....tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick......

The best surprise that can happen in my day is when Beth and Brett post new photos of my beloved nephews on Flickr. While poring over them does something to fill the hole in heart that can never truly be filled until I'm skittering around on my hands and knees with Theo (gee, I hope he still likes activities based on this--my willingness to do is all I've got in my bid to be the cool aunt!), it also pains me to see how much they have changed since I last saw them in July.


A close second, happiness-wise: the things Ben will say to get rise out of me, especially when he has a friend around to spur his wisecracking.

MM: Oh Theo, why do you have to grow?

Ben: So he doesn't turn out like Arnold on Diff'rent Strokes? Bork bork bork!

(He also likes to do Swedish Chef impressions when this particular friend is around.)

Whatever. Ben has been tossing around ridiculous child names--he'll be watching a movie and will call out across the house:

Let's have a kid and name him Thurmond Deluxe!

so at least I know I could someday experience a day like this of my very own:

I think I have figured out my grandma’s secret philosophy of life. Live every moment not as if it were your last, but as if you were about to become trapped—perhaps under the wreckage of your house after a hurricane, or just by an everyday occurrence like bathtub electrocution or getting your hand stuck in a garbage disposal—immobilized in whatever state your everyday life happened to be in, ready to become a permanent frieze for all the West Hawaii Today-reading world to see.

This has come about through a series of near-natural disasters. First, there was Hurricane Flossie (a.k.a. Hurricane Falsie, a.k.a. Faux-sie, a.k.a. Not-sie—Ben is indefatigable when it comes to aliases). Then, last week, we had a crazy thunderstorm, which had all the students declaring Armageddon and brought about a cold snap that has created a fashion “trend” (it also cropped up my sophomore year when the temperature dipped frighteningly below 60 degrees) of girls wrapping their mini-skirt-and-camisole-clad bodies in thin, fleece, cartoon-character-festooned blankets. Teachers and students alike were confident school would be canceled, if for no other reason than the trauma caused by house-rattling thunder. Unh-unh. That would make us look like we didn't care about academic achievement.

week later, another storm offered another elusive reprieve. Out come the blankets, up fill the shopping carts with unnecessary bottled water and self-indulgent, pointless Spaghetti-Os. I swear, the Hawaii County Civil Defense strongly suggested that I buy these things.

One result of last week’s over-hyped storm (what, in Hawaii? Naw) was a series of newspaper stories on the “aftermath.” The cover had two comic features:

1. Both photos (the cover and the inside one) featured a Jack Russell hybrid in the foreground with captions saying first something like, “The Kanaka family dog, Jesse, sniffs the wreckage of yesterday’s storm, as the Kanakas try to tow their Bronco out of three feet of mud” then, “Wreckage. Surveyed by Jesse, the Kanaka family dog.”
2. The other family profiled had their roof cave in. The photo displaying the Wreckage was of their bathroom, whose messy state could in no way be attributed solely to the storm. I mean, what was all that crap doing in the bathroom in the first place? It wasn’t a tornado.

This got me to thinking. What would people think if they woke up to a photo of our bathroom? Obviously, a collapsed roof would be forgiven. But how would we explain the dried-out wineglasses and coffee mugs pushed to the corner of the counter, squished in with tubes of Benadryl? (Dude, I was finishing my last glass when I decided it was time to get serious about flossing.) And what of the assortment of reading materials? Or that ubiquitous can of corned beef? We could never explain the state of our bathroom, let alone our house. Which is why I cower in fear whenever the prospect of a visit from our landlords, or a particularly hard rainstorm, appears on the horizon.

So, here are Grandma’s rules:

1. Never be wearing dirty or embarrassing clothes. (I decided to leave the Ebonics in; they must’ve occurred to me for a reason.) While the logic of saving your dry-clean-onlies for a special occasion may seem irrefutable, they won’t matter much when you’re dead.
2. Start cooking your rice by 3:00. If you have to ask, “What rice?” or “Why is it my rice? What about the other people involved? Shouldn’t they cook rice?”, you shouldn’t even be reading this.
3. While you’re at it, take your bath before then, too. This brings up an important side note: only men shower, preferably in the room attached the garage to prevent their sullying of the house with their work-day filth. Women bathe. Or bocha, I suppose, though I’ve never liked the word, evoking as it does the image of soaking oneself in a flavorful broth to create a delectable, starchy soup.
4. Whatever you do, clean as you go. Whether it’s cooking or wrapping a re-gift in layers of paper, plastic, and tinfoil packaging, you must make sure there is never a backlog of dirtiness or messiness long enough to suggest that you were stopped in the tracks of life (by lightning, flash flooding, etc.) doing anything but trying to rid the world of its inherent filthiness and depravity.

The depravity was purely my inference. The rest is, I promise, objective fact journalistically observed. My grandmother has taught me well. It’s too bad that it takes an impending disaster to make visible the importance of her lessons.

gratefulness audit

This morning, I got up at 5:00 and went to the gym for Thanksgiving Body Pump. Having skipped workouts this week for such reasons as a) needed to scrape wax from 200 candle holders, b) ate a frozen burrito for lunch and felt too gross to move and c) skipped lunch and was so hungry when I got home that I ate a HOT DOG (Ben's fault), I was actually pretty excited to do this. I fully realize that under any other circumstances, getting up early on Thanksgiving to hit the gym is ridiculous and disgusting.

The class is mostly fifty-and-up, unlike the afternoon BPs which have their fair share of young women in pursuit of Hayden Panetierre's body. (I wanted to say Jennifer Aniston, but have been making an effort lately to not expose myself so obviously as someone whose cultural references were formed and cemented in the '90s). There is a sixty- or seventy-year-old man who wears super-short cotton bike shorts and brings his own fan to set up on a stack of yoga blocks. The full-blast air conditioner isn't enough, apparently.

Anyway, the point of bringing up the gym was that our teacher, who must have taught peer ed in a high school, gave us each a turkey sticker to wear, then handed out cheesy Thanksgiving "riddles," which we were asked to call out in between songs. (Example: What did the turkey say before dinner? I'm stuffed!") She also taped a big piece of paper to the mirror and asked us to write things we are grateful for. Entries included "stretching!" and "that the squat track is over!" I was, of course, too shy (not to mention cool), to say anything, but my list would go something like this:

Things I am grateful for:

* That I have reached such a level of maturity and non-vanity that when I picked at a bump on my eyebrow yesterday and it caused my whole eye to swell up like a boxer's, I wasn't too proud to go to the grocery store and buy the ingredients for our contribution to tonight's dinner at my Grandma's.

* That when my examination of my eye caused me to realize how much my face has aged since I was, I don't know, Hayden P.'s age, and to wonder whether I am aging much faster than I should be, and to collapse in bed and started terror-fantasizing about going blind (from my eyebrow thing, which introduced killer staph into my eye) and wonder if my school staff would band together to help pay for my medical bills and if I would get permanent disability and have to learn braille, I only let this despair-spiral spin for about half an hour.

* That today I made a pecan pie, cornbread and roasted fall vegetable stuffing, and shaved brussels sprouts with caramelized shallots, all of which prove that I am a normal, functioning, and seeing person.

* That I was able to hide my insanity from Ben long enough to trick him into marrying me.

what not to wear

After Ben gave me a huge guilt trip over having two pictures of Theo in my classroom and none of him, I hung a framed wedding picture over my desk. Admittedly, I had been hesitant to bare any wedding images at school, lest I have my ego deflated by some rude comment about how strangely nice I looked. (I have become the quintessential frazzled teacher who has really let herself go. Only luck has kept me from showing up one day wearing my mouthguard.)

Today a boy in my class caught a glimpse of it, and couldn’t contain his shock.

“Whoa, miss! That’s you!”

“Yup, it’s me.”

“Now that’s a hairdo,” he said approvingly. (Really.) “How come you don’t wear your hair like that all the time?”

“Um, because I don’t have a lady to do my hair every morning?” I replied.

He then proceeded to tell me about a contraption his grandpa sells (of course, his grandpa probably went to school with me) that you wrap around your head, wear to bed, and are rewarded by in the morning with a head full of perfect curls.

“It’s only twelve dollars,” he added helpfully.

So, it’s come to this. A fifteen-year-old Filipino boy is staging a fashion intervention. I might as well be in the early stages of menopause, enduring the depredations of my mortified teenage daughters who make me drop them off half a mile from the movie theater.

on my christmas list: a stuffed sheep named dmitri

I have got to start bringing my camera to the exciting events I now attend so frequently in my role as disgruntled teacher who feels compelled to share her negative attitude with the world. I spent the morning helping honor students volunteer at a local shopping center's Halloween costume contest (for dogs and children!), and there were some real doozies that so captured my imagination, much of the afternoon has been peppered with my random descriptions aimed, unsolicited, at Ben.

"And then there was this Chihuahua, dressed as a hot dog! It was sprayed painted red and sandwiched between two oblong white pillows, with curly yellow ribbons on top! Wait, let me draw it for you....."

Two hours later:
"Wait, then there was a dog dressed as Dog the Bounty Hunter, and his 13-year-old owner dressed as Beth [his enormously endowed wife], both with blond wigs! Only she had a flat chest and hairy legs! Because she was only 13! Let me sketch it out so you get the full effect."

Then:
[Me] "You had to see it to understand how cute it was, this baby dressed as an opihi [limpet that dwells stuck to rocks in the ocean]. Here, it was like this....no, more like this...."

[Ben] "Oh, so it was a disfigured baby to boot! Ha ha, your nostrils flare while you draw, because you have to concentrate so hard."

In other words, I have been reduced to the tactics of Cousin Balki's villager friend from Mypos whose job was to draw all the momentous occasions. Next thing you know, Ben will come home to a house full of raisin bran, as I empty boxes into every receptacle, unable to believe that the manufacturer would make false promises as to the number of raisins in each box.

dept. of education time-management report

8:00 am: Arrived at office (I know, scandalously late; only the teachers who have given up hope arrive this late), pondered whether to take a fun-size Snickers from the rapidly dwindling bowl of candy that my mom's retired teacher sorority provides annually for other teachers, not for custodians to stuff their pockets with a week's supply of candy, ahem.Chose to be martyr, sacrificing own needs for the less self-disciplined among the faculty.

8:20 to 10:20 am: Proctored state writing test to group of students (none of which were mine) whose earnest effort was both heartening and demoralizing. Heartening to see students whose 10-plus years of education has actually resulted in skills and the capacity to complete a ninety-minute assignment, which they seemed to give their best effort despite it having no impact on their grades or credis toward graduation. Demoralizing to know that my own pupils have yet to be simultaneously "on-task," quiet, or even seated, for more than ten minutes in my class.

10:20 to 10:45: Searched for teaching jobs in Bellevue and Seattle, pausing over the website of Life Academy just long enough to realize it's not a progressive school focusing on organic farming, but one of an alarming number of Christian schools in the area. Surfed over to The Superficial, which contains way too many photos of boobs in bikinis to be safe for work even before clicking on the NSFW links, but is worth the risk to satisfy my need to see what Britney ate today while walking to her car.

10:45 to 1:30: Oversaw what was supposed to be a fun, no-brainer project, using computers to make posters on literary terms like "plot" and "simile." Turns out that starting up a laptop, let alone manipulating MS Word, is a skill not yet mastered. Twelve computers; each and every error message, low battery warning, or cursor blip prompted a panicked and demanding "MISS!" Decided to extend due date by several days, and that all future assignments will be done on paper. Or slates.

1:30: Cringed when I saw that Anger Management Boy had folded the monitor all the way back and was jokingly, but vigorously, pounding on the desk in frustration. Told AMB that might break the computer. Not sure if it was true, but this is what I've become: a scaremongerer with more regard for discipline than scientific truth.

3:15: Famished from skipping lunch, cruised by the office with a glimmer of hope that basic decency had kept fellow teachers from completely plundering the candy bowl. Nothing, not even a stale Tootsie Roll remained in the plastic pumpkin. I bet this never happens in the private sector, where entire office budgets are allotted for seasonal candy.

3:25: Home, collapsed on couch, where gobbled countless Dove Promises, thus accounting for the subsequent loss of sanity that led me to watch Rachael Ray's segment on a bunch of nurses getting an office makeover. (Nurses have offices?) The reveal, in which the nurses inevitably burst into tears, actually made me choke up. Not tear up, mind you, like I did at The Biggest Loser. Physical sobs! Appalling.

As Ben suggested yesterday, maybe it's the menopause.

ben's multiple personalities

So, we're talking more seriously about moving away from here. (Ben's been talking seriously about it since we first moved here, while I've just been giggling and ignoring.)

Ben cracked me up this morning by announcing, "I feel like George Bush." Huh? "With all my reasons--are we moving because of my asthma? the cost of living? my constantly sweaty back? I feel like Bush taking the nation to war!"

My husband has a tendency toward melodrama. First Luca, now W.

that's it, I f-ing quit

Motherf.......atherSisterBrother! (As one of my students likes to say.)

****

I started the above post several days ago, upon my most inauspicious return to work. Now I can't remember exactly what prompted the proclamation; it could have been any number of things, from realizing that I have spent almost $10,000 to become "certified" in a profession I'm not at all sure I enjoy or am good at doing, to the invasion of ants that makes me explode with rage against nature several times a day. I'd rather be a vendor of certified organic produce some days. I'm definitely certified something, if you get my drift. Yuk, yuk.

Anywho, my desire to be a kept housewife has never been stronger. But the days are occasionally enlivened by the unintentional irony uttered from the mouths of (sixteen-year-old) babes.

Stude: Fuck, I'm so pissed! Fucking v.p. stay making me take Anger Management. I don't fucking need Anger Management, I'm like the coolest, laid-back guy brah! (beat.) Ass why I wen punch the wall, and now my hand stay all fucked up.

Today, after being given the third essay assignment of the year: Why the hell are doing so much writing? This is an ENGLISH class. (Spoken very slowly for the benefit of me, the dim-witted, writing-obsessed teacher.)

Sometimes I love Ben so much I could just squeeze him and pop him! Like when he remarked while writing wedding thank-you notes that he felt like Luca Brasi.

Other times, I'd just like to lance him with a sharp tweezer, but this post is about love.

nothing left to lose

I think it's time to admit that something is missing from my life; I just teared up a tiny bit at the opening scenes of The Biggest Loser season premiere.

Stephanie, do you think maybe you could set me up with your friend, the first Biggest Loser? I think a dose of his can-do spirit would do me good.

old post written last weekend

I want to be a better person.

Yes, that’s right, I have reached a turning point that is rare in modern life. In this world where everyone is perfectly, deeply content with themselves just as they are, I realize that I am going into uncharted territory here.

Step one on my list: Stop using sarcasm as a communicative style.

Obviously no one doesn’t want to improve him- or herself. In this Sunday’s paper—this is the West Hawaii Today we’re talking about—I counted five ads for dubious ‘dermatologically-affiliated’ offices offering Botox, Restalyne (Restylane?), microdermabrasion, glycolic peels, and everything else short of complete facial transplants. I admit I was paying extra attention because on Saturday, I had my eyebrows “shaped” (i.e., ripped from the follicles with hard blue wax), wax which was apparently a little too hot, because I now have an angry red mark between my brows, and another splotch in the arch of my right eyebrow.

Point is, everyone is out to look better, and I am not immune to such perversions. But I want to be a better person. One who is opposed to such things as waxing for reasons political, ecological, and of personal integrity. One who, after being burned by hot wax, refuses to go out and purchase expensive cosmetics in a vain attempt to cover the scars, but instead wears them proudly to remind herself that vanity is ugly. One who doesn’t buy clothes from the new fall J.Crew catalog, no matter how flattering the “new classic fit” cords promise to be, because of who might have woven them, how much gas it will take to ship them, and how much good could be done with the $79.50 it would take to buy a pair of them. One who wears, instead, jeans bordering on Mom-waisted, enduring the ridicule of both her high school students and her high school-mentality-having peers whom she feels sneering at her when she goes out to dinner. Oh, also, one who doesn’t go out to dinner.

I want to be a martyr.

No, just kidding. Sarcasm again! I just want to achieve the following, and preferably before the end of the month:

1. Eat a balanced diet full of leafy greens, darkly-colored fruits (instead of the apples that all the magazines say are nutritional duds) and thick porridges of whole grains. Return comfort foods like cinnamon grahams, Kraft singles and frozen burritos to their once-a-lifetime, guilt-inducing status. Only eat macaroni and cheese if it’s made of cashew-cheese and spelt-seaweed pasta.
2. Take a moment to breathe deeply and meditate when I feel the urge to growl, wail, or thrash at Ben for whatever reason it may be that day (I’ve found another dead bug in the kitchen, he left a wet towel crumpled in the spare bedroom, he thought it would be funny to put a can of corned beef under my pillow).
3. Stop fantasizing about horrible fates that will befall my students a few years from now, causing them to think, "I sure wish I'd listened to Ms. Mussy instead of ignoring her lessons as my (now-multiple-child-bearing, still unable to speak proper English) friends and I tried to best each others' stories of copious pot smoking!"
4. Cut out this bitterness thing.
   

Jeez! (I hate) earnest singing

One thing that really makes me cringe—I guess you could say it’s the one thing I absolutely can’t stand, excluding bugs and filth and bird beaks and cats and creeping vines that seem to have minds full of pure evil—is hearing a group of girls sing in earnest along to the radio. The scene in Harold and Kumar where they sing along to “Hold On” is hilarious, because it’s a self-conscious, ironic scene playing for laughs, as opposed to a trio of college students belting out a self-empowering anthem they feel was written for them, like…..well, . As is the commercial for some car where a bunch of hip young guys drive through the desert and one guy goes a little too far with his enthusiasm for “(Man!)” I Feel Like a Woman.”

It was just that song that recently made me turn the corner from thinking, “Yeah, it would be fun to raise babies to be teenagers” and run smack-dab into the truth, which is that they alternately endear themselves to me (when they remind me of the humiliating moments of my past) and make me want to run far, far away from the knowledge that I was once like them.

This whole high school business can be surreal. Last weekend, I spent 24 hours chaperoning a “camp” (more of a retreat full of Smores, silly games, and giggling in sleeping bags) for a club of the high-achievers of the school. It was like seeing a whole new species to hear them talk about upcoming tests, projects, and even current issues, such as when one girl explained that she decided to be a vegetarian after researching the issue and learning about the ecological costs of meat.

So back to belting out tunes in the car. I’m all for it. But when a group of teenaged girls sings in unison, even if they’re impressively in tune and know every “huh,” “ow!” and “whoa-oa-oa,” it makes my chest hurt to hear these things: the cadences that could only have been perfected with hours of singing alone in one’s bedroom, the glissandos that only studied listenings—countless listenings—to a freaking Shania Twain or Pussycat Dolls album could enable one to emulate. Why does it bug me so much? Why? Did I not pour my heart into “Fast Cars” or “Right Here Waiting” every time they came on? Do I not still do the same with “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”?

What is it with song titles containing parentheses that makes them particularly amenable to heartfelt renditions?

Anyway, it’s the singing in earnest that gets me. I mean, I, too, know many of the lyrics to “Dontcha,” but only because it I bought it on iTunes so I could replicate the abs routine from my Body Pump class. But that doesn’t mean I sing along to it, at least not in a way that reveals I am fully invested in its lyrics and Forever 21 aesthetic.

It’s a fine line between those teens and me, and I’d better do everything within my power to etch it ever deeper.

Tattletale installment two

Mere hours before our friends descended upon the town for what would be the greatest week of our lives, Ben and I had a nice brunch with his dad and stepmom, then toured the grounds of the SHERATON KEAUHOU RESORT AND SPA.* As we passed the Keiki Club, or whatever the place is called where parents dump their kids so they can go on swingers’ booze cruises and make crooked real estate deals, I espied through the plate-glass window this charming tableau:

Ten or so children under the age of seven sit on kiddie-couches and beanbags, vacant eyes fixed on a (state of the art flat-screen I’m sure) TV. The only adult in sight: a large woman splayed across several geometrically-printed mini-sofas, mouth agog with the sweet relief that only an illicit on-the-clock nap can bring. I couldn’t hear through the glass but I’m sure she was sawing some major logs. We walked back the same way about twenty minutes later, after taking some silly pictures and plotting how Ben might sneak fifteen grown men in to use the water slide later in the week, and the scene was exactly the same. I was a little disappointed, thinking the kids would have at least had the chutzpah to draw on their governess’s face with a Sharpie.

The hotel could not have asked for a better advertisement. After all, anyone who would leave their child with an unknown babysitter on vacation deserves what they get, and in this case, they got textbook neglect by a hungover (or narcoleptic) employee who could clearly care less about how she came across to her resort employer and its hegemonic control over her native island. At least that’s how I like to look at it.

So much for a non-judgmental Tattletale column. Maybe next time.

* I took extra care to be detailed in my naming of names, in case prospective guests or repentant parents are googling this place, wondering if they a) should choose it for their family vacation or b) got their money’s worth. Well you did, neglecting parents! You get exactly what you deserved!

a tattling will i go!

I’ve decided it is my civic duty to start a regular feature called Tattletale which documents the peccadilloes and greater sins of the public. I shall try to offer them without judgment or judgmental commentary. May the deeds stand on their own merits (or utter depravity).

Today’s theme will be parenting.

1. A lady pushes her wailing kid around the grocery store (in a cart, not bodily). Every time the child emits a particularly loud shriek, she shoves a marshmallow into its mouth from an opened, but clearly not-yet-paid-for, bag.
2. As I drive by a neighborhood ballfield, two women are standing there talking over strollers. Beside them, their toddler-sized children climb the chain-link backstop. The mothers glance up periodically, apparently unconcerned that their three-year-olds are passing the 15-foot mark. Maybe they figure they've each got a backup kid.
   
3. In Macy's today, a dad pushes around one of the mall-provided cart-strolly-things. In the part where a child is meant to go sits a boy of about five. In the mesh bag where your shopping bags are supposed to go is a baby of about eight months, swinging to and fro as the dad zooms the cart around the wineglass displays.
   
4. This one’s cute. A gaggle of girls walks by (also in Macy's; my pool of anecdotes is limited, I’m on an island), nervously chattering, heads together. From the group arises the squeal, “Ohmygod, did I say ‘Hi!’ or ‘Hey!’?!” [God, that punctuation slowed down my typing.] One says, “You totally said, ‘Hey Cody, how’s it going’” to which the others reply with relieved, approving giggles.

not so cute in a thirty-year-old

My nephew, Theo, adorably thinks every colorful, wrapped package he sees is a gift for him. Equally cute is how, if you present him with a "present" that isn't wrapped, he accepts it, then asks, "Where's the present?"

Mr. Muss and I are at a similar toddler-like stage in our new membership in the married-or-getting-married club. In this stage, we blindly assume that whenever a wedding is being discussed, we will be invited. Our first brush, sort of, with this previously unimagined realm of social anxiety occurred before our wedding. When my dear friend since high school got engaged, I assumed we were going to be invited, because it was all we ever talked about: the dress, the photographer selection, the invitation font. When, about two months before the wedding date, Ben pointed out that we hadn't received an invitation, then dropped the subtlety completely and danced around the house singing, "You didn't get in-VI-ted! You didn't get in-VI-ted!", my heart sank...then fluttered madly with panic, as I remembered all the times I so blatantly let my friend know I expected an invitation. Like, the times I talked about shopping for a new dress for her wedding, or the times I said things like, "I can't wait for your wedding!"

Turns out, of course, we were invited to that one. My friend, with-it as she is, was sticking the the proper tradition of sending invitation six weeks in advance. Kind of the equivalent of not arriving at a party too early. I think I told her eventually how Ben had horrified and taunted me, and we had a good laugh.

Well, it's happened again, only this time I'm pretty sure it's for real. And this time, thanks to my big mouth, we'll probably end up getting a mercy invitation, which we'll have to figure out how to politely decline so we don't become the a-holes of the wedding.

Hmm, this sounds oddly like the times in junior high when I would think girls were inviting me to the movies or a slumber party, and it would turn out that they were just talking about their plans in my presence, loudly, only to create an opportunity to snub me and laugh hysterically as I wondered if my breath smelled like Funyuns or if I'd gotten something on my white Bongo miniskirt.

But that's a conversation for my therapist, or my locked diary. The lesson I've learned recently is that run-of-the-mill parties (which are inevitably potlucks here) and nights out to the bar are one thing; it's embarrassing, but not mortifying, to find that you've invited yourself to them. But when it comes to weddings, you must take every measure possible to prevent that from happening. My advice: keep your trap shut when the W word comes up. Nod, yes; smile, maybe; but do not say anything that could remotely be construed as implying or assuming that you are even on the radar for an invitation. Your self-respect is not worth the risk!

But it would still be cute as all get-out if Theo did it.

life is good

I should be ashamed of myself for thinking this, but I have had an awesome two days thanks to a near-natural disaster and how the false alarm raised around it stole two days of education from already vulnerable young minds. Lives could have been changed! Artistic impulses and literary passions ignited!

Our neighborhood was bone-dry and utterly still until this afternoon—hours after the alleged hurricane had passed—when it rained maybe half an inch. My fantasy came true! Two days off of work, without having to cower under a mattress or eat cold Spaghetti-Os! Now I get to savor delectably piping-hot Spaghetti-Os, with a nice Montepulciano.

Some women need cabanas at the Four Seasons, full-body skin peels at the spa, 15-dollar poolside drinks made out of cucumbers, and shopping sprees to feel they’ve gone on a real vacation, but not me. Over the past two days, I have read the last few chapters of Harry that I’d been saving for the past week; learned that we have the Travel Channel (Missymussy + Tony Bourdain = Luv); organized the linen closet; and subsisted almost entirely on canned vegetarian chili and Country Time lemonade. I haven’t been this happy since “Breakfast for Dinner” night at Colorado College. (Go CC.)

And now my 4-day weekend begins! Today a sub is seeing what it’s like to be ME as I get my teeth drilled, then spend the whole day blissfully reading stacks of literature textbooks as I try to get the whole semester planned in advance. Then, Friday is Admissions Day (one of Hawaii’s many extra state holidays, this one to celebrate the day we became a state and won the right to have frivolous holidays), and that still leaves two whole normal weekend days.

I'm starting to think that the perfect profession for me is as a teacher who doesn't have to teach. I believe they are called "curriculum developers," and I believe they make about three times as much as teachers. However, I also have a tendency to think of them as Satan's spawn.

we feel fine

Ben keeps saying it's the end of the world, God hates us, and the like. We are awaiting the arrival of Hurricane Flossie, which will either a) vindicate my anxiety by ripping the roof off our house and/or flooding away all of our beloved crap or b) make me admit I'm a bozo as I sheepishly survey the frivolous canned goods I bought and hope Ben forgets that I wanted to seal our wedding photos in Ziploc bags.

About an hour ago, there was a 5.3 earthquake that sent me scurrying out of the house in my humiliating at-home clothes (stretched out, thin Old Navy camisole with super-short, yet baggy, shorts that expose the waistband of my granny panties).

I guess no matter what happens, even if it's just a strong breeze, I will always end up looking a fool.

At least I get to spend all day tomorrow finishing Harry Potter and eating Spaghetti-Os (with franks!), Cocoa Krispies, cinnamon graham crackers, and all the other junk foods I decided were absolute necessities for the impending disaster. You can't tell me the Katrina victims who stocked up on Kashi bars and dried fruit didn't regret it.

i'm a polyester princess

Do you think it counts if you use fashion tips from "What Not to Wear" in selecting clothes that have several characteristics of the very items they tell you not to wear?

I just bought five knit dresses to wear to school, which are totally cute and figure-flattering according to Stacey and Clinton's standards. Unless, of course, you consider the fact that they're made of 95% polyester, with the other 5% being either nylon, lycra, or the sinews of Malaysian children woven into a cheaper version of nylon or lycra.

But to my eye, they look no different from the $180 knit dresses being sold at boutiques around the country. So if these fall apart after one wearing, I will only be out $12 per wear. That's like buying the good kind and wearing it 12 times.

I decided I needed new clothes when I tried on a denim miniskirt with zippers that I bought a few years ago, and when asked whether he thought I could still get away with wearing it, Ben replied, "Maybe if you're dressing up as one of the Bratz?"

the Yokels go out to dinner

To celebrate our upcoming one-monthiversary, we went out to dinner last night at Kenichi. Granted, the place was the catalyst for my pre-wedding breakdown when my attempted bachelorette party there was a bust, but I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. Luckily, the a-hole bartender wasn't working, and in his place was a guy who in elementary school we used to call Hanabata (Japanese-pidgin for snot) and is super-nice. We ran in to fellow marrieds Rene and Mark and had a nice reliving of certain wedding moments that I only noticed in the pictures, like how as I walked down the aisle, half the people were holding keg cups.

ANYwho, it was lovely, and the extremely slow service (we're talking 45 minutes for a RAW salad and sushi roll) forced us to look deep into each other's eyes and talk, really talk.

Ha ha, only kidding. I read the menu at least ten times. It really gave me a chance to memorize the menu, and to decide if I wanted the ono tataki, a seared piece of ono served over sweet potato puree with a hoisin beurre blanc, steamed green beans and sauteed shiitake mushrooms; or the broiled black cod in Kenichi's own homemade miso paste. I chose the latter.

Ben's conversational gem of the night was telling me that he used to think the refrain in "Who's That Girl" went, Send your meatballs....to I-TALL-y......Who's that girl?" This, and "Cream of Plenty.....Alleluia" is truly why I married him.

Apologies to Stephanie (and Matt) for calling them at 2 am (their time) to ask how to order coffee with Frangelico. Turns out you just ask for it IN the coffee.

the ugly truth

We got our wedding photos back from the photographer (the one we paid, as opposed to the ones we guilted into taking hundreds of photos and then posting immediately online, before they even had a chance to unpack), and while I mostly like the way I look and all the memories they evoke, I am pretty sure the guy Photoshopped the hell out of my arms and hands in the close-ups. There's not a hair in sight. Which makes me start to think, how werewolf-like do I look in real life? And what other mythical beasts do I resemble without a makeup artist's magic?

all in fun

Since we've become man and wife, Ben has either

a) decided that he needs to pull out all the stops in the realm of teasing me, to remind me of why I fell in love with him and thus ensure our marriage will be life-long, or

b) reckoned that since I'm his wife, in addition to wearing the burqua for which he's been lobbying--nay, haranguing--I should be subjected to daily shocks, pesterings, and other depravations as a sort of wifely hazing.

c) started worrying that being married is a step away from losing all the magic of our early relationship, and decided it's his responsibility to top such high points as the bag of potatoes
and the battery-free remote control.

So, since our wedding, here is the first of many gems that've happened:

We're sitting for a house with an awesome view of City of Refuge. [I'm still putting together my House-Kit, full of fun activities for the house to do. It's decorated with rickrack and sequins. This note for Stephanie.] In addition to the spectacular sunsets, other-worldly views of moonrise over the ocean that half-awaken me at 2 a.m., and cable, including all the HBOs, we have the treat of a sweet-tempered dog named Nutmeg. If all my students had half her personality (and intelligence, there, I've said it), my job would be a cakewalk.

Last night, the tranquility of my post-hot tub (solar-heated) shower was shattered by the jangling of something metallic. The jingling of knives as the home invader, preparing to attack, pondered which would most efficiently disembowel me? The huge key ring of a night janitor escaped from the mental asylum, having just disposed of my husband and now ready to join me in the tub? These are actual thoughts that go through my mind when I hear strange noises.

No, I realized it was Nutmeg. But where was she? Why would she be in the bathroom? Wait, could Ben have collapsed in heap in the kitchen, and still be lying there for a coma-inducing length of time like Shelby in Steel Magnolias, all due to my neglect and self-indulgently long shower? I was just about to peek out of the shower curtain when I felt it brush against my leg and something soggy land at my feet, followed by a confused bark.

I looked down into the tub and saw Nutmeg's sodden chew toy, scanned up and saw Ben's grinning face as he squeezed out, "Attack, Nutmeg! Attack her! She stole your toy!" between giggles.

Is he mad? Emotionally retarded? Or simply a loving husband, trying (in his way, like King Kong pawing at the blonde lady) to show me he cares?

Either way, he's trying to show me my place as a wife. And that place is alternately a) cowering in the shower as a 75-pound dog wonders why someone is commanding her to "bite a leg," or b) spending my Friday night pontificating on his every move and trying to figure out how best to show that I truly appreciate the joy (childlike as it may be) that he brings to my life.

After the ecstasy, the laundry

[As part of my new blog revitalization plan, there is supposed to be a photo here but my TWO cameras aren’t working, and I’ve agreed not to use either Ben's camera or computer in the interest of keeping our marriage alive. Picture this: piles of cardboard boxes all askew, overflowing with gift wrap and beach towels and shredded ribbons and boxer shorts and bottles of hot sauce. Also one pair of electric blue Speedos--trunks, not banana hammocks--that must belong to someone.]

When I worked at the bookstore, I found a greeting card with that quote (from some California Zen white guy) and a cool photo of a shack with towels hanging on the railing. I thought it was a neat idea, and tacked it above my sink to remind me in the morning that whatever fun had been had the night before, I was starting a new day, cleansed and open to all possibilities, blah blah. Also that I should have removed my makeup before bed.

A few months after Ben and I started dating, he remarked that he had always thought that card was weird, reading it as an overtly sexual reference. He implied that it indicated I indulged in conspicuous promiscuity and had to remind myself to do the laundry. I don't know what exactly he meant. My mind was more pure, I suppose. I thought it was a reminder of being ever-vigilant of the present moment, and in finding joy in the mundane necessities of life, like laundry. Not even thinking about what might have soiled said laundry, necessitating its washing. Anyway, it embarrasses me to think about because my parents had just visited me in my apartment when Ben said that. We were still in our Being Blunt phase.

Whatever connotations were intended, I still like to think of this when I’m facing mountains of stuff that would be demoralizing and depressing if not for approaching them as incipient form within formlessness, a chance to take pleasure in sorting and pondering, another safe outlet for my OCD.

Also, these 'mountains' of things to be sorted, organized and wiped clean of Hawaii Decay (yes, even brand-new things are susceptible to mildew) are primarily gifts. Those that aren't are reminders of the immeasurable gift Ben and I were given by our dearest friends coming to join us for our wedding, which was, thus far, the best week of our lives. So it’s not like I’m facing a mountain of papers to grade. That will be in nine days. I got a job, and now it’s time for the laundry.

The real testimonial thank-you post still to come.

Pnewlywed Pneumonia & a Honeymoon Hangover

First of all, Ben has pneumonia and/or bronchitis. Thanks to Doctor Erick and Nurse Jenn who “ratcheted” Ben’s health from “Dismal” up to “May Live” with their melted-cough-drop concoctions, frank discussions of bowel functions, and other tireless efforts. For a hypochondriac married to the son of one, a few days with two medical professionals was the best gift we could have asked for. That, or a home IV kit.

There’s nothing worse than abruptly returning to your everyday life and confirming your suspicion that it would blow in comparison to the one magical week out of which you have just staggered, only to find:

• a closet full of mildew than your husband claims makes it impossible for him to sleep in your marital bed (we both secretly think, Yesss! Free at last)
• A refrigerator full of insufficiently wrapped gruyere cheese that must now be thrown away
• Shockingly, no notice in the mail that you have won any of the wedding-related sweepstakes you entered in the last eight months via wedding websites that are now spamming the bejesus out of you
• that Hawaii is hot, bug-infested, and unbearably humid when you aren’t trying to defend it to visiting friends

But there’s nothing better than slowly leaning back against the bolster of the recent past, letting the memories wash over you as you shudder with wonder that you have ended up as part of what must be the kindest, gentlest, badass-est, most generous group of friends ever to be assembled in the Pacific Rim—nay, the world.

To count among your friends:

• a librarian so artfully organized she has inspired subscriptions to Real Simple and ignited a dozen envious discussions of her aesthetic sense and Flickr site
• so many medical professionals (some of whom you pressed into duty on your honeymoon) that your family has started referring to every friend they don’t know as “that doctor or nurse”
• not one, but several, gentlemen who can genuinely be described as “unemployed…but brilliant”
• those who have walked among us as mortals but share wisdom only Bookworkers could know
• two college friends who have been asked to prove their loyalty time and time again (we're in the friendship mafia), and have always done it, often requiring air travel)
  

-- is something very few people can do. I think.

More of this list to come. Now I must go offer ice water (which he claims is my best dish) to my Husband (I’m sad that I can no longer call him “my Betrothed"), who has been watching Oz on DVD for the past six hours. I sure hope he doesn’t shank me!

pickles

I am returning to this BLOG (suck it, Anna Wintour) to start over like God intended, to do it right--to write as if no one else is reading, because no one else IS reading. If the blog is supposed to be like a journal, then it must be written with no intention of anyone else ever reading it, like a journal (or diary, as Ben calls it when he makes me chase him around the house as he waves my real diary overhead).

Ben is out of town, which is why I am a) up this late and b) doing what I want, watching Conan whilst noodling on my BLOG. (Again, Anna. If you haven't read about how Anna Wintour banned the word from Vogue's new web edition, and if you were present for the 'negatory' incident, you truly must track it down and read it. I think this proves that I have always harbored futuristic delusions about myself as a glossy-haired fashion and word maven.)

Also, I've given the lie to my claim that I am writing in the hopes that no one else is reading, by addressing "you."

prickles

[I'm sorry, but I like this font so much better.]

The whole reason I started this blog was so I could document incidents like the following.

When we got back from Christmas in the Pacific Northwest, where I understandably took a ten-day vacation from shaving my legs, Ben complained in typical heterosexual male fashion: "You're like Snoopy's cousin who lives in the desert!"
His name is Spike, Ben, and I think you conflated him with the cactus in your memory.

a new year, a new font, same overuse of adverbs

FINALLY! I have been in a pit of self-loathing about all the things I haven't been doing: mopping, flossing, adhering to the Ultra-Prevention diet I wouldn't shut up about all through December, and, of course, writing about random, banal crap here. It turned into a vicious cycle, wherein I was so irritated at myself about not having done X, Y or Z, it was painful to think about starting to do it again. My gums and the kitchen floor are in a disgusting state.

But the upside is: I now have a three-month backlog of "tidbits" and derivative observations just waiting to be put into the self-consciously jauntily-written word! Things like:

* Ben changed my screensaver to a photo of a giant eight-legged you-know-what that I discovered when I shut down my computer right before bed, causing an entire night of screaming nightmares!

* I spent $100 on dinner the other night with the intention of writing a restaurant review and being reimbursed, but have yet to write a single word! How me!

* I resolved to break with my addiction to celebrity gossip, until I discovered the treasure trove of videos on TMZ that allow me to feel smug and highly intelligent compared to the people I otherwise envy and begrudge their disgusting wealth! (If you haven't already, check out the one of Paris Hilton running out of gas in the middle of an intersection, and Cindy Crawford giving her husband a lap dance.)

* Don't you just hate those giant sunglasses all the young girls are wearing? They look like, I don't know--ooh, like big old bug eyes! Yeccch!

As soon as I remember the rest, I'll type 'em up. But trust me, they're cutting edge.