missymussy

the telltale smear of toothpaste

2011-12-17T13:28:00.000-08:00

Today is Grace's twelfth day of being in the world. It's also the first day that I have felt human enough to sit down and attempt to write something besides a one-word Facebook comment.

One thing that symbolizes what the last twelve days have been like: there has been a smudge of toothpaste on my shelf in the bathroom since one of our first days home. I've been flirting with major tooth decay, brushing my teeth sporadically at best, tossing a few Rolos into my maw before falling into bed. So along with the countless other OCD habits that I have sacrificed to the cause of mere survival, properly squeezing the toothpaste tube from the bottom up has gone by the wayside. I now squeeze it like a toddler or an angry raccoon--Ben noted that I opened a tub of hummus "like an angry hobo"--and this drip of Colgate has remained stuck to the shelf, taunting me each day. I knew it would take a second to wipe it up, but doing so has seemed beyond my capabilities, not worth the energy. Like so many other things: changing out of Ben's ratty old pajama top, checking our bank balance, putting Chapstick on my disgusting, cracked lips. The only thing that has mattered has been keeping Grace fed, changed, and either asleep or alert.

Well, today, I wiped up the toothpaste blob! I also scrubbed the kitchen sink in preparation for Gracie's second bath, after her first one in the "Tummy Tub" I so carefully selected was a disaster, despite having watched instructional videos on its use. I wrote one thank-you card, and did a load of laundry, a milestone as I haven't been able to bend down to the washing machine until now, and have been letting my mom wash about ten loads every day. I capped off all of this activity by wiping up the toothpaste, and that's when I realized that life will get back to normal someday.

Every morning, when the sun (sort of) comes up and my mom or dad comes out to put on the tea kettle or make coffee, I feel a great sense of relief. "Well," I think, we've managed to keep her alive for one more night." Throughout the day, I'm seized by terror when I think about how my parents are only staying with us for three more nights, and a few weeks after that, we'll be completely on our own.

Tonight may bring another brush with utter panic and the depths of despair. But I have made progress: I've gone from being someone who idly ignores basic hygiene to someone who can wield a paper towel when needed. I am getting a little bit closer to being back to myself...or to my new self, whoever that will be.

the final countdown

2011-12-02T13:40:00.000-08:00

This is it! The week I've been looking forward to for nine months. My due date is ten days away, and the baby has, thankfully, not arrived early. Everything is--mostly--ready for her arrival: the infant seat has been installed and checked by a certified car seat technician, the cloth diapers are washed and I've made peace with the uncertainty surrounding Charlie's Soap, the crib has been assembled for months and is filled with frivolous stuffed toys that we'll have to remove as soon as it's time to place Gracie in there.

Oh, did I not mention that we've decided on Grace for the baby's name? But I reserve the right to change my mind when I see her. Maybe some name we hadn't even considered will pop into my head and seem utterly fitting. Like Epidurlene, for example?

Anyway, all of my obsessive list-making and recent frantic preparations were all in service of this final goal: having a week before my due date when I would have nothing else to do besides watch TV and movies, read Sue Grafton's new book, V is for Vengeance, and eat things that, by my twisted logic, I am only allowed to eat while pregnant: root beer floats, a butterscotch sundae, and Dick's burgers and fries. So every day for the past few weeks has been driven by an undercurrent of fear that I might go into labor early and miss out on this blissful, self-indulgent week. But so far, so good! V is for Vengeance arrived at the library on time, and I was in the first round of people to get it on reserve, ahead of hundreds of other cheapskates! If only it weren't such a quick read. I'm having to ration it out so it lasts a couple of days, since I've looked forward to it for so long.

I am just about finished with the last ridiculously time-consuming sewing project that I burdened myself with, though I'm tempted to start another one, just to keep things interesting. After all, if I don't have this to worry about late at night (whether or not I'll be able to finish embroidering little flags to hang over the crib), I'll just worry about something else, like the unspeakable fears that every pregnant woman must harbor about the birth.

So, I'll only be leaving the house when absolutely necessary: trips to Dick's, and maybe Jo Ann for fabric. Now I just need to choose my next series to watch on Netflix. Any suggestions?

exhibit Z that too much internet research can only lead to ruin

2011-11-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

After spending at least 8 hours researching the best detergent for cleaning cloth diapers, I decided on this stuff called Charlie's Soap. It had hundreds of five-star reviews, and was glowingly recommended by diaper retailers, moms in the "cloth diapering community" (yes, there is such a thing), and several of my friends. It's an all-natural soap made of coconut oil and washing soda, and if the reviews and manufacturer are to be believed, will leave your clothes soft, stain- and fade-free; will clear up skin problems you may have; and will make your clothes fit so well that you'll look ten pounds lighter and years younger!

This weekend, I spent another 8 hours and untold gallons of water "stripping" our washing machine (since Charlie's is supposed to work best when you get rid of all residues from old detergents), washing our new cloth diapers five times (since you have to do that to make them absorbent), and starting to wash all of our own clothes and linens in this miracle soap of the gods. I also washed every single article of baby clothing in Charlie's, from onesies to swaddlers to receiving blankets, lovingly folding and organizing them as I congratulated myself for being so eco-friendly, so caring of my baby's skin, so conscientious as to build her a little bubble into which no phthalates, endocrine disruptors, sulfates, or other bogeymen shall enter.

Then, while seeking more information about how to use Charlie's, I came across dozens of forums where mothers reported their babies have gotten blistering, oozing chemical burns from diapers washed in it. I started to worry. I spent another few hours reading more reports from both sides: Charlie's is a miracle soap! Charlie's is the devil's soap! Charlie's works great if you add five other things to your machine and do five extra rinses, but if you only do four rinses, your baby's butt will turn crimson and she'll hate you for life! I started to wonder whether I'd made a mistake. I told Ben. Ben mocked me and said it would be fine.

Ben just called from work, where he is visiting the on-site medical clinic as he has suddenly developed hives all over his body. I guess I should be glad that I only poisoned my husband and not my baby, but I still feel terrible. Could this be the sign I need to give up my addiction to online reviews? Maybe this is the universe's way of telling me to chill out about being eco-friendly, non-toxic and natural. Maybe I should head to Wal-Mart to stock up on Huggies, formula, cheap plastic noise-making toys, and Tide.

If I can't even get this right....I give up. Why couldn't I have been a mother in the 50s, when there was ONE way to do things? One baby book (Dr. Spock), one diapering option (have your housekeeper change your baby using cloth diapers and pins), and one way to give birth (completely unconscious, while dad drank whiskey in the waiting room).

UPDATE: So I may have overreacted a little. It turns out Ben was reacting to some contact that he had with fiberglass. (Our hot water heater is wrapped in a blanket that sheds fiberglass, and he was dutifully checking the water temperature as recommended by our baby books.) But I am still conflicted about this soap issue. Should I continue to wash our stuff in Charlie's, or start over (which will require me to rewash all the baby clothes multiple times in a new detergent)?

in case you were wondering

2011-11-21T10:38:00.000-08:00

Since 2003, I've tried to explain to countless people why I dropped out of grad school. This about sums it up:

http://gawker.com/5861448/report-english-lit-professors-write-too-much-boring-crap

I'm too lazy to read the original article, so I can't say that I wholeheartedly buy into this argument. I know that many of my colleagues from Duke are teaching amazing, inspiring classes at colleges across the country. But that was not to be my path. Can you imagine how stressed I would be on a daily basis, considering how taxing it was for me to teach high school classes? You can't give college students a list of vocabulary words and tell them to spend the period making flash cards when you're out of ideas! I would probably be bald (due to stress-induced trichotillomania), fat, or both if I had finished my Ph.D. and were now teaching in higher ed.

Anyway, some of my sleepless hours lately have been consumed by that pesky, familiar themes: What if I had... and Ack! It will be at least three years until...[we can buy a house, I have an established career, etc.] Coming across this article helps validate at least one of the decisions that brought me to this point.

Yes, I swallowed a beach ball

2011-11-15T10:26:00.000-08:00

For those readers who aren't on Facebook, here are a few pictures of my ever-expanding girth!

World’s Greatest

2011-11-14T12:14:00.000-08:00

For my sixth birthday, my sister gave me a stuffed “World’s Greatest” doll. He was the koala in Shirt Tales, a Saturday morning cartoon we would watch at 6:30 a.m., fortified with Fruity Pebbles while our parents slept (a tradition I plan to replicate in my own family). This was just one in a long line of unbelievably selfless gifts and gestures that Beth would give me over the years. The next year, she slaved over a homemade dollhouse complete with hand-knitted curtains and cardboard furniture. And during my Awkward Sophomore Year of Having No Friends, she invited me to come along with her and her much cooler friend, Scarlett, on their beach trips and jaunts to Taco Bell. She even took me to my first high school party, where I probably mortified her by primly refusing to take even a sip of alcohol, believing as I did that one drink would instantly cause me to lose control of my faculties and then spew all over everyone. (If all fifth graders responded to D.A.R.E. like I did, the program would be a sweeping success instead of the national joke it really is!)

Well, true to form, Beth threw me the World’s Greatest baby shower last weekend! I now have one lifelong dream ticked off my list, as she recreated the “Best Friends’ Outing” from Best Friends for Frances, one of the formative books of my childhood. I can’t overstate how much the Frances books shaped my childhood...and beyond. I spent years in search of the recording of the book that we once borrowed from the library. I finally found it on a 45”, so now I’ll be able to sing Frances’s silly songs to my daughter--whom I considered naming Gloria, after Frances’s little sister--to the tunes that Lillian and Russell Hoban intended. (“When the wasps and the bumblebees have a party, nobody comes who can’t buzz...”)

And even though none of the guests, being normal and not obsessed with children’s books, had ever read the Frances series, they all appreciated the perfectly rendered tableau of all things Frances.

The story begins when Albert won’t let Frances and Gloria come along on his Wandering Day, for which he has “only” packed a small lunch, including cupcakes, apples and bananas, and a quart of chocolate milk.

Frances and Gloria get him back but good, when they set off with a hamper filled with “Nothing much. Hard boiled eggs and fresh whole tomatoes...carrot and celery sticks...cream cheese and chive sandwiches, cream cheese and jelly sandwiches too."

"Salami-and-egg and pepper-and-egg sandwiches."

"Cole slaw and potato chips, of course."

"Ice-cold root beer packed in ice."

"And there are other things I forget, like black and green olives and pickles and Popsicles and probably some pretzels and things like that. And there are salt and pepper shakers and napkins and a checked tablecloth, which is the way girls do it.”

Of course, Albert apologizes and they have a lovely co-ed picnic. Perfectly fitting for my co-ed shower, which I attempted to document with my new camera. But that will have to be another post! I'll leave you with a final shot of the father-to-be.

No baby shower would be complete without beer!

six more weeks!

2011-10-31T14:50:00.000-07:00

And I sure hope the fabled nesting instinct kicks in soon. At night, I lie awake thinking of all the cleaning that I need to do: washing down the walls in our unventilated bathroom so the baby doesn't develop asthma from the mildew; cleaning out our old wooden cabinets so my in-laws aren't disgusted when they reach in for a coffee mug and get a handful of cobwebs; and, of course, cooking and freezing a month's worth of meals like every single pregnancy book and website advises.

This last one is pretty unrealistic, as our freezer is currently filled with ten gallon-size bags of green chile. Also because I have never successfully frozen a cooked meal that eventually proved edible. I've frozen a few Tupperwares of soup which I later threw away, sacrificing the containers because I was too lazy and disgusted to thaw them out and clean them. Also because Ben can't eat cheese, which is the main ingredient in any dish worth freezing. And our parents and step-parents, who will be staying with us for the entire month following my due date, are, variously: diabetic, gluten-free, allergic to chicken, vegetarian except for chicken, and sensitive to tomatoes and black pepper. I'm halfway tempted to just stock up on my fave, Stouffer's macaroni and cheese, and let everyone else fend for themselves.

Anyway, with every day that goes by without my having turned into a manic clean-freak, I have begun questioning my initial definition of how prepared I need to be. Does the house really need to be perfectly clean when the baby is born? From my reading, it seems that most American babies are brought home to houses with recently scoured ovens and sparkling burner pans, vacuumed-out refrigerator coils, blindingly white bathroom grout, fully stocked and organized dressers full of clothes for their first year, and stacks of frozen lasagna. So I've been patiently waiting to tackle this list for months now--while actually looking forward to it--thinking that if I cleaned too soon, everything would just get dirty again, so I might as well wait until a month or two before my due date.

But now the urge to keep watching Parenthood (my newest Netflix discovery) and read every single reader comment on STFUparents while eating Oreos (because I've now entered the "screw it, I'm taking a multi-vitamin" phase) is too strong to resist! It's overcome my desire for a clean house day after day. So in addition to fearing all of the unspeakable things related to the baby's health, feeling ashamed of myself for not learning (or wanting to learn) any natural childbirth techniques, and worrying that even my second read-throughs and highlighting of ten different baby books won't help me absorb the information, I am also feeling terribly guilty for being an insufficient nester.

And now that I've mentioned Oreos, I need to go find some chocolate. Why are only the most self-destructive pregnancy cliches manifesting themselves, and none of the good ones?

class clowns

2011-10-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

Ben's notes from our childbirth class:

early labor = mac and cheese for Jill (after our instructor suggested using the time before heading to the hospital to eat something light, since I won't be able to eat once I'm admitted)

have her sing along to Rent (I think the class was going over ambience as a relaxation technique; I know this makes me a boring person, but I don't give a crap about having a custom-made i-pod playlist, dim lights, or aromatherapy, especially since there's an 80 percent chance I won't be able to smell anything that day anyway)

push present = new broom (I have no idea what prompted this one)

Do we get a discount if Ben catches baby and/or cuts cord? (We both agree that no one but the medical staff needs to be anywhere near the business end of labor)

During transition, remind Jill she'll get margaritas soon (This is my favorite!)

Playing house

2011-10-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

We're about to leave for a momentous occasion: presenting ourselves as (soon-to-be) parents for the first time in a quasi-official way. It's the first day of childbirth class! I'm skerred. Will I be the furthest along in my pregnancy, causing all the first-trimester moms to judge me for putting off the class for so long? Will I be the only one who definitely wants an epidural? Will my maternity outfit be too boring? Will I be the only one old enough to have read the Ramona books as they were published (the later ones, anyway)?

Whatever. The hospital where the classes are held in within walking distance of my favorite cupcake bakery. I'll get to stop by to either eat my feelings or celebrate getting through the tedium. Probably I'll be dreadfully bored, because I've now read at least seven pregnancy books and have read everything they're going to teach us.

comida of errors

2011-09-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

I'm back from six days in Albuquerque, and am most proud of what I managed to eat in that time:

- 3 breakfast burritos
- 2 dinners of enchiladas (one homemade, one not)
- pepperoni & green chile pizza
- a pile of green chile brisket
- 1 green chile burger
- 1 frito pie smothered in green chile
- 2 sopapillas
- and one taco party!

We returned with 20 pounds of roasted green chile. Tonight, Ben made a pork and chile stew with it, which has left my mouth burning and the baby, who will be called "Rolo" or "Rolette" until we come up with a real name, doing backflips. This kid better love chile. I know she's going to love Rolos.

Things that comfort me

2011-09-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

(or, things that make me feel like maybe the world isn’t going to hell in a handbasket)

- Thing #1: Driving at night past a municipal sports field and seeing a neighborhood softball league game or practice in progress beneath the unearthly glow of stadium lights

-Why: The sight of an otherwise unaffiliated group of grown-ups (so, not a school or pro team) gathered together voluntarily to play a game that will have no bearing on anyone else in the world, combined with the knowledge that the bright, artificial lights illuminating a well-manicured field are kept on at the will and shared commitment of the people (i.e., taxes), are, to me, what living in a society is all about. Even if some of us are lazy slobs on our way home to eat chocolate chips out of the bag as we write a blog, who would be mortified to have to play softball.

- Thing #2: That rare occasion when two cars are approaching each other at an intersection with no traffic signal and simultaneously, in perfect synchrony, both turn left at the same speed. It’s even better when a really cool song is on the radio like “Kyrie Eleison” by Mister Mister or the crescendo of a power ballad that swells just as you both sail off into the night, a smoothly executed maneuver like a Russian figure skating pair doing perfect side-by-side double axels.

- Why: I don’t know why. It’s the antithesis of road rage, the “every man for himself” nature of a 4-way stop, or some jerk in a BMW (isn’t it always?) who weaves in and out on the freeway and refuses to let you into the right lane even though you just want to get over so he can pass you. It’s like: we don’t need traffic laws or the presence of cops with radar guns to drive safely! We’re civilized people who can negotiate the road using our own grace and common sense. Our turns complement each other as we both glide along down the road that we must travel (through the darkness of the ni-igh-igh-ight).

I realize that I sound like I’m on painkillers, and I’m not, so I’m going to stop now.

my new role model

2011-09-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

www.scarymommy.com

Not really, but I did just discover this blog, and it seems pretty awesome! I know what I'll be doing for the next few days. (Reading past entries and hating myself for abandoning Super Fit Mama, then becoming too insecure to write my own blog.)

What I hate about the internet, part I

2011-09-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

The internet can be a force for good. For example, today I set myself four goals: do the thirty-minute circuit from “Super Fit Mama” (my latest attempt to avoid becoming a complete sloth), have no more than 50 percent of my diet come from sucrose, decide which child seat(s) to order, and start the process of getting little Julia on a wait list for day care. This last goal was easily accomplished, thanks to the internet: I learned all about the university’s day care centers, how much they cost, and even that there are “lactation rooms” complete with hospital grade breast pumps scattered throughout campus! I guess I’ll be carrying a cooler around along with my laptop. Great.

And, amazingly, I was able to resist the siren song of my backlog of sewing projects and new Parent Trap DVD enough to do the entire circuit. I made sure to close the blinds first, lest the construction crew across the street think that my pelvic thrusts in their direction were some sort of invitation. (If you could see me, I make quite a sight doing this workout, especially since I refuse to buy maternity workout clothes, so there is now a ten-inch protrusion of bare skin between my waistband and sports top.)

But when it came time to make a decision about the carseats, I found myself caught in a vortex that spiraled down from mild indecision, to increasing confusion with dangerous hints of questioning my suitability for parenthood, to utter panic and despair accompanied by heart palpitations.

That vortex is known as “online reviews” at Amazon.com, which then leads one to the even more terrifying and dangerous world of forums and message boards, from carseatblog.com to a site for Subaru Legacy owners that includes multiple conversations on which carseats work best with the Legacy. And I thought I was a dork. There’s a whole subculture of guys who think the Legacy (granted, the turbo version with a spoiler) is the hottest thing on four alloy tires.

[Skip this part if you are not interested in the details of my carseat dilemma--so, if you’re not a parent. Or if you are NOT suffering from severe insomnia, or are not a masochist. You know, there is absolutely no reason anyone should read this. I’m just writing it for myself.] You see, we get a free carseat from Ben’s employer (which we refer to as “Sabre” when we wish to keep its identity anonymous, as I shall do here since it’s inevitable that I’m going to want to slander it sooner or later), and can choose anything made by Britax, a fairly expensive brand. If we’re going to get a $350 carseat for free, I want to make the most of it, so I want to get a convertible seat that will last until the kid is 70 pounds--so, if she’s anything like me, until senior year. Then, we’ll still need an infant seat, and there's only one seat on the market compatible with the fancy-schmancy stroller that my sister is handing down to us. So you’d think would make this an easy decision: buy the cheap Graco seat for the stroller, and the best Britax seat to use for the years beyond. Easy!

Oh, ho, how foolish you would be to think that. An easy decision? For me? Me, who won’t go out for a scoop of gelato without poring over all the Yelp reviews of all nearby gelaterias? No, I must do my research, in my quest to make the perfect decision that I will never regret. There are 300 Amazon reviews alone for ONE model I am considering, many of them paragraphs long and written by engineers who go into the physics of why the Marathon 70’s headwings are superior to those of the Advocate’s, or whether the side-cushion technology of the latest Boulevard will protect your baby’s head in a crash or wrench it from its socket, even explaining why Consumer Reports can’t be trusted because of how they’ve revamped their testing procedures. Then there are the reviewers like “Braeden’s Mommie!!!” who get on to write a typo-ridden rant about how a piece of the headrest broke off for no reason, and it turned out to be made of styrofoam, or that the chest clip broke and nearly punctured poor Kaighleigh’s lung. Some babies fall asleep instantly in the seat, they love it so; others shriek in pain during every car trip, causing their parents to rue the day they ever chose this despicable seat. Whom do I trust? Even the Graco seat (which isn't really a choice--we have to get it if we don't want to buy a new stroller) has rave reviews and claims that its straps are impossible to adjust. Judging from these reviews, a trip of any distance with a baby needs to be engineered more carefully than a space shuttle launch. Yes, we are going to have our seat installed by the certified carseat technician at our Subaru dealership, but even then, how will we ever move the seat from one car to another? Will I have to personally drive my child everywhere she ever goes until she’s big enough for a booster seat?

Turns out there are a million little sub-decisions that must be made before you can make the big decision of which seat to buy: convertible or not? Will you use it with a stroller? Move it between cars? Take it on a plane? Use it front- or rear-facing? Will the harness be too high for your baby (whose size you can't predict)? Who will be sitting in the passenger seat, since they may not be able to recline? And then which fabric do you want? Dark, to cover stains, or light, so it doesn’t absorb heat and burn your baby in the summer?

I decided to take a break from this madness and make an easier decision: which baby carrier (like, an Ergo or Baby Bjorn, etc.) to buy. Even THAT led me down the primrose path to review-scouring. There were reviews by women who bought ten different carriers (seriously) before they found one that would work for them. That’s like $1000! How will I ever deciiiiiiiiiiiide?!

I took a deep breath, and---okay, I ate five squares of Swiss milk chocolate and a bowl of Cocoa Krispies, and went on to surf from Gawker to The Nation to reviews of books I’ve recently read to see if the critics agreed with me (another shameful pasttime of mine). Hours later, I did have a potential epiphany: Somehow, whether in an Ergo or a Pikkolo Catbird wrap or a Moby sling, I will be carrying my baby around in three months. I’ll use my bare arms if I have to!

And somehow, we will transport this baby to visit her cousins and aunts and uncles and, eventually, her little friends (whose parents' profiles I will meticulously research online beforehand). No! That is not who I want to be! That was the whole point of this post: we have access to too much information. At some point, it stops being useful and becomes a hindrance--to authentic life, to being in the moment, all that mumbo-jumbo. (Namaste.) From a practical standpoint, this glut of opinion steals from us; it steals time, energy, and trust in our own instincts. It makes us see ourselves as nothing more than consumers, and it perpetuates the false belief that we can create our own happiness by choosing the right products. When the truth is, if our carseat turns out to be a pain in the ass, so what? We already live with many pains in our asses, but we're fortunate that they are only figurative, and not, you know, colorectal cancer. My world will not turn on whether I can get the baby into the car in three seconds versus three minutes.

I’ve always had a terrible time making decisions. I tend to think that if I just do enough research, think logically, and seek enough input from others, I can determine precisely the right choice, and thus control the outcome. But maybe there isn’t always a right choice, with baby carriers or the many more important decisions that we’ll have to make in the coming years (when I’ll look back and laugh at myself for giving it this much thought). Maybe Julia/Maeve/Gracie will be better off if I spend hours each day doing something besides learning what 398 people thought of her carseat. Like eating a danged vegetable once in a while.

baby's first manic sugar fit

2011-09-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Today was my glucose challenge test for gestational diabetes. I had to fast overnight and then drink a bottle of icky, dextrose-laden "fruit punch" before getting my blood drawn. When I got home, I flopped down to watch some Good Morning America, and the baby was kicking like she's never kicked before. She was going crazy in there, flipping around every which way, fluttering her feet, doing kick-ball-changes or the Charleston. I could actually see my belly rippling. I then fell asleep for 2 1/2 hours.

Wonder how much sugar was actually in that stuff?!

Anyway, in case I do end up diagnosed with the 'betes, I'm living it up now with some brownies and iced coffee. Probably not the best snack after having more sugar than anyone needs in a day, but what the hell. I'm dutifully avoiding soft cheeses, runny eggs, lunch meat, soft serve, alcohol, sleeping on my back, cleaning products, standing in front of the microwave, drinking from plastic cups, and teeth whitening toothpaste. A girl's gotta have some pleasure in life!

What a maroon!

2011-09-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the current ugliness of the blog. I followed Blogger's suggestion to switch to the new template, believing its promise that I could easily switch back to my old design, and now I can't figure out how to! Nor can I figure out how to get rid of the dumb highlighting behind the text of my last entry. Maybe I should type out my blog on my Royal typewriter and make mimeographed copies to send to interested friends using the Pony Express. Geez.

Look what I found!

2011-09-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

After years of searching the children's section of countless used bookstores, I've finally gotten a copy of one of my most beloved childhood books! Powell's has a feature where you can sign up to be notified if a used (even out-of-print, like this one is) book ever becomes available. As I've written about before, the image of a sand-colored round cookie has haunted me for the past twenty or so years, and with the help of some faithful readers, I was able to remember the title. With shipping, it cost about $10--so, about a 1000 percent inflation from its original price--but once I opened up the pages, the feelings of nostalgia evoked were well worth it.

Isn't it just. Seeing this round, crumbly-looking cookie goes a long way toward explaining my lifelong obsession with cookies. Sometimes I lie in bed and dream about these butter cookies that my grandma would give us. They came in blue tins decorated with little Dutch girls, which I used to make tin can stilts (the cans, not the girls) inspired by Ramona Quimby. But they were shell-shaped, and too buttery to match up to how I imagined the cookie in the book would taste. I'm also on an eternal quest to find these tiny Japanese cookies that I think were called "hitokuchi", which were the size and shape of Japanese coins, with holes in the middle, and tasted like coconut.

Gah, this image kills me! I can feel the lazy afternoon, the boredom mixed with mild contentment of lying curled in a laundry basket (we didn't have any metal tubes like this in our neighborhood, sadly, and if we did, they would've been rusted and scrawled with "Honeygirl wuz hea") while Neil Diamond's "Song Sung Blue" plays on the record player, eating some sweet or other and contemplating whether to play with my Little People or make a miniature golf course out of toilet paper tubes.

And finally, here's one for my friend and soul sister in book lust (you know who you are):

Off I go to craft a papoose board and bunting so I can recreate this image in a few months! Just kidding.

The Wisdom of Crowds?

2011-08-30T15:08:00.001-07:00

Ben’s been bugging me to write more charming anecdotes about him, and I have to admit, there have been several gems lately, most involving practical jokes at my expense or goofy jokes about the baby. But unfortunately, as I have proven to be prone to every stereotypical pregnancy symptom from insomnia to inexplicable weepiness to an obsession with sewing useless-but-cute baby crafts, my “pregnancy brain” has forgotten most of them.

It’s embarrassing, but I now see everything through the lens of impending parenthood. Where I used to smile goofily at babies in the checkout line, now I ogle the stroller or Ergo carrier housing them, wonder if they’re wearing cloth or disposable diapers, and covertly notice when the mother is buying a bunch of wine. I’m also paying attention to parenting practices, and have made some vows that will probably prove to be foolish in the months ahead, like A) We will spend a night away from the baby by the time she’s one year old, and B) we will have dinner at a grown-up restaurant at least once a month. By the way, who wants to babysit?

One thing I’m on the fence about is whether I’m cut out for taking family trips to events like Zoo Tunes, a series of outdoor concerts at our lovely neighborhood zoo, or any of the music/cultural festivals that Seattleites seem to love so much. We went to a Zoo Tunes concert recently to see The Be Good Tanyas and Carolina Chocolate Drops, and while the music was great, and I loved the fact that we could walk a few blocks, pick up pastrami sandwiches at Dot’s Deli (Hey, how about “Dot”?), and stroll into the concert without using the car, I think Ben and I might be too meek to navigate such events on our own, let alone with a baby and its gear in tow.

The scene: Ben and I on our folding, low-profile camp chairs (cheap knock-offs of the Crazy Creeks everyone had in college), taking up about six square feet of grass, trying to balance our Mexican sodas between our knees while everyone else had spread out king-sized bedspreads to mark their space after nearly crushing our sandwiches with their BOB jogging strollers and wheeled coolers full of quinoa salad. With every passing Be Good Tanyas song--which we couldn’t hear because apparently people go to these concerts to run into their neighbors and swap tips on vaccine avoidance (okay, now I’m just projecting), not to listen to the music--our space shrank inch by inch, as more and more people arrived to join the groups on the bedspreads. Soon, we were completely hemmed in by people passing around tubs of hummus, bunches of uncut broccoli, jugs of echinacea-infused lemonade--and that was just the group of twenty-somethings next to us! At one point, a six-foot tall man’s barefoot leg was so close to my own that I could feel the breeze ruffling his blond leg hair as it glinted in the sun.

As I moved my chair over in one-inch increments, only to be followed by the hairy leg as it stretched itself out in the grass, Ben became more and more amused by my rising ire, which I expressed in eyerolls and tiny sighs (carefully hidden from the encroaching hippies--or were they yuppies? It’s so hard to label people these days), until he finally leaned over and whispered:

“Neville Chamberlain made the same mistake, you know.”

“Huh?” (I couldn’t hear him over the sound of everyone crowing to each other, “I love the Be Good Tanyas!” as they proceeded to drown out their entire set.)

“When Hitler invaded. Chamberlain just kept on retreating until it was too late.”

So true, Ben, so true. In the game of life, we are the Neville Chamberlains, even the Neville Longbottoms. While sometimes I think I need assertiveness training--or, failing that, to avoid situations where my passive-aggressive nature will not be tested--I’d rather be a Neville than an obnoxious, space-hogging, junk food-unappreciating stroller conquistador. We are the meek, we shall carry our baby like a kangaroo in large crowds, and we shall revel in our Neville-ness. We shall also spend our nights at home listening to the Be Good Tanyas on the stereo, if anyone wants to join us. I promise not to serve quinoa salad.

Neatest Penmanship Award

2011-08-25T09:54:00.000-07:00

While trying to decipher some of my recent journal entries, I started to wonder, "Is this Mom handwriting?" My mom, both my grandmas, and even my dad, all had/have perfectly even, symmetrical, flowy cursive handwriting, the kind that doesn't vary from one word to the next, so that any corn chowder recipe card or one sentence note is immediately recognizable. (As if the Post-Its that accompany my dad's mailed checks--"Here's a little spending money. Go out for a Mexican dinner with margaritas"--wouldn't be recognizable even if glued in cut-out ransom note letters. Thanks, Dad. I’ll be very popular at the bar with this $500!)

It’s yesterday’s news that cursive is a dying art, but as a member of Generation X whose elementary school devoted more time to cursive than to geography (hence my long-held belief that “New England” included all the original 13 colonies), I have no excuse for the way my handwriting has devolved steadily from its pinnacle around senior year of high school, when I exhaustively outlined my AP History textbook from beginning to end and kept the notes organized in my meticulous Al Gore binder. Even today, one half of my grocery list might look like it was penned by a completely different person than the second half, indicating that my identity is even more inchoate (less choate?) than it was in the days when I experimented with imitating the penmanship of every Baby-Sitters Club character. Except for overly flourishy Jessi and boring Mary Anne.

What I’m trying to say is, HOW THE BLEEP AM I GOING TO BE A MOTHER? Even seeing the word “mother” in this context (me) is weirding me out. I could barely contain a giggle fit a few weeks ago when the ultrasound tech squirted the gel onto my stomach and the bottle made a farting noise. Maybe my inability to form letters like a grown-up is just a symbol of a much deeper immaturity that will put our daughter (eek, the weirdness!) at a great disadvantage next to the children of professionals who lease cars, have investments, and bid on items at silent auctions.

Let’s examine this rationally. Virtually none of our friends here have children. My close friends from college and high school are just starting to have babies now, too, but that’s because they’ve been busy establishing impressive careers. So it makes sense that Ben and I are in utterly alien territory; while many of our unknown peers are well into (or beyond) the world of car seats and parties that end at bedtime, our social circles have continued to revolve around finding the cheapest happy hours, watching six-hour marathons of Deadwood and The Wire, and Sunday afternoons playing bocce and drinking wine from sports bottles. It’s like we’ve been in grad school for the past seven years (which we kind of have).

But then I think of something my mother said to me years ago, when I was still in college and she’d just had several serious health scares. One day, perhaps on a drive to Long’s Drugs, she mused that all her life, she had been living and thinking as if she hadn’t started her “real life” yet, and maybe it was time to reconsider this approach to life. This shocked me because of how similar it was to feelings that had dogged me ever since I’d realized the dreams of my adolescence (ending homelessness AND being a doctor AND an influential journalist AND a famous tap dancer) were not to be realized. And here she was, fifty years old, still feeling this way?

Looking back on this now as I start to dream about what kind of relationship I hope to have with my daughter, I admire the humility and candor that allowed my mother to share this with me, her selfish and moody mooch of a daughter, and the fact that she has never lost this childlike spirit, however grown-up her handwriting (and permed hair, and Rockport shoes) seemed when I would wish for a younger mom. I’ll try to remember this when I’m feeling anxious about being an Old Mom--that it’s never too late to change. Maybe I’ll add some daily handwriting practice to my schedule.

impatience (pt. II)

2011-08-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

I just finished my last pre-requisite for OT school! Now all I have to do is wait one year (in which I'll have a baby and be at home with her for nine months), then finish 2.5 years of school, and I'll be ready to start on my new career! I wish life had a fast-forward button. That is, when I'm not wishing I could stop time by touching my fingertips together like Evie in "Out of This World."

I am my own worst editor

2011-07-18T10:18:00.001-07:00

After reading a bunch of old entries, I’ve compiled this list of words and topics to banish henceforth on this blog:
- aging
- wrinkles
- Botox
- exercise
- macaroni and cheese (yes, we all know I love it and want to marry it)
- Craigslist
- Old Navy
- Facebook
- blithely
- Orwellian
- Rachel from Friends (seriously, why do I mention her so much?)

Preemptively, I will try to avoid these:
- maternity clothes
- Mom jeans
- craving
- fat
- uterus and other gross pregnancy words
- types of wine that I wish I were drinking (Here, I’ll get it over with: Sauvignon Blanc, unoaked Chardonnay, Gruner Veltliner, Torrontes, Pinot Gris. What? I miss wine.)
- brands of over-priced baby stuff that seem to be mandated for mothers in Seattle to carry around

However, some topics and motifs are sacred to me, and I shall not forsake them:
- making fun of other people’s grammar and spelling mistakes
- complaining about stupid social trends, the decline of manners, and kids today
- waxing nostalgic and listing foods, TV characters, and song lyrics from the ‘80s
- things that scare me about raising a child (this could be a spin-off blog of its own)
- ridiculous baby names (my friend who’s a doctor said someone in the hospital named her baby MECONIUM!)
- the evil nature of plants
- old juvenile fiction and children’s books that I’m trying to find
- how many cupcakes I've eaten this week (3 so far)- Keanu (ooh, potential baby name?)
- Theo and Levi
- Ben

A flip through the old scrapbook

2011-07-18T08:41:00.000-07:00

It is July 18th, and 54 degrees in Seattle. Residents are beside themselves with excitement that it is expected to break 70 today. I know I should be grateful, considering the heat waves wilting the rest of the country, but I find this depressing. I miss Hawaii!

http://missymussy.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_archive.html
Look at our old house, with its never-ending profusion of plants! (Forget about how I cursed those plants and declared them evil when it was time to do yardwork.) Look at me, blithely sipping a Cosmopolitan in my sleeveless dress, which I probably had accessorized with rubber slippers, and wore year-round--without a cardigan, I might add. I’ve had to wear a Mom-like cardigan over all of the cute maternity tank tops I foolishly bought on the one warm day we’ve had so far this summer. Look at my hair, so curly and shiny in the tropical humidity. Look at my face, before 3 years of teaching etched a deep worry line between my eyes.
Yes, if we lived in Hawaii, I would forever be 28 years old, drinking a never-ending cocktail, and I wouldn’t have to spend the entire day studying for a chemistry midterm and watching YouTube videos about valence electrons.

Impatience

2011-07-16T11:37:00.001-07:00

From the day I found out I was pregnant (around April 7th, I believe), I’ve been constantly calculating: my age + 9 months, my age + 18 years, that scary number compared to the ages of other people I know who already have kids. What that number might have been if I hadn’t spent the last two years being marginally employed and watching The Wire twice all the way through. In terms of the baby as a milestone, I am 15 years behind some of my peers, 20 years behind my former students who had babies while in my 10th grade class!

The age thing doesn’t bother me so much as the fact that I’m three years from starting my career as an OT (the University of Washington agreed to defer my admission by a year so I wouldn't deliver a baby in the middle of a final exam). If only the baby were already here, I could get a head start on its first year of life, so instead of having a nine-month old when I start grad school I’d have an 18-month old. Actually, if time travel is on the table: If only I had gotten pregnant during my first unemployed stint two years ago! If only I’d visited the Career Center in college back in 1998, and learned how useless my English degree would be fifteen years sooner! If I had made different choices, I might be an OT with 10 years of experience and a growing retirement account. I know it could drive me crazy to think like this about everything, but every once in a while it hits me how far behind I am. I will be an old mom. There’s no getting around that. I will be taking my kid to preschool with parents who are ten years younger than me, yet are ten years ahead of me in their careers, home ownership, and establishment of a polished mom “look,” while I still wear the shorts I bought at Target in 1996 and scour Craigslist to furnish my rental apartment. I don’t feel middle-aged, but I almost am!

But back to the time machine. The benefit of having watched countless ‘80s movies and sitcom episodes centered on this very trope is that if I could go back and alter the trajectory of my education and career choices, I probably wouldn’t have met Ben, or many of the friends I’ve found along the way whom I now treasure. If I hadn’t moved to Albuquerque in 2000, before which I foolishly turned down several jobs because they didn’t meet my idealistic liberal arts snob standards for “doing good in the world while being intellectually fulfilling,” I wouldn’t have met the Willi (more on them in a future post). If I hadn’t dropped out of my PhD program at Duke in 2003 and moved back to Albuquerque in 2003, I wouldn’t have met Ben. And that would bring us, ultimately, to the disappearance of little Cletus/Cotton/Beaux-Rhys from the fading photo I would be clutching in my own disappearing hand as I tried frantically to cling to existence while Doc tried to fix the Delorian.

Maybe I should embrace my future status as an Old Parent (henceforth to be referred to as an OP), and start planning the many ways in which I shall mortify my child and eventual teenager. She will probably have friends whose parents weren’t even alive in the ‘80s, so imagine their delight and wonder when I pop in a VHS of Troop Beverly Hills at her first sleepover! It will be an anthropologically educative experience, as will carpool rides when I play my Backstreet Boys or Dave Matthews Band CDs. (Yes, CDs. I just can’t get the hang of my iPod.)

vanity

2009-06-20T10:11:00.005-07:00

A strange confluence of events has led me to contemplate aging with much greater frequency lately: preparing to attend a wedding and see old friends, and realizing that it's been almost ten years since I first stomped the grounds of Albuquerque; mainlining Season 3 of Sex and the City over a period of a few days; attending the actual wedding, and comparing the creamy, unlined complexions of 25-year-olds with my own sheet-creased face (and those creases stay in for an alarming length of time after waking up); and now, the ultimate horror, looking at endless photos of the events in the Facebook vortex. I suppose it's inevitable in this age, when even my two-year-old nephew insisted on taking digital photos at his brother's gymnastics show yesterday, that we'll be confronted with ever more images of ourselves. But as I pored over my pores and rued the power of Lucrecia's flash, I couldn't help but wonder: Is the digital revolution, which makes it impossible to avoid ultra-clear images of yourself at every turn, making it impossible not to be vain?

[That was a nod to Carrie Bradshaw's super annoying habit of asking that exact same question in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE.]

So I don't know if I should blame the show's implicit ageism and obsession with appearance, the fact that I work with high schoolers and am immersed in youth culture, the internet, or my addiction to The Superficial, but I have been thinking a lot about adapting my life goals to include the following:

- Research an anti-aging diet, which will probably require me to quit drinking alcohol, drink two gallons of water a day, and eat things like kelp and acai berries instead of cupcakes for breakfast

- Start sleeping ten hours a day (instead of my current six) on a satin pillowcase

- Do whatever it takes to get my allergies under control, as I'm convinced they are the cause of my red eyes and perpetually chapped nostrils

- Find a gym and work out for two hours a day

Okay, I realize this (along with preposterously expensive cosmetics and the occasional "procedure") is the reality for many of my peers. It just hurts to realize that I either need to let go of my newfound vanity, or drastically change my lifestyle. Since I can't afford to have ass-fat injected into my face, I will need to either adopt the time-consuming DIY alternative, or accept the fact that I'll become a fat housecat instead of a cougar. Any bets on which one I'll choose?

exercise as a metaphor for life

2009-05-12T21:07:00.005-07:00

Reading the comments on my last post, I realized that mixing "walk on water" with "walk through fire" goes further than just that lady on 48 Hours Mystery. One of my favorite songs from Body Pump is "Walk on Water," which goes:

I would walk on water
just to be with you
Walk on water
just to be with you...

You get the idea. I never questioned the logic, through the thousands of lunges that I've done to the strains of that over-dramatic dance track at the Club in Kona.

Which makes me think: I have been neglecting more than just this blog; I've been neglecting the trivial (to you, but to me they were my world) things like exercise, and crafting over-wrought dishes like vichyssoise along with over-wrought sentences.

*** News break: A contestant on The Biggest Loser just said, "I'm nineteen-years-young" as part of her plea for why she should win as the audience favorite. This fits nicely into my theme of bozos mixing metaphors and idioms in popular media. __ YEARS YOUNG ONLY WORKS IF YOU ARE OLD, YOU DIMWIT. ***

Back to my exercise metaphor. After scrutinizing various district documents about how they solved the budget crisis, I'm not sure if I was fired or laid off. Either way, I have decided that, since I was "reduced/eliminated/non-converted/substitute choice of Orwellian language that hides the fact that I was screwed over," I will now devote at least half the time I have routinely been devoting to lesson-planning to exercise instead. That works out to about two hours on weekdays, five to eight hours on weekends. I am going to so buff by the time school ends, it will blow your mind.

I forget how I was planning to work that into a metaphor for life. But, as history has shown, that doesn't matter. Planning leads to elimination. Exercise, leisure pursuits, and cooking are the only true paths to happiness, and those paths shall I take. I'm off to shop for new running shoes online. (A gym membership will have to wait until I get a cushy job through the stimulus dollars I'm still awaiting.)

2009-05-03T19:34:00.002-07:00

I'm returning to this familiar (to me, anyway) pink page because I realized that I've been using my Facebook status updates as an outlet for thoughts that I may not want people like Ben's colleagues or my fourth grade nemesis to read. Also, I hate the thought of people blocking me from their news feed because they are sick of hearing about my latest complaints. Finally, I have so many things that I want to preserve for posterity, like my newfound love of homemade pickles.

They really do pep up any dish.

The tipping point was last night, as I watched 48 Hours Mystery (to the sound of Ben's grunts of disgust coming from the other room). The best friend of the murdered couple was trying to wax poetic about their supposed "story-book" romance (man meets woman 20 years his junior, man leaves wife, man and new woman fulfill lifelong dream of living on a yacht), and mixed her metaphors like nobody's business. Here are the gems I remember:

"He would have walked on water for her."

"It was like a fairy tale. He got down on his hands and knees and proposed."

It reminded me of when the parents of a young girl who was being treated for leukemia or something said on the news, "She's not out of the woodwork yet, but the doctors are very optimistic."

Long live my tradition of making fun of people who don't deserve it!

I guess I didn't mean it!

2008-11-20T15:07:00.003-08:00

I posted my wedding dress for sale on Craig's List about a week ago, fully expecting to never hear from anyone.

Now someone wants to come try it on.

What should I do?!

anywhere but here

2008-11-18T17:02:00.004-08:00

Nothing's more depressing than driving home from a job interview that you bombed (one of 4 so far), while the SUN SETS AT 4:30, knowing you have a 10-inch stack of papers to grade and no plans yet for tomorrow's class, only to have Hawaiian music come on the radio, followed by a mariachi band from Albuquerque.

Well, to me anyway.

My sit-down

2008-11-18T13:00:00.005-08:00

I'm taking a break from cramming for today's job interview, and again, I feel like Sarah Palin. Memorizin' catch phrases, stringin' words together into subject-free sentences, feelin' like a fraud and wonderin' what the heck to wear. Let's hope fifth time's the charm with this Interview Dress I bought in August and have been trying to keep seasonal by adding tights and a cardigan.

At my last interview, the woman ahead of me was wearing a nearly identical outfit. I wonder if she was hired instead.

This job is full-time, so I could actually accept it if offered. I was actually offered the last one (eventually, after probably being the third choice), but had to turn it down because they hours were way more than half-time, while being paid as such.

In other news, Goodwill and other thrift stores in Bellevue are awesome. Here's a sampling of what I've found in recent months:

* Laundry by Shelly Segal jacket
* Theory pants (though I couldn't buy them, because they were from back when a 0 was really a 0.)
* BCBG sweater
* Banana Republic shirt
* Ann Taylor pants

I'm not a slave to brands, but it's nice to know that my $7 blazer probably cost its original owner at least a hundred bucks. I'm all for labels when they're cheaper than new stuff at Old Navy!

Off to get costumed up and practice reading off the teleprompter!

2008-11-08T17:53:00.002-08:00

Unlike my cynical husband, who came home on election day with a new button that says "If voting could change the system it would be against the law" over a picture of a fat ass sitting on what's either a ballot box or a toilet, I am among the breathless Americans who choked up when they saw Oprah and Jesse Jackson crying in the Grant Park crowd. In fact, I tear up a little when I think of it now, or of the way I felt when I was driving in my hand-me-down 1996 Corolla, battling a sinus infection and with a box full of papers to grade, and heard Neal Conan announce that NPR had called the race: absolutely amazed, exhilarated, and de-familiarized with my surroundings. It felt like an out-of-body experience, to think that more than enough of my countrymen had finally wised up.

In that spirit of renewed idealism, tempered with caution for the backlash that the RNC is surely hatching, I'm sharing this essay by Pico Iyer. I doubt if Obama had an Obake-busters tshirt, the true badge of a Gen-Xer from Hawaii, but I still feel he embodies some of the Hawaii ethos.

2008-10-14T19:08:00.006-07:00

As I flipped from Extra! to Inside Edition to Entertainment Tonight, trying in vain to find ONE gossip show that doesn't embarrass itself with attempts at serious election "news," I couldn't help but wonder: How many of the Hollywood for Obama folks are actually going to vote? I mean, are there polling places in Santa Monica with spa-like facilities and buttery leather chairs for people to wait in? Are there private voting booths that have been swept for hidden cameras and equipped with sparkling water? Is there a special parking area where Mercedes (Mercedeses?) and special edition Priuses are guaranteed to be safe from the dings and indignity of sharing space with our '96 Corollas? Is there any end to my class resentment lately?

Nyuk, nyuk.

But I really do wonder. Of course, there's always absentee voting, but I have even more trouble picturing Justin Timberlake or Angelina Jolie opening and sending mail. John Cusack--sure. I guess we'll know for sure when US Weekly does its November 4 spread on Celebs: They're Just Like You and Me!

9 to 5 -- well, actually, 8:15 to 12:25

2008-10-13T19:57:00.006-07:00

I've been torn between wanting to write all about my job, and worrying that a past, current, or future employer--or worse, a parent--will somehow read it and end up hating, firing, or suing me, respectively. I would never share personal information about a student. It's mostly the blatant admissions of moral and professional turpitude that I'm afraid of exposing.

But that's what makes this new job something worth writing about: the surprising lack of turpitude it inspires. For example, just now, when I decided to use the word "turpitude," I actually looked it up in the dictionary to make sure it was appropriate. It wasn't quite the word I was looking for; I thought it meant "laziness." I'll leave it in in case you didn't know that.

Anyway, when preparing lessons for the classes I'm teaching, I find myself able, and even inspired, to keep working until the job is done. I am committed to making sure we cover all of the course objectives, and to making sure that every student is meeting them as we go along. No more putting off grading for weeks on end until papers are so piled up that I decide not to count the assignments. I've actually started grading papers the day they're turned in and returning them promptly the next day. Amazingly, the students read my comments and ask how they can get better grades! No more throwing in a lesson that has nothing to do with the previous topic of study because I'm too tired to write a new one or want to watch Lost. Maybe this will all change in January (when Lost is back on), but for now, I haven't been watching TV at all except for the debates.

Part of this may be pure fear: if I lose this job, our only hope will be getting picked up by a political campaign as a sob story illustrating the failure of the American economic system to reward higher education. (Don't you get something for appearing in campaign commercials, like maybe no-questions-asked food stamps?) Also, our program is the only accredited degree in the country for this population, and accreditation depends on meeting objectives, maintaining college standards, and the like. To be the one who brings down a desperately needed flagship educational program would be a career lowlight, for sure.

But it's mostly due to an amazing fact--amazing because it is so obvious, yet so ignored by the practitioners and administrators of public education. I care because my students care. In teaching, you hear a lot about the reverse of that maxim: Students only care when we care. (And showing Stand and Deliver will make them care, ese.)The assumption is always that if only a teacher cares enough, he or she can make the students buy in...and topple institutionalized racism through calculus.

But so much depends on the students. I will never be as charismatically inspirational as Edward James Olmos, or Meryl Streep, or Michelle Pfeiffer, or even the crackhead played by Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson. (Though Ryan Gosling sure inspires me, if you know what I'm sayin. Heh, heh.) Heck, the best I can hope for is the bumbling Steve Coogan in the brilliant Hamlet 2, and even that's a stretch. Probably 5 percent of all teachers have that innate gift of inspiring with their personalities, rather than with fleeting coolness, fear, intimidation (by discipline or grading on a curve), bribery, or painstaking, exhaustive preparation. And when your classes gleefully trounce your preparedness day in and day out, with their drunkenness or their smirks or their attempts to start fistfights or fires in your classroom, it's easy to decide not to prepare anything at all.

But when your students appear to be listening to every word you say, make eye contact, ask for help, email you when they miss class to ask for the homework, and seem so earnestly committed to overcoming their limitations, it's pretty hard to spend four hours watching Sarah Palin-mocking videos instead of modifying tests, writing those Jeopardy questions that all students seem to love, emailing extra instructions to a kid who didn't get it, or memorizing notes for tomorrow.

No, any more than 2 hours of Palin videos would be turpitudinous.

simple carbohydrates

2008-10-08T19:14:00.003-07:00

I had a lovely birthday yesterday; thanks for the calls and Facebook messages! I should probably be posting this there, but ever since I started feeling obligated to become friends with the Mean Girls who hated me in high school, the boys who ignored me, and people not so far removed from my students, I've started trying to keep the personal info to a minimum. So I'm not linking to Missy Mussy from my profile. What a budding conspiracy theorist I am.

Anyway, here were the highlights:

Started the day with half a leftover doughnut from Ben's Sunday sojourn to Winchell's.
Taught Nutrition class. This would only become more ironic as the day went on.
Got my Washington driver's license. Gift #1: I waited less than 20 minutes, compared to the 2 hours we spent when Ben got his, and the lady was nice to me! Sadly, the mean lady I'd noted last time took my picture. After the first one, she grunted, shook her head, and signaled me wordlessly for a second try.
Had lunch at the German deli next to the DMV: marinated vegetables, a salami-and-buttercheese sandwich on that European wholemeal bread that you never find anywhere else, and the cutest tiny waxed paper bag of potato chips. I felt like Frances with her mini shaker of salt.
Picked Theo up from school to take him to gym class. He was so excited to see me, if I do say so myself, probably owing to the fact that I am willing to humiliate myself by pretending to be Roo from Winnie the Pooh every time we play.
Played.
Had a birthday dinner of pizza & Chardonnay (my two favorite food groups, cheesey carbs & white wine), followed by......
DECORATE YOUR OWN CUPCAKES!!!!!!! Theo was so excited about the stuff they had chosen at the store--candy corn, pastel mints, and sugary birthday letters, it was hard to not be awash in childhood delight. He carefully arranged as many mallowcreme pumpkins and mints as would fit on each cupcake, then ate one bite and proclaimed himself done eating, proving my sister's philosophy that if you don't limit candy and sweets, kids will naturally stop themselves when they're full. Levi happily smashed his face into a cupcake and got frosting up his nose. Gift #2: A friendly reminder from the heartstrings to the old baby machinery: Let's get crackin'! I can't wait to start my brood and name the first one Prig, or maybe Squirt, out of admiration for our potential new first ever female Prez! [Aside: Ben and I made a pact that if Marge McMoosemunch becomes Actual President, we will consider moving abroad.]
The night was capped off with Gifts # 3 and 4: a box of powdered sugar donuts (guess who picked that out?) and a UW sweatshirt from Ben, "to keep my Mussy warm." We had already shopped for wine glasses over the weekend, having given away the wine glasses he gave me two birthdays ago before the move.

Awww. I am very warm indeed.

And today is the last day I eat nothing but leftover pizza, donuts, and cupcakes. Tomorrow I'll try to weave in another food group, especially since we're starting food diaries in Nutrition class, and I just couldn't live with the hypocrisy.

not the timeliest, but hilarious nevertheless

2008-09-23T13:01:00.002-07:00

I've never embedded a video before, but this one is so funny, I'm willing to risk the embarrassment of utter failure.

lemmings

2008-09-17T16:33:00.003-07:00

Ben and I just stopped by our friendly neighborhood bank, WaMu, where we opened a joint checking account, our third account there in the past month. While there, we overheard a total of at least $50,000 being withdrawn as people closed their accounts and prematurely cashed out CDs. The assistant manager (bitterly) joked about the giant pen she'd been using to sign checks all day. When one lady was asked why she was closing the account, she said, "Because I heard you guys might go bankrupt?"

Well, if we all panic like you and pull our money out then yeah, it'll definitely go bankrupt. Thanks for making it more likely, you broad-shouldered, '80s tank dress-wearing ninny.

Another woman, wearing torn shorts, a "Life is Good" t-shirt and slippers, first asked about how much she needed to open a checking account. Finally, I thought, someone who seems less with-it than us! Then, after carefully examining the brochure for free checking, she got to the teller, where we overheard her say, "I'd like to withdraw $10,000 from my account."

Whaaaa?

Then again, maybe I'm just jealous that these people had thousands of dollars to withdraw. In all honesty, if my checking account did vanish at this point, it would represent a setback of about two day's pay.

Time to have Ben melt out my fillings and hit the pawn shop!

tossed salads and scrambled eggs

2008-09-01T17:35:00.006-07:00

I think a list approach will be the least intimidating and painful (for me, anyway) way to jump back into the world of documenting every miss and muss. So, here's a sampling of what's happened since my last post. This is more for my benefit than anything else, since I often find myself wondering, "I wonder what I was doing at this time four years ago?" I hope to soon be back to making brilliant observations about cereal box redesigns and those quirky Americans I keep finding myself surrounded by.

Hawaii, June 10-August 2:

Didn't work a lick for two months
Had a tumor removed from my thumb, couldn't use right hand for the month of July.
Watched Ben sink (or soar, depending on your perspective) into the depths/heights of total obsession with Wii Mario Cart.
Basked in awe of my grandmother as I wrapped our precious belongings in the hundreds of sheets of newsprint that she saved from my aunt and uncle's move and seemingly ironed into perfectly folded squares. Turned acquisition of bubble wrap, peanuts, and boxes into a full-time job.
Got rid of a whole bunch of crap, from 10-year-old credit card statements to all those zebra print and sequined tops I've been hoarding since college just in case I ever got invited to several prostitute-themed costume parties.
Decided to keep Sock 'Em Boppers.
Lived with Mom and Dad for two weeks: became so addicted to Clean House, What Not to Wear, How Do I Look? and Project Runway that I rarely left the house.
Took my last Body Pump and Body Combat classes. Cried a little inside. Abs, triceps, and other muscles not used in everyday life began their slow decline into middle-aged lady flappiness.

Bellevue, August 2-11:

Risked ending my marriage with new addiction: Craig's List furniture sales. Purchased kind of cute, but mildly dysfunctional, mid-century modern dining set and credenza. Learned the meaning of "credenza."
Played for hours: dinosaurs, roaring, bouncing, bounce-waiting, chase and chase-tag, catch and throw-catch. Realized I could spend hours watching Levi eat blueberries (and so could he spend hours eating them), started contemplating career in early childhood education.
Went to Portland for a weekend of dinosaur exhibit-visiting, Jasmine and Carolyn-visiting, and massive pastrami eating. Ben got his new favorite t-shirt: "Body by Pastrami" from Kenny & Zuke's Deli.
Interviewed for a great job as liaison between Seattle Community College and local high school. Got my hopes up.

Seattle, August 11-present:

Didn't get the job. Spent the next week avoiding all activities related to job-seeking. Realized I'd been counting on getting the job, and began to panic over lack of job and mounting bills.
Moved into our new apartment across from Gasworks Park, which overlooks some part of Lake Union. I still haven't figured out where exactly we are in relation to Puget Sound, and where that is in relation to the ocean. When I look out the window at night, I imagine that the glittering water just beyond the Seattle skyline is it, but am probably wrong.
Bought lots of junk for our apartment to replace all the junk that we gave away before moving (mops, hangers, bathroom rugs, trash cans, olive oil....why can't all this stuff just come with your new apartment? Except for the olive oil. But think of how much is wasted whenever anyone moves, unless they've carefully calibrated how much olive oil and how many ziploc bags they'll need, and used up every bit before moving.)
Bought the furniture of a couple leaving UW for a new job: shelves, dressers, TV, lamps....I should have made an offer on their plastic disposables and olive oil. While enjoying the two channels we get, came across an episode of Frasier. Appropriately, it was about a lady who had left her successful matchmaking career in another state to move to Seattle, and now found herself so desperate for new clients that she was carrying around a big binder full of what turned out to be empty pages. Now, if I can only convince Ben to let me troll the downtown bars for local washed-up celebrities, maybe I can find one to give me $10,000 like Frasier did!

Last two days:

Applied for at least 20 jobs: preschool teacher, substitute teacher, after school teacher, barista/bread seller, Intervention Specialist (classroom interventions, not the kind I love to watch on A&E), Sales Associates galore, and many, many more.
Scheduled 3 more interviews. Hope to cancel two of them once better offers come along.
Tomorrow, am off to Bellingham for a one-night trip to visit Erick and Jenn, wedding guests extraordinaire and willing writers of prescriptions!

That's all for now. I'm going to go bemoan the impending fall of civilization, heralded by the news of Palin's daughter and the sinking feeling that this will only boost her popularity. It's only a matter of time before we learn the whole baby think is carefully orchestrated to appeal to those who like their national news aligned to the Spears family trajectory, and that McCain is adopting a baby apiece from Cambodia, Malawi, and Ukraine. And having twins.

2008-06-10T23:52:00.003-07:00

Dan in Real Life deserved every one of the two and a half stars it received (on average). Unlike most of the movies I get from Netflix and watch while Ben is away, I was able to watch the entire thing without my usual breaks: twice for snacks, three times for internet breaks, and once for good. I watched it to the end! But can't tell you how it ended. I think ambiguously.

Keeping it short and sweet. Because if I launch into the topic that's constantly on my mind, renting our next apartment, I very well could go on for hours.

Not to gloat or anything, but....

2008-06-04T21:24:00.003-07:00

School's! Out! For! Summer!

School's! Out! For Students! (tomorrow) *

School's! Out! For! Teachers! (the next day)

School's! Out! For! Ever! (I sure hope not, but you never know.) **

* And all I have to is bake some Costco pizzas and assure all my kids that they'll pass for the year.

** Because I don't have a job yet, so this really could be the end of my teaching career.

I'm celebrating by baking 3 pans of brownies (again for the studes), eating some delicious red chile that Ben made from chile pods hand carried over by our NM friends, and then watching Dan in Real Life while searching for apartments on Craig's List, my favorite new pasttime. (Just the Craig's List part, not the DIRL part.) Ben's working tonight so I can do whatever I want, even watch mediocre romantic comedies! I love life!

graduation day

2008-06-01T23:24:00.005-07:00

On Saturday, Ben and I attended the high school graduation. We got there at 6 a.m., and the kids started arriving at 6:30, having been told to be there by 7. It was the first time any of my students have been early since I've known them. I was in charge of the "VIP tent," where such dignitaries as Board of Education members, our county councilwoman, and the drug court judge who will soon be sentencing some of the graduates were feted with banana bread and fried rice. I dragged Ben along as my muscle, forcing him to endure a seven-hour day of carting coolers to and fro, chasing teachers down in an attempt to give them their leis, and being embarrassed by me during the ceremony as I shielded his bald spot with my program.

The keynote speaker, a delightful woman who was the perky head cheerleader when I was a freshman and is now a teacher and radio deejay, gave a funny and lively speech full of classic pidgin phrases, mildly insulting shout-outs to the principal ("When I heard he was the principal, I thought, did they do a background check on this guy?"), and jokes that would be racist were we not in Hawaii ("You Filipinos out there know what I mean.....[silence]......ho, where all da Filipinos? Had plenny when I was in skoo."). This particular joke had to do with describing the location of one's "na'au," some kind of Hawaiian center of power, which is located in the gut, which is, coincidentally, Filipinos' favorite pig part to eat! HA!

Several times throughout the speech, she paused to "break it down," cuing Jawaiian music and dancing around the stage (at one point imitating the principal's Elaine Benis-like dance style), which caused the seniors to cheer and leap from the bleachers to skank in their shiny green robes. Amazingly, they sat down and resumed listening to her when the music stopped.

On the last "breakdown," she delivered her final, inspiring words over the even more inspiring lyrics, "Pakalolo, hula girls, and getting laid....."

Word.

butt to the bug

2008-05-24T21:51:00.002-07:00

Lucrecia asked of a recent post: "What the eff are butt-bugs?"

I've decided I may as well settle this in a larger forum than the comments, which only one person (me) may read, so that my entire readership (Lucrecia and maybe Dennis) may learn. Sorry, self-deprecating quips about this blog being an exercise in navel-gazing just never seem to get old.

Butt-bugs are like my students. They started out being the bane of my existence here in Kona, but have oddly endeared themselves to me, perhaps because I've realized just how benign they are in comparison to the other evils out there, like giant flying cockroaches, Blackwater, centipedes, and corporate lawyers like those portrayed in Michael Clayton.

I believe the common name for the butt-bug is "earwig;" however, when we first encountered them shortly after moving here, in utter terror due to their shiny black carapaces and forked scorpion-like tails (or are those their heads?), we first ran screaming, then quickly named them butt-bugs because, well....hmm. I guess because they have weird butts? Also, it was around the time I saw a bratty toddler on Supernanny call her mother "Butt pie," which caused us to start calling each other that, which caused "butt" to enter into our vocabulary to a remarkable degree that has only increased.

At certain times of year, B.B.s are everywhere: dead ones on the floor and in the windowsill, live ones milling around wherever they please. One morning I found one stuck in the water gauge of the coffee maker. We never used it again. The funniest BB experience was when one hitched a ride to school with me on the outside of my car. Our evening conversations began to prominently feature our respective discoveries of butt-bugs during the day--in the lid of my Ziploc container at lunch, or worse. "They've hit the bedroom."

Ben and I have both had nightmares about them. I've lived a real-life nightmare when I suddenly realized I was surrounded on all sides by them in the shower.

But they endear themselves to me by never biting, and by running away cutely when I chase them (but not so fast that I can't catch them), not being able to fly, and looking sort of like tiny toys. All much like my students.

So that, Dear Lucrecia/Reader, is what butt bugs mean to me. I don't wish I could take them with me to Seattle, but nor do I wish to destroy them completely. Because who knows what we could have to deal with in their place? Much like...you know.

i'm going to miss this

2008-05-20T23:15:00.005-07:00

Going to seminars for work that are held either a) at the Sheraton Keauhou, affording the precise view upon which I meditated on my wedding day; or b) at the Sheraton Waikiki, where on my breaks I can thaw from frigid air-conditioning by watching Japanese tourists sunbathe floors below, learn to surf, or plan their Western weddings. All of which I did today during the state meeting of English teachers.

Buffet luncheons at said teacher functions that are so resplendent in their offerings of protein and sugars (fish, chicken, fried tofu and beef, plus five desserts!) that we Ts spend the rest of the day proudly comparing how much we ate. Actual overheard snippets: "Ho, look at the dessert plates! Most hotels only give you the small-kine saucers so you only can take one. Can fit all of 'em on those." (English teachers like to exercise their local roots at all-teacher functions.) And, "I can't believe I'm hungry again [on the ride to the airport]. I ate choke of that fried tofu and watercress salad. And the chicken long rice, oh and the scalloped potatoes. Must be because I only had one half-slice of the tiramisu. Oh, and little bit of the guava cake. Oh. And I guess some creme brulee. But I never eat breakfast.....just the doughnut when we got here, and a muffin and bagel with four cream cheeses. Ugh, I could not possibly fit another morsel of food into my mouth."

Good GOD, but my dialogue skills are pathetic. I realize now that I have been projecting by including a dialogue component in my class's final writing project. When I suck at it. This is projecting, see. At least, based on my sub-high school-level training in the discipline. Of psychology, not dialogue.

Whatever, that was a composite of quotes I carefully squirreled away in my mind, along with an attempted catalog of social offenses committed against me on the plane by this classic A-hole couple that I sat next to. They stole my window seat and never said a word, clearly hoping--okay, knowing--that I wouldn't challenge them because of my nice mousely demeanor.

I also squirreled up some exhibits of classic teacher behavior that makes you certain they qualify for sainthood. Who else would have to check out an ancient laptop to bring to a conference on media literacy? Or jokingly note that their eating habits are so screwed up by living according to a bell, they nearly faint when denied their 10:00 snack or 12:00 lunch, and have to grab the sides of the metal detector to avoid crumpling to the floor? And only one of those examples is me! Don't worry, I didn't almost crumple. I risked great shame to my family by taking three trips to the buffet, and eating a gross carrot muffin, to prevent that from happening.

I'm sure teachers in Washington, should I be so lucky as to get hired as one, suffer comparable injustices, complainable offenses, yadda yadda. But I doubt whether I will ever feel such solidarity as with the teachers of my homeland, if for no other reason than I now can say I've given up my lunch breaks to make candy leis and been swayed in the awarding of a scholarship by whether or not someone regularly signed up to bring "Main Dish" to potlucks. And that I watched a woman eat a commercially produced Spam musubi during a conference presentation at 9:50, and I would have traded a year of tenure to trade places.

* sharing a ride with a colleague I've only met once, but who is totally warm, sharing of her personal life, cheerleading of mine, and effuses of my shoes (gray and black Crocs sandals with a silver button) without the usual retro-irony, "Oh da cuuute!"

* Living in a place where Spam Musubi is commercially produced, candy leis are a valid part of school culture and a currency of the National Honor Society, and Crocs are acceptable professional footwear.

whoops a daisy!

2008-05-18T13:24:00.003-07:00

I guess I forgot to update this to report that we've decided to move to Seattle. Missy Mussy Develops S.A.D. may be an upcoming headline.

In other news, we got a Wii. I love it because I am a decent bowler according to its standards. Ben has already bought a new game, The Godfather, and is hard at work trying to beat it with the help of internet tips.

The final countdown is on: 13 more days of school. I have a ton of papers to grade, and have to figure out how to goad my students into finishing the final project that I foolishly decided to undertake in these last weeks. As a senior class adviser, I also have to work on an awards night, 2 full days of graduation rehearsal, and graduation itself. The main task involved is keeping students from getting wasted.

What I really want to be doing is scouring Real Simple back issues for tips on how to pack our stuff, and planning how Ben and I are going to play house in our new tiny apartment! I'm actually looking forward to having a smaller space to keep clean. And no butt-bugs in Seattle!

2008-04-30T01:08:00.003-07:00

I can't get rid of those black lines for the life of me. However, this recent brush with the bitterness of humanity (a.k.a. loss of electricity for 2 hours) has helped me realize what is truly important.

back to the good old days

2008-04-30T00:49:00.003-07:00

I write this by candlelight, not a flicker of electric glow in sight as the village of Kealakekua has been unexplainably plunged into darkness. It’s been a long time since a blackout that wasn’t caused by torrential rains or a devastating earthquake.

Could this be a harbinger of a new normality to come, as we run out of fossil fuels? Days ending with sunset; TV culture dead before the idiots of The Hills realize they’re no longer being taped; people forced to depend on each other, to commune in ways not seen since the pre-modern era? To spend the evenings (provided one’s store of homemade candles is plentiful enough) whittling tree stumps into crude toys for a child’s birthday, or ruining one’s eyes darning Bounty towels for re-use? Ooh, or crafting peanut and walnut shells into little dolls? I used to love doing that!

Thank god my computer battery is charged.

Gall durn. I just tried to download a plaintive-yet-uplifting Irish ballad to accompany my piety, but realized our wireless router is asleep in the blackout.

There sure are a lot of cars driving around. I bet people (young people) went out for drives because they couldn’t bear the lack of stimuli, and at least could listen to the radio or charge their i-pods in the car.

Whoa! I’ve been on for 15 minutes and my battery is already down by half. This does not bode well for my future as a Hawaii Outpost of the Pioneer Days blogger.

Now, let us pray that I someday am able to retrieve this, as I must turn off the computer to preserve precious battery life.

On to a week’s backlog of candlelit crosswords. Pray the stubs of wedding candles that I so presciently hoarded are not the cause of my early (but how romantic!) demise.

away from her

2008-04-19T21:15:00.002-07:00

Last night while Ben was working his job as an A/V geek, I watched Away from Her, a heart-breaking movie about a sixty-ish woman's initial descent into Alzheimer's. It was really good, but I imagine it would be very hard to watch for anyone who's actually cared for someone with the big A. It was directed by Sarah Polley, who the dorkier among us know and love from her starring role in the sadly short-lived Ramona series on PBS.

My initial reactions were typical: Call parents. Spend more time with grandmother. Do two crosswords a day to keep mind sharp. Stop eating so much canned food, stop using anti-perspirant.

But what's lingered with me the most is Julie Christie's awesome wardrobe. She continues, of course, to be a stone fox 30 years after McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and even in the nursing home where she ended up, was a gorgeous, intellectual type. What does it say that I covet her ivory herringbone coat with a shawl-like collar that buttoned intricately at the neck? Or that I want to practice wearing my hair in the loose, careless way she pinned up her silvery-blond curls?

I want to dress like a sixty-five-year-old woman. Albeit, one in designer clothes carefully chosen by a costume designer, but the impulse is still worrisome.

greens

2008-04-13T21:46:00.004-07:00

I'm basking in my own virtue after tonight's Sunday dinner:

Vichyssoise, a pureed soup of leek, potato, peas and sorrel, which I had never heard of until Wednesday when I picked up our weekly produce subscription and it became my new favorite edible leaf. It's slightly sour and has the texture of a mint leaf.
Stir-fried chicken with spicy beet greens and spinach, topped with green onions and peanuts, over brown rice.

I've also whipped up some chocolate soy pudding for Ben and portioned it into four dessert cups. Next I'm going to pay my bills, dutifully filing the statements in reverse chronological order, fill my weekly pill case with vitamins, and then iron my clothes for the week.

In case it's not painfully obvious, I have some job applications (which all include essays!) that should have been submitted a couple of months ago. Just as soon as I take care of all these essentials, they'll be the very next on my list.

Seattle probability for today: 87 %, not factoring in Friday's announcement that Seattle Public Schools is effecting a hiring freeze. 96 % when factoring in the report that Theo "ran into Mommy with the [child-size] tractor."

for those of you who are keeping score,

2008-04-06T21:26:00.004-07:00

80 percent sure we'll move to Seattle. Or, as I like to think of it, Theo and Levi's playground that I, their favorite auntie, will turn into the magical backdrop of all their most beloved memories.

two a-holes in a 'stang

2008-04-01T00:01:00.009-07:00

Just got back from our honeymoon. When we arrived on Kauai, the rental agent upsold us to a Mustang convertible. My excuse is that he was over 60, which elicited my pity (anyone these days who is my parents' age and working elicits pity, as I wish for my parents to be doted on while lounging in clouds of non-gravity), and it was only a few bucks more per day!

The car, which we couldn't have known would be cherry-red, prompted us to embrace our newfound mantle with gusto and fully inhabit the obnoxious couple personae played by Kristin Wiig and Jason Sudeikis. We cracked gum, we wore our sunglasses when we didn't really need to, we went to the hotel pool bar in the afternoon when there were children nearby.

We ordered things like tuna melts and fries when there was a shrimp stand across the street and perfectly good mangoes on trees nearby, I guess. (Dude, I hate shellfish, and fruit is a waste of stomach space, much like hard candy.)

We felt an unnameable malaise until the fourth night when we moved from the Hilton to our vacation rental and were reunited with the mother's milk of Fark and The Superficial:

We became the most animated when we found scenes that conformed to our images from television ads, like this one from a Bank of Hawaii commercial where teenage girls jump off the Hanalei pier and proclaim, "This is our Hawaii":

But we also provided one of the only stores of booze at the BYOB wedding, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes up for any touristy a-holeness we may have perpetrated upon the island. Our handiwork:

This would've been all water bottles without us, Babe.

cirque du muss

2008-03-31T23:40:00.005-07:00

Dazzled by his recent acquaintance with the vast retail vistas of the Internet (in this case, free shipping both ways), Ben recently ordered nine pairs of shoes from Zappos.

I'll leave that there for a few lines to sink in with any of you who knew Ben five years ago.

When the order arrived, we both ran down the driveway, ironically barefoot, to pick it up from our mail carrier's Subaru. As we turned back toward the house, Ben held up the box and exclaimed, "My clown shoes!"

It tickled me so, I had to take a pic, and that takes a lot.

Ben would probably want me to mention that he only intended to keep one pair and the giant order was for trying-on purposes. Of course, none of them fit his Hobbit feet and he had to send them all back.

2008-03-15T18:42:00.002-07:00

Ben was accepted to the library science programs at UH-Manoa and the University of Washington. What should we do?

too far?

2008-03-10T23:11:00.005-07:00

Today I told one class they sounded like a horde of Beavises and Buttheads. Then added an impression (hunh, hunh, hunh, durrhhhhh) for emphasis. Apparently, B&B is being rerun on some cable channel, so they actually knew what I was talking about.

After another class rushed out the doors to see a potential fight in progress, ignoring me until I slammed the doors and threatened that anyone caught outside would get turned in for truancy, I told them I'd hate to see how they would act in the midst of a terrorist attack (as if that were entirely possible, even imminent, on our ridiculously rural campus). I punctuated this with a slack-jawed, buck-toothed impression:

Duhrrr. Wonder wut's goin' on out thay're? C'mon, yall! [explosive sound effect]

It's funny how even in Hawaii, a Southern accent universally connotes dumbness. Of course, had I used a pidgin impression, it might not have gone over so well.

Miss Muss, the Slack-jawed Yokel (!)

2008-03-09T22:58:00.010-07:00

I have a whole backlog of Ben stories and Houseguest Tales that I have not been posting because--well, life with Ben and the Boys has just been so fun and all-consuming. Oh, there's also the crushing laziness.

Here's one I had the foresight to jot down on the back of a sheet from our daily New Yorker cartoon calendar. (I typed Jew Yorker by mistake--hee!) One of the unexpected joys of married life is getting gifts that I used to mock when I worked at the bookstore, but now can't imagine life without. I save all the torn-off sheets and use them for grocery lists, then have a moment of amusement at the store when I pull it out of my pocket and reread the cartoon, no matter how lame.

Without further ado, a Ben-Missy Mussy dialogue.

Ben (whining): We're out of ketchup.

MM: Here, open this.

B: BOO, Hunt's!

MM: It was on sale.

B (in mincing, sing-song voice): Oh, fine! Next time wool panties are on sale, I'll be sure to get you some wool pa-han-ties.

My husb is a Heinz man, apparently. Who knew he was susceptible to brand loyalty?

Another piece of ephemera brought a twinge of sadness to my otherwise blissful weekend ritual of cleaning the kitchen counter. As Ben puts it, we're Empty Nesters (not fans of the Richard Mulligan show, which was awesome, but actual sufferers of the middle-aged-parent syndrome).

It's a sheet of notebook paper helpfully labeled "heuristic experiment," then containing the following:

DONALD

+ GERALD
________

ROBERT

Hints:

1) D = 5

2) Every letter stands for a number 0-9

3) Each letter is a number different from the number given another letter.

Houseguest # 1 (of 3), Lu, posed this early in his visit when we were talking about some epistemological question or other. Why was I having a conversation in which epistemological questions were even possible? Lu is what my mom likes to call "A Renaissance Man." She uses that to describe people who are both intimidatingly intelligent and good with their hands, whether in carpentry, engineering, climbing coconut trees, or cooking--you know, all the things Lu can do better than me. Basically, when around Lu, I talk out of my ass and madly hope that he won't see through my author-name-dropping and quoting of "this article I read--well, really this really interesting headline--in the New York Times" to my comparatively Neanderthal intelligence. Although, come to think of it, he would probably have an argument for how the Neanderthals were comparative geniuses for their mastery of survival tactics that modern man completely lacks. Anybutt.

This equation, which Houseguest #2 of 3 figured out within 24 hours, is apparently a way for psychologists to examine how a person reasons. Whether you get the answer is not as important as how you arrive at it. Suffice it to say that before I just stared at it with my mouth agape, I first tried to use my logic and algebraic skills; which were stunted in 9th grade by a Filipino teacher whose indecipherable accent I protested by accepting an F rather than submit to her extra credit scheme of making dozens of origami polygons; then quickly reverted to mad, random guessing, going through many days of New Yorker cartoons and erasing more than I have erased in my adult life.

That reminds me of how my "hobby" in 3rd and 4th grade was making "eraser shreds," by diligently rubbing $1 Sanrio erasers across clean paper in a quest for uniform eraser turds which we would separate by hue and organize into the compartments of our plastic pencil boxes. Monica, Jonadine and I would sometimes stay in at recess to meet our self-imposed quota. I shall have to analyze this curious social practice soon. Please continue to read despite the possibility that I may actually do so.

eating mac & cheese oh yes i'm eating mac & cheese i think i like it!

2008-02-16T21:23:00.006-08:00

I backed out of a camping trip with Ben and the Boys (more on them later), and while I've enjoyed watching "Real Simple" and "Everyday Food" (two PBS shows to which I have an inexplicable and nerdy devotion) without Ben's derisive snorts at the segments on organizing your gift wrap, I'm mulling a plan to show up for the second night at the cabin.

But that probably won't happen because I don't have a reliable car. Plus, it's good to have a night alone once in a while that gives me a taste of what I'd be doing if I were single. So what am I doing?

Poring over my husband's profile on Facebook.

Funny how it gives me the same giddy, nervous feeling I once had when we started our courtship over Friendster, as I pondered the tone of my next message - flirty or informational, revealing of the fact that I had memorized his profile or full of calculated ignorance?

Or maybe I'm just thrilled by the fact that I'm eating Stouffer's macaroni and cheese and not a steaming bowl of lentils for the first time in two weeks, and am about to watch last week's episode of LOST, this time without human interruption.

2008-02-02T14:40:00.000-08:00

If I ever write a novel, I am going to have to weave in the weird things certain kinds of people say here in Hawaii. They're not pidgin--it's something more subtle than that. Maybe local-ese?

Example:

Instead of saying "You may turn in the same paper for this class and another, so it will count twice," a professor who speaks thusly said, "This paper can double count."

Or yesterday, my principal was describing a new program for managing student data. One glitch, he told us, is that you can't merge the data from another program--so you have to "double enter" it.

I've never heard this use of double anywhere else but here. I can trace it as far back as playing Chinese jump rope, when depending on who was the boss of the game, you may or may not be allowed to "double jump."

Another, more grating, quirk is the prissy Japanese schoolmarmish one of over-enunciating T's. A certain school administrator does this when s/he (see how I'm leaving it totally anonymous?) is obviously wishing to flex his/her authoritative muscle. S/he'll be like, "We must base our instruction on day-TAH," or "We must all be on time to tomorrow's meet-TING." To achieve this super-effective (if you're trying to alienate your inferiors) speech pat-TERN, simply pull the corners of your mouth as close to your ears as you can, keep your teeth close together, and pronounce the word slowly, as if trying to teach a child to say a new word, or as if dislodging a pesky sesame seed from between your front teeth.

Who am I kidding--novel? Time to get back to my work of describing the "best shave ice in Kona!" and "best bar for music" in 250 words apiece, without coming across as the bitter, judgmental misanthrope that I am.

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

2007-12-08T21:21:00.000-08:00

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:

2007-12-05T22:02:00.000-08:00

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:

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.”
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:

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.
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.
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.
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

2007-11-22T17:40:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-06T23:43:00.000-08:00

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

2007-10-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-23T21:24:00.001-07:00

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

2007-10-14T13:41:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-09T16:44:00.000-07:00

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.)

2007-09-27T00:11:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-25T22:02:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-09T12:25:00.000-07:00

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:

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.
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).
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!"
Cut out this bitterness thing.

Jeez! (I hate) earnest singing

2007-09-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-20T23:57:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-08-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

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.

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.
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.
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.
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

2007-08-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-13T23:38:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-05T18:09:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-04T11:58:00.001-07:00

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

2007-08-02T00:34:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-27T23:15:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-22T23:13:00.000-07:00

[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

2007-07-19T01:25:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-20T02:43:00.000-07:00

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

2007-01-19T15:56:00.000-08:00

[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

2007-01-17T20:12:00.000-08:00

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.

one to grow on

2006-12-07T22:29:00.000-08:00

If there were a pro-aging retreat, I would go on it. I need to add a few years to my life after this past week. Here's a sampling of what I've had to do lately:

* assume the persona of a 15-year-old to write a 12-page case study of adolescent cognitive and social development

* sit with a freshman boy wearing Etnies and big fake diamond studs (him, not me) helping him outline a 25-page health textbook chapter on STDs,

* write a 10-page short story for young adults based on my traumatic middle school experience of being ostracized and humiliated.

I've gone through some serious (47 pages!) regression. So I think it would be wise to steep myself in adult.....stuff, like meditating on who I am, what I've become , why I am ready to settle down and get married, etc.

Or maybe I should just drink several martinis, fall into bed, then get up and eat bran flakes and coffee before embarking on another day of dejectedly accepting the hand life has dealt me. That's what adults do!

moonlighting

2006-11-28T21:36:00.000-08:00

Should I apply for this job? It will have to be at the expense of my career, as prime-time TV conflicts with a teacher's sleeping schedule. Also, the deadline is tomorrow and so are a number of assignments I have yet to begin.

Media Life is looking for writers who can review new TV shows and also revisit exiting shows and offer solid yet lively critiques, writing to a sophisticated audience of people who plan and buy media for a living. A strong background in television would be helpful but is not required. Include a full resume. When applying, mention you saw this opening listed at
JournalismJobs.com.

To find out more about this job, go to:
http://www.journalismjobs.com/job_listing.cfm?JobID=647171

Position: TV writers
Company: Media Life Magazine
Location: Telecommute
Job Status: Freelance
Ad Expires: November 29, 2006
Job ID: 647171

thanksgiving rumination

2006-11-23T17:58:00.000-08:00

(with a cornucopia of parentheses)

One of my new favorite reading-inspired activities is plunging parboiled vegetables into an ice-water bath. It started when I was making haricots verts from my Martha Stewart Living cookbook a few weeks ago to take to my parents' house for dinner, and I liked its green-preserving effect so much that I extended the practice to some steamed broccoli I made a few days later.

If you were a vegetable, and knew your fate was to serve as a plate divider between pools of gravy, butter-oozing potatoes, and maki sushi (this is my family, after all), wouldn't it ease the pain of searing heat, just a little, to be lovingly bathed in ice water midway to your final destination?

Ben is in the other room, watching Babe while he eats a "stomach-stretching" vat of broccoli salad before our big family dinner tonight.

update: He just trotted into the room to say, "That'll do, pig. That'll do."

just humor him, he's my betrothed

2006-11-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

I meant to start this awhile ago, when Ben first suggested we get wooden wedding rings. It's a list of ridiculous ideas Ben has offered for our wedding/marriage/honeymoon in such a way that I suspect he's not joking.

Today's gem: "Let's go to Las Vegas for our honeymoon. I want to see a Don Rickles show!"

F this

2006-11-10T13:10:00.000-08:00

This is one of those times when I get a glimpse of what I'll be like as a parent. [Notice I did not say, "what I would be like as a parent."] This crew of guys has been working for the past two weeks repairing our neighbors' collapsed rock wall. It's been a pretty interesting process to watch, as I've always wondered how they get an infinite variety of different-shaped rocks to fit into a level, symmetrical design. Still don't get it. But I think it involves chopping up big rocks into smaller ones, and you don't just stack rocks willy-nillly, you have to set up a string mold first.

Anyway. I was feeling solidarity with the rock wall workers, as I've adjusted my backing-out-of-the-driveway techniques and even my picking-up-the-mail schedule to accommodate their presence. I've started wearing more respectable clothes around the house in case they can see in, and I used them in an analogy in a Power Point presentation for one of my education classes. It wasn't a flattering analogy, but whatever.

Today, though, all love has been lost. The f-ing f-ers have become markedly louder and more brash, probably because the project is almost done and it's Friday, and they can't f-ing say more than three f-ing words without inserting the f-word in there some f-ing place, the motherf-ers! F! It's driving me f-ing crazy!

In case you can't tell, I don't really like to use profanity. And as I've paced around in the kitchen, becoming more and more incensed (could also be due to the three cups of coffee I've had with no food yet), my thoughts are all centered on The Children. "What about the (f-ing) children?!" I want to lambaste them. There are CHILDREN in this neighborhood, and I'd rather not have them exposed to this kind of language and animalistic behavior. Try to adopt a modicum of self-control!"

That's what I'd say, if I had a child of my own to tote along as punctuation. If I went out there now, speaking on behalf of the 6-year-old who lives across the street and taunts us when we drive by, I'd probably be cussed out by her mother.

dead right out of the gate

2006-11-02T22:58:00.000-08:00

I was going to take part in this Blog or Die thing I read about on Molly's blog, where you have to write every day in the month of November. Not doing so well with that. I don't think "dead right out of the gate" is the right phrase, though. I am presently attending an online course in Adolescence and Education (like, I'm in class right now), so I have a few things competing for my attention. Like my guest list manager at The Knot.com. According to the budget tool (with my initial allotted budget), I can afford to spend $12.50 per person on food, and $0.63 on each favor! Not too shab-by.

So, yesterday was my one free day. I am going to Blog or Die as a sign of my newfound self-discipline.

Ben and I are going to Hilo (about 2 hours away) tomorrow to attend some event called "Black and White Night." When I first heard about it, I was all excited, expecting we'd get to dress up and drink free champagne with a big band playing in a ballroom. Where did I think we lived, Cleveland? Turns out we're staffing a table (I thought you got to stop doing that when you graduated from your mid-twenties), and his boss is going to wear a black t-shirt, probably with the company logo on it. And, we're staying at a budget motel in what is probably the Skid Row of the Big Island.

But, I get to go to my first-ever bridal shop! It actually carries a line of gowns that I saw and liked in a Brides magazine that a friend gave to me. I'm kind of sad that I have to go alone, but what can you do.

bulletin

2006-10-23T02:34:00.000-07:00

Is anyone still out there. Anyone. Anyone.

Just kidding, from the beginning I've written this for myself. Self, you know it's true.

But now that this is a wedding planning blog, everyone's gonna want a piece of this!

Oops, I was going to lead up to that. Ben and I are engaged. If you weren't already aware of this, kindly write to me and tell me so as a form of demographic survey. I want to know if those hits from Singapore and the U.K. are real people. Something (the pornographic nature of their sites when I click on them, the gibberish their blogs contain) tell me they aren't. But still, you never know. And I think those are the only people we haven't told.

Also, there was this big earthquake a week ago that I was going to write about. I thought it would be ripe with potential for self-searching and searing insight into my true psyche. But never mind. We're so over it!!!!

That reminds me of the guy who came into the bookstore once and chewed me out for half an hour because someone (it was me, but no way was I telling him that) had used three exclamation points on a flyer. "You would never put three periods at the end of a sentence, right? Right." I think he had recently read Eats, Shoots and Leaves and was high on his own perceived potential as a grammarian. He engaged me in a debate between A) it never being appropriate to use !!!, and B) there being a right time and place for everything. The relativist position (B) was me, and the guy left thinking he had won. I guess he did--for the rest of my time there, I obsessed over every punctuation mark on every flyer I designed. Bastard Bookstore Guy with a ponytail.

But he's probably not engaged, and I am. So there.

holy frijoles!

2006-10-11T22:40:00.000-07:00

Gall durn, New Mexico. Will you ever stop?

From the AP:

Three workers at a Burger King restaurant were arrested after two Isleta tribal police officers discovered that the hamburgers they ordered were sprinkled with marijuana.

The Isleta Police Department officers ate about half of their burgers Sunday before discovering marijuana on the meat. The officers used a field test kit to confirm the substance was pot, then went to a hospital for a medical evaluation.

Let us add this to the list of idiotic things people in New Mexico have done to make the national news:

1. Landed a police helicopter while on duty in the parking lot of a Krispy Kreme.

2. Tried to smuggle black tar heroin into a prison via a burrito, only to have it confiscated by a guard, who then STARTED TO EAT IT.

To think, I was less than a few miles from that Burger King days ago. Had I only known.

my quest

2006-09-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be late for school again because of my addictive/obsessive personality. I think I've found the book that I've been dreaming of since I last saw it when I was four! Does anyone remember it? What I wouldn't give to look inside.

nanny-nanny boo boo!

2006-08-31T21:36:00.000-07:00

It's a four-day weekend! Were I a real teacher, it would only be three-day, but since the unfortunate teachers have a day-long workship in the school cafeteria tomorrow, I don't have to go in.

I'll get mine, though, when I have to sit through 16 hours of teacher training classes over the weekend. Every few months, the students in my program from outer islands meet for the weekend, to give a human dimension to our mostly online courses. The most annoying thing about the weekend will be listening to twenty or so people mistakenly refer to Kailua-Kona as "Kona," and claim that the area I live in isn't Kona, and asking me how often I "drive into Kona." Argh.

Our fabulous, dish-washing, beer-supplying houseguest duo is back for their second honeymoon! Last night Ben fed them chicken fingers and we watched Wedding Crashers; we dispensed with any pretense to sophistication right off the bat. There's nowhere to go but up from here.

Happy Aloha Friday to all!

updates

2006-08-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah, I'll get to my homework right after this. I realized I toss out groundbreaking pieces of news, like my plans to attend a class at the gym, and then never follow up. How are people supposed to follow my every move? Here are some updates:

My quest to become a sub: They wouldn't let me into the class, because there was an inexplicable cap of 15 people. I'm first on the list for the next session, but it will only be held if a minimum of 23 people sign up. This bitter irony is emblematic of all Hawaii state institutions.

Karaoke: Ben did a duet of "Love Shack" with one of our companions. I drank two Cape Cods and a few sips of Stella, and realized I am now a lame adult when I woke up with a splitting headache.

The 2-hour step workout: Yeah, I didn't go.

Napoleon Dynamite re-enactments: Last night we had some friends over and served them tater tots. They had never seen ND, so I got to act out the "Napoleon, gimme some of your tots!" scene for them and they thought it was fresh and original. I even happened to be wearing cargo-ish pants! Opportunities like this are few and far between.

Other topics requiring updates: I can't think of any more.

give me freedom!

2006-08-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Today I am seeing deeper into the root psychological cause of rebellion. I hate "assignments"! Tonight my "reading autobiography" is due for Adolescent Literature and Literacy. It's just a three-page essay on my favorite books and reading experiences. I could easily have written it as a blog entry, or in an email to Lucrecia. Heck, our discussion of You've Been Away All Summer would fill three pages. I could fill three pages just describing the books I remember from childhood: Fish Dangerous to Man. Last One In Is a Rotten Egg. The Old Man Who Couldn't Read. And those are just crappy books from my first grade classroom.

But because this is an assignment, and has requirements like double-spacing (ick, I detest double-spaced stuff) and proper citations of the books, it is tainted by duty. And it has become the Moby Dick of my weekend.

[side note: Does anyone remember a book that was all about "little" things, like, "A little Indian is a papoose. A cookie is a little cake." Maybe because this line redefined how I look at baked goods, the image of the cookie part has been haunting me for years. It's a little round cookie with a hole in the middle, on a baby blue background, and it's soooo cute. Thinking about it makes me long for a fine, crumbly sugar cookie. Anyone? Anyone? I would pay big money (like maybe $20) for this book.]

Now I understand those students who complain about everything they're asked to do. It sucks being forced to do something, especially when it's something you would have enjoyed had you done it willingly. Wait, this is why some people hate to work! It all makes sense to me now! I sense a new chapter of my life beginning: resentful adulthood.

I must just sit down and write the darned thing. If I don't finish it in time for dinner, I won't be able to watch the Emmys.

I shall not mention the gym

2006-08-25T22:32:00.000-07:00

My childhood best friend, Lori, is in town, and tonight Ben and I are meeting her, her sister and some others at the bowling alley for karaoke. Lori lives on Oahu, and I haven't seen her since her wedding in June. We've gone to the BA before, with a couple who can actually sing. [Female member of the couple, if you don't mind me using your names, please give a shout out in the comments.] They sing a perfectly harmonized duet of "Faith," Ben growls out a Johnny Cash or Bob Dylan, and I sit back bemusedly with my Amstel Light passing judgment on it all.

The only other place I've ever "done" karaoke is at Ed's Leisure Bowl in Albuquerque. There I also passed judgment, but on a more motley crue. [Is the word "motley" spelled with an umlaut in real life? If not, why did the band add the stupid thing?] If I could have a video of one moment in my life, it would be of the bartender at Ed's doing a surprise number, that "Hero" song from Spiderman, from behind the bar. Wearing a headset. And polishing glasses as he sang. It was breathtaking. (I needed to take lots of breaths to keep up with my laughter.)

At this particular venue, you sing from your seat, unlike the scene at Ed's. There is also the added frisson of not knowing whether one of the patrons is the parent of a past or future student. This is why I don't sing. That, and how Ben compares my singing to such delights as the Wicked Witch and a cat dying. The words are shown over a backdrop of what I can only describe as soft-core '80s Hawaiian porn, that has no relation at all to whatever song is playing. Picture "Purple Rain" as a curly mulleted guy in a red tank top argues with his skanky girlfriend in a motel room, then goes surfing.

***

If my writing seems overly punctuated or stilted, it's because I spent 2nd period today (yeah, I think like that now) helping kids with a worksheet on parallel sentence structure. Problem is, the worksheet was poorly designed (I thought), evidenced in the fact that I couldn't tell what the right answer was half the time. It was yet another reminder that I am not prepared yet to teach. Which is why this job is perfect for me.

About a month ago, I had a nightmare that the chairperson of my certification program told me they had added a new requirement: I had to go back through high school. I think only sophomore and junior year, but still. So I went to class, and found that I had been cutting class all semester! And was impossibly behind! It was a horrible, panicked feeling.

I am basically living the nightmare. Only it's more like a weird dream, because I'm getting paid for each hour, I can skip class and not get in trouble (though I do worry every period I spend not with students, like, creating fake spreadsheets), and I don't have to actually do the assignments. But I have felt a few of the old high school feelings in the past two weeks: that my feet stink, that maybe I sat in chocolate and everyone's laughing as I walk through the hall, that I should have worn the other shirt because maybe the boys can see down it when I lean over their desks.

It's actually pretty fun. Today I was hanging out in the library at recess, and I heard a girl tell her guy friends, shakily strident, "High school is so lame because I already know all this stuff. I haven't gotten anything less than, like, an 85 percent since freshman year. It's like, 'fill in this worksheet' with crap I already know, god!"

Heh, heh, girl. Wait till you get to college. Better yet, I hope I get you next year, and make you study postmodernism. Never mind that it's probably out of fashion now. You will learn it, and you will struggle with it, just as I did with finding "themes," and then you will feel hopelessly inferior in college when it turns out no one really does that.

mussy slump

2006-08-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

Returning to the working world sure knocked me for a loop. I always felt justified in taking a nap after a day of teaching, but after my new workday of 2 hours real work + 2 hours chatting with teachers + 1 hour doodling and pretending to read student data, I end up just as tired.

I'm getting into the routine, though, and working back toward my old level of self-discipline. This week, I only skipped the gym once to eat ice cream and watch TV. (The other 5 days I skipped were either to nap or run errands, a much better ratio of excuses than last week's.) Tomorrow will be the real test: I'm going to do a two-hour "Step Marathon." I haven't Stepped in over two years, so it could be ugly.

I don't know what the marathon is in support of. Ben mocked me, comparing it to "Running in place for cancer." Even worse, I think this is just a narcissistic calorie-burning extravaganza, an opportunity to show off your cardio capacity and sexy sportswear, hoping someone will ask you out for a wheatgrass smoothie afterwards. But back when I was addicted to exercise, I would have been at the front of this marathon, just behind the teacher, hoping she'd point me out as a model of perfect form.

So last night I did a whole lower-body routine of lunges, squats and leg presses, etc. before going to Body Combat, where we hold down invisible foes and punch them repeatedly in the face. At the end, I felt pumped up, buff, and powerful.....until I went to the locker room and couldn't untie my double-knotted shoelaces. That was a blow to the old ego.

it's a whole new world before 10 a.m.

2006-08-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

I'm up before 7 for the first in months. Today begins my week from hell. Granted, it will only last for three days, and I named it thus because I have TWO things to do each day instead of zero. I really have no business calling it that, but I will. First, I'll start my new part-time teacher job (I've decided to go with that, its official title in the eyes of the Dept. of Ed, because it sounds a little better than "tutor," which evokes images of a spinster governess or virginal, consumptive Englishman). Then I'll pick up my auntie and rush down to the other high school (the one by the garbage dump) to make it to our first day of substitute teacher certification class. My aunt, who taught elementary school for 35 years before retiring and moving here to live with my grandma, has to take the same class as degenerates like me. That's messed up.

Anyway, the class will be 2 nights a week for the next 3 weeks, totalling 30 hours. I'm not dreading the class on its own merits; I actually do quite well in situations where I have to sit still for hours and pretend to pay attention to someone. Borne of a lifetime of going to church and two years in grad school when my mind was elsewhere. No, I'm incensed and resentful that I have to spend 30 prime-time TV, work out (and Workout) usable hours that I will not get paid for. Ugh. Isn't my sense of entitlement cute?

But after it's all done, I'll be qualified for my dream job of nervously placating ornery children! It's a good deal.

***

Here are some of the ways in which my new job is preferable to my old one:

1. I have to turn in my keys at the end of each day. This means that I couldn't return to school to do a little more work if I wanted to.

2. I am not responsible for the welfare of anyone but myself. That responsibility rests solely with the teacher whose room I am visiting, and whose clothes I will make fun of with doodles and notes with my pupil.

3. At 2:30, I will be elbowing those kids out of my way as I make a run for the parking lot.

4. It's now 7:15, and I am typing this instead of frantically grading essays, there is no dreadful churning in my stomach, and I'm not too nervous to enjoy a Missymussy breakfast burrito. (It's tiny and made with a whole wheat tortilla; I haven't totally abandoned my old ways since living with Ben.)

More later if I'm not utterly exhausted from this monumental day of exertion.

missymussy world tour 2006

2006-08-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

Someone call the Anodyne staff and tell them they'll need to stock the vending machine for the first time in a year, because I'm coming back to Albuquerque!

No, I'm not moving there for a third time. But I will be there for ten whole, glorious, chile-filled days in October, neatly in time to coincide with my birthday, yippee! Here's the itinerary for those of you who want to plan a surprise party. Don't worry, I'll totally act surprised.

Sept. 29: I arrive at the Sunport
Oct. 2: Ben arrives

OCT. 7: MY BIRTHDAY

Oct. 8: I leave for HI
Oct. 12: Ben leaves for Philly

Crap. Only now do I realize that I leave the day after my birthday. Perhaps we should celebrate it a night early, you think?

Anyway, we are very excited. Ben hasn't been back to the mainland since he moved here. That wouldn't be such a big deal for me. Ha. I am going to be a circus attraction if it's less than 70 degrees, or if I have to drive on the freeway, where I'll be so intent on looking for people I know in passing cars that I'll cause a crash. That, or no one will understand what I mean when I flash my brights at them while slamming on my brakes in a merging lane. (Here, that means, "C'mon in, buddy!" I'll wait!") Basically, any public outing is a risk.

If you would like to pick me up at the airport around noon, I will buy you lunch and bring you a Hawaiian gift that I will carefully pack in my checked luggage so it's not confiscated. Not that it's going be a gel or liquid, but I've heard they're making people throw out their manapua at the Honolulu airport. Please email me for details.

why?

2006-08-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight, while I was watching PBS with my mom (Andre Rieu conducting his orchestra before thousands of cheering white people in Holland), I had an inexplicable urge to watch an awards show. The Grammys, People's Choice Awards, CMAs - it wouldn't have mattered. This surely signals the implosion of my intellect, the coming apocalypse, or both.

back from Green Acres

2006-08-08T12:56:00.000-07:00

We're back in our real house. From one pretend home to another. Last night as Ben and I unpacked our overnight bags (I have an awesome new one featuring Count from Sesame Street), we reminisced on the luxuries of the past week.

MM: I'm going to miss the dishwasher most of all. I've never realized how much of my life I spend washing dishes until now. That, and throwing things down the garbage disposal.

B, wistfully: My favorite was the ice water.

It's true, our lives have come down to this. Ben had been complaining that we were the boringest couple of all time, but I didn't believe him until now. Our grandest aspirations are to have an array of modern kitchen conveniences, especially a refrigerator with an ice and water dispenser. Ben claims he "can't make good ice water," but at the house-sitting house, he was magically transformed. We are both very well-hydrated.

***

I am now completely unemployed. My stint as an office lady, which was AWESOME, is over, and I don't have any word about the tutoring job. Today I'm going to Restaurants # 1 and 2 on my list to humbly apply for waitressing jobs. I think. I haven't quite got up the nerve to change out of my pajamas.

reader survey

2006-08-03T18:38:00.000-07:00

Have you ever worked in a non-air conditioned office? Particularly one in a tropical climate, in August? It can be quite trying.

That's all I have for now. The heat is making it so all I think are boring thoughts.

Also, office work is kinda boring. Gosh, I bet that's the first time such an insight has ever been broadcast into cyberspace. What a revolution I have on my hands!

working vacation

2006-08-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

A brief description of my daily schedule this week:

8:00 am: wake up to the gentle nuzzling of Nutmeg, a
yellow lab
8:30 am: watch Will & Grace while drinking coffee
9:00 am: read newspaper and write in journal while Ben
taunts me, "Ooh, I'm writing in my journal! Ben's so
dreamy!"
9:50 am: leave for work with Ben
10:00-4:00: fulfill my childhood dream of working in
an office (which I would indulge by "playing office"):
tippity-type, send important sounding memos, exert my
authority over the phone by placing people on hold at
random intervals
4:30: ride around the property with Ben on our John
Deere tractor, singing Green Acres song
5:00: begin preparing dinner
7:00: the battle with Ben for the remote control
begins
10:00: lounge in hot tub under the stars while gazing
out at the dark sea
11:00: read P.D. James in bed until I fall asleep and
have nightmares

Ain't it the life? This week we are housesitting for
Ben's office manager, and I also get to fill in for
her at the office! And I don't need to come in until
10 am!

Our new pretend home is on 13 acres overlooking City
of Refuge. I can almost hear the Hawaiian
kapu-breakers as they run for their lives. The owners
are trying to start a coffee farm, and have equipped
it with all the dude ranch essentials: giant gas
grill, lanai with retractable awning, a beautiful
outdoor shower made out of lava rock, and the hot tub.
I'm in for a rude awakening if--I mean when--I start
working at the school again. But for now, it sure is
fun. Tonight: steaks (for Ben), macaroni and cheese
(for me), and a new Workout. I can't go to the gym
because a) it's now 40 minutes from where we're living
and b) I have homework to do. I'll try to do a few
squats as I watch Jackie and her posse, while drinking
a nice Chenin Blanc.

count the TV references. count em!

2006-07-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been gone for a few days after my empty promises to stay true. It won't happen again--until I get a job, and who knows when that'll be. School starts on Monday for the kiddos, and I haven't heard anything yet. That's the way things work here; plus, who needs tutoring on the first day of school?

Anyway, I haven't written because I've been feeling utterly ashamed of my lazy lifestyle, which offers nothing noteworthy to write about. Just kidding! I am totally proud of the fact that I've been sleeping until 9:30, doing crosswords, and re-reading P.D. James mysteries to see if I can catch any of her clues this time.

Sadly, Ben had the cable shut off on Wednesday. That sounds like he's domestically abusing me by taking away my privileges one by one. Really, we had it changed from full cable to basic, so we still have Comedy Central and TBS (where you can now, I was shocked to learn, hear the S and the D words), but we've lost VH-1, E!, Bravo, A & E, Discovery Health (bye bye, Medical Mysteries) and, the biggest loss to me, Lifetime. I'll have to rely on memory from now on when making plans to reconstruct the Golden Girls. Lucky for you, Robyn, Stephanie and Lucrecia, I was at home every single Saturday night that GG was on the air. So I know it all.

This was not supposed to devolve into TV commentary, and pathetic commentary at that.

***
These asterisks oughtta do the trick.

I wanted to share my elation about a dramatic new turn my life is taking. Several months ago, Ben and I joined The Club, one of our town's two gyms, and haven't set foot in it since early July. Yesterday, I woke up with a newfound zest for life, and decided to go to a class called Body Combat, in the name of doing something positive for me.

Just kidding. What happened was, before RIP-cable-day, I watched Workout, the new series about trainers in L.A., and came down with a little COIAD. I realized that only by starting a strict fitness regimen would I have a chance at emulating Jackie Warner, the gym owner in Workout, in every way but for her lesbian girlfriend, Mimi. [Sorry, Ben.] She is buff but not intimidating, dresses adorably, and drinks white wine in almost every evening scene. I also may start painting my fingernails dark blue or black, but I'm wondering if this may be a well-known lesbian code.

Anyway, Body Combat (think ominously & hum Mortal Kombat song here). The class was basically Tae-Bo with some fake Asian moves (I got to bow to my sensei!). So of course I kicked ass, having done many hours of VHS Tae-Bo in my sister's Seattle apartment when I was an unemployed mooch. I also already knew "the claw" from an Oprah episode about defending yourself from parking lot rapists, and that was a key move in the workout.

I stopped working out about two years ago. This is, not coincidentally, when Ben and I started dating. As I would notice my muscles atrophying, lung capacity diminishing, energy level dropping and bones brittling, I would be mildly concerned, but never to the point of action. I kind of accepted it as part of my new teacherly persona: dowdy wardrobe from Macy's, comfortable shoes by Clarks', disdain for the music nowadays, addiction to prime-time shows, Olive Oyl (quoth Ben) limbs.

But as I left the gym after Body Combat, and today after Body Pump (unh!), I felt a flutter of a feeling that I had forgotten existed. Something about the hour-long oxygen deprivation to my brain, coupled with the mist of fatigue creeping its way through muscles that hadn't been used in Apple Paltrow's lifetime, evoked a sense of nostalgia for adobed days gone by. The scene it brought to mind: driving home from Defined Fitness into the sunset, sweat evaporating into the dry desert air, feeling both revulsion and envy for the pastel-hued, Mercedes-sheltering, faux Mexican folksy complexes I passed. [I feel that same love/hate for the beautiful scenery and unattainable property of Kona.] The post-gym grocery shop, filling the cart with things I think my friends would like instead of the weekday weighing of cost per serving and indulgence factor. [We had friends over for dinner tonight, now rare but back then, an almost daily occurence.] Exhilaration, uncertainty, pleasant anxiety as my mind swam with possibilities for the night ahead, or the life ahead. A cheesy fitnessy person would bring up endorphins. I prefer to think of it as some kind of magic that reminds me of someone I used to be, or maybe still am.