My Defect is Revealed

When i was 12 years old, my mother took me to the doctor and i did not know why. When he had me take off my underpants WITH MY MOTHER IN THE ROOM, i did not know why. When he looked at my privates with his creepy goateed face, i did not know why.

Back at home, left with no information, my mind went wild with speculation. I was born without one, whatever one was. (You have to understand my level of ignorance about my own body. I did not know that there were any inside bits. I mean, i had heard tell of these bits, but i had not located mine.) My parents never told me anything about sex, ever, and thus i was left to my own devices to try and figure it out. I knew that this horrible thing happened to women at a certain age, and that while it was still ok to go out in public at this terrible time, i must make sure to eat my vegetables and get plenty of rest.

(This was learned from the movie that all the girls were herded into the lunchroom one day to view, after our parents had signed the permission slip. Oh god we were sorry for the girls whose parents had refused to sign, and who had to go and sit in the library during this momentous event.)

My defect had become so apparent that my mother had to take me to a specialist. He gave me pills to take, estrogen, and they made me sick. Maybe these were to help me grow whatever it was i was missing. I lived in fear and shame for about a year, in which time the estrogen did its thing and i "became a woman". I did not tell my mom about this event for as long as possible. She eventually discovered it from my laundry.

Then i was put on birth control pills. I did not know what they were, except that my mother told me not to leave them lying around for someone to see. I was ashamed.

It turns out that my "defect" was having the potential to grow too tall. In my mother's words, many years later "I didn't want to wake up one morning and find out you were 6'3". I guess my defect really was that i might embarass her with my ridiculous and unnatural size.

********************************

I should be able to look back at this and find some humor, but i can still feel the ignorance and the shame of it. I guess it worked, sort of, because i am only 6'1". Practically a midget. I still wonder if that doctor knew what the hell he was doing. And i still wonder what i would have decided to do if i had been asked. My guess is that i would have been all for it, i didn't want to be a candidate for the circus.

Book problem

There is a certain genre of popular books that bother me. I am going to try and articulate why, although i have never been able to do it in my head.

These are books that can be summed up thusly: "After enduring a harsh (awful/abusive/neglected) life, a bunch of fucked up strangers come together to form an unlikely family and heal each other."

Books that fall into this category:
"The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd,
"Broken for You" by Stephanie Kallos
"Plainsong" by Ken Haruff

All of the books above are well written, but that's not the problem. What bothers me about these books is the falseness and the formulaic nature of the plot. Life is NOT like this. They also feel manipulative, like i am supposed to feel better about the world and myself after reading them.

I am not a book snob. I read trashy detectivce stories and romance novels and god knows what other tripe, although as i've gotten older i have no problem putting a book down and never picking it up again. (It used to be that i felt i had to finish anything i started.) And yes i realize that life is NOT like a romance novel either (waves and waves of pleasure), but they have no pretentions towards art, just soft-core porn.

Another book that bothered me a lot was "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold. I read that when Em was 12, and it is about the rape and murder of an 11 year old girl and the redemption that follows. Redemption my ass, give me a gun. The main character looking down from heaven is just too idealized for me to swallow. This is what we WISH might happen.

I apologize if these are among your favorite books, and i know i am doing a horrible job of explaining why they give me the creeps, but they do. The word treacle comes to mind.

Anybody else feel this way, or am i the only person with a -273.15 degree heart?

Hair Trigger

We went hiking yesterday. Up in the mountains the blueberry bushes are turning red, the blueberries are ripe and they make a truly lovely hillside of color. The blueberries are so sweet. We returned home with blue toungues and tired feet. A glorious day.

Remember my irritation diary? As luck would have it, i have not been irritated by the Mister since i wrote that. Except once. I wonder if the writing of it was helpful to me.

And about the once, it was my fault. I misheard what he said and assumed that it was something snarky, when in fact, after a few minutes of talking at puzzled cross purposes, it was all straightened out. Which brings me to my point.

I have known some people whom it seems are looking to be offended. I used to work with a woman who had this quality. She was in my office (ok, we had to go find a conference room because i had "rug space" not an office) at least once a week in tears over some insult, real or imagined. I felt both sorry for and exasperated by her.

Exasperated because it seemed as if she could take ANYTHING and find a way to perceive it as a slight.

Sorry because it must be so exhausing to live in a world where "Good morning" can be an insult. (Once i said "Hi" to the person sitting next to her and then "Good morning" to her. She was in my rug space within 10 minutes in tears wondering if i was mad at her because my greeting to her hadn't been as friendly as the "Hi".)

I quit going to a woman who had cut my hair for a long time because she kept acting miffed by every little thing i said. I do not want a miffed person near my hair while weilding sharp impliments. I'd say something like "My bangs are really getting long" and she would say "well, i'm sorry, i'll try and get them right this time." I had this at work, i didn't need it elsewhere.

I don't want to be one of those people. I don't want to be even close to being one of those people. So it was humbling to realize i had taken offense where none was intended.

Best friends

Em is 15, and her best friend (which at her age is a very specific label) is 18 and has just moved into the dorms at a local college. I'll call her Marisa.

I like Marisa pretty well, but i also find her a bit sneaky, and affected. (Oh, is there anything more self conscious than a teenage girl?) One time she tried to get me to lie to her parents about something that they didn't want her doing. Ha ha, not happening. Even if i do not agree with the parents. i would NEVER collude with a kid to disobey them. I also wonder why an 18 yo would have a 15 yo as her best friend. My sense is that she is still very immature.

Em made the assumption that she would be allowed to go off and spend the night at the dorms with Marisa. And when i found out that Marisa would be going to college in the area, i knew this would be coming up, and so i prepared.

My gut instinct was to say no, but i wanted to think about it first, chat with the Mister and make sure that i was doing the right thing. But during the summer, the Mister and i went on a hike with Marisa's dad. I was talking to him about this, saying that i was not comfortable with it, but i didn't want to give a knee jerk no. He was pretty quiet, and then, about a half an hour later he told me that if he were in my position, that he wouldn't let Em spend the night at the dorms. He said that he doesn't trust Marisa's judgment.

Wow. What a great thing for one parent to say to another. It can't have been easy for him to tell me that, but i really appreciate him for it. If both of us weren't stand-offish introverts, i would have given him a hug!

I should have trusted my first instinct. After a bit of a fuss, Em has come to accept this decision, although she is still not happy with it. Marisa is welcome to come and spend the night with us, i will even drive over and go get her, but no way in hell am i letting Em stay over there. Thank you Marisa's dad, you are very honest.

Ne'er do well

The other night we were listening to my parents talking about their other grandkids, my nieces and nephews. The two oldest are boys and are having some trouble adjusting to the adult world.

One of them graduated, barely, from high school last year, and the second one actually failed to graduate from high school this year because he didn't complete a necessary project. This boy has always relied upon his charm to get by, but this time it did not work. (He did manage to cash the check i sent him for graduation, but he did not manage to thank me.) He also got fired from two jobs this summer for not showing up.

At one point in the conversation the Mister called him a ne'er-do-well. That bothered me, so i brought it up later, when the parents were gone.

I think there are many opportunities to start over and get it right. I have done it myself a few times. Life is not ruined because you screw up when you are 18 and don't get into the right college.

My first college career was completely wasted (and i do mean wasted as i went to college in the 70s). I just went because i didn't know what else to do and my parents would pay. I would have been better served by taking a few years off and working at some minimum wage job. That would have matured and motivated me like nobody's business.

The second time i went to college, 10 years later, i started completely over with algebra 101 and worked my way up the chain to calculus at a local community college. I ended up graduating with an electrical engineering degree with honors after transferring to a 4 year college. (Note to mom, i AM good at math.)

And then 4 years later, when the Mister decided he loved someone else and after spending 3 years at home with Em, i started over again as a temp worker at the job i quit 11 years later as a manager of an entire group. (Lots of great temp jokes ensued from this position: In many states it's legal to kill a temp, and (from Dilbert) Temps are the people that you don't make eye contact with in the halls.)

I am the queen of starting over, and right now i have an excellent life. I did get the Mister to retract the ne'er-do-well label.

There are some mistakes that will haunt you the rest of your life, but not these simple immature ones.

I don't want to talk about it

I woke up last night at around 2, because i was having a hot flash and cramps. That seems inherently unfair to me. I mean, one or the other, make up your mind Ms. Body, really! Maybe i'll wake up tomorrow with a mustache. Sigh.

And to all you young things out there: It will get you yet my little pretty, don't you worry. (cackle)

And to all you men: Really, it's nothing personal, but I HATE YOU.

Menopause, i guess i have to get used to saying it, and thinking about it. I am just entering it, a season of my life ending. The longest one i have had so far. And hopefully one beginning. I must admit to being afraid of the changes that this may bring. My body has been essentially the same for the past 35 years. ( I do weigh a bit more than i did when i was 14, but i was a damn skinny kid, so that's ok.) It is a good body, strong and healthy. Sometimes i am amazed at the things i can do with it. I know some other women, near my age, who can't hike or play squash or (fill in the blank) because of their knees, their backs, their (fill in the body part). That scares me. Because moving has been the only way that i have found to keep depression from overwhelming me.

My mother has had 4 (yes, 4) knee replacement operations. Granted, she has been overweight all her life, and i have not. But i am still a large person and this family history scares me.

I broke my foot once (falling up the stairs, yep). I had to wear a boot and be on crutches for 6 weeks. I remember near the end of the 6 weeks, sitting at the top of the stairs and sobbing over some incredibly minor problem. Finally, Em came over and sat with me and said, "It's okay mommy, you're just frustrated."

Not that there is anything i can do about this, except keep moving. But i never expected anything this ignominious to happen to ME.

For Antonia

Antonia asked us what was the weirdest food at our local shop. This was almost too easy as we live near a large Asian market.

This was hands down the weirdest thing there, to me. Remember, she asked for this:

Yummy!

Although this looks a bit weird too:

And these puzzle me as well. I mean are there really little hamburgers in there? I put my well manicured thumb in the picture for a size reference.
(A woman came along as i was snapping pictures of the fish and the coils of octopus tentacles and asked my why i was talking pictures. I told her it was for a class assignment. )

And there you have it my English friend. And i left out the pictures of the cow stomach with barbeque sauce and the bag of frozen Pu Pu.

Good/Bad

In answer to Esereth's questions:

Some good things my mother taught me:

• Respect your surroundings (don't litter or spray paint your name on rocks or trees). We had no money growing up as my dad was in the military, so we always went camping for vacations. I loved it.
• Good table manners that i can call upon when needed. The mister once told me that when we first met, he thought i was elegant because of my nice table manners.
• How to sew. Although i don't like sewing, i do own and know how to operate a sewing machine.

Some bad things my mother taught me:

• You can use the power you have over another human to humiliate them. As kids we were encouraged to tease each other mercilessly when we discovered a tender spot. I still feel badly about some of the things we said and did to one another. Tim, i'm sorry.
• The best defense is a loud, noisy, scary offense. I try hard not to do this, but it's still my first reaction to criticism.
• Children are an unpleasant experience. For years i was fairly certain that i would never have children because everyone knows they are noisy, selfish and will bother you endlessly. All of which is true, but then there are the other things, which i never knew.

Some good things my father taught me:

• It's okay to tell someone you love them. Although he didn't start doing this until i was well over 20, but better late than never.
• It's okay to sit quietly and not talk. Communication is still occuring.
• How to sail a boat.

Some bad things my father taught me:

• Sarcasm. Whew, he used to be the king of that, but for the last 25 years, he rarely does it. But i still learned well from those first 25 years.
• Passivity in the face of abuse. My mom treats this man like crap sometimes and i just wish that he would tell her to fuck off, just once.

It's so much easier to come up with the bad than the good.

The Ugly Truth.

What is this irritated impatience i sometimes feel with the Mister? I don't feel it with anyone else. (I don't spend that much time with anyone else either.) It scares me because it reminds me of the irritated impatience with which my mother treats my father. I refuse to use the "that's what was modeled by my parents" defense. I will not be held hostage by my past. I have broken other generational chains of behavior, why not this one?

I don't show the irritation as often as i feel it, but am i as successful as i think at shielding my emotions? Body language and tone tends to convey more information than we think.

Is this the result of 27 years of togetherness? Why am i so annoyed by the simplest things? What am i punishing him for? Why do his socks and toothpaste mess matter to me? Am i (the dreaded word) controlling? Of what benefit to me is my irritation? I can't help think that something about it must be working for me or i wouldn't do it.

He is a good man. He is smart and funny and has taken damn good care of us. And he craves my approval. Is that why i withhold it? Is it the introvert/extrovert difference? It is true that i am uncomfortable with open displays of emotional need. But i am not unaffectionate. I love hugs and hand holding and... other stuff. Is it about trust?

I hate this about myself. I wish i were a person who could shake it off. And take a deep breath and move on. Actually i wish i were the sort of person that these small things wouldn't bother in the first place.

I have to be honest here, it's not the socks and toothpaste that annoy me. Neither one of us can lay claim to being overly neat. It's things like him shouting for me when he gets home. Turning on the music and/or the radio and then leaving the room. Buying CDs and then never listening to them.

But, anyway, despite my wanting to make a long list so that you can see JUST HOW ANNOYING he really is, none of these things are important. And i don't want to throw my hands up in the air and say, "Well, i guess i'm just a bitch." Because that's the coward's way out.

I would like the answer to my questions though. What i am going to do is keep track of when i am annoyed, and see if that tells me anything. You know, like some people keep a food diary to help them lose weight. I will keep an irritated diary to help me lose annoyance.

I'll get back to you on this.

Persuasion

I love to hike. Sometimes i am successful in encouraging my family to go with me. When Em was about 4, we made a big fuss one day that we were going to go HIKING and isn't that GREAT and what FUN it will be. With the beautiful enthusiasm of a child, Em was really pumped. We got about a quarter mile from the car when Em says "This hiking is a lot like walking."

I can't fool her for a minute.

This summer i forced her to go for a short hike with me. Because i can still force her to do a few things and i think it's good for her. She kvetched and moaned the whole gentle 2 miles up to a small lake. "I HATE hiking," she told me. "This SUCKS," she said. "My feet HURT!"

We finally made it to the lake, and we sat down on a log next to the water to eat our well-earned meal. A few minutes later this little chap showed up to help Em with her sandwich. While the little guy was nibbling directly from her hand, she turned to me, her face shining with happiness and said, "This is the COOLEST thing that has ever happened to me."

She was even a little sheepish on the way down about all her bitching on the way up.

The reason that i am telling this little story is that i struggle with how much i should push her to do things, with her inertia pulling her the other way. She has an opportunity to go to Japan next April with her Japanese class. She called me from school to beg me to tell the teacher that she couldn't go. Many things that i think she should do, like play a sport, or join a club, or invite a friend over, i don't force upon her. I am going to put my large foot down about this trip, and if gentle persuasion doesn't work, force her to go. (There are two reasons why she doesn't want to go, one is that an internet friend might be here for a day in April, and she doesn't want to miss it. The other reason is that she is scared of going to Japan and trying to speak Japanese with real Japanese people.)

But maybe going to Japan will turn out to be the coolest thing that has ever happened to her.

What next?

This morning as i was driving out of the gym parking lot, making a right turn onto the main street, a guy on a bicycle riding on the sidewalk ran into the back right side of my crappy rental car. The noise scared the shit out of me. I put the car into park and got out expecting to see a bloody puddle. But he was standing up and was bleeding a little from his lip and forehead. Wear your bike helmets people. He said that his brakes failed. Some kind pedestrian took the bicyclist off to his house for first aid and that's the last i saw of him.

We are having really bad car karma right now. First, someone hit the Mister in my car, which is why i'm driving the crappy rental car. Then, the mister backed into my brother's car at the party, and now this. Which we will also have to pay for because i wasn't quick enough to think to get the bleeding guy's contact information before he was taken off for bandages. I was shaking and sobbed the whole way home. If things happen in threes though, we are all done. I hope.

So, since i am not leaving the house again, ever, unless on foot, would one of you mind picking Em up from school for me today? Thanks.

Well DUH!

This appeared across the top of my gmail inbox a few days ago:

Kissing Balls represent romance, friendship and goodwill.

I know the Mister would totally concur! I agree with the romance part, but i think that's taking friendship and goodwill a tad far.

After i stopped snickering, i did go and see what on earth this was all about. Here's the scoop. You'll be pleased to know that the balls in question are floral scented.

And to continue on with the theme, the domain name is addedtouch.com. I wonder what marketing genius came up with this tag line, and if they had any inkling that it might be misinterpreted.

Yes, i am still 6 years old.

Party on

Whew, i turned into a foot stamping 3 year old on my last post. But i am okay with it, because sometimes i am a foot stamping 3 year old.

(The phone just rang, we have caller ID. It was my mom. I didn't answer. I'll go down and listen to the message later.)

More party tidbits:

• My brother hired this really cute young man named Earl to help out with the party. Earl was THE BEST! He made all the bruchetta, he put stuff out on platters. He didn't bat an eye when the old bat showed up 45 minutes early. He just went and put on his nicer clothes and offered them a drink. And he cleaned everything up afterwards. I want to marry him (well except i don't think i'm his type. He didn't walk in and say "Hi I'm Earl, I'm gay", but if i were a betting woman...) or adopt him.
• Jesus Christ, old people can REALLY drink. They went through all of the wine and the champagne in record time. And this at lunch time. If i drink during the day it's nap time for me.
• The Mister backed his expensive SUV into my brother's mini van when he was going out on a balloon run. Ouch. But as the bumper sticker says "Things occur." I found this much funnier than the Mister did, not that i let him see me smiling.
• My aunt (mother's sister) told me how she hates to listen to my mom being so mean all the time to my dad (who really is a sweet man), and she tells my mom that too. Alcohol loosens another tongue.
• One of my dad's tennis buddies' eyes are my chest height. And he made full use of that fact.
• I was the hottest adult woman at the party. One advantage of hanging out with the 80 year old crowd.
• I have lots of leftover beer.
• But not for long.

The immediate aftermath

I survived the party. But it was touch and go for a while. When my parents arrived, 45 minutes early, i had to go upstairs and sit in my bedroom for about 10 minutes with my cat on my lap. My heart was pounding and i COULD NOT be nice to my mother. I had talked to her two days earlier and she said "I want to come 15 minutes early so i can greet the guests." Ok, fine, that's a good idea.

I sat upstairs and realized that i hate my mother. You all can berate me if you wish, because you might be right. But i don't know if i can change the way i feel.

I was talking with the Mister the other night, and i told him that i might be wrong, but i will not be sad when my mom dies.

I can't condense 48 years of life into a single post. But take a breath and be with me here for a moment. My parents never beat me, or abused me, or starved me. But i was never, not once ( and i am not exaggerating, not once), told anything nice. I was always dirty and messy and loud. I never did a good job. I never got an "i love you". And i wish that i could recover from that. I know that other people have had MUCH worse things to rise above. I know it. I feel ashamed that i cannot recover from it. But when my mother is around, and deep inside too, i am still dirty and messy and loud and not girly enough and too big and embarrassing. I want to tell you the story about being taken to the doctor so i wouldn't be too tall. I can't right now, but i think it's important.

Thanks for listening. Maybe a more amusing post on the party later.

Pretty Birdie

I was sitting at my desk, working on the computer when the crows started to scream. "Well, i know where my cats are," i think, as the crows always scream at the cats when they are outside in the daytime.

But the screaming went on and on, and it was LOUD. I turned around after about 10 minutes of this, and saw that both of my cats were on my bed, following their usual strenuous daytime routine. They were sleeping.

So i walked out on the balcony of my bedroom, and saw that the crows were circling around the big pine tree next to the house. Finally i spotted the object of their concern:

Isn't he (or she) gorgeous? I took a bunch of pictures of his backside, before he deigned to turn his head and look at me with one beady eye. He stayed there for the rest of the day, until dusk, about 4 hours. And the crows screeched and dive bombed (dove bombed?) him the whole time. He didn't even seem to notice them.

There are several bald eagles that live around here. I can always tell it's one of them when i see them flying around because of their size. This picture doesn't really convey the size of this bird. (If you click on the picture you can see him better.)

I feel priviledged that he chose to sit in my tree, like i had been visited by an Indian spirit.

Pop-u-u-lar*

My last post on Em's beginning of school meltdown touched a nerve. To quote Styro, high school was an ubersuckfest.

So what i am wondering, is where are the people who were having a good time in high school? The cute and the athletic and the popular? I have personally never talked to anyone who has said they loved high school. To a person, we all hated it with the fiery burning passion of a thousand suns. (To quote the ever dramatic Em.)

For me, junior high was worse than high school by an order of magnitude. Click here for a glimpse of my coolness on my second day of 8th grade.

By high school i had found a way to insinuate myself into some group or other in order to feel accepted. In 10th grade, i hung out with Michele. She was a foster kid living with a religious family. She got me high for the first time in my life, and we continued to hang out together that whole year and smoke dope at her foster parent's house every day. One time we went through the medicine cabinet and swiped a bunch of Darvons. That was the day my dad actually came to pick me up at Michele's house and told me that my cat had been run over. I was too stoned to react. (At this point i am wondering where the hell my parents were, to let me go hang out at a house with no adults home all afternoon.)
Michele went away after 10th grade, so i had to find a new group.

In 11th grade i hung out with two girls who were seniors that year, who were also strange and smart and geeky. We were on the publicity committee and spent many hours eating and painting ugly signs for whatever school event was coming up. Of course, none of us ever went to any of these events. I wore overalls and flannel shirts and men's tennis shoes every day. They both went away to college after that year so....

I became a boy scout. No, really. The first year that girls were allowed to join the explorer scouts, i was a member. It was really fun, in a very wholesome way. And a good way to hang out with boys with no dating. We used to park cars at the local Elks Club one night a month to make money to support our troup. I would get to stay out until 2 am and drive cars that didn't belong to me, and i didn't even have a license yet. (Again, i could have been off doing anything, my parents never asked a thing about where i was or what i was doing.) Damn those Elks could drink. We would go fetch cars for men who were stumbling drunk. One guy missed the exit and plowed into a rockery instead. He sat there for a few minutes pressing on the gas pedal, wondering why the car wouldn't move forward. (Obviously, there have been VAST improvements in the awareness and prevention of drunk driving since those days.)

And thus i survived high school.

I wonder where all those cute short girls who were popular and all those tall football/basketball dudes are now. Did they all sink back into the ether from whence they came? I'm guessing that they don't have blogs.

*A coy reference to the musical "Wicked".

Prime suffering years

So, a sobbing girl child after school this afternoon. "Nobody likes me, what's wrong with me?" Hard questions for me to answer. Nothing is wrong with her. There are no answers to these questions, only the reassurance that i understand, that i am sorry and that i care. And hugs.

In her science lab class, there are an uneven number of kids. Em is the one who ended up with no lab partner. The teacher has said that no one can work in a group of three. That seems a little odd when there aren't an even number of kids in the class. Someone is going to end up alone.

I am remembering being not chosen for kickball.

I always forget that the first few weeks of school bring volatile emotions and lots of unaswerable questions. This year, as she goes into being a junior, is no exception.

In the movie "Little Miss Sunshine" one character tells another that these are the prime suffering years.

Ain't that the truth?

I long for the years when the pain could be relieved with an ice pack from the freezer and some crayons.

Pursed lips

So what is it with men, and women's purses? My husband offered to bring me my purse today, so that i can complete a purchase over the internet, and i tell him, "Thank you sweetie, my wallet is in the side pouch, just bring that."

So you know what happens, he brings the whole purse, because he can't bear the thought of looking inside it. God knows what horrific, female hormoned cootied thing he might find. A tampon, bottled water (a nod to the movie "Heathers"), a romance novel with Fabio on the cover, Ben Wa balls. Untold horror might lie within. When normally he's quite happy to associate with things related to my naughty bits.

An aside: Damn it, a gnat just took a swan dive into my glass of red wine. One reason it will be nice to see the last of summer. I know it's just extra protein, but i still can't drink it. At least he died happy.

So, any one out there know what is so scary about a woman's purse, especially when i have told him that it's okay to root around in there?

Party, bleh

Next weekend we are having a party at our house for my dad's 80th birthday. You can read about how the hell i got myself into this here. So we have spent the day doing projects around the house that we should have done years ago.

I really don't care for parties. I don't much care to socialize with more than 6 or 7 people at once. I went hiking on Friday with my brother Don and sister-in-law Karen. She loves parties and organizing things. She said something that struck terror into my heart. "Wonder what i should wear to the party?"

Shit, i hadn't thought of that. I told her that i guessed that i would be wearing a clean pair of jeans and a shirt, unless it is hot, and then i would wear shorts.

That was the wrong answer. I was told that such casualness might not be appreciated by the old folks. Karen is only a year or two older than me, but sometimes she seems like someone from a different generation, an older one. It was only last year that she allowed her kids to wear jeans to Thanksgiving with the family, when the rest of us have always done it. I am more into the casual (read lazy) lifestyle.

So i will have to steel myself for some disapproval, but it's not like i haven't been there before. And i really do appreciate that she is helping me with the shopping and the food preparation. If it was up to me we would be having chex mix and li'l smokies.

There will be lots of old people at the party. When our caller ID showed a name of one of the oldest men this morning, my first thought was that i hoped no one had died before the party. Ms. Compassion, that's me.

I hope you all are having a great weekend.

Mom of the year

Taken at Cannon Beach, OR.

Em goes to a yuppie private school. At the beginning of each year, each grade goes on an overnight retreat in order to do some "bonding". So Em went off on Thursday morning with a sleeping bag and a suitcase.

While i was at my volunteer job on Thursday afternoon my cellphone rings. It was Em, sobbing. I try to find out what the hell is wrong, and am eventually able to understand that her feelings have been grievously hurt by Thomas. I put down the cell phone for a minute and tell my other caller, who is a client of my volunteer thing, that i have an emergency phone call and need to call her back.

So the insult was that Thomas told Em that her acne is really bad. It is sorta bad, but she is 15, and it's not disfiguring or anything. Thomas has been mean to her for two years now, ever since he asked her out and she told him that she didn't like him in that way.

Em wanted me to come and get her. I asked her if she had talked to the teachers to see if they would let her come home for hurt feelings. I knew they wouldn't, and i really didn't want to drive for two hours to go and get her, but i wanted her to know that i care about her hurt. When we got off the phone she was laughing.

When she was insulted, she started sobbing "I want my mommy" so her friends supplied her with a contraband cell phone with which to call me.

After she got off the phone, her friends asked her "What did your mom say?"

Em replied, "She told me to tell Thomas that he has a tiny dick."

Sometimes i say the right thing.

Not shy

This is a picture of my two boy cats attempting to illustrate one of the positions in the Kama Sutra, which is really creepy as they are brothers.

Introvert. It's a word that gets thrown about a lot. As my friend Kim says, "They think it means we're shy. HA!" But we know better. Apparently, about 25% of people are introverts.

To me it means a couple of things. One is about how i process life events. If i am hurt or upset, i need to think about it for a while before i can talk about the problem. I am not one of those people who calls up a friend after having a fight with the Mister to talk. I need to figure it all out and reduce the hurt level first. I don't like to talk about a book or movie that has moved me. I need to keep it close for awhile and polish the memory. The Mister is an extrovert and likes to walk out of the theater and start discussing the movie immediately. I have learned to be better about this, for his sake, but sometimes i can't.

The other thing it means to me is the energy it takes to interact with people. I love having people around, but after some amount of time, i need down time. As they say, stick a fork in me, i am done. When we have people over, and they make going home noises, i am good with that, especially if it's late. The Mister just keeps on talking, often following them out to the car. This drives me crazy.

It doesn't mean i am not social. I used to manage a group at work, and that required lots of meetings and talking, and sometimes giving presentations. I was pretty good at it. I got to be a bit of a ham during presentations, and i got lots of positive feedback on the evaluation forms. It was fun.

But i am still an introvert. I have lots of alone time, but i am seldom lonely. Many, many years ago, in high school, someone called me "morbidly introspective". As a teenager, that was cetainly true, now i am perhaps only "slightly morbidly introspective".

Many of you have indentified yourselves as introverts too, What does that mean to you?

Roll call

This picture has nothing to do with anything. I'm just messing around. This is one of my cats. The one who brought me a bunny and a rat last night. He doesn't look like a killer does he?

After yesterday's post about being married so long, i got up this morning to find one single half square clinging to the toilet paper roll. And so i thought about the Mister at that moment. Yes i did.

So here is one thing he does that i do like. Even when he is in a meeting at work, he will answer my phone calls and then say, "Bye darlin' " as he hangs up, even though there are a bunch of men sitting around in his office.

I thought about that as i stood up with my pajamas around my ankles to get a new roll. And i smiled.

Half of my life

I realized today that i have now been married over half of my life. I can't decide if this is lovely or scary. Maybe with the one year off for bad behavior, it isn't really half my life yet.

I was so young when we were married, only 24. And given that i am a late bloomer at just about everything, a very young 24. So selfish i was. I cringe to think of it.

We were married by a judge at my parent's house on a cold and rainy Seattle day in February. No walking down the aisle in a white dress glowing with happiness for me. I was terrified. What the hell was i doing? For a few years afterwards, I used to wake up in the middle of the night in a panic. To me being married really did mean forever. I told you i was young.

We had been living together for over 2 years at that point and it seemed like the thing to do as we were both graduating from college and the Mister had accepted a job in Silicon Valley. So it was either that, or break up. I had come to actually love him over that two years time, rather than it just being a fun lark to live together. Living together was something that real adults did. Or that's what i thought then.

Looking back, of course being married has not been what i expected. It has been more, really. Coming to terms with another person's humanity along with my own. We've grown up together, and it has not always been pretty. And i still find him attractive, and he, me. Lucky thing, that.

No wise advice from me, just an old married lady.

Where do you think we should go for our 25th anniversary in February? I think maybe a cruise. I've never been on one.

Cynical, but beautiful

I am back from the 3-Day. I am so tired that i am almost in a trance. (This has nothing to do with the 2nd glass of sake i am drinking, i assure you.)

It was an interesting event, and if i ever talk about doing it again, please be a friend and stage an intervention. I have done the STP (Seattle-to-Portland) 200 mile bicycle ride twice. It is a two day event for me. People who need to get a life do it in one day, but not me. And i will say, that the 3-Day is harder. "It's just walking", you say, as did i before i did it the first time. But have you ever walked 20 miles a day for 3 days in a row? (If you have and it was easy, go away now.)

I did it this time because Em thought it would be cool. You aren't supposed to walk unless you are 16, but i lied about her age because i knew we would never get this chance again, and i knew she could handle it.

Before the walk, two of the adult team members dropped out, so that left 4 of us. And after doing part of the walk the first day, the other adult team member went home. That left me with a 15 and a 16 year old. (Em's cousin, my niece, was the other child.)

The kids were awesome. They hadn't really trained enough, and they were in intense pain the last day, but they wanted to finish. These young ladies are tough and determined. I can't really say enough about how great they are, because it would spill over into gushing. Em waited until we got home and has been crying on and off for an hour because she is exhausted. God i love her.

This is not an event that can really be understood unless you participate.

We reluctantly attended the "deeply moving opening ceremony" the first day because we couldn't think of a way to get out of it. It was hokey. Reality compels me to admit that the walking is superfluous. It's all about the $2,200 each walker must raise in order to participate. And some of the stuff they do to make us feel like the actual walking is bringing us closer to a cure is patently ridiculous. But all along the walk, all three days, people are honking and standing alongside the route cheering and little children are handing us candy and popsicles. And on and on.

The first day, as we were sitting in a park for lunch, a woman got out of her car and approached the walkers sprawled next to us on the grass. She thanked them for walking and said that she had just had reconstructive surgery and so she couldn't walk, but she would walk next year. That's the kind of stuff i can't be an asshole about. That was real.

Maybe more later, i must go and make love to a tube of Bengay now.

Breasts, socks and poop.

The way i pack for a trip drives me crazy. I run around the house and get distracted from one task to another so easily, and then forget what i was doing in the first place. Somehow it all gets done, usually.

I will be gone until Sunday evening. Em and i are walking in the Breast Cancer 3-Day 60 mile thing starting tomorrow morning at 0fuck:30. I am not really looking forward to it as i will be sleeping in a camp with 2000 of my closest friends. When i was bitching to Em about it last night, she told me "once we get there we'll probably have a good time." So who's the parent and who's the child here? Sometimes it's hard to tell. The name of our team is Walking Down Mammary Lane and i did make some cool T-shirts for us all to wear. So, yay, sorta.

My big accomplishment for today was to fish out all of the socks that had fallen behind the washer and the dryer with a bent up clothes hanger. So, i can go to bed tonight with a real feeling of having done something to make the world a better place.

Another beach story for you:
One morning last month at about 6:00 am, i was sleepily looking out of our window from bed, when i saw a man walking along the beach with a pug dog. I see the dog start to assume the "position" so i elbowed the Mister and said something elegant like "That fucker's dog is taking a crap on the beach!"

The Mister leaps out of bed, completely naked, and sticks his head out of the balcony door and yells "CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR DOG!!" to the guy. The guy picks up the dog, who is still pooping, and starts running away. The guy is trailing a stream of poop behind him and the dog is probably going WTF?

My kingdom for a video camera. I still laugh when i think about it. That poor dog is going to need counseling.

So, i'll see you all on Sunday.

Neptune's Bounty

Ok, not really Neptune, as it is a lake. Here is a partial list of things that have washed up on our beach:

• Large bits of other people's docks. This happens in the winter when there are storms. We tear these bits of dock apart and use them to roast marshmallows and weenies. We also got our bench for around the firepit this way, but you have to be careful of the nails sticking out the side.
• Fireworks detritus. I hate the 4th of July for this reason. I look around the lake and see literally millions of dollars of fireworks blowing up. I think two things; the first is what good all this money could have done in the world, and two, that i'll be picking up soggy cardboard bits for weeks. I am a curmudgeon. Bah!
• Someone's retainer. I try really hard to picture a scenario in which a retainer ended up on our beach. I bet the someone's parents were pissed.
• Balls; Soccer balls, volleyballs, nerf balls, beach balls, footballs, tennis balls. Oh, and frisbees. If they are in good shape i give them to the Goodwill, otherwise they become landfill.
• Plastic tampon applicators. Ok, so i'm like, out on a boat, and i need to, um, refresh. So i, um, you know, do that. But what to do with my pearlized easy-glide(TM) applicator. I know, i'll throw it overboard when the guys aren't looking. I give those to the Golden Retreiver next door to eat.
• LPC. In our house that stands for little plastic crap. Those toys and things that you have around the house when you have a small child that hurt like bloody hell when you step on them, and are responsible for your child hearing most swear words for the first time. Legos, McDonalds Happy Meal Toys, doll furniture, Transformers, etc.
• Huge plastic blow up rafts and island thingies. We've had three of those this past winter. I wonder why people don't take them inside for the season. They cost a bundle. These are a pain to get rid off.
• Shoes; Zorries, Boat shoes, tennis shoes, water shoes. Never a pair dammit! I give these to the Golden Retreiver next door to eat.

Lest you think it's all garbage, i'll also make a list soon of all the beautiful things i have seen on the beach.

Disclaimer: Of course i am kidding about the dog next door, i would never do that to any animal. I love animals. The kids next door are another matter.

I am a wuss.

One time my brother Tim said to me, "I feel things twice as much as anyone else." That has always struck me as such an arrogant statement. How does he know what anyone else feels? I probably would have blown it off had he been a teenager, you know sometimes we tend to be a bit dramatic at that age. He was about 40 at the time.

I try pretty hard to keep myself on an even keel, emotionally. I don't ever go to scary movies. I was dragged by some friends to see "Carrie" a few hundred years ago, and it took me a week to recover. I walked out of Bambi when i was 6 during the fire scene.

I avoid reading books that will make me sad, because i will stay sad for a long time. A few blogs i look at have recommended a book called "The Time Traveler's Wife" saying it made them cry. I'm afraid it would make me cry too. I don't want to cry. Sometimes i'll put a book down during an emotional part, and wait a few weeks until i am detached from the story before i can pick it back up.

I walked out of the room during the 6 Feet Under episode where David gets carjacked. I just couldn't take it. I actually stopped watching the show at that point. I never did see the rest of that episode. I wasn't able to watch any of the rest of the episodes until a friend told me what happened in them, so i could prepare myself.

Now that i am thinking about it, i see that i need some time to recover from whatever i am feeling, and for me that involves being alone. (Intovert alert.) Not something i can do after every TV show, movie or book that moves me.

I'm telling you this, because i am curious about you. I want to know how this works for you.

Weekend update

Tracy asked how the boyfriend was with the skinny dipping. He turned out to be okay. I think he's reserved. He did fine w/the skinny-dipping. He was expecting it. I don't think it was really his thing as he had some trouble getting into the water, complaining about the cold. The rest of us were swimming around like a bunch of slightly tipsy minnows.

I still hope for Aileen's sake that he is a more interesting person than he let on. But i won't write him off yet either. Sometimes people grow on you. Right (she said hopefully) ?

Next weekend is the breast cancer 3-Day walk for the Seattle area. Em and i are walking in it, and so we met with our other team members at my mom's house on Sunday morning because she lives right on the Burke-Gilman trail, a great place for walking long distances. My mom greets my friend, Nicole, whom she has never met before, by saying "Oh, i'm fine because just i just found out yesterday morning that i don't have breast cancer." I don't think this would bug you as much as it did me because you don't know what a fucking martyr my mother can be.

She got a call back on her mammogram for an ultrasound. Just so you can know what a terrible daughter i am, that happens to me everytime i get a mammogram because i have something they like to refer to as "dense breasts". I don't think they are any dumber than anyone elses breasts, but that's what they say. (Ha ha, me so funny.) And my mother has had breast cancer and has had a mastectomy. So i could sure as hell be less of an unfeeling bitch. But really, what is Nicole supposed to say to that ice breaking comment?

"Gee it's nice to meet you Mrs. Menosmom. Wow, that's great. You must be so relieved. Myself, i just found out this morning that i don't have an obstructed bowel."

When i rule the world, Volume I

1.) Littering will be a death penalty offense, including gum and cigarette butts.
2.) No one will be allowed to get married until they are 30, maybe 28 with parental permission and a note from their doctor.
3.) Women will have to go on the pill to get pregnant, rather than the other way around.
4.) People will not talk, whisper, text message, tap their feet, chew with their mouths open, pop gum or otherwise annoy me during a movie.
5.) Over perfuming will merit a ticket for the first offense and jail time for subsequent violations.
6.) Drug companies will not lie and sell shit that doesn't work, and withold shit that does work because evangelical christians don't like it.
7.) The work week will be 4 days long.
8.) The setting on my iron that says "Permanent Press" will live up to its name.
9.) People who confuse their and there, your and you're, then and than, effect and affect will be repeatedly bopped upside the head with a Random House Dictionary.
10.) Restaurants that play Beatles songs as interpreted by the Ray Coniff singers will have mysterious kitchen fires that cause them to go out of business.

Done for now, but you know there are more inside my head, waiting in a queue of snarkiness.

Got any rules of your own that will make the world a better place?

Skinny dipping

We're having two people over later this evening for a beach fire, s'mores and, after it gets dark, some nekkid swimmin'. Mmmmm.

One of them is a woman i used to work with, back when i worked, and the other is her boyfriend. I still meet Aileen once a week for a power walk and gab. She's a smart and thoughtful woman who is almost 20 years my junior and we get along famously. A few weeks ago, on one of the bloody hottest days of the year (even my cats were panting), she and i were out walking and sweating and i mentioned that when it's this hot, many nights at about 10 pm, the whole family strips and takes a dip in the lake. (The family that bathes together, stays together.) It's one of the only ways to get cool before bed. Aileen told me that she had never been skinny dipping. Shocking! A deprived person.

So we are out to remedy that situation this evening. We are lucky enough to live on a beautiful lake with a large enough beach such that the neighbors can't see us, and we can't really see each other when it's dark.

Swimming naked is one of the best things in the world. Swim suits are a tool of the devil, along with pantyhose. If i had a pool in my house i'd get up and swim naked every morning.

Before she said yes, she had to check with her boyfriend to see if he would be comfortable with it. She recently moved in with him and is still getting to know him. I think if he had been unwilling, that would have shown that moving in with him was a terrible mistake. I met him once and i am hoping that he comes off better this time. It's always uncomfortable when someone you like has an S.O. you think is a drip, or worse. I always give someone a few chances though. Maybe he's reserved and uncomfortable in new circumstances. I can relate.

Happy Friday all! If you see naked people swimming, don't tell.

The last words....probably.

This is the last post i will do for a while about being tall. I swear. But people keep bringing up interesting things that i want to talk about further.

The reactions i sometimes get from men who are shorter than i am have often puzzled me and sometimes, much more so when i was younger, hurt my feelings. Now that i am older, i realize that (brace yourselves) NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT ME. Yes, it's true. An unusual reaction from someone i barely know is much more likely to be about them.

Some men have ignored me. I felt like i wasn't viewed as a female in their eyes. This was hurtful. It made me feel like Godzilla lumbering down the streets of Tokyo chasing Mothra, a huge lumbering beast who was likely to destroy furniture and tip plants over. Not a feeling i wanted to have when i was in my teens and early 20s. Inside my personal fantasy was a small Tinkerbelle like creature who flitted from flower to flower delicately sipping the dew from flowers. (Now there's a suggestive image!)

Sometimes they are funny. Like a professor i once had who looked at me in his office where i had come for help and said abruptly , "You! You sit down." He was about 5'6".

Sometimes, when i am meeting some man for the first time and i happen to be sitting down, i can watch their eyes grow bigger and bigger as i stand up and up and up. That amuses me now too.

Some men are comfortable with me and i like this the best. I had some male friends in high school who were short. One time when i was whining about wanting to be cute and little, one of them said, "I don't know about little, but you sure are cute". What a sweetie.

Okay, i am done with tall. Unless something funny happens.

An update: My car is going to take at least two months to repair. I am driving a crappy rental car that smells like Joe Camel was the previous driver.

Altitude and Attitude

Lucia left this comment on my post for yesterday:
From 20/20: "Professor Allen Mazur...did a study that found taller men are likely to marry more often and have more children. Mazur said one possible reason for his finding is that "taller men, by virtue of being more attractive to women, perhaps have more opportunities with women other than their wives, which leads to a breakup of marriage, which leads to a remarriage to a younger woman, which leads to another child."

Would it be fair to say from the study that it seems that taller men were hot and the shorter men were not? "That would be an inference. You could also infer that the shorter men are better husbands, and they have more long-lasting marriages," Mazur said."

So, after all these years, I'd be interested in how you see the taller/shorter thing now.

This gives me a chance to be all thoughtful and shit about the height difference between the Mister and me. Or at least tell a few funny stories from over the years.

One time, before we were married, we were walking one evening along the sidewalk by Sand Point, an ex military base in Seattle. I had short hair at the time and was wearing overalls. The Mister had long curly hair (for those of you around my age, his hair looked just like Peter Frampton's). We had our arms around each other while we were walking.
Some guys drove by, saw us and yelled "FAGGOTS!" out their car window. We both laughed and were teasing each other about who they had thought was which sex, although we both knew that they had thought we were both men.
Not five minutes later a man passed us on the sidewalk and said, "Good evening ladies". We both lost it then. That poor man must have wondered what the hell he'd said that was so funny.

But seriously, the Mister is a handsome guy. I think if he had been both handsome and tall, he might have been an asshole.

It's hard for me to say about the good husband thing, as we have had some major problems in our marriage. It's always easy to blame it on him, but he does have some self esteem issues that cause him to want to be attractive to everyone. (Thanks father and mother-in-law, you suck.) Although, to his credit, he has really worked hard on trying to figure out his issues and deal with them. He has been going to therapy for at least 10 years. That's one of the reasons that i am still with him, is that he was very sorry for his fucking up with what's her name and was truly serious about working it out. Can't save a marriage by yourself.

Yeah, i wish he were taller. He wishes he were taller. I wish i was shorter too, but not the whole 4 inches, i would like to be 5'10". But it will never happen. Well, i might become shorter one day, but he most assuredly will not grow. I don't think about it all that much anymore, except when we are out in public. We still hold hands all the time. People look at us, probably because we are so remarkably attractive (ahem), but rarely does anybody say anything to us.

Oh yeah, another story. The Mister was at a car dealer one day when i came to meet him for a minute to sign something (the Mister has a car problem, he keeps buying them). The sales manager saw me and after i left said, "My wife is taller than i am too. It's cool because it makes people think you have a big one."

I've made a bit of a mess of answering Lucia, but really, it's just how my life worked out.

How it all began

When i first met the future mister, he was my boyfriend’s best friend and housemate. Sounds bad when i put it that way, but it’s the truth. I thought he was really cute, but there was absolutely no possibility ever of a relationship between us because he is 4 inches shorter than me. So we became friends. He was funny and smart and cynical and a smart ass. He and i got each other’s jokes and had great fun with the rapid fire banter between us.

He had this really sweet, insecure girlfriend, Danae. She was a year younger than the future mister, and so had remained behind in high school for his first year in college. This was his second year, so she was up in Seattle with him now.

My boyfriend, Michael, was also really sweet and earnest. Kind of a gentle poetic guy. And he was 6’4” tall. So that made him perfect for me.

The four of us spent lots of time together. Looking back, i realize that Danae was intimidated by me. I am no genius, but i am smart, and she not as much. And she really felt left behind by the future mister and me. She was bothered by the interaction between the two of us. But really, there was no way we were going to get together. He was too short, and that was that.

Michael was too laid back to worry. The future mister was his best friend, and i was his girlfriend. And i truly had no plans leave him and take up with someone else. It sounds stupid now, but it was not an option to date a man who is shorter. It just never entered my mind. So we continued being friends and having lots of fun and (we thought) witty banter.

The mister admitted to me once that he used to walk around the house back then “looking for his shirt” when i was around so i could check him out. And i sure did. Isn’t that cute?

One night (cue romantic music) we had all 4 been up playing Trivial Pursuit or some such, and Danae and Michael had shuffled off to their respective beds after a while because they were tired. The mister and i got to really talking for the first time. I admitted that Michael was really a sweet guy, but sometimes he was so passive that it frustrated me. The mister admitted that it was similar with Danae and that he had much more fun talking to me. I was sitting in front of the couch and he was sitting right behind me. He leaned over and kissed me, kinda upside down. Shiver. Mmmmm.

Right then, Danae, who’s no dummy, started calling to the mister from the bedroom. So we exchanged a few more glances and off to bed we went. I remember lying next to Michael that night and thinking “Oh shit. Oh boy. Mmmmm” over and over.

It was never the same after that. I broke up with Michael soon after, and the future mister broke up with Danae a bit after that. He had a much harder time of it than i did because Danae was heartbroken. Michael was unhappy, but he tried really hard to be friendly with both of us. He was a really nice guy.

It seemed like such a huge deal at the time. We were both 20 years old.

I still think that one of the reasons we have been able to work through so much in our lives together is because we were friends before we became involved, since, you know, there was no possibility that we would ever date. Yeah.

Dude! Party in 518

So, there's this big beach volleyball contest going on here this weekend. So the place is loaded with jocks and babes. Last night, about 10 pm, the Mister and i are sitting out on our balcony and the guys next door come out on their balcony. Here is some of their conversation:

Dude, we gotta score some more alcohol.

Hey there's those chicks down there. What are their names? Shit, i can't remember their names.

HEY GIRLS. YEAH, YOU. COME ON UP HERE. WE'VE GOT A PARTY HERE.

(Girls) WHAT?

ROOM 518. 5...1....8 WE"RE HAVING A PARTY. ROOM 518. WE'LL BE REAL NICE TO YOU.

Dude, what if they're ugly?

(The girls) HOW OLD ARE YOU?

AH....21. WE'RE ALL 21.

(Girls) HA! (they move on)

Maybe we should go down and meet them, i don't think they're gonna come up here. Man we gotta get some girls up here.

The mister and i look at each other. "It's gonna be a long night", we say. But actually, aided by some physical activity and a few glasses of wine, we sleep just fine.

So today, i am sitting down in front of the hotel, looking up. I see 5 very young guys hanging off the balcony next to our room. These two girls stop and stand next to me for a minute.

HEY GIRLS! COME ON UP HERE. IT'S A GREAT VIEW. ROOM 518. 5...1...8

I burst out laughing. Hope springs eternal. The girls roll their eyes and move on.

Rampant consumerism

Just a quick one today, whilst the Mister is deeply engaged in his own computer.

We went to Cannon Beach (a more upscale town than this one, the seagull art is more likely to be cast in bronze) for a while today and i went to this fancy boutique and found a Blue Willi's sweater that i HAD to buy. It cost $317.00 people. (gack!) But i had no choice as the sleeves were TOO LONG. I have to roll them up a little. This does not happen to me. Usually my wrists stick out a good two inches from my clothes. And the nice saleslady told me that it should last for at least 10 years. She wouldn't lie to me would she?

There is a beach volleyball tournament here this weekend. There are lots of fine young men running around sans shirts. In the interest of their health (and paying for my sweater), i am going down to the beach with a big bottle of sunscreen and offer to rub it all over their bodies for a nominal fee.

Vacating geeks

So, i am in a hotel room in Seaside Oregon, using their "free high-speed internet access". Across the table from me sits the Mister, on his laptop. We are such total geeks.

We got here last night just before midnight and then had to leave again on a quick food and wine run. The local Safeway stays open until 1:00 am, thank god.

This is a town of salt water taffy and skee ball and bumper cars and many shops selling sea gull art. How many ways can a sea gull be carved, painted, sculpted, cast, stitched, printed, silk screened or glued together from bits of shell, rocks and driftwood you ask. I have the answer. More than there are sea gull poops on our car this morning. We should be able to complete our whole new art collection without leaving town.

It's fun to be out of town and alone with the Mister. We took a long walk down the beach this morning and i took lots of pictures of odd patterns and shapes of rocks and dead crabs and irridescent shells and water. Might show you some later if any are worthy. My camera software is on my desktop back at our estate.

I have also decided to tell the story of how we got together, lo those many, many years ago, when i get home and have some privacy. I can tell you that it involves treachery and deceit and broken hearts, well sort of.

My true colors come out, i am selfish

Tomorrow night husband and i are heading off to spend a few days at the ocean. There will be sex. Em is going to be going down to Ashland, Oregon with a friend and friend's family to catch some of the Shakespeare Festival. I will be taking my new laptop with me. It's so cool! I log on by dragging my fingertip across a scanner. I keep thinking of all those science fiction movies i've seen where someone gets killed and then their finger is cut off to enable acess to the nuclear secrets of the world. Nothing that exciting on my laptop. Just the secrets of inner space.

I read a comment on someone's blog last week wherein a woman stated that people who don't have children are selfish. I disagree. I think that having a child is one of the most selfish things i have ever done.

Warning, whiney ass cynical shit ahead:

"Life is awful and people are horrid." from the book Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
"Be kind to the young, they did not ask to be born." from Pavillion of Women by Pearl S. Buck (a book you should read if you haven't.)

It's hard to be alive. It's depressing. Look around at the place. War, ethnic cleansing, homophobia, racism, rape as a weapon, global warming, right wing christians, sexism, George Bush, jealousy, mental illness, marketing, child pornography and etc, etc., etc. And this is how i feel about life and i am so damned lucky compared to 95% of the world.

So what i'm trying to say, is, it's no picnic. I wasn't sure i would ever have children because i questioned the fairness of bringing one into this world. I did it because of the joy and pleasure and sense of wonder and to be able to care for and love and nurture a small person. I tell Em this, because i want her to know how SHE improves MY life. I did it for me.

Selfish bitch!

Weekly recap

This week's numbers:
Dead Rodents: 3
Cigarettes: 0
People commenting on my height: 2

Inspired by one tall momma I am thinking of doing a "why i started a blog" post, but after having a glass of wine or two, i may have to wait for another time. I will say that i wanted to have a way to talk about things in my life that i have no one with whom to share. The friends i have are great, but, for example, sometimes i need to complain about my husband, and i feel i can't do that with a friend who then is going to turn around and socialize with the two of us. It's not fair to the friend, or to my husband.

I started this whole business anonomously for a reason. I wanted to be able to be completely honest. At least, i wanted to be able to try. No one whom i know in real life knows about my blog, not even my husband (although i think he's getting suspicious).

Inspired by kirala I need to think more about the stories i tell about my daughter. How much right do i have to tell her stuff? Even if anonymously? I know that anonymous doesn't always stay that way.

I retired from my job almost two years ago. I started reading a few blogs soon after. Fussy was my first, and still a favorite. After reading several blogs for over a year (not one to rush into things am i) i decided to start commenting. And recently decided that i was ready to start my own. I continue to learn things as i go. Some of the etiquette escapes me, and it's easy to be misunderstood in written communication. My extensive use of sarcasm doesn't always translate well to print. I never say anything that i think is mean or critical in a comment. If i don't like a blog, i don't read it.

But i love it when new people comment, and i head off to read their stories. What an amazing world of interesting, intelligent, complicated people. I really like the sense of community that i feel i am building with people all over the planet. How cool is that?

Not the plan i had for the day

I hate it when stereotypes are reinforced. I don't always want the world's pre-conceived notions to be correct.

This morning husband went on a Starbucks scones and coffee run for me and three teenage girls who stayed up all night squealing. He took my car as it needed gas, and he likes to be a sweetie and fill it up for me, lest my delicate hands be sullied by gas smell.

Anyway, he's gone for less than 10 minutes when i get a phone call. Someone had run a stop sign and bashed into the rear side of my car. Husband is fine, but shaken up as he didn't even see them coming and two of the side airbags had deployed (thank god) and all this scared the bejesus out of him. He was hit so hard that the car had spun around 180 degrees.

So i rush up there in his car in time to see my car being pushed out of the middle of the road and come to find out that the other car was driven by a man who speaks no English, and better yet, HAS NO FUCKING INSURANCE. Shit.

I do know that it could have been worse, and i am very grateful that he is okay. On the other hand, we could have done without this.

The Curse, Part II

The curse strikes again!

Against my better judgment i went to the movies with my husband last night. And sure enough, as soon as the previews started, THEY came in and sat in the row behind us to the left. It was a young woman and her mother. They proceeded to chat as if they were sitting in their living room.

It didn't actually bother me too much as the movie was boring (Miami Vice), but the husband was pissed. I sat through the movie without fidgeting and sighing too much as a gift to him, because he's a guy, and lots of things were blowing up and people were being shot. Cool!

I did turn around during the movie and try to take a picture of them with my phone, but it was too dark.

After the movie, they were out in the hall so i told them just how annoying their talking had been and asked them to please not talk in movies in the future. I was trying to be pretty nice about it. The young woman replied, "Oh yeah, well fuck you!" Sigh, how articulate.

I told her that i had taken her picture and was going to post it on my web site: "Assholes who talk in movies". She gasped in horror! It was childish of me, but maybe she'll shut up during her next movie. (I can dream can't i?)

I know i should never use the power of the internet for evil, only for good. **Rubs hand together and cackles.**

Recovery

I found a blog i really like. Check it out.

One of her recent entrys made me think about pictures from times and relationships past. For years after my husband and i separated and then got back together, i couldn't look at my wedding pictures, or any pictures of us "before" without feeling bitter and sad.

To me, the truth of a story depends on the ending. So i couldn't look at those pictures of those happy, smiling kids without feeling that it was all a sham of a mockery of a travesty of a facade. I can't really say i've gotten over it either, and it has been 12 years. I do look at them sometimes with my daughter, but not without a pang.

I give my trust and loyalty slowly, but completely. If that is ever betrayed, then damn if i know how to get it back.

I was conversing with my ever helpful mother last year, and i said something like, "Yeah, we've been married for 24 years now, with one year off for bad behavior." She told me that i really needed to forget about it. (Translation: it makes her uncomfortable to be reminded.)

Not going to happen.

I know it's a cliche when a man has an affair, but he doesn't have to go about destroying his spouse in the process. If he had just said something like, "I'm terribly terribly sorry, but i've fallen in love with someone else, and i don't want to be with you anymore," i would have been devastated, but not destroyed. But he spent 6 months telling me that i was horrible and controlling and ruining his life etc, etc, etc. And the part that makes me the angriest, is that i believed it. What does that say about me? (No longer in that space, thank you therapy.)

Recovery is a slow process, and there have been issues, which take the process backwards. No more affairs, because for me that would be a clear end.

I would not have been willing to even try had it not been for Em. But slowly, slowly things are better.

But i can still get myself in a state with memories. I wonder if that will ever go away.

For a friend

I volunteer at a place that does counseling for kids. I do the initial interviews with kids or their parents so that someone who knows what they are doing can then assign the kid to an appropriate counselor.

Many kids are calling as part of a court ordered "diversion" process, which if completed will remove an MIP (minor in possesion) offense from the kid's record.

It's amazing how many kids tell me, when caught with drugs or paraphernalia, "i was just holding it for a friend". I mean, give me a break! I don't laugh too much at the kids, it's when their parents call and tell me the same thing, with the addition of "he's really a good kid, he just got mixed up with some bad people".

Hey, i grew up in the 70s and 80s, and so did many of these parents. We were using that excuse back then and it still stinks. You think they would have thought of something new by now, or at least that the parents would call bullshit.

Sometimes the kids get creative, and do come up with something new. So, in the interest of public service, i am going to list some of the excuses i've heard for other kids to use:

1.) "The dog threw up in my backpack. He must have eaten it on a walk."
2.) "It wasn't my backpack, my books were in it because a friend was carrying them for me." (A new twist on the old favorite.)
3.) "I thought that bag had my gun in it, not drugs." ( I swear, he actually said this.)
4.) "My mom gave me the pills." (Sadly, this might have even been true.)
5.) "I was in the park picking up bottles for my Boy Scout recycling project and one of them wasn't empty and a cop saw me." (This at 2 in the morning!)

Most of these kids really aren't hardened criminals or anything, but man, they'll say just about anything to aviod taking the blame. So far, excuse number 5 is my favorite, being as how it has the Boy Scout angle.

Literary geek

Em has named her cell phone Ishmael. That way she can say:
"Call me on Ishmael".