I'm Around. Just Not, Like, Here. So Much.

"Dalton Howard stands, sometimes shakily, sometimes with brazen confidence, between the carefully rendered line and the paint drip, between geometry and the doodle."

A new art review. Whoop.

Ode to Four and Three Quarters

[I'm stealing this idea, blatantly and with no remorse or apologies whatsoever (although I will cite!), from Notes from the Trenches--and from a writing prompt I used to give my seventh grade students.]

I want to remember how you demand oatmeal for breakfast. Followed by Cheerios. Followed by a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that you end up eating in the car on the way to school.

I want to remember the peanut butter kisses that you then smear on my cheek as I drop you off at school.

I want to remember how you used to cling to my leg and beg me not to leave you.

I want to remember how you used to catch my kisses and put them on your heart--and how now, instead, you eat them.

I want to remember how you now stride off eagerly, confidently, almost forgetting to blow me a kiss goodbye.

I want to remember your curly toes and your adamantly straight hair.

I want to remember how your head smells like roasted marshmallows. And I want to remember how you bust me with, "Mama, are you smelling my head again?" but then sit still and let me inhale those last notes of your babiness.

I want to remember your fake burps.

I want to remember how your giggle lights up the room.

I want to remember how your fingers like to flirt with the holes of your mank and the edges of my ponytail.

I want to remember how you love lip gloss and fingernail polish.

I want to remember how you found your funny in all things that rhymed with "poop."

I want to remember how you turned down soda because your tummy didn't hurt right now and how you'd eye-patch before we could even change the channel.

I want to remember how, at Four and Three Quarters, you fell in love with your mama again, giving me spontaneous hugs, jumping on my back, bestowing your fake burps full in my face, and telling me that you love me more than I love you. Even though, my widget, that's not even possible.

I Googled You Yesterday

I don't know what made me do it or what trip down memory lane I felt I needed to travel, but I googled you yesterday.

Is it because I miss you or that I miss the life I had with you (which in my narcissism could amount to pretty much the same thing)? Sure. Is it because I wonder what you're up to and what you've been doing since I left? Sure, that too.

I found out, though, that you're much harder to google than I thought. I had to plug in quite a few search terms to get to you--your full name in quotes, where you live, where you work. I didn't find any kind of personal footprint that you've left behind--no personal Web site, nothing that at least I could find on MySpace. Which doesn't mean you're not there. It just means that I, 37-year-old mother, doesn't know how to find anyone on MySpace.

(And I could be okay with that.)

But I did find out that you've been doing good things. You've won awards. You've been caught on the edges of someone else's photographs. And you look good. Still young. Still spunky. Still sporting that sardonic grin.

(I always hated that grin. I think you could outgrow that now.)

You know, I felt comfortable with you. I felt like I belonged, like I knew what I was doing, like I was some kind of worthy. And I felt like you accepted that, saw the best bits of me--and the rest you just laughed off or slapped straight with a rolled up L.L. Bean catalog.

(That did hurt, by the way.)

It was too easy to leave you. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I always thought you'd be there, waiting, captured in some kind of snow globe, ready for me to shake when I was ready.

Not so much, huh?

When I left, you went on doing your thing. Without me. And apparently you picked up some new tricks. And I suppose that I moved on too.

But still, thoughts of you make me pause. Make me wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn't left you.

Would I be happier? Would I have already lost these 20 pounds I've been trying to outrun for past four years? Would they have found me in the first place? Would I have ever discovered the pleasures of the Italian Cream Soda or running my hands through a field of lavender? Would I have fallen in love with Jonathan Safran Foer or Michael Chabon? Would I have found my cancer sooner? Would I even have kids?

Would I have laughed more?

I know I need to let you go. To let that piece of my past go. Because it--and you--have already let me go.

But I do have to wonder, even though I shouldn't . . . I do wonder if you ever think of me.

Sleeptalker, Part Deux

Last night, I went in to Finn's room to check on him, restoke his "fire" (re: humidifier), and clear off the 17 books he had collected on his bed while he was "going to sleep." (Yes, I counted.)

He was rolled up in his comforter, his mank (re: blankie) tucked under his head. As I restoked and cleared off, he woke up for just a second, to give me, with just one word, yet another peek into his dreams:

"Transform."

Stepping Out

[Joe Jackson should be providing the musical backdrop to this post. I don't know how to so much make that happen, so please furnish your own score, if you would. Thanks. The MNGMT.]

I have a new post over at Art Motel and a new review over at the Kansas City Star.

Like, finally, dudes.

Wanna check them out? Of course you don't. Let me reposition the ask. Check them OOWWWWT!

Sleeptalker

Tonight as I walked by Finn's room on my way to bed, I heard him call out to me.

"Mama?"
"Yes, Finn."
"Can I get an extra water bottle because I'm still very dirty."
"A water bottle?"
"Uh huh."
"Because you're dirty."
"Uh huh."
"I'll get right on that."

So this is what Four and Half dreams about.

Today Is Thursday . . . Thursday, Ninth Circle of Hell

Really now, snow. Again? Are the masters of weather unaware that we've already had snow. And lots of it? That snow Has Been Done. A lot. That snow is so very last year?

I don't know if I've mentioned it readers, but I'm over it. Winter. As a whole. And I don't believe I'm judging too quickly. I've "done" winter since 1999. A good, wait, let me tease out this calculation, is that eight? Yes. Eight. Eight years of my life. Eight winters, my people.

And this is the worst. Of the winters I've had. At least.

The first seven winters were enchanting. And the snow, even the one today, still holds a certain wonder and promise. The world completely and utterly transforms, hides, retreats, under this shimmery, pure blanket that at once comforts, smothers, haunts, forebodes, and promises.

But man, my toes. And my hands. And Bears bloody noses. And my toes. We just can't seem to shake the chill. And that's without even going outside.

Kansas City also has the nasty habit of laying down a layer of ice before it brings on its blanket of snow, so that when you clear the drive or the sidewalk, you're met with a rather butt-busting surprise. And I mean butt-busting in the not good way.

We're supposed to get more snow tonight. So I figure you'll either read more whiny posts from me in the next couple--or I'll suck it up and sled out my frustrations into the whirligig of this Dantesque (yes, I just -esqued and made a literary allusion) winter.

Faker!

Finn has found great humor and wonder in the fake burp.

He'll bring it out any old time, after we eat, when I'm giving him a bath, after a particularly good story. Somehow, he knows deep down that it's a gesture of appreciation--a job, a moment, a reading well done. I don't know if he's been hanging with ogres or folks from cultures who revere the burp, but Finn has adopted it as his own calling card and sign of approval.

He enters and exits the day with a belch.

This morning, Bear and I were arguing over who knows what. I've been in a perpetual bad mood for the past four days. Ever since I pulled in all-nighter to finish up a freelance job. Or maybe the funk travels with the nasty little piece of yucky I have to finish for tomorrow. Anyway, I've been bitchy and this morning, I found ample opportunity to let it out on the first person I saw, like some opposite-world love potion.

And Bear was game. He doesn't tend to let me ride through my fits, but to challenge and even CALL ME ON THEM. That bastard.

So today we rumbled over fiber content in my Kashi cereal or if he was going to do this Master Cleanse with me because I know he said he would and he knew he said, "Like hell" or something something, and we hit an awkward moment, where I realized I was being a Master Poo, but refused to admit it. Or speak.

Yes, I pulled out the silent treatment. Because I am 37 and mature.

And just then, when I was still on fumes and Bear was about to revel in his moral rectitude, there came from the peanut gallery a righteous, BEEEEEELLLLCCCHH. Followed by an assortment of bubbly giggles.

I tried so hard, dear readers, to glare, to visually condemn the insolent little muffin who had interrupted my mood.

But all I could do was laugh.

Resolutions: Revised

1. Workout every day every week when I feel guilty about not working out like it.
2. Blog every day more often. Than I did before.
3. Call my sister every Sunday sometime soon.
4. Don't work on every weekends.
5. Eat more fruits and vegetables chocolate.
6. Be kind and generous. Every week. When I feel guilty about being mean. More-ish.

Remember Me?

Wow.

So much for that blogging every day.

Right when the proverbial poopfest hit the fan, I cowered, slinking behind my broken desk chair and just watched the days tick by, without so much as a post or thought or even scribble toward the blogosphere.

I do have some pics to backpost, so I'll "cheat" (allowable cheat, by the rules) with some photo documentation of how I spent my days. But if I'm truthful there, most of the photos will depict the scene I'm looking at right here, minus the blogger template: a pile of fall-colored file folders, a Moleskine tantalizingly left open, and Wonder Woman and Rogue action figures, hovering on my periphery, contemplating whether they should jump and make a break for freedom while I'm not looking or if they should whip my sorry ass toward a bubble bath and margarita.

Because 36 straight hours in this chair don't do much for my "aura."

(Stop and listen to the toys, Sarah. Listen.)

Portrait of the Artist as a Stick Figure in a Fat Suit

Redeemed!

Apparently, if you whine really hard on the 'nets, the voice of Blog hears you and makes things happen. I am living testimony to the Power of Blog.

Complain that your candidate didn't take your state on SuperTuesday? Whoosh bam. The Power of Blog gives it to your candidate two hours later.

Complain that the winter weather is leaving you dry and near despondent? Whoosh bam. You shall be rewarded with business and school closings and all the sledding your cracked epiderm can handle.

The world, says Blog, is yours. Write it.

Coincidence, you say? Shot o' luck?

Oh, you blaspheme, you doubter of Blog.

Again with the Snow?

Missouri is really chapping my butt.

One, it's snowing. Again. Okay, maybe that doesn't bother me as much as . . . two, the state was called for not my candidate. Happy camper I am not.

Especially since my buttocks and other parts are literally chapped, in that curious scaling that happens when dry heat meets 30something aging skin and cannot escape, but must burrow and ferret and claw its frustration into your very flesh. Yes, the air does this. And then the butt and fingers and knees crack and, wait till you hear this, BLEED.

Super Tuesday, circa 1988

That was my first year in college and the very first year I voted. My options: Bush Senior, Ross Perot, and Dukakis (who is not in spellcheck, by the way).

I think.

See I'm not sure who the Democrat was. Because I didn't care. About the Democrats.

I was voting for Bush.

I was a Young Conservative, bordering on Libertarian, steeped in Ayn Rand and objectivist philosophy, and a rather ardent proponent of nuclear energy (in that apathetic, "Oh yeah, that could be cool way," but a supporter nonetheless.) I was studying physics! and living in a co-ed dorm! and using exclamation points with nary a second thought! (and because emoticons weren't quite in full use) and eyeing the, uh, "shapes" my roommate was snorting off my chemistry textbook!

College!

So, yes. I was one of those folks who started the dynasty. And why? Because of some passioned conviction in the Republican ideals? Because of Bush's stand on . . . uh . . . oh . . . right . . . busted.

Okay it was Walter. A short but very cute boy named Walter. Motorcycle-riding, Italian, Young Conservative, Bush-loving, strapping Walter.

He used to tell me, like every time I got on his motocycle, that it was the safest thing I'd have between my legs.

Oh.

OH!

Maybe I misunderstood his, uh, political persuasions.

13 Things I Could Give Up For Lent

1. Red meat.
2. All meat but fish.
3. Meat.
4. Caffeine. (Now, who's talking silly.)
5. Sweets. (That would be me. Hello!)
6. Beer.
   
7. TV.
8. Craziness. In general.
   
9. Not calling my family. (Which would probably mean more 6, 7, 11, and 12?)
10. Leaving bitchy, whiny comments on people's blogs.
11. Bitching.
12. Whining.
13. Whoring.

Puttin' on the Cheese

Have you been to Chuck E. Cheese?

No, you haven't. And for a variety of good reasons. Like, it's magnet for thwarted adolescents, suspicious childfree adults, and snotty children (as in actually full of snot, although there's quite a bit of haught dripping from their sweaty heads as well). And the cheese? Maybe a little too chucky.

And good for you. You keep on keepin' on. And don't you even pester your pretty head about the cheap treats and animitronics you might be missing. You just keep kindling the fond memories o That Other Goodtime Pizza Place of Your Long-gone Youth, of gentle camaraderie and competition for plastic toys that wouldn't even survive the car ride home, of childhood aggression wielded on a subversive mole, and don't even think for another second about reliving your past.

Trust me.

Last night, we and crew of Finn's closest visited The Cheese. It was a reward for meeting his responsibilities (re: child labor). It is not, and I repeat, not payment for said chores. We don't believe in paying for chores. They are part of the family fabric and you must woof and weave with the rest of us.

But we do believe in rewards. Which aren't the same as payments. (No. They are not. Stop it. Are not. Are not. Are not.) Rewards travel as movie nights, as special trips to the museum or zoo, as a Night of Endless Books, sometimes as a toy, and on this occasion, as a trip to The Cheese with some friends.

This was all done in good will for work well done. (And not for extrinsic motivation.) But when we arrived at the first Cheese at about 6 p.m., we quickly realized our mistake. There wasn't a game that wasn't overtaken, a child that wasn't running and screaming and snotting, and no chance in the land of double hockey sticks that a Brobdingnagian could squeeze through the dense forest of Lilliputians to track and trap their kid.

So after waiting in line for 40 minutes, we left. For another Cheese.

Yes, what were we thinking?

Mainly that we love our child so much that we are willing to endure any hell. And that night, hell was populated by a whiny rodent and an 80s pop queen. Pat Benatar's Hit Me with Your Best Shot was on heavy rotation at The Cheese (one of only four songs that The Cheese played over. And over. And over again. My Guitar Hero playlist will have to be amended).

Let me tell you, my people, after 2 hours of that, I was ready to take her up on her offer.

Sure sign there will be six more weeks of winter. (Or if Jack o' Apple ain't happy, ain't no body happy.)

Ad-i-licious

It's nice to see someone get diverse about diversity.

Celebrate Good Times. Come On!

The prodigal AutoBot has returned. From where? He's not talking. (He's tight grille-d.)

He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week, my Sunday rest.

Dear Bumblebee,

Why did you leave me? What did I do?

Did I lavish too much attention on you? Did my repeated and rather incessant attempts to transform, to master your puzzling intricacies put you off? Minute after minute. Day after day. Week after week--for the very short, yet impassioned, time that we had together? For that, I cannot, I will not, apologize.

But did I fumble too much? Was I too awkward in my advances? That, I do regret. But I am only of the four and a half, and although I do apologize, wholeheartedly, I cannot redeem. Is it in my nature. I wish it weren't, for a deeply fear that my love paraded as abuse, and that, misunderstood, I have lost you.

Or maybe you heard another call. Perhaps from the AllSpark? Maybe you missed your fellow AutoBots and felt the longing for them that I now feel for you. For that I am sorry. For now that you have left me, now that I have lost you, either because of my own transgressions or your own loss, I know the pain of being torn from something that you love most. For I, like Rumi's reed, sing my song of separation.

Please hear my lament and return to me.

Nnnnnnooooooooowwwwww.

Eternally sorry and sorrowful,

Finn

Move over Marcel Marceau: There's a New Mime in Town

It started with an abandoned cardboard frame. (Imagine an unhinged triangle.) I grabbed it and made it into some clamping crab claws. Then Finn grabbed it and made into . . . say it with me now . . . a gun. And we were off.

It's a heart.

It's a steering wheel.

It's a . . . frame?

Real creative, mama.

(My favorite: Finn bumped the two ends of the frame against each other and gave me this hint.

Finn: "It's what you do after you get married."

Me: . . .

Finn: "Dancing!")

When we exhausted the prop chest, we moved into unassisted charades. Bear would whisper "an action" to Finn. He would act it out. I would guess. I can't say I got all his interpretive clues--it is his first go at the fine and respected art of miming.

I mean, who wouldn't confuse skateboarding with synchronized swimming?

Traveling Companion

I work at home. There is no watercooler to gossip around. The office politics can be vicious and one-sided, but they don't flare up too frequently. And although I'm a dutiful handwasher, possibly bordering on obsessive compulsive, I don't so much have to worry about rubbing up against the germs that cube-mate Sheila's first grader brought home from school and generously gifted to her, her family, and each one of her coworkers, like some kind of art-hour macramé craft project.

(Do they do macramé in first grade? Maybe not. But they should. You could demonstrate some fine motorskilling there.)

So when I get on, say, a plane or stay in, say, a hospital for two days, well, those germs just start hopping about fleas on a dog, or a toddler on a toy you've told him you're going to sell on ebay.

They're real friendly like. In fact they were so very friendly and needy that apparently I had to bundle them up and take them home with me.

Which is all just a fancified and laborious way of telling you, I feel like crap.

But even though I felt like crap, I also felt it was my duty to get a start on those resolutions that I haven't even had the time to bore you with. Because there's no better time to feel guilty and inadequate than when you're feeling sickly. (Or so it works out in my head. I tend to kick myself when I'm down.) It's a traveling show of self-deprecation and martyrdom. Book the matinée while there are still seats.

So I headed to the gym. Because that's a good idea. I started with the theory that I'd elliptical through and beyond these germies.

I ended up feeling rather dizzy and nauseous. And, you know, a whole lot crappier.

Just Flew in from Texas. . . and Boy Are My Arms Tired

I slept through the better part of this weekend. Late morning wake ups, multiple naps, early bedtimes--I sampled liberally from the whole snooze menu.

To catch you up, I spent last week helping my mom out. She had surgery and I felt, at the ripe age of 37, that I should jump on down and help out. Yes, it did take me upwards of three decades to figure out that I could actually be helpful in these post-surgery situations, that people out there in the great blue marble might actually need me. And although I don't know if this was a particular case in point--mom is not always easy--I did head down and give my best.

And yes, I am a slow learner.

So I am behind on my blog posts. (Texas, as you may be aware, is connected to the Internet. You may know it. My Luddite mother does not. You go to her house, you go old school on the blogging. Pen and paper, my people. So please allow me a few days to transcribe.)

And I'm exhausted. Hence, the Festival of Nod.

I don't know if it was a week's worth of family drama. (Oh, hi family! Didn't see you there. You know by "drama" I mean "fun!" Right?) Or if it was me trying not to do too many things at once and not so much succeeding at that. Or if it's just the toll of repressing my fears about mom in surgery. Or if it's a psychological weariness born from me trying to forget a particularly, let's say, revealing moment. And leave it at that. Next paragraph, please.

I will have to tease out the cause later, because, I just noticed from glancing out the window, it's rather dark outside. And I have to go to bed.

Feeling Mightily . . . How Do You Say?

Finn: "Mama, you're unbrained today."

Me: "Sorry, I'm what?"

Finn: "You put my milk on your placemat."

Me: "So I did."

Finn: "And my fork is upside down."

Me: "So it is."

Finn: "See, you're unbrained."

Not to Turn a Mountain into a Molehill

It started innocently enough: my sister asked if I wanted to see a building implode and I said yes. I mean, who wouldn't? It's all snap, crackle, pop, and tumble. Isn't that really the way you should start any Sunday morning? By blowing everything up and starting new?

What she neglected to tell me were the details: the butt crack of dawn (five freakin' a.m., my people!) that we had to greet in order to see said building implode, the bitter cold we'd have to endure, and the disturbing pop of chargers we'd hear before the building started its inward collapse.

I should've listened to my mother. I should've worn socks.

The building, formerly known as the Montague, was most recently a hotel, available by the hour (if you get my meaning, wink). In addition to playing refuge to those in need of a "quick nap," it also housed a small bat population that I hoped sensed the building's imminent demise and found new digs yesterday. (We didn't see them this morning.)

But more than sunrise, cold, bats in the bellfry, or the jolting, jitterfying pre-show, what we didn't expect was the emotional resonance of watching this building, just 10 or 12 stories really, collapse. It made us both think about watching the Twin Towers fall, which we both only saw on TV, not in person.

Certainly, this event was planned: most of the interior had been gutted, the windows removed, the streets cleared out. In a two words: safe and controlled. But on a very, very (I don't want to underemphasize this), very small scale we could extrapolate to what it must of been like to stand in front such the Two Towers and hear, smell, and witness that destruction, to see such a stalwart icon, something so solid, so part of your experience just vanish in a puff smoke and a pile of rubble, too small and too easily dismissed.

Don't Ask.

Bear: I'm not taking any responsibility whatsoever for you touching the bottom of a hot pan.

Me: . . .

Sometimes It's about Finding the Right Question

"Finn, what do you want for dinner: stew or mac-n-cheese?"

"Not eating."

"What do you want for dinner? Stew! Mac-n-cheese!"

"Not eating."

"What do you want for dinner? Stew? Mac-n-cheese?"

"Not eating."

"What do you want to not eat for dinner: stew or mac-n-cheese?"

"Mac-n-cheese."

My Little Realist.

"You know, Finn, I like hanging out with you."

"You can't hang out with me all the time."

"Why not?"

"Because, mama, that's not the way the world works."

Still, Still!, Reading that Memoir

I used to be a big reader. And by "big," I mean lots, loads, oodles, gobs of input.

In undergrad, por ejemplo, I'd read a book a day. In grad school, I wasn't so much with the novels, but I'd easily clear that many pages, and more and sometimes in Spanish, French, and Italian. (And sometimes, drunk! Gotta multitask, my people.)

After I left the hallowed halls, what, five years ago?, I kind of left the bookshelves behind. Sure, I've read my share of Harry Potter and a smattering of True Literature (I could count 'em with my ten fingers and wouldn't even have to borrow the toes). Not quite the literary intensity of clearing the opus of Umberto Eco in 15 weeks. And then writing a thesis on it. (Did I just go elitist and cocky? I may have.) My reading has gone light--both in quality and quantity. (Yes, I did just imply that Harry Potter may not be quality reading material. Fun, yes. Literary, no.)

Now, if you're used to my writing style, you're probably waiting for the: "Until now." And then a line or maybe a graf about the literary revelation I had last night. How I read Moby Dick and Ulysses in one night and then submitted an article to Parenting magazine that compares both to my recent survival of toddlerhood.

You standing on that rug? Let me just pull that out from under you.

Nope, no such epiphany today. No, last night I read more of Eat, Pray, Love (yes! still!) and decided I wasn't going to let my academic past haunt my good-time present. As I was chomping at a memoir (that word would usually be delivered with a heaping cup of snark) and wishing I had some bon bons to munch along with it, I realized I wasn't so much missing the bon mots. I was Reading for Pleasure. Not to write about it or to teach it or to be one book closer to being "Well Read" or really for information. But for Pure Pleasure, for this thing called Personal Enlightenment.

And I realized, I likey! And, with Elizabeth Gilbert's help, I also realized that I don't have to feel guilty or apologize for who I am today, for what I read or what I enjoy, or for where I find my wisdom.

(Although an article about the Dick, Ulysses and the two-year old sounds intriguing. Don't steal it.)

Daily Streudel

Hot pork roast stew, crusty bread, a glass of Madagascar Vanilla iced tea, and the promise of a snow-filled morning. Nothing better than hanging with my homies and enjoying the end of a long, gruelling, and stressful day.

Again with the Writer's Block

Yes. Writer's block. One writer. One block. And it's mine. And you can't have it. Unless I decide to give it to you. Which I suppose, technically, I could. But then, what would I have? Because I sure as hockey sticks don't have an idea about what to write.

(But I may, may, I say, know for whom I will vote!)

Decisions are being made over here. Bear and I just finished watching the Nevada debate, with civic attention and deliberation, and only a wee bit of heckling. (Oh, they couldn't hear it. Stop your reproachin'.)

And you know, after watching several hours of candidates and pundits say this and evade that, I'm struck by the similarities between this debate and my early parenting strategies:

• Don't want us to play with an issue? Distract with another shiny issue. And hope no one notices that they've been shelved.
  
• Offer choices, but limit options to things you really like to do or make you look good. ("Charmed or Buffy? No. Well, we don't have to watch TV. I just thought you'd like to watch TV." "Absolutely no combat troops in Iraq. No combat troops. In Iraq. Well, obviously we would position troops in Kuwait.")
  
• He who shouts loudest is desperate and, you know, really, really loud. Which is sometimes all you really need.
  

Daily Streudel

"What was the favorite part of your day?"

"Eating chocolate . . . . going to school."

" Yeah . . ."

"Wait--I have one more. That makes three favorites."

"It does. What is it?"

"Cuddling with you."

"Like, right now."

"Yeah, now is my favorite."

"Me, too."

Sunday Nite, Or Day 13 of Blog365 and I Really Can't Think of Anything Else to Write about So You Know This Is Going to Be a Good Post

It's about 8:40 p.m. on Sunday night. I've got my PG Tips steeping and I'm about to settle in for a couple (or several) hours of work to get me prepped for Monday morning.

I drink too much tea.

Bear's about to cue up the DVR because it seems in our full sprint into 2008, we forgot to watch much to any TV. Damn us. (Or, "How committed you are to supporting your fellow writers!") And we had worked so very diligently in 2007 to accumulate as many programs as possible. Heroes. Pushing Daises. The Office. My Name Is Earl. (More Bear than me). Friday Night Lights (more me than Bear). Project Runway. Top Model marathons. (I may have to delete that admission tomorrow. We'll see how I feel about confessing that in the morning.) There was not an episode of Charmed missed.

We filled whole days with TV. It was my white noise while I worked, the blanket that kept my brain warm when it faced the soul-numbing reality of the blank screen.

And now, 13 days into 2008, the programs are dropping off the DVR, unwatched. The Halliwell sisters are, or are not, up to their usual antics with my witness. I have no idea who's leading the investigations on Law and Order. Seriously, I don't even know if the writers' strike is over.

(Is it over?)

Instead, I've been soaking in satellite radio and discovering new voices. (Cold War Kids! Amy Winehouse! I found out I really do like Interpol!)

So the Halliwell's have been abandoned for the Hallowed Swells of Music.

(Yes, I did just write that. And I'm not even going to press that backspace button to make it go away. As much as we both want me to.)

Two Views at an Art Opening

1. Stand in front of art. Gaze with purpose. Chat with purpose. See. Be seen.



2. Escape to stairwell with a gaggle of girlfriends. Transform banister into space ship. Explore new worlds.

Some Days You're Pulling Streudel Out Your A**. And Then There Are Days Like These.

In chronological order, because there really is no other way:

1. Got a comment! On a post! From a new reader! And I only had to pull out the caps lock once.
2. Finn drew his first house, with a door and windows. (Eyes on the escape route, my friends. The door is small.)
3. Bear had an opening at Byron Cohen Gallery. May have sold some shit. Saaaweeeett! (Translation: Excellent work, chap.)
4. Finn read me a book. A Book, I tell you. Sure, it was What Is a Princess? (forgive my gender-socializing apology. That was uncalled for, I know.) A book!

I'm Opening Comments

I've had a request to enable comments on my posts. You'll find that opportunity at the end of each day's (OMG, EACH DAY! This is taking the piss out of me) blogpost. You know, where it says "0 Comments." As in none. As in I don't have any.

Yet.

(Right?)

I'm going out on a limb here, my people. And so help me, if you don't comment and don't comment nicelike, I'll . . . I'll . . . I'll TURN THEM RIGHT BACK OFF.

You've been warned. With the caps lock on.

I Just Want Him to Know Love Is Beautiful . . .

Finn may not be so easy with the dropping off at school, but he's not much into the picking up either. There is no Run for Mama Rescue Hug. Nope. My child does not own that consistency of character. Instead, he takes one look at me, and runs away. He is passionate about not going to school and equally passionate about not leaving it.

We've learned to live with that. We've adjusted our expectations and we don't set ourselves up for failure. We don't show up five minutes before the chilluns head outside and we give ample warnings. Slow waves, knowing nods, finger countdowns, verbal cues, buggy eyes, stronger gestures, smouthed commands.

And then, we give up diplomacy and just strong arm him and run.

Today, though, he was playing with his Girlfriend. Yes, Finn has a Girlfriend. A steady. (We even had to create a Mii for her.) She's in another class and he doesn't get to see her often, even though the chatter about her at home is rather incessant. We just couldn't motivate ourselves to break that up. So we waited, chatted up the teachers, and commiserated with some other parents that couldn't get their kids to exit the playground.

Finally, I saw an opening. Finn was on the jungle gym. Girlfriend was triking. I went in for the grab. As we walked toward the door, I asked Finn if he wanted to say goodbye to Girlfriend, maybe give her a hug. He thought that was a good idea, but . . .

"Mama, you ask her."

So Finn and I, hand in hand, walked over to Girlfriend. She almost ran me over with the trike. (A sign of future mama-girlfriend conflict, I'm sure.) After I swallowed some juicy expletives with a smile, I asked if Finn could give her a hug. Sure, she said.

Yes, a little creepy on the mothering there. I know. I was playing wingman. To my son.

Later, sensing my "liberal nature," Finn asks if he can sleep with Girlfriend. Bear chokes down a laugh and tosses me a mock see-what-you've-done-now look.

"Maybe you should date first," I say.

Did You Know?

You may have seen this. (I'm slow to the 'Tube.) But in case you haven't, allow me to present:

Secret Perk of Blog365 #1: Highly Annoying to the Hubbin!

"You gonna read my blog. Like, ever again?"

"I read. I read. I just don't remember where I left off since you write like every damn day."

You Go, Grrl!

I don't know that I'll vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary, but I'll say this. When I was a little girl and the boys would say they were going to be president when they grew up, I would say I was going to be a teacher or an archaeologist or a soap opera star.

Tomorrow, there's some little girl that when her turn comes around, she'll say, Me too, be-atch!

Put Your Hands in the Center and Say, "Everyday!"

Finn started it.

He put his hand in the center of the table, Bear and I quickly piled ours on top of his, and we took a family vow to have cracked-pepper ribeyes, pommes frites, and bacon-topped spinach salad every day for the rest of our lives.

Okay, maybe every other day.

Have I mentioned that my hubbin is the supreme ruler of the cast-iron skillet and, ergo, my tummy? And, uh, well, you know. (Insert blushing emoticon.)

How Do You Hold a Moonbeam in Your Hand?

I thought we started the morning well. We watched some morning cartoons, Finn had first and second breakfasts (the kid believes in breakfast), we headed off to school, and spent the car ride talking about the humorous implications of farce done well (or, what a thigh-slapper that Willy Wonka is. "'Member the turnover, mama?" "The somersault?" "The sobersalt! Now that was funny!")

We got to school, handed over a brand new, dayglo orange toothbrush to the teacher. Hugged. Kissed.

And then came the rain. The complete torrent: tears, crying, clinging.

Now, Finn's been going to preschool, and quite uneventfully, for about two years. So this isn't in his standard portfolio of morning behaviors. Sure, he's had school melts before (my child ain't perfect) but to the tune of, like, once a year (I guess we're due) and in the presence of teachers who quickly swoop in and solve the crisis for me.

But today, no such rescue. I was left to PARENT MY CHILD ON MY OWN.

It's difficult to comfort your child and back out of the door at the same time. Because, when it comes down to it, your leaving is the problem. So we talked about what he could. We read. We bargained. But still the rain came.

So I did what any parent would do. I ran for it. I walked him over to his teacher, with big, pleaful eyes--imagine Antonio Banderas' puss-in-boots--and I ran. Out the door. Into the car.

Yes. I feel incredibly guilty, rather useless, extremely ineffectual. You get the idea. I understand the manipulative powers of Four and a Half, but still, crying child is crying child and that don't get no easier.

So I sat in the car for a good 15. Thought about going into to rescue him and then thought about Finn as a 12 year old, excusing himself from school with a "tummy ache." And yet I still entertained the idea.

I called a couple of hours later and learned that Finn was in good hands. One of his classmates patted his head, reassured him, and read him a story. One of his Four and a Half classmates.

Dear Four and a Half: How I love you. In all your faces, in all your moods, in all your wonder. You are magic. You are beautiful.

Sometimes Finding a Streudel Is Akin to the Pulling of the Teeth

I can't--and I won't! I won't!--say this was a bad day. If you've been reading this blog, you know I've had far worse. This just don't compare.

But some days, my people, all the cliches have to come out. And today was one of those pulling-teeth, herding-cats, there-must-be-a-silver-lining-here-somewhere days. It just was. And the drone that was Finn's whining and fussing and just plain being Four and a Half puts a big blotter on trying to tease any semblance of silver.

Oh--you haven't meet Four and a Half?

Sometimes it is joyous and wonder and has very funny things to say. With unlimited encores. Unfortunately, what's funny once is always funny on the eighth go 'round. But Four and a Half is persistent and will have laughter if Four and a Half wants laughter. Even if Four and a Half has to provide the laugh track himself. Which he will. With unlimited encores.

Four and a Half likes voices. Sometimes Four and a Half is an 70-year-old Jewish grandmother. Sometimes Four and a Half is a dead ringer for Peter Lorre. Sometimes Four and a Half is a monster truck. Four and a Half doesn't discriminate. Four a Half is an acoustic chameleon. And Four and a Half has exceptional endurance. Four and a Half never, never, tires of performing or perfecting any of his many personalities.

Today, Four a Half was Mr. Hyde with leaf blower. All day long. And he showed us just how "persistent" (re: obstinate and stubborn and all those other synonyms that mean obstinate and stubborn) he can be.

Daily Streudel

It was a sloppy pour, but it was cheap and poured at home. Guinness is on sale at Costco: 20 bucks for an 18-pack.

And that's my Daily Streudel, my people. Cheers and check that foamy 'stache.

Skip. Tie. And Sliiiddde.

Are you sitting down? I hope you're sitting down. Because if you're not sitting down, you're going to wish you were sitting down and then you'll probably sit down because you're so wanting of the sitting down.

(Can you tell we cleared the whole disc of the Best of the Best of the Electric Company? I would you think you could tell. Tell me. Can you tell?)

So, because of our binge viewing of EC last night and also thanks to the Dora the Explorer workbook I bought Finn yesterday (Verbs! First Action Words!), my child can read.

You read me right, my people. Finn can read.

Okay, so it was just two words--skip and tie--that he sounded out. On his own. Without prompting. (And while I was editing yesterday's post to include EC's Whedon connection.)

But, folks, it's two words. And as we all know, every journey begins with not just one step, but two. Because that first step could've been an accident, or some lucky footwork, or the beginnings of the Electric Slide, which is fun, but is decidedly not a journey.

It's a Word. It's a Plan. It's Letterman.

Hey you guuuuyyyyssss! Today's daily streudel: The Electric Company. On DVD.

And what, as I'm sure you're wondering, did they drop on the disk for the previews? Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen's Undeclared. It's about the beauty of rediscovering something from your childhood and finding that it's being marketed just for you. And it's about finding a kids' show--from 1971--that's way groovier, and socially relevant, than that doof of a purple dinosaur. It's about love of chair.

(But what about Naomi?)

[Addendum: After we finished our five-episode walk down the electrified memory lane, we learned that the Electric Company's head writer was Tom Whedon, who also wrote for the Golden Girls and Benson and bestowed the decisive sperm to the conception of Joss Whedon. And so alas, my fascination with things Whedonesque started so much earlier than I thought.]

Called Out by Four-and-a-Half

"Mama, you were right. Sam turned into my friend again."

"I told you. I told you. I told you."

"Mama, that is taunting."

"But I did. Tell you."

"Mama, that is still taunting."

Yes, I Actually Do Feel That Strongly about It

Inkey and I have been having a little, uh, discussion about the nature of stockings. The Christmas kind. Those that hang-by-the-chimney-with-care kind.

She has rules about stockings and their giving potential, and I suppose, as a good friend, I could let her have her misinformed rules about stockings, their price limits (boundless!), and capacity (infinite!). But I'm too good of friend just to just let that go.

Stockings can be stuffed with precious treasures. I'll go there. Who wouldn't like to find an iPod or Planet Earth DVDs in their stocking?

But the key words here: stuffed with, in. In the stocking.

If it don't fit in the stockin', my dear, dear friend, it is a small gift.

Now to concede a point, as Inkey has so justly pointed out, I am not the arbiter of all things stocking. I have no degree in neither stocking nor Christmas. (Did I just double negative? I have a degree in neither stocking nor Christmas? I grammatize. Back to point.) But I do offer this argument, from, I think we will all agree, an established resource on stockings and their acceptable uses: Santa Claus.

As you'll remember from his biopic (Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, as reported by Romeo Muller who also wrote The Twelve Days of Christmas, Noel, The Wish That Changed Christmas, and The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold, and therefore obviously knows of what he speaks), Kris Kringle (aka Saint Nick, who'll argue with a saint? Please.) employed the covert nature of the stocking to distribute toys , in direct defiance of Burgermeister Meisterburger's despotic outrage against the as-yet-established celebration of Christmas.

Stockings, filled with furtive treats and trinkets, let me repeat, filled with furtive treats, saved Christmas. Plainly and clearly, that is what they are: furtive and filled.


(I expect we'll be hearing from Inkey soon . . .)

P.S. A note from Webster:

stocking stuffer
Function: noun
Date: 1948

: a small gift suitable for placing in [emphasis added] a Christmas stocking

Daily Streudel

Listening to Pandora while I worked, discovering the Cold War Kids and old Radiohead, and decidedly NOT catching up with any set of the Halliwell sisters, the New York Missing Persons Squad of the FBI, or the elite Las Vegas surveillance team charged with maintaining the security of one of “Sin City’s” largest resorts and casinos.

Be Silent No More

New Feature! New Labels! New! New! New!

So, the newness of this post caught your eye? Those loud, exclamated claims of novelty, of fresh surprise.

Well, I am proud to announce a new label for smabmouth--and one that you'll be seeing a lot of in the 365 to come. It shall be named: Crisp Apple Streudel.

This new label and the content that will ensue honors honor a commitment I made with Inkey over at the Marsh, namely to call out our favorite thing or event each day. (Some folks might just call this kind of a commitment a "resolution." I shy from that word. Or I embrace it a little too vigorously. It's a complicated relationship.)

This commitment was born from an evening ritual Finn and I have. After teeth are washed and books are read and the husband has made his exit to do whatever hubbins do in between books and bed (perhaps he Wiis?), Finn and I settle under the covers and talk about our favorite moments from that day. Sometimes we add in a very not favorite moment, like, today, when we tried to start a fire in our fireplace and forgot to open the damper. Certainly lives up to the name, that damper, because when it's not in play (or in play?) it fills the room with smoke and, you know, dampens . . . the . . . uh . . . spirits. Right'o.

So bad news: we spent the next hour airing out and freezing down the place that we had so joyfully warmed up. Good news: smells like campfire in here. (Or that could just be more bad news poorly spun.)

So on to the streudel for January 1, the streudel that will act as symbol for all streudels to come:

While Bear made a wicked lamb pie, Finn and I played board games--in the same pajamas that we woke up in.

Happy New Year

My mom calls last night to wish me and the fam Happy New Year.

At 5:15 p.m.

A good seven hours before this time zone would actually ring in 2008.

I told her that that kind of advanced planning reminded me of when I was a kid and she'd tell me to get ready to go to bed at, like, 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Her response: "Close enough."

So What Am I Doing . . . Right Now?

Eating chocolate, of course.

Well, it is December 31 and by my count, I only have 8 more hours to indulge in sweets treats before I launch into my annual (and almost always short-lived) ascetic denial of nearly everything. (List to come.)

But until that carriage turns pumpkin, I'm going after it. And this hour's featured selection (or one of them) is from KC's own Willy Wonka: Christopher Elbow.

And I do not Wonka lightly, my friends, for I am eating of not just any old candy bar. I am eating a chocolate bar with 61 percent blissful, velvety, dark chocolate, blended (wait for it) with pop rocks.

That's how you bring in the New Year. Pop on, my people.

So What Could Possible Wake Her from Her Slumber?

[What if we smash her boobs? Yes, I think that will do. She will have to sound off about that.]

And so here I am, just a handful of hours after my very first mammogram, writing about the intensely personal and uncomfortable experience on my blog. We strive hard to bring you authentic living here, my people. And we do it for your amusement.

I think my biggest fear (you know, before I actually experienced the smashing of the mammaries) was the cold. I'd been told that your breast is placed and pressed between two cold plates of metal. So naturally, the frigid plates lent me the most apprehension.

I gleefully dashed that fear when I saw only one metal plate (the other is plastic and decidedly unchilly) and that the cold would be buffeted by a nice, warm foam pad. This, I thought, would not be a problem. Mammogram, I laughed. Bring it on.

So confident and cocky, I approached the mammogram press (Wikipedia was generous enough to let me know it's called a Full Field Digital Mammography detector). And that's the way I wanted it. I asked no questions. I didn't research the m'graph process. In fact, when I told my mother I was going in for my first screening, she laughed. I believe I noted a touch of cattiness in that chuckle. But, true to conviction, I decided to ignore it and not ferret for an explanation.

(And while I'm in parens, I ask, and especially after living through birth, motherhood, and a mammogram, why isn't there a word for courage based on our sexual characteristics? I don't want to be a pussy about it, but it makes me wonder if our idiomatic expressions aren't a tad bit misogynist.)

Then the tech hoisted--and I do mean "hoisted"--my boob onto the pad. Never have I felt such disconnect with my breast as I did when it was lifted eight inches above its resting state. (Granted, my boobs hang low. I could tie them in knot. I could tie them in bow.) That is, until she started lowering the plastic to plate to meet my boob flesh and then squash it into the thickness of Red Robin burger. Which, sure, is thick for a burger, but quite thin and rather uncomfortable dimension for a D-cup boob. My nippled has never traveled so far from its home base. And projecting from my nursing experience, I truly doubted if it would ever snap back.

But the FFDMs have have a solution for that: the counterpress.

Which isn't, as I thought it would be, a straight on vertical squeeze to counter the horizontal. To rescue the true roundness and, of course, get a better portrait of the breast tissue, the FFDM comes at you with a somewhere-close-to-45 degree press. And let me tell you this, my bodacious sisters, they save "the best" for last.

The tech instructed me to embrace the FFDM--which I wasn't feeling inclined to do, not a lot of love for the machine at this point--and then she rehoisted the boob, pressed me in closer to the machine, and then rolled in the plates. This time, the plates captured deeper tissue, you know, those sinews that reach back into my pits. Then she locked in the plates. I literally couldn't breathe. I thought she might have got hold of a lung. And just when I thought she'd retreat behind the shield to snap the shot (hurry up, lady! Can't. Breathe!), she turned the crank a half-dial more. And then nudged it a quarter. And then another. Just for sadistic good measure.

Good God, why didn't someone warn me? I know I refused listen, but couldn't you insist? I really think you didn't try hard enough. Sisters should share this information. Speak out. Speak up.

Woman, I'll tell you, this wasn't just a disconnect, a longing distance from self to nipple. This was as close to detached as I ever want to get from my boob.

(Which is, I suppose, one significant point about the whole mammography in the first place.)

Nothing Left to Say, Except . . .

Dear Blog,

It's been six days since my last confession. And I'm sorry for that.

I'm really sorry.

I'm sorry you had to wait, in my cold basement, for the warm tickles of candy thoughts that did not come. I'm sorry you've been left here, on your own, to receive all my visitors, and to have to explain to each one in turn that, no, she didn't come back today. She didn't "feel like" posting. She didn't "think" she had anything to "say." I'm sorry you had to take that on your shoulders.

And it's not that I haven't thought about it, about you. I think about you all the time.

Really, I do.

I thought about you yesterday after I made scallops for dinner, those tender little cakes of fish flesh that absorb any flavor they meet and yet permeate their own fishiness throughout your house. For hours. (And maybe for days. And I plan to let you know how that goes.) I thought you might find that irony mildly and fleetingly interesting.

I thought about you when I went to the eye doctor today and was told I had pointy eyes. I thought you might find that funny--or maybe that would just validate how you imagined me.

I thought about you when I crayoned my Christmas list for Bear and asked for a homemade blog. I thought you might like some new duds. And I thought about you when I brainstormed what I should buy my nephew and wondered if you might have some input.

And then I took it upon myself to decide that no, you wouldn't be interested in these little trivias. That no, I was too boring and didn't have enough sauciness to keep you interested. I'm not sexy enough. I'm not funny enough. I'm not interesting enough. There it is. I was afraid that I wasn't enough.

See. It wasn't you, dear, dear Blog. It was me.

And I'm so sorry for making assumptions about you and what you want or what you need.

And I'm so happy that when I clicked open this post this morning that you were there. Waiting.

Now Reading: A Letter to My Bedside Table

I'm finally cracking open a book again.

I don't think this has happened since Harry Potter. [Editor's note: I stand correct. Kiki reminded me that I read, finished, and enjoyed Red Tent. Oops.] At least, not with any real commitment. Who knows how this will go. I opened up White Teeth about a month and a half ago. And Salt about six to eight months before that. And, dear books, I haven't gotten much past your covers. But it's not your fault. You are brilliant and thoughtful and funny and I madly adore your every word.

Perhaps a bit too much.

That may be the problem. I'm so enchanted with the words you cast on the page that I can't go past those delirious first impressions. I don't want to progress, I don't want to take it to the "next level." I just want to revel and bask in your well-crafted sentences, in your diligent research.

I'm afraid of losing you: of losing not what we have, but what we might have.

And so, I've left you, with bookmarks barely an eighth of the way through, to explore the bounties of yet another book.

I received this book as a gift from a new friend. She's not reading this blog. (But, Hi! You know, just in case I'm wrong.) She visited us here in Kansas City and, after a couple (re: several) drinks, we hit it off.

She's a "real" writer. So that helped. She wrote for a Politically Incorrect and that's all credibility and awe. But once I got past that, I found out that's she's really interesting, beyond her resume. And mostly because she's drawn to all the things I'm interested in: 19th symbolist art, world religions, amateur architecture, Jung, etc.

(Odd how that happens--how the proportion of interest increases with the scale of similar affinities. We like what we know. Not so odd how people who are drawn to 19th century something something are also drawn to Jung, world religions, architecture, etc. Not really. That's pretty much a given.)

After she left us, she did this incredible thing. She sent us all books. Bear got a book on Druids. I imagine because he WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT IT. (I beg, plead for him to turn off his caps lock, but sober or drunk, the man likes to talk some druid smack.) She sent Finn the Eric Carle book, "Papa, Can You Get the Moon for Me." And she bought me Eat, Pray, Love, a memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert (re: Coyote Ugly) that chronicles her post-divorce journey through Italy, India, and Indonesia. (Rumor goes it will be a star vehicle for Julia Roberts. Unfortunately and, yes, superficially, that could ruin the whole book for me. Regardless, New Friend sent thank-you books and that rocks.)

And so that's what I've traded you for. A memoir that chronicles yet another thirtysomething's foray into things spiritual. (Of the five women I've known who've gotten divorced, and I'm counting Gilbert among them, three of them have made a spiritual journey to India. I'm not saying, but I'm saying.)

Dear books already on my bedside table, I don't know how I feel about this new relationship. I'm only on page 46. It's part insightful, introspective, and enlightening--Gilbert does know how to write. But it's also part indulgent, narcissistic, and self-involved. (And yes, this comes from someone who writes a blog. About herself. Nearly everyday.) I could easily, and predictably, stop reading this tomorrow to retreat to your open pages, you books I started in, like, June. Or I could even betray the whole lot of you and start reading The Golden Compass.

Yes, I know, I'm fickle and unreliable. Yes, I know you don't really care. Because, whether you're read or not, I've already shelled out the necessary commitment (re: hard cash) that brought you into my home.

But I, too, am on a quest of connection. And whether that's found in a literary ashram or an alternative universe, or both, who knows.

I'm just glad my tickets are cheap.

See These Glasses?

We registered for these glasses when we got married. In 1993. We loved, loved them. We were gifted maybe five of them.

And then they were discontinued. In 1994.

As of the morning of November 22, 2007, we still had all five.

On that very same Thursday afternoon, we decanted a fine rose, poured it into our glasses, and enjoyed its chilled mild flavor with our Indian-spiced turkey and panko spinach casserole.

In the early evening, we poured out the fine rose, deciding it harkened too much of white wine for our liking, and replaced it with red wine. We drank the replacement. And then another.

And then we descended to the basement, beautiful crystal filled with yet another dose of red wine. To play of the Wii.

And then Sarah, in the midst of Mario Party 8 passion, biffed Wii-mote to cherished crystal in a fit of Wii-indulgence and competition and the attempt to steal coins with the throw of a virtual dart. And she shattered said glass (but not remote or hand).

Thus ended the reign of crystal.

And thus began Sarah's despair.

Whimper. And sob. (Sarah consoled herself with yet another glass of culpable wine, but this time sipped from Target's special line of relatively disposable glasswares that were not harmed during the further adventures of Mario Party 8 or Resident Evil 4.)

Thanksgiving 2007

We started with this, the glory of baked eggs, chorizo, and potatoes,
















which tasted a helluva a lot better than it looks here, trust me, and which explains we we didn't have this until about 3 p.m.:



















And very much most of this culinary beauty was brought to our rickety dinner table by:
















my exhausted, bleary-eyed Bear.

7 Things

I found this meme on this site. I wasn't so much actually tagged as wanna-be tagged. (I just want to be loved!) So I'm playing anyway.

Here are the rules:
Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs. Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I am a self-righteous editor. And to annoying effect. Say "fewer" instead of "less" in the wrong context, use "impact" as a verb, conjoin "a" with "lot," and I will jump on your ass. E-ver-y-time, dude.

2. I say, "Dude." A lot. (I do not say "Anywho." Ever. Except for back in that last sentence. But other than that, never.)

3. My life is a musical. I narrate to song, like, a lot. (Two words!)

4. I have fundamental disability, or inability (to rephrase in my favor) to turn off the bathroom light. (Direct quote from hubbin.)

5. Too many hops make me flush.

6. I love to pick lint, shovel my driveway, dig out eye boogers, fix plumbing, and refigure malfunctioning deadlocks.

7. I like to sniff my hubbin's dirty beard. So manly.

I tag I Inkey.

Embarrassingly, I'm not comfortably or well-connected enough in the blogosphere to tag anyone else. But, Vanessa, Kelly, Angela, Amy, Heather, Ashley, Bear, Alan, Sarah--if you happen to read this (and I can find out if you have, uh, I think), I tag you as well. Ha.

Ha Ha.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Ha.

(Ha.)

Counting Down to Thanksgiving

Yes, Halloween is the No. 1 holiday in these parts. We've already started counting down to next year's candy-filled, horror-drenched extravaganza (343 days to be precise. We even have a countdown calendar in our kitchen that helps us focus).

But Thanksgiving. That holds a special place.

It's a holiday without gifts or treats. It's not about scoping out sweet treasures. It's more about looking inward than out. (And if that doesn't smack of Jung and Joseph Campbell, baby, then I'm just not doing my job here.)

Now if you know me, and you know the seriousness with which I take adventure seeking (in that literary-not-literal sort of way), then you can fairly and verily predict how we started this holiday.

By watching Star Wars.

(And if you have to ask why, then you need to go back and read your Heroes with a Thousand Faces, because I have somewhere to go here, people, and I just don't have the time to spell out that logic and the complete OBVIOUSNESS of our choice for you. Puh-lease! And, no. I will not apologize for my flagrant and aggressive use of caps-lock. It is the holiday season after all and must get my game on if I'm to survive Black Friday. Stay with me.)

So today, on the eve of Thanksgiving, we continued our tradition by grocery shopping for Thursday's feast. Yes, we started the shopping today. (We planned the menu yesterday, cribbed from several articles in this year's Thanksgiving issue of Food and Wine. ) And yes, we did get everything we needed for our Indian-spiced turkey breast, our curry-roasted butternut squash and chickpeas, our creamed spinach, our creamed onions with thyme and sage, our pear and gruyere pie.

(I should've bulleted that list. I'm working through those issues.)

Yes, our traditions could be read as bordering unconventional, or even misguided. We don't watch Miracle on 34th Street or eat my mom's stuffing or rocked-out spicy spinach casserole that I've eaten and loved and pined over nearly every year (save maybe three) of my past 37. We aren't spending this Thanksgiving with my sisters or my cousins.

No. Instead, we watch Star Wars and Shark Boy and Lava Girl as our holiday flicks. (And they make perfect holiday sense to us--finding a family when far away from home, expressing gratitude for the simple things that we spend each day diligently taking advantage of.) We cook and eat food that has never graced a family Thanksgiving menu; that, this year, doesn't even resonate with our cultures, however far removed we are from them.

Part of that is by design. Most of it isn't.

Several years ago, when Bear and I were living in Bloomington and couldn't afford to travel to spend Thanksgiving with family, we tried to recreate my mom's Thanksgiving dinner. We laughed as carved the finished turkey and found a bag of gizzards hidden in some secret turkey compartment. We struggled and sweated (salt is good seasoning) over my mom's spinach casserole. We grappled with the sense memory of her stuffing. (She makes it by taste, not by measurements.)

I remember calling my mom every 2o minutes or so--I was far from an accomplished boiler of hot dog (which I've since learned should never be boiled), much less executor of an entire T-day menu.

We thought that recreating my mom's menu, dish by dish, teaspoon by teaspoon, would be a good way to recreate home, to vicariously share a little piece of the holiday with my family when we were living so far away.

We've wised up.

Home should be where you are, not where you want to be. Traditions should be as much personal as they are historical.

And there's nothing, not even perfectly executed cornbread stuffing, that takes the place of spending the holidays with your family (even when mom mistakes salt for sugar in her pumpkin pie.)

I miss you.

What's That, You Ask?

Oh, that?

That's just the video projection screen at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. So let me tell you about last nigh. . .

I'm sorry, what? Oh, the picture, you say?

Lovely, isn't it? It's by an artist I know. You may have heard him mentioned in these here parts. We call him BEAR.

So That Didn't Work Out So Well

So that trying to post everyday in November? Not working out so well. And that trying to lose 20 pounds before December (that I probably didn't tell you about so I would have an out)? That's not happening either. And oh, that 'I'm not teaching so I'll work on my novel this semester'? Not. A. Word. And forget the resolutions etched into a well-crafted spreadsheet last December. Haven't touched that since January 14.

Not so good with the self-promising this year. Perhaps that will be the message of my 2007 Christmas letter. Which definitely has to beat the 2006 theme, which went something like: 2006 sucks. Or maybe that was 2005. That sucked, too.

But for all the stuff I haven't managed to finish or start, there's this:

I don't work on weekends anymore.

I've been cancer-free for 1 year 6 months.

I laughed, tickled, whispered, screamed, dreamed, planned, imagined, cooked, hatched, and legoed today. And oh, wrote in this here blog thang.

And I avoided the temptation to bullet that list.

A Medley of Finnisms

Out of my earshot at a party last weekend:

Childfree partygoer, to a group of singledigits: "Hey guys, anybody want a cupcake?"
Finn, speaking for whole crowd: "Can't. We haven't eaten lunch yet."

In car, on the way home from a movie:

Me: "We have to, have to clean the house today. That has to be on our agenda."
Finn: "Who's coming over?"

After I sang "You Are My Sunshine" to him:

"Mama, when are you going to get old and die?"

After a joke, wherein Finn indubitably cracks himself up, but unfortunately no one else:

Finn: "Who's laughing? Is anybody laughing? Why isn't anybody laughing?"
Bear laughs.
Finn, with sarcasm!: "Yeah, thanks for playing, papi."

I Heart My Oncologist

Thankfully, I don't know many people in my life who can say that. Not because their oncos aren't up to snuff, but because they don't have them.

(And then I write that and think about who would and why they don't, and well, then this post gets dark and depressing and I had intended to make it so very cheerful.)

My onco is probably about my age, maybe a couple of years younger. She has reddish hair. I have reddish hair. She has a four year old. I have a four year old. She has two kids. She took away my chances of having two kids. That bitch!

I went to see her today, as I do every three months. The visits are close to routine, but the act of going to an oncologist, of sitting in the lobby of the Cancer Institute with other victims and survivors of this disease, of waiting for my check up, of sometimes not getting the test results I want, well, let's just say that each and every visit to the onco is followed by three (or more) mouthfuls of glucose therapy.

Today, my onco surprised me with a bonus colpscopy! and a bonus biopsy! We had not planned those adventures together.

Last visit, after some suspicious results, she ran a couple of extra tests and that ended up staying mysterious but being "unremarkable." Usually, I can sit with that. Last time, I wasn't willing to let the mystery be. I wanted this to be over. I wanted it to be a part of my past. I wanted to forget and stop being sad about the child I lost and the children I can't have. I wanted to move on and be able to be excited for folks who are pregnant. I wanted to be okay with people who whine about their second pregnancies going slowly and tolerate those who give long, indulgent speeches about how they can wait. And I wanted to have to stop dolling out impromptu noogies to the heads of the aforementioned whiners, or wiping my boogers on their bedsheets.

I think my tantrum my have tipped her off. And hence the detour. It made me uneasy, sure when she announced the aggressive off roading from our previously set path. I thought we weren't concerned. I thought we were comfortable with "just wait and see." But that's my onco. She's patient when I terrorize her with my minutiae of worries and she's vigilant when I just want to put my hands over my ears and go PeeWee Herman.

But that's precisely why I love her. Because she listens. Because she acts.

Cruelty of the Universe Revealed

4 to 5 p.m.

ET.

Eastern Time.

(Fuck.)

Okay, now it's out there and I don't feel all that much better . . .

I have a "meeting" today. From 4 to 5 p.m. And I must not be disturbed. The widget will be in his room, with a teeming bowl of pre-inspected, approved, and opened Halloween candy. I may even pull out that new Transformer I was going to save for Christmas.

You see now that I mean it, this do-not-disturb-me-at-nearly-all-costs thing. "Nearly" meaning blood. Or loss of limb. (Which I imagine to be bloody?) Or a radical jump in developmental level. Like native fluency in Japanese. And don't think I will not enforce it. I will. Because today, from 4 to 5 p.m., is the final episode of Charmed.

I've said it. It's out there. And yes, I do feel a touch of silly, accompanied by a tingle of confessional remorse. Maybe I should delete this post and just write about landmark vetoes and light rail.

(Oh, honey, it gets worse.)

Okay, so it's not THE final episode of Charmed. The show kinda very much ended in May 2006. It was late May.

(So much worse.)

And it's not even the final episdoe in syndication, because if what happens at 5 p.m. is any indication (Charmed runs 4 times a day, twice in the morning, twice in the early evening), the series starts over from the beginning and will continue on until, a few months from now, we'll get another final episode. (And even sooner than that because TNT offsets seasons. The morning episodes are a bit behind the afternoon shows, maybe a couple of seasons.)

(Oh, you thought that was it? You know not of whom you read.)

And sure, we own a DVR and I could just record the rerun of the final episode of this show that really isn't that critically engaging. (It's not like it's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after all.) But I won't. I'll watch it "live" and I'll run to pee and heat tea during the commercials and I will aggressively shush anyone who tries to disturb Paige when she tries to orb an object across a room. And I will cry when, I hope, Leo is brought back into the arms of Piper. And I will cheer when, I hope, Phoebe finally finds love with Coop (short for Cupid. I'm serious).

And I will do all this--sugar-up my kid and shut down any meaningful dialogue with the fam and turn off my life for a full hour--and not because it means anything or holds some kind of poignant significance to/in/near my life.

But precisely because it doesn't.

Milestoning

Yesterday, Bear and I celebrated our date-i-versary. (Let me see, 2007 minus 1988 equals 19, good fuck . . .19!)

Nineteen years ago, we sat down in our furnished dormitory (that'd be Dobie!) in Austin and had a "talk" wherein we vowed eternal fidelity and love and open sharing of all things Bauhaus. We established ourselves as a couple that day.

Three years later, on the same day but in a different setting, with furnishings compliments of Rent-to-Own (we opted not to own), Bear plopped down next to me, interrupting my viewing of Newhart and proposed marriage. I'm thinking I accepted. I feel pretty confident about that.

And I wrote about it. I share with you a sample of my naivety circa 1992. (Notice the lede and the double spacing after periods. So young and so very just plain wrong):

Metamorphosis or Ferociously, I Kissed Him

People in long-term, marriage-bound relationships metamorphose twice—from boyfriend/girlfriend to fiancé/fiancée to husband/wife. Barry and I had entered stage one three years ago, and three years later we were preparing for the first transformation.

Access to stage two requires careful, deliberate planning: Who'll propose? When? Where? How? I planned on Barry proposing, on November 7th, at some romantic spot, in a romantic, spontaneous fashion. Of course, the plan had two glaring defects: I planned it; Barry had to do it.

Now, my romantic ideal sanctioned creativity: "some romantic spot" and in some "romantic, spontaneous fashion." No kneeling, no restaurants, no strip-o-grams—those were my only qualifications. I imagined us in front of a murmuring fire, ogling each other, Miles Davis doing background music. Suddenly, Barry would become ever so serious, scoop me into his manly chest and say, "You've sent shivers down my spine for three years. I . . . well, this can say it better." Then, he would pull a handsome black jewel box from his cardigan and open it. "Will you . . ." "Oh, Barry. Yes. Yes. Yes." Ferociously, I would kiss him pushing him too close to the fire. The murmur would become a roar. Unable to construct happy endings to my romantic scenarios, I left the proposing to Barry, the sensible, pragmatic one. (Note: Don't give romantic control to sensible, pragmatic people.)

Thursday, November 7, 1991. Our third anniversary. I hoped Barry had concocted an elaborate proposing scheme in the interim. But reality doesn't always concede to hope.

At 2:30 p.m., I came home from a rigorously Romantic day of Heinzelman's Late Romantics class (that explains the love to destruction by fire scenario). Barry wasn't home yet. We had decided to put off the anniversary celebrations until the weekend. But of course, it was November 7th, and I was hoping.

At about 5:00 p.m., Barry calmly entered the apartment and went to his room. Let me emphasize "calmly." Cool, serene, placid, completely unemotional. One would expect more emotion from one about to change one's life. I suspected a deviation from my plan.

Three years, an anniversary, cosmic alignment and Barry was going to leave me before we even peeked at the altar. Jumping to conclusions? No. We had planned the wedding for the summer of 1993—wedding date before proposal, we're just like that—and a proposal after that day would be too late. Plus, the romantic scene was pre-set. Barry wouldn't do any extra romantic planning if he didn't have to. An image of my mother when I asked if I could move in with Barry flashed to my mind: "You know that if you move in with him he'll never ask you to marry him. He has everything he wants. Sex without commitment." A 32°C-my-mom-was-right chill rippled down my spine.

After anger comes guilt. Did I push? Was I too demanding? Maybe he simply didn't want to marry me. What is marriage anyway? Am I being too traditional insisting on some out-dated convention to tell me we have a commitment? I decided to let the Richard Bach method of problem solving be my guide. I focused on my problem, turned on the TV, and waited for the answer to vault out of Newhart.

Newhart proved especially poignant that afternoon. After seasons of dating, Michael, the narcissist, proposed to Stephanie, the blonde brat. For the rest of the show, they mapped out the wedding day. Finding the preparation process—gifts, gifts, gifts—was more intriguing than the actual wedding, they trashed the marriage idea and decided to be engaged indefinitely. As I sat enthralled watching the comedy king, Barry emerged from his room and flopped down beside me on the couch.

While Mike and Stephie reveled an post-engagement bliss, I sank into a lonely stupor. Our relationship, three years of trust, love, and fidelity, had been shoved down love's garbage disposal. Three years torn from refrigerated security, poured into the sink of futility, and chopped to coagulated, indigestible bits stuck to the drain and spoiled. The fetid smell of rotten love.

As my nose scoped love's abandoned territory, Barry turned to me with what I interpreted as a malicious smile. He put his arm around me. I threw a questioning look at him. He returned it. I noticed he was shaking his arm behind my back. This time a threw a question. "What?" I still shook his arm. "God, Barry, I'm not in the mood," I said as a turned to see what the one-man commotion was.

Gold. Round. Ring. No box, but I could definitely match that shape with the Platonic form for ring. "Don't presume," I said to myself, but I couldn't suppress a tiny smile. "What's this?"

"You know," Barry said, nodding his eyes.

"No." But I could feel the tears preparing to parachute from my eyes. Saved. "What is it?"

"Will . . . "

Nervous.

". . . you, uh . . ."

Yes.

". . . will you . . . uh"

Please, God, don't make this some mean trick. Please.

" . . . will you . . . marry me?"

"Barry, are you serious? I mean really serious? You really want to marry me? Are you shitting me?"

"No. I'm perfectly serious. Never been so serious. Well?"

"Uh huh."

Ferociously, I kissed him.

I Have Been Waiting for This

I read Fast Company. I also read Field & Stream. And I have very specific reasons for doing so. Namely, to better equip myself with the survival skills necessary to excel in the corporate and natural worlds.

Had ya!

No, I really read these mags because they have damn (can I say "damn here"? Damn tootin'! can!) good writing.

(And sometimes they actually have something interesting to say. But do notice that I put this admission in parens. It's a side issue. A tangent. A bonus. Not, for me, at least, crucial criteria.)

You see, my people, when it comes down to it, I'm all about the style, not so much about the substance. To say, I relish the well-worded ad as much as an informed article on dark matter. Maybe even more.

But sometimes substance sneaks its way into a perfectly fine article and then I get all goofy because that's pretty much magic. To say something and to say it well.

Case in point: this here article. It has style, baby, and substance. And if you bounce anywhere off this blog today (and I'll be watching), you must bounce here. You must read this. (Please.)

I received my copy of the article and the magazine almost a month ago, and I've been waiting, searching, eager to see it online so I could share it with you. (Have I not given you enough opportunity?) I just got the e-mail notice today (because I not only subscribe to the magazine but also its online feed) and immediately stopped all shop to post it here. (Are you still reading this?) That's how much I feel you need to STOP READING THIS and GO READ THIS.

Side note, that you won't read because you've already bounced away: I've added a Now Reading section to my links bar. Check it out and see what I find worthy to peruse during my very scant reading time, you know the bits that aren't already claimed by Golden Books, Scooby Doo and the Halloween Ghost, and Frankensquare.