HALF OF THE SKY

WE GOTTA GET OUTTA THIS PLACE...if it's the last thing we ever do

2006-07-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

Done and done!! Find me here: http://wordgirl5.typepad.com/half_of_the_sky/

Some thoughts about camp...and also about knowing who you are

2006-07-10T13:45:00.001-07:00

"Self Knowledge Brings Happiness"

Years ago I remember reading in People magazine about celebrities who were helping to run a pediatric AIDS program in memory of the late Elizabeth Glaser. One day each year Hollywood devoted a day to fun and games where sick kids were allowed to get their faces painted by Madonna or kids played dodgeball with Kevin Bacon. All in all...a good thing.

But it bugged me that the photos all featured famous people wearing baseball hats printed with the word "Hero" on it while the kid with AIDS went without. I mean...isn't that a little strange that the concept of heroism was, at the time, only applied to the rich moviestar who donated a few hours for photo ops...and not to the kid whose life had been severely compromised by a disease??

Someone must have tipped them off that the thing with the hats was in the poorest of taste because I haven't seen anyone wearing them lately. But the whole thing made me think about last week at cancer camp. It would be the understatement of the year to say that I've learned a lot about cancer in the last few years. I've also learned a lot about myself and it's not all good news.

More than once this week I've had to ask myself just whan in HELL I was doing there with kids who need a sensitive and warm/fuzzy person to teach them art/crafts. Who do I think I am? Granted, Mr. Half and I give a lot of our time to "causes", but we're no "do-gooders" and despite the way I vote, I can be as intolerant as anyone else. It took me years of folks hammering at me before I came aboard to be associated with this camp, and when I did it was only to fill the space as Arts & Crafts teacher. I had no desire then--or now--to be glued 24-7 to a cabin of kids. And I think I've done a good job. When I devise an activity or order the materials for it, I approach it like an artist, but once I'm with the kids I approach it like a teacher. I can honestly say that I've raised the bar in making the A&C program better than it's ever been. No more paper plates glued together with pinto beans inside to make a giant tambourine. B-O-R-I-N-G! That said, I must also admit that my methods don't completely take into account the many different kinds of kids who pass through the art building. That became obvious to me in the past few days and I'm not entirely happy about it.

In conversations with my middle sister where we're asked to categorize ourselves as being "justice-oriented" or "mercy-oriented" people, we've both had to admit that we both fall in with the former group. That's not to say that I don't get a lump in my throat when I see little bald kids slumped over in their wheelchairs. What it means is that I question how much a camper with asthma, leukemia, rampant excema and Down's Syndrome is going to get out of an hour in my class. Can I really count it as therapeutic or is it just babysitting? If it's just babysitting, then why am I there?

And because I question whether or not that kid is getting anything out of it, I wonder if my goals are being met. That leads me to ask myself if my personal goals are getting in the way of a "child-focused program"...which is something we're supposed to be. Being "justice-oriented" means that, cancer or not, I still get hacked off when kids waste materials or ask to be granted special favors. I sometimes can't tell the difference between a kid whose brain has been scrambled by umpteen rounds of chemo and a kid who would be a total ass even if he/she had never been compromised by something like cancer.

We, none of us, are heroes. The volunteers who show up summer after summer and toil equally hard at the helm of the camp's board are just trying to make a good thing out of a bad situation. We're teachers and firefighters and radio dj's and restaurant owners. Everyone of us has our limits. But I don't see the limits of others as well as I see my own. I can't decide if I'm supposed to constantly keep in mind the idea that these campers are cancer patients, or if I'm supposed to immerse them in an attitude of "normal" and treat them the way I should treat anyone else. One scenario demands that I have no expectations and the other requires me to have many. I think the answer is in the gray area and that's a place I have a hard time staying in...let alone locating.

So the whole "self-knowledge" thing is, according to the Chinese saying, supposed to bring happiness. For me, it often brings more self-doubt. The more I go to camp, the more I learn about others as well as myself. So when people ask me how camp went this summer, I have to pause. I think it went okay, but I can't tell if I'm supposed to use my own experiences as the template for a good time. Or if I'm supposed to remember the smile on the face of the kid clutching a shapeless, fist-sized sculpture made from four bar$(!!) of Sculpey polymer clay after I said to only use a tiny bit. You tell me.

Laundry Day...and then some

2006-07-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

We're back. All of us. The youngest boy is back from scout camp. The two older ones have returned from five weeks of staffing (and living outdoors) at scout camp plus one week of intensive Aquatic School training (also outdoors) which qualifies them to be lifeguards as well as instructors. And I have returned from cancer camp. (More on that later) All of us have been living in the same house for over 24 hours. The last time this happened it was May 25th.

And now...the laundry. I'm tempted to simply aim a flamethrower in the general direction of the older boys' trunks which contained an astonishing tangle of sheets and blankets which had not been washed in six weeks. Awesome!! And the damp towels! And crusty, crusty socks! (oh...the humanity!!) The washer has been going non-stop since early this morning and we're still not finished.

On top of that, that house has been (*cought*) a tad neglected in my absence. What with work and keeping up with the youngest (non-driving) son and also helping him with his pet-sitting job that involved twice-per-day visits to feed and attend two dogs and four cats...well...let's just say that the beautiful bouquet of yellow roses on the kitchen table didn't completely disguise the devastation that was so obvious throughout the rest of our abode. After passing out in front of the humidifier (to relieve the headache brought on by a sinus infection), I feel more like a human being and am tackling the cobwebs and dust while Mr. Half is making like Edward Scissorhands in the front yard.

We...all of us...feel as though we'd spent some time on another planet (I've lost a few heat shields upon re-entry) and we're trying to adjust to living together. So far...so good. The week ahead promises not to be too busy and Wednesday night Mr. Half and I will drive to Dallas to see Steely Dan in concert. I can't wait for that and I can't wait to check in with everyone and see what's up. I've missed you guys!!

P.S.

Dear Blogger,

Your days are numbered here at Faber --er--Half House. I spit on you and your outages! I'm enraged at the idea that a free service translates into occasional loss of text and every attempt to fix your Stone Age technology wipes out my entire blogroll. This very evening, I plan to make the switch to Typepad. I know we've both seen this coming. The horrible snafus. The horrendous templates which cause me to rely on constant background color changes which cause some readers to suffer temporary blindness (sorry, Nilbo) or question the possiblity that I suffer from multiple personality disorder. Like the Godfather says, "It's not personal...it's just business". Well...maybe it's personal, too. I break with thee now and forever.

Wordgirl

Help

2006-07-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

What's going on

Just a few things before I go

2006-06-30T07:06:00.006-07:00

Okay kids, it's about that time. I'm leaving tomorrow for camp and I won't be back until next Friday and you won't see any posts from me until Sunday. I'm taking my laptop with me and I wish I could post pics from camp, but that's not only a matter of posting pictures of children without parental consent (bad!!) but also a violation of the HIPAA (also bad!!) rules that I am honor-bound to follow, given that this is a medical camp for kids with cancer. It would probably be kosher to link you to the camp's website, but lacking- as I do- the time to ask permission I'm going to err on the side of caution. Before I go...

1) My June Perfect Post Award goes to Nilbo at Truths & Half Truths. Scroll down to the post entitled, "Love Story: Prologue" and then keep reading. He's chronicling the "how we met" story of his parents and it's a series worth reading. Nilbo's a fantastic writer, but the story would be worth knowing even if he wasn't doing the telling, so check it out and give him some love. I'd put the pretty little Perfect Post button here, except that I've forgotten how. I'm such an idiot.

2) You should know that I checked out the new Super Target near downtown the other day and I had a near-religious experience. Clean, quiet, good smells, a fabulous feng shui and the Isaac Mizrahi collection is three times the size of the Target nearest me. Plus, they carry Nick & Nora pajamas!!!! No wonder Mignon at Thought Concoction claims that Target is her boyfriend. Who wouldn't want that?? Unfortunately, she's mistaken on one count. He's mine.

P.S. to June Cleaver who is moving to Canada where there is no Target. Let me say that again for those of you who are now stunned by the incredulousness of that last statement. THERE. IS. NO. TARGET. IN. CANADA. A-N-Y-W-H-E-R-E.

Oh, the bitter pill that is this cruel reality...and the sorrow that it brings. Our sympathies are with you as you navigate this lonely road. Everybody...go give her a hug.

3) Rock's ("Rock's Hard Place")been trying really hard to do some navel-gazing and bring more of himself to his blog. He's still claiming that "it's not about him" (writerly content of blogging) and I still think he's wrong. I think people definitely want and accept opinions from a blogger, but I also think they want to know a little bit about the blogger from whom these thoughts originate. Take a minute to go over there and tell him blogging is more than just "what you think"....it's also about "who you are".

No fighting while I'm gone, kiddos. Take your vitamins. Watch both ways before you cross the street. I'm going to attempt to access the wireless system at camp and, at the very least, keep up with everyone. See you next Sunday!!

Where everybody knows your name

2006-06-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

"In education, in marriage, in religion, in everything, disappointment is the lot of women. It shall be the business of my life to deepen this disappointment in every woman's heart until she bows down to it no longer."
--Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Today's local paper included a story about a Vietnam veteran in Philadelphia who is looking for a Fort Worth woman he met in 1966, just before he shipped out for the war. Lenny Cohen had taken out an ad in the paper hoping for clues to her whereabouts using the information he had about her at the time.

I thought about all the things that can happen during a span of 40 years that obliterates the trail of a woman. We leave our parents' homes for college or work. We move to another town, state or country. We quit one job and take another. Sometimes...we die. There's at least a record of our death and moving geographically makes it difficult--but not impossible--to find us. It's only when we marry--and take the name of our husbands--that we rub out the last clue to our whereabouts.

If you've ever served on a high school reunion committee you'll have some idea of what I'm talking about. Ten, fifteen, twenty years after graduation, former classmates are using phone books and search engines to find us. You want to locate a guy? Look up his name. Get a friend in insurance to run a DMV check on a guy who is your age and who still has the name he graduated with.

You want to find a woman? Hmmm. What name do you look under? There's no guarantee she held onto her real name. The last time you saw her she was Genevieve Buckholtz and she was making out with Barry Urbach at graduation. Who is she now and what combination of words do you plug into Google to find her? What about the phone book? Even if she's married she's probably not mentioned in the listing. You'll be one lucky hunter if you can find her listed as Barry & Genevieve Urbach. Otherwise...you'll have to find the friend of a friend who still knows her and can offer up a phone number. Or wait until she finds you. Unless we have the presence of mind to hang onto our names, women drop like stones into the bottom of a silent, muddy lake.

In the interest of full disclosure I'll say here that I added Mr. Half's last name onto mine and I use both. Even though I never really got rid of my real name (I use both in my newspaper bylines), people assume that I did. Still...church, the PTA, people in the neighborhood just think I'm Stacy Half. I should have sent out announcements immediately after the wedding saying as much, because without any information or provocation, friends and well-intentioned family (both in-laws and outlaws) will bombard me with mail addressed to Mrs. Bryan Half (not his real last name...of course). EVEN ON MY BIRTHDAY....a day where, if nothing else, I should get to celebrate the identity I possessed when I came into this world. I mean...c'mon! The guy married me, he didn't adopt me. And no matter how many times I say it, few seem to remember.

When telemarketers call and ask for Mrs. Bryan Half I tell them that there is no woman named Bryan living in our home. You should hear the confusion that one statement causes. After witnessing years of watching me have an aneurysm each time someone referred to me in a manner indicating I was merely one of Bryan's appendages...rather than a person with a first name of my own, Mr. Half told me I should go down to the courthouse (for our 20th anniversary) and plunk down the necessary coinage to get my real name back LEGALLY!! (Imagine a country where one must pay to get a name back which was given to you at birth!)

I've given the matter considerable thought and my biggest reason for holding back was the idea that people would think we were divorcing after all this time. It's been hard enough spending the last two decades getting people to stop referring to me as Mrs. Bryan Half. Now I have to back up and tell friends and relatives that my real name (which they already knew) is the name by which they must call me. I should have had the foresight never to change it in the first place. It wouldn't have made us any less married or any less happy.

Any number of pointless observances, whether they be for religious reasons or societal, are still foisted on women today. Traditional apologists, including many religious leaders, claim that "it's the natural order of things" to abide by a patriarchal society. It's in keeping with "natural order" that cats cannot do trigonometry. There's nothing natural about one person changing her name in order to comply with the superior/subservient relationship it was meant to indicate when the practice first started.

But I wasn't thinking back in 1986. I was hard in love and anxious to move to another city with the man of my dreams. I held it together in the planning stages just enough to warn the minister that there would be no "giving away" of the bride, as though I was a prize heifer at the county fair. I was 27 years old and supporting myself. We used the term "presents the bride" though I guess semantics can't change what it means when one man hands a grown woman over to another man. Nor did Mr. Half ask my father for permission to marry me...nor for his blessing. What's the point of asking a question where the answer really won't change the outcome? I also told the minister there would be no mention of the word "obey" in any form or fashion. Homie wasn't playing that game either. So it wasn't until we turned to face the congregation after saying our vows and the minister introduced us as Mr. and Mrs. Bryan Half that I realized in one stunning moment what I had forgotten to take care of.

Yeah... I wince every time my birthday rolls around as I open my cards, even though our return address stamp on outgoing Christmas/birthday cards and all other correspondence bears my name (both last names) and Bryan's name on separate lines hoping someone will pay attention. Few do. So Lenny Cohen....I hope you find Sharon Johnson. I hope she recognizes herself from the description or that someone else who knew her has read the article and will try to find you. Because, dude, looking for her and actually finding her is going to be nearly impossible on a trail as cold as this one. Good luck to you. And Sharon J....wherever you are....I hope for your sake, for Lenny's, and a little bit for mine, that Johnson still your name.

Thirty Years Ago

2006-06-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

During the summer of 1976 you couldn't enter a music store (or the bedroom of many a teenaged girl..or guy) without seeing a nearly life-sized image of Peter Frampton. Soulful-eyed, open-shirted, angelic-faced Peter Frampton. Armed with his guitar and a soft corona of golden curls he was like a Rock n' Roll Jesus and it was impossible for me ( I'm sure I'm not alone in this) to gaze upon his stunning face without a sharp intake of breath.

It was the summer before my senior year of high school. I was working at Six Flags and I wore the senior ring of my boyfriend of the moment. One of the gift shops where I worked played nonstop rock and the music from the "Frampton Comes Alive" double live album and, of the posters of rock stars which we sold by the hundreds, none sold as well as that displaying the beautiful visage of Peter Frampton.

For the uninitiated, Frampton, a former member of Humble Pie, set the world on fire with his "Comes Alive" contribution in January of 1976 and it ranked Number One for 10 weeks. The album stayed in the Top 10 for over a year and it was declared the BEST-SELLING LIVE ALBUM OF ALL TIME, a record it held comfortably for over 20 years. For you youngsters out there that means that, while you were unknowingly salivating over the newest offerings from musicians in 1996, Peter Frampton still held the title for Best Live Album...EVER. Many music analysts still consider it to be among the top ten live album releases ever produced...keeping good company with Joni Mitchell's "Miles of Aisles", War's "War Live", The Who's "Live at Leeds" and my personal favorite, The Allman Brothers' "Live At The Fillmore East".

None of this matters much in the total scheme of things, but I was sitting by the neighbor's pool today and thinking about what I was doing 30 years ago. I was a skinny teenager whose teeth had recently been released from the captivity of braces and "Baby I Love Your Way" was on every rock station. While thinking about that magical summer I remembered what Time magazine writer Richard Lacayo wrote about the death of George Harrison when comparing the passing of years to the face of a great clock: "Year after year we have looked at them--at the aging of those faces--at the mellowing of their lives--to see what time it is for all of us."

I think this is true of anyone whom we held in high regard in our youth. We get older...and so do they. Time, however, has been good to Peter Frampton. He continues to mentor and produce music. He had a part in Cameron Crowe's movie, "Almost Famous". He did the voiceover for his cartoon self in an episode of "The Simpsons". He's recorded a new cd. Sure... the long hair is gone, but the face is the same. I've learned that as long as you're doing what you've always done, it's never pathetic or desperate. That's not to say the one if forbidden to pursue new interests or skills, but to see a 56-year old man take up the guitar in the hopes of being a rockstar is uncomfortably sad. To see a 56-year old man doing what he's always done is an inspiration. Here's to you, Peter Frampton. Baby....I love your way.

What's Happening to me??????

2006-06-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

My middle sister is a pusher. A drug pusher, but the buzz she's selling isn't in the form of illegal pharmaceuticals. Her brand of poison is the "Gilmore Girls". You heard it here first. Before last week I SO did not care about the lives of Lorelei and Rory Gilmore. Do you hear me?? I. Did. Not. Care. I am the mother of three sons. I gave up living in the Land of the Girlies a long time ago. Cheerleaders make me cranky. I threw out my curling iron before I got married and, for a good ten years, I stopped wearing perfume altogether. I hate to shop. HATE IT. Also the color pink. Detest it.

But my husband and sons went out of town on a scout-related venture as they are wont to do...oh...EVERY OTHER WEEKEND OF MY LIFE!! and leave me to my own devices so my middle sister offered her copy of the Season One of "The Gilmore Girls".

And...uh...now I'm hooked. Painfully. Pitifully hooked.

I tell myself that it is a fiction...a fantasy. Mothers and daughters who paint each other's toenails and borrow each other's clothes. Mothers and daughters whose phone conversations don't require an NFL-endorsed referee to negotiate the verbal minefields. I can't relate. But. I. Want. To.

What's happening to me?

I'm becoming the woman I never was. I'm looking at women's sweaters and saying, "Hey....I want that!". I see people so addicted to coffee (Lorelei and Rory) that they're in serious need of a room at The Betty Ford Center. I see the fictional town of Stars Hollow and am reminded of Andy Griffith's Mayberry...except it's in vivid color. More twinkle lights and bungalow houses. A quaint town with a charming downtown area...only populated with people who went to college instead of Floyd the crazy barber. Pumpkin patches and good-natured county fairs. Sally Struthers as the strange neighbor next door who has gnome statues in her front yard. Snappy dialog. It's like a Nora Ephron wet dream.

I claw around for this week's copy of my "New Yorker" subscription. I try to orient myself to that which usually stimulates me. Yet, I must know if Luke will ever tell Lorelei how he feels and I walk zombie-like to the television. One more episode? Whose going to know?? The cat? There's no one else here.

I'm almost sure that "Gilmore Girls" is a gateway drug. A gateway to what....well...I'm not sure.
I'm so behind. The show has been on for....uh....about six seasons. I'm going to have to watch all of these on DVD and then be ready when the new season starts this Fall. And then...I'll be setting the TiVo to a channel I've never watched before. The "WB".

Pray for me....I'll be sitting in the same spot. Glass of wine. Wearing my Chinese bathrobe and waiting for a "fresh Gilmore Girls". Three words I thought I'd never say.

And I'm loving it.

Regrettable Products for The Hair, Part I

2006-06-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

Back in the day when I was a teenager and tv commercials encouraged us to smell like lemons or babies or weeds (and by weeds I mean back when it was called Herbal Essence without the extra "s" and it only came in a green color that smelled exactly like a vacant lot full of milkweed after it's been cut with a dull lawnmower blade. It makes me itch just to think about it), it was considered gauche to confess to the hours and hours of hair prep time it took to resemble a young hippie who took the 6-year "shortcut" back home from Woodstock. We were into simplicity. Before we fell victim to Farrah Fawcett's high-maintenance "winged" look, straight hair was in. Parted in the middle. To the shoulders or longer. Maybe held back with two barrettes, but nothing more.

We Caucasian girls spent hours rinsing our locks in everything from lemon juice to vinegar to beer in order to maintain "squeaky clean " appearance that signaled to all an oil-free pate that was worthy of a Seventeen Magazine cover. Lucky was the girl who wasn't cursed with overactive oil glands which practically demanded a daily shampoo. Those who only had to shampoo every other day were the envy of us all...until now, of course, when we realize that a lot of oil THEN meant fewer wrinkles NOW. Yeah...I'm rocking that reality...thank God. Sorry, Dad, for cursing you then about inheriting the oily skin. But...back to the hair.

Genetics helped some of those girls skip a day of shampooing, but the makers of haircare products in the 1970s were still pulling all-nighters to come up with this particular aerosol atrocity which promised similar results:

PSSSSST! Spray it on and hope to God that no one knows that you are too lazy to haul your hormonal ass into the shower and scrape the funk off of your coif and that whatever was in the can could give you back 24 hours of "clean hair". Or the appearance thereof. How could we have been so stupid?

Actually, it was a little like carpet cleaner designed to absorb whatever was on your hair and then...you could magically brush it out. Uh...maybe not so much. It was spray-on powder...just like the deodorant you used to spritz under your arms. THAT stuff was supposed to absorb the perspiration in your "pits" and leave behind a fresh scent. Most likely, we were using the same product in two different places on our bodies. I'm trying not to dwell on it. Really.

I didn't use PSSSSST! I used a dreadful and much cheaper product invented in the 1950s called MiniPoo which was still on the market in 1980. If you look for a Google Image of MiniPoo, you'll either get a picture of dog shampoo products or a smal pile of animal excrement. I've checked. For all I know, MiniPoo was--in reality-- a combination of both.

It was a talcum powder that you were supposed to sprinkle on the oiliest part of your hair and then brush it out. The bonus? It was a light brown color so that one didn't end up looking like Thomas Jefferson in a powdered wig. The bad thing? Well, let's just say that if dirt and water make mud, the process of mixing oil and tan-colored powder makes something similar and equally unattractive when spotted in clumps near the part in your hair. And brushing it out of your hair was a DELIGHT that required permission from the EPA and your own personal "Hazmat" suit. Have I mentioned the joy of scratching later on and coming up with brown fingernails? It looked exactly as though one had walked for hours through a sandstorm only to arrive completely coated and just in time for a brisk walk through the sprinkler.

I'm just saying that beauty, as well as the pursuit of it, is a cruel, cruel joke and women have been its unwitting victims for years. Personally, I tried it all. The mucous-based Dippity-Do which dried to a light petroleum sheen while your hair was in rollers and then--later-- drifted onto your shoulders in a virtual snowstorm of plastic dandruff.

The Clairol Kindness hot roller set (don't be fooled for an instant by the name Kindness), which were hard, pointy and unforgiving rolls of heated plastic with metal interiors that melted off one's fingerprints during the roll-up and which felt exactly like you were wearing a tiara of cranky baby porcupines that someone had thoughtfully set aflame after fixing them to your scalp with U-shaped metal clips the size of horseshoes.

And Nair Depilatory...for removing unwanted leg hair because we were...again...too lazy to shave and had not yet met/married the former archaeologist/man of our dreams who didn't care if you shaved or not. No one told me about the eye-watering fumes that smelled as though someone had accidentally left a bucket of rotten eggs in a hot closet. And the rule about not using it with open cuts (Hmm. Like those earned from a shaky encounter with a razor???) wasn't a joke. The burning and...I'm pretty sure I saw puffs of smoke...made quite an impression on my young mind.

Ahh yes...good times.

What torture methods did you endure as a teenager to preserve your "natural look"?

June 21st, 1986...The Summer Solstice

2006-06-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

"Marriage isn't a vessel
it's salt pouring freely
from a clear shaker.
It's rows of blue birds
on a cedar fence.
Suddenly, they lift..."
-- Joan Logghe (From "Twenty Years in Bed with the Same Man")

Dear Bryan,

I never had any reason to maintain the faith that marriage was a good thing. Square pegs forced to live in round holes. One person's dreams leaving no room for the desires of the other. One identity folded into another so tightly that the first becomes invisible. Two people living by traditional expectations and roles having nothing to do with talent or ability or passion. Pummeling the joy out of every moment...reducing everything down to a late bill payment, a burnt meal, a failed enterprise, or hurt feelings. In spite of all of this, I kept my expectations high. Not for love, which came and went. I confess to sampling freely and often from that table.

But when it came to attempting FOREVER, I waited for the man who could show love as well as speak the language. You were the first in that respect. Anyone can affect a proper observance for love's High Holy Days...the birthday, Mother's Day, the anniversary. In the end, none of that means anything nor contributes significantly to the reality of living the rest of your life with one other human being. Rare is the man who can live the reality in its best light every single day and yet here you are. I waited for you. I've never regretted it. Thank you for the best 20 years of my life.

Love,
Stacy

Where I'm at...

2006-06-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

1. The fatigue continues. Fatigue and restlessness. Witness the change (yet again!) in background color. I found the other one tasteful, but depressing. It's only a matter of time before I run out of options and find myself on my knees and beating with my fists against the front door of Typepad or Wordpress and begging for someone to build me a blog that fits my creative (and mercurial) needs. But that means I have to learn some new stuff and....well...does anyone really learn anything well in the summer? How smart to you have to be to work either of these two kinds of blog providers? It's not like I'm fluent in HTML or anything, though it's rather like living in a foreign country and knowing a few crucial phrases (such as "Where is the bathroom?") that get you through the day. I hate Blogger, but I know where the bathroom is, so to speak, and I'm uneasy about change.

2. All the men of Half House are gone. The two oldest boys are working as staffers at Boy Scout camp and Mr. Half and the youngest are now gone for our troop's week of "The Big Adventure", the other name for Worth Ranch. All of them are waking up to this every morning..lucky dogs.

So...things are quiet and I'm trying to get back into the mode where I look out for myself and no one else. It's a skill that has gotten quite rusty in the last 17 years. Living here and slowing my pace and doing what I want to do (something else that hardly ever happens) is sort of like being single and living alone again. Except I have none of the obvious benefits of being single. After all these years of being a SAHM, one of the biggest blows to my ego (and there have been a few) has been the fact that I no longer contribute a significant amount of money to the family coffers. I was the person whose salary literally bought our first house, yet I've never been able to reconcile making such a pittance in the free-lance world...or--like now--making no money at all while trying to tend to junk here at Half House. I can pretend that this is "our money", but I'm never able to let myself forget that I didn't really earn it myself. And I really, really hate it. I know SAHM's contribute in ways that can never be adequately represented by a dollar figure (though Oprah's salary comes to mind), but if society really thought it was all that special and praiseworthy--other than Mother's Day--you'd see a line of men wanting to do it. And some do (See Cynical Dad), though I'd like to see more. Anyway....blah, blah, blah.

I went to the bookstore last night and then hit Chipotle for my crack-infused (Why else do we love it so??) Burrito Bol. While perusing the movie aisle, a man spied my hiking boots (I had only recently returned from dropping everyone off at camp) and struck up a conversation wherein it became eventually obvious (after 10 or so minutes where he kept asking me questions about random stuff) that the guy was...uh...flirting with me. It's so hard to tell these days and I'm way out of practice. I wasn't insulted, but I wasn't interested, either. Mostly, I was just...kind of stunned that any guy (other than some male senior citizen to whom I still appear relatively youthful) would see me in any way other than a mother. And in this case...a sweaty mother.

I ended up buying a book by Ayun Halliday ("Dirty Sugar Cookies") whose link is on my blogroll as well as the movie, "The Nun's Story" with the ever-wonderful Audrey Hepburn and Peter Finch. And when I say Peter Finch, I mean the Peter Finch who was hot and sex-xay before he blew up into an old-but-brilliant toad whose last role in "Network" ("I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!") encouraged angry people everywhere to throw their television sets out of an open window. If you chance to meet either of my two sisters, they can tell you that I reference the Archangel from this movie all of the time. I'm not going to spoil the plot for you, but Archangel is a metaphor for ALMOST EVERYTHING in my life. That is all.Although "The Nun's Story" --the title alone--would be a good way to describe my life right now. **sigh**

3. Yes I know that it's wrong to end a sentence or phrase in a preposition (See blog title), and it's especially dumb for a former English teacher. Having said that, I will say that I'm in Texas and it's really hot. Or...as Nilbo would say..."HAWT". I'm opening my car doors with potholders and the temp inside says 102. My brain is melting.

4. I got up early and went to yoga. Made deposits and both banks and mailed some letters. I've got some art project prototypes to make, but first I'm headed out to run. I try to listen to satellite radio and stay away from the stations which might discuss in any way the Maverick's recent and devastating 1-point loss to the Miami Heat. I still love me some Dirk Nowotzki.

5. So where's everyone else? Are you packing? Moving? On vacation? Are you out by the pool reading a trashy novel and working on your tan? Summer makes me very reflective and today's no exception. It makes me think about all the summer jobs I had as a teenager. What's the best summer job you ever had? I'll start. Six Flag Over Texas. Yes, it was 112 in the park and crowded. People asked stupid questions. Long hours and little pay (hmmm...kinda like my life now). But the community of friends and potential hook-ups with the opposite sex grew exponentially every day. And I learned some practical work skills, believe it or not.
So....tell me about yours. I'll be commenting on your blogs later tonight.

Summer Fatigue

2006-06-16T10:50:00.001-07:00

Photographic Evidence
More of the same

Okay...it (yesterday's) wasn't one of my better posts, but I plead exhaustion coupled with the effects of MSG. Mr. Half and I had a romantic little dinner downtown at PF Changs and by the time we got home my hands, feet and face were puffy. Maybe my brain was puffy, too. So puffy that I did not express myself clearly enough about the fact that I was updating on a previous post regarding neighbors who don't take down their seasonal lawn/house decorations.

In my defense, I did make a reference to the February archives and the post title, but it may have not been quite enough. Some people may have thought I was making a thinly veiled political metaphor (and took offense) and others may have just not understood what I was saying...or why I was saying it. At the time, I didn't have any pictures of my subject, so I had to resort to Google images. This may have only led to further confusion. So...I submit to you exhibits A and B. LAWN DECORATIONS. Nothing more.

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The weekend looms and with that the posting/ commenting traffic plummets quite a bit. Add to that the blogging fatigue that many are feeling along with thoughts about quitting or the hurt/confusion over low comments/visitors, the summer vacations, the plans and preparations to pack up and move to another house or another state, and the presence of children home for the vacation and you have the recipe for big blogger shutdown. I think everyone is feeling it. I hate to see that happen. I may quit Blogger...but I won't quit blogging. How about you?

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Everything on television is a repeat. There's nothing fresh going on out there and NetFlix and Blockbuster are doing a brisk business with all the bored folks out there who are desperate for something to watch. I was looking at an encore broadcast of "The Office" last night and it inspired me to look at the show's website. On it I found Dwight Shrute's "blog". Yeah, it left off in April and won't be updated until the new season, but it's worth a look if you haven't seen it before.

Have a good weekend. I'll update sometime early next week.

Update from "My Plea" , February 2006

2006-06-14T21:03:00.000-07:00

When we last left Uncle Sam (Archives: February. "My Plea") he was supine in the ground cover of our neighbor's yard with his red polyester pants partially hidden in the dirt and bark. A gentle breeze ruffled his left shirt cuff. Doodlebugs were living in his hat which had been all but flattened by the elements and the chunks of hay which had eroded from the bale upon which he had been proudly sitting two years prior. I knew it was only weeks before actors from the show "Law & Order: Lawn Decoration Unit" would pull up in front of our neighbor's house and gently zip Sam and his composting innards into a body bag. We waited.

And then...a miracle!

Mr. Half called yesterday from his truck to report that Uncle Sam was not, in fact, a flatliner. NOT DEAD!! HE LIVED!! Somehow, some way he had summoned the strength of ....well...whatever it is that inspires tired, stuffed lawn ornaments and had dragged himself into plain view in the yard where he lay spread-eagle with one arm either beckoning politely or gesturing in a suggestive manner. It was hard to tell..

I drove by tonight and his filthy shirt was visible by moonlight and his exhausted form lay sprawled halfway on a mouldering hay bale. The remains of a wooden pole were still rudely shoved up....ahem...I mean the wooden stake which had assisted his formerly jaunty pose atop the hay bale was still affixed to a spot below his foil-covered belt. What had raised Uncle Sam in the 11th hour? Was it the knowledge that Flag Day was near?? Was it the siren song of the upcoming Fourth of July which summoned him from his premature visit to Valhalla??

Or was it the five gallon drum of anti-freeze nearby that had caused his shameful and unforseen forward roll into the hedge in the first place? Oh the shame! The dishonor! Uncle Sam was not a victim of neglect at all. Dare I say it?? Uncle Sam...is a substance abuser. Oh the humanity!

Now I feel really guilty. All this time I thought he was a goner and all he really was...was passed out.
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Everyone go over to wish Tammie at Soul Gardening a Happy Birthday today!!
Tammie...I hope you get everything you're wishing for.

Funk Queen

2006-06-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

Lynda Barry is a writer, artist, illustrator. Reading her color-soaked cartoon books is like getting a note passed to you in class and when you open it, you find a funny joke with cool pictures drawn and doodled by one of your favorite friends. I started collecting her books years ago and, with the exception of one entitled "Naked Ladies, Naked Ladies", I have them all. Most are out of print. Simpsons creator, Matt Groening, is a longtime friend and contemporary of Barry's. His early cartoon efforts "Life in Hell" frequently contained tiny odes to Barry such as "Lynda Barry is Funk Queen of Here, There and Everywhere". Her books included title page messages like "Matt Groening is Funk Lord of USA".
Barry's world is one where kids and teenagers hold court. Characters say things we remember our friends and enemies saying to us and worlds collide in the occasionally-lucky but often-cruel manner that typifies the unfolding adolescent life. It's the kind of truth that makes you feel safe because you've been there before, though when it's not making you laugh it's making you wince. Anyone who lives in Seattle should feel that they're lucky to live in the same city as Lynda Barry. How cool would it be to be her neighbor? When weird stuff happened to you during the day, you could walk through your backyard fence into her yard and let yourself in through her kitchen door. You could sit around eating Chinese out of a carton and watching her use an inkstone and brush to do her pictures and you could tell her about the crazy man on the next block who feeds his dog lima beans and it would seem totally normal. Here's the cartoon that started it all for me. Click to enlarge and enjoy!

The Sexiest Men. Fo Reals Y'all!

2006-06-12T20:46:00.000-07:00

Okay...I know I almost started an insurrection by criticizing celebrities on this site a few weeks ago and though I reserve the right to continue on that path of unrepentant snark, I'm taking a different tack tonight. I'm using the above photos to illustrate a point. Look at the pictures and figure out the common denominator or simply continue reading.

My aim is simple: I'm going to provide men with a simple-but-crucial piece of the puzzle that has dogged them since time began. The question being, "What do women want from us?"

Intelligence? Yes, it's a must. Humor? Make us laugh and you're halfway home, my friend. Loyalty? Sure, that helps. We even like a stunningly handsome exterior, but it's not always required. Yeah...we're funny that way.

But what IS it about men that makes even the steeliest female reserve melt like a crayon on a hot Texas sidewalk? I hope you've got your pencils and paper ready because I'm about to make an important point. Here it is: It's a man who loves his children. Or any children for that matter.

No, I'm not kidding. A man who doesn't merely speak of his love for his kids but who SHOWS that love in a public place...honestly and often? A man who tenderly holds a baby close without acting as though it's a bomb getting ready to explode? A man who crouches low to hear the nonsensical words of a toddler or who doesn't mind drawing pictures with his daughter at the kitchen table or giving his son a bottle in the middle of the night? Let me tell you a little secret about women. We know the difference between a guy who tolerates infants and their body functions and one who willingly enjoys sniffing the top of a baby's head. Knowing a man who never, EVER refers to an afternoon with his children as babysitting?? A guy who doesn't see a pregnant woman as fat but as a flushed and warm cocoon for the child they made together. Yeah....uh...it makes us sweat.

The sight of you nibbling on your son's ear causes a little something in our pelvic region to give way and we are helpless to overcome the urge to have our way with you right there in the aisle at Target. You don't believe me? Go to an arts festival in your town (I did this, so I can attest to its truth) and have your husband strap on a Snugli front pack with a baby (hopefully yours) in it. Send him to get beer and then count the women who are inexplicably drawn to him like metal shavings to a magnet. Told ya.

A man like that? He makes every egg in our ovaries rise up and salute before exploding in a glittery shower of tiny valentine hearts, rainbows and sweet baby chicks. You think I'm kidding? I'm totally not.

I'm very lucky because Mr. Half is a baby-loving nutcase who can't pass a kid on the street without waving or speaking to him/her. He was a counselor at the same pediatric cancer camp where I teach art now and I've seen him completely lose it emotionally when one of those kids experiences even the smallest life victory....and even when they lose the battle altogether. Say it with me now..."a tender-hearted man is a STRONG man".

I say this because I wanted to give a big shout out to the bloggers I know who don't have to be prompted to show us how much they dig their families. Chris at Rude Cactus never fails to verbally groove on his baby daughter Mia and his posts frequently and openly demonstrate his love for her as well as his wife Beth. Chag at Cynical Dad is a stay-at-home father to Zed and Zoey. It would not be adviseable to tell him that caring for children is "women's work". Not unless you want him and every mother who reads this to hunt you down like a dog in the road. And then there's Nilbo. Yeah...his daughters are college graduates and one's getting married, but his pride in his kids is still so obvious. Add this to their writing abilities and you've got THE REAL MEASURE OF A MAN.

So...yeah...I took a potshot at the Pitt-Jolie hook-up and I still completely suspect that Angelina will kick him to the curb eventually. And despite the fact that the dismally traditional Parade Magazine is already saying that Pitt has lost his appeal (as a "real man", dontcha know!) to the masses because he's following the mother of his child to Namibia ("like a puppy" is how they put it), the sight of this man gazing at his tiny daughter with an expression of awe and wonder is almost too much to take. The minute this People Magazine spread hit the stands, women all over the world began ovulating in unison. Can they give the Sexiest Man Alive award to the same person twice??? I'm just asking, because you can't argue with biology and all my eggs are voting the same way. Can I get a witness?

Don't forget to write it down.

2006-06-11T15:34:00.001-07:00

There's something quite unreal about getting a phone call telling you that a person is dead. Especially if you weren't expecting it. The deaths of terminally ill people, old people, even those who go to the hospital for minor surgery and die from complications don't elicit the same stomach punch of breathless disbelief as the deaths of people who consider life to be a daily adventure. You hear the words and then they just sort of hang out there in the air for a moment before your mind is able to read and comprehend the meaning. One minute he's there...and the next he's not.

A friend of ours died last week. I should be clear and say that, had I not married Mr. Half, I probably wouldn't know RS at all. Because I did marry him and because a tight network of high school buddies (including Mr. Half's two younger brothers) has stayed close since elementary school, I was lucky enough to have known RS for about 21 years. Either way, RS died on Sunday after slipping into a diabetic coma, and because he was alone when it happened, he could not be saved. It was two days before he was found. It was, to say the least, a huge shock. RS was the life of every party.

RS had a huge group of friends and many of them came from out of state and one even rerouted her flight on the way back from Venezuela to be there. My brother-in-law left early from an architect's convention in Los Angeles in order to arrive at D/FW at midnight before the 10 a.m. burial. Eight of the friends, including my two brothers-in-law, served as pallbearers and it was an especially emotional moment to watch as the same guys with whom RS had ridden bikes (as kids) through the neighborhood or those with whom he competed for First Chair trumpet in middle school band struggled under the weight their friend's casket as they brought it to its final resting place.

The service itself was long and...somewhat difficult. Despite an eventful dating life, RS was not married and had no kids, so the planning of the service fell to his older siblings and elderly parents. With the exception of a sister, a childhood friend and three co-workers who spoke eloquently on his behalf, the rest of the service seemed to address a person other than the friend we knew. The music, the words, the rather protracted and vociferous assumptions regarding his religious faith on behalf of the older brother seemed to ring falsely. Surely RS would never have wanted this awful, awful singer to punctuate his funeral with no less than four solos? The RS we knew would never have ordered this.

The thing is, people express informally what they want or don't want all the time. They go to a wedding and hear a song and say to a friend, "Dear God, that's hideous. I'll never use that at my wedding! You attend a funeral and you make a mental note to yourself NOT to be buried on a hot Texas afternoon. In the movie, "Hi-Fidelity", John Cusack's character, Rob Gordon, makes just such an announcement while attending a funeral and considers Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross" as something he'd like played at his service. Of course, you get to plan the wedding yourself, but the funeral is unfortunately--unless you've got intentions to leave the planet soon-- the domain of those left behind...and not necessarily the people who know you the best. And what 45 year old with plenty of living to do sits down and writes out a funeral program? Clearly our friend did not.

So I'm saying it here and now. If I die...you know....before I expect to and Mr. Half and the boys are all still here?? They get to decide. (Okay...let my sisters pick the clothes I'm wearing because I'm sure not leaving that up to someone without a uterus) They know what I want and what I don't and I'm writing it all down just to make sure. I don't want someone else's expression of what looks or sounds good or right or proper to invade my final hurrah...whenever that is. No pontificating. No music requests to suit personal tastes (use them at your own service). Fourteen drawn out verses of the same old hymn won't change the fact that I'm dead or the person I was prior to dying. No making me sound better or nicer or holier than I am...or was. I don't want my friends walking out afterward as we did yesterday asking ourselves if perhaps the brother wasn't eulogizing another person...and not RS. There...I feel better now...sort of.

And can I just say that the sanctity of a funeral procession is no longer something ordinary citizens give a crap about?? Despite the police escort and the stretch limo for family and the long line of cars with lights on, we had at least two cars CUT IN on the funeral procession. One sped up next to our line of cars, cut in front of us and rode along until his exit came up and the other cut in front of us and used the procession to expedite her trip to the street of her choosing, rather than pulling over alike everyone else. Honking? It does nothing to dissuade these losers. I'm continually astounded at the erosion of our society.

I'm ready for something to happen that will give me a deeply satisfying belly laugh. I want to lose my breath over something hilarious. And then I want to write about it. Keep your fingers crossed.

In Her Own Words

2006-06-08T16:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a direct quote from Ann Coulter's recent bit of fascist propaganda, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism" (incidentally...lifelong Democrat and devout man of God, the Reverend Billy Graham, might object just a little to her title choice, but that's another post) Coulter's words were aimed at four 9/11 widows who have been very proactive in questioning the decisions made by this administration and events that led up to the 9/11 attacks.

"I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much. And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry and appear in Playboy."

That any person (let alone a woman) could criticize, question or second-guess the feelings or motivations of these women and their losses is beyond my comprehension. Her heart must be a molten mix of broken glass, rusty metal and battery acid...with a little essence of Pol Pot thrown in for good measure.

Coulter believes she can say anything she wants...no matter how hate-filled or false or beyond the pale it is and it had better be accepted with as much reverence as the tablets Moses brought down from the mountain. Any person (Democrat) daring to question her is bitch-slapped into submission with another round of lies, threats and a lesson in the type of "Christian attitude" the likes of which haven't been seen since the Crusades.

Don't get me wrong. I love a strong-willed woman, but I think you first have to qualify as a human being before anyone can consider you a woman and that requires not only a brain but a heart. I think all Coulter has going for her is a pulse and even Hitler had one of those. I'm disgusted by her in a way that surprises even me. I started out to post about how pissed off I am that Blogger is breaking down so often lately and how FREE SERVICE is just another word for "lame-ass". But Coulter just makes me even angrier.

The writer, E.B. White said it best in his book "Charlotte's Web" while describing the odious character of Templeton the Rat: "The rat had no morals, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything. He would kill a gosling if he could get away with it--the goose knew that. Everybody knew it." Just because Coulter fancies herself a beautiful women (Is she? Really?), she feels no one notices the fact that she vomits her words...rather than simply speaking them like everyone else. We noticed, Ann. Now go eat a sandwich for the love of Pete? Mmm-kay?

Don't stand too close to the tracks, Ann Coulter. Even the Karma train has been known to jump them in order to run over those who truly deserve it. Your turn is coming.

Will It Go Round In Circles?

2006-06-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

Houston native. Songwriter. Singer. The "Fifth" Beatle. Legend. Adios, Billy Preston.

In Retrospect

2006-06-06T14:38:00.001-07:00

How to articulate flying to another coast to live, eat, drink and talk with four other women for a long-ish weekend? Such events are rare in my world...especially the female part. Living with so many males I've mostly convinced myself that I don't really get along all that well with other women. That I have nothing to say to them and no time to listen, though neither is remotely true.

Rarer still is the opportunity to commune with people whose deepest thoughts reside at the tip of your own brain because you read their words every day, yet you've never heard the sound of their voices. Pictures posted on a blog are not the same as a living, breathing person ordering filet mignon and wine in front of you...or the same person waiting patiently while you look for just the right souvenir t-shirt for your pickiest kid. Savannah's residents are fiercely proud of the city's history and completely embrace the possibility of ghosts...both friendly and otherwise. Here...age has great value (whether exemplified by buildings or people)...so I felt completely at home as I was the oldest person in our group by quite a stretch. I felt accepted, despite my obvious issues with getting...uh...older. And if that little detail about me hasn't become patently obvious to you by now, you probably haven't been around here long. But now that I've shared it with four other people and no one threw up or offered to find me a wheelchair, I'll come clean about an issue I've been deliberately vague about since I started this blog. I'm 47. There, I said it.
Teebs (Tammie) is such a warm person. Quiet...yes...but not because she has nothing to say. I forget who said she had gorgeous skin, but it's true and she has eyes that are like dark gingersnaps. And the hair...with such a curl that I could never coax from my own. She is a person who is open to all possibilities and so having a conversation with her is easygoing and stimulating at the same time. As we sat having a beer together and talking I felt that this was a woman I had known my entire life. And God...the woman is organized!
Sorry this is so blurry...her feet are so pretty!
Mrs. Harridan describes herself as an acid-tongued virago and while it's true that this is one women who won't take crap from anyone, she is a compassionate person with a deep well of emotions that your average virago--unlike Mrs. H-- would rather keep hidden. She is funny and quick and original...and she has lovely red hair and she's thin enough to wear these cool, skinny pants that I would kill to fit into. Jealous? You bet!

Arabella's voice is soft and deliberate. There is a zen quality to the way she speaks and I don't think I ever heard her raise her voice the entire time. All of these women have amazing skin and Arabella's is a very light olive that goes well with a dark mane of hair. She is smart and she looks like a very petite dancer who happens also to be blessed with a good brain. I also hear she can kick ass at the airport when flight information isn't announced the right way and certain people's flights get screwed with.

Mignon's hair reminds me of mine when, years ago, I decided to cut it off and let it stand up on its own. It's very symbolic of the person independent person she is. She is a free spirit with an open heart and a willingness to be silly. She is kind and smart and she doesn't mind making crazy faces for the camera. One minute she's clowning and the next she's on the phone comforting one of her small children at home. She has good ideas and plans for her life and she's always ready to see what's around the corner.
I can't wait for next year's Blogfest...honestly. I know the numbers started out much larger when the idea was first suggested and as finances, schedules, family and geography got the better of them we were still able to create a "Fest" with a just the right amount of people. It only takes one person to make a Blog. How many people does it take to make it a Fest? Five.
Five is the perfect number.

We're Back

2006-06-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

Now it can be told that I and four of my blogging compatriots (Mrs. Harridan, Teebs, Arabella and Mignon) invaded the fair city of Savannah, Georgia over the long weekend for the B-List Blogfest and are now (along with the city itself) in need of a very long nap.

There was much talking and eating and reading blogs on laptops and walking over the cobblestoned streets as well as gawking at the awesomely preserved historical buildings and taking pictures of said buildings...as well as of each other. Much of this was accomplished, of course, in a mildly "lubed" state due to whatever refreshing...uh...lubricant was available, and might I say that those margaritas at the haunted Mexican restaurant were just lovely!

Here's a picture of our feet after an enormous dinner...and some wine.

There's just no place like a cemetery to make you think about calling up friends (Debbie and Shrinking Violet) and tormenting them for not being there with you.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2006-05-31T14:02:00.000-07:00

I'm flying out tomorrow morning to an undisclosed location where I will be wining and dining with Arabella, Mignon, Mrs. Harridan and Teebs until Sunday at a B-List Blogger Extravaganza. I'm not sure whether I need anxiety meds more to haul myself onto the plane (massive fear of flying) or to lounge out by the pool in a bathing suit. Maybe both. Mr. Half bought me laptop last night and I'm getting a crash course in making it work. Until Sunday...you stay classy!
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Thanks to Teebs who nominated my "Life Menu" post for the Perfect Post Award. Just for that...I'm buying you a drink! My nomination for the May installment of the Perfect Post goes to Jess over at "Drowning in Kids" The post is called "Success" and I think it's important to realize that many of the skills/abilities we take for granted today as adults were once huge challenges. We can't forget to celebrate those successes...large and small with those we love. It's all about the baby steps. One foot in front of the other. Day after day.

Postscript

2006-05-29T06:25:00.000-07:00

It seems necessary at this juncture to make a point-- or simply re-emphasize said point-- which may have become buried in my heated response to some of my more caustic commenters. You do not have to agree with what you read here. I would be surprised if everyone did. You are free to express your view here...even if it differs from mine. In civilized society, this is called a "discussion". As I've said, if I was the kind of person who only tolerated nice thoughts, I would delete everything I didn't like. The only comment I've deleted yesterday was one of my own.

Likewise, I don't have to like your responses. Especially those which confuse my views with those made by commenters. I am free to address the parts of the comments with which I agree or take issue. That also falls under the heading of "discussion". Not enjoying a personal attack doesn't necessarily make me someone who doesn't like controversy. It makes me a human being.

See...there are commenters and there are friends. I know the difference and there are plenty of other bloggers/commenters/friends out there who know the difference, too. I'm aware that by requiring people to "own" their comments (by not allowing anonymous remarks) I'm likely to lose a good portion of the more emotionally stable folks out there who just stopped by for a look this weekend. I do regret that. Those who persist in pretending that such a move makes me intolerant of a spirited discussion don't make such a presumption true. There is a vast difference between an anonymous comment that expresses an opposing view (Such as comments from those who still like Tom Cruise) and the equivalent of a verbal drive-by shooting.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled program.

Now I know just how Amalah felt last week

2006-05-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

I remember my first commenter. I posted some inane bit of writing about Christmas cards--I think-- and within 10 minutes a guy sent me a note. Ahh....good times. I didn't know him and he hasn't been back since. No matter....he was doing what I assume we all do...surfing around and trying to find writing that makes us sit up and take notice. I hope that guy went on to find a blog (or several) that suited his taste better. Like they say in "The Godfather", 'It's not personal...it's just business." Liking or not liking a blog, that is.

What sticks out most in my mind right now is that he didn't feel the need to leave a slasher note telling me how hard my writing/opinion sucked the big pudding and how he stumbled across my festering pustule of a blog and how he's never coming back because of my opinion of Christmas card-sending or how my complaints about living in a democracy where Christmas card sending is a tradition are really a subversive attack on God and why am I bitching about the fact that I don't have time to take a decent picture of my kids for the card while homeless people aren't getting fed and the terrorists are winning and how in the name of Bill O' Reilly is it that I'm not aware that Africa is a beautiful continent and how adopted kids are real and not pretend and deserve to be counted as such by those who laugh at their movie star parents?

I'm appreciating that guy an awful lot right this moment. In honor of him I would like to stop here and address a few people/points specifically.

**Who could have predicted the vitriolic responses from people who, while claiming I don't know shit about Angelina Jolie's personal life (NEVER CLAIMED TO) can follow up that claim with a syncophantic tribute to AJ's blemishless life of philanthropy and compassion while simulaneously besmirching the truly sacrificial life's work of a well-loved nun by daring to compare the two? THAT'S RIGHT CUTEESMILEZ, I'M TALKING TO YOU. YEAH...I KNOW YOU SAID YOU WON'T BE BACK (and from your lips to God's ears, I hope that's true) BUT IT'S ALSO TRUE THAT NARCISSISTS LIKE YOU CAN'T WAIT TO SEE HOW PEOPLE RESPOND TO STINKBOMBS OF "WISDOM" SUCH AS THE ONE YOU DROPPED HERE, SO MAYBE YOU'LL COME BACK TO PEEK THROUGH THE FENCE. I'LL BREAK IT DOWN FOR YOU, SISTER. NO ONE HERE THINKS YOU KNOW SHIT ABOUT JOLIE EITHER. THE TRUTH IS...NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT HER...OR ANYONE ELSE WHO IS FAMOUS. THE HOLLYWOOD SPIN WORKS BOTH WAYS. HALF OF THE CRAP WE HEAR ABOUT IS THE WORK OF LYING PUBLICITY AGENTS AND IT COVERS UP THE STUFF WE DON'T HEAR ABOUT THAT'S PROBABLY STRANGER THAN FICTION.

Take that story about Oprah --a woman with about a bascrillion dollars in the bank--for instance and how she's throwing Vince and Jennifer an 8 million dollar wedding? It's about as plausible as it is implausible, no? I mean she threw that Legends Ball deal where guests were spooning liquid gold soup out of platinum bowls and The Goddess That Is Oprah presented everyone from whom she claims to have gained influence and inspiration-- from Halle Berry to Dr. Maya Angelou-- with chandelier-sized diamond earrings and everyone sobbed into their Valentino-clad cleavages and sang praise songs about Miss O...a woman who could buy and sell each and every one of them many times over. Aaaaa-men!

So believing the wedding story is just as easy as not. The same goes for my speculation regarding the outcomes of the Cruise/Holmes engagement and the Jolie/Pitt partnering. And I'm not going to apologize for my opinion about those people. People who don't like what they read here and feel the urge to tarry and be uncivilized at the same time should not feel obligated to continue reading ...please don't let the door hit you on the way out.

In addition--

**To "Anonymous" who accused me of being anti-feminist for describing Jolie as "acting like a man": My description wasn't a compliment, dear and I wasn't endorsing the archaic tradition of gender roles. I HATE gender roles...regardless of whatever justification one uses. What I was implying was that men usually do the leaving when abandonment of family is the order of the day. I'm not praising the practice. I'm condemning it. It just so happens that it's Jolie who is calling the shots in this relationship and I predict a bad end to her relationship with Brad. I'm just making an observation and though the horizon looks dire for the following claim, I still believe that it's a free country...for the moment. Don't kill the messenger.

**To "Anonymous" (Who knew there were so many people named Anonymous???) who thinks I don't have any strong women in my life. That's right, Einstein...ignore the other 130+ posts on this blog where I talk about me or my family and friends and USE JUST THIS ONE about famous people to make assumptions about me. I have plenty of strong women in my life ( I just hope you never have to meet either of my sisters in a dark alley)...they just don't need to wear the blood of their husbands/sons/brothers/lovers in a vial around their necks or tattoo a Cambodian bar code on their backs to prove it. (Note to anyone with a tattoo....I don't have a problem with tattoos. Really. I can't say I won't ever get one.)

**To "Anonymous" who thinks I don't like adopted children and that I hate Africa and to another "Anonymous" who adopted a kid from Ethopia and thinks I'm dissing her kid or adopted kids or adopted kids from foreign countries ( Why else would she be so pissed?) as well as yet another "Anonymous" who thinks I'm favoring Jennifer Aniston over Angelina I would ask you all to put down the crackpipes and READ THE POST AGAIN. S-L-O-W-L-Y. And no...I don't mind it if your lips move while you read. See the pretty words? Do I question Angelina's trip to Africa (which was really just a way to find a private place to give birth and not a Goodwill mission of mercy at all)? No I do not. Please do not confuse my words with the words of other commenters.

Do you see the words "Jennifer Aniston" in that post? Do you? Of course you don't. It's because they're not there. I made no assumptions about prior marriages or pairings. Don't pretend that I did just to give you something to write about. Do I malign in any way the babies of foreign countries? Of course not. I loves me some babies...all colors. And you...that first "Anonymous" commenter who got upset because I didn't count Maddox and Zahara as the first kids of Pitt? Well...they're not his...yet. And besides....the post was a comparison of two men with a movie to promote and who were paired with a woman who was not yet his wife who was also heavily pregnant with his child. I was looking at the behaviors of those two men. Nothing else. My words should not in anyway threaten your memberships in the Angelina Jolie Fanclub International, so step off!

**To "Funo" who haltingly claimed that I had TOO MUCH TIME on my hands to set the pretty stones in a row. Yeah well....it's called being an artist, Funo. Read my profile. Sometimes people pay me MONEY to paint pretty things for them...and that requires the time you speak of. Yes, I do like salad (thanks for asking) and yes I'm glad that, after three kids, I don't look like Carnie Wilson. However, your opinion about the length of my husband's hair (Oh...I get it...yours is falling out!!) is stepping over the line between casual observation and cruising for a non-surgical facial alteration. If you see me on the cover of the Enquirer, feel free to offer your opinions about me. Otherwise the only person who appears to be burdened with too much time on his hands is you, given your need (and Time!!) to scroll through my Flickr account before offering comments.

**Someone left behind the stunning generalization claiming "ALL DAD'S (sic) ARE GREAT". Really? All of them? Don't feel you have to answer too quickly. Because I think there's a mother of two little boys, ages 4 & 8, (whose father threw them off of the roof of a 15-story hotel this week in Miami Beach) who would disagree with you right now. Do you own a newspaper or a television?

**And for the record....someone needs to check the date on the post before fretting about the fact that I don't write about IMPORTANT WORLD AFFAIRS LIKE INDONESIA!! My post was written on Thursday the 25th!! The debacle in Indonesia didn't happen until Saturday. Get a calendar and don't come back until you do!

**Please God...save me from the semi-literate rantings of those who claim they simply logged onto their computers to "check their e-mail" and, instead, found my blog. Aside from the fact that it is technologically impossible to find me merely by checking your e-mail (While you are no doubt awaiting a message from your buddy who has a really great porn sight for you to check out), it is important for you to know that your opinion, like that of so many others who want the benefit of being heavyhanded with their criticism while maintaining the all-important anonymity, loses much of its validity when you offer said comments without letting us know who you are. Sure...I have a site meter that tells me where you guys are located and your ISP numbers. But your comments--minus any referring blog/e-mail/website--are really just a limp slap, rather than the powerful punches you intended.

**To the guy who thinks I'm not aware that America isn't what it used to be? What?? You think I can't see the changes? You think I don't know that my rights aren't getting sold to Halliburton so that someone else can listen in on my conversations and then read a whitewashed version of today's news on FOX? Yeah...like that hurts my feelings! But I don't think it has a damned thing to do with baby Shiloh being born in Namibia. Try again.

I do appreciate the folks who dropped by to say hello (even anonymously) and decided to stick around for the fracas. I hope you come back when the room isn't so crowded with idiots. Please know that my decision to prohibit anonymous comments on the blog from here on out is not because of you. Not everyone who comments necessarily wants a blog or has one. That's fine. It's because of the other eleventy-three "anonymous" people who are too cowardly to let me know who they are but who still want to make salacious claims against me without having to face the obvious verbal rebuttal that follows. Here's where you get off.

If I didn't like criticism I would simply delete what I didn't like. I LOVE a good fight...I just enjoy it more when I know who I'm having it with. I've never deleted comments before now and I probably won't unless someone decides to get really filthy. I think I'll leave these as they are so that others can more fully appreciate the writings of those whose atrocious reading comprehension is exceeded only by their shameful inability to use a dictionary or utilize simple subject/verb agreement. I love all my commenters...even the ones who disagree with me...just as long as they sign the nasty note with their real names before wrapping it around a brick and hurling it through my window!! And of course, I don't mind the nicer folks who find it necessary not to use their names. It does, however, leave me feeling *sigh* a little empty.

As far as I'm concerned, the discussion is over. It is for that reason that I've disabled the comments for that post only. Just that one. I've heard it all...even the nice stuff. I'm pouring myself a glass of wine and going to my happy place. I'll see you all on Tuesday.

Just a thought

2006-05-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

Brad Pitt declined to attend the Cannes Film Festival to promote his new movie "Babel" and remains in Namibia with Angelina Jolie. He cited the imminent birth of their first child together as good enough reason to stay behind and act like a father.

Compare this with Tom Cruise's pathetic bid for attention (not to mention a hit movie...FOR A CHANGE!) by leaving his extremely pregnant ~~captive~~ human incubator--er--fiancee, Katie Holmes, in order to plug "Mission Impossible 3" on another continent. Yeah, yeah...he made it back for the spawning, but the damage has been done, you monkey-spanking freak.

Not that it matters. I don't give either couple a snowball's chance in Hell of lasting another year or two (at the most), but I thought the contrast was worthy of a remark. Trust me on this. Jolie, who's playing the role of the man in this coupling, will give Pitt the heave-ho once she's finished draining him of his man-juice OR until she delivers her next child in a hut near the Arctic Circle while being midwifed by kindly Harp Seals. Katie Holmes will take a powder as soon as her drugs wear off and she can chew through the restraints.

You heard it here first.

Homing Instinct

2006-05-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

Teebs posted about dreams the other day and it got me to thinking about my own. I think I've previously written in this space about the way I dream at night. Unlike Mr. Half, I don't dream about accomplishments or abilities. I'm unable to summon the kind of fanciful attitude--even when unconscious-- that allows me to achieve greatness. In my dream life I never become a leader or a famous person. I can't seem to remember that, because it's a dream, I can do the impossible. I don't take control of any situation. Ever. I'm incapable of flying.

The dreams I remember usually find me at the mercy of forces that move me like a chess piece around the board of life. In them I'm usually trying to extricate myself from a situation involving a bad choice or mistakes that cost me indepenence and that threaten my safety and that of those I love. Fear and regret are constant themes and the nightmares which don't feature me running from danger or dogged by authority figures that would tie me down and limit my physical, emotional or intellectual movement are few and far between.

I never dream about my childhood or early adolescence. I don't dream about high school. I'm like a person who has experienced a traumatic head injury and my memory will only go back just so far. My sophomore year of college is where it starts...maybe because I probably didn't start thinking for myself until then. It's the year I made friends with guys from a particular dorm...one of whom would end up being my husband.

My one consistent dream theme is this place: J.C. Hotard "Hilton" Hall on the campus of Texas A&M University. It mostly involves a scenario wherein I've forgotten to Q-drop a particularly challenging or boring class and I've just stopped attending class at all. (I used to dream that I'd forgotten to check my mail for so long that I could no longer remember the mailbox combination, but that's another post) It's a few weeks before the final and I need to find the professor and beg for clemency...either that or begin a cramming session of such spectacular proportion that food and sleep become minor annoyances, rather than necessities. But every dream that involves college finds me walking/driving/running/biking in a northward direction to the Hilton.

"The Hilton" was a guy's dorm. Built in 1923 it originally housed men and women who worked in the Food Services department for the university. It didn't become Dorm 13 until the 1950s and it didn't get air-conditioning until 1981. It was the cheapest dorm on campus and, esthetically speaking, it was the crummiest. Still, it was surrounded by two grassy lawns and trees. It had those cool windows that cranked open and outward. On Spring evenings you could turn up the stereo, prop your feet up on the sill, drink a cold beer and feel the breeze on your feet. The Hilton was also conveniently located a stone's throw from The Dixie Chicken.

It was rarely silent there. Sound traveled down the uncarpeted first floor and up the concrete stairwells. Guys shouting or laughing or singing...badly. One guy in a first floor corner room played the soundtrack to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" almost constantly. The sounds of people watching "M*A*S*H" in the tv rooms or that of someone bouncing a basketball. People playing volleyball in the yard or grilling burgers outside the RA's room.

Christmas featured fir trees hung upside down from the ceiling in hall windows and decorated with lights and women's underwear. Bong water ritually dumped out of the windows produced spectacular results of a horticultural nature. When the men of Hotard conducted a panty raid, they made sure to call on a couple of southside men's dorms which harbored a good portion of the campus' "frat rats", a fact that allowed them to pretend-- with wicked antagonism--that these guys were panty-wearers as well. And when the yearbook called for each residence hall to name a sweetheart, the Hilton's residents decided one particular year on the dorm's housekeeper, Louise.

Mr. Half's room sported charcoal sketches on the cinderblock wall. Steely Dan's "Bodhisattva" blared from the speakers. The first time I ate venison was in a stew he made for me on a hotplate in his room. Don't ask me how. In these dreams I'm trying to get back to a place where the lights are always blazing...even at night. Where you could always find a friend and a bit of interesting conversation. A place where the curfew rules were lax and women were always welcome. Some of my best studying was done there. The guys who lived there back in my day are, of course, long gone. They're scientists and engineers and university professors. And one just left a position at the Pentagon. Regardless of political affiliation or socio-economic status, they would all tell you that there was literally "no place like the Hilton". In fact, when the circa-1923 doors were replaced with new ones, one former resident kept his. It now functions as the door to one of the bathrooms in his home. Mr. Half rescued the plastic number #109 from the door of his freshman year room.

I can't tell you why the source of my best dreams center on a place I never lived. What does it mean when I say I've thrown away my own dorm shirts but that I own two vintage Hotard Shirts and bought a third one that says "Save Hotard" when the university threatened to turn it into office space? It's a threat which became a reality last year. Perhaps it's because Hotard was a place where I began to get the impression that maybe...just maybe.. guys had a better shot at a bigger life than girls did. More freedom. More latitude to experiment and make mistakes and perhaps I'm thinking that getting back to Hotard will allow me to grab some of that freedom for myself.

Maybe--in those dreams--I'm just trying to get back to the beginning. Maybe I want to see the way we used to be...Mr. Half and me...untouched by worries of kids, paying for college, overwork or getting older. Maybe in one dream I'll change my major before it's too late and become something that actually makes me happy. Maybe I'll learn to be brave or original or daring. Or maybe I'm just looking for a young, long-haired guy with a red beard and an earring ambling towards me with his hand outstretched. When that happens, it'll be the best dream of all.

Paging Dr. Freud. Paging Dr. Freud...

Where do you go most often in your dreams?

Brush with Fame

2006-05-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

Years ago I drove to a neighboring city where the author Pat Conroy ("The Great Santini", "Prince of Tides") was doing a book signing for his new book, "Beach Music". I took with me my very ragged copy of Santini and stood in an incredibly long line for my turn to have his signature on it as well as the new book.

The line took a long time to make its way to the table where Conroy sat and as I got closer I was able to see why. Pat Conroy took time to chat with every person. It was more than just a book signing. Conroy was a studier of people and talking to them seemed to make him light up from within. One man who was just ahead of me wanted to tell the author that he was--like Conroy-- a graduate of The Citadel and this sparked a warm conversation.

When it was my turn he took the books I offered for his signature and asked me what I did. Now, at the time I was the at-home mother of three boys who were 1, 5 & 6, but I was also a regular reviewer for a large newspaper as well as for a university press literary journal. I told Mr. Conroy that I reviewd books. He was immediately interested. I told him I had lost my bid to review his book as several other reviewers had already rushed to claim the privilege.

He said, "So what are you reviewing right now? I'm always interested in what others are reading and I'm making a list of their suggestions." I told him I was reviewing Gabriel Garcia Marquez' "Love in the Time of Cholera". Conroy scribbled the title on a list next to him and then asked if I had ever read Marquez' "One Hundred Years of Solitude". I said that I had and that I loved the magical imagery and the author's obvious love for food and its preparation. His books were riddled with it. Conroy--a man whose books include a similar tendency-- agreed and then right there quoted the entire opening paragraph from "One Hundred Years of Solitude". FROM MEMORY!!! I went home and checked it out.

A French couple stood right behind me and had their picture taken with Pat Conroy and then snapped this one of me. I got it in the mail about a month later. It hangs in my office.

Of course when I told my dad about the encounter he couldn't believe that I didn't tell Pat Conroy about my children. Hu-what??? It was a book signing. There were time limits. We were there to talk about books. What did kids have to do with books...in that context?

"Dad...he asked me what I did. I interpreted that to mean he wanted to know what brought me to that bookstore. Books!! Books are what brought me there. "

"Yes, but he asked you what you did, didn't he?"

"Yes, and I told him that I was a book reviewer...because I am."

"But you don't spend the greater percentage of your day writing. You spend it taking care of children."

"Yeah...but I don't think taking care of kids is what made me want to stand in line. And I don't think it would have been the best answer to his question. Is there a rule about how I spend my day that dictates how I can define myself?"

"I think there is...yes."

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

So....aside from my sweet father's incredible and totally exasperating need to see me as nothing more than June Cleaver with a college degree, I was still able to file that brief conversation with Pat Conroy under the AWESOME column when tallying up "Life's Experiences".

Have you had a brush with fame? Did that person turn out to be better or worse than you thought?

Denny we hardly knew ye...

2006-05-18T19:37:00.000-07:00

Damn you, writers of "Grey's Anatomy"! A pox on thee and your houses for squandering ink and paper in order to kill off dear Denny in such a cruel and cavalier manner. Did he not lie abed and endure the all indignities of his illness? Yea, the catheter and the backless hospital gown sought to bring him low, but they could not do it. So you summoned your demonic muses in order to concoct a lonely death for our hero and because you did, we weep openly and unashamed.

Still...cast your eyes upon his last moments in the arms of his beloved. Even in death, is he not fair? Though the breath has been snatched from his lips, are they not full and shapely? His noble brow from which death can ne'er alter the manly architecture rests fair upon the pillow. The soft shadow his lashes make upon his rosy cheek belies the Reaper's touch.

Cry not for his absence, my friends, for Showtime's "Weeds" is still yours for the asking and he speaks as a voice from beyond the grave. Indeed, his presence can be also felt on the Supernatural. Hie thee quickly and without delay to JeffreyDeanMorgan.Net and let your hearts be calmed.

Meme Questions I Felt Like Answering

2006-05-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

1. WHAT IS YOUR FIRST NAME? Stacy
2. ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? My middle name is Patricia. I'm named for my mother's best friend since 2nd grade.
3. DO YOU WISH ON STARS? Only falling ones.
4. WHEN DID YOU CRY LAST? Around noon today. It's been a rough couple of days. I don't cry easily, willingly or well.
5. DO YOU LIKE YOUR OWN HANDWRITING? Not really. I have no consistent way of writing. It's a cross between printing and cursive. Since I type more frequently now than I write things by hand, my writing is worse than ever.
6. FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT? Whatever they put on a Subway Italian BMT. Second? Kosher Bologna.
7. WHEN IS YOUR BIRTHDAY? March 24th. Same as Harry Houdini and Steve McQueen.
8. MOST EMBARRSSING CD? Anything by Michael Jackson
9. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU WANT TO BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? I don't know if I'd want to be friends with me. I do know I would never want to be my enemy.
10. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? Burned the ones from my sucky teenage life. I have part of one I kept when my kids were little and another one about their lives--not mine. This blog isn't my journal, though. I'm pretty sure of that.
11. WOULD YOU EVEN BUNGEE JUMP? Oh HAY-ULL no! Falling from any height for any reason is something I strive to avoid.
12. FAVORITE CEREAL? For a pure sugar rush...Captain Crunch. If I want to feel proud of myself--Cheerios.
13. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES BEFORE YOU TAKE THEM OFF? None of my shoes tie...except my running shoes. I untie the long-distance shoes because they're the newer ones. The older pairs I usually don't bother to untie.
14. DO YOU SEE YOURSELF AS A STRONG PERSON? Physically...yes. I'm rarely--almost never--sick. My body can still move well and I have strong legs and arms. Emotionally? Hmmm. I can handle it when things go wrong with my kids, but I do tend to crater while I'm fixing whatever went wrong. My kids think I'm like the mom on "Malcolm in the Middle". I'm the Queen of the Screaming FreakOut. Yeah...I'll be able to bandage your dangling and bloody limbs or load you into the car and take you to the ER without throwing up, but I'll for sure be crying and screaming at you the entire way, "WHAT IN HELL DID YOU DO TO YOURSELF???"
15. FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch. Bluebell's Moo-llennium Crunch. My dad's homemade peppermint.
16. SHOE SIZE? Somewhere between a 9 1/2 and a 10 in regular shoes. 10 1/2 in a running shoe.
17. RED OR PINK? I hate pink. Red all the way.
18. LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? How much time do you have? Probably the fact that I've got to talk every issue to death before I get it straight in my head. I've got to run laps around it and study it from every angle. Make notes...and read those notes aloud. Then I've got to talk, and talk and talk. I even make my own self sick of me. If it's not straight in my head before I go to bed...I won't sleep. But there are so many other unfavorite things....really...the list is endless.
19. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? I miss the person I used to be before half of my life got away from me. The things I used to know and the skills I used to have. And I never thought I'd say this (because I'm really rotten with old people), but I miss my grandparents. I miss what they could teach me and I don't think it's until you're older that you think of all the stuff you wish you could ask.
20. BOOKS YOU ARE READING: "The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries" by Marilyn Johnson. Also..."Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" by Lisa See.
21. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Sometimes. Glasses mostly.
22. LAST THING YOU ATE? M&M cookies and a glass of milk.
23. FAVORITE OFFICE SUPPLY? There's nothing quite as promising as a fresh notebook. Its uses are endless. Also...the perfect pen. A pen that feels good in your hand and its ink flows across the paper. It's a zen thing.
24. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST ON TV? The recording I made of the"Grey's Anatomy" season finale. OH. MY. GOD. THEYKILLEDDENNYTHEYKILLEDDENNYTHEYKILLEDDENNY!!! As the actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Denny) is shown, Mr. Half asks me if I think he's cute. "Yeah...only in a purely sexual way!"

Everything You Always Wanted to Know

2006-05-15T19:46:00.000-07:00

Tonight I attended a ceremony for academic achievement and among those honored were 20 of the graduating seniors receiving the Principal's Award for academic achievement and community service. Among those 20 were seniors bound for University of Chicago, Northwestern, Rice, Brown, Washington University and MIT. Fresh-faced and eager to face the world of higher education. Idealistic. Full of plans. Exhausted from the rigors of graduating with distinction from a high school with a reputation as an academic powerhouse.

Me? I was a late bloomer in everything I ever did and I did not blaze any trails as an award-winner. A voracious reader and writer, I've had the unhappy misfortune to discover my life's purpose about 20 minutes before I exited any given institution. I didn't believe in myself until right before I got out of high school. I did fine but nothing spectacular. I didn't have to try very hard to be a A/B student...and so I didn't. I missed belonging to the National Honor Society...not because of my grades, but because I didn't belong to enough clubs to qualify for the requisite number of service points. Mr. Half graduated 6th in a class of 600 and later, he graduated cum laude from the same university where I graduated thank ya lawdy. Except for the hours I've spent tutoring, reviewing, and otherwise assisting my kids with every report, test or project they've ever been assigned, any inability on their part to to achieve academic stardom is something I'll have to blame on my lame genetics. I say this knowing my kids have already outshone me time and time again in that arena. Watching these kids take their turn on the academic stage was like having to listen to the one-thousandth refrain of the Underachiever's Anthem...the one that plays over and over in my head. But I digress.

There were three girls named Stacy throughout my school career. Stacy Smith (she of the enormous breasts), Stacy Jones (short and freckled and a bad student) and me...the girl who would have been entirely forgettable had I not had a hard-to-pronounce last name that had 13 letters in it. Both of the others have dropped from sight. Neither of those two Stacys were around for the last big high school reunion and it makes me wonder about other people I used to know. People with whom I never had a real relationship but who stick in my mind for one small thing that they did.

So...it's not the stars or the losers I wonder about tonight. It's the marginal folks. The people who stay in my memory because I saw them do one thing that made them memory-worthy. Whatever happened to:

Diane Black: The girl who threw up orange all over the desk behind me in 3rd grade. I don't remember another blessed thing about her.
Rodney: The guy who taped black candy suckers to the Valentine cards (back when you had to give one to everyone in the class) of the kids he didn't like. You got a red one if he liked you. I got a black one. Surprised?
Sue Jacobs: A dedicated paste eater all during 1st grade. Mrs. Castleberry told her it was made out of cows and horses and she'd turn into one if she kept it up. Later, when I started the evening shift at a Six Flags gift shop one summer, Sue was my manager. She had given up the paste.
Deborah Kleinman: The girl who told me her mother was a whale and her dad was a camel. Later became the fashion model in Paris. Or so she said. She was pretty gorgeous. But that was at the ten year reunion...when none of us looked too bad. Yet.
Brian: The one kid who cried on the first day of 1st grade. Cried for his mother. Okay...he wailed. And she kept looking at him through the window in the classroom door. He'd see her and then he'd start crying again. He became a psychiatrist and moved to Florida. But I haven't seen him in many years.
Les: The bell rang on the last class of the last day of school (Mrs. Castleberry's class again) and he jumped out of the window, instead of using the door like everyone else.
Rhonda: The girl who never used normal-sized pencils but--instead--used those really ginormous pencils that they sell at the circus. You know...clown pencils with the big tassels that hang off of the erasers.
Greg: Jumped off of the swingset and broke his leg during Kindergarten recess. I remember the fuss they made...it was like a scene from E.R. He was a weird kid, but not as weird as his brother, who was the first date I ever had. Snuck me into an R-Rated movie that I wasn't supposed to see and then, because I hadn't perfected my lying skills, I immediately ratted myself out to my mother when she asked me what movie I had seen. My punishment wasn't nearly as bad as the kiss I received from Greg's brother...a guy who obviously suffered mightily from an excess of saliva and who didn't mind licking my face in the process of trying to extricate my wisdom teeth with his tongue. No, Doug...I don't really care what happened to you . I heard you became a doctor like your dad....probably a gynocologist. Greg's probably a pin setter at the local bowling alley...but he's probably not a jerk.
Dan - You moved here from New York and we were lab partners Physical Science during our freshman year. You told me you were born in a taxi. I thought that was so cool. Where did you go after graduation?
Sharon Forbes- You brought your parents' copy of "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex" to school in 8th grade. You wrapped it in aluminum foil and the teacher thought we were studying our Spanish in class. We were studying allright.

That's good for a start. What people stick out in your mind?

And then it was quiet...

2006-05-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I admit that I refer to Mother's Day as "the fake holiday". It's true that I don't have a lot of regard for a day which, while making a ton of money for Hallmark, seems to bring our culture no closer to anything resembling genuine respect or admiration for the the portion of the population that supplies you (me/us/everyone) with an increased quality of life...as well as life itself.

When it's time to celebrate Father's Day, what do we do? Hmmm....well...women put in a full day's work at the office and then come home and do the same. We shop for the groceries and plan the celebration. We cook and clean for the company that we'll host. We buy and wrap the gifts and then after everyone leaves...we clean up the mess.

But when it's time for Mother's Day, what happens? In many cases I see women doing the exact same thing as they did for Father's Day...except they don't buy their own gift. See, those of us mothers who are still in the trenches? Many of us have mothers who are still living and worthy of their long-ago accomplishments as the primary caregivers of children. But who is going to do all the work?? This question seems to throw so many men into a huge quandry. Who indeed? Cleaning? Shopping for food and preparing a meal? PLUS a gift??? How can we do all this? Wouldn't it be easier just to take everyone out to dinner?

See...it seems to be easy to celebrate multiple generations of Father's Day honorees because the gender which supplies so much of the unsung "MAN-power", in addition to making the money that makes so many other things possible, is doing what they always do every day of the year. When you stop to consider what a total SHUTDOWN of tradition it requires to pay the same kind of homage to women...well...maybe you see my point. It isn't the same. And while you probably won't see too many guys cooking their own Father's Day dinner, I've seen more than my share of women contributing to a dinner that honors their own mothers while simultaneously cancelling out the intent of the celebration for their own role as a mother.

My own Mother's Day was spent with my parents and Mr. Half's parents and my sister and her family. Yes, I shopped for some of the food and I cleaned the house, but Mr. Half did as well. Mr. Half cooked burgers and all of the sons cleaned their rooms and did yardwork. The oldest son made a fabulous apple cobbler and the middle son did the dishes with his dad while I sat in the back and watched an episode of "I Love Lucy" with my mother and sister.

All in all...it was a good day. Better than most Mother's Days wherein tradition reared its ugly head and too many females wound up scraping dishes after the feast and the gift opening. Still, the grocery store was filled with women...a couple still sporting their Mother's Day corsages...slogging through the store getting food and toilet paper that others were unwilling or unable to buy. I saw a man in the parking lot flying a kite with his kid. Maybe he was giving the wife a few minutes alone to breath and form a coherent sentence while he took the kid out for some fun. Most likely she was one of those in the store doing the shopping for the meal. I wanted to scream at him, "Get your country ass home and make your wife a meal for a change"...but lacking the proper information I only cursed him under my breath. But in a nice way.

The men in my house are learning what it means to appreciate the one person in our house whose endless list of mind numbing responsibilities doesn't get consistently validated by a Boy Scout merit badge, or a big fat A+ or even a nice paycheck. I hope it's a lesson they'll take with them. Because it's only when women take the day off that certain others are made to realize how much of the sky we really hold up. Think how great life would be if we didn't have to spend the other 364 days trying to keep them from forgetting.

Life Menu

2006-05-10T20:35:00.000-07:00

I stopped in at Whoorl's today to check in and see how things are going now that she's well into her pregnancy with the little Whoorlito. Her photo at 27 weeks shows her to be disgustingly ethereal and gorgeous. You can still see the bones in her face and her hands, unlike my own while pregnant-- don't in the least resemble small hams. Where's the back fat bulging over the industrial-sized bra and the multiple chins? Why does Whoorl get to look like Catherine Zeta Jones after a year on the South Beach Diet? Why? Why?

I'm sorry, but where in the rule book does it say that other women are permitted to grow even more beautiful while gestating while my own pondorously amorphous self --as a pregnant person--took the task of cell division to an Olympic level and I wound up looking more like Monty Python's Mr. Creosote. Or merely a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade float...depicting Mr. Creosote. Not once, not twice, but three times were satellites able to pinpoint my whereabouts on Earth from the far reaches of outer space while I was incubating our sons. Verily I say unto you: I was quite large. And lo, it was not pretty and Mr. Half was sore afraid that I would not be able to deflate back to my normal self.

The writer Amy Krouse Rosenthal used to write about something called Life Menus where each person has certain things that they are given that are gifts, such as good hair or the ability to navigate airports well or the good fortune to have never had acne as a teenager. Among those things that make them look like those lucky, lucky individuals who get to drive fast without ever getting a ticket or who live off trustfunds or whose cool parents bought them a pet monkey when they were a kid--among those gifts are the negative issues. Drawbacks like webbed toes or migraine headaches or bizarre and rash-inducing allergies to anything made out of metal or wood. Or a spastic colon.

It helps to validate the idea that no one is really perfect. Case in point: Tom Cruise.

Handsome? Yes. Rich? Sure. Talented? Marginally. BUT SWEET BUTTER ON A BISCUIT! the guy is only a few sofas away from the edge of reason, isn't he? Allow him to run around unchecked for a few more years and I'm afraid he's going to go the way of Howard Hughes when, at the height of his mental illness, he refused to touch doorknobs or bathe and he wore empty Kleenex boxes for house shoes.

Years ago I knew this woman. Our kids went to the same school and she and I worked out at the same gym. She was a fairly intelligent woman. Unlike me, she didn't seem to be too interested in ever having a career so I assumed she was thrilled to leave the house for the maid to clean while spending her days shopping with the scads of money her Dr. Husband made and going to Junior League meetings. Her life, it seemed ideal. She had the most gorgeous skin ever. Even in winter when my own untanned appendages could not be safely viewed in direct sunlight without the protection of polarized sunglasses, she had a honeyed and healthy glow. She had a great body, decent kids and fabulous clothes and were it not for the time I heard her comment on how, when reading in bed at night, she had to take special care not to turn the pages of her Bible so that they crackled and disturbed Dr. Husband while he slumbered, I thought she led an enviable life.
Until the day a friend told me that her father, also a wealthy man, had been murdered in his own house about seven years prior. That's the cosmic trade-off, you see?

The Life Menu, she is a harsh mistress.

And because she is-- it all makes sense when I consider the people I used to think had it all. No one has it all and if you envy anyone for the things about his/her life you think you want you'll also have to take the bad stuff that you can't see as part of the package. Like this one:

Good in math
Builds custom furniture
Can't dance
Oprah is a distant cousin
Has a sixth toe

OR

Tone deaf and blind in one eye
Owns a lake house
allergic to ice cream
Wins at poker
speaks Italian

So, I weighed ~~200 pounds~~ a lot at the end of my pregnancies! There's one for the menu! I also didn't inherit my Dad's fabulous olive complexion so unless I adhere to a strict schedule of monitored tanning and moisturizing, I enter the swimsuit season looking like that albino kid from the movie, "Powder"-- only not nearly as smart and I can't bend forks with my mind. So here's the rest of my list:

Quick with words/artistic
No longer a natural blonde
I ran a marathon in '98
Bad at Monopoly
Alternately cynical and gullible about life
Afraid to fly

What's on your menu?

FROM THE VAULT: REAL LIFE DRAMAS!

2006-05-09T17:23:00.000-07:00

April 26, 1991
Friday
Journal entry

I am now fully initiated into the motherhood community. We had our first visit to the emergency room. Never mind that the day was already on the skids by noon and descended straight into Hell by 4 p.m. No, that wasn't enough. Both boys refused to take a nap today. Greyson climbed out of his crib and filled Tucker's with toys of every size--all the way to the railing. Tucker removed some needlepoint pictures off of the wall by climbing onto a chair. Greyson opened the refrigerator, dropped a dozen eggs on the floor and took a loaf of French bread out of the grocery sack and shared it with Tucker. During "naptime" he stripped his crib of its sheets--twice--removed his diaper and peed on the bed, after which he showed Tucker how to strip his own mattress. For an encore, Tucker fell off of the sofa and cut his head on the coffee table, requiring a trip to the Emergency Room and two staples to close the cut. Tomorrow I'm scheduled to donate for the Blood Drive. After today do I have any to spare?

--Wordgirl

You know how people always tell you that most bad days, after enough time passes, will seem pretty funny from that distant perspective? It's true.

It never hurts to ask

2006-05-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

Mr. Half and I bought this house when we married and during the 8 1/2 years we lived there, it was also home to all of our sons. We outgrew it quickly and though we were glad to move into a larger house with potential for the additions and modifications we've provided, it never changed the way we felt about our first house.

We take the kids by occasionally...just to see what's been done. The neighborhood is certainly one we'd never consider living in now and the young family/retired and elderly/seminary student population that once resided in these houses is gone. Still...the house bears the marks of our having been there.

The book ledge that wraps around all four walls of our old bedroom-- the shelf near the ceiling--was built by Mr. Half for our overflow books that were weighing down the floor-to-ceiling shelves in the livingroom, kitchen, and dining room. The skylight in the kitchen with shelves for plants was also something we put in. The backyard has an old greenhouse--again by Mr. Half--that eventually became a toolshed. Someone painted the nursery, but if they were to scrape away the paint on the ceiling they'd find a sky blue surface studded with beautiful clouds.

Today I sat down and wrote a letter to the owner...a person I've never met nor spoken to. I told him about the truck Mr. Half had in college and how, when he got rid of it, he took a blowtorch and cut out a piece of the fender in the shape of a big heart and gave it to me. I used it in my garden and around the potted plants in the back. Some toddler hands must have thoughtfully put it someplace else, because when we moved to this house 11 1/2 years ago we realized it was missing. I know where it is. It's in that old backyard...lost in the monkey grass under the bathroom window or in the wild iris. Or buried in the flowering Vinca. I told the owner of our old home about the people from whom we bought it and how they hated to sell it and how we loved it totally until it was our turn to leave. It's a happy house with some good karma. I told him about the gift made for me by my romantic husband and how I wondered if anyone had come across a rusty piece of metal in the shape of a heart.

Maybe he'll think I'm a nut and throw the letter into the trash, along with the picture of the house when we sold it and a couple of shots of the interior when we lived there. But maybe--just maybe--he's a happy man living a contented life in a house that makes him feel good. Maybe the house I described to him is one which continues to provide shelter and love. And that feeling will inspire him to dig around in the backyard weeds and then sit down to send a reply.
You never know.

OVERHEARD AT THE BALLPARK

2006-05-07T17:53:00.004-07:00

We watched the New York Yankees leave the Texas Rangers in the dust for the third time this week...and this afternoon found us at AmeriQuest Field witnessing the devastation in person. Bummer. But that's not what this post is about. It's about keeping your eyes and ears open and finding out that a ballpark contains as varied an array of humanity as the bus station or the airport or the DMV. Sometimes edifying and, at turns, disgusting...but always entertaining.

Overheard Remark # 1

The guy behind us, a Yankees fan, continually referred to Ranger's player Mark Teixeira (pronounced Tuh-Sheera) as "Texi-ara". He did this despite the announcer's continual narration of the game wherein the correct pronunciation of the name was heard no less than 50 times. This hearkens back to a long-ago post where we discussed blatant mis-pronounciations of words by our friends and colleagues. Further proof that some individuals, when confronted with repeated information about correct pronounciation of words, will insist on using the ones they're currently committed to.
Overheard Remark #2

The same guy behind us was taking it upon himself to "educate" his wife/girlfriend about the correct way to read the scoreboard. He elaborated about how "E" stood for Errors and "R" stood for Runs. He explained every detail of the scoreboard. He was fairly loud and heavyhanded in his explanation, as though she were hard of hearing or perhaps...simple. When the JumboTron displayed the picture and stats for the Yankee's Robinson Cano, it revealed that he was from San Pedro, DR. The woman asked him what DR meant and he said, "Well...it means he's from the Dominican Republican. Or, if you prefer, the Dominica Republica." Girlfriend said, "Well...which one is it?" He told her that one was English and one was Spanish, but in this country we refer to his country as Dominican Republican. There were a few seconds of quiet before the girlfriend said, "Uh....I don't think that's right." He was fairly indignant, having just appointed himself her baseball mentor/educator and insisted that this was the name of the country.Seen & Overheard #3

Mr. Half takes a trip to one of the many men's restrooms when upon entering he sees a drunk/ill teenage girl on the floor near the sinks. A stadium attendant had just reached the bathroom and had begun trying to assist her.

Attendant: "Uh...Miss? Excuse me...but are you drunk?"
Girl: "Uh-huh".
Attendant: "Okay...are you aware that you're in the men's bathroom?"
Girl: "Uh......yeahhhhhh"

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

In that crush of humanity, however, you'll also find some incredible gems. Teebs called me the other day and we had a lovely talk. For the record, she sounds nothing like a robot and I tried not to offend her with my Texas accent. I'm looking forward to flying to an undisclosed location in June and meeting her along with Mignon (not pronounced like the bacon-wrapped meat...I've been practicing), Arabella & Mrs. Harridan. Anyone who'd like to take a chance and meet us there needs to contact Arabella STAT!

Coffee Is Not The Boss Of Me

2006-05-04T14:54:00.000-07:00

Somewhere along the way as I was learning how to read, dress myself, multiply fractions and change the oil in my car, I forgot to learn to like coffee. I gave it a lame try during my early adulthood and I believe I accidentally ingested some as a kid and--really--that was enough for me. The bitter taste was horrendous and even doctored with a fistful of sugar and an entire cow's worth of milk, the taste was like battery acid stirred with a black licorice whip.

At the time I don't think anyone in my family dwelled too much over my negative reaction because, like many things in life, coffee is an acquired taste and it's not unusual for children to reject drinking something that causes them to shudder involuntarily. My first shot of bourbon was a walk in the park compared to...you know...coffee. During college at A&M, when staying awake was the prime motivator for learning which of the food groups contained the necessary amount of caffeine to maintain a conscious state for 72 hours straight, many of my friends fell victim to the coffee demon. After college, the necessity of staying awake using artificial means was replaced by the need to perform 90 minutes of office work using the same artificial means.

Please don't think I'm judging here. My own drug of choice was a combination of No Doz, M&Ms and a large Coke. Probably no better for me than a cup of coffee would be...maybe worse...but after college I stopped taking No Doz and I can go months without an M&M or even a soda. And staying up all night lost its buzz the minute the first kid was born.

Eventually, enough time passes that a young adult finally convinces himself/herself that coffee tastes good...good enough to drink every day. Several times a day. Constantly. By then they're totally hooked and before you know it, these same people are blaming headaches, crankiness, unproductivity at work and homicidal thoughts on the fact that they didn't get their coffee fix. Despite that, my mother maintains that coffee is nothing more than a "social drink". It hasn't helped that Starbucks has taken over the world, aiding and abetting society with their legally addictive stimulants. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying. And I wouldn't need to say anything at all were it not for the fact that my parents have struggled mightily with the concept that I don't drink the stuff.

Had my body failed to go through puberty or had I left the family fold to vote Democratic ---oh, wait--I did do that last thing--I don't think my parents could be any more surprised or dismayed. It is impossible to have a meal with my them that my dear father doesn't offer me coffee and then snicker. It's become a repetitive joke and it was one I laughed at the first few times it came up, but when I started pointing out how often THEY drank it, things started to get testy.

I would pause here to relay the saga of a long drive to Tennessee where one sister and I felt that we should accompany our parents to a family funeral rather than take a different car and just worry about their safety the whole way, but I'll give you the Reader's Digest version. How long is it from here to the eastern part of Tennessee? 12 hours? 15? Mom packed a huge thermos of hot coffee and in between conversations about family intrigue and listening to their music at decibels that allow them to hear but which also cause younger people to bleed from their ears , Mom and Dad talked about coffee. About the coffee they were drinking at that moment and about good coffee they'd had in the past.Coffee as an ingredient in other dishes. Coffee beans and different flavors of coffee. Great vacations--some in Europe--which were capped off by some even greater coffee in a sidewalk cafe. Also, they talked about foods that tasted good... with coffee. Some retired people use long drives to point out historical markers or antique shops. My parents intend to pinpoint every coffee stand between here and both coasts. "Hey...didn't we stop there for coffee once?" was heard more than it should have been. Two junkies talking about where to score some blow could not have been more repetitive or irritating. But I'm saving the details of that trip for another post.

Somehow, I guess, they feel I've failed to completely join the tribe of adults who can't enjoy life on the planet unless they're burning a tongue on a fresh cup of java or leaving coffee rings on the finance reports at work. I happen to think that I function just fine without it. Mother claims she can stop any time she wants to...but she just doesn't want to. And I could be the next President of the United States and my father will still get his biggest thrill out of offering me coffee ice cream, coffee pie or chocolate-covered coffee beans. I'm just praying that no one will make them aware of the fact that Coca-Cola just added coffee flavor to their newest crime against nature...Coke Blak. My friend Peggy says that once your parents start getting old, "you gotta love them where they are". It just so happens that where they are some of the time is all up in my face about coffee. And even though they're mostly joking, it makes me weary.

DISCLAIMER: My parents are really very lovely people and if you met them on the street they'd probably invite you over immediately for coffee and pie. I send you there with my blessings

And now for the part where I bring everything to a close with a point of trivia that is germane to my post.Since 1939 Margaret Hamilton has frightened the bejeebers out of generations of children.She aged into a really nice old lady who did not kidnap dogs nor consort with flying, bi-pedal monkeys. Near the end of her life she did, with great success, do commercials where she portrayed an elderly woman who shared the secrets of her favorite beverage with kith and kin. The beverage? Maxwell House Coffee.

Have a wonderful weekend!

A creepier father than Tom Cruise? You decide.

2006-05-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

A well-to-do former classmate (and her husband) of Mr. Half's is celebrating the 18th birthday of their daughter and the father of this girl is buying her a very special gift. Can you guess what it might be?

A car? Nope.

A gigantic party for several hundred of her closest friends? Sorry.

A Hawaiian vacation? Guess again.

Expensive jewelry? You're getting colder.

Give up?

BOOBS, people of the internet. He's buying her some new boobs.

**silence but for the chirping of crickets**

New boobs, you ask? What was wrong with the old ones? And when I say old, I'm really just referring to the set she was born with. There's nothing old about being 18 and even if the entire 7th Fleet has had a personal encounter with her "chestal region", it's my opinion that this child's hooters still retain at least a smidgen of that new car smell. Relatively speaking, of course.

By now you're probably casting about in your imagination for a clue to the turn of events that might persuade a seemingly well-intentioned father of normal intelligence to purchase a bigger set of knockers for his barely-legal daughter. Was she born without breasts? Has she been the victim of a flesh-eating disease or a disfiguing car accident. Did the window accidentally close on them as she was sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night? Shark bite, perhaps?

No...none of those. I've seen the girl. She's magazine-style beautiful. Blonde. Tanned. Thin. She competed in the Miss Teen Texas or some similar objectifying contest and it was on cable access. She was the runner-up. I've seen her in a low cut evening gown. It all checks out. Two very nice-sized boobs. A matched set, from all accounts. Yeah, yeah....I know all about the tricks using bra technology employing a suspension bridge philosophy to create the illusion of a bigger rack. Or when all else fails...duct tape. So what of it? So Daddy's little girl wasn't born with the breasts of a pole dancer. That's Life in the Big Titty--er--City, kiddo. Besides, the warranty on the original set hasn't even come close to expiring yet.

There are about a million things wrong with this scenario, but the one that raises the biggest red flag for me are the words this girl was saying at a recent party of her fellow high school graduates. To wit: "My daddy is buying me new boobs for my 18th birthday." DADDY????

Sorry if I sound like a Puritan who just landed on Plymouth Rock, but I'm pretty certain that the words "Dad" and "Daughter's breasts" should never have occasion to occupy space in the same sentence. Where's the loving parental conversation that points out how fortunate she is to be so intelligent AND so beautiful? Who is reminding her about the dangers of this type of surgery...and--yes--the extraordinarily STUPID amount of money required for a painful procedure that only reinforces her need to capitalize on her looks? She's not a grown woman who is capable of making and paying for this very personal decision herself. She's 18 and, as she's so proudly and publicly pointed out, it's her father's way of saying, "Happy Birthday, Sweetheart".

Unlike me, she hasn't yet shot three kids out of her nether regions. Sons with the appetite of young wolverines who could suck the chrome off of a trailer hitch and who joyfully reduced my formerly "firm upstanders" into sad shadows of their former selves. This girl won't hit middle age for another 22 years, so the whole sagging thing is only a very distant worry. What's all the hurry to turn decent and "unmauled" breasts into flotation devices? I just don't get it.

What ever happened to getting a nice set of matching luggage?

Celebrity Trivia that involves someone besides Ms.Lohan, the Federlines or Paris Hilton.

2006-05-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

WARNING: THE POST BELOW REQUIRES AN EXTENSIVE KNOWLEGE OF TVLAND-ERA TELEVISION AS WELL AS WRITERS AND REALLY OLD ACTORS WHO HAVE BEEN DEAD FOR A VERY LONG TIME. I'M JUST SAYIN'

1. Desi Arnaz' (husband of Lucille Ball for those of you just emerging from a long coma) father was the mayor of Santiago, Cuba. Ventura Boulevard in California was named after Arnaz' great-great grandmother. One of his grandfathers was a co-founder of Bacardi Rum. The other was the doctor assigned to Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders after their ride up San Juan Hill.

2. The father of actor Wallace "Inconceivable!" Shawn ("The Princess Bride" and "My Dinner with Andre") was William Shawn. The elder Shawn took over the editorship of The New Yorker Magazine when it's creator and first editor, Harold Ross, died unexpectedly.

3. John Pankow (Ira Buchman on the sitcom "Mad About You") is the younger brother of musician, James Pankow...trombonist extraordinaire for the legendary group, "Chicago".

4. Actress Tyne Daly and her brother, actor Tim Daly are the grandchildren of the late Chief Justice Earl Warren who, among other things, was the name behind the Warren Commission which investigated the death of President John F. Kennedy.

5. "New Yorker" writer, humorist and lifelong Caucasian, Dorothy Parker ("Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses") made provisions to be cremated upon her death. Her ashes are scattered at the headquarters of the NAACP.

6. Children's book illustrator Louis Darling ("Ramona the Pest") was, along with his artist-wife Lois, a nature illustrator of some renown. Both of them were the artists/illustrators for Rachel Carson's landmark and very controversial book on environmentalism, " Silent Spring".

7. Actor Paul Giamatti ("Sideways") and his brother Marcus ("Judging Amy) have a famous father... former baseball commissioner, Bart Giamatti.

8. The Tin Woodman's (Jack Haley) son married Dorothy's ( Judy Garland) daughter when nutcase, Liza Minelli married her only straight husband, Jack Haley, Jr.

9. The coat worn by Frank Morgan when he played Professor Marvel in "The Wizard of Oz" actually belonged to the writer of the OZ books, L.Frank Baum. During filming, Morgan turned the pockets of the coat inside out to dry the sweat and they saw the tag advertising for whom the coat, purchased from a used-clothing emporium, had originally been made. A call to the widow of Baum confirmed that the coat had indeed been his.

10. Parts of the unburned Atlanta set used in the movie "Gone With the Wind" were used to depict downtown Mayberry during all seasons of the classic "Andy Griffith Show".

I've got a few more, but I seem to be dating myself with some of these older facts....so that's all for now.

Sundays

2006-04-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

I'll go on record as saying that Sunday is my least favorite day of the week. It's not so much the day itself, but what it represents, though it's true that the days we drag the grumpy and unwilling to church (but not before I must switch on my Uterine Tracking Device to locate pants for everyone) creates a friction that has pretty much rubbed the lustre from any hope for a day of quiet meditation and thanks.

Now it's just the day before the great sinkhole of the work week/ school week/volunteer-a-palooza starts afresh and we're sucked into the giant vortex of big, chunky obligations and tiny, ephemeral promises we made to someone while walking backwards trying to answer the cellphone and motion the youngest kid to hurry up because it's time to go someplace else. Because, like the character of Brooks says in the movie, 'Shawshank Redemption', "The world suddenly went and got itself in a big, damn hurry".

Many moons ago Sunday frequently meant lunch at the home of my paternal grandparents, and even though Sunday has morphed into many things throughout the years, the childhood memories that remain the strongest for me right now center around afternoons at the house on Oak Knoll Drive. Settle down, though, the picture I'm using isn't from one of those dinners. This was a picture taken long before there were any grandchildren, but I'm including it because I've always liked it. My grandfather, a German immigrant, was a naturalized U.S. citizen in this picture and an officer in the army. My grandmother was still wearing her hair up.

Either way, Sunday at the home of these particular people meant Granny adding the extra "leaf" to the big dining room table and the best linen cloth spread over it with a special pad underneath to keep water rings off of the table. Heavy silver and the U.S. Zone china they brought from Germany. Cunning cut-glass salt & pepper shakers.

Steak and baked potatoes, though sometimes she served homemade french fries and my sister and I were allowed to help drop the slices into a brown paper sack with salt and "shake" them until they were de-greased and seasoned perfectly. Steamed artichokes with your own personal bowl of melted butter for dipping the leaves. A salad with a briny dressing which incorporated anchovies that no one had the presence of mind to ask Granny while she was living how it was made and that no one in our family has been able to replicate since her death.

Often our cousins were there and if we stayed late enough until the sun shone in amber bars through the windows there was always ABC's Wide World of Sports ("the agony of defeat") on the television, though we kids were often too busy playing croquet outside or learning card games at the table after the dishes had been cleared. Sometimes we played in the paneled room that had been my father's in high school or we slipped into the cool and dim spare room where Papa had his oil paints set up. Adults talked and the air was punctated with the smell of my grandfather's pipe and my grandmother's occasional laughter, which was a rare and wonderfully powerful thing...explosive in its force.

At the time I was unaware of the familial stresses creating an electrical undercurrent amongst the adults. Emotional injuries and hurt feelings, regrets and resentments would caused a rift that resulted in us not setting foot in that house for about three years. By the time Sunday dinner had been reinstituted with us as a part of it, Papa was dead and though his pipestand was still on the table next to his chair in the living room, my grandmother had assumed his place at the head of the table. The spare room now held her canvases and oil paints and art magazines while her own bedroom was dark because of the aluminum foil she placed over the window panes to keep the room chilly year round.

We never played another game of badminton in the backyard after that and the metal sleeves that Papa had sunk into the ground where the net could be set up were grown over...as was the lovely rose garden he tended. The green birdhouse with the painted windows and doors fell apart and when the tree lights didn't work anymore, no one fixed them. The tree that held the swing had been cut down.The wooden sandbox Papa had fashioned for the grandchildren was gone and no one used the brick barbeque pit he had built with its sandstone patio. Eventually Granny replaced it with an ugly metal shed where she kept the mower.

I learned then that when one person makes his exit from a group of people to which he belonged, the chemistry of the gathering changes. Sometimes it's a good thing. In this case, it was not.

Years later, after all of the grandchildren had graduated college, married, had our kids and moved away, Granny and Papa's house had to be sold. Strokes and old age had turned my grandmother into a person who could not speak and she had been moved to an assisted living facility. Some items and furnishings had gone with my grandmother and others had gone home with my father and his sister. The rugs from the Paris fleamarket rolled up and distributed. The grandkids came and those who lived in town took what talismans they could haul away with them. Mr. Half and I came away with the phone table and some military trunks, a rocking chair and her spaghetti pot. Her cookie tin.

The last day we had to be in the house I took a video camera and walked around the inside and outside filming everything. The knotty pine kitchen with the green and yellow counters and corner sink. The place behind the door where she kept the six-pack of Frostie root beer in glass bottles. The hiding nook in a lower cabinet where a tiny brass bell had been kept which--coincidentally--was where the liquor was also. The nail where the crucifix had hung over the dining room table. The musty garage littered with old bowling shoes and even older ice skates. The backyard sandstone patio where I extricated a loose stone and brought it home to my own garden. My father had helped Papa set all of those stones into the ground long before I was born. I clicked the switches for the tree lights one last time even though nothing came on. Everywhere you looked was a place where something else used to be, though my grandfather's name was still above the doorbell. I found the place on the back walkway where my grandfather had taken a nail and drawn into the wet cement many years ago. K+E=S was still very visible.

It was probably just a coincidence that the last day I was in that house was a Sunday afternoon. Our truck was loaded and I kept going back to every room once more...wanting to burn all of the memories into my brain as much as possible. I remember trying to turn on the dining room light one last time and had I been able to go back in time exactly 25 years, we probably would have just been finishing up lunch. Pushing our mahogany chairs back from the table and laying down our cloth napkins. Someone would have squeezed a little more lemon into his tea and asked about dessert. Instead, my husband and I locked the front door one last time and drove away under a cloudy sky.

"...and then everything just went flukey"

2006-04-27T06:11:00.000-07:00

(For the uninitiated, the title of this post is a line from an "I Love Lucy" episode where Tennesse Ernie Ford comes to stay and his backwater way of speaking adds a delightful spice to the dialogue. Next time you hear me say, "Cock your pistols, 'cause you aint gonna believe this no how!", you'll know where it came from.)
*****
This is the week that should never have been. I'm totally serious here. I've been about 24 hours behind--or ahead--of schedule all week long. I feel as though I've only recently emerged from a coma and am merely a visitor--a tourist--in my own life. There's no excuse for this kind of confusion and though I feel that it's safe to rule out early onset Alzheimers at this juncture I still can't figure out why I'm so mixed up about where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing there.

I use a calendar. I save memos that remind me about meetings or events which require my presence. I have sticky notes pasted on my dresser mirror and I check my e-mail several times a day so that I stay in communication with folks in the outside world. However, I have been listening quite a bit to the '70s station on satellite radio and there was that time I accidentally listened to that Milli Vanilli song without meaning to. Maybe it screwed with my hard wiring in some way.

All I know is that I showed up on Tuesday (with middle sister in tow) for yet another funeral at the wrong location and time. Yes, we read the obituary...but we drove to the wrong side of town in spite of that and got there 30 minutes early. That's just how we roll.

I shopped for and began preparing dinner for an ill neighbor and I was ready to deliver said meal a day earlier than I was scheduled to do so. Yesterday I tried to leave for a hair appointment that wasn't supposed to take place until today. This morning, I realized that the high school theater awards dinner we were supposed to attend with the oldest son isn't until tomorrow night. I've had it written down for tonight and it's been that way on my calendar for two weeks.

My calendar tells me that I'm scheduled to work on a Habitat for Humanity house tomorrow...all day. I hope that's still true. If you see me wandering around the mall wearing a toolbelt and carrying a framing hammer, please call the authorities. Thank you.

Vaya Con Dios, Carla

2006-04-25T19:32:00.001-07:00

If you know a person long enough you'll find that you never stop being surprised by them...by the things they've done in the past and many tiny facets to a life that, on the outside, looks pretty ordinary. I remember reading the obituary of an elderly neighbor which revealed that had been an athlete in the Olympics during the 1930's. To us, he had just been the guy who emerged at Halloween to slip candy into our kids' sacks. Last year, I read some letters that my grandmother had sent to her brother while she (along with my grandfather, my father and his sister) were living in France. In one letter she detailed an evening at a club in Paris' Left Bank where the writer Gertrude Stein was the Mistress of Ceremonies of some event being held there.

Like I said...surprises come even when you think you know that person as well as anyone can and especially when you don't.

I sat through a funeral yesterday. It was not unexpected. One more damned breast cancer statistic. A woman whose life was far from over...even as she hovered near the literal end for many weeks. Were it not for the fact that someone in my family had married the way he did, I would never have known this woman for most of my life. We were raised in different cities and went to college in different places. Even after marriage and kids, we did not live in the same town until just a few years ago, but the flurry of lunches and family get togethers and phone calls made me feel as though we were making up for the time apart.

Yet as I listened to her best friends stand to eulogize her, I realized I didn't really know her at all...at least...the thought dawned on me that the portion of her that I knew well was the portion that everyone else knew, too. As a family member, it was clear to me that her friends knew her best and the stories and anecdotes were stunning in their number and diversity.

The stories I could tell were few and certainly nothing earth shattering and I now know that any confidence she felt she could tell me had already reached her inner circle of friends long before me. Whether by accident of birth or geography or bad timing or other preconceptions we had about one another or the families we came from, fate kept us from fully knowing the other or being fully known in turn. Love...yes...we loved each other, but I doubt now that I could really say we knew each other.

Death comes in many forms. The most obvious one is when life on Earth ends. The death of possibility is another. The possibility that two people will know the innermost heart of the other is one more. Sitting in that church yesterday I heard my cousin described to me in ways I never knew. I learned from the people with whom she confided the fact that she knew she was losing ground with cancer...even as she so breezily told me and other family members of another new treatment. I never saw her cry about it or lose her calm and positive outlook. All the time I thought she wasn't facing the grim facts she was actually making plans for her short future. She knew exactly what was going on...she just didn't tell me.

So yesterday it hit me: I didn't just lose the person I knew. I also lost the person I NEVER knew. I don't say this in a whining kind of way. I'm saying this in a stunned sort of way. She was an amazing person...but I only had the tiniest notion of just how amazing. Apparently her friends were lucky enough to have a ringside seat to witness her brilliance, her humor, her Zen calm in the face of the bad hand she was dealt. Familial chaos of late and a general lack of communcation on the part of many of us is mostly responsible for the many things I'll never know about her. But I also think that this little event in my life points to the unacknowledged truth that we can't know everything about everyone. Still...there's no excuse for not knowing your family. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

So...my mission is to begin asking questions. To know the people in my life as well as I can. To those family members who just found out about my blog? You guys should be prepared for this as well. You were there yesterday and maybe you know what I'm talking about. Because while I might lose family to death in the literal sense, I don't want to let another moment go by without knowing about the stuff that makes you fulfilled or sad or curious and I want you to know the same about me. I'll start. I hated "The Bridges of Madison County".

There. Now it's your turn.

Skin Deep

2006-04-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

"The past rests at the top of the heart, the future at the back of the mind, and the present at the tip of the fist." --Zen Proverb ((Discuss amongst yourselves)
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Debbie suggested that we head over to www.myheritage.com and see which celebrity we most resemble. No...you don't get to pick out the celebrity of your choice. That would be cheating. You have to submit a picture of yourself. Close-up and full frontal (just the face, you pervs). Then is spits out a bunch of candidates based on an analysis of your bone structure, etc. I sent this one.
Please exucse the 32 oz of water I seemed to be storing in my face that day.
There were two similar pics I submitted, but the results were mostly the same. Most of the celebrities I seem to resemble are men. Some I've never even heard of and many of them are European. Among the biggies I do recognize are Candace Bergen (and I hope I do look that good when I get older), Claudia Schiffer (What? Because we both have German ancestry?) and Bebe Neuwirth (I'm a terrible dancer and I don't look so good in fishnet hose). The men? Michael Palin (of Monty Python), Gene Wilder, Harry Houdini, Oscar Wilde, Ben Stiller and Harold Ramis. (Okay....I get it...my nose isn't exactly a small one) The real insult here? Their "experts" say I also look like French actor Gerard Depardieu. Just great...that's the best news I've had all day. You'll excuse me while I find something sharp to plunge into my eyes.

*****************************
I'd like to make a general complaint to the TLC channel regarding the lack of fresh episodes of "Trading Spaces" as well as the re-runs thereof. I need to see Frank painting a wall and Laurie sewing new slipcovers and even Hildi's self-involved ideas about what makes a good room. I love the paint reveal where the lids of the paint cans are opened and all the colors like magenta and turquoise and pumpkin and sage get brushed onto the old wall with a new brush. I love Carpentry World and the lumber that gets fashioned into new tables and shelves. It's instant gratification. It's control over your immediate world in one hour. It's the promise of a new start. And I can't get enough. I couldn't care less about the Chop-Shop/ Pimp My Ride shows. I don't care if Clinton and Stacy convert one hundred old hippies into Hilfiger-wearing Prep Heads on "What Not To Wear". And I've never tuned into the Clean Sweep people who come in and tell a person or a family that they've accumulated WAY TOO MUCH CRAP in their garage and some stuff is gonna have to go. Don't care. Nope. Not a bit. Just give me a naked room, some paint, fabric, wood, a designer and a carpenter...and I'll go quietly.

What show is your guilty pleasure?

Random Facts to Start Your Weekend.

2006-04-21T22:08:00.000-07:00

1) I was just a kid in 1969...the year Max Yasgur opened up his farm in Bethel, New York and allowed a small nation of legendary musicians and flowerchildren for three days of "togetherness" that has yet to be duplicated...regardless of the attempts that have been made. My parents were too old and too conservative to even fake enthusiasm for such a gathering and I was certainly too young and far away from the action to ever think I could go. It didn't keep me from wishing I was old enough. But even then I knew something special was happening and it's certainly no accident that some of my favorite all-time singers today were headliners at Woodstock. Crosby, Stills & Nash, Sly & the Family Stone, Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana. Maybe I'm just not meant to stand three days of standing in a muddy field or nude bathing in a lake with a couple thousand strangers ...just for the possibility of hearling Arlo Guthrie perform. But then again...you never know until you try.

2) I saw Paul McCartney's picture on the cover of AARP Magazine today. Can I just tell you how depressing that is for me? I mean...I've seen the man in concert. He still doesn't move like an old guy and he doesn't sound like one either. I can do the math and figure out that he's 64 this year...just like his song, but there are just some things I'd rather not contemplate and two that come to mind are: 1) The image of lovely Sir Paul riding a Rascal Mobility Scooter or 2) "The Walrus" doing commercials for Depends Adult Diapers. Don't even go there.

3) I didn't go to my high school prom. My boyfriend at the time was a freshman in college and conveniently forgot how important it might be for me. He didn't tell me until a few weeks prior that he wouldn't be able to take me, though he offered the services of his best friend who was available...although shorter than me. I said "no" and stayed home. It still bugs me.

4) When I'm ready for sleep I like the room to be dark. Pitch dark. Mr. Half would be happy to leave the curtains open so that moonlight would stream into the bedroom. It's a problem. Part of my preference is that my eyesight is bad. I'm feeling my way around the bedroom anyway, but semi-darkness just makes me see shadows and shapes that I can't make sense of and, upon waking from a sound sleep, cause my imagination to scare the crap out of me.

5). I am what's known as a Kinesthetic learner. That means I learn by doing stuff much more readily than I do by reading or hearing about it. Hearing directions on how to get some place or seeing a map will help me only a little. I can read a map, but that's not the problem. I have to drive to that place in order for the route to be burned into my brain. Riding in the passenger seat doesn't help me at all. I have to be behind the wheel.

6). I love Mr. Rogers...still. When I was teaching school during the first year, I would come home almost every day and turn on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. His gentle voice and patient demeanor were the perfect antidote after a day with adolescents who were hostile to the King's English.
Sometimes I'd drink a cold beer and luxuriate in the words of a man who said he loved me "just the way I was". PBS has his syndicated show on so danged early in the morning these days that a pre-schooler has to be a really early riser or an insomniac in order to catch the show.
It's a shame, too.

That's all I've got....have a good weekend.

One huge sign of the coming Apocalypse...plus other celebrity news

2006-04-19T20:22:00.000-07:00

Actress Sharon Stone, whose sadly lame and overhyped talent of crossing and uncrossing her legs during a police interrogation, has announced plans to cut a music cd. You read me right, folks. She's planning on singing. No...this isn't a joke. Dear God, is it time to pass around the cyanide tabs and purple Kool-Aid already?

This is you, Katie Holmes, waving goodbye to life among normal human beings. Sure...congrats on giving birth (Suri, is it??) and all that...if, in fact,that thing under your shirt was actually the "Fruit" of Tom's "Loom" (if you get my meaning) and not a hastily purchased pillow from Target. That flushing sound you hear is the noise your life is now making as you join the robots over at the Scientology's Celebrity Center. Good luck, dearie. You're gonna need it. And I hope you read the memo that spells out how you'll probably lose custody of your child if you ever wake up from your coma and figure out that Scientology is S-T-U-P-I-D. As far as I'm concerned, Seed of Chucky has a better chance at a normal life than your kid.

Ace, Ace, Ace....you were totally screwed over. As I beheld the debacle that was your ousting from American Idol tonight, I marveled at the dignity with which you bore the knife America thrust so readily between your lovely shoulderblades. I thought ~~Ellie May Clampett~~Kelly Pickler totally blew chunks on her ballad this week. I mean, she's nice and all, but she's got limits to her talent and I thought the voters had given her enough of a free ride because of her "golly-gee" cuteness and she was on her way out tonight. The fact that she was granted yet another stay of "execution" is beyond my comprehension. BTW...Did anyone catch the stinkeye that Simon gave Ryan Seacrest when the latter accused the former of taking credit for the eventual loser's downfall?

And then to make you watch a little retrospective of your AI career (using Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" as the musical backdrop) while America WATCHED you WATCHING it without crying was the last straw. The whole thing was just wrong. I'm writing my congressperson as soon as I'm done here.

*******************************************************************************
Rolling blackouts all over Texas are causing everyone to lose e-mail and/or internet connectivity. Yesterday, today and maybe even tomorrow. If it seems as though I've been a little out of it...I have.

Last but never least.

2006-04-18T16:58:00.000-07:00

Time flies when you're busy trying to catch up with your older brothers. Wednesday, April 19th brings an end to the birthday marathon at Half House as Wilder turns 12. I do remember sitting in the obligatory wheelchair holding him in the hospital room while Mr. Half ran down to bring the car around, leaving Moe and Curly--wearing their "I'm the Big Brother" t-shirts-- in the room with me to run around in circles until they fell down. For a brief moment I thought to myself, "What in the name of all that is holy have I gotten myself into now?" Then the moment passed and we brought Wilder home. We haven't regretted a moment of it since. He shares qualities with each of his brothers and, like both of them, he loves books. So far, he still wants to hug and kiss us both goodnight. Every night. I'm in no hurry for that to go away...trust me on that.

He's also the kid with whom I've been able to share my retro love of Wacky Packages. Back in the day, Mad Magazine illustrators were instrumental in designing some of the first Wacky Package cards (Crust Toothpaste, Crakola Crayons, Liptorn Soup) and when they started reissuing new designs a couple of years ago, I was doing cartwheels of joy. The only dark moment was when I realized that my early collection from the '70's had gone the way of other childhood things I didn't think I'd need later on in life. That's right, internet. Just like my gumwrapper chain, my elephant tail bracelet from Africa and my German Club t-shirt from high school...they were thrown away. I blame myself.

**Pause here for a moment of reflective silence**

I wish I had those Wacky Pack stickers now. I've started Wilder's collection and he's mostly on board with it, though I think I'm the person who gets the most out of it. No way will I let him throw these things out when he gets older. You never know when he'll come looking for them again. So what did you have as a kid that you threw out or gave away and now wish that you hadn't?

Just really, really tired

2006-04-17T19:25:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling a lot like this chair, people. Fried and definitely exhausted. Easter weekend got mashed together with the 16-year-old's birthday and visits with family. Lots and lots of family. Then I find out on Sunday morning that my blog is totally FUBAR and it was only with the help of kindly Dr. Chris Cactus that I was able to salvage 109 post, many of which I had grown rather fond and some of which I was actually proud.

For awhile I suspected that Tom Cruis-azy had summoned his Scientology minions to screw with the inner mechanics of my blog in response to my post of last week, but I've since shaken off that notion. Things are mostly back to normal and I'm very grateful. In the meantime, check out Chris' blog with pictures of his daughter, Mia in her new Easter dress. Warning all females: Simply gazing upon her gorgeosity might cause you to ovulate without meaning to. Take this into consideration before beholding her cherubic face.

In the meantime, I'm trying to rebuild my blogroll (no small feat) and if you were listed on it before you'll most likely be on it again. It'll happen eventually. Remember, patience is a virtue, although impatience has often worked just as well for me.

I wish this post could be more...uh...meaningful. April and May always make me feel as though I'm a fish inside a pitcher of water that's being slowly poured out. I'm clinging to the last little bit of fluid in the pitcher...trying hard not to get spilled out before I'm ready. But I can't seem to keep it from happening. Summer is on the way and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

Very little of the chaos that is enveloping Half House these days has anything to do with me personally, but the stuff that is mine is lost under a big pile of papers that need to be signed or delivered somewhere or filed away. Appointments for check-ups, schedules for next year, AP exams, the youngest son's birthday, Eagle Scout project for the oldest boy, college applications, art supplies ordered for me and lessons devised for cancer camp...the list seems endless. Your life is probably the same...just made up of different ingredients than mine.

What looms ahead a year from now for us is the prospect of the oldest son leaving for college and I would be less than truthful if I said that the anticipation of his absence hasn't cast a dark shadow here. Time seems compelled to move us forward to that point where we load up the car and drive him to some campus where we eventually return without him. Lately, Mr. Half and I see little boys running around and we're immediately reminded of when ours were small. If you look up the term "bittersweet" in the dictionary, I'm sure you'll find a picture of parents waving goodbye to each tiny moment of their kids' lives that won't come back again.

Here's a few of the things I miss already:

"skelescope" (telescope)
"swiss" (kiss)
"I'm giving up gum and candy for Mardis Gras" (Lent)
"fink you" (thank you)
"shanks" (thanks)
"eddybuddy" (everybody)
"do-see-do" (grocery store)
"peckerworker" (woodpecker)
"I'm pine" (fine)
"fruit throw-ups" (fruit roll-ups)
"pee-wee yogurt" (kiwi yogurt)

I have no titles, but I'm back anyway

2006-04-17T06:41:00.000-07:00

Chris at Rude Cactus got my template fixed for me. Thanks, Chris! I don't have titles, but I'll figure that out. My links are wiped out, but I had an ESP moment a few weeks ago and I made a hard copy of all the blogs I read. Those will go up soon. I'll post later today.

What's Going On?

2006-04-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

I don't know how this happened, but I can't pull up the front page of my blog. I can see only html code and I think this is true for others as well. I'm working on getting help to fix it.

Birthday Wishes...and a meme

2006-04-13T14:59:00.001-07:00

Sixteen (16!!!) years ago Saturday I became a mom for the second time inside of a 13 month span. Tucker (Pictured at top on the left with his brother Greyson who turned 17 last month) was our only "surprise" baby out of the three we have. It was Tax Day and Easter morning on the day he made us a family of four.

He was the biggest (9 lbs), but labor with him was the shortest and the easiest. The only one to come on his own without an induction, he was a very easy baby. He played hard. He slept easily. He ate with gusto and he had a deep and hearty chuckle. Sixteen years later he's still a sweet and thoughtful kid who is a fabulous student and great athlete. I wish all of life's surprises could be as wonderful has he turned out to be for us. Happy Birthday, sweetie.

And now for the meme:

FOUR THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY:
1) A new writing project or art project.
2) Feeling useful on a collaborative effort that serves the greater good.
3) When the lives of my kids and Mr. Half are going well and I know they feel confident and happy and productive.
4) Physical activity

FOUR THINGS I'M AFRAID OF:

1) Losing any of my kids or Mr. Half before I'm ready to leave this planet (or watching them suffer in any way)
2) Any misstep in life that will cause me deep regret later.
3) Dying without achieving my greater purpose or using the skills that I have.
4) Gaining weight.

FOUR MOVIES THAT MAKE ME LAUGH NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I SEE THEM:

1) Animal House ("Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?")
2) Young Frankenstein ("Some Ovaltine, perhaps?")
3) Tommy Boy (What about this isn't funny?)
4) Uncle Buck ("This hat...it angers people")
5) Blazing Saddles ...that's five...oops! ("My real name is Jim, but my friends call me.....Jim")

FOUR THINGS I HATE:

1) Cruelty or Injustice ("Might does not make right")
2) Anyone who excuses intolerance, racism, sexism, Facism, or a breech in ethics or is guilty of one of the above and then calls it Patriotism or Faith in God.
3) Passive-aggression.
4) Being controlled.

FOUR ITEMS OF CLOTHING I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT:

1) overalls
2) my good black skirt
3) champagne-colored, silk Chinese robe that Mr. Half bought for me on Canal Street in NYC.
4) hiking boots

Have a good weekend.

Wednesday Sampler

2006-04-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

**Today is April 12th and the world of children's literature is celebrating the 90th birthday of Beverly Cleary on a national level with, "Drop Everything & Read" Day.

For those of you who accidentally catch yourself on fire today, we'll refer to your experience as "Stop, Drop, Roll & Read" Day. Everyone must participate. Be sure to let me know what you chose to read. I am currently engrossed in Allegra Goodman's "Kaaterskill Falls" , though I promise to pick up one of my Cleary books in order to get into the full spirit of the event.

**I went to yoga today and for no apparent reason started thinking about the LifeSaver 5-pack. My mind, it wanders. For the record, my favorite flavor in the 5-pack is pineapple. My favorite LifeSaver flavor of all time? Butter Rum. So...yeah...I was thinking about candy and then it was time to do this:It's easier than it looks. I can't do a layup in basketball. I can't throw a football worth crap. The semester I ran track in college, I lost whole seconds just coming out of the starting block. But I can do this.
**When we were 27, Mr. Half and I went to London to see his brother and SIL. I was already sporting my low-maintenance crewcut and his hair, which was in one of its short phases, was made even shorter by a hasty trip to Super Cuts. I call it his "institutional" look. This was taken in a photo booth near Hampstead Heath. You can file under my first (and possibly last) installment of Bad Hair Wednesday, though I really liked that cut.

**Mr. Half and I are both involved in a pediatric cancer camp that meets every summer. It is a free week-long sleepaway camp for cancer patients 6-16 (and their siblings). We both serve on the camp's board. Mr. Half used to be a counselor before he began his career as the only Boy Scout Assistant Scoutmaster who braids his hair before morning campfire. I'm the art teacher. Aside from raising three healthy, confident sons, this camp has given more to us than we'll ever put into it. One of the many, many perks I get in working with these kids is to take possession of art supply catalogs and magazines from which I get inspiration. I get to plan the activities and order the materials!!! Glass beads? Polymer clay? Tiny canvasses and papier mache' masks? It's crack for the creative soul...plain and simple. And speaking of crack...reading this magazine brings surges of creativity so as to make me slightly dizzy.

**Teebs had some really good thoughts about appreciating what you've got in your life. We all fall victim to the funk of self-pity. Sometimes we deserve to feel that way, but if you stay there too long that's all you'll notice about what you've got. I'm reminded of the late, great Warren Zevon who did the Letterman show in 2003 when it was obvious he had only a few more months before cancer would claim him. What advice and insight did his terminal status allow him to provide for the rest of us? Three words. "Enjoy every sandwich". I think that pretty well sums it up.

Beating a dead horse...er...freak

2006-04-11T08:02:00.002-07:00

I'll tell you what isn't normal, you grotesque excuse for a human being, and that's your spaceship theology involving Thetans and E-meters and auditors and Dianetics. Your psychotic need to convince every camera that you're only seconds away from ripping the clothes off of your pregnant ~~victim~~ fiancee who is clearly suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. The sofa-vaulting and the posturing and the angry confrontations with interviewers whose formal education clearly exceeds your own but whose questions regarding your "understanding" of textbook psychology are met with an open hostility that only slightly masks your enormous ignorance.

The secrecy and the denials of cult-like behavior that are explained away with smoke and mirrors. The fact that you've adopted the long-dead L. Ron Hubbard as your "new dad" since you've recently and conveniently remembered that the original model wasn't very nice to you. That you've publicly attacked a woman whose body is capable of doing something you'll NEVER be able to pull off, simply because of a common post-pregnancy chemical disorder for which she sought medical relief? What's next, Tom? Will you declare a war on aspirin? Tampons? Yeah...that whole menstruation thing is just a load of bullshit anyway! Bleeding is just a state of mind, no?

Dude, you're beginning to make Moonies and David Koresh followers look positively rational.

And now you've abducted a perfectly nice woman, bleached her brain free of all independent thought and secluded her behind big metal gates that are decorated with signs warning her to be silent...should she be vocally startled by the frantic attempts of your 10 lb. ~~spawn~~ son or daughter to claw its way out of her uterus. I think I speak for all females here when I tell you that NO MAN (I mean "man" in the very literal sense here and not the way we continually pretend that the word"men" guarantees equal rights for women in the Constitution) gets to order/control/mandate/force how or where or under what conditions women bring children into this world. If we want drugs or not, music or gentle encouragement, company or solitude, a doctor or a midwife....it doesn't matter. If we want to stand, sit, squat or lie down or hang from a trapeze--we decide what works--not you.

And the screaming? The moaning? The occasional cursing? It's not for you to question, criticize or squelch. You can take your Silent Birth credo and flush it down the crapper along with every existing copy of "Vanilla Sky" and "Eyes Wide Shut".

Here's an idea: Why don't you carry an infant-sized kidney stone around in your urethra for nine months and then calmly and quietly pass it through the head of your penis without the benefit of an atom-smasher to break it down beforehand and that might earn you the right to offer suggestions about whether I have your baby in a hospital, behind a rock or in a Twilight Zone-inspired Scientology scenario where my lips are duct-taped shut to keep my yelling down to a muffled whimper. Here's who needs to keep silent, Tom Cruise: YOU.
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Tom's not the only person on my list of "People Who Irritate Me", but the folks I'm thinking about right now are extended family members and I'm finding it difficult to write about them without eventually making it possible for them to Google information about certain other things and then accidentally stumble across my blog where I've verbally flayed them for being such vexing and tiresome egomaniacs. That's all I can say right now.

I think I just became a woman.

2006-04-07T13:03:00.000-07:00

Until last year, I had never gotten a pedicure. Ever. I had never had a manicure until a couple of years ago, but I still do not wear polish on my fingernails. As a teenager, I always cut the little flower applique off of my bra before wearing it. I wear hiking boots more often than I wear high heels. I have never worn eyeliner. I have had exactly two cosmetic counter-type makeovers, and both times represented a couple of the lowest points in my life, and that last time saw me emerging from Neiman-Marcus with enough ~~spackle~~ make-up base on my face to re-do my bathroom ceiling. It was orange. The friend I took with me looked like something out of "The Mikado".

What I'm saying here is that I'm not a girly-girl. I probably used to be at one time, but years of living in here at Testosterone Palace have forced me to adapt. And really...I pretty much think that guys get to do all the fun stuff anyway, so it hasn't been a total loss for me and the boys get a mom who won't shrink from handling snakes/lizards/or bugs. I really would rather wear comfortable shoes, and when warm weather demands that I wear sandals, the prospect of having to pay someone to make my feet presentable just makes me want to run amok. See where I'm going with this? Low maintenance is "the new black" for me.

That said, I confess that the female members of my family of origin do happen to share one particular affliction that brands them/me as girly. We are all sufferers of BPS. Big Purse Syndrome. I shrink from telling you just how long it's been a problem for me, but I've found that if I can't fit a couple of books into the purse I'm carrying (along with my phone, digital camera, wallet, make-up, notebook, pens, sunglass case, gum, bottled water, small flashlight) then it's just not going to work out. How big a purse do I need? Let's just say that it needs to be just shy of qualifying as carry-on luggage at the airport.

And once the first two kids came along along with the flotilla of equipment that ~~demanded~~ required the need for a diaper carrier, I found myself with two enormous "bags" and two babies in diapers who were 13 months apart. That's when I started carrying this:

That's right...it's a backpack. I was able to throw everything in there. All my junk...plus the diapers and stuff needed for a trip to the zoo. It was perfect. Sure, it had a few drawbacks. There were no smaller pockets inside and the interiors were usually black. Locating/identifying anything inside it smaller than a cabbage was difficult without light. If I didn't plan ahead and transfer a few things into a regulation purse before a big event, I was more likely to show up for a wedding or a funeral looking as though I was leaving immediately afterwards for a trip through the Grand Canyon.

I've worn out several backpacks over the years and they've sort of marked me in a way. More people recognize me from behind simply because I'm one of the few adults around here who doesn't carry a backpack because I need it to get from one college class to the other. I take it with me to PTA meetings and the movies and out to eat.To the bank and to the doctor's office. I take it everywhere...until yesterday when I saw this:Mother will be so proud. Do I feel as though I've caved in to "the man--or woman" as it were? Do I feel as though I've joined the sorority of sterotypical women who enjoy wearing pink and who feel naked without earrings and who would rather be a cheerleader instead of a player in the game? Mmmm...sort of. Besides its ability to hold all my "stuff", carrying a backpack seemed like a tiny little "up yours" to the Junior League set with whom much of my school volunteer work is accomplished. But I will say that reaching down into the deep, dark recesses of that backpack in order to find a pen at the grocery store checkout and, because I didn't have my flashlight with me, pulling out a wrapped tampon instead? Yeah...that part was getting pretty old.

Have a great weekend!

It's a start, at least

2006-04-06T21:19:00.000-07:00

Donald Fagen...then and now.

Okay...you've probably noticed a slight change in background and font color. The problem is not with your television (er.. computer). Do not attempt to adjust your computer screen. This is a test, and it won't be the last time you'll see changes in this blog. I'm forever tinkering with color in my life and this site is no exception. I am determined to eventually do some kind of photographic header. I tried this before and all that resulted was the strange way my title border doesn't quite close off in a neat rectangle. If anyone has the slightest clue as to how I might fix that, please don't hesitate to give me shout. In the meantime, here are some random things about my week:

1) The counter just registered my 100th post since I started this thing near the end of November. Who knew I had so much to say? Well--okay--that's a bit disingenuous. Of course I knew that I had this much to say. I've been suffering from "too much to say" since I first began putting words together as a kid. Why else would I have started a blog? Why am I asking you this?

2) My car has to sit out on the driveway because our house (and the garage that came with it) was started in 1947 and finished in 1948. Cars like Suburbans didn't exist back then and don't fit into old garages. Mr. Half's truck is out there on the driveway along with my car, the 17-year old's car and the almost-16-year old's car, which is presently undergoing surgery at the body repair shop after an unfortunate collision earlier this year.

And because my car is outside, it has to sit under trees. Trees that are spitting sticky sap onto every surface of its exterior. If you took a can of real maple syrup and turned it inside out and gave it four wheels, driving it couldn't be much different from what I've been doing for the past week.

3) I took some of my birthday money and went to Target today, and that's what I'm listening to as I write this. No...not Target...the cd I purchased. I bought some other stuff which I'll write about later, but more importantly, I bought Donald Fagen's new solo cd, "Morph the Cat". Can I just pause here to say how much I love Donald Fagen? Alone or with Walter Becker (the other half of Steely Dan), his jazzy line and succession of minor chords reminds me of sitting in Mr. Half's dorm room in college with the windows open (the kind you had to crank open while they swung outward...it was a very old building) with our bare feet on the cold radiator while we listened to songs from "Countdown to Ecstasy".

4) Saturday night our home will be host to about 20-25 teenagers...mostly 16 and 17-year olds. Oldest son decided to have a get-together for his birthday which always falls on Spring Break. Giant Subway sandwiches. Cookie platters. Bowls of M&Ms and soda. Mr. Half and I will huddle in the back of the house while they take over the rest. I guess I really shouldn't bother cleaning until AFTER it's over. Right? Light a candle for me, will you?

5) I did start a book...finally. One of Canada's finest writers...the late Carol Shields is the author of "Unless", and I've decided to fasten my hopes of reentering the reading world upon its lovely pages. From page one: "Happiness is the lucky pane of glass you carry in your head. It takes all your cunning just to hang on to it, and once it's smashed you have to move into a different sort of life."

6) I listened to XM radio and the comedy channels today. Wow. You can bring yourself out of just about any funk by listening to various stand-up comedians. Today, I heard a comic issue the following lament: "I'm not a very smart person. If only I had known the difference between an ANTIDOTE and an ANECDOTE, my best friend would still be alive. He was bitten by a copperhead, and I tried reading jokes to him from Reader's Digest, but it didn't help. "

Well...that's all I've got. It's late and I've got more color perversions to perform on my blog design this weekend. Have a good one!

Where I eventually get around to making my point

2006-04-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

Reptile Recap: We have not seen the lizard since we took him to the neighbor's jungle of a backyard (away from our cats) and placed him in a tree. For the record, that band-aid was placed so loosely on him, that I doubt it stayed on for more than a few minutes. We haven't seen him or any "parts" of him (regurgitated thoughtfully on the mat outside the kitchen door), so that's probably a good thing. Thanks to all who offered alternative medical advice, except for Nilbo who should definitely be worried about his karma. I'm just sayin'.
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Please note that my blogroll's former title--"What I'm Reading"has been changed to "Spongeworthy". Seinfeld enthusiasts will need no explanation.

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Please participate in a brief poll wherein I ask one simple question: Should I change my template to the plain white version of this one? I'm tiring of this one (Minima Ochre) and, lacking the skills to change it to one of the more dynamic templates that involve cutting & pasting and saving text files, my choice seems to be limited to using one of the ugly Blogger templates provided. I like the white one just fine, but I will have to copy and retype my entire Holy Roman Empire-sized blogroll into my template because changing to another design will cause me to lose every thing here except for the posts themselves.

I still don't know how to make a photographic header for the background, and I can't even figure out how to change the color of the wording on my blogroll so that it's not quite so faint. I found another template that Blogger will accept, but it involves the saving/cutting/pasting thing and I'm afraid I'll lose text if I do something wrong. The plain white template is my second choice for change and I'm just wondering if it's worth the trouble of retyping the links. So...change...yes or no?

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My reading habits of late have become of great concern to me. And when I say "reading habits" I mean that I'm not really reading all that much. Maybe a book a month...if that. Reading has always been one of the greatest pleasures of my life. A joy. An escape. An education. A passion. My whole life has been about libraries and bookstores. About books you could order in school or from my editor's publishing house catalogs. New books could literally make me salivate. I loved to talk about them and feel the weight of them in my hands and sniff the pages and study the font. The opening lines of every first chapter brought the promise of new worlds to me. As a kid I was never without a book. School, family reunions, church. I read in the car and at the pool and under the covers with a flashlight. I still carry a book with me every where I go...just in case.

But my attitude about reading now is...you know...Feh! **big sigh**

I have no idea why I have come to this crossroads. I go to the bookstore to browse and I want to weep for all the crap that's being published. None of it interests me...even the stuff that probably isn't crap, and it's probably quite revealing that I see almost everything on the shelves in that light. I open a book up to the first page and I can no longer find the "hook" that will draw me in and take me to someplace so far away that I almost forget to pick up the youngest kid from school. Even the books I HAVE read that sent me over the moon fail to elicit any enthusiasm from me anymore. Yeah, sure....Harper Lee...greatest writer ev----**snore**. I AM SCARING MYSELF!

I just got up to count the books on my bedside table...only one of which I actually finished (Garrison Keillor's "Homegrown Democrat"...but I read it before the last election and before my ennui set in). There are 37 assorted unfinished books on my bedside table. No, I'm not kidding. There's a lamp...and 37 books. Everything from Charles Dickens' "Bleak House" to Paul Auster's "Oracle Night" to Julie Powell's "Julie & Julia" .

My sons gave me the book "Gilead" for my birthday, which is supposed to be good and it won the Pulitzer and all. It's a slow-moving book. Thoughtful. Deliberate. I start reading and I can feel the words sliding off of my brain like bare feet on a wet floor. I need to finish it because they gave it to me, but it's going to be a struggle. I can already tell.

The last book that held my attention was a book I bought for my 6th grader called, "Al Capone Does My Shirts". It's a "young reader" book, but I gobbled it down like the the last doughnut at a Weight Watcher's Christmas party.

I know, I know. It's not the books. It's me. But what part of me is responsible for this turn of events? Right up until November I was reading all the time. Maybe I've damaged myself in some way. Is it all that helium I inhaled by working at the Six Flags balloon shed? The many drunken nights in college? Staying home with small kids and...oh wait...could it be their brief infatuation with "Barney" and all those videos I had to watch? Oh...the agony!

No...it's something else. There seems to be this perpetual fog that I can't seem to wave away. And I really do want it to go. I'm swimming underwater and the water is blurry and blue. I can only hear bubbles and the faint sounds of other people talking, but I can't hear what they're saying.

In the meantime...send me some ideas for something good to read. The pile on my beside table doesn't quite reach the ceiling. And...oh yeah...let me know about the template.

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

Here at Half of the Sky House of Mercy we are nothing if not compassionate. Doubtless, we don't mind whipping our own brothers with sand-filled gym socks, leaving toenail clippings next his toothbrush, refusing to ferry a roll of toilet paper to him when he is "stranded" and then laughing at him from behind the door or retaliating by filling the offending sibling's airspace with foul emanations from our own dairy-infested hindquarters.

However, if you are a young bird or a reptile of any kind within a five block radius of "Sky House" and you find yourself molested, mauled or mutilated by the unkind attentions of any of our feline residents, please know that we will not shrink from any and all tasks required to return you to your former quality of life.

We will try to make your extrication from said "Maw of Death" as quick and easy as possible. Pains will be taken to bathe your wounds in hydrogen peroxide before dabbing you gently with Polysporin ointment. For those suffering from injuries of the "gaping"variety, we offer our own version of skin/scale grafting using wet toilet paper or tissue. Top it off with a stretchy band-aid and a few kind and softly-spoken words of encouragement as you attempt to return from your traumatized state and your tiny pupils regain their normal appearance.

Please remember to start breathing as our assistants become mightily grieved if it looks as though their ministrations have not produced the desired effect. Further insistence on your part to hold your body rigid with claws splayed and the decided lack of a pulse will only initiate plans to finish the euthanasia process that nature has started before tossing you in a hole in the ground and filling it in. And nobody wants that.

KInky For Governor: Why the Hell Not?

2006-04-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

How hard, indeed? To all those right-wing detractors who claim that author/Independent candidate Kinky Friedman's bid for the governorship of Texas is nothing more than a joke....let's take a moment to review. Mmm-kay?

1) Loudmouthed pro-wrestler, Jessie "The Body" Ventura , becomes governor of Minnesota on the Republican ticket.

2) Fred Dalton Thompson (an actor on NBC's "Law & Order") served two years as Republican Senator from Tennessee.

3) Fred Grandy (aka "Gopher" on Love Boat) served as a Republican congressman from his home state of Iowa.

4) Austrian body builder/"Terminator" star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is now the Republican governor of California.

5) A "B-movie" actor whose most memorable co-star was a chimpanzee, Ronald Reagan, flip-flopped from the Democratic ticket to the Republican in order to become governor of California...and eventually...an Alzheimer's-ridden President of the United States....also on the Republican ticket. Known for referring to homeless people as "campers".

6) George W. Bush wasn't an actor...technically speaking...but all he ever really wanted was to be the commissioner of baseball. God only knows how much better off the country would be if Daddy Bush had simply called in some favors in order to make that happen. He does, however, pretend to be the President (Republican) while allowing Rove/Cheney/Rummy to make all the decisions. And...oh yeah...he used to be the governor of Texas.

So....exactly what is it about Kinky's desire to replace "Governor Rick "Goodhair" Perry that is so humorous. I mean...George W. did it. And like the slogan says, "How hard could it be?"

Some Things Never Go Out Of Style

2006-04-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite children's authors, Beverly Cleary, will celebrate her 90th birthday on the 12th of April. Cleary, who is responsible for such timeless characters as Henry Huggins, Ralph S. Mouse, Ellen Tebbits and my personal favorite, Ramona Quimby is a Berkeley grad and former children's librarian who responded the only way she knew how when a young friend observed that there were no book characters with whom they could identify. Cleary's research showed her that much of what was out there for young readers was borderline insulting . She sat down to write what would turn out to be "Henry Huggins" in longhand and sent it off to the publisher. It was accepted six weeks later.

This month, instead of sweeping Cleary and her characters under the red carpet upon which more contemporary heros--like Harry Potter--usually stand, HarperCollins is repackaging some of her "biggest hits" including all eight Ramona books. My favorites have the original Louis Darling illustrations. In Cleary's honor, April 12th is being set aside for the national observance of "DROP EVERYTHING AND READ DAY" .

I plan on celebrating Beverly Cleary's birthday all that day. Maybe I'll finish the book I've started or perhaps I'll treat myself to another run-through of "Ramona the Pest" .It doesn't really matter what you read...as long as you participate. What better way to honor someone else and do yourself a favor at the same time? HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MRS. CLEARY.....and...thanks.

Stuff to look at

2006-03-30T17:20:00.000-08:00

*If you're a victim of insomnia, here are two interesting websites that allow you to watch other people who also happen to be awake:

1) Streaming videos of people getting married by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas. Check out their archives. Very interesting. Saturday nights are especially wild.

2) Streaming video of people in Times Square. I don't know why I find it comforting to watch people browse for souvenir postcards and hail taxis...but I do.

*My nominee for March's Perfect Post Award goes to Rude Cactus and his March 28th post entitled "How Bobby Ewing Changed My Life". Check it out and get a laugh.

*I've been asked to be Melanhead's "Person of the Week" for next week (I think it'll be next week). It's a shameless attempt at self-promotion, but would it kill you to check it out when it goes up?

*I'm loving my new satellite radio. I listen to Air America and then zip over to a comedy channel. Then I can hear jazz or something retro from the all 60s station. Recently, I've been stuck on the All 70s station and just finished listening to Neil Young and some old Midnight Oil.

* Every year in our city, Radio Shack Corporation (headquartered here) presents all public high school students with a GPA of 4.0 or higher with the Radio Shack Scholar Award and a banquet, which gets held later next month. Both our older sons are recipients and today was the day of the group photo that will go in a book with all of the other schools' group photos. Students are supposed to dress up and every year I've managed to remind our boys to wear Dockers and a polo for this picture. Until this year.

We totally forgot about today's photo shoot.

One saving grace is that our high school is the largest in the city (3000-plus students) and every year the majority of the RS scholars come from our school. While most public schools in this city (there are 15 that participate) require only one page of the commemorative booklet to picture all of their awardees, our school require four pages. One for freshman, one for sophomores, etc. What this means is that there will hopefully be so many people crowded into each photo that it's likely no one will see that our sophomore wore a Texas Rangers t-shirt. Or that our junior wore a dark shirt declaring, "Let me drop everything to work on your problem" in stark white lettering. Or the guy standing next to our sophomore whose shirt simply said, "I SEE DRUNK PEOPLE" .

I know his parents are so proud.

More random things about me

2006-03-28T17:32:00.000-08:00

We keep strands of lights up in our little courtyard near the herb garden all year around. The porch light upstairs is just outside Mr. Half's office over the garage.

1. I didn't have my first real drink until I was 18 years old and in college (that was the legal drinking age back then). It was Budweiser in a can which we covered up with a sock and we were drinking them in the hallway of our dorm. Even though the RA knew what it was, she "technically" couldn't see what it was and could pretend it was a Coke. Some people say that they had to get used to the taste of beer, I liked it right away. Actually, I didn't do anything I wasn't supposed to while I was living at home. But once I left...

2. One of my favorite poems is "i carry your heart" by e.e. cummings

3. The first nightmare I ever had (I was four years old) involved seeing "The Wizard of Oz" for the first time. It involved the Wicked Witch chasing me through our old house and as I threw myself under a bed to escape her, she clawed me with her long green fingernails. A good one-third of my dreams involve being pursued with violent intent.

4 Another third of my dreams involve looking for something/someone I have lost or trying to reach a college professor about a class that I quit showing up for. It's a class that I have to get credit for in order to graduate. I've read that this dream signals feelings of an unfulfilled mission or desire in life. That there was something I was supposed to do that, subconsciously, I don't feel that I've really done. Yeah....big shocker, that.

5. The remaining third usually spell out fairly specific messages. Or they don't make any sense at all. The other night I had a dream that I was supposed to be showing someone in my yoga class how to go into "headstand" . Normally I don't have problem doing this, but in the dream I was not able to lift my legs off of the mat and then it turned out that I was being made to wear these big, yellow, shiny shoes that were really heavy. I have no idea what that means, but the next morning my shoulders and neck were really, really stiff.

6. Back when I was young, whenever anyone asked me what my favorite color was I would say "clear"...as in transparent. Yeah...I know it doesn't make sense. In truth, I was so afraid of declaring for one color and then being left out of the other groups of people who liked something else that I always said that I liked "clear" which sounds like no color at all, but I always pictured a prism (which holds the rainbow inside of it) when I said it. For the record, I like yellow/gold colors. Pumpkin. Red.
Autumn colors.

7. I have always felt that the unsatisfying social path my life followed all throughout public school could be traced back to the cosmic accident of having been placed in Mrs. Castleberry's 1st grade class...instead of Mrs. Dulen's class with all of the girls who eventually got picked for cheerleader every stinking year. But I'm better now. Honest.

8. I'm 5'8", but I wish I was 5'9". I've spent my entire life bemoaning the fact that, of the eleventy-million characteristics/quirks/abilities/traits I've inherited from my father's side of the family, the one thing I DIDN'T get was his olive skin. I tan and can get pretty dark in the summer, but in the winter I look like a piece of chalk with eyes. I like my upper lip and my teeth are good, but I hate my hands.

9. The first concert I ever went to was the Electric Light Orchestra. Elvyn Bishop opened for them. I still can't hear the song, "Fooled Around And Fell in Love" without thinking about that summer. I was 16.

10. At the end of my freshman year of college I was waiting for my parents to come get me and my clothes, etc. so that I could go home for the summer. (I didn't have a car or I would have driven home...or maybe this story would have ended differently). I had a couple of hours to go and the guy I was sort of "seeing" came by and we hung out for a while. He was going with two friends to a Ranger game and asked me not to leave that night--but rather--go with them to the game and he'd take me home the next day. I had the phone in my hand and seriously thought about telling my mother not to show up, but I didn't have the guts to get my parents to change plans. I had to come home and get a summer job and I knew this change of plans--plans that involved not coming home for dinner as opposed to doing something with someone who wasn't "family--would not sit well. So...we said goodbye and made plans to see each other the next week.
The next morning the phone rang and it was this guy's sister telling me that he had been killed in a car wreck on the way back from the baseball game. He and the other two guys were drunk and he had been thrown from the car (not wearing a seatbelt) and he died at the hospital. The other two clowns he was with survived. I was crazy with a grief that I don't believe I've felt that many times in my life, and I really felt awful for months. I felt that I should have gone with him to the game and that maybe I could have kept him from dying. I could have made him wear a seatbelt. In retrospect, there's a good chance I would have wound up dead or hurt anyway. He would have been one thing (one really big thing) that could have kept me from transferring to A&M, which I ended up doing that summer. Had I stayed in Denton, my life would be a lot different...but I wouldn't have all of this. One thing. Just one thing. Life turns on a dime every single day. It does that for everyone. Sometimes...if you pay attention...you can see it when it happens.

The only kind of math I understand

2006-03-27T13:27:00.002-08:00

Studies have shown that the subjectivity of physical beauty (as it applies to the eye of the beholder) actually has roots in facial symmetry. A few years ago I saw a television special that revealed experiments involving head shots of people and then a random sampling of people who were asked to categorize them in terms of attractiveness. It is important to note that they were asked to select from an assortment of pics showing people who were generally agreed upon as being nice-looking. No one put a picture of Lyle Lovett next to George Clooney and then asked them to pick their favorite. And I believe none of the photos were of famous people...so as not to poison the well of objectivity with predispositions toward or against someone.

Apparently, most all of the participants (although secluded from one another) singled out the same people over and over as being the most beautiful. Further analysis of those selected showed their facial dimensions to be mathematically/geometrically close to perfect. Symmetrical. Eyes not too far apart. Not too large or too small. Cheekbones level with each other and eyes that measure the same distance apart. Lips that are shaped just so and the nose is equidistant from the eyes and the mouth. Chins that don't extend beyond the forehead and at the same time don't recede. In other words, identifying a person as beautiful had nothing to do with color of hair/skin/eyes and everything to do with how the features were arranged on the face. It was all a mathematical equation. Facial geometry.

Even infants (who aren't old enough to be snooty about looks), when shown pictures of a really attractive person versus a not-so-attractive, showed particular interest in the "more conventionally handsome/pretty" of the two.

Maybe that's what it is about Dr. McDreamy that has all of us so uncomfortably thrilled with his lovely countenance, and though I haven't had occasion to measure him, I would not object to the task if asked. There's certainly a facial architecture there that makes you want to give Mother Nature a big high-five for creating something so pretty. Despite my last post where I lightly thumped Patrick Dempsey for taking Botox injections, I must hasten to admit that if I was blessed with a face like that, I'd be reluctant to let the mudslide of the aging process render me a wrinkled mess before I was ready. So...yes...I confess: He's prettier than T.R. Knight's character George O'Malley. In fact, he's quite possibly the prettiest guy on television right now.

Having said that, Patrick Dempsey still doesn't get my vote for best looking man alive...or in this case...dead. That's because my all-time idea of the most perfect-looking man ever fashioned by God and nine months of gestational incubation is John F. Kennedy, Jr.

Hands down, JFK, Jr. is and has always been for me the most symmetrical-looking human being ever to draw breath. From his head (with its most excellent hair) to his feet, he was --and remains-- the best Geometry equation ever written...and I'm not even very good in math. When I was a teacher, my classroom supply closet had a photo of him in it (because I put it there). When he died my running buddy and I bought every magazine that celebrated his brief life with a picture on the cover. I still have them. Because JFK, Jr. was a kid when I was a kid, I can attest to the fact that this guy was even a good-looking adolescent. He was also one of the most visible members of my generation, and I still find it difficult to believe that he's now and forever beyond the reaches of the most dogged celebrity photographer.

Yes...Mr. Half knows all about my fixation and I grant him the same latitude when he looks at Keira Knightly (whom he affectionately refers to as Keira GoodKnightly...in his words the kind of woman so beautiful that it makes a man want to crash his car into a wall )

Even my friends who, unlike me, do not share the political views of the Kennedys find it difficult to deny the superior way John Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier's nice-but-nothing-spectacular-looking DNA combined and recombined with such rare and stunning results. In fact, take a look at all of the Kennedy clan...for certainly there are enough of them to populate a small town....if you don't believe me. The Kennedys provide a vast array of "looks"....everything from toothy and homely to really plain. Some nice-looking and even a few really handsome folks. All bear some aspect of the unmistakable family features, but nevertheless, this is a group that pretty much provides a Whitman's Sampler of facial variation.

But surely JFK, Jr. represents a kind of familial savant of genetics where a little molecules of gorgeosity that had been set aside for each of Ted's, Robert's and John's kids were somehow siphoned off into Jackie's uterus in 1960-- the moment the Goddess of Chromosomal Distribution finished the blueprints for the President's son. It certainly would explain the way he stood out in a crowd...be it his relatives or perfect strangers on a New York street corner.

What he might have done with his life had he not foolishly decided to fly his plane on a foggy night with a cast on his foot is anyone's guess. He was a decent person...and from all accounts...a kind and generous man who took to heart his family's mantra: "To whom much is given, much is required". But the purpose of this post is not to discuss what he might have been...but what he actually was...or at least part of what he was. And what he WAS was so breath-takingly handsome that it makes you blink a little to behold the shirtless young man playing Frisbee in the park or the man in the suit behind the podium or the guy in rolled-up shirtsleeves at his desk.

Because--damn--in my opinion no one else even comes close.

The sacrifices we make

2006-03-26T16:20:00.000-08:00

I confess that I've been watching HBO's "Big Love" since it aired and have missed every episode of "Grey's Anatomy" during those three Sundays and now I find that I'm swamped with guilt over having been so faithless. I've tried to assuage my feelings by reading the blog that Grey's writers have going, and that has helped some, but mostly it has made me miss those characters like crazy. "Big Love" is very, very interesting. I don't LOVE it, because the nature of the belief system, which began as a polygamous endeavor, makes me feel pretty skeezy anyway. I know it's just television, but it's television based on something very real and awful. It's like a train wreck orchestrated by a seemingly innocuous conductor (Bill Paxton), but the lines that come out of his mouth make me feel all weird and conflicted. It's fascinating and disturbing. And. I. Cannot. Look. Away.

Fortunately, Mr. Half saw my distress and so part of my birthday gift was a big box of TiVo!! (In addition to my new XM Satellite Radio) Problem solved! I can now return to my regularly scheduled programming.

And for the record? If forced to choose (for you guys...this is like the "Gilligan's Island" Ginger or Mary Ann" question), I'm afraid I'd pick George over McDreamy. Okay...I'm not an idiot. I wouldn't object to one night with McDreamy. But I saw Patrick Dempsey's interview with Barbara Walters and he confessed to using Botox and...uh...that bothered me a little. Don't ask me why. Anyway...now matter how gorgeous, his character can't make up his mind and that chaps me. George, however, is just all there and totally wonderful. Who couldn't love a face like that? McDreamy for a night, but George for a lifetime.

Uh...just pretending, Mr. Half.

Where each consecutive birthday trumps the tragedy that was my adolescence

2006-03-23T20:22:00.000-08:00

Here's a revealing photo from way back. This may have been around 4th or 5th grade...I'm not sure since I've tried to forget a lot of it. Clearly this picture could be captioned: "The ugly stick in mid-strike". I despised this haircut as well as the modification my own mother made shortly afterwards when she cut my bangs too short with scissors from her sewing basket. Oh GAH! The horror! I'm still having flashbacks.
Fast forward to a better pic...or happier at least. Taken a few years ago with Mr. Half.

Thanks to all who have sent birthday wishes. It means more than you know. Technically, my big day is March 24th, but I usually try to embark on my journey of self-pity and despair a few days early. I won't announce exactly WHICH birthday it is, let's just say that I'm older than Queen Latifah and younger than Christie Brinkley and leave it at that. Mmmm-kay?

I know we're supposed to believe that age is just a number, but it's really also a marker for achievement. I'm okay in the personal achievement department, but I've been in hand-to-hand combat with my free-lance career since it started. And if I feel I haven't really done anything significant since the last birthday...well...things can spiral downward in an unsatisfying way. Sure, sure...it's all in your attitude. If you think you're special, then you are special. Believe in yourself and you can do anything. But there's a fine line between self-confidence and self-delusion and if you don't believe me, I've got some taped episodes of the "American Idol" auditions I think you'll want to see.

What hit me hard this week was the obituary of a woman who graduated with me from high school. She died of pancreatic cancer eight months after her diagnosis. She was so tough that she worked for five of those months. This was a woman who knew what she wanted to do...even when we were kids...and she went out and did it. She was brilliant. Bachelors degree from Georgetown University and an MBA from Columbia University. At our 10 year reunion she was working on Wall Street and since then had spent her years being VP of this investment firm or creating her own invesment group. She gave her money to Doctors Without Borders and Emily's List. She gave financial backing to artists and sat on the board of the San Francisco Ballet. She did all of this without being dependent upon a husband/boyfriend/father for a dime. At the time of her death, she was President of a fund for an international investment firm.

Her death hit me hard, though not for the reasons you'd expect. Yes, sure...I was sad about her dying. She was too young for that. She was a good person, but we were not close or even what you'd call friends. We both placed into the same Advanced Composition class our senior year of high school, but we sat on opposite sides of the room, and after graduation I only saw her at the two reunions.

No...what hit me hardest was how her life stands in such a stark contrast to my own and how that made me do a lot of navel-gazing this week about what I've done with my own life since graduation from high school and college. No way could there be the kind of obituary for me that was written for her. Yes...she died too young, but even so she packed a lot of living into those years. She accomplished a lot and there was this linear progression of plan and execution, plan and execution that I can only envy. The highlights of my day today? I helped the youngest son finish a major project on Macedonia and I also had my teeth cleaned. Oh...and my editor rejected my proposed book review because someone else had already asked for it or reviewed it or something. I'm foggy on the details.

I'll be fine...really. It's just reality slapping me in the face with its cold and cruel hand and just like the toy Weebles from back in the day, I'll wobble a little but I won't fall down. Not yet anyway. Happy Friday!

5 reasons I'm still a feminist

2006-03-21T19:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a sampling of what happens when women hand over their brains/bodies/futures to the decision-making of men. Click on these websites and discover with fresh horror the atrocities being committed in the name of patriarchal entitlement. (I'm sure that none of my male readers would fit into any of these groups)

1) Prairie Muffins: No...it's not the same as a cowpie, but it's still a load of crap. A pile of crap dressed in a denim jumper. Okay...maybe not the denim-wearer's fault, but it's definitely the fault of the guys they married.

2) You just thought these rules applied to your mother and grandmother, but guess again sister! There's a whole movement of mindsnatchers out there just waiting to turn every woman with ambition, intelligence, an original thought, and a creative mind into only a shadowy notion of what she wanted to be.

3) ASSHAT OF THE YEAR...and for more reasons that I can possibly list here. Here's hoping that if God ever gets back into the "smiting" business, Pat Robertson will be at the top of the list. Note to Pat: God is not talking to you. Those really are just the little voices in your head. But if He/She ever did start talking, it would only be to tell you to SHUT THE HELL UP!
4) Here's a clue gents: Polygamy is just an attempt to legalize the tragic fact that some of your less-intelligent bretheren can't keep their pants zipped until they get home to the "little woman".
Boys, if you've got a hankering for owning a herd of anything at all, do us ALL a favor: Get a truckload of sheep and leave women the HELL alone!

5) Rusty Yates with Victim--er--captive--I mean--Wife #2. Poor, delusional Andrea Yates needs to be in a mental hospital for drowning her helpless children, but her husband should be serving the prison term for forcing her to be his unpaid servant and continuous baby incubator while ignoring her mental illness. Hey Rusty, check out your new wife's expression. Is that doubt that I see..or did she just get a text message from Katie Holmes that said, " Even I feel srry 4 U. Get out now!!"

So....yeah...send me your nominations for the losers who chap your ass the most. Right now, I know all this is pretty negative, but I'm feeling the birthday blues and...well...you know....the whole "what's life all about" ennui.

This reminds me of a story...

2006-03-19T17:15:00.000-08:00

Our rain gauge is registering almost 5 inches of rain in the past 48 hours. January saw Texas in the throes of a drought and now we're under flood watch. It's been so bad and our dogs have spent so much time in their dog houses that they've taken to sitting out in puddles and staying soaked. Finally, we took them into the garage to eat their dinner, towelled them off and let them hang out in there for awhile with someone's old Teva sandal to chew on.

But the rain--incessant and dark--reminds me of something else. The night my parents took me to college. See...I'm a graduate of Texas A&M...I may have told you that already. However, that's not where I started out. My intention, I guess, was to go to A&M all along--having been raised by a rabid graduate of the old school (my father). School counselors being what they were back then, at least where my high school was concerned, no one started pelting us with collegiate pamphlets and SAT reviews and pep talks about visiting colleges to figure out where we should go (Unlike my own kids whose first experience with the SAT was in 7th grade).

By the time I got around to filling out my applications, it was clear that I didn't have enough math to get into A&M. I had enough to get into other schools...but not A&M...so our hastily-prepared PLAN B was for me to attend UNT (at the time it was North Texas State University) for a semester of college math and 14 other hours of assorted freshman "have-to's" and then transfer. Turns out...I liked Denton and I stayed for the entirety of my freshman year.

But the evening my parents took me to school was an evening just like this. Dark and Stormy...just like the past few days. Depressing. My dad was tense and my mother was emotional. I was the first child to leave in a family that wasn't terribly practiced in the art of "letting go". Nope. That would be another family. Not mine. So that night I was essentially released into the wild... dumb, untried and as inexperienced as Marsha Brady on her first day at Westdale High.

Anyway...we pulled up to the piece of crap building that seemed to be off to the side of the university...away from everything and everyone. West Hall, as it turned out, was the former athletic dorm. Condemned and slated for destruction...yet inexplicably open as our temporary and only half-filled "overflow" dorm. It was to be our home until we could get moved to another place on campus. The top two floors were vacant and only some of the second were occupied, which only added to my parents' already anxious mood. We hauled all my junk in out of the rain, though in retrospect it wasn't really what I needed. I had no stereo. No tv. No typewriter. No bookshelf. What I did have, and God only knows why, was an ironing board. Oh yes...my parents felt that would be indispensible to my college career. I was told that I could peruse the tags taped to the doors on the second floor until I found out one with my name on it.

I found the little yellow tag first and my parents hurried over to witness as I read off the name next to it...that of my first college roommate. I won't say her name here, because I don't know her anymore and I try not to use people's real names unless they tell me that I can or unless they're famous and can't do anything about it. I'll simply refer to her from here on out as Shaneequa...because that's really, really close.

Picture--if you can--my stunned and now grief-stricken mother whose own acceptance of the Civil Rights Movement worked better in theory than in practice. Witness the volumes of unnecessary tears practically shooting out of her eyeholes. Now picture my dad who never said anything about anything to me unless it started with the words, "Now just you listen here..." right before all hell broke loose. Hear my father's silent craving for a cigarette. The prospect of leaving their daughter on a night that seemed ripe for a flood of Biblical proportion paled in comparison to the notion that her first roommate was an unknown girl of another race. And me? My interest in meeting Shaneequa was only exceeded by my wish to see my parents stop unpacking for me and leave, and after practically having to peel my mother's fingers off of me one by one and shooing them out the door, I did meet the new roommate.

She was great. She was smart and from Dallas. She loved to read just like me. Her favorite book was Richard Adams' "Watership Down". She had spent part of her summer before her freshman year taking classes in junior college so that she was ahead of the rest of us. She looked like the character of Shirley on the TVLand sitcom "What's Happening?". In short...a lot bigger than me. We had a college algebra class together, which was mostly populated by athletes. By then I had "walked on" to the track team and it was obvious to me that the instructor treated us like idiots. He treated Shaneequa doubly so, and I assumed it was because he was a racist as well as a guy who hated his job. She ignored it and got him back by getting A's in everything. We got along together just fine, though we both knew other people from high school who were on campus and we usually sought those people out in our moments of homesickness.

Within a month, we had both been placed at another dorm and I was given a roommate from a tiny town in the Texas Panhandle. A short, plump girl who played the French Horn, listened to Country music and who'd never had a boyfriend. A woman who didn't drink beer but who occasionally "tippled" by having a little apricot brandy and wore cotton nightgowns and used terms like "oh my heavens". In short, it was like rooming with someone's maiden Aunt Gertrude. Boring. We shared a small bare room with two beds and one desk and two closets. It was a monastic little cell and the only difference between us and discalced Carmelite nuns was that fact that we were allowed to wear shoes. No matter..by the year's end, I was gone and on my way to College Station.

Later on I spoke with someone from my old dorm who told me that Shaneequa had run into some kind of trouble, though I can't recall what it was and it didn't really register with me at the time as being all that important. I didn't see her again....until about 7 years later. I was at the UTA bookstore (another city and university entirely)...browsing and wondering why I hadn't just stayed in college to get a masters degree so that my teacher's income would actually cover my rent/car/food. I picked up a couple of paperbacks that interested me and went to the register. The cashier looked just a little familiar. Her nametag said, "Shaneequa". That was before EVERYONE started giving their daughters this name, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw that she was my cashier.

She caught me staring and said, "Uh...can I help you?". I told her that I thought she used to be my first college roommate in Denton and I told her my name. Her suspicious look turned into a huge smile and she said..."yeah....skinny blonde!" I told her I was teaching in the city and asked her what she was doing. She told me that she had been asked to leave NTSU after a series of incidents involving roommates. "Yeah...I just could never get along with anyone and so I had to leave and come here" I guess I looked puzzled about how not getting along with anyone could get such a smart girl kicked out of college. She handed me my books and receipt and said, "You know? You were my favorite roommate out of the six that I had....(and she leaned in close for the the next part)...and you were the only one I didn't beat up."

Maybe she thought I was just so dull it wasn't worth the energy to slug me. I'm betting it was the ironing board that tipped her off.

Happy 17th to the kid who made me a mom

2006-03-17T15:49:00.000-08:00

Oldest son (Greyson) is celebrating his 17th birthday today. He's an honorary Irishman, though I'm not sure where that'll actually get him in life. We're out for Chinese tonight (his favorite) and then home to watch old videos of the birthday boy (we do this for each kid on their special day and they never stop laughing their butts off at how they sounded back then) on the day he became our first child and the first grandchild for both sides of the family. Then...we'll feast on the homemade yeast-rising cinnamon rolls (with icing) that Greyson requested instead of a birthday cake. I made five pans yesterday exactly half were totally gone by noon today. I'm posting these for your enjoyment. Regular blogging returns in a day or so. In the meantime,
Happy St. Patrick's Day to you1

The Rest of the Story

2006-03-16T07:24:00.000-08:00

Radio show guy Paul Harvey used to do these little things called "The Rest of the Story". Remind me to tell you about the one about "The Wizard of Oz". Pretty amazing.
Anyway...I've always been very curious about what happens to people I knew long ago. Google and other search engines and sites have helped me find many old friends from the past and it never ceases to amaze me how many fragments of our past lives are still out there. Not a day goes by that I don't wonder what ever happened to a toy I had (see the previous post) or a dress I once wore or a person I knew. In the case of today's post, it's a person who came back to me from the far reaches of my childhood.

When I was in the 5th grade, my Language Arts teacher decided we would do a writing exchange program with the students from another school in Columbus, Ohio. One day a packet of letters came and our teacher, Mrs. Thompson, began reading them aloud. One by one she would read the letters and anyone who was interested in writing to that person raised his/her hand. I can't remember what it was about one particular letter that inspired me to raise my hand, but I was given the letter from a girl whose name was the same as that of a famous American painter, if you transposed his first and last names with each other.

We differed in a few ways...she was short and brunette and I was tall and blonde. Her parents were divorced and mine weren't. She had two brothers and I had two sisters. What we did have in common was that we both liked to read Nancy Drew books. We both liked music and sang in both church and school choirs. Our birthdays were three days apart and we shared the same astrological sign, which was terribly important to us at the time. Many of her first letters to me came on lime-green stationery with Aries sign at the top.

We exchanged school pictures and birthday gifts. I sent her a scented fuzzy pen (all the rage back then) and she sent me a blow-up pillow that said "The Devil Made Me Do It". That last detail should date me quite accurately, for those of you still in the dark about how old I am. I believe we wrote to each other until we started high school...and there may have been a couple of letters in college, too, because I remembered for a long time that she wound up going to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. How else would I have known that?

I would give anything to still have those letters. I think they must have been the victims of one of several giant "purges" of clutter when I was moving out on my own and before I knew how I would come to value things like that.

Fast forward to 1993 or so when I decide one day to call the alumni services department of Miami University to see if they have any information on my old penpal. Miracle of miracles...they did. I wrote to her and I believe she wrote me back. I was able to find her again a few years later after we move to this house and one day I called her on the phone. Other than that phone call, though, we haven't really been in touch since college. That's a really long time.

Why we never thought of calling each other before is something I've often wondered about. What was amazing to me was how much our lives had continued to follow a similar path. Both of us had continued to have music in our lives throughout our adult years. We both became teachers. We both were married and had three children. Both of us left teaching and live relatively close to the place where we were raised.

A few days ago I got an e-mail from her and she told me about her kids...who sound like great people. She's coming to Texas in July (can't imagine a worst month to come here--weather-wise--unless it's August) for a conference and wants to know how far Fort Worth is from where she'll be...San Antonio. I'm thinking that it would definitely be worth a short trip down there to see a person I've known for...uh...well...a long time.

So here's to old friends that you've never met. To the importance of written correspondence and the miracles of long-distance commuication. To the potential that penpals created all those years ago when a letter in the mailbox that was just for you meant everything. And to bloggers everywhere...potential friends, confidantes and comrades all! Did you have a penpal?

Don't Fix What Isn't Broken

2006-03-14T12:21:00.000-08:00

Change is inevitable. I know I'll learn that lesson eventually, but there are certain things that just shouldn't get messed with. Right now I can think of two:

Exhibit A: The Kenner Easy Bake Oven
Exhibit B: The Mattel Creepy Crawler Thingmaker

Back in the day there was nothing quite like pulling an all-metal Easy Bake Oven out of its box and whipping up a tiny chocolate cake in miniature metal pans. Mine was a coppery brown and a marvel of Lilliputian perfection. You plugged it in. It got hotter than hell. Dangerous? I suppose that cooking something with a high-powered bulb and reflective mirrors in a totally metal object that is plugged into a wall could be construed as...uh...somewhat hazardous. Show me an oven that isn't. Besides, there was a war going on (not WWII, you dopes!) and a little blister wasn't going to stop me from baking anything. For all I knew my ability to crank out tiny pies was the only thing keeping the VietCong at bay. (*cue patriotic music here*)

There were certain precautions one could take to prevent accidents involving baking one's own hands accidentally. I used a marvelous invention called a POTHOLDER to take the molten objects out of the little oven and then I let them cool before I ate it. No, it wasn't as good as mother's cake, but gaining a modicum of autonomy over your own life by being able to make your own dessert (that was before girls got the LIFE MEMO about having to do it every day for the rest of our lives for certain individuals who will remain nameless) came in at a really close second. Either way...you had yourself an iced cake in less than 20 minutes. What's not to love?

I saw an Easy Bake Oven recently. What a lame excuse for a baking contraption! What an affront! What an atrocity! The oven is plastic! How far do you think things are going to progress in a plastic oven? The bulb was small and of low-wattage. Maybe even battery powered. How long did it take to make the cake? Well...let me just say that I could fill a shoe with cake batter and set it out on my sunny driveway and it would bake faster than the "new and improved" EBO. I could bake it faster using a blowdryer or by waving an ordinary kitchen match over the top of the pan. Honestly...just thinking about it destroys my faith in humanity and technology.

Ditto for the Creepy Crawler Thingmaker. The PlastiGoop came in plastic squeeze bottles and, like the EBO, the contraption used to bake the bugs/snakes/creepy monsters used real metal trays that we lifted out of the cooker with metal tongs. The goop had a particular rubbery smell and consistency that was even more obvious as it heated up. Some colors seemed to bake faster than others and when Mattel introduced Glo-In-The-Dark goop we thought we would pass out from sheer ecstasy. It was an exercise in coordination to remove the baked rubber bugs from the trays using straight pins while they were still flexible without searing off your own fingerprints on the hot metal. Hey, no one I knew went to the E.R. on a Creepy Crawler-related accident.

It's just not the same anymore,though. The trays aren't heavy and the "cooker" is pathetic and slow. It's all so....*sigh*....safe. The resulting items aren't any good either. They're brittle and they don't smell the same.The new goop is now FDA approved and isn't any fun at all. It's tragic, really. The thrill is gone.

How are we to teach our kids life skills and survival tactics if we reduce the risk factors of their toys to that of a small rubber ball? Where's the adventure? Where's the rush of adrenaline? What's the world coming to?

Okay...I'm going off in a corner and wait until it's 5 p.m. when I can have a glass of wine without being labeled a "day drinker". In the meantime, amuse yourselves with this cool website about retro toys and then tell me about your own personal favorites. Perhaps by then my despair will have passed.

What others see...

2006-03-12T17:50:00.000-08:00

Our front porch features two windows that look into the front living room and I stood out there at dusk tonight with my camera. The resulting photograph reminds me of a couple of things:

First, one of my favorite things to do is walk or run at night. If I go at night Mr. Half is always with me, and it's great to wind through the neighborhood and catch the glow from houses as people start the evening portion of their day. Sometimes there's a burst of laughter. A kid practices piano. Couples having a glass of wine on the porch or someone's talking to a child as they stand next to the kitchen sink. Televisions flickering. Spotlights over the driveways as kids play a last game of basketball. The faint garlic bread and oniony smell when someone makes spaghtetti or lasagna and the opening of a door releases that heavenly aroma.

Daytime running through our streets allows me to see people as they leave for work or work in the garden or pull into the driveway after school, but windows and doors reveal nothing and most of their "living" takes place away from home or behind opaque screens that deflect the sunlight. Nighttime lets you walk by and catch a glimpse of people living together as roommates, friends, families. Sure, the streets are a little quieter, but the yellow lamplight spilling out from the windows gives you the "all is well" sense that everyone's cozy and comfortable and safe. I know it's not always true for everyone in the big world, but in our little world it feels like we're checking on everyone to make sure the neighborhood's okay.

The other thing is that Mr. Half always goes out at night after the kids go to bed and checks the doors to the cars to make sure they're locked. He's done this as long as we've been married and he also stands on the driveway and talks to the cats. He walks up the stairs to his office that is over the garage and checks the lock and then goes back down to the courtyard entrance to the little service porch and passes through to the garage again to get a beer out of the refrigerator that's out there. What I didn't know for the longest time was that he used this little quiet time to stand for a bit out in the yard and watch us through the windows. Not up close like a stalker, but way back...like an observer. He walked to every window and, before we got the dogs who need attention night and day, he made a complete circuit around the outside of the house. Every room spilled its light and its stories out in slanted rectangles onto the grass. The ones to the kitchen and the windows to the back living room. My office and our bedroom. Mr. Half said that to stand out in the yard and look in at his family and the different rooms of our home made him feel as though he was seeing everything with new eyes. He felt lucky and cozy and safe. And grateful.

I've since tried that exercise on several occasions and I think Mr. Half is onto something. Try it sometime. Look in from the outside and see what you have. Don't the colors look richer and the people even more precious than you thought possible? This is what others see. This is how rich you are when viewed through the eyes of others. Those dirty dishes still out on the countertop? It's just the remains of that fabulous dinner. That big stack of papers in your office? It's work. Remember those who have none and be grateful for yours. And that loud music that your teenager is listening to? Take the time to walk into his room and get him to share it with you. That moment won't come again in the same shape or form no matter how many times later on you wish that it would. I promise you'll walk back inside with a different view of your world...even the parts that drive you a little crazy. And just like George Bailey after he realized how glad he was to be alive amidst the chaos and uncertainty, don't forget to kiss the rickety newel post or give the the doorframe with the chipped paint a little pat before you close the door behind you.

Spring Break + Nine Other Things About Me

2006-03-09T20:58:00.000-08:00

1) Tomorrow's the last day of school before Spring Break begins. I'm excited...I think. At least there's no homework to nag about, but now I'll have to make sure there's a teenager available to watch the youngest kid while I take a yoga class. Plus...we'll be exceeding our 9 gallons of milk per week consumption rate now that they'll be around all day long. No, I'm not kidding about the 9 gallons. Spring Break revelation about me: I never, ever went to the beach with friends for Spring Break. Never. I always had to come straight home. Not in high school and not even in college. Okay...I did spend two drunken days in Lubbock for PikeFest with my best friend Steve, but then...I came right back home. Did I imagine this or were we drinking beer out of milk cartons? Steve, get back to me about this.

2) I wasn't allowed to get my ears pierced until I was 15 years old. Yeah, it's ridiculous. Talk to my mother. You know what happens when you hold back on dumb stuff like that with your kids? They wait until they become parents and then they toss back a couple of shots of something, drive to Dallas with a friend and then get their navels pierced. That was almost 7 years ago. It's still there, Mom and Dad.

3) I keep hearing people say that liking The Three Stooges is a guy thing. Personally, I enjoy them. My favorite combination is Moe, Larry and Curly. Followed by Moe, Larry and Shemp. Joe just blows.

4) Staying home with small children can be a lonely business. Years ago I let a vacuum cleaner salesman into the house as well as two sets of Jehovah's Witnesses. Okay the salesman was a bad call, and he was really angry when we didn't buy his product. I let the Witnesses in just because I really enjoy a good argument.

5) When I was a kid, I used to watch "As the World Turns". Every. Single. Day. I kept up with the plot through high school and then when I went to college I witnessed how the world ground to a halt when "All My Children" or "Days of Our Lives" came on. I stopped watching soap operas the minute I left home and I can't for the life of me understand what compelled me to do it when I did. Soap operas feature the worst acting on the planet, except maybe for the Mexican soap operas. Cheesy and overblown. I'm deeply ashamed I ever wasted my time on them.

6) UPDATE #1: I checked on the house down the street while I was on my run today. Uncle Sam, the 4th of July yard display effigy, is still lying in the bushes...silently decomposing. Next to him is a sign I hadn't seen before. It says, "United We Stand". Not in this yard he doesn't.

7) UPDATE #2: I also saw the kid with the shaved eyebrows today. Damn! Eyebrows take a long time to grow back. At least he's not wearing the band-aids anymore.

8) In First Grade, Mrs. Castleberry divided our class into four reading groups and gave each one the name of a bird. Cardinals were the best. Robins were next I think. I was in the Bluejay group, and it took me a little while to figure out that this group was second from the bottom. I don't remember what the worst group was called. Vultures? Crows? I was stunned at being in a group that was bad at something, and it seems funny to me now because of my career with reading and writing. I do remember that it was the first time I was conscious of being "categorized" in a group. The shame was not in the categorization itself but that I was so clearly lacking a skill that I needed and that other people knew it.

9) In 2nd grade, I was washing my hands in the school bathroom when Deborah Kleinman told me that her father was a camel and her mother was a whale. Everyone knew that Deborah told the biggest lies, but for a moment I wanted to believe it was true. She invited me over to play once and her room was wall-to wall shelves of those dolls from every country. There must have been 40 of them and they all had very intricate costumes. I was fascinated, but I really I just wanted to see what her parents looked like. I was very disappointed when they turned out not to look at all the way she described them. She came back to our 10 year high school reunion and said she was a runway model in Paris, France. She was 6 feet tall and gorgeous, but something made me feel dumb for believing her. I haven't seen her since.

10) Not only was I the worst driver of the four of us in the Driver's Ed. car, but I didn't have many opportunities to practice at home. Lacking the chance to drive, I read a lot as I was being driven around. The result of this was that I had absolutely no concept of where I was going or how to get where I needed to get. When I got my license, I had no clear idea how to get to church or even to my grandparents' houses. I kept a spiral notebook with written directions with me in order to find my way around.

Happy Friday!

I'm not biting

2006-03-08T20:40:00.000-08:00

The newest issue of "O" At Home magazine is out and I know exactly what Ms. Winfrey is trying to pull and I'm not falling for it. She couldn't lure me with pictures of her guest house that she had completely decorated with enough wall fabric to make a circus tent and exotic flowers in every room. She was unsuccessful in trying to show me how even a lowly, unfamous creature such as myself could eventually save enough pennies to buy some Manolos--perhaps from a guy selling them out of the trunk of his car--and enjoy the fabulous life of a celebrity. What about those crazy recipes she insists are easy and fun to make but, in reality, call for many items not carried in a regular grocery store and the preparation for which requires the services of a part-time soux chef. And those profiled B-listers with all that money and a loft in New York who still have no taste nor any earthly idea how to furnish an apartment until she sends in lovely little Nate Berkus to help do a massive makeover? Well--okay--I did read those issues, but I'm quitting you now Miss O. Putting Nate on the cover was a desperate attempt to sell the magazine, since it's certainly no novelty seeing your face plastered all over everything. First it was Dr. Phil and now poor Nate. Accept that he's the only good thing about your overpriced publication and get on with your life, but stop using him and his luscious bod to draw more attention to yourself. Really...it's too much. And so is your magazine.

HUMP DAY: Where things could go either way

2006-03-08T11:02:00.000-08:00

First of all I'd like to take this moment to thank everyone whose comments in the last couple of days gave me a pat on the back or a kick in the ass. I desperately needed both. Here at Half House things are always crazy and disorganized and heavily laden with testosterone (I'm outnumbered 4-1) and I've accepted this as normal. But normal is really just an umbrella term for all kinds of other stuff that 's likely to happen.

Unfortunately, I'm a "glass half empty" kind of person and this state of mind usually intensifies as my birthday draws near. It's a time of re-evaluation for me and if life's great "To Do" list doesn't have enough items checked off on it...well...I tend to emulate my old college suitemate whose dark moods could be detected by the incessant playing of one particular song...over and over an over until we threatened her with physical violence. Coming back from class you could hear the familiar strains of Elton John's "Funeral For A Friend" all the way down the dorm hallway and we just knew things would be dodgy until...well...until they weren't anymore. So...nothing's changed really except my attitude and that's really half the battle, isn't it?

Okay...so I've been mulling over the notion of changing my template for Half the Sky and I've run into a bit of a problem. Blogger's description of the template designs available for our use are described online as "gorgeous"--but--oh my god--nothing could be further from the truth. Have you seen them? Really...just a rearrangement of the same colors over and over. Boring, boring, boring. Or in some cases...hideous. I've changed this template once before, but that was back when I had no blogroll listed and I've been advised that any change will only save my text...but none of the customizations. If I end up going to the plain white one (Minima?), it'll be a while before I can put all the other junk on there. By then it will be absolutely necessary for me to have some kind of header backgound pic up there to keep my blogpage from looking as blank as a sheet of Kleenex. Mignon's sent me the code for a header background, but my tiny dinosaur brain cannot comprehend it.

In the meantime, I offer something that I thought of when commenting on Chris' site. He told his readers to ask him any questions we might want to and so I asked him to imagine that he was in charge of one television station. From 7-10 p.m. this network would play only the shows he wanted and they could be as old as he liked. Some of his answers mirrored mine and it inspired me to use this as a post on my own site...with one change: I'm going to name 12 shows that I've enjoyed. All are in syndication and some can't be found anyplace on television. This station would air all of these shows (and more) for my own comfort and enjoyment. I invite you to compile your own list:

1) Love American Style- This was an hourlong show that my parents mostly thought was too old for us. (Kinda like the idea behind the fact that I wasn't allowed to read Seventeen Magazine until I was almost 17 ...and by that time I didn't care anymore.) This show was a series of vignettes about dating and romance.

2) The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd- Blair Brown and a young David Straithairn. Single woman. Lived in New York. Worked in a bookstore with Straitharn's character. Perfect.

3) I Love Lucy- Yes, in retrospect the limitations of her life were sexist and every show belabored the idea that she was some kind of incompetent nincompoop, but find me a show from the 1950's where that wasn't the case. The reality was that she owned half of Desilu Studios and was a shrewd businessperson. And funny. Plus the writing was good. ("I know he's half your kid, but when I hid my half, yours went right along with him.")

4) Friends - Just because.

5) The Andy Griffith Show- Please don't confuse this with Mayberry RFD. Just give me Andy and Barney, Opie and Aunt Bea. If you don't laugh after seeing the "Pickle Episode" or cry during "Opie the Birdman" then you have a heart of stone.

6) The Dick Van Dyke Show- Famous writers from the old "Cid Ceasar Show" and "Your Show of Shows". Carl Reiner was a genius...plus any show about people who write for a living makes me very, very happy.

7) Seinfeld- Do I really need to explain?

8) The Mary Tyler Moore Show- It was a great idea that was cancelled way too soon. Betty White was brilliantly repulsive as the "Happy Homemaker" and the arrogance of Ted Knight's news anchor character is only exceeded by his lack of intelligence. Sorta like Bill O' Reilly...but without the sex scandals.

9) Newheart- Not the one where he's an innkeeper, but the original where he's married to Suzanne Pleshette and is psychiatrist to Mr. Carlin. The drinking game "Hi, Bob" originated with this earlier show.

10) My World and Welcome To It- I'm betting there are very few people who remember this show. Based on the art of James Thurber, it was about a cartoonist and his family. Way ahead of its time for 1969.

11) St. Elsewhere- Way before ER or Chicago Hope there was this show. Check it out and you'll see a very young Denzel Washington.

12) The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau - Who knew that watching a skinny, little Frenchman scuba dive could hold my attention as long as it did? Calming and educational. I named my first pet fish after him. Unfortunately, someone failed to warn me that male Japanese fighting fish can be violent. That was revealed to me when I came home from work and found Jacques' roommates, Lucy and Ethel, dead and with their eyes and fins gone. I don't hold a grudge.

I could name a bunch more (Laugh-In, Monkees, M*A*S*H,), but I'm curious about the shows you miss. What would be on your personal television station?

When one hour in the day colors the other 23

2006-03-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

Okay...not totally. And yet, today's little get-together with some people I used to write with (including our old editor who left us for greener pastures--see yesterday's post) only made me feel worse and more artistically adrift than ever before. Those who have established their comfy perch at a newsdesk or as a featured columnist can go about their business. This next sentence is for the free-lance writers out there looking for their next writing gig in the arena of culture: Print media is dying, my friends, and the first sections of every paper to walk the plank are visual arts and books.
My former editor, one of the lovely folk I met with today, is noticeably chagrined that I'm not employed as a writer as often as he'd like. We formed a nice mutual admiration society during the years we worked together. He was one of my favorite editors (of the four I've had) and I was one of his favorite writers. That said, he would like to see me do more with my writing than what I've been doing of late. I wanted to tell him that the front seat on the bus to Regretsville already has my name on it, given that I spent eight good years teaching stubborn adolescents to write instead of doing it myself. That...and the fact that so much of the time I was writing for him I was also running herd on three young sons, one of whom was a pre-schooler. He laughs when I remind him of the times we did phone edits and how one of those times involved me phoning him while crouched over the pages as I stood on my kitchen porch in the winter while my screaming toddler beat on the other side of the glass door with his tiny fists. Ah yes....good times.

Sometime while I was getting all those kids to a place where they could find their own pants, the newspaper business took a dive. The areas where I made my best money, visual arts and books, were the first areas to be eaten by ad space or obliterated altogether to save money. And it's not just newspapers that are suffering. Of the four magazines devoted to the reading life that debuted within the last 8 years, one of which I wrote for, two are no longer in print. Seems no one wants to read about stuff that makes them think anymore. Great art. Fabulous literature. Theater. Music. All have fallen victim to the encroachment of adspace. (Oh yes...they just fired our classical music reviewer...and in this town we have a little piano shindig here we like to call THE VAN CLIBURN COMPETITION!!!! How do you cover that in the newspaper without someone who knows classical music? Has the world gone mad? No wonder the New Yorker Magazine's creator and first editor, Harold Ross, put his writers and advertising execs on totally separate floors. To separate the wheat from the chaff, of course!

What doesn't seem to be affected are the pages devoted solely to the goings-on of the rich and wish-they-were-famous in this town. One woman ( I won't call her a writer or a journalist) gets an entire column a couple of times a week wherein she talks about bejewelled socialites and which clever dowagers managed to get shoes to match her handbags. She also covers the parties and the debuts and the funds raised by moneyed people "of note" who were so moved by the plight of the albino ferret (for example) at the yearly gala that they immediately fell into fits of melancholy and then shook off the mood by writing a big check. It's trash writing at its worst, but I can't imagine anyone getting rid of this broad in order to save the career of one Arts writer.

Pretty soon the paper will only be comprised of four sections: The Front for murders/rapes/money launderers. Sports. Obituaries. And the CRAPsection where that stupid, stupid woman writes every damn year about how the nubile and extremely wealthy debutants make their gravity-defying bow to the audience (Called the "Texas Dip") at their debut to society before downing three bucket-sized containers of Jagermeister and power-vomiting into the country club's new hot tub.

On the bright side....today's yoga session was awesome and I figured out how to take b/w pics with my camera. See? I found my silver lining...

WHEREIN I ADMIT TO THE FEAR THAT I'M A FAKE AND A FRAUD.

2006-03-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

I'm supposed to be hard at work on two non-paying projects and I find myself at a creative standstill. I hate a standstill. Unlike other people who become terror struck at the initial sight of a white sheet of paper in the typewriter/blank computer screen or a fresh and unmarked canvas, my creativity comes to a grinding halt even after I've already proved to myself that I know what I'm doing.

I have a file cabinet full of published clippings. Articles and book reivews from magazines, literary journals and newspapers going back to 1991. I don't have a problem finding words, and the whole twentyfivewords reference to this blog has to do with an editor who tried to get me to use fewer words in my pieces. Give me 600 words and I'll use 850. Oh yes, and my father who quickly bored of my wordy explanations when I was a kid and repeatedly said to me, "Don't build me a watch, just tell me what time it is".

I have art projects that I've finished, much of it stuff that I never thought I'd do and about half are projects that people paid me to do. Regardless, the word artist freezes on my lips when people ask me what I do. I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's because I haven't suffered for my art. Sure, I've suffered...but not for the art. I'm not a starving, x-ray of a person living in a garret with paint under my nails and a tubercular cough. Am I an artist who writes or am I a writer who happens to be able to slap paint onto a piece of furniture and have it come out decently? I feel that it's greedy to say that I'm both, and being artistic is really just a bonus anyway. All I ever really wanted to do was to write...even when I was a kid and played detective. After I read Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy, a young girl who wrote compulsively about the world she observed around her, I realized that I wanted to be just like her...minus her boyish attire and addiction to lettuce & tomato sandwiches.

Why am I telling you this? Because two things happened recently. The first thing lasted for about two minutes. I was at an auction benefitting the high school where two of our kids are students and a good number of the school's older alumni were there. I was introduced to a man by a mutual friend, and after hearing my name he turned to me and said, "Oh, yes...the writer". He then went on to explain that he had met me at the home of my former editor and that he recognized my name (the last of which is long and hyphenated and not all that common around these parts...as opposed to the notion that I'm famous or important...because I'm not). Rather than be flattered, I was struck dumb with fear because I knew that his next question (and it was) would be to ask what I was doing right now. And because I'm not doing ANYTHING with regard to writing right now except for this blog, I cleverly turned the conversation to the topic of our mutual friend, the editor who fled these parts for a plum role as editor at the New York Times. Lucky Dog.

The second thing happened about a month ago when I was asked by the local Optimist Club to speak about books. Now, I've got to say right here and now that public speaking doesn't bother me at all. I don't get all that nervous when I do it. I used to teach in several different capacities (and still do) and I've spoken to groups of adults on many occasions that required me to write something first and I harbor no doubts when someone asks me to point out a book that I think is good or bad. But my first question to the poor guy assigned the task of getting me to sign on to this gig was, "Why in hell are you asking me?"

True, my name is still on the masthead of the local alternative paper, but I haven't pitched, written or published anything for them in many months (my choice...and more on that in another post). Unlike Harper Lee who only wrote one novel in her entire life (and let me pause right here and now to insist that I'm in no way comparing myself to her) and it was a long, long time ago, yet no one in his/her right mind would question her proper designation as a writer. For me, the years of toil at the keyboard don't continue to give me that distinction unless I'm actively working on something. I am only as good as my last project, and if that project was over a month ago and there's nothing new on the horizon, I feel sunk.

And sunk I am as I make notes for a speech I have to make on the 10th of this month to a roomful of people who are waiting for me to speak to them about the tremendously subjective topic of reading and books. And what can I say that won't make them my enemies right off the bat? Should I talk about my utter contempt for the romance genre? Should I "out" myself as a reader who doesn't read chick lit so that the men in the room will lend half an ear to what I have to say? Do I blast the men in the room who never read books by female writers or those which have female protagonists and then haughtily remind them that the celebrated author of Frankenstein was a female? (That always caused the 8th grade boys in my classes to blow a couple of brain cylinders when presented with that glorious fact).

I'll probably get by okay...I usually do. But there will be that lurking fear someplace that what I'm saying is just so much bullshit and that the next question someone in the audience asks will force me to reveal that my opinion is just my opinion and not that of an expert. Or...at least not an expert on a national scale...just a low-paying local scale...and even that one, not so much. That my last paid writing gig was months ago and that the one which takes so much of my time right now is not only non-paying (this blog) but mostly a secret so, ssshhhh, don't tell my parents or any of the people on the PTA boards I slave for or my neighbors or the rest of my family beyond my two sisters and one best friend whom I told more than a few weeks ago.

Aren't we all just fakers anyway? I mean, one day you're sitting in your senior English class in high school listening to the teacher talk about the brilliance of Steinbeck's "CanneryRow" and wondering if the guy you're dating is secretly screwing around with this skank named Beverly (yes...he was) and the next thing you're a desk jockey shuffling paper and e-mailing clients. In between that time was college and the first job...and then marriage and/or kids. How many of us have held more than one job? How many of us have trouble answering the question "what do you do?" with a one-word answer. (doctors and lawyers need not answer this) Can you? What about those who have held several jobs in their adult lives? Those of us who live in the part-time world. Those of us who spent a sizeable portion of our prime years home with kids and subsequently killed off some of our best brain cells. What happened to you, to me, to any of us since we were kids just figuring out how we wanted our lives to go that prepared us to be an EXPERT on anything? I mean...I brush my teeth at least three times a day and that still doesn't make me an expert.

And now...because I haven't really been researching books or reading the publishing catalogs or intensely reviewing anything of note (even though my bedside table is groaning under the weight of unread tomes), I have to feel like an expert about something I love but don't feel confident enough about to begin acting the part of literary cruise director for a bunch of strangers.

I mean...am I the only person who approaches new projects with hesitation and doubt? Talk to me, people!

You can run but you cannot hide from the 4 Meme

2006-03-02T11:56:00.000-08:00

MooAlex tagged me for this meme and her will is my command. Herewith:

4 jobs I've had:

* 8th grade English teacher
* freelance book reviewer
* teenage cashier in souvenir shops at Six Flags Over Texas
* Cash control at a water park

4 movies I can watch over and over:

* North by Northwest
* Shawshank Redemption
* Pulp Fiction
* Laura (1940's film noir...Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Vincent Price, Clifton Webb)

4 places I've lived vacationed:

* Isla Mujeres in the Yucatan
* London
* New York
* Surfside Beach on the Texas coast.

4 places I've lived:

* Denton, Texas
* College Station, Texas
* Alexandria, Virginia
* Arlington, Texas

4 websites I visit every day:

I pretty much go through the whole blogroll once each day, but in sections. However...
* Dooce
* The Huffington Post
* Thought C0ncoction
* Soul Gardening

4 favorite foods:

* Chinese
* German beef stew (Mom's) with mashed potatoes.
* Steak and salad
*Captain Crunch and cold milk

4 places I'd rather be:

* on the beach getting a tan and reading a stack of books
* any bookstore...anyplace
* in New York with Mr. Half and the kids
* getting an interview with Michael Chabon...over drinks and dinner

4 people I'm tagging:

*Debbie
*Rock
*Gradual Gardener
*Lucinda

Freakish weather and other thoughts

2006-03-01T16:26:00.000-08:00

1)Two weeks ago it was icy and raining. Today, it was 98 degrees. I'd like to act as though I'm surprised about this, but it is Texas after all. People have a saying around here...stop me if you've heard it: "You don't like the weather here? Just wait a minute." I'd say that the last few weeks are a perfect example of that. Drought. Rain. Freezing rain and ice. Heat. By the middle of summer you'll hear me begging for a 98 degree day. I think we had a few days last year that reached 110 and that's the kind of heat that makes you stupid, folks. Have you ever tried to get into a hot car in that kind of weather without suffering third-degree burns on your hands? No? I've seriously thought about bringing potholders with me just for that very purpose. Hmmm. Is that a great money-making idea...or just the kind of desperate measure that desperate times call for?

2)I'm participating in a little thing called Perfect Post wherein the first of every month brings the opportunity to give a shout out to a fellow blogger who has posted something particularly thought-provoking or hilarious in the previous month. If you're interested in participating, you can let Lucinda over at S uburban Turmoil know about it. In the meantime, my nominee for the last month is Teebs over at Soul Gardening. She had a great post called Magical Places and I think everyone ought to head over and check it out. It's all about libraries.

3)Finally! Something on HBO to take my mind off of the tragic loss of "Six Feet Under" and "Sex & the City". "Big Love" has Bill Paxton (He's from Fort Worth, y'all!), Anne Archer, Chloe Sevigny and some other chick I've never heard of. It's about polygamy in Utah. That alone should provide plenty of comic fodder for the writers. First episode is March 12.

4) Someone please tell Lisa Rinna (Dancing with the Stars) that her normal lips have been abducted and cleverly replaced with two bratwurst. Holy crap! What's with these women and their need to employ a compressor and airhose in order to inflate their lips to clown-like proportions? Rinna looks as though she's been in an accident of some kind. I'm all for a nice full set of lips, but this is beyond lunacy.

5)The Academy Awards...that 4 1/2 hour tribute to self-indulgence/boob enhancement and the occasional good movie will be broadcast on Sunday. Sure, I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone is wearing and watching carefully to see if nerves cause any actors to rush the stage with Botox syringes hanging out of their foreheads... leftover evidence from some last-minute primping. Jon Stewart is also a big plus. Intelligent. Sarcastic. Funny as hell.

I've developed a little bit of an Oscar routine over the last few years that involves not answering the phone, silence from all of the children and Chinese food that is fetched without my having to move and brought to me with a glass of wine. This year will be no different. Best Actor (Male) had better go to Philip Seymour Hoffman for "Capote". That was one fabulous movie. Best Actor (Female) will go to Reese Witherspoon. I haven't seen "Walk the Line" yet, but I probably will. Best Director is far more interesting to me than Best Picture (yawn!), but by that part of the evening I'm ready to put on my Three Stooges pajamas and crawl into bed. Do you have any Oscar traditions that you follow or is this just another night to hit Blockbuster and avoid the hoopla?

From my driveway

2006-02-28T21:01:00.000-08:00

I stood on my driveway this evening as the last day of February faded and the first breath of Spring was warm and inviting.

So Much To Say

2006-02-27T14:29:00.000-08:00

First of all...a big Spring Flower Celebratory Hallelujah because the Olympics are finally over. YAY-USS!!!! It's not that I think the Torino games weren't great or that I'm demonstrating a strong sense of ethnocentrism because my genetic forebears don't hail from cold European climes...because half of them do. It's all that snow and fog and the Thursday nights devoid of "The Office" and "ER". I'm thrilled that I don't have to ignore my NYTimes internet Olympic updates during the day so that I can watched the heavily cut-up 8-hours-old replays at night whilst pretending that they're live. Too much cranky-ass Dick Button's skating commentary. Too much speculation about Chad Hedrick's dead grandmother and his self-involved teammate Shani Davis. And too much Sasha Cohen. Sure's she's great and all...I mean...the girl leg-presses 400 lbs. She's a hoss! But the bottom line is that I'm not such a freaking NATIONALIST that I think Americans ought to win everything or that I can conveniently ignore the fact that the Japanese chick was better. She was...and I'm glad she won. So there.
Writer Ayelet Waldman was under fire from readers and Oprah viewers for stating in a Salon.com column that she loves her husband more than her children. She even went out on a limb to admit that, even after four children, their sex life is torrid. TORRID, people! Her word...not mine. And I'm not trying to be Captain Obvious or anything but WHY WOULDN'T SHE BE rocking the sack with this guy? Who can blame her? He's a brilliant Pulitzer-winning writer. He lays out words like polished stones on the page...pretty, textured, thoughtful words that you'd like to put in your mouth--*cough*--sorry...where was I? Waldman's husband: Michael Chabon. He's equal parts literary wunderkind and househusband. He's Jewish. He changes diapers and plays with the kids. He cooks dinner and takes the little ones to playgroup. He still thinks that his wife is hot after four pregnancies and he says so publicly. He doesn't feel that being a real presence in the lives of his children is emasculating and he doesn't blame feminism for the country's many ills or use it to excuse the violent and selfish actions of his gendermates. And I need not point out that he's so stunningly beautiful that it makes my eyes hurt. In female parlance, Chabon is referred to as ONE STOP SHOPPING. That said, I still have the following to offer:

Dear Ayelet: So sorry that our jealous, middle-aged peers can't stand the thought that you and Michael are still getting it on at this stage of the game. Sorry, too, that the success you both have as writers plus the fact that life with four beautiful children hasn't somehow sucked the sweet marrow of sexuality out of your coupledom makes all of these frustrated people feel sexless and irrelevant and eager to lash out at you.

The love you feel for your children should be different than what you feel for their father. Both should be powerful and powerfully intense. One is sexual and the other isn't. One represents the partner with whom you share your life and the others are the result of that life. Both equal and equally special. I get that, because life without Mr. Half wouldn't be worth living. Ditto life without one of our children which would cause a part of us to die, both individually and collectively, and we would never be the same again. But different doesn't mean unequal and it's important to make that distinction. I feel sure that's what you really meant to say in your column when you pissed off all those people whose barbed comments caused you to name your recently-cancelled blog, "Bad Mother". Now go hug your kids and give Michael a big, wet kiss for me.

Casanova. Fast Gun Fife. Eagle-eye Barney. Big Barn. The Adolphe Menjou of Mayberry.
Luther Heggs. The Incredible Mr. Limpet. Half of the Apple Dumpling Gang.
DON KNOTTS...You were peerless and you will be missed.

Hearing author/journalist Anna Quindlen on Friday was a huge buzz. She was intelligent and eloquent. When she called for a restructuring of the family dynamic which, despite the strides women have made in the outer world, still places 90% of the childcare and home responsibilities on their shoulders, the applause was automatic and thunderous. We're talking about the care of a home that more than one person lives in and the nurturing of children that it takes two people to bring into the world. It's called the Second Shift and only 50% of the population is expected to shoulder that enormous mantle. Guess which half that would be? Can I get an "Amen"?

Ende. Fin. Finito. Done

2006-02-24T14:31:00.000-08:00

What Time Is It?

2006-02-23T17:43:00.000-08:00

1) I've been sidelined with an emerging sinus thing which came on the heels of the cold I thought I blew through rather swiftly last week. I feel as though I've been underwater for some time. I'm feverishly working on the table for the auction and should be able to spray the sealer on tomorrow night. The past couple of days I've alternated painting with lying on the sofa and breathing into a humidifier. I'm not feeling too sharp and the day-after-the-party scene from "Sixteen Candles" keeps playing through my head. I feel like Long Duck Dong lying flat out in the yard and Grandpa is clapping his hands in my face saying, "Dong...where is my automobile?" Yeah...that's exactly how a sinus infection feels.

2) Tomorrow I'm going downtown with a friend to hear Anna Quindlen speak. I'll either be feeling better by then, or I'll be counting the minutes until my 1:30 appointment for sinus drugs. I have to be upright by early Saturday, because I'm running the 5K portion of the Cowtown Marathon/Half/10K/5K with my youngest son. Meanwhile, my intimate relationship with the humidifier will continue.

3) Every day for a week it's been cloudy here. Cold (for Texas). Humid or just wet. Dark. I would never make it in Seattle. Or Norway (where in some places there is no sun from November to January). I don't have Seasonal Affective Disorder, but a week of no sunshine is really getting to me.

4) I'll watch the figure skating tonight, but I get the advance stats via my New York Times webpage, so I already know how everything plays out.

5) Apolo Ohno is rocking that little soul patch in a major way. That hair! Those eyes! That skin! Those teeth! Sure...at 5'8" he's practically a little troll doll, but he's one I wouldn't mind swearing off the high-heels for.

6) Skating commentator Dick Button is one cranky old curmudgeon! He rarely has anything nice to say about any skater. Maybe it's because he's 136 years old. Maybe it's because he sees skaters do things he couldn't even do WHEN HE WAS MR. THANG! Either way, he's making me tired.

7) You're never too old to wear a seatbelt. In our community a young man lost his life this week because he was in a hurry. He kissed his wife goodbye, jumped in his car and sped down an icy highway to church where he was to give the early sermon. He hit a slick patch and he was thrown through the windshield because he didn't have his seatbelt on. I didn't even know him, but from all accounts he was a great guy...intelligent and with a keen sense of humor. And now he's dead and it's no one's fault but his own. I catch myself "going without" if I'm just driving two blocks to the grocery store, but I'm not doing it anymore. Neither should you. Everyone's in a big, damn hurry, so strap yourself in good and tight. I'm serious, people. Second chances rarely happen. Now go and have a spectacular Friday.

My Plea

2006-02-21T16:15:00.000-08:00

Dear Neighbors In The Austin Stone House Down the Street,

There's no way to be tactful about this, so I'm going to be as straightforward as I can and hope that you take this in the constructive spirit that it is intended: Clean up the outside of your damn house!

I know you guys are really nice people. You've bought cookie dough from my kids when they were shilling for the Boy Scouts, and we've seen you having picnics on your lawn with other families who, like you, adopted gorgeous baby girls from China. You're also one of the handful of sign-posting Democrats who live in this neighborhood, and--trust me--that fact alone makes me think twice about telling you this. But I gotta say that the disastrous state of your home exterior forces me to tell you that "you're just not representin" us well in this neighborhood.

First of all I'd like to remind you that the "baby girl" is about four years old now and way too big to fit in the red plastic safety swing that's still hanging in the tree out front. Take it down before the rope rots of its own accord and falls into the yard. Put something else up, if that works for you. Build a treehouse or a fort. Hang some bird feeders. Whatever.

Second, pick a holiday theme and stick with it only for the duration of the holiday. You are not required to put up new decorations at any time, but it would help if you took one set down before putting the new ones up. Today as I drove past I saw a sunflower windsock in the front garden, a Spring Flower seasonal flag flying from the rain gutter and icicle Christmas lights that have been up for two years without a rest. At Halloween, you added some pumpkins to the mix, though those went away somehow.

Also, there's that hay bale/shrubbery yard display that's been up on the corner of the yard for several years. Back in the day at Halloween you'd put up fresh hay and a scarecrow with pumpkins. At Christmas there was a stuffed Santa. Two Fourth of July's ago you put up flags and a stuffed effigy of Uncle Sam on the hay. He was never removed. The flags went away but, for some reason, Uncle Sam has been gently composting in the sod for two seasons and though he no longer sits atop his slowly dissolving hay bale, I can still see his red and white striped pants peeking out from the pile of leaves behind the display. Put him--and us--out of the misery and remove him.

Third, there's the fence. The wooden stockade fence. Surely you've noticed that it's falling down...everywhere. You live on the corner of two major streets, so the fence wraps around your house and we--all of us--get to watch as planks lean tiredly in twos and threes before falling completely over and leaving gaps in the fence that look like the dental work of a professional hockey player. We couldn't care less what you did do the backyard or even if you left it as barren as the Gobi Desert...as long as we didn't have to witness the complete devastation through the disintegrating fence.

See...our neighborhood association isn't one of those that dictates what kind or color of flower you can plant in your garden. Hell, we don't even care if you have flowers. Still, this is a really nice part of town, but even if you neglect to mow your lawn for so long that neighborhood children get lost in it, the worst that will happen is some gentle hinting from your next door neighbor or some college kids will drive by with a flatbed of mowers and offer to do it for "$30. These old houses were mostly built in the early 1940s and each one is distinct, and while we're always looking for creativity and individuality (I have an old gravestone in my herb garden), we're not looking for something whose attempt at a departure from the traditional results in decrepitude. You know...something Dan and Roseanne Connor would call home.

Sincerely yours,

Mrs. Half
"Yard Police"

Semantics 101

2006-02-19T14:00:00.000-08:00

Let's get a few things straight.

I hate the show "Desperate Housewives". It's the worst kind of shallow, objectifying dreck. It's Prime Time Jello-O Wrestling. It's a collagen and silicone soap opera disguised as a pile of crap in a see-through bustier. The only thing desperate about it is the publicity-needy Teri Hatcher, but that's not what bugs me most about it. Can you guess? It's that ugly word. Say it with me: H-h-h-o-u-s-e-w-v-i-v-e-s. That's right. Houswives.

First things first. Housewives, like the dinosaurs and Beta Max, are extinct. There is no such creature. By definition, a housewife is a woman who is married and whose focus is the house and its contents. She cooks. She cleans. She does the laundry and goes to the grocery store. She does not have a paying job (not a judgement...it's just a fact) and has either never thought to want one or is discouraged from having one. For a housewife to want or need a career was considered to be an emasculating blow to her husband...even if he couldn't or didn't make enough money to pay the bills. Whether she produced children or not is/ was beside the point. This is called the "setting aside reality to accommodate the fantasies of others" mindset. The home and its environs are the fate of the housewife. She gets married and she immediately becomes the unpaid help. Her job in life is to make life nice for others, while not necessarily living one of her own.

Here is a picture of a well-known housewife.

Her name was June Cleaver.

Here's another one.
Her name was Lucy Ricardo.

Okay, these women were merely tv characters, and no woman--not even June Cleaver--really vacuumed wearing high heels and pearls. The rest of it, though, was pretty true. 40 years ago a woman might jump from her father's house to her husband's house without her feet ever touching freedom's ground for a moment to breathe the free air of self-sufficiency. Lacking an education, a means to put a roof over her own head or years of experience in a career, she became totally dependent on her husband for money. Even if she was lucky enough to have once had a career, it was expected that she would stop working and "take care of her husband" the moment she lost both her first and last name (Mrs. Ward Cleaver) in the marriage ceremony where, in my mother's day, she promised to "love, honor and obey". No children were required to set all of these limitations into motion.

So, about Desperate Housewhores--er--Housewives. Other than Bree VanDeKamp, who is really more of a anal-retentive cyborg, there are no housewives on DH. Eva Longoria's character, Gabrielle, has a maid to do all the menial chores. Gabrielle is just a trophy wife who only returned to her former modeling career when her husband's assets were frozen in a criminal investigation. They have no children, so why in the world was she at home? Loathesome Teri Hatcher's character is a book illustrator...and she's divorced...but employed. Also not a housewife. Skanky Nicolette Sheridan isn't anyone's wife either. Felicity Huffman's character used to be a high-powered lawyer. She gave it up--temporarily--to stay home with kids, but recently she's back at work. Either way, she's no housewife.

If anything, Huffman's character is the only thing that resembles what many real women do these days. It's not marriage that keeps them home and it's not the house with its infinite and never ending list of mind-numbing chores needed to keep it from folding like a filthy house of cards. Screw that! It's the kids. Those wonderful, aggravating, life-changing kids that you and your husband brought into this world.

We are not our mothers. Women who temporarily leave the workforce to be primary caregivers for their children are stay at-home-mothers. Or SAHM in blog/i.m-speak. They are not housewives. This is more than a matter of semantics. We're not talking HOMEMAKER or even DOMESTIC ENGINEER (which...I'm sorry...is a name that is just a cry for help) Unlike being a housewife, a SAHM is not a life sentence...it's just what some women (and men) do when they have kids. Thank God some men are starting to get the message and be more than the 1960s 15-minute-father with their kids, and though there's the tendency to refer to those particular dads as "heroes" when they forego a career (that's another post entirely), there's no reason to muck up the definition with a lot of useless references to floorwax and laundry detergent.

The focus is and always has been the welfare and early childhood education of small children. Though one might end up taking on all the aforementioned onerous tasks that can't or won't be done by those who "escaped" by leaving for the outside world of employment, it's the kids' naptime, and the reading aloud, and trips to the zoo and the park that define the life of a stay-at-home-mom. Take those kids out of the equation and I'm betting that most or all of us would be out there being doctors and lawyers and Indian chiefs (Hey, it can happen...look up Wilma Mankiller)

All I'm saying is that the term housewife is based on concept that rarely--if ever--exists anymore, because (Thank you Betty Friedan!) women have found that they can--if they choose--pursue more in life than just the removal of tough perspiration stains. Staying at home is a choice...not a requirement. It's not glamorous and it's not easy. If it was...you'd see a line of anxious men waiting for it that would definitely exceed the number assembled to purchase the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated.

I know women who've quit their jobs totally and forever to stay at home with their kids. They're not housewives. I know some who quit but who count the days until the last little one starts pre-school before resuming life on the outside. NOT A HOUSEWIFE. Out of the almost-17 years I've been a SAHM, I've held some kind of free-lance job for most of that time. Still, I'm not a houswife either. The house? It's going to be here a long time, and those baseboards or the mounting laundry aren't what made me pull out of the school parking lot one last time after locking my classroom door. It was the baby who was beside me in the infant seat who now drives himself to school and who still needs help editing his essays. And it was his two brothers after him. It's not the dishes that keep me here...it's the kids.

I can't really see Gabrielle doing that. Can you?

Let Them Eat Cake!

2006-02-17T13:26:00.000-08:00

February heralds the beginning of Birthday Hell here at the Half House. And when I say Birthday Hell, I mean three straight months of birthday cakes. There's the buying of the ingredients. The baking and cleaning. And the eating of the cake. Plus there's barely enough time to consume one cake before it's time for another. Consider this: Mr. Half's birthday is tomorrow. The oldest son's is March 17th and mine is exactly one week later. Son #2's birthday is April 15th and Son #3's is April 19. I never thought I'd hear myself say this but...really...that's just TOO MUCH CAKE. Is there such a thing, you ask? The answer is a resounding "Yay-uss!"

What complicates the process is this slightly elitist-sounding admission: We don't do mixes. That's right. You heard it here first. Wordgirl thinks she's too good for Betty Crocker and she sneezes in the general direction of Duncan Hines...whoever HE is. Somehow in my formative years it was suggested to me that all cakes must be made from scratch. Look it up. It's probably a rule...maybe even a law. It might even be in the Bible someplace. My mother, who could barely make toast when she got married, murdered many a young, innocent cake in her early years because she chose the long, hard road and made everything using something called a recipe. It was touch and go there for awhile, but by the time I was old enough to be conscious of what I was eating, my mother could turn out baked goods like something out of a Martha Stewart acid trip.

I, myself, can make a killer bread and I don't use a machine, but cakes that have layers and get stacked using other creamy ingredients that have to be stirred and tested and stirred again. Cakes that require the use of words like ganache and piping... not so much. But I've always been afraid that if I used a mix, someone from the Food Network would stage a driveby shooting. Or my mother would come by and ground me for a month.

So...I don't really do mixes....until today. Last week, Son #2 ate lunch at the home of a friend and the mother served something called Bowl Cake which sent the boy and seven of his fellow teenaged friends into paroxysms of bliss and I was given to understand that the world would not ever spin correctly on its axis until I made this cake posthaste. And the ingredients? There are only four things required to make this cake. This wonderful and totally bad for you cake. Ready?

Chocolate cake mix (YES....THERE IT IS, PEOPLE! A MIX. GO AHEAD, FATES! STRIKE ME BLIND! I HAVE SINNED! COME BACK FROM THE DEAD AND SET MY HAIR AFLAME, JULIA CHILD!) *ahem*

Bake in two circular pans. Let cool. (Cooling is essential here. Trust me on this one)
Put one layer in the bottom of a big bowl.
Now spread a layer of chocolate pudding (instant)
Now a layer of whipped cream. ( Cool Whip)
Now the second cake layer
Another layer of pudding.
Another layer of whipped cream.
Top with fragments of Heath Bar.
Refrigerate and serve cold.

I made this today and the cake cooling its heels in the garage fridge right now.
I feel so....cheap. But I could definitely get used to how fast and easy it was. Yeah, that was definitely good.

Speaking of cakes, you must read this post by ljc . The woman had a craving for chocolate cake at 10 p.m and roused herself long enough to bake one right there and then. Plus--she made a cream cheese icing to go with it. I ask you....is this the behavior of a sane woman? Now I'm not against eating cake at 10 p.m....and homemade is the best, if you can get it. But I'm not going to MAKE the thing once I've already parked my butt on the sofa and I'm settled in with a glass of
Red Bicyclette. I mean, c'mon! At that point in the evening, gravity has started to take effect and who am I to argue with The Laws of Physics?

I don't know why I'm surprised about the cake thing, though. Ljc makes everything. Paints her entire house. Knits. Sews. Bakes. Designs stuff and then makes it. Plus, she has a real job. I'm not kidding. You should check it out, but not unless you have a lot of self confidence that can withstand the full body blow impact of her creative genius. Otherwise, stay away. You have been warned. Have a great weekend.

Thanks, Mrs. Brumhall

2006-02-16T11:31:00.001-08:00

As long as I can remember, I've loved books. I like to read them aloud to others and silently to myself. I even enjoy having them read aloud to me, but only if the person does it well. Childhood trips to the library were heaven for me and later, when I was old enough to work up a healthy disdain for all manner of shopping with my mother, I routinely convinced her to drop me off at the mall bookstore and come back for me when she was done.

I loved checking out my limit of books from the public library or filling out the Scholastic or Arrow Book Club order that we would get at school and then wait impatiently until my loot was delivered. Some of my most vivid memories of elementary school involve books. Sure, I remember spelling tests (I was really good at those) and handwriting (having to use a yellow crayon to color a solid line between each line of writing) and math (always confusing). I loved lunch and I liked recess (I was a good runner and one of the first to reach the swingset once we burst through the double doors. The first swing was prime real estate and it was a big deal to be fast enough to get there before anyone else).

But frequently, two very wonderful things happened after recess: Either the teacher read aloud to us or we entered the classroom to discover that our book club orders had arrived and were stacked in orderly fashion on our desks. If the books arrived, we were allowed some time to pore over our orders and decide which book we would be reading first. Trust me, a big stack of money could scarcely have made me as happy as the arrival of those books did.

However, if it was just a day for the teacher to read aloud, that was good, too. In sixth grade (back when it was still elementary school), Mrs. Lotven introduced us to The Good Earth,
The Hobbit, and A Wrinkle in Time. She had an engaging voice and I developed an affection for those books that has lasted my entire life. She read to the entire sixth grade--all at once, and that meant three classes of squirmy kids--not all of whom were as crazy about the written word as I was. But Mrs. Lotven didn't tolerate fools or their foolishness and everyone generally fell into line. Some even fell asleep, but I stayed awake like a junkie awaiting the next fix.

But even Mrs. Lotven doesn't rank as highly as my third grade teacher. This wasn't just because Mrs. Lotven was also my math teacher and possessed an alarming amount of proof as to what a numbskull I was when it came to fractions. It was because third grade was the year that I fell hopelessly in love with a pig named Wilbur and his spider friend, Charlotte.

Young Mrs. Brumhall wore her hair swept up in a lovely bun, though she later cut it into a disturbing teased/rat-combed bubble-do that required about three cans of Aqua Net and a flotilla of bobby pins to construct. She wore dresses every day and low-heeled pumps. Truthfully, I remember nothing else about that year. NOTHING...except Spring afternoons where Mrs. Brumhall would sit at her desk and read E.B. White's Charlotte's Web aloud to us.

After tearing around the playground for 30 minutes and then getting a cold drink of water at the fountain, we would file into the classroom and plop exhaustedly into our seats. The lights in the classroom would be off and Mrs. Brumhall would have already used the big wooden pole to open the tops of the windows and let in the gentle breeze, if there was one. On days that it rained, the room was a little darker, but it was so cozy and inviting that no one seemed to mind. Many of us just put out heads down on our desks. Listening seemed easier that way. Regardless, the opening words of that timeless classic about the search for friendship were forever burned into my head and the honeyed voice of Mrs. Brumhall became the voice of Charlotte.

"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

I've wanted to find Mrs. Brumhall and tell her about how her reading to me changed my life, but I don't think she stayed in the area. Her accent indicated that she was not one of us, someone E.B.White (a native of Brooklin, Maine) would have described as being "from away". I knew nothing else about her, though for years I was convinced that her first name was Charlotte, so closely did I identify her with the voice of the spider.

If I could, I would tell her that I've worn out several copies of the book and to this day I can't read about Charlotte's death without crying. I've shared this book with each of our children. I wanted to give our daughter (the one we never had) the middle name Charlotte and I did name one of our best cats after EB (Elwyn Brooks) White. I own a copy of the audio book and EB White is the person reading it aloud. When he died on October 1, 1985, I tied a little black ribbon around my arm and talked to my classes about White's contributions to the literary world. I remain an avid reader of the New Yorker, a magazine where White's name is still invoked to this day and where his influence is still evident in the writings of his stepson, Roger Angell.

Sometimes I think the book means more to me now than it did when I was a kid. Maybe it's the fact that Wilbur's search for real friendship is something that translates well into the daily grind of the child-centered life that we live as today's parents. Or maybe it's just because it's something from a long time ago that I remember with a feeling of complete and utter happiness. No embellishments. No nostalgia to filter out the bad stuff. But a starting point in my life that I can recall with real clarity that involves something I love and the person who gave it to me.

What was the first book you ever loved?

Oh no, they didn't!!

2006-02-15T11:06:00.000-08:00

Mr. Half's birthday is Saturday and his parents dropped off his gift early before they flew out of town for the next week. I was intrigued by my MIL's cryptic message that accompanied the mysterious gift wherein she said to me, "You have my sympathies". I had no clue as to what this gift was and why she was sorry they had given it to him, though before she hung up she informed me that it had to to with something he was interested in.

Okay...that was no kind of clue at all. Mr. Half is interested in MANY things. I'm married to the man of a thousand interests. Natural studies like bugs and birds and snakes. Guitar playing. Hiking/camping. Yoga. Scuba. Archery. Books. Hunting. Architecture. Biology. Bonsai trees. Organic gardening. Regular gardening. Anthropology. The writings of Epictitus. Woody Allen movies. Paintings by Peter Brughel. Boy Scouting. Pottery. Golf. Music. And that's just a partial list.

I should also say that his geneological heritage is a strong mix of Scandanavian and Scottish, though there's little evidence as to how long ago the latter got to this country, while the former bloodlines are far more recently "undiluted" (and well exemplified by his massive head of hair that rivals anything I could ever grow). Still, it was a charming moment when we met for the first time in the college dining hall all those years ago and he informed me that his last name was Scottish for "the boogeyman" or "vampire" and could be found in the Robert Burn's poem, "Tam O' Shanter". He had me at "boo".

(Pics are from Archaeology Field School (long ago) and other one is from camp. I can't for the life of me get scanned pics to lie straight)

Anyway, for the last several years he's mentioned a certain item that he admires and would like to have, though he has no skill in operating said item. Lo-and-behold- this is exactly what he unwrapped last night when he tore the paper off of the box his parents brought. My ears will never be the same.

Next he plans on taking courses to play the bagpipes at the nearby university and my sister (the one who works miracles with a sewing machine) asked if she'd be needed to whip up a kilt for him. Given that our sons nearly die a thousand deaths when he shows up in any public place wearing his scoutmaster's uniform, I can only imagine the money we'll need for their therapy once he shows up for someone's baseball game in a plaid skirt. Even if he does have great legs.

Five Reasons I'm Not Sorry I'm Here

2006-02-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

1. An almost 17-year old son who stops what he's doing and thanks me for buying him apples and retainer cleaner from the store and who is generous to a fault and unfailingly kind.

2. His almost 16-year old brother whose first question to me after I picked him up from a study session was: "Hey...how was your day?" A kid who lives to make us laugh and never gives us a moment's worry.

3. Their almost 12-year old brother who comes home to make me and his father our own Valentine's cards...complete with chocolate kisses taped to them. Mine had a handwritten message that said, "I love you so much, Mom. I can't really put it into words. Thank you for being one of the most important people ever." The same kid who still hugs me in front of his friends when he sees me at school

4. A husband who apparently already planned to get me my much-desired new yoga mats and who picked out and arranged himself the flowers he bought. He purposely included the same flowers that he and the male members of our wedding party wore in their lapels the day we married...20 years ago this June. I couldn't believe he remembered those flowers.

5. Many years with the same romantic man who, before he got rid of his old truck (the one we had our first date in while in college), cut a piece of the back bumper out with a blowtorch in the shape of a heart and gave it to me. The same guy who lined the driveway to his old house out in the country with sparklers one night and lit them to welcome me as I drove in the dark to meet him. The guy who thinks all pregnant women are unbelievably sexy and who cries with me when we think of our kids leaving for college. My years staying at home with our boys may be the reason they're still alive, but their father is the reason they are gentlemen and gentle men. The world could certainly use a few more of them.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY...TO ALL OF US