes--not the "laugh lines" at the corner of my eyes, but an encroaching crepe-iness that gives me a perpetually tired look.

So here's the come-to-Jesus consumer testimonial: NEUTROGENA.

Yeah, I love their sunscreen.

And now I am here, selflessly promoting this hand cream and this eye cream.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program of aging gracefully.

Does it get easier?

2008-07-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

Hi, my love--
Happy anniversary. This should be number six, instead of the third one (how hard to believe!) that I have spent missing you. I've been buoyed up, lately, by wonderful friends, and by your incredible little girl. It never gets easier, watching her miss you--especially at those moments where I know she isn't aware what it is she's missing: your encouragement, your comfort, your adoration, your playfulness. I, on the other hand, know exactly what she needs--what we both need.

In honor of you, I spent 3 hours this weekend on the phone with people who knew you, loved you, and loved us. It was good to miss you with somebody. I am less proud of the fact that I monopolized a conversation at a friend's open house with my nostalgia, and reduced a very nice new friend (at least I hope she will be a friend) to tears about her own recent loss of her mother. It was, perhaps, not my finest hour.

I wish you were here to talk about the silly, odd traditions of anniversary gifts, to have a quiet lunch, to go for a walk. I wish you were at work, and I could be secure in the notion that when I came home--or you did--we'd be together, a family, the way it's supposed to be.

I love you.

Your wife

Karma, she is the bitch!

2008-06-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

My sister and I have a long, long past of rescuing animals. Generally, these rescues involve living creatures, which we attempt to return to their owners. Occasionally, however, they take on a more forensic aspect.

I was once party to what should have been a "Lifetime: Television for Squirrels" cautionary tale, in which two frolicsome young lovers of the nut-foraging variety had the temerity or the misfortune to dart into a busy street in front of me. I missed my squirrel (the pursuer), but the guy in the oncoming lane was less avid in his driving, and zapped the poor pursuee dead. I drove on, sadly, agonizing about whether somehow the squirrel might have been merely stunned; how at this very moment she was comatose and imperiled by other motorists. I called my husband from the car. "Honey, should I go back and check, to see if it's still alive?" "Dorcasina," he said, with infinite kindness and patience, "a car weighs two tons. That's a battle no squirrel can win." He was right, I knew, yet I had to return to the scene of the crime (involuntary squirrel-slaughter? rodenticide? are squirrels rodents? this is what it's like inside my brain). I returned, nevertheless, to find that the squirrel was, indeed, quite dead. After all that trouble, it felt callous to leave her there to be mangled by passing traffic, so I switched on the hazard lights, got the collapsible snow shovel out of the back of the car, and attempted to slide the corpse onto the shovel without touching it (rabies, you know). At that moment, a garbage truck pulled up behind me. "Hit a squirrel, huh," said the garbage man. "Here, I'll do that," he said, grasping the poor squirrel by her lush tail and flipping her up into the truck. "No, no," I protested. "I didn't hit the squirrel. I missed my squirrel. The other guy hit his squirrel. This one's his!"

I was haunted all day by thoughts of that poor squirrel waking miraculously from her coma in the bed of a garbage truck.

This all comes as a long, sad, self-indulgent Preamble to the real saga of my sister's squirrel tale. Yesterday she felt compelled to pick up the hapless body of one of God's little rodent (are they rodents? I've gotta look this up) creatures from the street where it lay, pristine, but stone dead. She found a piece of cardboard, and a stick, and moved the squirrel to resting place that did not include being mashed into a gut-and-fur paste by traffic. Good deed all around. Notice that she, too, avoided touching the squirrel. One never knows about rabies.

No sooner had she arrived home when--karma--a squirrel fell dead from their tree into the driveway. Evidently word had spread that she would make sure squirrels found a resting place, unmolested by passing cars. As she said to me on the phone, "I've never picked up a dead squirrel before, and now I had to do two in one day!"

No good deed goes unpunished.

Reasons for celebration

2008-06-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

1. Another blow for the current administration, which has been, to my mind, intent on "saving" America by rendering its laws moot and its promises null and void.

2. Erstwhile rock band Toto has dissolved because their lead singer can no longer perform their hits "with a straight face." Kudos to him for recognizing that just because one can, one need not necessarily try to do the same things at 50 as he did at 19.

3. Old tenants are being replaced by...hot single dad! Who has an awesome daughter! More about this later; I'm in the throes of pre-vacation packing and rental negotiations before we leave for an ill-timed restful vacation in the hot, sodden, wind-swept Midwest. Oh well, our friends have air-conditioning and, we hope, a sturdy roof. And sandbags. And a cellar, like in the Wizard of Oz. And an escape route. And an amphibious vehicle.

Hard-earned wisdom

2008-05-29T14:31:00.000-07:00

My caffeine levels are back in whack today, so am feeling less grouchy. These things I hold to be true, if not self-evident:

1. Jello shooters involving Knob Creek bourbon and orange jello are not the panacea I'd hoped they would be. Nor are they suitable for a metabolism that has been in use for more than, say, 22 years.

2. As much as I love libraries, there's a way in which checking out and returning books is like dating someone else's husband. You know they will never be truly yours.

I hope you feel edified.

You* disappoint me

2008-05-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

(* In the generic, impersonal, collective, of course--to "my fellow Americans").

After the giddy excitement of the early days of this presidential campaign, I'm feeling nothing but bitterness. Bitter at the unbridled and mostly unremarked misogyny of the coverage--from all sides--of Hillary Clinton, and of the indifference, apparently, of all but that "mature white feminist" demographic over whom she has an unshakeable sway, who are able to identify with her in recognizing that yes, this is, in fact, misogyny, even when inflected by anti-Clintonism, anti-Hillary-ism, etc., and who therefore understand that misogyny will not be overcome by wearing a t-shirt that says "Boy Toy" or "Look but don't touch."

I'm bitter that Obama's mispronunciation of a historical site--however important--is a "top headline" while we are still at war against...who? While children still go hungry in this country. While we challenge each other's patriotism based on stupid measures like stickers, car art, and jewelry, instead of demanding that patriotism mean something more, like willing to work with and for your fellow citizens to make the country better for everyone, not just yourself. I'm bitter that various pundits can announce without even blinking that white southerners won't vote for a black man, and that somehow that's okay, instead of being a national tragedy. I'm not convinced that racism of that sort is more than superficial, or that a talented speaker with Obama's energy can't go a long way toward getting the electorate to look past the foolish old "red" herring of race--that is, that poor whites and urban blacks have nothing to gain by recognizing their role as road-kill from the juggernaut of American capitalism. I'm not underestimating the visceral reality of racism, but I just don't believe that most people are stupid enough to hang onto hatred against their own self-interest. A few people, on all sides, sure.

And I'm really sad that the optimism was so short-lived, and that the cynics were so eager to attack from all sides.

Perpetually damn crabby

2008-05-28T14:30:00.000-07:00

Is it somehow violating the provisions of the fairness in housing act to speed up the inevitable rejection of some prospective tenants based on the facts that:
1. They didn't read the ad
2. They ignored the information in the ad
3. They only communicate by txt msg w/out rl wrds?
4. They didn't read the ad
5. They are incapable of using salutations and indifferent to creating any sort of positive impression in our first communication?
6. They are already asking for adjustments to my policies, special treatment in scheduling, etc.? (I don't mind if people ask, politely--I remember the stone-turning trials of house-hunting).

I am not suggesting that such people don't deserve a nice place to live, or that they are inherently less responsible or fiscally attractive than those who contacted me with detailed, polite, coherent messages. But since I am who I am, and since living in my house means us having to interact with each other multiple times--at least to judge by the most recent tenancy!--then can't I just speed up the inevitable rejection? I don't want to be greeted by a grunt when I call.

And yes, the above does explain part of the problems with my approach to dating.

I realize the world, and the standard of polite communications, are changing rapidly, and that younger folks are used to using more abbreviated forms of contact. Frankly, though, as long as I own the real estate and give the grades, I'm going to insist that those who want something from me take at least a swipe at recognizing and accommodating my weird old capitalist widow preferences for punctuation, salutations, and the like.

Grrrr.

Give 'til/when it hurts

2008-05-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a way to send aid money that will go directly to help the children orphaned, temporarily homeless, or displaced from institutional care by China's massive earthquake. I know the organization, Half the Sky, that is helping with this, and word is that the Ford Motor Company has agreed to match all donations 1:1. God knows for what cynical reason they are doing this--the vast market of auto purchasers in China?--but hell, a good thing is a good thing. And I do think Ford is trying to take the lead in being a more responsible and transformed company.

Many Chinese families will be mourning the loss of their only child, while many children are probably newly orphaned, stranded, and injured. I know things are as bad--likely worse--in Burma; if I find a good link for donations that will actually be delivered there, under any auspices, I will gladly post it, as well.

So much sorrow and devastation. So little I can do but wring my hands.

All those things I must....

2008-05-14T22:44:00.001-07:00

...get out of my head if I am ever to have any hope of going to sleep.

1. Edwards endorses Obama. I haven't read the coverage yet, but I'm interested to see how Edwards, whose too-brief (for me) run focused on economic disparity and poverty, addresses the recent claims that Hillary was the champion of the economic underdog. I've always like John Edwards, and hope he will help Obama with that whole potential "elitism" problem (yeah, don't ask me to explain how Obama is somehow more "elitist" than our current silver-spoon, Yale-legacy, daddy-financed executive. Evidently "elitism" has something to do with a fundamental mastery of the syntax of American English).

2. Suffering all over in Asia. The sheer scope of the devastation and misery is unimaginable, and the intentional thwarting of relief efforts is heartbreaking. My adoption has made me feel perhaps naively connected to the people of China, and I am very upset by the string of anti-China news prompted by the Olympic scrutiny. It doesn't help that my in-laws seem to think it's okay to bash China (well, their granddaughter is "just American," according to them) for its economic policies, exploit its laborers, resent its increasing global presence, and minimize the sheer horror of this disaster ("Well, it's not like they had much to lose..."). And things had been getting so much better since the detente (with my in-laws, not between China and the U.S.). I'm haunted by images of forlorn children, or desperate mothers digging through the rubble.

3. Myanmar: see much of above. I don't understand, however, why if Myanmar's current regime is such a sham, why we don't continue to call it "Burma." It seems to me that one of our simplest methods for identifying an "illegitimate regime" (which this one, unlike some of our recent targets, certainly seems to be) is stubbornly to refuse to adopt the preferred term.

4. In general: how can there be so much more suffering than there is relief for the suffering? How can people bear so much?

5. Frontline's magnificent and dreadful episode on Everest last night. I was entranced, appalled, and exhausted when it was over. I've been something of an armchair afficianado of mountain-climbing since reading Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. (Yes, I know that Krakauer has a wretched habit of writing every story as though it were about Himself. I know that many people have legitimate issues with his depiction of several key players, and that there are varying interpretations of what went wrong on Everest 12 years ago. I still found the story fascinating. And I read Boukreev's equally self-serving version, too, along with some of the later reconstructions.)

I'm the kind of girl who thinks a car-ride of over 20 minutes must involve provisions, so I have no interest in actually testing myself against the elements. Still, the Brashears/Frontline version was harrowing. The re-enactments were excruciating--the dark, the bleakness, the constant wind-noise, the huddled climbers, frequently all-but-unrecognizable as human, rocking and jerking almost involuntarily. I suspect it's hard for any of us to imagine the kind of climate where leaving people to die is not only the wisest but the most obvious choice, or the kind of conditions where a single wrong step is death, or the situation in which one could freeze to death within 20 feet of safety. I was mesmerized, and completely and utterly spooked after watching it. By what, I don't know. But I was too afraid to take the dog out (thank gawd he has a bladder of apparently infinite capacity) and lay shivering in my bed for a long, long time before I drifted into an uneasy sleep and dreamt of primitive ape-like creatures wielding charred sticks.

6. How much I hate the "trading up" type home-improvement shows. I love the ones where they show you how two paper bags, a ball of twine, and a bottle of nail polish can transform a home from a dump to a palace, but I hate the pretentious, snotty, arrogant shoppers who complain about how the kitchen doesn't have granite, or stainless steel appliances, and vow that as soon as they drop 3/4 of a million dollars on this dump, they are going to rip out the perfectly functional appliances and kitchen, send them to the landfill, and put in something gaudy. I don't want to hear the childless couple going on and on about how they must have the "master suite" with double sinks and multiple showers and a jacuzzi. They are simply unwatchable, of course, juxtaposed with the recent news reports. How many children could you help with just the price of those upgraded countertops? The appliances?

"Happy" Mother's Day

2008-05-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

Especially for those to whom this day is as bitter as it is sweet.

Inked!

2008-05-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

I got my tattoo today. A good friend and I had a "memorial" tattoo session. The whole process was impressively quick, efficient, and well-done, unlike my first tattoo, which seemed to take forever. Mine is a small stylized flower design (almost more design than flower) that my husband developed for our wedding invitations. The invitations were the single most expensive aspect of our wedding--letter pressed on beautiful paper--and the thing he was most excited about. The design is very clean and modern, and so now I have a dime-sized tribute to him an inch or so below my collarbone and slightly to my left (my wedding-ring hand).

It wasn't painful in the cathartic way I had been hoping for--not that I am usually a pain buff, but in a way, I think, I wanted the physical pain to remind me of the pain of his loss, which becomes not smaller so much as duller every day. In a way, having gotten the tattoo now feels like just one more way in which he is being left behind. So many changes he has missed out on; so much of my life now lived without him. I got the tattoo to mark his presence, but instead it seems only to make more palpable his absence--and to register the futility of my every attempt to hold on.

Letter to Santa

2008-05-07T16:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, not really.

Dear Barack,

Can I call you Barack? I mean, you've been emailing me for months now, and while I am hardly your most generous campaign donor, I do have a sign in my window, which has to create a certain intimacy, right? I mean, technically, you're kind of on the porch, rather than in the house, but all my previous candidates have had to live outside on the lawn, where they were frequently the targets of bored teenagers and, apparently, some sort of low-flying domestic eggs that live around here. So really, I think I've made some strides toward cementing our relationship. I know, I still take Hillary's calls; she's so damned persistent, and even when I don't like what she's saying, I have to say that I have been generally impressed by her during this campaign: her tenacity, her articulateness, her utter indefatigability, her poise...pretty much everything except her husband, her forays into race-baiting and--oh yes--her actual policies. Did I ever tell you than my husband and his dad once won "Most Indefatigable" in a sailing race? According to my husband, his father was mortified by that--it being, of course, far, far better to win or lose than to be honored for not knowing the difference.

I know, I'm off topic. My students tell me that all the time. Deal with it. And by the way, I don't ever write Hillary back; it's just that I feel bad shutting her completely out of my life. I feel bad when I see her being all brave and noble and articulate on TV in places like West Virginia. I feel really bad that she seems to feel she has already earned the nomination, and how she can't seem to let go of where she thought she was--a shoo-in--before you appeared on the scene. Let me be clear: I feel bad for her personally, which is not at all the same as feeling bad that she appears spectacularly unlikely--barring corruption and backdoor-politicking that would make even a Karl Rove blush--to win the nomination. I feel bad that the next time she and Bill fight, he gets to do the "nyah, nyah, nyah--I was president and you're not!"

Anyway, Barack, can I just ask you, now that you appear likely to be the nominee, to please not blow it? I support you because I think you are strong, amazingly articulate, and smart enough not to blow it, but we Democrats, you know, have been burned so much. Everyone wants to concentrate on "the race thing," but I think that's less of a threat, ultimately, than the ease with which the other side is going to paint you as a (gulp) intellectual, an elitist. Now you need to be folksy, without allowing them too easily to dismiss you as "too fake" (Al Gore in his plaid shirt) or "too [black]-folks-y," which is offensive, I know, but sadly true. I think you can do it; you are one of the first genuinely public voices to find even a rhetorical way out of the racial shark tank we have created for ourselves. I hope you are holed up somewhere, even now, trying to find a way to appeal to those "white, blue-collar" voters (does that make them pastel?) Hillary's been gunning for. Figuring out whom you can add to the ticket without playing too readily into the Republican strategy. Someone like John Edwards, who seems to me to be the only candidate (okay, barring Kucinich) who really cares about the effects of our incredible and growing income/opportunity/safety-net/culture gap in this country, and how our alienation could kill democracy. Or some other female politician--sorry I can't name any at the moment--who can affect a drawl or a twang with some sincerity, while drawing out those feminists who so rejoiced in Hillary's successes.

Please, Barack. We're counting on you.

Feast or famine

2008-05-05T18:58:00.000-07:00

With the blogging, I mean. Here I've gone months without the urge to type a word, and now, I suddenly find myself having thoughts--random, incoherent, whatever--and not being too overwhelmed even to type a sentence.

I feel like a switch has been flipped this past week, and I feel more human than I have in years. I don't know if it's a grief stage, or that elusive "healing," or the sunlight we have finally gotten, or a serendipitous surge of mood-enhancement, but god do I hope it lasts. I have spent I know not how long feeling like *everything* is too much effort; it's all I can do to drag my ass through the day, and anything aside from sheer survival was overwhelming. Even throwing out rotting food, or boiling water, or flipping the switch on my self-cleaning over was an insurmountable hurdle. Now I have this sense that I want to do stuff. I don't know what has clicked, but I desperately hope it stays. Oddly enough, I have had 2 days where, in the midst of this modest surge of energy, I have missed my husband sharply enough to cry.

On the other hand, the fact that my small cement garden statue of the Virgin Mary fell over and was decapitated seems like a not-so-good omen.

And the barbarity of this story, and the general attitude that this is simply part of doing business in racing, makes me sick, sick, sick. Blaming the jockey, however, seems like the worst approach--unless he deliberately over-ran the horse, my sense is that he is almost as exploited as she was. The thought of all those dressed up people drinking and partying while a horse is dying just down the track makes me ill. Isn't "Eight Bells" what they say at sea for the death of a sailor? Grimly ironic.

I hate it when They are right

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

Even though I didn't feel well this morning, and let my daughter sleep in well beyond school starting time, I went to the gym.

Dammit, why must it be that exercising and eating slightly better (and slightly less) really does make me feel better? And if so, why do I know it will be so hard to sustain?

We did several hours of gardening yesterday. I hate gardening. I was diligent about the sunscreen...except for the back of my neck, which is now uncomfortably warm and unattractively red. But the yard does look better, and I feel good for having a) been outside; and b) done something that needed to be done. Plus I "cleaned my oven," an arduous task involving pushing the 'self-clean' button and then waiting to be sure the door is correctly locked and that the bad, bad cats can't get on the stovetop and fry their toesies.

I did reward myself with a nice glass of Knob Creek after my daughter went to bed...I'm not quite ready to take the vows of asceticism.

Bad, bad Mama

2008-05-04T02:19:00.000-07:00

My daughter has a large stuffed penguin she got from her Auntie. The penguin is conveniently transgendered (some days he's a he; other days, he's a she). She loves him/her to distraction. "Penguiny" rides in the car with us (buckled into "hir" own seat, no less), and last week was taken to the local farmer's market in "hir" own pink plastic stroller (impressively, my daughter dealt with the annoyances of the stroller--wheels that jiggle erratically, a tendency to fold without warning and dump its occupant into the street, dirtying "hir" feathers and treacherously tripping "hir" pusher--without a murmur of complaint).

Like her sparkly red shoes, which generated lots of questions about Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, Penguiny attracts the attention of strangers, nearly all of whom ask, "Has she seen 'Happy Feet'?"

Well.

Today, on our outing to replace the ballet and tap shoes she outgrew in less than 6 months, I decided to pick up "Happy Feet" for us to watch together. One of our weekend rituals is to make homemade pizza with lots of veggies and to eat it together watching a special show. And my question is this: Had any of those well-intentioned folks ever seen the damn movie?

My sister used to make me laugh by referring to the "therapy journal" she was keeping for her daughter, in which she recorded everything she did that might usefully become fodder for her daughter's future therapist. You know, "And, when I was a child, my mother used to ...." "Mmmm hmmmm....And how did that make you feel?" [My sister still makes me laugh, btw; I just haven't heard about the therapy journal for a while. But I'm off topic again. Such is life.]

Well, the "Happy Feet" experience is one for the therapy journal, big time. First she cried because the egg rolled away from the Papa. Then she cried when the egg was slow to hatch. Then when the baby penguin couldn't find his mama. Again when the flock of evil birds tormented Mumble and threatened to eat him. And when he fell down into an ice cave. And when he was menaced by a huge, saber-toothed seal (is this zoologically accurate?), and kidnapped by the same gang of foul-mouthed fowl and dropped from a great height--at which point, after making sure he was still alive, we turned it off.

WTF?? I was worried that she'd be upset by his ostracism; it hadn't occurred to me that I was unleashing some sort of "National Geographic: Nature Red in Tooth and Claw" upon her. It took two helpings of jello and a Thomas the Tank Engine video to restore her to some semblance of emotional balance.

We'll try watching the film together again....When she's 30.

Blah-de-blah

2008-05-03T11:37:00.001-07:00

More gym time, and biking to campus. Does anyone know if I should trust the machines at the gym that tell me that a less strenuous workout (c'mon, folks, I'm slower than the geriatrics) is actually better for weight loss than the slightly more strenuous "cardio" level? All I know is, it's better than sitting on my butt.

No male eye-candy the rest of the week; instead I was next to one of those profuse sweaters--the ones who spray droplets all over themselves and everyone around. One paragraph of my magazine got so smudged I couldn't read it. Gross.

Why do men generally ignore the warm-up and cool-down? All the men I watched got on the machines and cranked them right up to high, went full out for a few minutes, and then got off. The women, of course, did everything "right" in the recommended sequence and intensity.

I found myself following a tall, handsome firefighter from a neighboring municipality around the supermarket the other day. I'm sure he was thinking, "Why is this frumpy matron stalking me? Did I rescue one of her 87 cats from a tree last week?" I am now plotting to move to said n.m. and set my house on fire, once I make sure he is on duty.

Widowhood is hard on my friendships. When I had my husband to count on, the vagaries of friendship weren't so troublesome. A minor betrayal was...minor. A falling out was unpleasant, but not earth-shattering. Now, however, every conflict makes me feel bereft and unloved.

I am going to get my tattoo. It's the small design that was on our wedding invitation--what my husband called our own personal dingbat. It apparently has to be bigger than I had anticipated (a quarter-sized area, at least), which has me rethinking its location. I want to be able to see it often (my other tattoo is on my left shoulderblade, and I tend to forget I have it), but not have others see it much. I don't want it on a body part I loathe (ankle, stomach) or one that is going to droop, sag, or jiggle (pretty much all of them, at my age). Suggestions?

Crunching the numbers

2008-04-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

[Note: as expected, I received the "all clear" automated mammogram reply. Now I can get back to my full-time worrying about plane crashes, drunk drivers, and child molesters.]

Today's statistics:

YMCA parking: 99.99% full on a rainy Monday
Miles on treadmill: 2.7
Calories burned: nearly 300
duration of exercise: 47.35 minutes (I messed up and added a few minutes to the intended 45)
Male eye-candy score: 2+ (bonus for the fact that the really good-looking guy in front of me stayed on his treadmill--running, of course--for the entire duration of my measly workout)
Magazine selection: Last year's Atlantic Monthly
Most inspiring song played: Tie: "Crazy" (Gnarls Barkley) and "Stacy's Mom" (which is "inspiring" only that it is about a woman who is probably my age but looks much, much better than I do....)

Price: one very sad dog, who didn't get to go to the park

Dark thoughts

2008-04-19T06:47:00.001-07:00

I just went for a mammogram--about which, the less said, the better. (Actually, it's just not that bad; it doesn't take too long, the technicians are generally very good at what they do, and, really, it's a pretty minor inconvenience for the potential benefits.)

I'm generally pretty un-neurotic in this one particular way: I don't, usually, harbor dire fears of getting cancer (or developing cancer, which seems to be much more apt in describing what actually happens when certain cells go haywire). But something about the lag time involved in getting these results--"If everything is fine, you'll get a letter in about 2 weeks. If there are any problems [with the images, with what the images show], we'll call you"--that creates a small but constant feeling of anxiety.

I'm generally sensible. I know that my husband's fate was one of cruel genetics--a congenital esophageal problem that they only now recognize as pre-cancerous--and, just maybe, an unkind universe. As such, it's not likely to be my fate. My relatives and recent ancestors are blessedly cancer-free. And yet. Something about this process triggers horrific visions of illness, death, and--most terrible of all--my daughter's repeated orphanhood. In the weird calculus of adoption, she's already had 4 parents, and lost 3 (or had 6 and lost 5, if we count the foster family in China with whom she lived for at least 3 months). That's a success rate of only 25%, or less. Now I know that there are more positive ways to look at her history: to see those biological parents and foster parents not as "lost," but as having given her a great gift; to focus on what my husband gave her, instead of what he can no longer give. But late at night, when the irrational fears take over, that's not the story I tell myself.

In the light of day, my daughter is a survivor. She's strong, adaptable, and demonstrably resilient. I've provided for her; the will is signed, the custodial arrangements made. And I am pretty sure we won't be needing any of them. But still.

The lunatic fringe

2008-04-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

I don't think the guy at the pump next to mine at the gas station really appreciated my "Woo HOO! Another personal fuel-price best!!"

But really, what are you to do but celebrate when you top $60 filling your tank? (And yes, I know: drive less. A tank of gas lasts me a good 2 weeks, however, and it's a biiiiig tank).

Entropy

2008-04-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

"A measure of the disorder that exists in a system." Amen. I think that within a system, entropy increases over time, and that it has to do with the amount of energy unable to be utilized for productive purposes--but this is deliberately a humanistic and not scientific interpretation of what is, of course, a scientific concept.

I'm trying to embrace entropy as the condition of my life, but it doesn't come naturally to me. I realize my attempts at imposing order, structure, and routine are futile, but they're what I have! At the same time, my basement fills up at a truly frightening pace with discarded furniture, baby toys, and unwanted clothes--I'd need to be going to a donation center once a week to keep up. My daughter generates piles of drawings, mounds of clay...um...creations, and clusters of "flowers" to wilt in their vases. My winter clothes haven't yet been unpacked, and my summer clothes await unpacking. Every room has in it piles of projects unfinished, bills unpaid, letters unanswered, photos unfiled, memorabilia unsorted. My closet is a mess, my collection of bags and totes makes it impossible to close my bedroom door, and I have way, way, way too many books! And yes, I am extraordinarily lucky to be able to afford the excess that is killing me, and, yes, I need to stop buying ANYTHING until I have the energy to do some serious clearing out.

Update: We spent a week in Mexico with family and got some great cousin-time, a couple fabulous meals, and all the shrimp and avocados we could ingest. My daughter spent about 90% of her time in the water--either in the hotel pool or bouncing in the warm waves (as a child of the cold northern climes, she found the concept of warm, undertow-free ocean water delightful!) I spent a lot of time hiding under hats, wraps, beach umbrellas, and overhangs, but still managed to sunburn the tops of my feet. Since our kids come in nearly exact 18-month intervals, they can be counted on to play together well in pairs, if not always in 3s: my daughter loves to be a "big girl" with her older cousin, and to frolic like a slippery seal with her younger boy cousin.

I came home, caught my breath (barely), did laundry (some), and headed off to scenic east coast city for a short week of research. It's one of my favorite cities, the weather was surprisingly good, I found a couple of things that help to give my research direction (or clarify what I was already doing in new ways), and I caught up with a friend from grad-school.

And I compromised my democratic and environmental principles and put my daughter in the private school, to which I have to drive her. I considered all of the elements my smart and thoughtful commenters left for me, as well as a few others, but in the end, my decision came down to these:

1. I am more likely to regret NOT trying this school than to regret having tried it, even if I end up pulling her out next year or the year following.

2. The testing mania is destroying our public schools, even at the levels that are not subject to the testing itself. The public schools fall short, in my estimation, in science and math--two key areas in which I have little aptitude or enthusiasm. And while I can "make up" for deficiencies in music, art, and reading, I am less able, and less inclined, to supplement the "sciences." At the same time, my daughter has a real enthusiasm for these subjects--one I want to nurture and enhance. I can do this better, I am betting (although of course I won't know until I see how it's working out), by finding a school with a strong program, than by my own half-hearted attempts. Maybe that makes me a bad mother, but I don't want to spend every Saturday devising science projects.

3. The public schools have a 24:1 ratio in their kindergartens. Even with parent helpers, possible part-time aides, student volunteers, etc., that's a LOT of planning, prep, and focus-time for any one teacher. The private school has 2 full-time teachers for 21-22 students--11:1. If everything else were equal, this would still mean twice the interactions between my daughter and her teachers.

4. I have a strong education bias. I can realize in the abstract that there are equally important, non-academic and even non-"intellectual" qualities, and I want her to develop those fully (creativity, kindness, resilience, physicality). But education is a big, big thing in my life, and like pretty much every parent, my own values drive my parenting. I was bored, unchallenged, and lazy in school. She's not me, and her school is not my school. But even so, I want to challenge her, feed her interests, and help her develop more. I'm willing to make some compromises (demographics, commute, elitism), at least at this point to make those other things happen. My decisions will change, no doubt, as she develops and is more able to make her own preferences known. Racial identity may be more important to her in 2 years, or 3, or 8. Riding her bike to school may become a big deal. I may want to be around less affluent, pushy, or granola-esque parents. We'll try this for a year, and then we'll reevaluate. I don't think it makes much difference whether she starts public school in kindergarten or 1st grade.

5. Her tuition is about what I have been paying for her Montessori/childcare. If I take a break from that expense, I know myself--I'll find other ways to use that money (some of you might think that would be a good thing; I can't disagree), and going back to it would be even harder.

Yes, I have second thoughts. Sheryl Cashin's powerful indictment of racial separationism haunts me. The knowledge that I am the kind of parent who is currently needed in our district--to advocate for sanity in the face of the testing frenzy, to commit to the very notion of public education in an era that seems content to discard it--eats away at me. Driving her to school when we could walk to a closer school (or bike) feels, to be blunt, immoral. Soon those voices may come to dominate my thinking. If so, I'll change my mind.

And so it goes.

Countdown

2008-03-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

- 9 hours and counting. As of early tomorrow, when we leave for the airport, I need to have my school choice made, insofar as I have to hold or lose my daughter's place at Private School C. I just visited choices A and B, and feel, if anything, less able to make a decision.

School A: I loved the teachers I met tonight. They were energetic, enthusiastic, and experienced (th three Es!). Their classrooms had lots of books, tons of child-produced art, and different "stations." Kids rotate through 3 arts-focused programs in a year: music, dance, and visual arts. There are hands-on science projects. I liked the other parents in attendance at this information session; they seemed funky and interesting and committed but not pushy. The buidling is old, but has a great "loft" space for the supplemental arts program. The most ethnically and socioeconomically diverse of my current options.

The downsides: 24 students to each teacher, although under-enrollment may bring that number down to 19:1 or so. No budget for regular aides. All those great dance, art, and music programs get only 30-60 minutes per week, although there are additional after-school programs on site. Teachers can/do integrate arts into their class activities, but a lot of the work is worksheets like my daughter is already doing: put an "X" on the object; trace the letter; trace the number; copy the word; color in the maps. Oh, and some guy informed us that there are 61 registered sex offenders within a .5 mile radius: "at least a third of those are level III." (Thanks, buddy. What a happy guy.)

School B: instead of an "open house," this was a methodical presentation. I like the principal--he's very informed and obviously loves his job. The kindergarten teachers were there, and were enthusiastic and informative. There's a great community feel at the school, although these parents were whiter and more...well, uptight. Several spoke up about being denied entry into the "best" (i.e., whitest, highest test-scores and income bracket) school--this appears to be second choice for the achiever families; it's in a "better" neighborhood than A.

The downsides: 24:1 ratio unlikely to get better. She might not even be accepted since we are not in one of the priority groups for this school. Same curriculum as above, but without the artistic elements. Minimal music, recess, art, etc. Parents seem a bit more status-conscious and competitive; the room was packed, and many of the questions had to do with test scores and with ways to "work the system" to ensure a place.

School C update: no new information, per se, but the newsletter this month talks about how the kindergartners are working on writing paragraphs with topic sentences, how they have finished their unit on geology, and how they are now working on the various systems of the human body. Spanish, music, art multiple times per week. An actual PE teacher.

It's still too white, too expensive, and too far away.

We leave tomorrow for a week-long trip to someplace warm. When I get back, I'll end the suspense of school roulette; in the meantime, feel free to guess which choice you think I made....

The Crabby Widow

2008-03-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Macy's Department Store:

I realize that this is not a good time to be in retail. I realize that Target is now producing smart, snappy fashion at hoi polloi prices, that discount chains are underselling your designer lines, and that the shrinking of the American middle class has put a squeeze on mid-level retailers like you. However. There is no excuse for you sending me an email promotion with the subject line: "Engaged? Register with us and start earning rewards!" It's heartless, cruel, and it makes me want to cut my credit card into tiny pieces, find the nearest Macy's, and grind those pieces slowly. Into. Someone's. Eyeballs.

No, I'm not effing engaged. Bastards. Rub it in!

Fecking Brilliant

2008-03-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

(Fear not--there's still time to weigh in on the kindergarten dilemma! The forms don't go in 'til Monday!)

I recently treated myself to Amy Winehouse's Grammy-winning and accolade-inspiring album, "Back to Black." The first time I listened to it, carelessly, in the car, I sort of liked it. I'm a sucker for those 60s R&B arrangements, and all the horns blaring away. But I thought, basically, "nice, but derivative...does she even write this stuff?"

Well, apparently she does (write her music), and the more I listen to it, the more effing brilliant it sounds. She's got the blowsy chanteuse down to an art form; her voice is edgy, nasal, and dark, and sounds like cigarettes and bourbon in a sleazy bar at last call. The melodies clearly owe a great debt to Dusty Springfield (or her songwriters), but as channeled through Billie Holliday. It's a voice that's stayed out all night, singing songs about having seen too much, wanted too much, felt too much, felt too little. The words are jarring, profane, unpoetic, and inspired (not, however, inspiring). The arrangements are rich, sultry, and just shy of excessive, with a kind of overblown sweetness that brings to mind spilled liquor, the juice of a dark cherry just past ripe, something redolent of sweat and stale perfume. Her diction is wildly idiosyncratic--strange elisions, garbled vowels, consonants jammed together and then teased back apart. The album as a whole brings to mind nothing so much as a cheap hotel room, sheets in disarray, and on the nightstand, a toppled bottle and an overflowing ashtray. But there's an intelligence behind the tawdriness, and an aching beauty in the songs; the album seems to acknowledge that love, betrayal, and loss are stale clichés while insisting that in the end, nothing else really matters. Somehow the detachment of the clever lyrics conveys both a hard-edged postmodern approach to life and the aching sincerity it has replaced.

The hard stuff

2008-03-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

I'm agonizing over where to send my beloved daughter for kindergarten. I've decided against continuing her at her current (private, Montessori) program, in part because it's the most expensive of my options, in part because the parents I've talked to are very happy with the primary classes, and less so with the motivation in the elementary, and finally because the class she'd be moving to is largely made up of boys--noisy, disruptive boys, in this case, who seem to get the majority of the teacher's attention. As a "good girl," my daughter seems likely to get less of the teacher's time and energy. And let's face it, as a control-freak with a PhD, I've hit the wall on the "at your own pace" element of Montessori learning. In theory, it's great; in practice, I want something more structured.

I realize that my decision needn't be permanent, but in several cases, one needs to enroll in the school (public OR private) to guarantee places in subsequent years, so I might not have this many options again.
So, I must decide, this weekend, before leaving for a week-long vacation extravaganza, while revising one article and drafting another, among these 3 schools:

School A is a public "arts magnet" elementary. Several of my students and grads have worked there and really liked it. The teachers are energetic, and art, music, drama, and dance are integrated throughout the curriculum. It's free, with a nominal fee for additional before-and-after care. It's not within walking distance, but then, none of these are. It's pretty close to my campus. It's ethnically and socio-economically diverse. The staff, I confess, has not been very helpful or informative, but then, I'd rather have them focused on my child. Big drawbacks: almost no science, lots of
"rote" work and worksheets, most students entering have had little pre-school or preparation, and there will be 24 students/class with one teacher and possibly parental or student-teacher aid. She'd love the art, music, and drama. I'm not sure how the math and science programs are.

School B is the public school favored by most of my colleagues whose kids are in local public schools. It is slightly closer (both A and B are near my campus; less than 2 miles from our house), and has a pretty well-balanced curriculum--which means minimal art and music, some science, and lots of worksheets. The principal is responsive and committed, the teachers are happy to be there, and an active parental support system tries to make up for the kinds of things that regular school budgets don't provide. Again, though, 24 kids per class. One teacher. Two inexpensive local or nearby choices for before-and-after care.

Both schools A and B are subject to the tyranny of our ridiculous state assessment tests, and while that's not an issue for her next year, it soon will be. There's also the "hard edge" that local public children have--they are very "old"-seeming--and she would have to develop some of that soon to thrive. Both are fine choices, and would be perfectly acceptable if I hadn't explored option C. To make it worse, while I have toured all three schools, the public school information sessions don't happen until after I will have to make my choice and leave town.

School C is private. It's about 20 minutes away and would require me to drive her to school at least once/day (there is another family, and possibly one more, who would carpool). It has one class per grade level, 18-20 students per class, and 2 full-time teachers in each class. She visited it yesterday, and was clearly both welcomed and challenged. It's expensive--pretty much the outside of what I can afford to pay (just below what I pay now, for tuition plus childcare). Students do lots and lots of hands-on art, science, music, Spanish, computers. It's well-established, with an active parent/family network. Unlike the other private schools around, the expenses are minimal once tuition is paid (other schools add supplies fees, trip fees, meals, etc., etc.--this one doesn't). The curriculum is centered on reading and math. There is lots of outdoor activity. On the downside, it means driving, gas, bridge tolls, and more stress (?) for me, although it's not really much farther than I take her now. The student body is not nearly so diverse as the local public schools, which will become more and more of an issue, I suspect. And the childcare is expensive, so her day (and mine) will be a bit shorter.

I can't sleep. I make one decision, and then regret it at 2 a.m. Everyone I ask has an agenda: pro-public schools. Anti-public schools. Private schools "attract a nice group of families," some say; ""private schools are for snobs and troublemakers," say others. "It's too expensive," some say, while others say, "what's more important than education?" "You don't want to be one of those parents," friends say--you know, the ones whose kids are already putting together a Harvard application and learning their second language. "Save that money for college," I've heard, and "these are the most important years for her." She would be fine at school A or school B. School C would be great for her, though, so why should I settle for fine?

It's all right, and it's all wrong, and no one knows her like I do. She's smart, willful, playful, creative, musical, much more athletic than her mother. She's stubborn, and not likely to push herself to do something difficult. She can read, and pretends not to. She's quirky and loving and inquisitive, and asks me hundreds of questions about how the world works, why the universe is the way it is (she's very concerned about Pluto's recent demotion, and wants to see for herself why it's no longer big enough to be considered a planet). She loves to cook and garden, and knows a smattering of Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish--somewhat interchangeably. She's brave and adaptable and self-sufficient. And the one other person who could make this decision with me is no longer around. I can imagine the various things he would say, but I can't envision where he would end up, given his bias against snobbery and his all-consuming love for his daughter. Of course, if he were here, I'd be more confident that she would learn about the world, and bugs, and planets, regardless of what she got in school. I'd be able to do without those hours and hours of childcare. But this way lies madness, right?

My three wishes

2008-03-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

This is how my horizons have shrunk. I believe that I could achieve relative harmony with the universe if the gods would send me someone to

1. Test and discard all non-functioning pens, pencils, and other writing implements--including those pencils whose lead broke off up inside, making them irritatingly impervious to sharpening.

2. Sharpen my knives so that they go through cold chicken (boneless) more readily than through my fingers (which have bones...although not as many as they used to!).

3. Match all my plastic containers to their lids and throw out the unmatching, stained, and horribly warped ones so I don't have to lament the landfill space I am using up (I have a lifetime's worth of empty salad, yogurt, etc. containers that I feel too guilty to throw out and cannot recycle).

See? At heart, I am a simple girl. Or a pathetic one.

Why Johnny can't...

2008-03-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one old enough to (vaguely) remember the Reader's Digest scare-stories like, "Why Johnny Can't Read (Add, Multiply, Get a Job, Keep a Job...)? I've recently done a brief and unsystematic (and disheartening, and disillusioning) survey of some of the various internet mating sites (there must be a nicer term, but I can't be bothered to think about it).

I can, however, say this about that:

If Johnny can't spell, Johnny ain't gonna get laid...at least not by me.

We'll save our discussion of the rule of English syntax for another post, shall we?

Ponderations

2008-03-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

1. It must be spring: the lawn guy came, followed immediately by two days of cold rain on my strawberry plants.

2. Why am I not comforted by Southwest's grounding 41 of their planes today when I just booked cross-country travel with them for next month?

3. Is it so wrong that I am obsessed with finding a humane way to euthanise my cats, all of whom are unbearable pests? Even my daughter says, "Mamma, our pets are PESTS, right?" A closed garage, a running car, the radio playing "Meow Mix" commercials--not a bad way to go, am I right?*

*(Before someone gets all PETA on my ass, let me remind you that all 4 cats, the dog, and the bunny are rescued, and that I am spectacularly unlikely to carry out this plan, especially now that the plumbers have refilled the dirt in my recent plumbing job; that would have been a Hoffa-esque ending for their little kitty corpses....)

A (final) haiku: appreciation

2008-03-06T19:26:00.000-08:00

Beloved readers,
You are all so funny,
smart, and generous.

I will no longer
test your patience with my
foolish small haikus.

Caffeine-high/ku

2008-03-04T13:24:00.000-08:00

The rat man calleth;
He will kill the suckers dead.
With so little pain.

Rat man tells me, "This
has been going on for years.
It is not your fault."

"Oh, rat man," I say,
"I love you more than I love
sweet baby jesus."

I hang up, feeling
rescued by my gallant knight
with bait pellets and death fog.

* * *

I am becoming
enamored of the haiku--
its five-seven-five.

Year of the rat: a haiku tale and a letter (or two)

2008-03-03T16:43:00.000-08:00

Rat man calls; he says
He needs 2 Gs to rid me
of newest tenants.

Dear Mastercard folks:
What do you mean, I can't use
twice credit limit?

Dear tenants: I need
for you to live with rodents
for just a short while.

Dear George W:
Send that f*&%ing refund check.
Your only good deed.

Update from the trenches

2008-03-03T07:26:00.000-08:00

Just for the record: the rental-house plumbing/sewer work is complete, although the work continues at the sidewalk on the line out to the city-owned main.

My credit-card balance has just become officially astronomical, with further cataclysmic damage to come.

And that {impending major life-event that is supposed to take place in the house}?

Nope. Nothing yet.

Something else I wish I had written

2008-02-29T15:25:00.000-08:00

No, not the offensive but sadly typical lame satire that generated it, but this brilliant plea to aspiring student satirists everywhere.

Missed Connection

2008-02-29T13:06:00.000-08:00

I managed to attend not one, but two Chinese/Asian New Year celebrations, at which various thematic tokens were distributed among happy children.

I negotiated with the tenant over not only the plumbing issues, but the newly-resident vermin he reports.

I called our local exterminator and scheduled an inspection/estimate. His voice message says, "Hi, right now I'm probably somewhere you'd rather not be..." True enough.

Only this morning did I fully realize that this is, in fact, the year of the RAT. Next time, just hit me with a two-by-four, wouldya?

Sheesh.

Addenda to rental agreement

2008-02-26T05:52:00.000-08:00

1. Do NOT ignore the move-in letter I sent, in which I expressly mentioned the age, fragility, and likely-impending major repairs of the sewer system and asked that you a) NOT attempt any home fixes (Drano, etc.), and then tell me that *I* "miscommunicated" with you. Especially when you put up with the problem for a week and forced me to call out the weekend plumber. It's in the lease you signed, brainiac.

2. When your wife has said "uh-huh, okay, that's fine" repeatedly in conversations about how and when I am addressing the problem, don't get all blustery about how "in her condition" I shouldn't be "hassling" her. She could simply have asked me to call you.

3. Don't get belligerent about how "you didn't realize you needed to check with the landlord" about {major impending life event you are planning to have take place in the house}. Do you really want to experience {major impending life event you are planning to have take place in the house} without running water or flushing toilets, or with standing sewage outside?

4. Don't start the conversation by threatening to cancel expensive repair job if {major impending life event you are planning to have take place in the house} becomes a reality.

5. DO act appreciative when I spend an extra hour on the phone with the project manager working on ways to mitigate the necessary annoyance of major work that needs to be done immediately and offer to be "on-call" to you for the duration of the work.

6. DO express gratitude for my sensitivity to {major impending life event you are planning to have take place in the house}. The phrase "welcome to the family" was a nice touch!

Worser and Worser

2008-02-25T13:13:00.000-08:00

The plumbing bills are quickly approaching 10K, without the weekend's emergency service. And we'll see what the going rate for the Pied Piper is...

Yes, I know I'm boring. I'm also bitter, worried, and broke. I'm almost alliterative.

My own private recession has just become a major depression.

Damn home-ownership. What a dumb idea. Especially in this market.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Sh%t--the literal kind

2008-02-22T23:02:00.000-08:00

Why does my tenant email me at 11:00 p.m. on Friday night to tell me that the plumbing has been wacky for several days now and sewage is now backing up? And that rats have taken up residence in the presumably sewer-smelling basement? As a homeowner himself, doesn't he realize that this is all going to be a helluva lot more difficult and a HELLUVA lot more expensive tomorrow than it would have been, say, last Tuesday? And that now I'm going to have to replace the washer, along with the sewer lines?

I am not catching those rats--or cleaning the basement--myself. And as I am already overdrawn enough that my debit card is blocked, this all really, really sucks.

I think I lied

2008-02-22T15:22:00.001-08:00

At least about how I am more functional single than I was married. Okay, I am, but only because I have to be. Even on sabbatical (don't hate me), I feel besieged by the pressures of everyday adult life: what to cook, how to find time to shop, when to get the oil changed, how to schedule my appointments, how to choose a kindergarten for my beautiful daughter, how to get her suit to dry between swimming sessions, where to find the time (and money) to get her a haircut, when to find the time (and money) to buy dog food, rabbit bedding, cat pills. Then there are the "big" things--the utilities bill (250$ this month; and the heating oil bill was twice what it was last time), some ridiculous change I have to make in my retirement deductions, the 300$ hole in my checking account, the badly peeling paint on the north side of the house, the articles I have to write this semester if I have any hope of keeping my job/getting tenure, the articles I have to write this semester...(as above).

I am SO TIRED of having to make all the decisions--big, small, in-between--by myself. How grown up am I going to be before I stop hating myself for all my failings? Am I ruining my daughter's chance for a healthy, sane, happy life by allowing her to creep into my bed almost every night? Am I ruining myself by sleeping much better with her warm, damp, increasingly leggy and squirming self in the bed than I do by myself?

Plus ca change

2008-02-14T14:32:00.000-08:00

Lots of changes chez nous. Since Christmas, I've acquired a new car (okay, new to me)--an out of character (I hope) euro-beast that my husband would certainly have a love/hate relationship with. He'd love the fine European design elements, and the ride, and hate the fact that I look like an obnoxious suburban poseur driving it. He'd also hate the fact that I care that ours is no longer the cheapest car in the preschool parking lot. I am torn about equally between self-loathing (the car is pretentious! It's wasteful! It's more car than my daughter and I need! why didn't I buy a hybrid?) and celebration (it handles beautifully in our awful winter weather! It's safe! It has a 6-CD changer, a working defroster, and a heater. And a rear-windshield wiper!) Tomorrow, they are coming to take away my husband's old car; the inexpensive and practical sedan he drove when I met him, the car that impressed me precisely because it expressed my husband's deep disinterest in using his car to define or advertise his identity. It's never really "fit" me; it gets great mileage, but was always uncomfortable for me to sit in.

It's one more step on the road away from him, as is the fact that I have yet to cry today. I've never been a fan of Valentine's Day, but for us, it was our de jure "first date" anniversary. We'd never been able to remember or designate the date at which our relationship "changed," but it was before Valentine's Day, because on that Valentine's day in 1997, he made me his special chocolate mousse. He wasn't one for romantic gestures--especially the "canned" kind demanded by holidays or movie plots. So that mousse was one for the record books. But I still haven't cried today.

Gradually, the reminders of him are disappearing from our house. The things he and I bought get replaced, or lost, or broken. I find a new picture to hang in place of the one he and I chose. I don't do this very often; in fact, I tend to leave things in place just because we (back when there was a "we") put them there, or because we chose them. The changes just....happen. My daughter and I feel, to me, like a family of two now; once, we were a family of three. I miss those days as much as ever; but it's a new kind of missing, one that's less immediate and desperate. I can no longer imagine my husband simply returning and taking up his central place in our lives. He lives, more and more, only in the past, when my daughter was a toddler, not the articulate, fully-human presence she is now. He's never been to most of the places we go; he hasn't met a lot of the people we see. He's never seen my daughter do ballet, or write her own name. I'm getting older, and he's not. That's perhaps the second-loneliest thing; the loneliest is having to make all my decisions about my daughter, celebrate all her triumphs, and weather all her storms alone. There is no making up for what she lost in him, and he in her.

Now I'm visiting kindergartens, talking to principals, checking out test scores and demographics, free lunches and extracurriculars. She could stay at the same school, but in an elementary program that doesn't offer some of what I love about her current program. She could go to either of two very likely public schools, one of which offers tons of arts enrichment, the other of which has an active parent network to supplement the classrooms. Or she could attend my personal dream school, with computers, outdoor nature lessons, music, and Spanish--if, that is, I am willing to go back to spending an hour-plus in the car every day.

When I was married, I got lazy. I was one of those wives who wanted her husband to do "his share." But when he was doing "his share," I frequently did...nothing. Now that I have no one to rely on, or fall back on, I have to do it all. And I can't let myself get too put out about it, because that makes it even more unbearable. So I work harder, do better, resent the daily hassles less--in part, of course, because there is so little outside of them.

I'm not sure that "widowed" is always my most salient characteristic. Most of the time, yes. But not always; not anymore.

And what do you say, dear?

2008-01-10T16:59:00.000-08:00

In another post, I will proselytize yer fannies off with my newfound obsession: sinus irrigation.

But this, just in:

7:34 a.m. Daughter has just slept 11 consecutive hours in her own room, in her own bed, with nary a peep. She arrives at my bedside, clutching her blankie, stuffed cheetah, and the practically-life-sized stuffed penguin her Auntie just sent.

"Look, Mama," she says, urgently.

"mmmfhhfff?" I say, astutely.

"Mama," she breathes, in an emphatic stage whisper, pointing at a spot on her ankle where a BandAid had been placed before bed the night before. "The Band-Aid Fairy Came," she says, in a tone of awe generally reserved for the Second Coming, the finding of two maraschino cherries in your sundae, or the announcement that human beings can now fly to Mars. "She took that BandAid off oh-so gently. Do you think," she asks, enthralled, "that she left me some MONEY?"

Best served cold

2008-01-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

My in-laws belong to a chi-chi local social club (okay, it's a yacht club, as I'm sure you know), which had always been a source of great embarrassment for my husband and me. That embarrassment was mutual, since our side of the family always shows up for the de rigeur holiday events with our Chinese daughter and me in my funky glasses, black, "I'm-an-intellectual-feminist" clothing, and unkempt hair (the F-i-L is of the breed of men who believes that women over 25 should aim for a certain generic look that involves sedate heels, pastels, short, frosted hairstyles, and large amounts of gold jewelry--what my husband and I termed "real estate-agent chic." I'm an eternal disappointment, although he has learned to handle it graciously).

The recent bulletin features a photo spread from the Holiday brunch. Dead center is a picture of two of his three granddaughters--one with blond hair and blue eyes, and my own black-haired beauty--caught in a snapshot alongside a gorgeous little biracial girl (African American and ?). (No, she doesn't belong to us, although I would have snatched her up in an instant, had her mama not been so watchful).

He sent me my own copy of the publication, with the page carefully marked. Y'know, I think he just might be catching on!

Where I'm calling from

2008-01-03T22:19:00.000-08:00

We lit your special candle.

After her bath, your daughter and I sang: "Happy Birthday, dear papa..."

We said, "Good night. We love you. We miss you."

She blew out the candle. You would be so proud of her, and so endlessly delighted by her.

It was much, much, much, much, much, much too little.

(High) Fidelity

2008-01-02T23:28:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday, my love. Tomorrow you should be turning 38. Your daughter and I should be baking you a cake. Or maybe we'd sneak off to a movie. Or maybe you'd be at work, and our daughter would go to school, and it would be a totally ordinary day, except that you would be here, and that would make it extraordinary.

In some perverse tribute to you, I watched "High Fidelity"--or the parts I could see through my tears--tonight. I remember so clearly the night we saw it (early in your Jack Black phase; the man is certainly talented, even if he is insane, and what a musician). And there are things about its anti-romantic messages about romance, especially the part where the girl says, "I'm too tired not to be with you," or when John Cusack's character says "I never seem to get tired of you," that ring so very true, even if--or perhaps especially if--they are the kinds of things no one ever really says aloud. They reminded us of us when we first saw the movie, and they still do.

I heard an Iraqi war vet talking about life after losing his leg, and it struck me that without you, I am something like an amputee: I used to be whole, and to take that wholeness for granted, but losing you has left me permanently off balance, diminished. I can do all of the things I used to do, and people might never suspect, simply by looking, that there is anything "wrong" with me. Sometimes, I even forget my own incompleteness. But then I feel the absence again, and the space you've left behind aches just as badly as it ever did--or worse, in its renewal. I can learn to make do with what is left of me, and to almost forget what I was like before. But I am irrevocably changed. I don't laugh as much, without you. I don't write much, except when I have to. I feel dreary and dull most of the time, and I seldom get excited about things. I don't look forward to things like I used to. I guess that's what they mean by "the walking wounded"--I am, and I am.

I don't know what I will do tomorrow to mark the date. But it will be for you, and about you, and--dammit--not with you. I love you.

File Under: No Shit, Sherlock

2007-12-20T05:49:00.000-08:00

1. Many oncologists are ill-equipped to deal with the emotional repercussions of the patient's illness.

2. This just in! having medical insurance gives you better odds of surviving cancer.

Really, what crazy ideas will those researchers come up with next?

Disclaimer: As an academic, I do understand the need for systematic studies that offer hard evidence of what everyone, anecdotally, already knows. So I am not bashing these studies, or inviting debate about the merits of the scientific process. Also, my husband had insurance--good insurance--and in general we found that his doctors were sympathetic, empathetic, realistic, and optimistic in turn, and generally very responsive. In both of those things, we were damn lucky--albeit, of course, not quite lucky enough...

Head games

2007-12-19T09:48:00.000-08:00

The weather here is bloody, bloody awful. Cold, windy, and fiercely wet. This morning, I loaded the dog into the car for his trip to the doggie daycare (don't ask; it's the one thing that tires him out, and gives me a reprieve). As I slammed the tailgate shut, I realized that my lovely daughter had not, as she usually does, climbed up into her car seat.

Instead, she was standing at the corner of the house, under the one place where the water runs freely down the eaves, unrestricted by gutters. Her hood was up, so that the water cascaded down onto her the top of her head, and then splattered all over her.

"Look, Mama!" She cried. "I'm playing with my friend Drippy! I can only play with him when it's raining; he goes away on sunny days!"

Indeed.

Betrayal

2007-12-18T13:35:00.001-08:00

Hi Babe,
We went to one of your favorite places this weekend--the beach where you and I spent some of our happiest days back before our daughter, before cancer--just the two of us and our hapless adopted dog, the one who couldn't be let off the leash except for on this one desolate beach. It was so strange to be there--to visit places I had only ever been with you, and to be there with our little girl, and with a new dog. I felt so acutely the loss of you, and the loss of so much from the era of my life, in spite of all that I have gained. It felt like a betrayal, visiting restaurants and shops where you and I had spent time. Yet I managed to enjoy myself; which makes me feel worse.

Your daughter is now 5, which means that she has lived more of her life with you gone than she got to live with you. This makes me sad, and furious. She is so much like you, and I can't help but imagine all the ways you and she would make each other happy. I know that I would feel left out, and that she and I would not have quite the bond we do if she had you around; you had a greater sense of wonder, an ability to lose yourself in watching a small, beautifully textured caterpillar, a disregard for things like getting to school on time. With you here, she'd have so many more opportunities to ask those pesky "why" questions and to get better answers: why we have gravity, why we can't see the world turn, why plastic ponies have purple hair, why some people have papas and some don't.

We spent the weekend with several good friends. At one point, one of the husbands spent some time downstairs with our daughter, playing "Daddy." She said, "I'll call you Daddy, and you help me mow the lawn." It's good that she has (and I have) these warm, gentle men who will help a lonely girl and her lonely mama with the "man tasks." And it's good that she knows that a Papa is a great thing to have, and that hers was among the best. But for me, there were many, many tears in the shower.

This is our third Christmas without you. That seems impossible, yet there it is. You have been showing up in my dreams a lot, lately, looking healthy. And I am having more and more spontaneous memories of the good times, before cancer, so that in my memories, you look happy and well--even a bit plump, at times. These memories make me afraid; it feels as though you are getting ready to move on to wherever you go once you've been gone so long that, awful as it is, your absence has become normal. I can barely remember being happy any more; I'm not unhappy, exactly, but it feels like I've been lugging around all this sorrow and weight forever, and that my life with you wasn't quite real. I want to remember the realness: the fights, the mishaps, the dozen different little ways in which our lives meshed together. But it gets fuzzier, and more and more like a movie montage, but without the appropriate soundtrack. Please don't go too far away, wherever you are going--we need you still, and we love you.

Your girls

Knock-knock

2007-12-12T11:40:00.000-08:00

I decided to try out a "knock-knock" joke, courtesy of my nephew, by way of my sister, on my daughter:

Dorcasina: "Knock, knock"

Daughter: "Who's there?"

Dorcasina: "Cow."

Daughter: "NO. Cows can't come in the house! Let ME do it!"

{pause}

Daughter: "Knock knock"

Dorcasina: "Who's there?"

Daughter: {shrieking} "GOAT!" (Dissolves into hysterical giggling, as do I)
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, ME! AGain! Knock Knock!"

Dorcasina: "Who's there?"

Daughter: "COWS AND GOATS!!! KNOCK KNOCK!!"

Clearly, I am doing something wrong.

If only it were just that simple

2007-12-03T23:25:00.000-08:00

Scene: Dorcasina and daughter snuggling in bed. 7:15 a.m. Daughter has turned 5 the previous day.

Dorcasina's Daughter: Mama, what is being Dead?

Dorcasina: It's when your body stops working. It means you are no longer part of our world.

D's D: My Papa is dead. He's not a part of our world.

D: That's right.

D's D [waits just a second too long, which suggests a certain intentionality and perhaps even a bit of manipulation in what follows]: I know! [too brightly]. Maybe we can find me a new papa.

D: Well, it's not that easy to find someone as special as your papa.

D's D: Well, maybe we can ask some of our friends if one of them can be my papa!

D [envisioning how this will go over among her male friends, and groaning to herself]: Ummmm...maybe that's not such a good idea...

Bad Attitude

2007-11-22T13:12:00.000-08:00

I should be thankful. I just don't feel it.

My daughter and I just put our tart in the oven, and decided to pre-whip the cream. I'm a whipped-cream snob; like my wine pretensions, it's a skill owed to my lengthy stint in restaurants, where hand-whipping the cream was the waitstaff's sole contribution to the culinary craftsmanship that justified the high prices, which, of course, translated pretty darn frequently into very generous tips. One of the few corners I do NOT cut in the kitchen is in the area of whipping cream.
But as I got out the battered stainless steel restaurant-supply issue bowl and whisk, I was struck with an image of my husband, who eagerly adopted most of my food tics, and had become enamored of things like hand-whipped cream, especially when it could be paraded before his decidedly Cool-Whip relations. I could see him in his tailor-made dress pants, bought during a work trip to Singapore--one of his few indulgences. And the knit shirt he used to wear for family occasions that didn't demand a jacket or tie (although he had exquisite taste in ties; unlike many men, he was willing to wear ties with extravagantly beautiful patterns, although he generally favored clothes that were simple and quietly stylish. His dark hair fell across his brow and he watched with concentration and delight as the cream slowly, inevitably, and yet magically turned from its liquid state.
Whipping the cream was always the last chore he did before we headed out to the car (this was in the pre-daughter days). All those holiday outings--so uneventful, so unremarkable, and so, so precious.

I suppose I should tell you that I whipped the cream today, in his memory, as the salt tears fell into it.

Instead, I used the mixer. Sometimes, I am a coward.

I miss you, my love.

Accidental Genius

2007-11-20T19:16:00.000-08:00

In one course we've recently been talking about Ben Franklin and the concept of "happy mediocrity" that he claims characterized Revolutionary America. Or, as a student suggested, the idea that America was (and is), a "Mediocracy."

I could not agree more.

One more thing

2007-11-18T22:46:00.000-08:00

I am shamelessly enamored of my new pedagogical slogan, which is particularly apt given that I have spent the weekend on the assessment equivalent of climbing mt. Everest, without oxygen or sherpa:

In this class, you are either an asset, or an ASSHAT.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

I am not a souse

2007-11-18T22:31:00.000-08:00

But you wouldn't know it to hear my daughter talk.

Tonight, we are rolling out pizza crust in the kitchen, discussing our topping options:

Mama: Well, we could have pine nuts on our pizza...

Darling Daughter, (suspiciously): Why? What are they?

Mama (extracting one from bag and popping it in DD's mouth as if she were a baby bird): They're yummy and toasty. They are good for us! [thinks, When did I become the freakin' food pyramid spokesperson, anyway? SHOOT ME!]* See?

DD: No, thank you, Mama. Maybe with cocktails, but not on my pizza...

Mama (stunned into silence): ---

*I should point out that, ever precocious, my daughter has picked up the mantra I use to encourage her to eat something besides noodles and bread products. "I'm eating my protein, Mama," she lisps sweetly, "because I do not live by STARCH ALONE." She slays me.

Such is my life

2007-11-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

1. There is absolutely NO good reason to find a single surgical glove on one's front lawn. Am I right?

2. Why on earth do I have a computer file called "redneckweddinginvitation" on my office computer? And why can't it be opened with any program known to mankind and Mac?

These are the things that occupy my mind...

Grief hurts

2007-11-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

But not very many people talk about it. It's exhausting, the constant clenching of the jaw, the tightening of the shoulders, that defensive crouch that one assumes as if--ha!--to ward against further blows, greater losses. It's a dull throb in the base of the skull, inexplicable sharp pains in the joints. Compression in the spine. Twinges in the tendons. Those who haven't experienced it can't know--and those who have "recovered" forget--but grief is as much a tactile disturbance as an emotional one. It's dry, swollen eyes, tender sinuses, sudden cramps in the toes. Oh, and, of course, that great gaping empty wound at the center, the jagged aching hole left behind, with edges that are still raw and won't heal over. The absence that hurts more than any presence ever could.

My daughter is having an overnight at her grandma's tonight; great for her, but for me, the empty house, the bleak days stretching forward in this worst week of all, and the absence of my one link to warm, physical connection is unbearable. No, she doesn't make up for the loss of my husband (not that she should have to); yes, she saves my life, every day.

Dark Days

2007-11-12T14:06:00.000-08:00

What can I say that I haven't said already? I miss him. It's not fair. It sucks. It gets less actively awful, but not really any better. I miss him, and I miss the life we were supposed to have together. I'm tired of being alone in the universe. I'm tired of having to find reasons NOT to wallow in despair.

I miss you, babe. I hope you know that. I hope you know that whatever else I someday find, it will never, ever, take your place--or fill the part of me that was completed by you. In so many ways, you were the part of me I liked best. I miss the laughter, and the hopes, and the memories we didn't get to make. I miss celebrating our daughter with you, and laughing at the same exact thing you find funny. I want to tell you about the funny line I just read on Salon about Jack Black, and hear you say, "He rocks. So HARD," and laugh, not because it's funny, but because the joke is ours and we are together to share it. I want you to see your daughter dance in her first (and probably not last) "Nutcracker." And to pick out a Christmas tree together, and laugh bitterly about how your nutty family has canceled Thanksgiving again, and not really mind because the three of us are all the family we really need.

I may not hurt as badly, but I miss you not one iota less than I did 729 days ago. I still feel bereft, blunted, and impaired.

Now I am going home to get powerfully drunk and maybe watch the documentary about the Dixie Chicks before I humiliate myself by crying on campus...AGAIN. I keep thinking I will just quit this stupid blog, since I never have anything new to say, or the energy to find new ways to say it.

Public Service Announcement

2007-10-21T11:28:00.001-07:00

Ahem.

A slightly belated birthday wish to the world's best sister, mother of the inexpressibly divine niece and nephew.

"If you want to keep something ~~safe~~ dry, don't put it in the bathtub."

love,
Your sister

Amen!

2007-10-19T17:28:00.000-07:00

"Life became nothing more than time management."

A kernel of wisdom from Dean Dad's musings on yet another American absurdity: the "controversial" nature of childcare.

What I don't understand (see the comments to his post) is why discussions about these kinds of issues (childcare, health care) so quickly deteriorate into a zero-sum game--I mean the idea that somehow, providing all children with decent, affordable health care, safe and stimulating day care, etc., is a radical infringement on the childless. I'm all for academia realizing, as an institution, that the youth and demographics of the entering professoriate mean that this is already a crisis in faculty retention. This does not mean there aren't other worthy crises--like my gay colleague, who cannot marry his non-citizen partner OR get him a work visa, and thus must commute hundreds of miles every weekend (or take a vow of celibacy, one assumes, in keeping with the vow of poverty we academics are supposed to take because of our deep, self-abnegating desire to tutor the unwashed, plugged-in masses). Or my single colleagues, who (like the parents among us) have no leave options short of unpaid absence when there is a family emergency. But why is addressing any one of these issues somehow an affront to the others?

Why are so many of our campuses seen as "hotbeds of liberalism" when, in fact, they are incredibly regressive in the policies toward the "labor." I understand the realities of shrinking budgets and declining public (tax) support. I mean, I understand that it exists, if not why. But I long for the days when at least some of the social justice impulse was directed at campus labor practices.

I, as a well-employed, relatively solvent (although that description may cause my sister to snort coffee out her nose) single parent, am certainly NOT one of the primary victims of the American public's lemming-like rush to "privatization" and "consumer 'choice'"(which, as far as I can tell, means "Now *you* have to pay, sucka"). But finding a broader, more responsible approach to the realities of working life--skyrocketing home prices, obscene health-care costs, ever-growing work-weeks, etc.--doesn't have to consist of us fighting over scraps.

And frankly, our universities (the place in which I have "career" experience) are getting far more work out of this new generation of faculty than they ever got from my own (most male) professors. "Student-centered teaching," with its incessant conferences, responses to drafts, informal "counseling" duties, and "process models" for every conceivable discipline, is clearly far more labor intensive--in "fact time," not necessarily in intellect--than the old "figure it out or flunk model." So it's relatively simple math to figure out that if you need two incomes to provide even a modest living, and one of them is a professorial income, childcare is going to be a big problem.

And one that demands an exclusively "private" solution, presumably, unless you take the time-honored American option: allow your child to get so far beyond the pale that s/he winds up with an all-expense-paid scholarship...to prison.

It's good to be loved

2007-10-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

from the Inbox

To: "Drocassin"*
From: "Philips Sonicare Preferred Customer Club"
Subject: Did you replace your brush head?
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 23:01:55 CDT

The sad part? This was easily the most personal message I received all day. And no, I haven't...d'y'KNOW how much those brush-head suckers cost?

*Approximation of the misspellings in my real name

Deja F-ing Vu

2007-10-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

Another person lost to this damn disease, this time the mother of a dear friend. It's no easier, there's no "meaning," and it doesn't make sense. The tired old clichés are just as tired, just as useless, the words of sympathy just as hollow and futile.

It's not okay.
It won't be all right.
It's not "for a reason."
It's never "for the best."
It's not "meant to be."

It sucks that there are more of us enduring the unendurable, numb and hollow and broken.

We're thinking of you, MM. And of everything we have all lost.

Passages

2007-10-06T22:57:00.000-07:00

Contra T.S. Eliot, April is not the cruelest month; Noctvember, this long month leading up to my own personal d(eath)-day anniversary, is. Since the weather began to turn, I find myself constantly melancholy. I cry in the car (again; or is it still?) I long to wear my husband's old sweater and watch. I took out my engagement ring and put it back on (I wear his and my wedding bands, together, on my left hand. The engagement ring, much as I love it, felt frivolous and sad. But I missed it. Like I miss him. I wonder if there will be a time where he's not the first person I want to talk to; the one whose advice I seek; the one whose help I need so badly. If such a time does come, it will be all the worse, because it will mean I'm leaving him behind.

A friend has offered to set me up with a divorced man she knows. It's the first such offer I've had. I said "yes," because I am so lonely, and feel so incomplete. But I worry that I'm only looking for the man I had. No one else will be that gentle, that funny, that droll. How could they be? And how can I see past the person they are not, to catch even a glimpse of something else?

We decorated our house for Halloween. We have 6 strings of metallic spiders on strings draped around. Next weekend: the pumpkin farm.

This just in....

2007-10-03T23:05:00.000-07:00

My sister and favorite correspondent has just sent me the link to Point Break Live!, description as follows:

Point Break LIVE!, the absurdist stage adaptation of the 1992 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze extreme-sports blockbuster, tells the story of former college football star Johnny Utah (Reeves in the film), as he pursues the surfing, bankrobbing, skydiving, bare-hand-fighting, adrenaline junkie cum Zen Master, Bodhi Sattva. The Brechtian blockbuster, which garnered a "Seattle P-I Best of Seattle 2004" award during its run in the Northwest, features armed robbery, big-wave surfing, car chases, explosions, and no less than two extended skydiving sequences. Best of all, you could be the next Johnny Utah... the starring role of Keanu will be selected at random from the audience each night, and will read their entire script off of cue-cards. This method manages to capture the rawness of a Keanu Reeves performance, even from those who generally think themselves incapable of acting.

This coincides nicely with my favorite description of Keanu's acting ability: "If he had two more legs, he'd be a coffee table."

In other news, my three-year-old nephew, upon hearing that he was to have a sitter, said somewhat resignedly, "Babysitters all wear bras, don't they?"

If you only knew, Little Man. If you only knew.

Wrestling with my demons

2007-10-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

What I should do: finish grading this set of first-year essays that I have already had (and avoided) for far too long.

What I want to do: get some greasy bean burritos from Taco Bell and lie on the sofa, clicking aimlessly between "Ten Years Younger" (which I hate, but "What not to wear" is not yet on daytime TV) and "Law & Order" reruns (all of which I have seen, but that just means I can see more of the transformations on TYY). If only "Sell this house" were on!

What I will do? .....

Bring on "Planet Kirk"

2007-10-02T22:43:00.001-07:00

So call me a geek, but this news made the day a bit less dreary.

A friend and I recently spent an entire lunch (need I mention it was over several glasses of a crisp and delightful rosé?) wracking our brains for the term used in the original Star Trek series to designate the thingy that produced food items on demand?

The replicator. I wish the KitchenAid folks would step up production on that one. We working moms would be all over that bad boy.

Sick and Tired

2007-09-30T21:24:00.000-07:00

My daughter has now been sick for over two weeks. Week one was pretty typical kid-stuff: head cold, coughs, runny nose. Then, just as I thought she was over it, week two brought high fevers and more phlegm than any one person--especially one who has only achieved the tender age of four--could possibly produce. For the first time, I was forced to keep her home from her school for an entire week. This meant, of course, that she spent a lot of time on campus with me, in my office, or bumming around spreading germs on my colleague's desks. Even after her fevers receded, the congestion lingered on, and the last two days have been devoted almost entirely to puking up (her) and cleaning up (me) great greasy strings of a slimy substance that must have originated in her sinus cavities, but has since migrated to her stomach, where it appears to have been plotting its foray into films with names like "Slimed! It Ate Manhattan!" or "Slimed II! It Ate Russia!" or "Slimed VI! Beyond the Galaxy!"

Last night's expectorations required two complete changes of bedding, all the more irritating for my having gotten the bright idea, earlier in the day, to wash all the germy bedding and towels that were lying around. Thank the good lord and the sweet baby jesus that I happen to have inherited my mother's obsession with multiple sheets sets.

Today's coughing fits disgorged something new--pale orange slime, equally dense and malodorous, but attractively tinted by the Chee-Tos I purchased in a moment of catastrophic misjudgment and a last-ditch effort to get my child to EAT something. Anything. Please.

I am going to take her back to her school tomorrow if I have to sacrifice one of my own pets to persuade the gods not to strike me dead as the evil, selfish mother that I am.

The "tired" heading has less to do with the exhaustion brought on by 11 loads of laundry in two days than with a general discontentment and malaise that I am sure mark stage 119c of the "grief process." In my case, I am tired of my life. The job that I worked so hard to get (and which is, to be sure, an outstanding position at a very fine university with amazingly terrific colleagues) feels like an onerous burden. I am disillusioned with my students, but even more discouraged by my inability to muster much enthusiasm for my classes or my work. It feels as though this job--and my whole professorial career--was an ideal fit with the (married) life I had planned to live. I still like what I do, but the job simply cannot make up for everything else that has been lost.

These are aimless musings; I have no intention of giving up my job, or of following up on that query I sent to the Peace Corps about positions in Ghana.
At least, not yet.

But I do need to find something to get interested in, for the rest of my life.

Harrumph

2007-09-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

Peeve Numero Uno: The new mother at my daughter's classroom who hangs around at both drop off and pick up times having long, extraordinarily intense conversations with my daughter's teacher.

Peeve Numero Dos: My daughter's teacher allowing herself to be caught up in these conversations while the usual chaos erupts around her.

Peeve Numero Tres: The other Montessori parents who not only drive ostentatiously gas-guzzling behemoths, but are so busy, busy, busy that they are on their phones before they even leave the lot, creating potentially lethal situations for those of us arriving with our children. Please, folks--give it a rest!

Bonus round, for those of you kind enough to read my ranting: My daughter has been obsessed lately with the time when we "ate cheetah." At first I thought this was a game in reference to a beloved stuffed friend. Then I thought it was omnivore confusion: she calls all cooked meat "chicken" unless it's sliced, in which case it's "turkey." Only today did she provide enough back story for me to figure out that she means...(wait for it)...Chee-tos. She's referring to a picnic lunch we had while visiting friends at the hospital some 6 months ago. Why did it take me so long to see the obvious? Because Chee-tos are the kind of crap I feed myself, not what I feed her. Wow--who knew the taste of junk food had such a half-life?

Signs o' the Times

2007-09-17T21:37:00.000-07:00

My daughter, upon being told it is dinner time [imperiously]: "I do not wish it so!"

My daughter, making deviled eggs this weekend; "Mama, I love you." [pause] [with identical inflection] "Mama, I love these eggs."

My daughter, sitting on the floor putting on her socks and shoes before school: "Mama, I feel left out at school. Sad and left out."

Blue Sunday

2007-09-09T17:29:00.000-07:00

Sundays are the worst. On Saturdays, I have a manic desire to set my house to rights after the neglect of the week: water plants, do the laundry, pay and sort bills, move the moldering vegetables from the refrigerator to the combination wetlands/compost I am creating in my city-owned yardwaste bin, refresh the heavily-trafficked (emphasis on ICK) litter boxes in the basement. I can usually think of a couple of errands to get us out of the house: the farmer's market, pet store, etc.

On Sunday, however, there's precious little left, and solo parenting doesn't really allow for the long, leisurely perusal of the paper, or even for the pre-planning of the week's lessons. The parks are filled with those damn intact families, or, worse yet, with fathers out to make up for the work week by teaching their little girls to cycle, or skate, or by swinging them higher and higher until they squeal with the kind of joy and terror that only a father can evoke. There are families out for walks, families out for breakfast, and families working in their yards.

By 5 p.m., I'm tired of finding things my daughter can do to amuse herself. I'm irked by the day's accumulation of toys and art projects in the house I had just tidied up. I don't want to find us something nutritious to eat, or figure out what to put in our lunches this week. I grow weak and just want to watch one of the endless variety of home improvement/real estate shows, and have a cocktail. I just want someone to talk to who is not, god bless her, 4 3/4 years old.

I feel spoiled and sulky and lonely and bereft. I know that it's not true that everyone else in the world is happy and fulfilled and doing something fun with the people they love, but it sure looks--and feels--that way.

Ethical Dilemma/Over the yardarm

2007-09-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

Is it wrong to drink bourbon just because I'm too lazy to open a bottle of wine? It's Knob Creek, if that makes a difference.

Pardon my gloating

2007-09-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

I have the best job of anyone I know--meaning, compared to all the folks I went to graduate school with, many of whom ended up places with more prestige, etc. I am teaching a full-time load this semester: one first-year writing course, with an adorable group of eager freshlings (as Mme. X calls them), a sophomore majors course, and a senior seminar course. I have a total of 42 students. Okay, maybe a 43rd, if semi-flakey girl decides to add the sophomore course against my advice (advice based on her taking too many intensive-reading courses, NOT on my desire to minimize enrollment). 42. That's a mighty reasonable number, especially when so many of us in this field have more than that in a single course.

There are many other reasons to love my job: fantastic colleagues, supportive administration, beautiful campus, kind and unpretentious students, entertaining (seriously!) committee work, upcoming sabbatical....

But today I'm delighted that I will have plenty of time to work with each of those 42 (pinches self) or even 43 students.

AWOL Updates

2007-09-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

1. Classes start tomorrow. I can't say that my summer was a complete waste, but it was bleak, and relatively unproductive. The novel and the marathon will be put on hold 'til my sabbatical kicks in.

2. In some fit of back-to-schoolness, i got a haircut and replaced all of my make-up, which had in many cases reached the classification of "biohazard." I think maybe I look a bit less old and strained than I did before, but it may just be that my failing eyesight renders my reflection sympathetically blurred.

3. My daughter got a train set, which she adores. When asked what the tank cars might carry, she replied, "Diet Coke and Bloody Marys." I am thrilled and horrified in pretty much equal measure.

4. (Part II on a theme) She asked me yesterday how old one "would have to be to have a beer, Mama?" I think CPS should be expecting a phonecall about the liquid aspects of my parenting.

5. It's overcast and humid here, and so I am pretending it is autumn. Back-to-school shoes are on order from Zappos, and a batch of Mme. X's Bolognese sauce is simmering on the stove. It's too warm, yet, and it won't compare to the wonderful nights we shared it at her home, but there is something comforting in a rich, dark sauce.

6. My mother came to visit, and systematically searched all the places I had dug through in my frenzied search for my wedding photos and passports. All have been found! Now I can play document-wars with the various branches of teh Federal Government.

7. I had to return a pair of shoes ordered from mega-online-merchant. Sadly, they were too small, but the online returns form had no garment-specific options under "reasons for return." I was forced to indicate instead that "the merchandise was incompatible with my existing systems," which amused me.

8. Did I mention that I have to face my students tomorrow? Whatever will I wear? Replacement/new shoes won't arrive until Weds., at least.

Bad Dreams

2007-08-16T07:09:00.000-07:00

Hi, my love,

I was going to tell you about our camping trip--and I will, I promise--but first I need to check with you about something.

I just awoke from two different bad dreams. Fortunately for you, I don't remember the first one. But the second was one of those that leaves a really bad feeling, the kind that lingers all day as the vague feeling that you've forgotten something terrible that's happened and are just about to remember.

In my dream, you were still sick, and very, very thin. You were mysteriously and not entirely happily outliving your prognosis; no one could tell why, or how long it might last.* You were telling me that while I was working, you had developed a new life, with new friends, and that you were going to leave me. I was angry. I was hurt. I begged you to tell me it wasn't true--that you loved our life together as much as I did. [For some reason, in that strange counter-logic of dreams, we were having this conversation in three different locations: a bedroom we never actually had; a gigantic thrift store in which our conversation was periodically interrupted by my selection of a tchotchke; and the front seat of your car. These locations appeared and disappeared throughout the conversation, as happens in dreams. There was also a period where we were driving through the thrift store in the car, while people pilfered things from our open trunk, but that seems beside the point, and it's too hard to explain the logistics of a dream.] But you insisted that you had new friends now--including a single mother named, as I recall, "Tanya." And that you had been living a whole separate life--nothing illicit, but unknown to me. I couldn't believe that after all our work to save you (even though, in the dream, you were less "saved" than enduring a kind of perpetual-cancer state), you were telling me that you didn't love me, and that only now could you tell me. And that you would be moving out, eventually. And that you had purchased a small white VW beetle (the old kind). [It was this last part that really got me; you loved those cars. It made the rest of the dream seem more real.]

And now I'm awake, and feeling shaky and doubtful, and wishing you were here to help me realize it was just a dream.

I find myself doubting my version of our life together, now that it exists only in my memory and in the sound-bytes I trot out for my friends: "My husband used to.... He was....He liked....He once said...." I feel responsible for keeping you around and on people's minds, as if that could give your life more meaning. (Presumptuous of me. You gave your life plenty of meaning). But I feel less and less sure of myself as the keeper of your flame. Did it all mean what I think it did? Why is it left to me to tell your story? And what if I get it wrong?

You did love me, right? And our life together, short as it was?

Please tell me this is all just a bad dream.

I love you,

your wife

*For some reason, almost all of my dreams about you take place in this not-quite-happy imagined future, with you in this not-really-cured state.

Low-rent Theology

2007-08-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

This morning, over breakfast (cantaloupe and sourdough toast for her, cottage cheese with incredible peaches for me):

Daughter: Mama, I think Papa is still at the doctor. (This is frequently her opening line when she wants to discuss him, death, and what it all means.)

Dorcasina: No, sweetie. You know Papa's not still at the doctor. You know that Papa died, and we don't ever get to see him again.

Daughter: Well, maybe he is in heaven!
Now, all the grief folks warned me NOT to tell her that Papa was "looking down" on her from heaven; they said that feeling of being watched by a dead person can be creepy...duh. So I've been pretty theologically noncommital about Papa's afterlife whereabouts, except that Snickollet and I just know that our husbands are hanging out together, and have probably hooked up with Badger's beloved Mr. Badger on occasion for some deeply existential talks, or to make farting armpit noises.

Dorcasina, tentatively: ....well, maybe. What is heaven?

Daughter, cheerfully matter of fact: It's a big room where he can talk to other died [sic] people. And maybe play with toys.

Dorcasina (thinks): Yeah, I bet he'd like that...

Dorcasina: Uh huh. Who told you about heaven?

Daughter: Mrs. Teacher Lady! She said my papa is in heaven! And that he is happy!
Mrs. Teacher Lady is my daughter's primary teacher--which in Montessori world means that they are about to start their third year together. She has been unfailingly loving, supportive, and thoughtful in helping both my daughter and me. She's very active in her church, and makes private references to her faith. So I'm actually really okay with her providing what to her probably feels like a very neutral bit of information. She definitely doesn't proselytize, but she does feel that her beliefs are a big part of her life, and she's made that pretty clear in private conversations. I don't share most of her beliefs, but I really like her and trust her to keep the details of her theology to herself. I have also talked to her about my own spiritual beliefs, so I can see why she thought this would be okay to say to my daughter. And she's right. It is okay. My liberal/academic/secular/knee-jerk self immediately wonders "is this appropriate?" But in this case, it's just fine.

Dorcasina: Well, he probably misses us very much. But we want him to be happy, even though we miss him. Maybe heaven is like a park, so he can go outside?

Daughter: Yes! With other died [sic] people. Mama, can I have another piece of toast?

I wish I had a video of this for those folks who want to really know what it's like to be a widow and a single mom.

Turn about is fair play

2007-08-08T15:27:00.001-07:00

Since I spend much of my time bitching about my in-laws, and what a disappointment they are to me, it seems only fair to report that last weekend we saw most of my husband's family, and for the first time since shortly after his death, I was not left with a big hard knot in my throat. On Saturday, M-i-L and one set of aunt-uncle-cousin-cousin arrived to take my daughter to the zoo. I am not a big fan of zoos--in fact, I hate them; even the nicest ones seem sort of awful, and always have at least some poor creatures languishing in small, dirty cement cages. So I got to stay home and do NOTHING while they toured the zoo. Then I met everyone for a late lunch, at which no one said a nasty, critical, or evangelical word. I still think one of my nephews is a proper turd--always demand a snack, never says thank you, and invariably has to announce that the snacks at my house (granola bars, crackers, pretzels, fruit bars, fruit, dried fruit) is "Weird" because I don't keep soft drinks or store-bought cookies around. (I eat such crap; frequently. But I am very good about giving my beloved child relatively healthful options).

But this is a happy story.

After the lunch, they departed....taking my daughter with them for an overnight at Grandma's. Yep. I had a Saturday night off, while my daughter had a sleepover with her girl cousin (exactly one year older). They played in the hose. Grandpa read them books (cute photos). They visited an organic farm and got purple carrots and cantaloupe. They baked and decorated sugar cookies.

I went to dinner at a lovely, simple, bistro-type restaurant in Previous City with a colleague. We had a cocktail. We had corn chowder with vaguely Middle-Eastern flavors. We had creme brulee that melted on the tongue. We had wine.

The next morning, I read the entire Sunday paper without a piping little voice asking, "Are you done yet, Mama?" every 17.5 seconds.

I was terribly lonely for my little girl. I loved being lonely for her.

I drove to in-laws' house on Sunday evening, after a quick stop at the nearby Giganta-Mall for jeans (I was, miraculously, successful. I have two new pairs, and they are different. Woo Hoo). We visited a bit (in-laws have been gone since June 1 for an annual trek), and had dinner with the other S-i-L (her little girl was the cousin who shared the slumber party. If you are keeping track, the other one is known as The Fundie and this one is Ms. Bossypants.) We had a very nice conversation, joined together to tease my F-i-L for a bit, and talked, a bit excessively, about real estate markets (in this family, "How're your finances?" appears to be a code for "I care about you and want to know how you are, but that would be too personal, so let's talk in abstracts about our financial growth.")

Anyway, it was nothing special. Just an ordinary weekend with....family.

Voice from the Back Seat, Part II

2007-08-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

Context: If you have a little girl or know a little girl, and she does not already own Fancy Nancy, you must add it to her collection. It's a charming story about the perils of being "fancy" in a humdrum world.

Cuteness: Today, my daughter insisted on being "fancy" for school. "Fancy" in today's iteration consisted of a bright print dress, a clear plastic necklace that looks remarkably like those banana candy necklaces* that were popular in my childhood, a giant yellow bow in her hair, circa 1911, and her sparkly red shoes that can be called "ruby slippers" but must never be described as "Dorothy's."

As she alit from the car, she announced, "I'm the fanciest. I love to be fancy. It has been my lifelong dream to be fancy." Lifelong. As in, from ages 3 3/4 to 4 1/2. She kills me. And no, I have no idea where she gets this stuff.

* Who knew that there was a "retro candy" site online? I'm not really surprised, but now I have a wicked craving for an Abba Zabba. Or a Bit'o'Honey. Or maybe just some Bottle Caps, followed by an elegant candy cigarette. It's good to achieve an age where one's peers are economically solvent enough to make the obscure items from one's childhood "collectible," rather than just obsolete!