outtabody

Hericane

2012-01-24T12:33:00.000-08:00

Hana was contemplating a pink packet of saccharin while she eavesdropped on the other diner's conversations. As in most places where she stopped, they were talking about the weather.

"The weather man of channel eight said we are looking at another week in the one-twenties."

Hana accepted her eggs and bacon from the waitress with a sad smile. She sprinkled on the salt and pepper, and looked at the portrait of the desert framed by the window. She was in the middle of Death Valley and had stopped for breakfast at the "Last Chance for Food and Gas".

"I swear to god, if we didn't have air conditioning in here, we'd all by frying like sardines in a can. If we don't get some rain soon, this whole valley is going to be nothing but scorched earth."

She had left San Diego the day before with no clear destination in mind, only that she couldn't bare another second inside of her sterile home. She and John had both wanted to have many children, but after two miscarriages and three years of IVF treatments she had finally accepted that she was broken and would never be able to have children. John had said they could adopt, but she knew how important it was for him to see his own eyes looking out of his baby's face. She left because she was the broken piece of the family puzzle.

"The reservoir is 'bout to dry up, if we don't get rain soon there will be no water for the livestock."

She sliced the yoke with a toast corner and felt the first tear burning in the corner of her eye. Rather than trying to suppress it, she thought of the names of the children she would never have--Dennis, Irene, Ophelia, Vince and Katrina. When she thought of the name Katrina, she envisioned what her baby daughter would look like--big blue eyes just like her daddy and jet black hair. The first tear made a path to her collarbone that other tears began to follow.

"Looks like clouds are beginning to form over the mountains."

With the first tear set free, the others rushed to follow and soon she had a double line of tears coursing down each cheek. She was silently crying, the sub-sub's hadn't started yet, but she wasn't worried about creating a spectacle of herself in front of strangers. She knew they weren't paying any attention to her, they were looking out the window.

"Well I'll be goddamned if it ain't raining!"

The first drops fell onto the tin roof where they sizzled like water in an deep fat fryer and vanished. After their entrance, bigger drops bean to fall and soon the rain was sheeting down the windows and dancing on the hard baked earth. Four of the five diners at the "Last chance for Gas and Food" walked outside to tilt their faces towards the sky and allow the rain to wash the desert from their skin.

She couldn't allow herself to think about how happy the people were that it was raining, she needed to hold onto her grief and let it grow so that the rain would continue to fall. She knew that she was responsible for the rain. It always rained when she cried.

She pulled a prescription bottle from her purse and fingered the cap. The pills inside were meant to suppress her "illusions of grandeur", but all they really did was numb her enough to stop the tears. It was true that when she took them she felt less responsible for the people affected by the drought of her not being there, and the weight of the people who drowned under the weight of her tears when she was there. But they also made her feel like a zombie.

At the age of four she thought her name was "No-NO Hana" but after hearing the Hawaiin legend of Noenoe Ua Kea O Hana, she realized that her parents were only calling her by some of her proper name, and that she was the embodiment of the girl who had been turned into a rain cloud by her father. They lived on Mount Waileaila and it was her grandmother who had told her the legend and ended with the words: "Take a nap now Maleah, and dream happy dreams so that when you waken the sun will be out and we can go to the beach."

At the age of ten her family had moved to Ocean Side California. During the first summer they went to Disneyland, and Sea World, and Knott's Berry Farm. She had a new best friend named Susan, and during that summer she was so happy that it never rained. During the Spring of the following year, Susan found a new best friend and Hana was left alone on the playground. Her tears had been so bitter that mudslides had taken out a section of the coast line. Because she was old enough to understand the concept of civic duty, she realized that she was responsible for the devastation and every house that had been lost in the mudslides caused by her tears.

That was when she resolved to maintain happiness. While the families that belonged to the houses talked about the all they had lost to the channel 3 anchor man, Hana was eating a banana split with her new best friend Heather, and the rain stopped.

By the age of fourteen, Southern California was experiencing a drought and Hana knew that she had to be sad occasionally, just until the canals ran with water and all of the flowers bloomed. During the Spring months she lay in bed at night and think of everything that would make her sad, like broken windows and puppies lost in drain pipes. As soon as the tears started forming in her eyes, the rain clouds would gather. She would fall asleep with light misty rains nourishing the land.

From the ages of 14-18, she took the time to be sad every spring so that the world would get the water that it needed. Her parents never asked her why she was said, they never asked her why she was happy either. They were busy with their own lives and they never seemed to understand that their daughter could control the weather.

At the age of 24 she married John--it was a beautiful June day without a cloud in the sky--but over the subsequent years there had been many rain storms. After the second miscarriage, John had thought that a trip to Mexico would cheer her up. Instead, her tears had been so bitter that an entire village was flooded and all of the little cardboard shacks were buried in the mud. The realization that she had wiped out an entire village with her agony was so intense that she fell into a depression that wouldn't be comforted by John's words that they could try again and they would have a houseful of babies.

She explained to her that she wasn't crying because of the baby (Vince) she was crying because of the village that had been destroyed by her grief, he had contacted their family practitioner and suggested that she take a few days at a local mental health facility. The doctor suggested that many women fell into a depression after losing a baby, and that a rest and some medication would be all that she needed.

After many sessions with her psychiatrist, she admitted her secret power over the rain and he had added the little white pills to her daily diet and admitted her to the facility for a more lengthy stay. Her mother had come to visit her and told her that it was all her grandmother's fault that she had the lunatic notion about the rain. She told her to stop telling such crazy stories so that she could go home. After three days of taking the pills she met with her counselor and he remarked that it hadn't rained in three days, and he asked her how she was feeling. She replied that she felt tired and blurry. He asked her if the foggy weather was caused by her blurry emotions and she used her mother's advice when she replied, "Of course not."

She didn't bother to explain that she caused rain, not fog. When she left the facility, she understood that she could never again admit to her power. She also felt rather proud of herself for all of the green that she saw, her previous weeks of crying and shed so much water that the residents of San Diego were able to water their lawns, fill their swimming pools and wash their cars.

Two months after being releases, she missed her period. She bought five home pregnancy kits and all confirmed that she was pregnant. She stopped taking her medication for fear of what it would do to her unborn child. The doctor confirmed her glorious news and for three weeks she imagined Katrina forming tiny fingers and itty bitty toes as cute as corn niblets. She woke every morning to her sun filled room and she would place her hands over her still flat stomach and sing lullabies. When she went grocery shopping, she bought packages of diapers and baby bottles. She began painting the nursery, she planned an under-the-sea theme complete with a mural of dolphins and angel fish.

She was buying glow-in-the dark stars to attach to ceiling of the nursery when her period started, and so did the rain. She traded the stars for maxi-pads and left the store knowing that her tears would cause all of California to slip into the ocean. When she got onto the Interstate she didn't know where she was heading, just that she couldn't face her sterile house or the empty nursery.

She finished her breakfast and then considered the bottle of pills that would give her the blurry feeling that neither hurt nor pleased. Her intention had been to take a little sabbatical with her pills and her broken heart, but the reaction of the diner at the "Last Chance for Food and gas" gave her a better idea. It was a horrible twist of fate that she couldn't carry a baby to term, but with her ability to bring the rain she was the epitome of fertility. Every desert that she traveled through would bloom.

The pride that she felt in that moment was big enough to squash the emptiness of her childless arms. She got up from her booth and went to the restroom where she popped the top off the bottle and dumped all of the little white pills into the toilet. She knew that her husband, and parents, and doctors would be disappointed by her actions, but there were children all over the world living in drought conditions and she alone had the power to change their lives.

When she walked out of the restroom she caught sight of the diners laughing and celebrating the rain and she had to think of think of her baby names to damper the buzz of joy that would stop the rain. She approached the waitress at the cash register with tears trembling behind her eyelashes.
The waitress accepted her credit card and swiped it through the machine. "Look at those damn fools out there, you'd think they never saw rain before, "she said, "I told them it was going to rain this week, weather man of channel six has been talking about the El Nina all week."

Hana walked to her car and avoided eye contact with the patrons enjoying the deluge. She thought of baby Katrina and decided that she wouldn't call John until she reached New Orleans.

~When I Was Her~

2012-01-16T15:28:00.000-08:00

When I talk about the Boys Camp, I do so in a tone that makes me appear as though I were wise, or loving, or kind, or cunning. It has been 18 years since I left the place and I have had plenty of practice telling Boys Camp stories in a tone that fits the mood.

I tell the story of the ghost "Mary" that I made up to scare the boys, and when I tell that story I want people to appreciate my ability to improvise in emergency situations.

I tell stories that are religious in nature, in which I used some verse of the bible to explain a truth to a boy, and when I do that I want the listener to believe that I was once a twenty-two year old girl on a mission to share the word of the lord with young boys who might never ever hear it otherwise.

I tell alot of stories, and most of them are true to the best of my recollection--but I don't often tell the truth about who I was when I was working at the Boys Camp.

It is 100% fair to say that I went into the job believing that I could make a difference in the lives of boys. It is also 100% fair to say that I had no idea what it was that those boys needed. I pretended to be what I felt I should be for the eight days that I was a housemother.

The picture that I have posted was taken six months before I went to the camp, and that is the look that I tried to emulate on those nights when I was not a house mother for twelve boys. When I was at the Boy's Camp, I braided my hair and didn't wear a smidge of make-up. I did this for two reasons:
1. I had to wake 12 boys up at 6:00 am, and I didn't give a rat's ass what I looked like.
2. I recognized that at the age of 22 I was only five years older than some of my 'kids'. I didn't want them to think I was cute. I wanted them to think of me as a guardian.

But there were nights when I took the braids out of my hair and got out the aqua net.

When I was the girl in that picture, I requested an evening off so that I could go to a wedding with Martin. My request was granted, with the stipulation that I leave after the boys had been tucked into their beds for the evening and that I would be home before midnight so that I could preform my House mother duties at 6:00am the next morning.

I completed my hair and make-up while still at the camp and left wearing pants that were to big and a gray t-shirt. I drove my red Trans Am the hour and a half that it took to get to the local JCPenny where I purchased a green dress with pearl buttons from the collar bone to the hem,a pair of white pumps and thigh high nylons that I attached to a white garter belt.

I dived into the gas station next to the church to change into my wedding reception finery, and I met Martin just as the keg was getting tapped at the reception.

When he met eyes with me in the doorway, he walked across the room and wrapped his arms around waist, he sniffed into my hair and then whispered that he was so happy to see me that he would open all of my buttons with his lips.

The reception was grand, we danced and we ate and he introduced me to everyone I had not yet met as "Miss Idaho".

Because I am telling a story about When I Was Her, and She was me an entire lifetime ago, it seems only fitting to admit that we left the wedding reception inside of a Catholic church, and we went to a basement with a bed covered in animal hides and while we were there we partook of illegal substances and we listened to Ac/Dc at full volume and Martin proved his promise to open my buttons with his mouth.

Many hours later I was covered in sweat and panting on a cowhide, and I realized that I had missed my midnight curfew.

By many hours.

Many many.

I fact, I had been fornicating for so long that I had less than an hour to get back to the Boys Camp before my job began for the day.

When I was the girl in that picture, it felt like a challenge and I believed that my red Trans Am could take corners like it was on rails and I was just young enough and immortal enough to get out of town and then stomp on the gas pedal like it was a cockroach.

There is/was a spot along the road in which it was a Missouri double letter road that had hair pin turns and little hills. There is a special sweet spot that has three humps in a row, and I had always taken them a bit fast so that I could get the roller coaster butterflies--but on that particular day when I was racing the clock and listening to "back in black" at full volume--I hit first one so fast that I sailed over the hump and landed on the top of the second hump. I goosed it at the top and sailed to the third hump and I did a fist pump out of the absent T-top when I didn't crash.

When I reached the turn-off to the camp I squealed to a stop and reversed to the trail through the trees. This was when I remembered who I was supposed to be, and so I turned off the music and crept through the woods to the driveway. There I turned off my motor and coasted to a stop, just as the sun was creeping through the trees and I knew the wake-up call would be issued soon.

I snuck into the front door and made a bee-line for my room where I stripped off the dress and put on my pajama pants and size XXL t-shirt. I had to piss like a Russian racehorse, but I thought that if I went to the bathroom it would alert my partners that I had just gotten home and so I chose to pee in a coffee can in the corner rather than leave my room.

That day went from there--I pretended to have just awoken and herded boys to their various school activities while I was still feeling the after-glow mind blowing orgasms and drugs and booze. As soon as they were gone, I went to bed and slept the afternoon away.

When I talk about the Boys Camp, I usually do so in a way that makes me look like I was being selfless and doing things for others.

But ahhhh.....when I was her, I also did things because I wanted to know what freedom felt like.

~Forgetting The Swimsuit~

2012-01-04T09:40:00.000-08:00

Martin called last night and accused me of purposefully forgetting to pack his swim trunks.

"How was I to know you would need a swimsuit? You are forty five years old, if you don't like what I pack--pack for yourself."

Then I changed the subject and we talked about kids and what the new job was like and how many days it would be before he was back. He brought up the trunks again, and again I deflected by asking him if he thought I was clairvoyant and just knew he would be in a position to get into a swimming pool.

Between you and me: I knew there was a pool, and I did purposefully leave out the swim trunks. I am not clairvoyant, but I did google the hotel in Montana and I know there is a hot tub and a swimming pool.

I left out the trunks for the simple reason that I am not interested in my husband walking around in his trunks because he looks damn sexy in those trunks. He is 45, but his mid section hasn't gone to flab and his upper body is finely sculpted--pecs, shoulders, biceps--don't even get me started on the muscles of his back. He is a fine look specimen and his trunks ride his hips just enough so that there is a peek of where his side muscles attach to his hips and it looks like a prime piece to nibble.

There a a couple of other things I "forgot" to pack for him: toothpaste. deodorant. a razor.

What can I say, when he is far away from me, I have ideas about how I would like him to appear to the general populace. I assume he will get toiletries from the hotel vending machine, but I am banking on the fact that he won't bother to shave and when he is far far away from me, I prefer for him to appear woolly.

And not particularly well dressed.

I packed all of his favorite hoodies and long sleeved shirts, and threw in all of his favorite t-shirts. I picked the work pants that weren't full of holes, and forgot to put in the pair of pants that are stain free and craddle his ass perfectly, and I passed right over the shirts that he wears on date night. I have been packing for him for 18 years, I didn't forget to fill it with clean socks and underwear--but not the underwear with the perfect ball cup.

I like to think that I pack for him out of love, so that he will be comfortable when he is far away from home. But it is fair to say that I also pack for him so that he isn't looking like eye candy all alone in a hotel hot tub.

~Christmas Carol's Weeper~

2011-12-26T12:09:00.000-08:00

For the seventeenth Christmas in a row, we took the family to Crown of Life Lutheran Church for the Christmas Eve service. I ironed clothes for every member of my family with an element of red, and I spent an hour applying Christmas Party make-up. I wore my favorite outfit--tight black sweater, a-line grey skirt and nylons that look like tattoo's of coy fish.

I cried off the first layer of sparkles during the opening song. My daughter was sitting next to me, and at first she was amazed and perhaps compassionate, but as the songs wore on and snot started dribbling out of my nose she lost her compassion and began to started to mock me. She made her dad trade her seats after I used her hood to clean the snot/tears off my cheeks (she spent years using me as a napkin, she owes me.)

I was completely fine during the sermon and the speaking parts, but as soon as the music team started singing, my eyes started weeping.

For many years, my family was the music team--my mother, my aunts, my uncles--beloved friends I have known my whole life. When I was a kid, we sang Christmas Carols and I was overjoyed, when I reached my teens I was so cool that I was bored with the sounds of my family. And now I am an adult and the people singing the Christmas Carol's have been replaced.

The primary crying problem is that Dave and Rudy and Ken playing together harmonize so well that it sounds like my Uncle Roy is in there singing. Which of course he isn't. And recognizing the abscences of his voice, I begin to recognize the absence of all of the voices that sang to me when I was a little girl who still believed in Santa Claus.

The voice that I miss the most is the voice of my mother.

My mother is very much alive and kicking, but she gave up the singing when Roy died. She doesn't sing with the church choir anymore, and she doesn't sing at home and she didn't set down to the organ to play demanding that my sisters and I sing along with her.

My eye's weep during Christmas carol's because they have been very much absent this year--I didn't even fill my cd player with the collection of cd's that my mother made for me back in the days when she was still making music. I have a collection with over 50 Christmas cd's--music of every genre and all of the classic's sang with every composer that you might suspect had a Christmas album.

The music was absent this Christmas, and I am not the only person who has noticed it.

There are a whole lot of new things present:

Jacob has been making paper cranes for the last two Christmas' and the tree is covered with them. They are made out of envelopes, and newspaper and Kid's homework papers and colored paper.

It is the sixth year that we have had Christmas dinner in this house, and the Christmas table is decorated exactly as my mother would have it be made. I know this is true because the Christmas china, sivlerware and candleabra's are all from the gifts that she has given me. The tablecloth is the linen one that she purchased, and the silk damask napkins go into the silver napkin rings that she picked out.

I can't make the music come back, because I can't sing the music without crying--but what I can do is create the picture of the Christmas meal cooked to perfection and placed about a table set for twelve.

The gift my mother gave me when I was a child was the music and the imagery of a beautifully made Christmas table.

The gift that I give my mother is that imagery set up exactly as she had imagined it might be.

~The Answer Isn't in a Bottle~

2011-10-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the sheriff came to my house with a Writ of Execution, he needed me to give him $2218.94 or he would have to take some of my stuff.

He reminded me of my first husband, with his sandy hair and the fact that his face was flushing. He stood on the door step with papers in his hands, looking official and a little embarrassed at the same time. I told him I had $20 in my wallet, and then I invited him into my house.

My boys were obviously curious and I allowed them to stay in the living room, Jake stood next to me--I think he was manning up by standing next to his mother. Ike was watching from the couch, I read the papers and realized that this was because of that credit card that I had oh so many years ago and I never paid it off.

The officer was explaining the paperwork to me--he asked me to give him the $20 that I had in my wallet and he said that if I didn't file a claim of exemption they would be back to get some of my stuff--he told me that they could take just about everything, even the couch.

I invited him to come into my home because having a sheriff at your house does cause the neighbors to wonder. We have had plenty of sheriff's in the last couple months--some kids broke into the Durango in July and the police got them, I have been getting subpoena's to testify.

And I, the woman who walks at night so that no one can see her invited him in to get him off my doorstep, and into my home.

When I left the living room to get my purse, I thought about that me that didn't want the meter man to ask to come inside her home, she had an officer of the law standing inside her home...her home that had clean floors and dinner cooking and two clean health boys. I left my bedroom door open so that he could see that my bed was made and I wished he would notice that there were not shoes and backpacks all over the floor.

I wanted to prove to myself that it really was okay to have a stranger inside your house, because their judgement of you would be good, even though he was coming to collect money for a debt that I had not paid.

When I came out with my wallet, I discovered I actually had $23, and asked him if I had to give him my extra three bucks. He blushed and hung his head and said, "Yeah, I am sorry I have to take all the money that you have."

Jake stood next to me and asked what was going on, and I reached out and brushed his hair: "this is from a credit card that I didn't pay many years ago and they are here to get their money. It is my fault--I am responsible for the money."

When I said it, I really meant and I--the woman who is afraid to talk to people in the grocery store because she might say the wrong thing--realized that I was telling the absolute truth, and accepting responsibility relieved me of the burden of shame.

The officer wrote me a receipt for my $23 and told us that he hated this part of the job--taking people's money--and that he was having to do it more and more because many people were defaulting on credit cards. He had also defaulted on a credit card, and he gave me paperwork to file for exemptions--I can keep $750 worth of furniture, and $1000 of jewelery and my tools.

He left on a friendly note, letting me know that there were ways around having my personal stuff taken and as he left I shut the door and understood that the woman who had panic attacks at the thought of answering the phone because it might be a bill collector was perfectly calm and collected when the sheriff came to my house to get some of what I owe.

My boys, of course, were a little bit shaken up. I suppose that having the cops inside of your home is disturbing for a youngster, probably one of those memories that get so permanently embedded that not even Alzheimer will shake them free.

"What are YOU going to DO?" my daughter asked when we set down to dinner using that voice of panic that I recognize so well because it uses the same tone as the thoughts inside my own head.

I think it is telling that she didn't ask me if I had called her dad to see what plan her parents had devised. She wanted to know specifically what I was going to do, because she holds me personally responsible for all of the big problems in life. She holds her dad responsible for acquiescing to her desires, and she holds me accountable for making sure that home and hearth are secured.

The woman who could barely make herself walk into a parent teacher conference set at the dinner table with the sum of her daughter's worry and she realized that her daughter was looking to her for a path. She is learning how to be a woman from me, and her disappointment in me stems from the fact that she believes that it is possible for her mother to take care of everything because SHE will be able to take care of everything in the future.

I told my daughter that I was going to fill out the exemption paperwork so we wouldn't lose our furniture or our computer and I told her I would let them have the four TV's that were in the garage.

"They are all broken" she said.

"I know. They can also have the refrigerator and the stove in the garage."

"Neither works"

Jake chimed in, "They can also have the hide-a-bed and the two recliners!"

I looked out the window at the stuff piled in the backyard and began naming things that were in less than perfect condition--"They can take the red transAm, that must be worth something, and the trailer and those two lawnmowers."

She brooded as only a sixteen year old girl can, her disappointment stinging my nostrils and making my eyes water.I have felt the weight of her panic and disappointment in me for losing my job, she was most thrilled when I was earning enough money to support this family. She liked to take me for drivers so that I could tell her about the insurance, the 401k savings plan and the commissions that were automatically added to America Express cards. Many times during my physical illness, she asked me why I wasn't back to work yet and many times she asked me what we were going to do if I lost my job.

The fact is, the sheriff would have shown up last night even if I had not gotten sick and lost my job--but I wouldn't have been there to greet him, I would have been at work and the children would have been here alone. The truth is that even if I had stayed my course that I set on Independence Day, Pay Up day was still coming.

Last night, after feeding my kids brownies and washing the dinner dishes the woman who has been hiding inside house lying to herself when she believes that she needs to start taking pills to balance her endomorphines so that she can function in society.

I am not panicky and anxious and despondent and sleepy because of something that is imbalanced inside of my body--

It isn't something that I need to start taking to make me the woman I want my daughter to someday be--it is the things that I need to stop taking.

~I Prefer Hermit~

2011-10-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

After my youngest son was born, I went through a phase where I didn't want to leave the house because I didn't want people to see me. I remember having logical conversations with myself and trying to figure out WHY I didn't want people to see me.

I told myself that I didn't have any disgusting deformities that would make people gasp and point, I did't have a speech impediment that would cause me to say foul things to people, I did't smell bad. In a nutshell, there was nothing wrong with me that would make me a sideshow if I were to buy groceries.

I went to great lengths to stay in the house for an entire fall and winter, and I did so in very devious ways. One more than one occasion, I let air out of my car tire so that I couldn't go to the grocery store, I made up grating sounds on the car that made it impossible for me to stick my babies in the car.

I was very good at never stepping out of my door, and the more days I stayed inside, the more panic I felt at the idea of going anywhere. Even to the mail box at the end of the driveway. The pinnacle of my avoidance of people was the day that the meter reader came to read the meter, and I hid in my bedroom closet.

It was in that closet that I realized my cheese wasn't even close to my cracker and I reminded myself that I had no reason to be afraid of the meter reader--I didn't have a meth lab that he would discover, my children were not being abused, there weren't stolen goods in my house.

Looking back, I have always assumed I was suffering from Post Partum Depression and that time of the crazies was done and gone. In fact, I have spent most of the last eight years very much in public, where anyone driving by could see me. I went to school, I found a job in a cubicle, I made friends, I went places, I went to the grocery store everyday!

The creepies snuck up on me this time, and it started with the telephone attached by a three foot long cord that tethered me to a computer. Talking on the phone has never been one of my things, but I did it for nine hours a day and I was pretty damn good at my job.

It started slowly, with just a jolt of panic when the calls were piled up back to back. There were days and days when I could answer the same question, offer the route excuse, sell the mandatory product. But then, one day, the jolt of panic happened with each beep of every call.

In my cubicle, with my headset and my earnest attempt to sell a product to a person who was trying to cancel their service, I was acutely aware that all of my calls were recorded and that there were people walking around with headsets listening to me at anytime--all the time.

I did talk to that panic and explain it didn't matter because I was great at my job, and they were probably recording me specifically to use as a training aid.

Then came the viral infection that landed me in bed for a couple weeks and by day ten the idea of leaving the house caused my heart to pound, my brow to sweat and my chest to heave.

And now I am Unemployee of the Month and once again I have no desire to leave my house and I make up ingenious excuse why I can not: "I am painting the basement. I am looking for a job. I am cleaning the house. I am babysitting someone's kid. I am Writing. I don't have enough gas to go anywhere."

I recognize where I am right now, even though I haven't hid in the close from the meter man. I know the panic that wiggles in when I must go somewhere.

Yesterday was my children's Parent teacher Conference, and I told them all that I couldn't go--to busy painting and writing and not enough gas and it would be just fine if I didn't go because they are all doing great.

Baby Girl insisted because she wanted the extra credit, and she cried and begged so that I shut down the panic voice and put on clean clothes and brushed my hair and reminded myself that there was nothing odious about me, the crazy was all inside and no one would notice.

When we arrived at the High School, the parking lot was packed and I suggested we just go home, since there was no place to park. Kate explained she was doing so good at school and she wanted me to hear it from her teachers, and she wanted them to see me so they would know where she got all of her good looks.

We found a spot and before getting out of the car I said, "I am currently experiencing a Social Anxiety Disorder and being around people makes me feel panicky."

"Get Over It" she replied.

Which is great advice, that I shall work on.

But between now and then, if you see me in public and I don't acknowledge you, it isn't because I am ignoring you. It is because I didn't notice you, I am concentrating on what it is that I need so that I can get back to my house.

If you can't get ahold of me on the phone--it isn't personal, I am avoiding everyone. To be honest, I have turned off my ringer because when the phone rings I get the jolt of panic and I would prefer not to feel that.

The root of this problem is obvious: I don't want to talk about how I am doing. I don't want to admit that my degree is in an envelope in my closet and I am not doing anything with it. I don't want to have a conversation about my habit of staying inside of my house until I gets dark, I don't want you to know that the job hunt is not going well because not many people are looking to hire people who would prefer to be invisible.

~Twelve Boys~

2011-10-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

I have three favorite things about this blog:

Before you can access it, you are warned about adult content and you have to acknowledge that you understand you are about to trip into some adult language. This means my kids can't access it from their account, or from their school.

When I was a compulsive blogger years ago, I ran into some flack because of the things that I was writing about the people in my lives. It isn't that I was writing anything particularly salacious, just that they were being mentioned at all, especially not in a less than favorable light.

My girl wasn't thrilled when her teacher read the blog and laughed about something that I had written about her. my husband was adamant that I not write about him ever--EVER--and my outer family gave me suggestions to write about them and began prefacing every conversation with the words, "before I tell you this, you have to promise not to put it on your blog."

Towards the end of my blogging 'career', I removed content per request of people that I love and I began to think about privacy. Afteral, the people in my life do have the right to privacy, and I can understand that some of the stories that I shared were pretty personal and I didn't expressly get permission to write them. I agreed with my kids when they said it wasn't cool for me to write about their tantrum or growing pain in a public forum where their classmates could access it.

I stopped blogging when I realized that I could really only write about myself, and what is of interest about me if I omit talking about the people with whom I interact?

My second favorite thing about this blog is that it has been dead and gone for so long that nobody is reading it, it gives me the freedom to write without believing I am offending someone that I am close to.

And now I can commence with writing a blog that has adult content and thus, it is banned from all school computers, most work computers and certainly my home computer. I can write about anything I want...

and I want to write about those twelve boys at the boys camp. I spent an afternoon driving in the mountains with my dad, and he asked about the boys camp experience and I realized that I had never really talked about those twelve boys with my father. I always planned to write that story--because it is a good one about a twenty-one year old girl who goes to work at a camp for abused and neglected children believing she is going to make a difference.

I spent two summers and a winter with those boys, and I always meant to write about them, but I was reluctant because telling my story meant revealing their story--and I didn't feel as though I had the right to violate their privacy. Now that twenty years have passed, it seems okay to talk about them--wherever they are, they are far removed from who they were at the ages of 12-17.

My third favorite thing about writing this blog is that I am writing at all and that I can legitimately say to my kids, "Give me a moment of Privacy, I am WRITING!"

~Twelve Words~

2011-09-28T20:45:00.000-07:00

When my Uncle Roy died, I said that I could write the eulogy and the obituary and make the music video. He had cancer and I had plenty of time to prepare.

When it came time to write the obituary, I went to Aunt Carols house with my lap top to meet with the family to get the words--and I simply could not do it. I handed the project to my cousin Kim who is brilliant and she did a great job of capturing him in words.

I set down to write the eulogy and I came up with twelve words.

Twelve words for the man who rode in on a motorcycles with a guitar when I was four years old and my father had left.

Twelve words for the man who taught me to fish and cook eggs and row a boat and sing songs and feed pigs and love unconditionally.

Twelve
Words
for the man who built a closet in the middle of my living room and saved my house from foreclosure and sang me songs when the wind was howling and the wolves were at my doorstep

My brother was the guy to read the eulogy and the night before the funeral I sent him a text to let him know I had twelve words and the obituary that Kim wrote and he could ad lib from there.

Long Story short: I let that twelve word failure define me.

I gave up on the writing and decided to just do something else: something corporate that paid the bills and didn't require a whole lot of creativity.

I went for rules and regulations and a job where every second was accounted for. I tied myself to a machine that gave me 667 seconds to deal with a customers problems and a written warning if I spent 2 minutes extra in the bathroom.

I got sick.

I got my walking papers from the job

And now I realize that I have Twelve Words for many different people:

I admire you and your ability to create beauty on a budget.

Stick with me kid, and I will have you farting through silk.

He is twenty years younger and you are doing a public service.

I am not avoiding your phone call, I am avoiding everyone's call.

If you make a break for it, I will pay for gas.

Don't pretend that your past didn't happen. Your story includes dumpster cookies.

If I had a million dollars, I would buy you a monkey.

If you decide you don't want your kid, I have first dibs.

I remember you in the blue princess dress crying in the corner.

Come snuggle on my lap, I will tell you a musical story.

I am overwhelmed to have a woman like you in my life

When we were kids you stated your dream and you achieved it.

He is a cocksore, but I understand why you can't leave him.

Get a haircut, get a job, chest up to your responsibilities mister.

I am not crazy, I am just chafing up against your hide.

You are a good mother, your baby smells likes Johnson's Downey heaven.

I miss you so much that I am afraid to write it.

I know the Heimlich Maneuver

2011-01-31T11:57:00.000-08:00

I graduated from college on December 17th 2010 with a degree in Mass Communications and minor in Women's Studies. When I first picked those classes it was because I was going to be a writer who wrote about women's issues.

Now that I have the degree, I realize it makes me look like I am a gossipy lesbian. Had I been wise I would have gone to school for something like nursing or maybe business management--but NO! I was following my dream.

And that has led me where I am today, unemployed and counting the minutes til nap time or beer thirty, whichever comes first.

I should probably have a better attitude, I have only been unemployed for two months and in this current economy that isn't a terribly long time. However, I expected my dream job to arrive the same day I got my degree and so all this 'applying for jobs' crap is getting me down.

I spend the first part of my day reading want ads and applying for jobs. I made a professional resume and a cover letter using all of my college expertise so that all of my accomplishments were spit shined and highlighted in a Times New Roman Font. I have sent out more than 50 of these resume and cover letters and have received three computer generated replies thanking me for my interest.

That means 47 of the people I have applied for haven't even bothered to program their computer to send out automatically generated letters!

In the last two days I have applied for a vast array of jobs; it is amazing how a month of unemployment can make you reasses your job needs. I have applied for administrative assistant jobs, telephone answering jobs, receptionist jobs, health nutritionist/yoga instructor jobs, marketing, advertising and nuclear energy jobs.

With my new list of possible jobs comes a new series of cover letters. I figured that since no one was responidng to my anyway, I might as well vary from the professional/serious cover letter and mix things up a bit, thus pulling away from the pack.

On all of the administrative assistant jobs I have said, "I know the Heimlich maneuver and CPR, if someone in the office should choke on a bagel I can save their life. Now I ask you, what could be a better than an administrative assistant with life saving capabilities?"

For the yoga instructor/nurtionist job I said, "I have taken many yoga classes and I can lock my ankles behind my head. As a forty year old woman, I know about the struggle life can be when you have a fat jiggly buttocks. I would be a valuable addition to your team as I can feel the pain of others with pudgy mid sections."

I'm thinking on my next administrative assistant cover letter I will add the words, "As a professional member of your team, my first order of business will be to draft a cover letter that you can send to potential candidates that let's them know they are not the right person for the job because of that one thing they did that one time and perhaps they should get right with the lord before applying again."

I doubt if any of my new cover letters will land me a job, but at least I got to brag about my gossipy lesbian degree.

~Sort of Like Moses Wandering Through The Desert, But Not~

2008-01-11T13:34:00.000-08:00

It is finally happened: I have a domain name. I have my last new site: outtabodymommy.com It gives me a little thrill to have a dot com, it makes me believe that I could have t-shirts. I don't know what they would say or if I could get my mother to wear one--but with the dot com title the door has opened to a whole new world.

A new world that is actually the old world all bundled into one place. Outtabodymommy has all of my archives from all my years of blogging in one neat and tidy space. My first blog is there! It is organized and tidy and wide open for anything I wish to do with it.

So come on over there and help me make the new spot nifty--I get to take photography this semester! Do you think I might be a budding Ansel Adams?

~Softly Into The Dull Night~

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

School begins next Monday, and this means I got my bi-annual hair-do. My hair had reached the length I like to call, "Polygamy hair". Because I am going to the Big Campus this Spring, I needed a something a little more sophisticated and a little more in my age group. (I read that after the age of 19 women should not have hair that brushes the top of their ass.)

What I have now is hip-hop hair, and this is the perfect time to be sporting a jouncy pony-tail because I am taking a hip-hop class this Spring. At the Big Campus. (Which is different from the little campus by about 800 buildings and parking so far away one must catch a shuttle to get to a building.)

If you have ever seen me dance, you are probably laughing right now--go ahead. I can take it. I am fully aware that my feet can't hear the rhythm and that my arms aren't even listening to the same song and that I move my lips when I am counting steps.

I am taking the hip-hop class for two reasons:

1. I have an hour after my last class and the bus ride home. I can use that hour studying (which really means, "drinking coffee and having a nosh in the sub") or I can take a hip-hop class and get ready for bathing suit season.

2. I grew up watching teenager movies like 'flash dance" and "grease". I believe that there comes a moment in every persons life when they will have to dance down either a gang fight or the authorities or to save someones life. I am getting up there in years so it only seems obvious that my West-side dance down will coming soon. And if I can't dance, my gang will be the losers (or someone could die, or the authorities could take us down) and I can't have that on my conscious now can I?

I am looking forward to this semester, I am taking most excellent classes like: Photography (and lab) the art of the Book, Women in Art, Hip-hop (effing algebra). It should be an interesting semester full of wonderful things for me to do that advance my college career in the direction I wish for it to go .

It should also be fun because my list of classes has caused my spouse to say, "Your taking WHAT? That isn't even a real class!!"

~Movie Monday~

2008-01-06T21:42:00.000-08:00

One time? I was this close to a moose:

The day I got video of the moose is the same day I made this video:

Jen and I were sitting on a boat launch when the moose appeared. We set quietly and watched the moose--each of us thingking that if worse came to worse we could out run the other--until a truck pulled in and scared the moose away.

In other animal news: I wrote a post about dead deer that got tucked into my archives, so I thought I should give it a little bit of attention.

~Answering Unasked Questions~

2008-01-03T12:11:00.001-08:00

One question that no one has ever asked me is: "Deborah, how do you get such sweet and candid shots of your children?"

Since no one has ever asked, I am willing to share the magic of my photographic moments.

When photographing children I have found that it is best to click shots while they are unaware. It is my goal to catch them as they play and when I discover them blissfully playing, I sneak in with my camera and capture them unaware. You could compare it to wild-life photography, though I believe that what I do with my children is much more spontaneous and natural.

This summer I took pictures of my children, my plan was for the shot to be a Christmas card photo. When I snuck up on my children I accidentally turned the camera on the video function, and thus I accidentally made a video that shows exactly how I get spontaneous shots:

~2008 New Years Resolutions~

2007-12-31T14:32:00.000-08:00

I have been making "the list" since I was fourteen years old, so it only seemed right that I would make one for 2008. I did a little personal searching and reflecting over my twenty-something years of resolutions and what I have discovered is that I am a very shallow girl.

All of my resolutions seem to revolve around my personal attractiveness--I will lose weight or get braces or tint my hair or cut my hair or get a tan or wear a size four. My resolutions have a lot to do with losing weight, eating better, quiting a bad habit or doing something so fucking phenomenal that it runs on the CNN banner.

In other words, I have been making resolutions that never had a snowballs chance of being realized.

I read my resolutions for 2007 and I realized that there was not one single worth-while thing on that list. It seems to be written by a flippant woman who has no idea what her priorities should be; It seems to be penned by a person who hasn't taken a second to consider that really god-awful things can happen and surviving them is more important than the size of the muffin top.

I'm afraid that 2007 destroyed my annual resolution list. This year has kicked me in the teeth just enough times that I realize my paltry little yearly wish list doesn't even come close to giving me what I ultimately require.

Instead of a resolutions list I am going to write a prayer:

For 2008 I wish the yin to 2007's yang.

I desire to spend an hour of unmitigated joy for every 2007 hour
that was spent in abject desire.

I wish to spend an equal portion of 2008 laughing
for every moment of 2007 that was spent sobbing.

I wish that 2008 would enjoy a double portion of carefree hours
for every 30 minutes of anxiety in 2007.

I wish for the mundane to become common again
and for the horrible to become fantasy again.

I wish to spend a month of 2008 feeling competent, self-reliant and accomplished,
for every month of 2007 in which I felt inadequate, ill-prepared and illiterate.

Amen.

~And A Happy New Year~

2007-12-27T19:35:00.000-08:00

I gave my daughter the perfect shopping trip for Christmas: I took her and her best most favoritest most awesome friend to the mall. Kate had cash in hand, a watch on her wrist and a cellphone in her friend's pocket. Baby girl was beaming with joy when we left, and she happens to be a first rate shopper. She had fifty bucks and she brought home six shirts, a fleece vest and a pair of earrings.

This is a far cry from the Marilyn Monroe Fiasco and I am so glad that my daughter and I finally had a shopping trip that didn't end with one of us crying.

It could have begun with one of us crying because you see, tis the season for my driving phobia to check in. It has been snowing and blowing and the Idaho roads are exactly as bad as you would think Idaho roads would be. I ran off the road last week, but I did it ever-so-gracefully. And by ever-so-gracefully I would like for you to understand that I gave another driver a parade wave to let him know I was cool while I was sliding off the road.

My ever-so-graceful slide-off was just enough to remind me that driving is not my gig and death by highway is 100% possible.

Today when I jumped into the drivers seat with six kids I was {this} close to tears. I turned to the children and suggested that if they were smart they would hop out of the Durango and ride with the other parents. They chose to ride with me and I had no choice but to suck it up and drive to town.

When I was driving on the broken ice road I turned the radio up almost as loud as it would go--I did that because the shaking of the vehicle was causing me to hyperventilate and my eyes were starting to burn with tears. I kept checking my rear-view mirror to see the other parents behind me. The father is a professional driver and I considered that if he knew that I was white knuckled and red faced he would want me to pull over so that the children could get out of the vehicle and the proper people in white jackets could come for me.

And the Brina coughed. Gently. She coughed again. Ever so softly.

"Brina puked!" Ike screamed.

And then five other kids chimed in, "eww...argh...ooh..roll down the window, roll down the window...arghhh!"
And Brina apologized with a voice that sounded exactly like a twelve year old girl who has puked, "I'm sorry...I didn't know...I thought I could hold it..."

And the kids chimed up, "Ohhh! It's chunky...arghhh roll down the windows roll down the windows!"
And I replied, "It's okay Brina, we needed to hose the Durango anyway, did you know Martin brought home a dead deer in here? This truck smells like dirty socks, dead animal and Blue farts already."

The smell wasn't pleasant but my driving phobia was cured and this causes me to believe that I am a mentally unbalanced woman.

I used to love to drive. I used to drive just for the joy of driving--I drove with no destination in mind--just gas and cash and hours to kill. I went on road trips with my favorite people in which we filled the tank, drove til it was half full, and then turned around. I liked driving at night the best. I would turn up the radio and roll down the windows--before I was a mother driving was my most favorite thing to do.

I used to stand on the gas pedal of my TransAm when I was traveling from Boise to my parents house. I drove that car as if it were on rails. I climbed mountains and made hair-pins turns at the maximum speed I could generate. I didn't slow down for rain, or snow, or sleet, or ice. I liked whipping cookies and sliding sideways into parking spots and most of all I liked standing on the gas pedal when I was traveling through the Arco desert. I would bury the speedometer and watch the RPM gauge crawl higher and higher and I would wonder--how fast am I going if I am past 120 but the RPM gauge is still climbing?

And here I am thirteen years later; a woman who practically bursts into tears if I have to merge into traffic. I used to be cool and now I am a woman who views driving as a plague--unless someone pukes.

Because if someone pukes, then the anxiety is gone.

Dude, I need a pill that will turn me into the woman I was before I had kids. Do you know what that is called?

~Why Don't You Just Roll In It?~

2007-12-26T11:11:00.000-08:00

***I wrote this the day after Christmas but did not publish it out of respect for my sister-in-law Mary. The subject matter is dead animal carcass and I thought she might be offended. I am sticking it up now with this disclaimer::: Mary! Turn Away. The rest of this post is about dead swinging animals.***

Did you know that deer at the most dangerous animals (to man) in North America? True fact. When my husband suggests that he is practicing home land security by hunting he is telling a big fat lie, but a lie with a solid a basis in fact.

My beloved got his buck on the last day of deer season. He shot it with an arrow and brought the mighty man killer down. I appreciate the skill that it takes to get close enough to a big buck to kill it with an arrow. I understand that in the world of manly man type of things, poking something to death with a sharp stick has been a skill that people have applauded since the first time it happened.

The thing I hate about hunting season is the week in which the dead deer has to hang so that the blood can drip out and the meat does what ever it does when it hangs for a week. (Would that be, 'rot'?) I do not like to look at the face of my next meal--yes, the mighty buck is a man-killer and the man who can bring one down with an arrow is a stud--but I am not down with seeing the dead eyes of twenty meals for my family.

Perhaps this makes me a hypocrite. I eat meat so the logic seems to be that I should be able to look at a hanging carcass and think, "ummm...jerky!"

But is doesn't work that way for me. What I see is a dead animal and I feel sorry for it and then I get nauseated because it's tongue is hanging out of it's mouth and it's rib cage is flared open.

It doesn't bother the rest of my family. The children think it is cool to see what the inside of an animal looks like, they would like to have their picture taken by it, they want to hear the story that begins with, "I snuck up on him..." They are all pissed at me that I wouldn't cook the heart or the liver and they all think that it is hysterical that looking it at gives me the drive heaves.

I would be the only member of this family to have a bad reaction to the big Buck, except for Blue:

Blue looks like a dog that would like to get ahold of a giant piece of dead flesh doesn't he? He looks like the shifty type. At first glance at his half black, half white face you might think he was a prime candidate for the animal carcasses found in yards.

But nope.

Blue is much like me: he eats the meat but he prefers for it to arrive in a nice package. The sight of dead animal causes him to lose his shit. He barks, growls, howls and backs away. He will not approach the dangling dinner. He will not look at it, walk past it or sniff at it. In fact, when he catches sight on the carcass he gets the dry heaves.

Me and Blue, the two hypocrites who like a tasty steak, but don't want to see that steak wearing its face. We are the two people most happy on this day after Christmas--the carcass is now on it's way to the butcher shop and we no longer have to walk past the proof that Martin is the man.

Last years deer was delicious, when I cooked it the meat flew off the plates. I even enjoyed it and said things like, "Umm--this is a good one Martin, I am so glad you went hunting!" It is very possible that the reason I thought that deer tasted so good was that I never had to look at it's face, it showed up at my house just the way I like it; wrapped in white paper.

~The 'Ol man's Entourage~

2007-12-21T12:10:00.000-08:00

For as long as I have known him, my 'ol man has been surrounded by men. When he and I lived in the horse stables in Missouri, there was a group of Missouri guys with thick Missour accents and big Missouri laughs. Here in Idaho it is a different group of guys with thick Idaho accents and big Idaho laughs. When you see someone everyday for months on end, you tend to form a relationship; my relationship with Martin's enoutrage is that they come to the house and sometimes I feed them and I ask them uber-personal questions.

For as long as I have known my 'ol man he has been saying to me, "You gotta stop fucking with my friends." And he doesn't mean in the biblical sense, he means in the sense that I have to stop asking uber-personal questions. He has suggested that I make his buddies uncomfortable. I have suggested that if his buddies can't take the heat they should stay out of the kitchen.

Let me tell you about the first time I alineated myself from a member of the posse: We were in Missouri living in the stables and Martin had a bunch of guys working with him. Some of them would show up in the wee hours of the morning, I am talking in the 5:00am area of the day.

The situation was this: It was summer time. Martin and I lived in a horse stables at the end of a dead end road. Our neighbors were horses, and they would start pawing the floor before the sun came up. This sound woke me up every morning and it reminded me of two things: I had to go potty and I needed to put some clothes on before the entourage arrived.

Back in those early days, I slept nude because it was always sweaty hot and I was in bed with a sweaty hot man, and there was just no reason for clothing.

On the morning of the incident, I was walking from the bedroom to the bathroom, which was through the living room and kitchen. It was still dark outside and I was schleping my naked ass towards the bathroom. I am relatively sure I was yawning and scratching my scalp when I glanced towards the window on our back door.

And there he was. The fella. He had his hand up as if he were about to knock and his mouth was hanging open. I froze. We made eye contact. I turned to run to the bedroom, took a few steps then realized the bathroom was closer, so I turned around again and ran to the bathroom.

After relieving myself and digging through the dirty laundry to find suitable covering, I set on the toilet with my head in my hands for about fifteen minutes, utterly humiliated that I had been spotted naked and devasted at the fact that I had been spotted and I probably wasn't sucking in my gut or practicing good posture. When I deemed it safe to come out of the bathroom, I cracked the door open and found the apartment just as it had been, and Martin still sleeping.

The fella had gone back to his vehicle, where he stayed until Martin went outside to find him. And ya know what? That guy never made eye contact with me again.

~Culture Up The Wazoo~

2007-12-18T10:34:00.001-08:00

It is probably my fault that my little girl likes the symphony. It might stem from her early baby days when I would prop her between the stereo speakers and play classical music. (I did that because I thought it would soothe the savage beast long enough for me to take a shower.)

Perhaps it is all about loving music that your mother hates, and since I like almost all music, the only direction she could go was the orchestra.

Maybe my big mistake was buying her a violin so she could play in the school orchestra.

Maybe it is my fault genetically. I spawned a daughter who will find a way to get exactly what she wants, and baby girl wants a string section next to her wood-wind section.

Whatever it is: my girl likes classical music and it gives me a headache.

In the past two years she has taken me to four symphony concerts, and by "she takes me" what I would like for you to understand is that each time she said, "Will you take me?" I have said, "We can't afford it" and she replied, "but if I get tickets?" and I was stupid enough to say, "Sure, you get free tickets, I will take you."

She always manages to get free tickets. She has achieved this many different ways; I think it just boils down to the fact that when she wants something badly enough it materializes. (Note to self: convince baby girl that she wants mama to win the lottery.)

Last night we took my sister and Kate's friend to dinner and we had a typical girls on the town conversation:

"They were making out on the playground--totally gross. He said she tasted like cherries with a hint of lemon. What kind of lip gloss do you think that is?"

I handed my daughter and her friend pearls of wisdom such as, "Boys don't taste like cherries with a hint of lemon. They taste like spit, so you should avoid kissing one for as long as possible."

Then we had to stop having fun so we could go to the concert.

The concert began like every other symphony event that I have attended: someone comes out to thank the sponsors and to talk about something uplifting like maybe cancer or a childhood disease. Then someone else talks about the featured artist and suggests we buy their cd, and we clap a whole bunch of times and laugh politely at commentator jokes and we clap some more, then the music starts.

I feel like a total heathen for saying this...but...when the music starts I get a headache and I start wondering how quickly we can leave.

During the violin solo last night I whispered to my daughter:

"Check out the guy playing the bells. He has a metal spike through his face."

"No way!"

"True dat, check him out."

"Ew! Why would he do that?"

"It's a tribal thing that is becoming very popular, sort of like tattoo's or earlobe stretching."

She whispered the info to her friend and for two minutes they stared at the man and I giggled. Then he took the stick out of his mouth and ran it across the chimes to make a tinker-bell sound.

My daughter scoffed and shushed me when I laughed.

As always, a lady sang, and she had a voice like an angel and it made me cry. Kate whispered to me, "Isn't that pretty--aren't you glad we came?" and I whispered back, "if we leave right now we will beat the traffic."

"The concert has only been going for ten minutes mom."

I tried to make a break at intermission, but she didn't believe me when I told her the concert was over.

I tried to bribe her with ice cream:

"If we leave right now, I will take you out for ice cream."

"I don't want ice cream."

"I am not talking regular ice cream, I am talking cold stone creamery ice cream--the place where they mix your ice cream on a cold stone and add your favorite treat."

"I don't want ice cream."

"They have gummy bears and chocolate bits and even bubble gum."

"I don't want ice cream."

I was trying really hard to be good a culture-loving-mother during the second half. I began to pretend to be loving it for my girl. Instead of whispering lies, I started counting men in black wool coats (because I think black wool coats are sexy). I tapped my toe and clapped to the beat. I displayed my cultural excellence by resisting the urge to pull off the damn girdle.

And then the girl with the angel voice sang again, and tears dribbled from my eyes. And the famous piano guy said he wanted to have one of the sponsors read "Twas the night before Christmas" and I was done.

"gotta go!" I whispered to my daughter.

"Not over!" she whispered back.

"Gotta get Missy home before 10:00!" I whispered, then walked out of the theatre.

The evening ended with my little girl crying because she wanted to stay longer and me cranking rock and roll in the vehicle loudly so that I couldn't hear her disappointed wails.

Listen, I appreciate the culture and I think it is grand that my baby girl can pull symphony tickets out of the thin air. It makes me proud that I gave birth to a person that appreciates the classics and has the ability to play the music on a number of different instruments--

But--

I don't want to go to another symphony performance. Not unless my girl is sitting on the stage. I know that classical music is supposed to be good for me, but much like brussel sprouts, sushi and duck liver paste--I have had my fill.

The next time baby girl has tickets for the symphony, I am going to allow her father to take her. Hell, he should take the boys too, let them all steep in some flute music. I am going to refuse to attend the next event.

Unless...

...Martin gets a black wool coat and some expensive cologne and he promises to meet me in the Durango during intermission.

~Dear Santa~

2007-12-17T12:53:00.000-08:00

I am a little late getting my letter to you this year because I haven't been sure what to ask for, or how to editorialize my year so that it sounds like I was a good girl. It isn't that I was a bad girl, but I was naughty a few times. By 'naughty' I do not mean to suggest that I was bad bad girl and I need a spanking, what I mean to suggest is that I did some things that weren't super cool.

But since you are not the big JC I don't have to confess all of my sins, so let's just say I was a good-enough girl and get down to business.

Remember the year I asked for a vehicle and I got one? That was a sweet Christmas and I loved the vehicle--but I am still making monthly payments on it--so let's not have anymore of those types of gifts okay? What I mean is, if am going to have to write a check for my gift for the next thirty-six months, let's just skip it.

What I would really like for Christmas this year is a little peace. It's been a suck year and I would be most thankful if you could gift me with health and safety for all of my loved ones--I would like an entire year without a funeral. I am not sure how you can package that, probably a gift certificate would suffice.

I would also like to have some personal peace, perhaps the best way to achieve this would be a vacation to someplace warm where I could lay in the sun. I know I have been talking about the cabana boys for years and maybe you have always thought I was kidding. But I am not. I really do want a vacation with hot and cold running cabana boys and massages and drinks that contain rum and come in coconut shells and little tasty plates of food for whenst I hunger.

Earlier? When I said I was just good-enough girl, I was just being modoest, in fact I was a great girl this year.

I would also like to take a vacation with my family someplace that requires a passport. I am thinking Italy. Or Greece. Or Italy and Greece--you can surprise me with the exact location. I would like to stay in a villa for a month someplace in the country, but with metro access to Rome. This can actually count as a family gift, as I would want to look at the Sistine chapel and the Coliseum with my children in attendance. Perhaps I alone have not been good enough for this gift--but if you multiply my goodness by the goodness of each of my children and Martin? Well, it becomes a number of good with an exponent.

There is one more thing I would like to have for Christmas and that would be a cleaning person that came to my house--just once a week--to do all of those things that I never complete until company is coming over, things like dusting and mopping. I know that sometimes you like to pull out a surprise gift that is guaranteed to make my eyes roll back in my head--this the sort of gift that could do precisely that.

That's really all I want this year, just four things. I have enough jewelry, I don't want kitchen appliances and my clothing is fine--sure I could use some more socks and potty pants, but those two things are not very high priority on my list.

Alright, that's it for me.
Thanks in advance Santa!
XOXO
Deborah

P.S. If you should decide to go the sock and potty pant route, could you please make the socks toe socks and the potty pants cotton? You are a doll.

~Name That Tune~

2007-12-16T10:03:00.000-08:00

I have become very cynical when it comes to love songs. I am nauseated by love songs with sappy sentiments like, "I want to spend every second of every day just gazing at you...I want to devote my life to making sure you are happy every single second...I want to be close to you all the time, In fact, what I would like to do is shrink you down into a teeny man so I could carry you in the pocket of my skirt."

The weepy lovey ones, the kind you hear at weddings, just aren't working for me. In particular, I have a problem with Celine.

Celine! I know, how can I say such a horrible thing? There was a time when I sang, "I will always love you" at the top of my lungs with the car stereo--but the days of me singing the song that went with that movie in which the boy drowned are completely over. Two of my sisters would love nothing more than a trip to Vegas to see Celine in action and my thought on that is:

Are you crazy? Why would you willingly shell out cash for that torture?

The problem with it is that it goes on for hours. Mindy and Celine can easily spend five hours singing the same song. Over and Over. The volume on the head phones is maxxed, so I can hear the actual song--and sometimes? I think my parents are saints because they listen to it for eight hours everyday.

There are a number of things that can go wrong if the batteries die. Choice number 1 is that she decides to watch "dirty dancing" til mom and dad come get her--and that isn't going to happen for another twenty hours. During those twenty hours, Mindy will watch the part of the movie where they sing, "baby, woo-oh--whoa, my sweet bay-ay-bay..." for nine hours.

The second thing that could go wrong is she will decide she has had it with my house and she will begin calling my parents, sometimes she will call them on the phone, sometimes she will just stand in front of the window screaming, "I hate you name dad!" (What she means is that it pisses her off when she gets the answering machine in which my dad declares his name.)

Let's just say that the next level of bad hasn't truly been plumbed yet. There have been various degrees of bad, including the time she decided to walk home. It's rather hard to know what action to take when walking next to a handicapped woman who is screaming for her parents. But I am sure that she is working on something else, something extra special--something so loud and obnoxious that my parent's will never leave her alone with anyone else ever again. (This is her goal, you see--to make sure my parents are always in her sight.)

At this very moment the cd is playing and there are batteries to spare. It's a little nerve racking but it's better than any of the other options.

Now that I have made it sounds as though I do not enjoy my sister's company, let me tell you some of the things I like about her.

I like driving with her. She sits next to me in the front seat and she points to other cars on the road. "Don't hit that car Debbie." She says it about every car on the road. Once the game begins I start, "How about that house? Can I hit that house? What about that guy? Can I hit him?" Needless to say she is not impressed, she gasps each time I ask about another object in our range and when she has had enough of my hijinx she says, "I am telling mom." I always treat that as though it is grave information and then I say, "Well, I am telling mom you called me a rotten bitch." The reaction to that is sufficient that I can drive all the way to town without remembering that I hate to drive.

I like going to Walmart with her. There is always a nice parking spot close to the front.

It used to be that I was embarrassed when I was with my sister and people stared at us. I don't think it bothers Mindy, I think she believes people are checking her out because she is wearing a new coat. I have recently discovered that having people stare at you in Walmart comes with it's own benefits; people move their carts so that we can get through. And if they don't move fast enough Mindy will say, "excuse me? I am walking here?" Mindy also stops traffic. If I should stop the cart and then walk to the other side of the aisle Mindy stops the on coming carts, "My my my sister is right there--be careful!" When I am shopping with my sister, it is a liesurely expereince, there is no such thing as hurrying with Mindy, so I might as well relax and enjoy it.

It seems that Mindy soothes my two biggest phobia's, shopping and driving. That's a pretty sweet deal isn't it?

It's true that I have a long list of love song singing woman that I can no longer stomach, but who cares? Trading two phobia's for Celine seems a fair trade.

~No, I do not have my Christmas shopping done, thanks for reminding me~

2007-12-15T09:51:00.001-08:00

I hate the question, "Do you have your Christmas shopping done?" because it reminds me of how inadequately prepared I am for holidays.

It really chaps my ass when I hear it from men and they follow up with, "Yeah, I'm done--I was done two weeks ago..." and then they start naming the gifts they have purchased for the various people in their lives. I think it is particularly grating from men because I live with a man who does his Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. IF he is going shopping. There have been many Christmas's when he has purchased something expensive in November, like say a carburetor re-build kit, and he declares that my gift. I think I broke him of that habit the year I locked myself in the bathroom and sobbed, "I can't believe you really didn't get me a present--and no a fucking carburetor re-build kit DOES NOT COUNT!"

For the last few years he has gone shopping on Christmas Eve, and he makes a display out of it, "Here I am---going shopping--for YOU--I know that you want a pair of camouflage coveralls, in my size--and I am going to the Sportsman's Warehouse to get them!"

I laugh at him, like I think it is funny that he is jerking my chain and tripping out of the house on Christmas Eve. Like there is nothing to be done at the hacienda before Christmas day. It's pretty convenient that while I am cooking and wrapping and cleaning--he is going shopping.

But at least it's for me. SO I pretend he is funny, and then I tell him to take Kate. You can be assured that Kate and I have set down together and I have held a picture of jewelry up to her face, "memorize it. Remember the name of the store, practice saying, 'oh daddio! I think mom would love this one, and it's on sale!"

Martin will not be shopping at all this year, he ponied up the gift card to buy me a coat and in his mind that counts as his Christmas shopping. See, it was something new that came into the house and it counts, so he is off the hook. He probably won't even 'get' to go to Walmart with me this year, as he will have so much work to do.

But me? Am I off the hook? No! No I am not! Christmas comes careening around the corner with demands of "decorate! Give me a party! Buy me gifts! More gifts! more gifts!" and it doesn't take into consideration that December is not a 'free' month. The bills still need to be paid, and the extra money for the celebrating of the expensive holiday doesn't usually drop from heaven.

I've done some stupid money related things this year such as this: I started writing for the paper and I thought, "I will not get any of my checks til Christmas, and then I will have moolah for presents!" That sounds like a cool plan doesn't it(?), all grown up and responsible, exercising my delayed gratification organ. The problem is, I didn't fill out the paperwork, so I wasn't on the payroll. But I didn't know that--until November when I breezed into the office to pick up my handful of checks.

SO the Christmas money that I have been saving might be saved until next semester.

So no, I am not finished Christmas shopping, I've barely even begun, and when you ask me if I am finished with my Christmas shopping it just reminds me of all of the things that I need to do in the next few weeks AND that I worked at a job for an entire semester without bothering to check my payment status. "I wonder how much I am making? Won't this be a great surprise in December!"

So stop asking about my shopping status, that question just brings up a whole mess of problems I would rather not think about, not the least of which is this question:

Would it be wrong of me to suggest to my family that we become Jehovah's Wintesses during the holidays?

~The Center Of The Universe~

2007-12-12T08:42:00.000-08:00

I wore my black thong to school today and let me tell you what--I have lucky black underwear. Maybe they are lucky because they have pink stitching, maybe it is because they have a pink jewel hanging under a pink ribbon. I am not sure what makes them lucky, but I now believe in the power of the lucky undies.

Behold the power of the lucky black thong:

I needed a 75% to pass Math 025 and I received a 75.9%. (Boo-yah baby! I can do math like your average 7th grader!)

In astro-physics we played a game called "Science or Consequences." We could earn up to 50 points--and me and my black panties earned 75. I only get 50 of those points but who cares! The 50 points mean I could make an A in astro-freaking-physics. I have been a little sad that astro-physics is almost over and I can't say I am taking the class; but ya know--I could brag for the next fifty years if I make an A in astro-freaking-physics.

Sigh.

The best part of astro-freaking-physics was obviously the name. But the second best thing was the lecture in which the professor proved I was the center of the universe. My notes for that day say, "There is no center of the Universe. I am the center of the Uinverse." The logic goes a little something like this:

The universe is perpetually expanding in all directions. Therefore, the person measuring the expansion of the universe is in the center. I know this to be true because we spent two days in astro-lab plotting crap and tapping on our calculators and drawing diagrams and the end result was--I am the center.

To be honest, I always thought that I was. Oh sure, I have had some arguments with persons who have said, "You are not the center of the universe" and I replied with intelligent sounding stuff such as, "fuck you!" But now?

Now I have a scientific calculator and I can tap on it just enough to create a giant number that ends with an "E" and that empirically proves that I am the center of the freaking universe.

And now I am off to bait my husband. I am not exactly sure how I can create an argument in which he declares I am not the center of the universe, but I have faith in my lucky thong and I am confident that I can either prove to him mathematically that I am the center of the universe...

Or...I can use the lucky thong for evil and make him moan the words. Either way, before the clock strikes midnight my beloved will say that I am the center of the universe.

(BTW, you are also the center of the universe--lucky thong or no lucky thong. You can prove it to yourself by getting out the calculator and doing random mathematical things til you get an E. I highly suggest you get a lucky thong though--so you can be the center of the universe with a cute jewel hanging in the crack of your ass.)

~Well Now, That Explains It~

2007-12-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

So it is dead week and that means that some of my grades are coming in. I scored a B+ in my astro-physics lab (yes, astro-physics is just astronomy--but doesn't it sound like I am much more intelligent when I say, "Astro-Physics"?)Today I find out if I passed algebra. The algebra class that is a repeat of the first half of the semester--the class I failed and I am retaking.

This is the first Tuesday morning in many weeks that I haven't had a butt load of homework to complete before I go to class. In fact, I have no homework to complete. I do have a buttload of housework though. It's almost Christmas and I should clean carpets and mop and remove my laundry pile--right?

For the last two years I have gotten ill around the end of the semester: migraines, nausea diarrhea--the whole ball of phlegm. I have resigned myself to the awful fact that finals stress me out so badly that I become physically ill. I have begun to wonder if I can hack an academic life--what about after I graduate and I have a dead-line? Will I be forty something and puking because I have a job to complete?

This morning I realized it isn't the academic stress that gives me the icks--it is the end of academic work that gives me the icks.

Check it, after next week I will have a couple weeks off from school, and this means I have no excuse for my laundry pile or my dirty floors or my streaky mirrors. Currently I can justify the fact that I haven't mopped the floor in way to long; "I don't have time to mop. I have a final paper to write."

Besides the house work that I avoid because I am studying, there are also the other tasks. Can I help out with the kindergarten Christmas project? Gosh, I would love to--but I have a test. Can I babysit the infant of a friend two days a week? Sure wish I could--but I have to write a paper. Would I be willing to help build a float? Shoot--I love building floats, but unfortunately--I have school.

It isn't the school work that makes me ill, it is the other work. I am not pooping water because of a test in Astro-physics, I am pooping water because the tests are over, and now I am going to have to cook meals--from scratch!

So it seems the reason I get sick during the final weeks of school is: I am basically lazy.

The up-side of the final weeks of school and the sickness is that I drop the pounds. Remember when I wrote about my quest to fit into the pants with the cute appliqued pockets? Those pockets fit perfectly right now. In fact (and I hate to brag) I could make a meal out of cheesecake and copper camels for an entire week, and I might still be able to slip into those suckers.

And now I am off to my final algebra class. This means I only have one more day of school this week, and only one day of school next week. *urp*

~No, I haven't been crying~

2007-12-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

There is this new thing going on with the aging process and my eyes. I come from a long line of women who have bags above and below their eyes; because of that excellent genetic trait, I have always had an extra bit o' flesh around my eyes. I am one of those people that smiles, and their eyes disappear into the folds of flesh.

In the last few months Martin has stared at me for a few seconds and then he gently asks, "Have you been crying?"

"No? Why? Are you saying I have puffy eyes?"

And indeed, I do.

It seems I am growing an entire pound of flesh in the crease of my eyelid and the effect is that my eyes are puffy. I look like I have either been crying or that I need a really good long sleep.

The jokes on me though, because it is genetic--the bags, they are a-coming.

I am not sure how to handle this situation with my old man. I could shatter his illusions and simply say, "Get used to it baby, I am getting old and I am developing my eye bags. Give me a few years and I will look like I am smuggling cherry tomatoes."

Or I could say, "Yes, I have been crying. And it's something you did."

I am thinking that I could drop the yes I have been crying line a few times and I then I could say, "I have been crying because I am exhausted. I need a good rest. Perhaps the only way to relieve my baggy eyes is to let me have a vacation--send me somewhere that I can lay in the sunshine, get some massages and have cabana boys bringing me beverages and little platters of tasty food each time I look as though I am thirsty or hungry."

Ya know, even if the second excuse only worked once it would be totally worth it. Sure, he would realize that I had exxaggerated after the vacation was over--but who cares? Letting him send me on a eye bag removing vacation would be good a nice chance for him to feel as if he were doing something to renew his baggy eyed wife--
Shit, the man is married to me for life, I should let him have the illusion that my baggy eyes are a temporary situation and not just foreshadowing for the way his bride is going to age.

~Goodbye Baby~

2007-12-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

Many years ago I was a first time mother with an infant child who cooed herself to sleep. Every evening I would put her in her crib and then her father and I would listen to the delicious dove coo's that came from her room until she had fallen asleep.

"We should record the sound of Katie putting herself to sleep" I said to my husband countless nights.

"Yeah, we should." He would reply.

But we never did, because we were brand new parents and we thought there would always be another chance to catch the sound.

Now it is twelve years later and I have sent my youngest child to Kindergarten. It is his first experience riding the bus, and he was over-joyed with the idea.

On his first day I walked him to the bus so that I could meet the driver. I kissed him goodbye at the stairs and stood by the side of the road waving til the bus disappeared from my view. The months went on, I stopped walking him to the stairs and sending him with a kiss.

Instead, I stood in the doorway and waved to him as he ran to the bus. Everyday for the last four months I have stood in the door waving to my son and blowing him kisses.

The Ikeman waves back. He blows me kisses and jumps into the air to catch the kisses that I blow to him. He shapes his fingers into a gun, then kisses his thumb and says, "pshew!" as he shoots the kisses at me. I clutch my heart, then make a gun with my fingers, kiss my thumb and shoot a kiss back.

"I need to record the goodbye on video, because he won't do this forever" I have thought many times this year.

Yesterday I got out the camera and taped the long goodbye. I recorded the my tiny boy getting on the bus, but taking time to blow his mother kisses before he left my view.

Today my little boy said, "Mom, I can't wave at you outside anymore, I have to wait until I get on the bus."

Apparently the few seconds that he takes to shoot kisses at his mother are a transportation problem. Maybe it is the couple seconds it takes for him to jump into the air to catch the kisses I have blown at him. Those seconds probably create a time constraint.

As of today, my son no longer pauses to blow me kisses, instead he gets on the bus and (I assume) waves and blows kisses to me from behind windows that are tinted just enough that the students inside can't be seen.

But that's okay.

Twelve years ago I didn't tape my daughters cooing voice because I thought it would last forever. Yesterday I taped my son's big goodbye because I am aware that my little boy will eventually stop blowing me kisses before he gets on the bus.

I am glad that I taped the final kiss blowing event so that someday he can watch it and see what he cute kid he was. I didn't tape it because I was afraid I would forget. I am sure that twelve years from now his goodbye kisses will be as memorable to me as the sound of my infant daughter cooing herself to sleep.

~Rated R For Graphic Content~

2007-12-04T17:45:00.000-08:00

(That title means if you know me personally and want to continue having a relationship in which you can look me in the eyes without blushing--stop reading now.)

Now that I have my new rated R website, I have decided to fess up with some rated R information. I am confessing because I am hoping to hear that I am not abnormal, this happens to other women.

So.

The Fall semester is wrapping down and that means there are final tests to take. The final test are not to be confused with "The Final"--that is two weeks away. But this is the final exam in which I get to see how well I am doing. I am doing so well that I have diarrhea and a migraine and...

...and? I have sexy dreams about my professors.

They are weird sexy dreams because the professors are not exactly sex dream material. And sometimes? It's a female professor.

It happens to me every semester: The professor that I am most intimidated by shows up in my dreams.

Let us say, just for example, that I was going to take an astronomy test that has me anxious. I need a good grade because good grades fill a void in my heart, sort of like the Grinch's heart was filled when he gave the presents back to the villagers. (Except not like that because the Grinch's heart grew by giving back the presents. But my heart isn't going to grow, because it is already a great big size. But it has pockets that need to be filled with good grades. )

In pursuit of the good grades, I study and try to memorize random facts in a rhymy fashion (I have a great song for the planets in the solar system). I crawl into bed still thinking random facts and I drift off to sleep.

But I get to just that spot of sleep where I am not sure if I am asleep or awake, and then Martin rolls into my back and curls his arms around my mid-section. He nuzzles my shoulder with his unshaved chin and breathes in my ear.

He says something like, "HII regions have temperatures of around 10,000K."

And that is when I swoon.

I wiggle the back of myself closer to the front of hisself and he whispers in my ear, " HII regions are generally found in the spiral arms of the galaxy."

I pull his hand off my rib-cage and bring it to my lips so that I can taste his fingers and he continues giving me facts that cause me to twine my legs around his and to arch my head so that his lips can get closer to my throat.

Then he starts talking about dark nebulas and interstellar dust matter, in my professors voice. It's hits my erotic spot and I roll over. And he rolls over; he presents me with his back: The back I have been rubbing for fifteen years, I know the mole pattern and the muscularity. I know the texture and the scent of his skin. I run my hands over him and then lean over him so that I can let my hair trail over his skin. I swirl my head around so that my hair caresses his side, neck, back, stomach.

"Nebulosity provides the seed material for new stars."

And now I am ready for the take down. I reach my hand towards the front of him and he says, "blah blah (sexy professor voice) blah blah...creating a zone of avoidance."

That's when I realize that it is my professor in my bed. It isn't an awkward situation (as you might think it would be). I simply dismount and lay my head down on my pillow and look into the eyes of my professor who goes on, "Dust clouds hide our view of regions beyond the Milky Way." I listen to him/her lecture for awhile. Then I turn over and nestle my back into the curves of Martin's body.

I haven't taken many psychology classes, but I think my dreams means that I find education HUGELY satisfying.

It also means that after having such a dream it is hard not to blush when the professor says the word, "bulge" or "a non-zero chance for penetration."

~Temporary Man Syndrome~

2007-12-03T18:54:00.000-08:00

I have recently decided that I do not suffer from PMS. I suffer from TMS--temporary man syndrome. For four days of the month I am pissed off. If you were to ask me what I was pissed off about a good answer would be, "yes."

My beloved discovered this trait many years ago and during these four days he says things such as, "You are going to have to forgive me, but I turn into an idiot every twenty-eight days." And it's true. He does.

I have just recently transitioned from TMS to the next stage in which I am weepy and ever so sorry that I was such an asshole last week. I carry my bloated body around and think that I could be a little nicer. I could share my stuff and furthermore, if I wasn't such a crappy mother my kids would eat a hot breakfast with some sort of breakfast meat every morning. It is usually shortly after I cry because of the lack of breakfast meat in the lives of my children that I also begin to wonder if I have ever made a good decision in my life.

Let me tell you what, for two days of every month I want to hug a bottle of whine, listen to Norah Jones and write apology letters to every person I have ever had a social interaction with, but I don't do that because I am lazy. Somewhere in the midst of the pity party I develop a migraine AND I get diarrhea and nausea. I am never really sure if the migraine and nausea are psychosomatic symptoms cleverly devised by my body so that I can declare I am sick and I must sleep all day long.

This means that in the midst of feeling sorry for myself and feeling crappy, I also begin to wonder if I am making myself ill because I am actually a very crazy woman who should be institutionalized.

Preferably in an institute that has daily massages and nap time.

So! I am currently rotating through the, "I suck and I am sick and tired and probably crazy" phase of my life just before finals.

Which is typical, I mean-why would they schedule finals for another week, like say the five days of the month when my pants fit, my skin looks good, my hairy is a glossy mane and my sex life is hitting on all eight cylinders?

The upside is that finals make me sick anyway--no matter which way the hormones are blowing. I look back over blogs from years passed and I see that finals happened, and I was sick. I am like a spiritual healer that can heal based on the feeling of the spirit, except I am nothing like a spiritual healer. I can, however, make myself physically ill with the slightest bit of academic pressure.

What I am is a woman. And the whole hormone cycle is enough of a good thing already. I am looking forward to menopause, when I can have TMS all year long.

~X-mas Picture Time~

2007-12-02T17:16:00.000-08:00

Today the family and I drove to Mesa Falls to have our Christmas picture taken. It was my idea. I have lived in Idaho since I was four years old, and it didn't really occur to me that the road might be impassible. It didn't occur to me because I am not very smart.

You see, it is December 2nd in Idaho and Mesa Falls is on top of a mountain. I wasn't thinking about winter and a mountain--I was thinking about Mesa Falls and pictures such as this:

Seriously, wouldn't it be cool to take a Christmas photo in such a scenic spot as that? There is a waterfall. Do you have a waterfall in your photo? I bet you don't.

So we loaded into the Durango and headed up the mountain. I am not going to lie to you--it wasn't fun. We passed people on snowmobiles who gave us disapproving looks and shook their heads. We trudged on because we were committed; the fact that we were driving on a snowmobile trail up a mountain road with no guard rails mattered naught.

Okay. It mattered some. It mattered a whole lot to the little boy looking out the window. He had a commentary running: "And then the father did a hoopy-de-hoo and the whole family slid down the hill to meet a bloody death on the rocks below."

(He is overly dramatic. I blame me.)

The father did not do a hoopy-de-hoo and we did not meet a bloody death on the rocks below. Instead we wallowed in two feet of snow down a path snow covered path.

There was some griping about the shoes and some kvetching about the stairs, but when we got to the falls,it was a pretty spectacular view. I wish I had pictures to show you, but unfortunately we only had two batteries, and they came from the "Leap Frog' and we weren't sure how much juice they had. (they had enough juice for one picture).

You might wonder why we risked our lives to take pictures at a waterfall and we only brought two cheap batteries. But then you would be a nay sayer, and we aren't nay sayers. We are yes sayers who got two pictures. The first one could be titled, "Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you incredibly pissed off to see me?

The second is my daughter's favorite. Probably because she looks cute. My only problem with the picture is Martin and I look like dumb and dumber:

After that picture our batteries died. We spent the next hour climbing back up the mountain. The kids all complained about being cold. They suggested their cloth shoes weren't fit for the excursion, and I suggested they shut-up and make sure they don't mess up their hair.

What can I say, I am good mom.

We drove back through: "Do not cross this line: if you do prepare to freeze to death because we will not find you until spring " snow. It was a hassle. there was some crying (me) and some suggesting that we would die (Jake )But we made it.

We went to Pond's Lodge. I bought new batteries and suggested we try to make it to the cabin. The kids loved the idea, and when I say 'loved" I mean they would agree to anything for hot chocolate:

The road looked like this:

We took two pictures at the creek:

The kids weren't loving the winter creek as much as they loved the summer creek, and when I say they weren't loving it I mean they were all crying, "but mom...our tiny little hands and miniscule fingers, we can no longer feel them...please mommy dearest, may we go back to the warm vehicle?"

Kids. That don't get the import of the Christmas card picture do they?

Anyway. Which of these shots would you chose for your card?

Numero Uno: (the one which baby girl loves because she looks adorable and her parent's look like they ride the short bus):

Numero dos: The one in which the parents look good enough to be invited to your next swapper party.

Uno or dos. You tell me, and I will make the cards.

If you would like to receive an official Chessey family card, leave your address in the comments and I will put you on my list. If you are concerned about giving your address to a random internet person, consider this: if you give me your address that means my mother will have your address and she may send you a stylish sweater set. (and when I say "may" I mean: not a chance in hell. But I will send you a card.)

Irrational Bitch

2007-11-30T11:39:00.000-08:00

I am pretty sure my daughter threw herself on her bed and that sobbed into her pillow, "My mom is an irrational bitch!" I am pretty sure that is what she did, because that is exactly what I told her to do before I banished her from my sight. It isn't everyday that a mother says to her daughter, "Go to your room and sob my mom is an irrational bitch into your pillow."

I am trying to switch up the discipline method a little bit. Maybe telling my daughter that names she should call her mom is a bad idea--but I was at the end of my rope and something drastic needed to be done.

It was a basic type of argument. I asked her to make a salad, she said, "I have to do homework!" and *POOF* she was gone. One hour later she came to ask me if she could play on the computer, I reminded her that I had asked her to make a salad an hour ago--and it was on.

And by on I mean she started crying. again. and whining. as usual. I started suggesting that she should shut up or leave my presence cause I have had it with the whining. And than I told her she could not play on the computer.

I don't need to relay all the finer details, if you are not the parent of a pre-teen, you were once a pre-teen and you understand the injustice of the parent child situation. Naturally my daughter began to question my sanity by saying, "But you never asked me to..."

and that is when I told her to go to her room and sob about her mother, the irrational bitch. As a discipline method, it probably didn't work very well. But, it did take her to her room and out of my space. Which is a good thing because as she gets older I find harder and harder to avoid corporal punishment.

I gave up spanking a few years ago and sometimes I think that was a bad idea. If I was still a spanker, I could just smack her til she shut-up, and some days I am thinking that would be a cathartic experience. For me.

I am flummoxed by this pre-teen that is living in my house, she has habits that drive me mad. I believe she spends a good portion of her time in the house without me doing things like hiding my favorite shoes, removing my favorite eyeshadow and drowning in my lotion and perfume. I know that she goes through my hair accessories, and if she is left alone for seconds with my purse she is sure to rape it of lip stick and mechanical pencils.

She is sort of like my little sisters with her constant raiding of my personal supplies. The difference between my little sisters and my daughter is that I could beat up my sisters when I found them dancing around in my clothing--and I can't beat up my daughter.

From what I gather, the pre-teen years are sweet compared to teen years, and the official teen years begin in March.

Please light a candle for me and say prayers.

~Laxatives or Frostbite?~

2007-01-02T20:23:00.000-08:00

I just made such a rookie mistake: I bought a pair of jeans because they had appliques on the pockets and I thought that my ass looked like an apple when I was wearing them. Clearly, I had to purchase them. When I got them home and tried them on with my cool new sea green sweater, I realized that I had an entire handful of gut hanging over the rim. Not just front gut, but back fat. In two places. I had the "my bra is a bit to tight" fat and that entire area from my rib cage to the baby factory slumped happily over the top of my pants.

It was dismaying.

I tried the pants with various shirts and realized that the belly fat is going to poke out unless I wear the poofiest of sweaters--and who cares of my ass looks like an apple if I have a marshmallow body on top of that?

My options are: buy bigger pants or get rid of the pudge around my middle.

Just today, previous to the applique pants, I wrote a blog about how cool I was with my body. I was all, "ha ha media moguls! I am not your slave! I look fine and I won't diet! Or exercise! Cause I am neat and groovy and so cool with my self!"

And then I found the applique pants.

Clearly I can not take the pants back to the store for a bigger size; that would defeat the purpose of 'ass like an apple' pants. No, taking the pants back is not the answer.

The answer is to start doing the yoga/pilates thing again. And I should probably count the carbs and blah blah blah. The problem is: when I do the low carb diet, I get slim rather quick. The reason could be the low carbs, or it could be that the giant cheese/bacon ball in my gut can only be passed with massive amounts of laxatives. So, if the low carb diet only works because of the laxatives, how 'bout I stay at my current diet and just take the laxatives?

Cute applique pants are how eating disorders are spawned.

I could start walking again, but it is winter. In Idaho. It's cold. I could frostbite my nose off--and who would care that my pants were cute if I had no nose?

It looks like I am going to have to go back to the yoga/pilates. Primarily I will go back because I like the way my body feels after a couple weeks of yoga. Pilates makes me feel tall and stretchy--I like that.

The problem with the Yoga is that my mother believes that when a person is doing yoga, they are inviting the demons to possess their bodies through their various chakras. I explained to her that opening a chakra simply meant getting the body in line--the head over the shoulders, the back straight--she asked me if I thought the devil was going to come to my house, knock on the door and stand there with a red pitch fork, a tail and goats feet; did I think that man was going to say, "hello Debbie. I am the devil. May I please possess your soul?"

NO!

That is not how the forked one works. He comes in all slick and shiny like--sneaks in sideways with a wink and a promise.

When I was finished speaking with my mother I thought she had a point. The devil wouldn't come in all forked and sunburned. He would waltz in with applique pants and he would say, "No shit sug--your ass looks like an apple in these jeans. Do some yoga, lose the love handles."

SO pray for me.

I gotta go in. The pants are calling to me--and I do like the way my body feels when I do yoga. I am not intentionally letting the devil in--but just to be safe, I will think of Jesus when I stand in mountain pose.

~This reminds me of...~

2006-11-28T13:37:00.000-08:00

When I was seventeen years old, I left home and moved to West Yellowstone Montana with two of my friends. We were all hired at the Executive Inn and the job came with housing--we had an apartment with a fourth girl. The apartment was two bedrooms,so we split up into teams of two. We arrived with very little money and even fewer groceries and approximately zero idea's about how to budget our food dollars. Consequently, we spent a couple of weeks being hungry--but that was alright because the hotel had a pool and we spent hours perfecting our tans by that pool. (And every young woman knows tht a hungry belly is a sexy belly.)

On the day that we arrived we took care of all of the important things first: we claimed a bed and fixed our make-up and put on sexy clothes. We walked to the motel to check in. Now. At that time I was under the impression that I had been hired to be the desk clerk, and the other two girls were maids. I was feeling pretty good about my position. Good enough to be a smart ass about it. When we checked in we had a conversation with the manager. I do not remember the exact words but I do recall one of my roomies claiming she would make the better desk clerk and me saying she was right because I needed a calculator to count to ten.

But see, I wasn't being serious. I was secure in my position and so I made light of it.

The next morning we woke early and dressed for our jobs. I put on a dress, nylons and high heels. I teased my hair and felt very grown-up and professional. My room mate who claimed she would make a better desk clerk left early--wearing jeans and a t-shirt. The rest of us followed shortly after.

Halfway to the hotel, I saw my roomie running home from the hotel--and this was a crucial hint as she wasn't exactly the athletic type. When she reached us she said that the jobs has been switched, she was the clerk I was the maid and she needed to go change. I marched my heeled self to the hotel, spoke with the manager and found out that the information was true.

I thought I was a desk clerk, but I was really just a maid. As I walked back to the apartment I understood that I had made a crucial mistake when I had a smart assed comment about my abilities. I was overly confident, and therefore I didn't state the facts: by 17 I could already type faster than a mother fucker AND I could count to a million. Maybe higher. It was quite the horrible moment when I passed my roomie on the sidewalk againg--this time she was wearing nylons and heels and I was going to change into toilet scrubbing gear.

I spent my first three months in West Yellowstone as a maid. I was disappointed--but not disappointed enough to give up an apartment with three girls. I got another job at a t-shirt store, and eventually I got the desk clerk job. I even climbed the ranks to be made assistant office manager. (My roomie was the office manager. If you think that being her assistant burned my shorts you would be partially accurate. It did burn my shorts--but not half as much as my shorts were burned by her consistent good hair days.)

Today I am reminded of that incident. I feel like I am walking towards the hotel in high heels and a fancy dress to claim my rightful position as a desk clerk, but I am going to find out I am really just a maid.

Shoot.

~I Need Defragged~

2006-09-17T18:51:00.000-07:00

I am writing here this evening because I can't seem to get on paper any of the real writing that I need to do. I am taking a mental break from yams and mermaids and coins and dishes and children and laundry and CIS exams and bipeds and instead I am stewing in my own juices and my extreme agitation that I am not getting laid right at this very second. Right now would be good.. or now...how about NOW!

I don't think it is just me that gets this pent up about it, sex is one of the bonuses of being a human being. In fact, I am sure that the brochure for being a human female includes the words, "Dude, you can so have sex anytime you want too--and sex is a good time."

Unfortunately, I have reached the stage of my life where I no longer think about it all the time. Back in the day (monday through Sunday), sex was always on my mind, and consequently I got my daily ration. I woke up in the morning planning the sex, and jumping through the hoops that would make it possible. I took care of all of the physical attributes required for sex--things like shaving above the knee and wearing a thong--I addressed all of the more subtle areas such as the flirting and the ego caressing that go along with having a 'happy' man around.

And then I started doing other things, and now I am only aware of sex when it has been so long since I had sex that I am angry about it. Not angry as in, "Fuck you! I am out!" But angry as in, "Tonight? Tonight I am going to hurt you, and you are going to like it."

I have transcended the 'making love' stage and I am in a new dark area where I view sex much the same as I view the defragging of the computer: it has to be done so that other functions will run faster. It isn't that I want to be gently caressed and kissed and all that foreplay stuff--I want to be made to forget all of the things that I need to remember, and when I am done forgetting I want all of the things that I need to remember to be lined up properly. And a good orgasm organizes that shit.

That isn't a very romantic view is it? I do love my man and I respect him and blah blah blah and all that other shit but today? Today I want him to stop respecting me as an indiviudal and the mother of his children. I am not interested in words of love and adoration. I don't have time for the seduction game, though I do appreciate a shower, tooth brushing and shave.

I just need defragged so that I can do the things that I need to do.

Humor: What I wouldn't give - Life

2006-09-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

Humor: What I wouldn't give - Life

~Ah Man~

2006-08-29T18:47:00.000-07:00

I am overwhelmed.

When I signed on for all of my new life changes--the ones that are going in the direction that I dreamed my life would go--I did not consider a few important things:

1. A bathroom needs to be cleaned once a week. Minimum.
2. Laundry does not do itself.
3. I have to make sure three people eat three times a day. Everyday.
4. Kids in school have homework.
5. Pieces of paper that are brought to me from the mail, kids, spouse, bank and school all need to be filed somewhere.
6. Linoleum needs to be mopped.
7. Leftovers will never get eaten, nor will they be thrown away.
8. Kids do not floss unless a parent is present.
9. Cars need to be tuned.
10. Mother's should be called.

There's my list of ten area's in which I am totally failing; if I were honest I would add twenty more. The saddest part of the list is that it has to do with my inner-personal relationships and my personal worth as a wife and a mother.

I am making selfish decisions about my life right now. Usually I am fairly confident that I am moving in the right direction. But then I go another week without seeing my mother, and another night saying to my children, "Just do the dishes--it is YOUR responsibility. You are members of a working family--do your work!" I forget to touch base with my brother. I pass another evening when I do not say "Now I lay me's" with my children, and another night in which my beloved goes to bed without me. Another Sunday passes without my family in a pew, and another Wednesday goes by when I am not at the golf course with Mrs Jones. I miss my morning gossip/coffee ritual with Kim, and I haven't had my sister in my home so that she can watch her "Dirty Dancing" dvd in months. I haven't kissed my daddy, or sent my father an e-mail, or asked the lesbian's how things are simmering on the home front. I am not peeling enough vegetables, and the only clothes that I have ironed this week have belonged to me. When my children are crying I am more concerned about how to shut them up then I am with why they are crying. I haven't gone for a walk, or pulled a weed or mowed the lawn or written to Robin to see how life in Illinois is treating her. I don't call my sister's unless I need something from them and I haven't been to the bird refuge to see if the Pelican's are migrating.

Ah man.

This it the time of the month when I wonder if I am making the right decisions or if I am merely making the selfish decisions.

~Sup Dawg~

2006-08-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

The children and I are back in school, and I got the job working for the Bengal Newspaper. It has been a pretty busy week, but I know it is only gearing up to get better. The first week of school is the woe-ing period. Class time is so sweet and fun, and the professor seems so laid back and understanding--and then the final day to drop the class arrives and the professor walks into class with a whip and he/she declares, "Alright bitches, get to work."

Ikeman's first day of school will be September 5th. He will be in preschool and he is already in love with the name of his teacher. He has only met her once, and he held my hand and kept his lips clamped tight for the entire exchange. He is in love with the idea of going to school, but the reality of doing it scares him. It also scares me. I have had his hearing checked and it is fine--but his speech is not what it should be. I am anticipating speech therapy for the boy and this makes me sad--he seems so perfect to me right now, why would we have to change him?

Kate got her first pair of glasses and her first violin and I am probably not allowed to say it--her first bra. She is tall enough that her head reaches to the bottom of my chin. When she and I go out together and people tell her that she looks like her mother, she blushes and says thank-you. The glasses that she picked for herself look very similar to my glasses, and she has started wearing a shell necklace that looks like my shell necklace. It pleases me that she is trying to emulate her mama. I am sure that the day is coming when she wants to be autonomous and so she will change everything about herself that she perceives is the same as her mother. She is already the antithesis of me in the areas of math. My daughter got the presidents award of academic excellences for her abilities in math; I can't multiply positive and negative numbers.

Jake is starting to look like the man he is going to be. He has lost all of his baby roundness, and he is getting tall. He is skinny and ripped, he likes to flex his stomach so that his ribs poke out and his six pack appears. He has his father's teeth and hair and attitude. He is my child that is most likely to share. If he has cash and his siblings do not, he gives them cash. If Kate's ice cream bowl is finished before his, he will give her a bite from his bowl. He is in the third grade this year and I wonder if he is as good at school as he is as home. And, God forbid--is he has bad?

Time seems to be pooling around me. I am always rushed, but sometimes I move at a leisurely pace. The important things are looming in front of me, but the little things are so much nicer to pay attention too. Last year at this time I was stressed about how I would handle school and my life. This year I added three jobs to that equation and I am sure that I will have enough time to do everything that it is important for me to do.

Five and Six and Seven years ago, I was lying in my bed napping my days away and dreaming of what my life would be like if I was a writer. I spent a lot of days sleeping and dreaming about what it would be like because I was too tired to get up and and find out. I found my reality of being a young mother so bleak--piles of laundry and mounds of dishes and stacks of diapers and overflowing garbage cans and kids clinging to my hands and legs and chest--that I took daily naps to escape my reality and float to the magical places where I was living in my dream of being a writer.

I want to thank all of you that have been reading my blog since I began blogging. It was your voices that told me I didn't have to just dream about it, I could actually do it. You are the wind beneath my wings dammit. If I hadn't found blogging and all of you--I would probably still be taking four hour naps every afternoon so that I could dream about how it would be.

Time may be pooling around me, but the list of things that I have committed myself to is pretty long. I am excited to see my name in print, I can't wait to write my paper about the Trobrianders and there are still fish to catch in Island Park. I have a lot of plans, a lot of obligations and a whole shit load of responsibilities.

I probably won't be writing here very often, but when I do write it will be something that I think is important for me to remember.

~It Is In Your Best Interest~

2006-08-13T23:01:00.000-07:00

A while ago, a young lady called me and she said, "Can you keep a secret?"

I responded, "No. No I can not."

She proceeded to give her confidential information none-the-less, apparently it could not be contained. I would be true to my promise that I can not keep a secret and I would give it up now, except that the secret was such an average secret that I have already forgotten it.

But you should know this: My secret vault is chalk full. It can not contain one more tasty tid-bit. The stuff that I locked in there is secure, but no more information can be stuffed inside. Not an iota of anything gossipy should be passed to me.

I can't keep a secret.

I really can't.

Furthermore, if it is a secret you shouldn't be telling me (or anyone else).

I recently blurted a secret that shouldn't have been handed to me. (I blame the guy that gave me the secret for giving me the secret and thus ruining his own life. He should have known better than to tell ME.)

It went down like this: I am in the garage smoking with my beloved and some boys. (Twenty something boys with awesome back muscles) and I had this conversation with one such (hotish) young man.

HYM: I bought her a ring. My god, she is just my everything--we have been together for two years, we bought a house and I want to marry her.

Me: That is awesome! She rocks. She is so pretty and smart and funny--you are lucky to nail her.

HYM: I know, she is my whole life...I love her so much...blah de blah de drunken I love her so much blah...

ONE MONTH after this conversation, I ran into the happy couple at an event. I congratulated the bride to be on her engagement and she responded: "Huh? We are not engaged."

The fella with the ring has not presented it to her yet.

Oops.

How was I to know that the fella with the ring has balls the size of mustard seeds and he hasn't actually popped the question?

It is just another blaring reminder that I should not be presented with secrets.
Don't tell me any of yours. Really, I do not want another secret and you should know:

I am left handed and therefore I can not be trusted.

~Peek-a-boo!~

2006-08-04T22:45:00.000-07:00

So, I was going to write a post titled, "Freako Suave and Mother Cerveza". It was going to be about my ex-husband who is getting ready to enter into a polygamous marriage with two totally hot chics.

But then I reminded myself that, "No! I do not write gossip at my blog!" and I decide to write about something else instead. (Though the Mother Cerveza things still holds true, as I have downed a few cerveza's this evening.)

First, I would like to entertain you with a few photo's of toys that my children own. (the peek a boo thing should be apparent; and so should the reason that my boys wake screaming in the middle of the night.)

Second, I am going to share a story with you that made my (current)husband say, "That's a pretty lesbian thing to do Deb."

An undisclosed woman arrived at my house (let's call her "mare") with her buddy (let's call her "wanda") and this conversation came up:

Me: Do you work out? Because, your arms are fabulous."
Wanda: No I do not, but people ask me that often.
Mare: Your arms are great, what size of bra do you wear?
Wanda: 38 C
Me: No way, I am a 38C, and I do not have a rack like that.
Mare: I am also a 38C
Me: There is no fucking way that we have the same size of tits.
Wanda: What kind of bra are you wearing?
Me: Victoria Secrets Ipex, and I got measured for it, so I know it is right.
Mare: Me too!
Wanda: I am wearing the Ipex also.
Me: No fucking way.
Mare: Look! (shows tag of pink bra.)
Me: Dude, check this out (shows tag of tan bra)
Wanda: (shows Ipex tag of black bra.)
Me: Okay, but--did you guys get fitted, cause there is no way that we are all the same size.

After that conversation, we went to the bathroom and stood in the mirror with a full frontal view of each of us.

And holy shit.

38C may be the right measurement for all of us, but we do not look the same. I assumed that when you were fitted for a bra that meant that your boobs looked exactly like everyone else with your size.

But no.

I felt like I had been transported back to the eight grade scoliosis test and I was the only girl in line who didn't need a bra. (Obviously we had this conversation after the pillow fight, but before the tickle war.)

My beloved thinks that ladies comparing tits is questionable, but as for me? Nah. Mare take tasteful nudes and has seen hundreds of areola. Wanda and Mare have been buddies since the third grade. I had no desire to cup or touch any of the breasts exposed.

I did have a desire to drink another beer and that night I reminded myself of the cardinal rule, "Must not drink then blog."

Tonight? Still not moved by breasts, but I am ignoring the cardinal rule.

~Better Than a Side Road~

2006-08-01T09:39:00.000-07:00

I am currently in a house that is occupied by just my kids. It's quiet, ahhh. The trip to CO was uneventful. We drove through the night talking about Carl Marx and plagiarism with my cousin Dan, and the two men took turns driving. I guess they didn't want me to drive because I have a history of getting lost. Our stay in Colorado was most excellent, we went to a county fair and to the VFW to watch my Uncle play in a band. We stopped at the Garden of the Gods and all of my costumes worked as they were supposed to; the only problem is I only packed two costumes, and I was gone for four days. So I had to recycle. These means that I arrived at home wearing the same shirt I left in; except that it came home with food stains on it.

What I would most like to talk about today is Rest Area's--in the last month I have spent quite a lot of time in rest area's, and I am developing a rating system. Kansas is in last place, Idaho is in first place (based on cleanliness and services provided). Wyoming is hovering near the middle.

Wyoming doesn't have many rest area's. There are plenty of pull out spots with garbage cans, but not many facilities for the disposal of human waste. Well. At least female human waste, as men don't have a problem relieving themselves at the side of the road. The rest area's that Wyoming does have are very visually pleasing. There are picnic spots, and the toilets are clean looking and toilet paper is provided. The graffiti is mostly standard, though I did see a sticker on one door that pleased me enough that I took a picture. (Yeah, I was sitting on the stool while I was snapping this shot.)

The problem with the Wyoming rest areas is that they are equipped with self flushing toilets that are incredibly sensitive. So, if you were a woman having a hard time holding the hover, the toilet flushes many times and the toilet water spray--which goes much further than you think it does--mists the back side. I know this is true because it happened to me.

Ever since I had children, I have had a very picky bowel. I have a hard time evacuating the contents anywhere but in my own home. By the third day of traveling this can get uncomfortable. On the fourth day I get a narrow window of opportunity to make the deposit, and I have only one chance to get the job done. If anything interurpts me during the process, I loose it. (If you have ever had the urge to take a shit, and then lost it you know the agony of which I speak.)

SO, in Wyoming--trying to hold the hover--the toilet flushed and splashed me with water. As soon as the mist hit me the bowel slammed shut and suggested it wait til we get home. I gave up on the hover because after getting splashed by rest area toilet water, anything on the seat is already all over me. While sitting and trying to talk my bowel into giving it one more try a woman opened the door. Which caused me to jump, and caused the toilet to flush again and that was the end of that.

I got misted with toilet water, and I didn't even lay a rail.

It probably isn't fair to the Wyoming Rest Area Operators Union for me to give their effort a three out of five rating because I wasn't able to drop a duke. Unfortunately, I blame the self flushing toilet and not my own system.

I am trying to make nice with my own system.

~It's All About His Recovery~

2006-07-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

Martin finally went to the doctor today. Excuse me, the chiropractor, because he can't lift his arm over his head. So he got some adjustments and some tweaking and he has another appointment next Friday. In the meantime, Martin claims the doctor has suggested that if his wife would just massage it every evening and put heat pads on it, and place little butterfly kisses along his neck and shoulder--he will be healed. I know the butterfly kisses part is a scam, but I am down for being scammed.

We were supposed to have left for Colorado this morning at 3:30 am. But we did not. At this very moment, the door bell is ringing, that little ball of hair is yapping her face off, kids are herding to the door and my daughter is squealing. Because she is a girl, and girls squeal. My nephew is standing behind me trying to catch a grasshopper in the window sill and Dan is screaming, "Jake? Have you seen my gameboy?"

My clock was set to have dropped all of these children off by now--had I had my way, we would be kissing my Uncle Roy and Aunt Carol, hugging my SIL and putting the boys in the back of Mag's car. If I would have had my way, by 6:00 this evening, Martin and I would be laying by some water somewhere.

But nooo. I never get my way. I feel like a petulant child, I want to stomp my feet and throw myself on the floor and cry. It is apparent that I bragged to hard about being happy a few weeks ago. I should know better by now. I posted a picture of my happy self and I tempted fate, and now I have to suffer the consequences. My particular punishment seems to be that I will not be allowed to make a plan.

So I am not making any plans.

Instead, I am packing costumes.

Martin will be home at some point this evening, and when he arrives I will suggest he take a bath while I drop off our children with the lovely Diane. (She has luminous eyes.) When he gets into the bathtub he will see that I have hung the freshly hand-washed red negligee, and I have draped it over the rod so that it looks like there is a girl inside.

When I get back home I will slip into my traveling clothes:

The white tank top, and the canvas pants that are a bit on the baggy side--just enough so that they slide down my hips enough that the lime green thong can peek out when I bend over. I will probably have the car all fueled up, so we can just get into the car, and while in the car? I will reach for a lot of things, and I will make vague references to how great it would be for his shoulder to set in a hot tub for awhile, and then I will reach for something else.

Eventually we will arrive at Roy's house, and we will make the boy swap, and then we will be driving back to Idaho.

The two of us. Alone. In a car. For hours and hours and hours.

I will probably suggest that I just paid the credit card bill, and I will vaguely recall that there are some motels in Denver Colorado. I might remember about the motels when I leaning over in the car in my day two traveling outfit: the green capri pants with the hole by the pocket. The hole through which black panties can be seen.

Nah, I don't have any plans. But I do have some costumes ready, just in case.

~Tearing Down My Memories~

2006-07-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

I drove past The House last week.

It's the house that haunts my dreams, it is always in a different state of disarray, but the giant upstairs filled with rooms is consistent. There is always a cubby that has a hole that opens into a vast cavernous attic filled with cloth draped furniture and chests. In each of my dreams, when I am showing someone the cubby that opens into the attic I say: "This is where we go to hide from the Nazi's."

Which just goes to show that I was profoundly affected by Anne Frank's diary when I read it at the age of twelve.

The house is The House that I have compared to visiting the old lady in the trees with my best friend. It's the house where I mixed my dreams and hid from my brother.

I have been dreaming of this house for years. Each time my plan for my life frays in the least bit: each time I realize that I am rowing but despite my effort the river is still taking me where it wants me to go; I dream of the house.

Sometimes in the dream, the house looks pretty good on the outside but the inside has been gutted and is ready for a remodel. Sometimes we move into the house and I am aware that it is woefully inadequate--the fact that the holes in the floor boards are big enough to swallow a child trouble me. Sometimes I pack my family up and we walk directly past all of the shambles that was the actual house and we move directly into the Nazi attic. Once inside the Nazi attic we discover there is a garden that needs watering and that all of the beds are actually brand new; which is most fortunate as the house was abandoned fifty or more years ago.

I drove past the house to see what it looked like now;it's been a few years since I visited her. From the road she looks like this:

She's gone.

She was there last year--she was slumping more. No remnants of paint remained. The chimney had fallen. All of the windows were gone. The dormers were sliding like the eyebrows of an elderly lady at her husbands funeral. Her foundation had crumpled enough that her left side was dissolving into the earth.

But she was still there.

And now?

From the road? There isn't a hint that she ever existed.

Now that my reality knows that she is gone: where will my subconscious find a new Nazi attic?

~Somewhere Between Forty and Forty Three Hours~

2006-07-26T11:21:00.000-07:00

We are taking my nephews to Colorado Saturday morning between the hours of 3:30 am and 5:30 am. I am giving three hours of lee way on this trip, but not much more. There have been some great moments while the boys where here--Justin is a cleaning machine and it is going to be hard to let him go. Dan cracks me up steady with his conversational capabilities: "You think YOU got problems, try being a fifteen year old boy, going through puberty, and you ain't got no girl or arm pit hair." But as a whole, I am sick to death of kids. As such, I am in charge of this trip, and we WILL be following a schedule for departure.

No offense, parents of the above mentioned boys--I am even more fed up with my own children. I love all five of them, but let's face it--five is a lot. Any person who claims that they love having four or more kids around at all times is either a damned liar or in denial. Some of the things that bother me the worst about the whole herd of people clustered around me is that I can't go to the kitchen and get myself a bowl of yogurt without two or more people lining up for yogurt of their own. I know it is just good manners to fix food for everyone when you are fixing food--but I really want to have a couple days when I don't have to worry about fixing something for someone else first.

Another thing that bothers me about the moist people livin' all up under my nose is that they smell bad. Again, parents of above mentioned children? Even though yours do have all the puberty hormones flowing; mine smell worse. I have a boy who has chronic gas and it pleases him so much that he stores it til it gets nice and fragrant, then he let's 'er fly. He is trying for the moist chattery sound of his tiny cheeks slapping together, and he loves it when he gives up a little pfft pfft pfft backfire action. The only thing that smells worse then my boy is my daughter, who insists corn nuts are her favorite snack. But I know that she only likes corn nuts because corn nut breath gives me the dry heaves. All of these smells have been present for every one of the eighty some odd hours that we have been in the vehicle with these children--and I doubt there is an air freshner in the world that will be able to get rid of the scent of children who are disappointed that they didn't get to see the five legged cow.

Originally, taking the boys back was going to be a trip to MO with all of the children, but I took charge of these plans and asked the boys mama to meet me in Colorado. She agreed because, let's face it--she knows how hard her boys work around the house and she wants them back. I mentioned to my dearly beloved friend Diane that we were driving to Colorado with 800 children, and she offered to take my kids for the weekend.

Did you catch that? Diane offered to watch my kids for the weekend. I am so lucky lucky lucky to know her, And I have never even purchased her a birthday present.

In two days, we are dropping off the boys and then--I get Martin all to myself. We won't be going through Kansas, so no five legged cow. But! I have read that there are 200 sets of gonads on ice in Fort Collins Colorado. (Dave Berry is my source, apparently they are on ice for testing purposes.) And even though we can't actually see the nuts, driving past them will be note worthy.

I am truly looking forward to unloading all of these children for a couple days--just long enough so that when I come home I can get back into the mode where I see my children as pleasing little humans living in my house, and not just as rotten smell packing, hungry mouthed hordes. (And again, I am referring to my own children. Jake's farts are so much worse then either of my nephew's have been able to achieve on this vacation.)

~Second Honeymoon~

2006-07-20T13:45:00.000-07:00

Before he took me into the city, we went shopping to buy city clothes. He bought a hunter green raw silk shirt with long sleeves, and I got a pair of black leather boots with pointy toes, high heels and silver studs.

It was St Patrick's Day, and I was home from the boys ranch for a few days. I didn't get home from the ranch in time to see the parade; we arrived later in the evening and we got a room in the round hotel across from the St Louis Arch. We had an awesome view, and we put a bottle of expensive champagne on my credit card. He put on tan slacks, the raw silk shirt and brown loafers. With tassels. I had the boots, and presumably I had on other clothes, but I don't recall the shape.

I recall walking down the cobble stone street holding his hand and allowing the city to stab itself into my vein. We rode the metro and walked along the Pier. We looked at the gambling boats on the Mississippi river, and we stood beneath the arch and I made him kiss me. We pushed our way into bars packed with shiny city people that smelled of expensive perfume and gleamed as if they were made of plate glass and steel. I stood next to ladies in business suits with smooth sleek hair pulled back in scrunchies (This was the early 90's) and we drank green beer and twirled on dance floors. My eyes that were fresh from the country feasted on the lights, my skin that was used to fresh air beaded with city perspiration, My mouth looked at the way it formed vowels and my heart beat with the thrum of the hundreds of bands celebrating St Pat.

We called a night to our evening when we were out of cash, and so we walked the many blocks back to our motel. My mighty duck feet were protesting inside the pointy city boots--that weren't so city afteral--so I took them off and the thick athletic socks that I wore beneath them. I tossed the socks into a dumpster, and held the boots over my shoulder the way I had once slung my ice skates. Cobble stone sidewalks aren't conducive to bare feet, and soon I was putting my boots back on. After I had my feet placed inside, we stopped at a cross walk. Martin stood behind me, put his head between my legs and lifted me onto his shoulders. I protested! I asked him to put me down, and then I just rode the city streets on the shoulders of my man. People spoke after us: "Alright man, take that back to a hotel and tap that ass!" and "When you are done carrying her, will you come back for me?"

He set me down at the door of the hotel, and we went inside, finished our expensive bottle of champagne and and and...I ended up calling my boss at the boys camp to report, "My car has broken down, and I will not be in today."

The next St Pat's after that we got married.

Next weekend we are taking the boys back to MO. Martin has suggested that we leave my kids with my sister and we make the whole trip in four days. Two of those days would be kid free. When he suggested this most masterful of plans I thought of how nice it would be to have two whole days alone with my beloved.

"We could have a second honeymoon. On the way home we will be kid free, and we can stop to see the World's Biggest prairie Dog and the five legged cow!" I declared.
"We could drop the boys off, and then spend the night in St Louis. There might be something going on." He suggested.

He is pretty smart to evoke the memory of St Louis inside of me--but I am still adamant about seeing the farm animal menagerie.

Which just goes to show, you can take a country girl to the city in high heeled boots, but eventually you are going to have to carry her to the five legged cow.

~Tap Tap. Is This Thing On?~

2006-07-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

So we had the vacation, Martin crashed a motorcycle, I stepped in human feces in a rest area in Kansas, Jake got bit on the face by a bug and his left eye swelled closed and I had a chigger in the crack of my ass.

It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.

I am now at home with my family and my two nephews. Dan is fifteen and has Aspergers Syndrome. Justin is twelve and is autistic. The best thing about these two (syndromes? Diseases? Handicaps? Disabilities?) is that both boys talk. A lot. They talk to themselves, they talk to me, they talk to my kids, they talk to each other and sometimes, they talk to inanimate objects.

Dan has an amazing encyclopedia of facts and he says things like, "Well, you see Aunt Deb, the chupa-cobra has hollow bones, and that is why he can leap on the backs of goats."

Justin talks to himself, and it appears that he is simply telling himself what to do. For example, I just walked through the kitchen and he said, "Oh, I'll just do it myself." and he began to clean the kitchen. He is concerned about germs, so he wipes the counters extremely well.

My children are rather enjoying their stay with their cousins. I believe Kaitlyn is most impressed that she can get out of doing any kitchen labor--if she just leaves it long enough to drive Justin mad.

When Jacob gets assigned a chore, such as: pick weeds from the flower bed, he suggests that Justin would like to do it with him, and once Justin begins working, Jake wanders away.

Ike is primarily enchanted with Dan because Dan came with a bag of gameboy's (I think he has five) and a pocket full of game cassettes. Dan is very good about sharing, and he allows Ike to play the games. While the two boys play games Dan talks to Ike, "Well you know Ikeman, crypto zoologist have discovered that Big Foot isn't a vegetarian."

The only concern that I had before driving off with the boys was the pooping situation. His parents told me that he needed to be reminded to poop, because he doesn't have the sensation of needing to. When we took off, I wondered how it would feel to a twelve year old to have his Aunt Debbie say, "Do you need to go stinky?"

I handled the problem by thinking like some of the twelve year old boys that I have known. When we hit the first rest area I said, "Hey guys, let's all drop a duke here, because we won't be stopping again for awhile."

Say 'drop a duke' really fast for about five minutes, and you will discover that it has a lovely cadence. Justin has discovered the music in those words, and he says them often. Which reminds him to get the job done.

I am getting a little tired of "Dropaduke" so I started mixing it up today with, "Float a log." As in, "hey guys, whoever floated the log in the bathroom needs to remember to flush."

I am going to mix it up further with, "Lay a rail" and "make a deposit" and "take a dump". I am sure as the days roll on, I will remember more of the things the twelve year old boys used to say.

The biggest trauma that we have experienced happened while I was in the bathtub. I had left Justin as "Charles in Charge" which means, "Don't go outside. Make sure Ike stays inside. Answer the phone. Don't answer the door." I gave them access to the computer, and calgoned my cares away.

When I came to check on the boys, they were all looking at naked anime characters. I said, "Jacob Michael!" and my son turned so red he was almost purple. I told him I was so ashamed and disappointed, and he began to cry: "Please mom, don't cry! Spank me or ground me forever or lock me in my room but puh lease!! Just don't cry!"

Justin disappeared.

He was MIA for approximately fifteen minutes--just long enough that I was about to call the 'ol to tell him I lost our nephew. Jake found him in the utility room.

SO, I made the boys cry for looking at naked! anime!

They got the naked anime from a pop-up at the site where they had gone to race cars. They didn't search for naked anime, naked anime was handed to them with a pop-up. By those great guys at Avante. Thanks guys.

All things considered (By the way, a HUGE Danism) Having the boys here is much better than I thought it would be--they have taken over almost all of my household chores. I would be a damned liar if I didn't say it: "I am enjoying the free labor that is staying at my house."

Check this out: Dan does his own laundry. And Towels.

~Keep This On The Low Down~

2006-06-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

It has been a couple weeks since I have posted here, but that is because I got another job that I have been working on.

That's right! TWO writing jobs! This means I AM a Freelance writer, and--now here is the cool thing--I am currently making enough cashola to support my family. This doesn't mean that I am planning to get a divorce so I can start my new financially independent life. I like my husband, he's hot. I am going to keep him, but there is something so right about knowing that I could support our family. He could take weeks at a time off. This is the first time in the history of our relationship that he is not shouldering the entire burden of our bills.

(He is also going to be a little pissed if he finds out I posted this picture on the net...So don't tell him.)

I am pretty pleased with my current life, my office is fantastic, and two days ago I got a check AND a t-shirt AND a thank-you card from my second writing job.

I am finding it rather easy to be me right now. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to have a writing job so that I could make my own hours, do what I enjoy doing and make a living. And right now? It's happening. I AM living the dream, and I am finding it a lot cooler than I thought it would be. (And did you notice I used the proper form of then/than right there? huh? Didja?)

In the Fall I will be going back to school full time, but I may decrease my hours in the Spring. I would like to think that I can pay for college myself, and I won't need the loans. Because I am going to college to become a writer--and right now I am a paid writer--I no longer see the need to hurry up about it. I waited til I was 35 to go back to school, and if I don't graduate until I am 40, who cares?

For the last few weeks I have been obscenely happy. I have been the kind of happy that starts to get on people's nerves. You know how it is, the girls come over to talk about their problems and they want to commiserate. It is a little offensive to be at a bitch fest with someone who doesn't have anything to bitch about. But I am willing to be the annoyingly happy person at a bitch fest. I see it as my personal mission to be that person.

So, I am doing a little celebrating. I know my happy days won't last forever, they never do--but until they come to an end, I will be enjoying my cozy little life.

~Whiskers and Tears~

2006-06-07T19:19:00.000-07:00

While at Walmart Monday, I bought Grease for my sister. I knew what I was doing; I have been subjected to hours of Grease in the past. I bought it because my sister thinks I am so nice to her, and therefore I can't complain that it is has been playing in my house since Monday at 1:00pm.

Maybe it is because I am trying to quit smoking, or maybe it is because I need chocolate. But. I feel like bawling.

Melinda* has been a problem in the past. She has screamed so loud that my mother, in a different state, has heard the howls. She has thrown herself on the floor and kicked. There was an incident where I tried to pick her twenty year old body up so that I could carry her to a bedroom and shut the door. I got 'er done, but it took every ounce of anger and strength I had in my body. When I put her in the room I shut the door, and held the handle. When she discovered she couldn't get out, she set on the floor and kicked the door repeatedly while she screamed so long and so loud that she lost her voice. While she raged on one side of the door, I set on the other side with my head in my hands so that I could sob.

I made her go to the bedroom because I had told her that screaming was unacceptabletable at my house, "Debbie has babies, and you can't scream around babies."Because the end of the story is her on one side of the door howling and me on the other sobbing, you can see that she didn't stop screaming.

She needs to know the boundaries, and I did enforce the no screaming rule, but I still feel like a shit hill for muscling a handicapped girl.

She has been with me since Sunday and the biggest problem that she and I have had is that I can't forget that she is here. I have be aware of where she is, and what she is doing. A minor inconvenience can turn into a major blow-out in a matter of seconds. And oh! There are the seizures.

Yesterday, it was time to give my sister a bath. It is somewhat of a process, because it is hard for her to lower her naked self into the bathtub. Her left side is stiff, and it appears that she has to think about what she wants her body to do for a very long time before her body starts to respond to her wishes. She whispers, "dammit. Dammit. Dammit." The whole time she is trying to lower herself into the water, and I just assume she is doing so because she wants to get into the water and past the awkward, "I am naked and my sister is holding on to me" feeling.

Well, at least I know that I feel awkward holding onto a twenty six year old naked woman. Mindy is very modest, and has always been so. She knows that no one should ever see her naked, and yet her condition requires that someone monitor her in the bathtub. If she had a seizure while bathing and no one was there, it would create a world of grief and regret for the female member of my family who was supposed to be vigilant at the time.

I shaved her legs and was shocked at how much hair had grown. I was also amazed out how heavy each of her legs was. She can't hold her left leg up without support, and that hummer weighs at least thirty pounds of stiff muscles that simply want to curl back into themselves. I was afraid I would nick her with the razor.

My sister is never going to live the 'American dream'. She won't get married and plant a picket fence and a crop of children. Her life will forever be stagnant.

Knowing all of this: how can I complain about 72 hours (straight. No breaks. Even in the midnight hours.) of Grease?

And that is why I think I could bawl, but before I do that I am going to take a bath and shave my own legs and relish how lucky I am that I can do that for myself.

* Melinda has cerebral palsy, this affects the left side of her body. She also has some mental retardation. And Epilepsy.

~Where Are Your Manners?~

2006-06-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

My mother is gone to the cabin with her best friend and their four wheelers. They have an arsenal between them that includes a bee-bee gun (my mother shoots birds. Yes, that's right. Grandma is packing heat and birds are falling--dead--from the sky.) a pistol and a shot-gun. I am shocked that my mother is doing any of those things, pre-menopause she was agoraphobic and exceedingly gentle. She fed the birds and the squirrels.

Because she is on some kind of road rippin' killin' mission, I have my sister Melinda. Yesterday I took her to Walmart and we got a new movie. Grease. I believe I prefer, "baby, oh sweet baby" to "you are the one that I want." I was around the house a lot during Mindy's previous Grease era, and I clapped when the vhs tape unspooled inside the VCR. Now it's here in my house, playing all day long, every day. In between the music I can hear my sister clap her hands and scream, "I love it! I LUH-UVE it!!" Ya know, that makes it alright. But what makes it even better is that my sister--the one who used to have seizure when she came to my house--now says to me, "I love you Debbie, you so nice to me."

When we went to Walmart our first stop was the McDonald's food court. We set down with our meal, and I noticed that my daughter was scanning the crowd, and then she would glance at Mindy. Mindy has an over bite, so she rips her food more than she bites it. Because she really has to cram the food into her mouth to get a good bite, and because she has to turn her head to pull of a chunk, she ends up with quite a bit of condiment on her face. And her shirt. She is fastidious about cleaning the ketchup. She holds a napkin in her left hand, the one that looks like a chicken claw. Sometimes she uses that hand to dab at her face, and when she does she announces it; "Debbie! Look! Look what I can do with my my my hand, jew see dat?"

It is a pretty amazing thing for her, a moment of triumph. That hand has only recently been released from a life time of casts and braces. Now that she is twenty six and she is no longer growing, she gets botox injections so that her hand relaxes. It is rather limp, and she often picks it up and kisses it while apologizing to it.

I am her sister, so I remember trying to push her stiff hand into her brace, and I remember how she would cry when her thumb was stretched to fit, and how long it took to straighten out her wrist enough to lay straight so it could be buckled into hard plastic. I remember when the cushioning was added because the plastic was giving her blisters all around her thumb, and the buckles across her wrist and arm left tiny lesions.

So, the fact that my sister can use her chicken claw hand to wipe her chin is pretty amazing.

Yesterday, when I was cheering my sister on and telling her how cool it was that she could raise her arm and wipe her chin, I forgot that we are freak show, and every one likes to start at a freak show. The thing is, Mindy is twenty six and I stopped being embaressed of her when I was in my twenties. If she notices people staring, she assumes it is because she is pretty--so it doesn't bother her at all. The adult population has gotten very good at staring at my sister, but avoiding my eyes. I don't see the stops in the aisle way behind us, I am not watching the guy leaning towards the glass to get a better look. I am not paying attention to the sideways glances--because I am paying attention to my sister and making sure she doesn't tip over or choke.

Kate is affected by the stares and the pointing. Throughout the entire trip Kate kept nudging me and saying, "mom, that guy is looking at us." and "Mom, did you see that lady pointing?" "Mom, I think that kid is laughing at you."

It wasn't so much what she said that made me realize that she was reaching a mile stone of maturity; it was the way she began to look at my sister. Melinda has always been a great source of toys for all her nephews and nieces--and she has every new movie that comes out. My kids spend a lot of time buttering her up so they can take her trucks and dolls. Perhaps Kate always looked at her with the cunning of a child who knows she is smarter so she can get what she wants from her aunt.

Yesterday I saw the look change from cunning, to one of understanding. Kaitlyn is of an age to know that being stared at is bad. She began to look at my sister as though she felt sorry for her. And maybe pity is a bad thing--but in this case the pity created a situation where my daughter voluntarily held her aunt's arm. Mindy walks better with someone's hand on her, and yesterday my daughter took the responsiblity.

I am impressed with the maturity that it takes for an eleven year old to put herself under the scrutiny of the public that is not yet mature enough to understand that staring is rude.

~Spiderwebs of Friendships~

2006-06-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

She moved into the house across the street when I was in the sixth grade. She was from California, and her grandmother was from New Jersey. Her grandmother mailed her most excellent stuff, like candy buttons and custom made swimsuits. She was in the 8th grade, she had a corner of her bedroom that was filled with candy, she also owned Monopoly, Risk and Life, and she had information that sixth graders weren't allowed to know.

I don't think she liked me very much at first because I was so much younger and clearly so much less mature, but she let me come into her room and she would play games with me and I got to browse at will through the candy corner. When I was in the 7th grade, I was old enough to ride around the block on my bicycle all by myself, and she and I discovered an old abandoned house nestled in the trees behind the canal. The windows were gone, the shingles were peeling and the outside was wood bleached the color of steel. There were remnants of white paint around the door frames, and the decorative shingles around the dormer windows had flecks of green, and gray and blue.

When we discovered the house, it was a lady sitting behind some trees, and all that she wanted was privacy. We walked her halls, and looked in her bedrooms and creeped up stairs. We claimed a room facing North towards the river. It had a steepled ceiling and hardwood floors. There was one glassless window, and giant trees rustling their leaves through the gap. We brought a broom, and we swept the floor and we set in the dappled sunlight and made plans for our future: we were going to be killer whale trainers. After a couple years of the fame of being Shamu's trainers, we would come back home and buy this house and fix it up.

When I was in the 9th grade, she discovered Madonna. She made me copies of her tapes and I would play them until my brother would steal them, put fire crackers in the holes and throw them into the air. She bought a material girl jacket and hundreds of black rubber bracelet's. Her mom let her have a perm--because she was a Junior--and she rocked the eighties hair like no other girl in our neighborhood. She got a car, and sometimes me mother would let me ride in it. I was with her when I watched my first scary movie, when I puffed on my first smoke and the night I got pantsed. I think I stopped trusting her when she stood by laughing while I tried to keep the boys from pulling off my pants.

When I was a Sophomore, she let me share her locker in senior hall. She was the aid for my Spanish teacher, and she would give me better grades on the tests, and slip me pesos. We took the photography glass together, and once when we had a substitute we locked a boy in the dark room. With the lights off. And then we went to lunch. (The boy used his pocket knife to dig through the door, the substitute heard the noise and came to set him free.) We had our first fight over who our friends were going to be, and she kicked me out of her locker. She shunned me for the rest of the school year, and I remember the sting of watching her fluffy permed head walk away from me in the hallway.

I remember the sting of those days, because yesterday I saw her again. When she called my name and I turned to see that it was her, she wrapped her arms around my neck and she hugged past the point of comfort, and then she hugged me until I understood that she was hugging me.

She had a broken foot in a cast, and I doubt she weighs more than ninety pounds. Her hair was a caricature of the fluffy fawn brown that it used to be, it looked as thought it had been oiled. Her skin had the translucent glow of an old folks home, and she had cavities. To mention that she had cavities breaks my heart. Life grabbed a hold of her, and it shook her around. Her personal history is a line of heart breaks that she smiles through, and self medicates through. I have seen her a few times over the years. We have sparked up the old friendship. But neither of us are bright eyed little girls anymore; after we talk about the 'raccoon club' shirts that we made on her sewing machine (at 11 and 14) , we hit an uncomfortable silence.

When she was a girl, she had solid ideals, but as an adult woman she has shattered every one of them.

And oh, so have I.

Yesterday, after I saw her at the beer fest and hugged her for three minutes, than spoke for a few minutes--I walked away from her. I shunned her. When I waved then turned my back to her, I could hear her and her broken foot following me. I didn't pause, or wait, or stop and acknowledge that I knew she was following me. What I thought was, "Oh, I don't want to hear about sad stuff today...I just want to have fun..." I didn't say, "Call me some time!" or "Lets get together!" or any of those things that we are supposed to do.

Today I am ashamed of myself because I am not the girl I promised I would be the day I pricked my finger and pressed it to her bleeding finger.

~Dear Young Handsome Cousin~

2006-06-02T21:18:00.000-07:00

When I switched to clubmom, I gave away all of the stuff that was the outtabodymommy. I gave a link to this site, but I didn't do it through proper channels and the link is already buried behind a week of posts.

That kind of thrills me, because that means that this site belongs to me, and I can write whatever I want to write; like I did before my mother and all of my relatives caught my link. (If you are my mother or my relative--ha ha! I jest. I was always honest!) I am about to write an open letter to my handsome young cousin, and I am doing it here because--what the hell. I can do whatever I want. I OWN this site.

Dear HYC,

When you were born, you were sent to an incubator because you were premature. I remember your mother bringing bags of milk to Grandma's fridge so that she could take them to the NICU. I remember the picture your dad brought home. Your hand was holding his thumb, and your tiny fingers couldn't wrap all the way around. Your eyelids were veiny like a baby bird, and there was a cap on your head.

I don't know exactly how old you were when I began to babysat you, bit I do recall lifting you out of your bassinet. I can see your tiny face red from screaming, and I vividly recall slipping a bottle between your wailing lips, and the way your right eye would wink while you sucked. I remember you as a tiny boy who wouldn't drink milk, but you would drink "moo-juice", water wasn't on your list of beverages, but 'sky water' could be slipped to you. I remember you as five with your bowl hair cut, and the way your bottom lip would quiver when your mother left. You never wanted me to hold you when you were sad, you preferred to pout in your room. I remember the day I took you for the ride in my TransAm--and I remember that you believed me when I pointed at the tachometer and declared, "We are going 120 miles an hour!"

Time passed, and while I wasn't looking, you grew into a man. And you got married. And you had a child, a baby girl that I held in my arms. When I slipped the bottle past her wailing lips, I was reminded of you. Did you know that your baby girl is the replica of you as a baby, except she has blonde hair and girl bits?

In the past few years I have begun to appreciate you as an adult. You helped us move--you grabbed an end of the freezer that was full of rotting mystery meat and you saved me the misery. There was the day that Martin was gone and I called you and asked you to fix my window--and you came right over and did that for me. When I was lonely, you came to my house and allowed me to feed you shake and bake chicken. You babysat my children so that I could go to school--and there was the winter that I was pregnant and you brought me wood for my fireplace. You babysat Kate so I could go bowling.

What I am trying to say here is that--dude. I love you. I have loved you since you were a tiny baby. I loved you before I put my eyes on your face. You were your daddy's son; your daddy has always been my rock. I changed your diapers, and I didn't mind. Because I loved you then. I love you now.

However.

Tonight we were talking about a bachelor party and you declared that guys didn't care what the stripper looked like--as long as she wasn't old.

I said, "Like seventy?"
You said, "Ha ha! YEAH, like anything over thirty is to old for a stripper."

Blink. Blink.

Listen you little miscreant. I changed your diapers. You are hereby obligated to declare that old is AT LEAST ten years past my age; you might have to find out how old I am so that you can do the math. It's called 'respect for your elders' and I am part of the group of elders who doesn't think that being stripper is out of our league. You suggesting that women my age are past prime is rude. I didn't raise you like that.

Sincerely,
Deb

~Memorial Day~

2006-05-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

We spent the weekend at the cabin. It was raining when we arrived, and by morning the rain had turned to snow. I put on my glasses Sunday morning and watched the snow flock the Lodge Pole Pines, and I considered that it should be a peaceful scene.

However. We took our kids, two of their friends, two of Martin's buddies and our two dogs. One guy claimed the master bedroom with the cushy bed, and because men can't possibly sleep with other men, everyone else crashed in the living room. At dark thirty, when the house was still except for the sound of the crackling fire and eight people snoring, Blue came unglued. He leaped and snarled and raged at the door. I yelled and cursed and commanded, Blue crawled underneath the hide-a-bed and whined for the next two night time hours--which may have only been minutes. Minutes at night can feel like hours. Nobody else in the house woke up with the snarling and snapping dog, so I was alone with the sounds of snoring and whining dog. (He placed himself directly underneath me so it sounded like he had his head on my pillow.)

I hiss whispered at him to, "Shut up! Blue! Shut. Up." and then I got quiet and began to listen to the night--to see what he was whining about. It was a bad decision because as soon as I paid attention to what was happening outside of the warm cabin, I could hear the wolves howling. They were probably a few miles away because it was a lonely sound that blended with the wind. It was the sound of lost souls crying for redemption, and I wanted to suggest that if they became vegetarian, they would have less to cry about. I didn't feel sorry for them for long though, because I could hear the howling getting closer, and it wasn't long before my imagination invented wolves panting at the door.

Which is when Blue lost his shit and barreled from underneath the bed snarling and drooling. Again I commanded, again he whined and still my family and their friends slept. There is something about the first night at the cabin that makes me an unwilling sentinel. I stay up most of the night fretting over possible problems and I wake up the next morning glad that the light is in and ready for a nap.

Other then the night time problems, the rest of the stay was exactly as it should be--it rained and the moisture seeped pine scent through the chinks in the logs. I got to set by the creek, all by my lonesome, with a notebook on my lap. Raindrops sprinkled the page and I could see an edge of Rhea's writing on the loose pages inside the book. I wrote a passage by the creek that said, "With Rhea's hand writing on my lap" and it was the only salvageable thought that I recorded before I went back into the cabin to cook a meal for all of those people.

It is poignant that I had Rhea's handwriting on my lap because Rhea passed away two years ago. When I am at her cabin, the scrawling handwriting reminds me to be quiet. Just for a minute.

It was a perfect Memorial Day because I had the oppurtunity to reflect on the sacrifices of the people who came before us, people who kept the wolves away from our doors.

~Better Then School!~

2006-05-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

Right now I am sitting all alone in the office. The kids are upstairs being babysat by the tube, and Martin is outside planting trees. As you can see, there are other area's of my life that require my attention.

But I am working. Cause I have a job now, ya know.

I did just post at clubmom, and I am utterly thrilled to have a job writing. I am so thrilled that I gave myself a party. Mary was here the day I went live, and I wanted to cook a good meal. When Martin came home with his crew, I invited them to stay for dinner. I invited my sister, and her friend. Mary made stuffed portabella mushrooms, and rosemary bread. I made potato salad and steaks. It was a nice time with many people, but the best part was the conversation:

"Boy, I am just exhausted. I worked today ya know, and now I am peeling potatoes. There's just no rest for the working woman."

"I have a job ya know, I can pay for the vodka."

"I worked today ya know, it isn't like I had time to do the laundry."

"The phone's ringing, probably my editor. I have a job ya know."

I assume that my peeps thought it was adorable, the way I kept mentioning that I have a job (ya know), and not at all annoying.

One of the most awesome parts of having the job is that it buys me time on the computer. I finished my 'job' ten minutes ago, and now I am performing my hobby, but my spouse--the guy outside planting the trees I brought home--thinks I need some quiet time to perform my duties as an employed woman.

And that makes this new part of my life, the part where I get to say I am a writer, just as wonderful as I always thought it would be.

~The New Me~

2006-05-20T21:13:00.000-07:00