Take Two of These and Call Me in the Morning

So, for the past two Fridays, I've come home from school completely worn to the bone (which I'm sure you noticed from the previous post). And then precisely at 8:00, after a short introduction from Gillian Anderson, I get to immerse myself in Jane Austen for almost two hours, and I even get the luxury of not thinking about students who failed their finals because they are too blocked to learn math. Better still, I get to do so with a group of people who feed me and make me laugh and can imagine themselves learning English country dancing - and even invite me to join them in taking lessons.

These Jane Austen parties, it turns out, are my ideal tonic to a week gone wrong. Who could be crabby while eating homemade empanadas, and falling for Henry Tilney's flirtatious looks and dancing banter? How can I be sad when Selena hasn't even seen Pride and Prejudice yet, and I get to be there when she does? What can be bad about conversations that meander past using our "geek voices" to downplay our intelligence, and end with reminiscences about Ladyhawke and olde English spellings? Somehow I've bought more than a few hours more of weekend by spending a few hours with this kind of laughter and fellowship. It's even worth being up way past 10:00 to do so.

The Cycle

There's a teaching graph. The first time I saw it it was called "First Year of Teaching" or something similar. Later, I saw it with a more generic label, which meant that I'd have to suffer through it year after year, and not just that first year. It's a graph of happiness vs. time.

The happiness is pretty high in September, when you're optimistic and hopeful and you have all sorts of great ideas. I, myself, am a wonderful teacher during that week before school starts. I always call parents when I should and I know exactly what to do with all of the behavior problems (at least until the kids show up). The happiness starts to dip a bit in November, as the daily grind catches up to you, you miss a few warning calls home and the behavior escalates, as papers pile up on your desk and you stop getting eight hours of sleep at night.

It continues to slide downward until it hits a very deep trough in January and February. I think it was labeled "despair" on the graph I saw. My principal calls is the "Bataan Death March". This is where I am right now. In the trough of despair, marching with my eyes barely open. And Rachael asked me why I wasn't posting...

Do you really want to hear about how there are 3 to 5 kids who won't pass each of my classes and I can tell you exactly how far each of them are from that magical 59.5%? Do you want me to tell you how I haven't called all of their moms recently to tell them that they won't pass? Should I regale you with the rage I feel when I hear words that sound so innocent in September: "Can I borrow a pencil?"

I go through a pack of pencils a day. It makes me insane. I wonder how I can "lend" the same kid a pencil day after day, and he still comes to class the next day without one. It's not like the little twerp gave it back to me. It makes me even more insane to watch him sit there watching his education pass him by because he can't write ("I forgot my pencil and she wouldn't lend me one, so I'm just going to turn into a piece of wood until the bell rings.").

Should I tell you about how I spent the day cleaning up the messes left behind when kids were jerks to the substitute? Do you want to hear about iPods in class, or would you rather hear about how freaking obvious it is when kids text their friends with their phones in their pockets?

So, this graph thing? It goes up in March or April. It's happened to me four times, now. I know it will happen again. It just doesn't seem quite possible, but that's the magic of the school calendar. Too bad this Death March happens right when the temperature outside makes me want to curl up into a little ball anyway, but I'm not so sure that's a coincidence, either.

Buddy hates it, too. That's why he's secretly planning his next Bad Thing.

Secure the Home

And so I thought, "That Buddy, he sure does suck, but at least he's already done all of the bad things he ever does this week, so he can't possibly do anything else." Then I went to a knitting meetup where I knit with a bunch of strangers in a coffee shop. While I was gone, he ripped the entire baby gate off the wall. He didn't just bust it open at the hinges, like he usually does, because I had bungie corded it shut. No, he had to pull the whole thing down.

Here's the current state of the dog food security, if you're keeping score:
The food is in a bag.
The bag is inside of a metal trash can.
The metal trash can is inside of a closed cabinet.
The cabinet is dead-bolted.
The cabinet is inside of a closet.
The closet door is tightly closed.
The closet is in the kitchen.
The kitchen was protected by a baby gate.
(And the green grass grows all around, all around.)

Today Buddy destroyed the gate. When he masters doorknobs and deadbolts, he takes over the world and we're all screwed.

And, even just writing these words has ensured that no one, ever, will dog-sit again. I guess it's true what they say: you have to be careful what you put on the Internet.

Crap! Oh! Crap!

It's hard to believe that only this week I was telling everyone to get a dog. I take it all back. You don't need a dog. Fish are the new dogs. You need fish. Dogs are nothing but trouble.

The last three days have been hard ones to own Buddy. He broke through my latest fencing technology (a clothes hanger bent to hold shut the back gate) on Saturday, and ran free in the neighborhood for an hour, until he finally got tired and let me capture him again, minutes before I had to depart the house for a yoga class.

Last night I went to the co-op for a long-overdue shopping trip, because I had no human food in the house. I was gone for less than an hour. During that time, Buddy broke through the baby gate into the kitchen, somehow managed to open the closet door, made a mess of my garbage, and ate half a bag of dog food. I got home and his midsection was all swelled up like a balloon. One thing is predictable about Buddy and that is that when he eats half a bag of dog food, it usually comes out the stinky end. I took him on extra long walks last night and this morning, knowing that it wasn't enough. But what can you do? I have to work, and I had to attend an after school meeting, and I had to wait around afterwards for a student who promised to come in for help (and who didn't), so by the time I got home, at 5:20, it was too late. Buddy had lost his shit. Literally. On my floor.

I'm dog-sitting for a standard poodle, so my only thought was that I had to get the two giant dogs out of the house long enough that I could clean up after Buddy and make that awful stink go away, so I let the dogs loose in the yard, only remembering ten minutes later as I bagged up paper towels full of crap and mopped and re-mopped the floor, that Buddy had mastered my back gate. Too late. He was free in the neighborhood again. It was another hour before I managed to get him home.

So, tired, frustrated, and angry, and still smelling the stink, I let him into my house. He looked at me with sad brown eyes, "Aren't you going to feed me?" Yeah. Right. You'll be lucky if you ever eat again, Buddy.

How to Live Alone

1. Realize first of all, that television is a crutch. Sometimes, your legs hurt, and you need a crutch, but most of the time, you can walk without one. Believe that you will dream of something to do if you turn off the TV, and, somehow, you will. One exception to this rule is when you're on a knitting kick, and then only if you knit a lot of rows while you watch. It is, of course, also OK to watch the complete Jane Austen which debuts on channel 2 on January 13.
2. Be aware at all times that the complete Jane Austen is only pretend. The real Jane Austen died alone, leaving behind only her pack of beautiful lies. It's OK to pretend that you are Elizabeth Bennett, but don't get carried away and pretend that Mr. Darcy exists and is about to rescue you from solitude. The key here is to embrace solitude. How can you do that, if you're forever expecting some dude to say, "Almost from the earliest moments of our acquaintance, I have come to feel for you a passionate admiration and regard."? Modern dudes won't say that. They'd totally get laid if they did, but they still won't. I may never understand men.
3. Get a dog, for God's sake. I don't know how you've lasted this long without one. He'll force you to get up in the morning. He'll sleep with you when no one else will. He'll watch your every move, and keep you from spending the day in your pajamas. You definitely need a dog.
   
4. Don't get cats. You shouldn't have to live with a litter box. What's the point of living alone if you have to scrape litter off the bottoms of your feet after you get out of the shower? Seriously. You'd rather have roommates than cats.
   
5. It's not really that hard to cook for one. In fact, whenever you make a meal, you are really making a week's worth of food. You are lucky this way. No one will eat up all of your leftovers and leave you without a lunch. You'll be eating the same food for a week, though, so you'd better make it good.
   
6. Go to the movies. Go out to eat. Attend political rallies. Do it alone. It's OK. No one is looking at you and feeling sorry for you. They feel more sorry for you when you sit at home alone, anyway. Go. Be. Do.
   

Wiiiiiiiii

Well, it's been a long time since my last video game addiction. I was into the Sims for a couple of months about three years ago, and I'd spend so much time feeding my little guy and sending him to the bathroom and getting him a job that I ran a risk in real life of starving to death and/or wetting my pants. Playing the Sims had all of the appeal of playing with my doll house when I was 7. I got to build a house and add onto it and buy furniture. I named all of my Sims after NPR personalities, so I got to be the hand of God that caused Nina Totenberg and Corey Flintoff to fall in love and start a family (until Nina started her little fling with Carl Kasell). Anyway, eventually, I realized that I was hungry and I had to pee, so I let the Sims gather virtual dust inside of my computer, and Nina and Corey and Carl returned to their original roles in my life as voices on the radio.

The Sims was one of those games that was designed to appeal to women, because the male video game market was already tapped, but women weren't playing. It worked (at least for me), because the Sims was all about relationships, and the slow building of a life. You begin with a little bit of money and a simple house, and you have to work from the ground up, gradually adding rooms, upgrading your stove and getting promoted at your job. You flirt slowly with the Sim next door, talking about sports and birds until eventually your thoughts turn to love, and then you get to work on living happily ever after by expanding the house and having babies. In the Sims world, though, I was always more into the house addition than the new family members, because the babies just meant more mouths to feed and trips to the bathroom.

So, it's no coincidence that my new video game addiction is also made for women and families. The Nintendo Wii, is actually about the relationships of the real people holding the controllers, though. You get to jump around and be silly with your friends and family, flailing wildly and ducking and weaving as your virtual selves box it out on the screen. You can team up and play tennis together, feeling like a well-oiled machine with your friend (or like a machine that has a couple of missing cogs as the case may be). You also get to slowly build up your skill points, which feels a little like being a Sim and finding your way in the world. And, of course, I can spend twenty minutes creating a "Mii" who looks just like me (sort of, almost, a little bit), which appeals to the doll house lover in me.

I'm just glad that I don't have to feed the Mii or take her to the bathroom, and, just to be safe, I'm not going to let her flirt with any other Miis. I don't know how effective Mii birth control is, but I do know a thing or two about abstinence, damn it.

Jinxing It

So you get all dressed up, and you spend more time than you'd like to admit wondering if it's OK that there's a gap between the bottom edge of your skirt and the top of your very first pair of sexy-ish black boots (with sensible heels) and, if it is OK, should your tights be black or gray? You wear a little bit of make-up because you hear that that's what the real girls are doing these days, but then you get nervous in the car and probably chew it all off your lips, and you have dinner with a guy who looks a little bit like your older brother (who's a good-looking guy, but it's still distracting, because, ick, incest), and then you wind up having a Geek Off right there at the dinner table, and you talk about sci fi and perfect numbers, and you kind of wish you'd shut up, but even more, you kind of wish he'd like this about you, more than the chewed-off lipstick and the skirt, because who knows when you'll be wearing those things again, but the geek? That's forever, baby.

How to Make an American Pick up Litter

So this morning, as I was walking Buddy through the winter wonderland that Minnesota has become since yesterday, I saw a plastic Ziploc bag lying in the road at 38th street. I probably would have let it stay there, except when I glanced at it I realized that there was cash inside. Turns out that it was only $42, but it was rolled up in such a way that it looked like much more, and, so, OK, I wouldn't have picked up this baggie if it didn't look like it was loaded with cash. Sorry. Call me greedy. It's not like I was going to take the money for my own.

And so I detoured slightly at the sight of the greenbacks, and I picked it up, and I discovered that it not only contained cash, but bank account numbers written in an old person's handwriting, keys, a cell phone, a wallet, credit cards, a social security card, a drivers license, and a phone bill. I looked around for hidden cameras. This was obviously a test. It was probably some sort of "Which City is more Honest?" thing for some weekly news magazine. I didn't see any cameras, but I was starting to worry about the owner of this property, so I walked Buddy back home (which he thought was a Very Bad Idea since we hadn't even gone a block yet, and he really had to crap out that entire loaf of freshly baked French bread he allegedly stole off of the counter at Christmas yesterday) and I started my investigations. Now, you don't have to be Veronica Mars (or even Nancy Drew) to figure out someone's phone number from a Qwest phone bill account number, so I dialed the number, but a fax machine answered.

As I listened to the high-pitched language of data transfers, I glanced through the rest of the bag. There was a number and the mystery guy's name written on the outside of the bag, so I figured he was probably a newly-released prisoner, and these were all of his possessions when he entered the joint. I even imagined his buddy picking him up in a cab from prison, them arguing in the back seat (about his refusal to reveal the location of the bounty from their most recent crime spree), and then the inevitable pummeling, followed by his no-longer buddy tossing all of his worldly possessions out the window, before dumping his body somewhere far away. Of course, this explanation falls apart with the existence of the $42. No way some hardened criminal is just going to throw $42 out the window. Still, this scenario kind of made me glad I was trying to communicate with a fax machine rather than a real person.

It didn't really fit with the guy's handwriting though. His account numbers, written on the back of an address book which had turned yellow on the edges with age, were written in the handwriting of a frail and shaky old man. The first names in the address book, too, were not the first names of the friends of criminals. They were names like "Bev" and "Arlene" and "Roger". Old names.

Then I pulled out a yellow slip of paper. It was an inventory of the contents of my mystery baggie right down to a list of the bills that made up the $42, and it was from the Hennepin County Medical examiner. This was a dead guy. I was looking at everything this man was carrying right until he died three days before Christmas. Poor George. Somehow him being dead made me want to protect him even more than him being a living person ripe for identity theft. And so I walked and fed Buddy, because he wasn't going to wait for any mystery. And now I'm off to the police station (another long and snowy walk for some lucky dog) where I will put poor George's belongings in the hands of professionals, so they can contact Bev or Arlene or Roger and take care of his things properly.


PS For those of you still wondering about the resolution to that other mystery "The Case of the Missing French Bread", Buddy's intestines added to the circumstantial evidence that he was the culprit. I'm his biggest fan and his most ardent supporter, but I knew he was the guilty party all along.

Secret Optimism

Despite being a rather depressive and pessimistic person (especially at this time of year), I do have a secret deep-seated belief that there are many men with whom I could happily spend the rest of my life. I also believe that if I keep looking, I'm bound to find one of them. Sometimes, I think that I've already let some of them go in my youth and my ignorance. But since I'm not a believer in the One True Love theory, it doesn't always make me despair knowing that those good men are long gone.

On the other hand I'm starting to think that none of my true loves dates online. Oh, well. I'll go back to joining stuff. Maybe I'll volunteer for some Democrat. I'm pretty sure all of my true loves are Democrats. I'll also continue to beg my friends for blind dates. Somehow I think this will work better than joining the lonely hearts online. Although, I must say, married people don't seem to take their responsibility of setting up their single friends very seriously at all. Come on, people. Be a pal. It's no skin off your noses.

And now I've become distracted by the word "deep-seated". I initially wrote it as deep-seeded, but, since Google is so easy I looked it up. It's "seated". Wouldn't it be better if it were the other way? It's firmly planted, right? So seeds. Plants. Get it? Oh, well. Stupid English never makes sense, anyway. That's why we should all do math all the time.

My Musical Ear

I spent last night at the St Paul Chamber Orchestra listening to the Brandenburg Concertos. If you are one of the people who actually knows me, I know what you're thinking. It goes something like this: "What? You? Music?" I have a little problem with music. I can't hear it. For a long time, I thought I was tone deaf, but my 8th grade band teacher informed me that I was good at tuning my trombone (and finding the notes along the slide), so my problem is deeper than mere tone-deafness. No, I actually think I'm tune deaf. I can't piece together the individual notes in my brain and form a melody. I should say that I have a really, really hard time piecing together the notes, because I hate it when people say they "can't" do math, and, besides, I do know three or four tunes. I know the way "Take me Out to the Ballgame" sounds (and even Jimmy says that I mostly sing it on key). I can also sing "The Wheels on the Bus", which is an old preschool trick. I believe in singing to kids, but with my disability I didn't master every song, so I just made up new lyrics to one song. I'm not so good at "Happy Birthday" even though I've heard it at least 34 times, so I lip-sync that one. I do have the melody to a couple of Beatles songs stuck in my brain.

Mostly what I do when music is playing is I tune it out. My brain gets tired of trying to make sense of the tune, so I think about something else. Sometimes the something-else is the lyrics. I sometimes turn on country music, for example, when MPR is running a pledge drive, because I enjoy the stories in the lyrics, but I couldn't sing you the tune of a single country music song.

Once when I was relatively old, I was stuck in a record store with my dad (who loves music), and I was bored so I wandered around looking at things. I discovered a section of the store called "Movie Soundtracks", which is when I found out that all movies - not just musicals - have music in them. I flipped through the records marveling at this whole new world I'd never noticed before. "Bull Durham" had music? What? I never knew.

Anyway, when my old and dear friend T invited me to listen to chamber music with her, I was flattered and interested enough that I thought I would try it out. Maybe in person, with the instruments right there in front of me, I could pay attention to the music. Classical music, however, is the very hardest for me, because there are no lyrics to focus my attention.

The first song (concerto? musical piece?) caught my attention for a little while because it sounded like men and women arguing. The men were the baseline with slow, steady, repetitive, and well-reasoned arguments. The women were the violins arguing with passion and volume and eloquence. By the end of the song (movement?), both voices spoke with triumphant joy at winning the argument. The men knew that they couldn't have lost with such reasonable and steady arguments, and the women were just as certain that their verbal acumen had once again carried the day. I was proud of myself. I had found a way to focus on the music. I couldn't possibly hum one strain of what I had just heard, but even without lyrics I had a whole story figured out in my head.

Then T turned to me and said, "It's so festive, you can just imagine a room full of people in ball-gowns dancing, can't you?" So I smiled and agreed, because my argument theory was obviously the wrong way to hear the music. Still, it sort of worked, so I tried it with the next piece. I can't say I was always successful at making up stories to keep my mind from wandering back to school or the taste of my dinner still lingering in my mouth or my cracked and bleeding hands, but I can say that I stayed awake for the entire concert. Which is saying something since it went way past my bedtime.

What I Want

What I really want right now is a connection. I want to stay up late into the night talking, because we can't think of anything not to say. I want to wake up the next day too tired to function, but blissful and somehow energized, because I can't wait to say the 24 more things I've thought of to say the next night. I want to feel excited for the phone to ring. I want to be sure about someone. I want to feel beautiful and smart and exciting, and I want to be able to make him feel that way, too. I'd love to come home to a meal cooked for me on some ordinary Tuesday. I want someone I can call when some lame very-special Christmas episode of "Bones" makes me tear up, so the tears can turn to laughter and snot, instead of moroseness and despair. I want a travel companion who knows how to take off on his own sometimes. Someone who could read books on the couch next to me while I grade papers. A warm place to put my feet at night. I want him to kick my butt into graduate school already. I want someone to plan with me. I want him to crack inappropriately surprising jokes that keep me from ever really anticipating his sense of humor. And if it's not too much to ask, on top of all of this, can he be tall and lanky, too, please, so that I feel like touching him? Often.

Have I squandered another perfectly good lifetime listening to Car Talk, or can I feel this way one more time again before I start knitting tea cozies and adopting stray cats, while I peek around my curtain and call the city about neighbors who don't shovel their walks properly?

Feud

Two side-by-side houses in my neighborhood each shoveled themselves out of the snowstorm this week. Inexplicably, neither one of them shoveled a foot-and-a-half wide swatch of sidewalk somewhere between the two houses, leaving a patch of untouched snow between two well-cleared areas. I can only come to one conclusion: They are in the midst of a terrible feud, possibly involving sex, drugs, or a disagreement about a fence. This is very exciting. I will have to keep an eye on the no-man's-land between these two houses. Will the disputed territory extend to mowing as well? Will one of them crack and take the extra half a minute it would take to clear that last scoop of snow or will it continue to pile up threatening death and destruction to old ladies, until the city is forced to consult its maps to determine the exact property line between the two houses? What could have been so terrible that the second shoveler stopped before he reached that stripe of snow? I may have to set up surveillance. Or maybe, just maybe, I've seen too many episodes of Veronica Mars this winter.

Ambigasity

Fern and I coined a new term. I, of course, forgot all about it, until she reminded me last night. It was in response to a certain situation at a wedding last month. The wedding had square dancing instead of the traditional awkward couple-swaying so common at most weddings these days. Square dancing increased participation because the caller would tell you exactly what to do, and, even if you didn't have your own partner at the wedding, asking someone to square dance is a non-sexual advance, so it was relatively easy to participate as a single person.

At any rate, we each separately noticed a very particular unpleasant smell emanating from the crowd of people dancing. Because so many people kept swapping partners, it turned out to be nearly impossible to identify the exact source of this odor, but as the night progressed both Fern and I put forth several private theories, most of which didn't hold up to the long night of dancing. We also each worried that we were the objects of other people's hypotheses since we realized that we were just two more faces in the crowd of possible suspects. Eventually, since the smell continued no matter who was on the dance floor, I was left with just three surviving suspects.

First, I had to suspect the caller. He was the only common denominator whenever I was dancing (other than myself, and I ruled myself out because I'd know if it were me). He was also a logical suspect, the sort of crunchy granola, older dude who wouldn't hold in his farts if he had to cut one.

Second, since the dance floor wasn't far from the bathrooms, it could have been a plumbing, rather than a gastric problem. The women's bathroom seemed fine from my two visits there, but who knew about the men's? It could have been the source of a lot of unpleasantness.

And finally, I suspected the dinner. It had squash and pheasant in it, both of which could have been an unfamiliar irritant to several different stomachs on the dance floor. Maybe there wasn't a single perpetrator of the stank, but several emitters of silent but deadly gases. This "grassy knoll" hypothesis seemed at least as likely as the caller, and slightly more likely than the men's bathroom (because, really, wouldn't one of the men have mentioned it?).

At any rate, it was a rather unsatisfying mystery, because it remains unsolved to this day. I didn't even realize anyone else had noticed it, until during the car ride home, Fern abruptly announced that we needed a word to describe the lingering, but unidentified, fart smell on the dance floor. "Ambigasity" won the short debate. We don't have an answer, but at least we have a word.

There Might As Well Be Snow

If it's going to be cold anyway...if the ground will be hard with frost and the grass will be gray and dormant...if the sun won't shine after 4:00 in the afternoon...if I'm paying for all this heat to leak out my 97-year-old windows...well, then there might as well be six inches of clean, white snow on the ground. I don't know if I'll ever learn to be the type of person who loves the winter, but I am the type of Minnesotan who gets all edgy and nervous when we live through all of the symptoms of winter with no snow.

Last year, for example, there was hardly any snow far too late in the season, and we'd also have strange warm days mixed in with our cold ones. I used to watch the grounds crew at the local park try to make ice. It was the saddest ritual. It'd be 5:45 in the morning while I walked past with Buddy, and they'd be bundled up so many layers thick with Carharts that you couldn't identify them by gender. Morning after morning they'd stand there in the cold darkness, watering the ice. At 5:45 in the morning the water would turn slushy as it hit the ground. Then, by 10:00, the sun would come out, the thermometer would hit 40 degrees and the slush would turn back to water, so they'd have to try again the next day. All through December they tried. It was into January, and the ice still wouldn't stick. I began to see it as a portent of evil, a sign of the apocalypse. No ice in Minnesota in January. We really fucked up the planet this time.

This year, though, their first layer of ice is already laid down on the ground, and it's surrounded by mounds of fresh snow and it's only the first days of December. We are back to where we belong. All is right with the world. The kids can sled and skate, and I can tromp through snow with Buddy on my morning walk. I don't love the winter, but I do appreciate it when it behaves as it should.

PS If it happens to be your birthday today, then give yourself a big hug from me, and give me a shout so I can buy you dinner.

Balls! Balls! Balls! Turkey!

That xkcd guy built himself a ball pit instead of a buying a couch. Of course, I'm totally in love with his geeky math sarcasm, and, besides, something about pictures of nerds sitting in a sea of primary colors cheers me during this cold and dark season. I think we've all learned a valuable lesson about Al. She likes her colors bright, her days long, and her men a little bit silly and a lot bit geeky.

I imagine his Thanksgiving gathering with TV trays set up in the ball pit. It makes me happy, even though I know he's probably really at home with no ball pit for the holiday since he's just a young guy.

Mine will not involve any plastic balls at all. I'll be at the dad's for the meal. We will, however, play games and eat lots of good food. Happy Thanksgiving to anyone reading. Be good to yourself as the seasons shift to a darker and grayer time. Today, I am thankful for ball pits and geeks and lightboxes and the fine dusting of snow covering our gray and dormant ground.

Falling

It seems like little kids always have skinned knees, and it's no big deal. They just shed a few tears after hitting the pavement and then get up and run around again like nothing ever happened. On the other hand, I fell yesterday (for no apparent reason, just a misstep off the edge of a sidewalk), and now my knee is raw and bloody and it seems like it's still all I can think about even 24 hours later. I suspect that this may the difference between surviving the impact of a 40 pound body falling on top of your knee and a 140 pound one, although it could also be that I am just wimpier than your average 4-year-old.

Speaking of little kids, the overly intelligent and far too-good looking Nephew was baptized today. He was the oldest baby at the font, hardly even qualifying for that term. In fact, he took a stroll through the pews while waiting his turn to get anointed, ducking his head and playing peek-a-boo with whatever grandfather or aunt who happened to look his way. Because of his childcare situation (daycare by Jimmy on Thursdays and Fran on Fridays) he looks at older men as a source of comfort and care, which amuses his maternal grandmother who has to carefully warm him up to her each time they meet while the grandfather can just pick him immediately even after a long absence.

The Dark

It's starting. The sun barely rises just as I arrive at work. It sets long before I get to leave. Little things, like filing papers, answering phone calls, and planning for class seem overwhelming. I can't force myself to do laundry because I still haven't put away the clean clothes from last time, and I can't put them away because they aren't even folded yet. This is the season when I most need to get my ass outside for a run, but it's also the season my ass is least likely to want to go outside. "It's dark out there," says my ass. "And cold. Leave me alone. I'll make microwave popcorn, and we can watch TV. It's much easier than all of that running."

My house, buried in newspapers (I can't recycle them because I haven't read them. I can't read them because there are too many of them) groans under my neglect. Buddy's footprints cover the floor. His hair finds its way into all of the corners. I'm cold even in my sweatshirt. It would be so much easier to just crawl back into bed. Why do I always have to clean? I'm never even home to enjoy it.

But I'm wise to this business, and I know it means two things. #1 I have to suck it up and clean, or I'm going to beat myself up for living in squalor and #2 I'd better start taking care of myself before the I get to that God-awful crying stage. Crying for sunlight never seems to produce it. It just gives me another reason to beat myself up (weakness, you know, so unattractive).

The Wounded

There was the one who couldn't even hold a pencil or type an email, because of Pain. There was the one who gambled away his house and had to move in with friends before running home to his family. There was the blind date who really was blind. There really was a crack addict, even though it seems like a lie. There was one who gave himself a vasectomy because of what a terrible parent he thought he would be. There was sort-of one who still woke up swearing over the woman who abandoned him years before. And the one who divorced his new wife for cheating on him.

I keep telling myself that I, in comparison, am pretty healthy and happy. I'm the one who has emerged from this battlefield relatively unscathed. I can barely even pick at any of my scabs anymore to remember what the pain felt like.

On the other hand, I seem to be the one encased in bubble wrap. I'm the one who doesn't feel any more. I can go from smitten to over-it in three short weeks. I have turned off my compassion to you for your depression/your gambling debts/your suicide attempts/your chronic pain/your inability to combat your own drunkenness/and your broken heart, because feeling it for each of you turned out to be too much for me.

And so, I say it again, because I keep forgetting: I'm opting out until I can feel my own self again. You can keep your wounds and your stinking pheromones. I'll be the one at the dog park with Buddy.

Stevie's Obitchuary

In April, my cat died. On the way home from the vet (where I swear she spoke twice after she was pronounced dead by the vet) her obituary came to me nearly fully formed before I got home to frantically type it out. Here it is, in honor of a very old, very mean cat.

4/10/2007

20 years ago...

in the midst of the Iran-Contra Affair, Stevie was born. Ronald Reagan was president. The Twins had never been World Champions. I was 13-years-old and for Christmas I got a fuzzy little blue-eyed kitten with certain violent tendencies, but she was mostly OK as long as you didn't make eye-contact or pet her the wrong way or piss her off by laughing or talking too loudly.

Today, the oldest cat I know died quietly at the vet.

Some facts about Stevie

• Her parents were siblings. She was the only kitten in her litter. “Auntie Mom” ate the next litter of kittens. And we wonder where she got her personality...
• She was named after Stevie Smith, a little-known poet, about whom a little-known Glenda Jackson movie was made. I happened to see parts of it before I met Stevie. I have since thought about changing the story so I wouldn't have to pretend to know much about Stevie Smith the poet. A good alternative: She was named after Cat Stevens.
• She's lived in eleven different houses and apartments, and twice traveled across country in a moving van.
• She's lived with eight pets: Mandy, Dewey, Theophania, Corey, Sati, Louie, Koji, and Buddy. Nobody ever bossed her around until Buddy, who took a month to learn to submit to her will.
• Her roommates included Janice, Marvin, Perley, Jimmy, Judy, Jake, Beau, Dorothy, Sarah, Anne Marie, Josh, Jen, Rory the Boy, Ann, Nicky, and me.
• Her claws were stuck in my face twice.
• She's eaten the “senior” version of Science Diet since 1994.
• She's been totally deaf since 2001.
• Her favorite place in the house was behind the toilet.
• In the end, she lost all of her violence, and enjoyed sitting quietly on my lap, just absorbing heat and hanging out with me. She liked it when I sat still. She even let me touch her back feet.

Bridezilla

I was never the kind of kid who dressed as a bride and fantasized about getting married and having a husband and kids (well, at least not the husband part). Blame feminism. Blame divorce. Whatever it was, I just never got into the whole parading down the aisle thing. Well, never, except for that one time.

I was thirteen years old. My dad and step-mom used to take me up to the North Shore every summer for a week in a cabin on Lake Superior. We played a lot of board games, cooked homemade food, and drove up and down the shore looking for good hikes. We picked fresh raspberries and saw the witch tree, and then every year, we'd take part in some kind of indoor/cultural activity, too. There was a little play house in Grand Marais, we'd sometimes attend.

One year, my dad took us out to dinner at the Naniboujou Lodge up past Grand Marais. I fell in love the minute I walked in the door. It could have been the immense rock fireplace (the largest in Minnesota) with elaborate natural stone designs, but, since I'm not really a subtle person, I'm thinking it was probably the brightly painted walls and ceiling. They are decorated in rich primary colors with Cree Indian designs. After a lifetime of white walls and subtle trim colors, the effect blew me away. I couldn't believe that this abundance of color hid behind the sedate exterior of the place. There was a hush in the dining room. People talked, but, at least to my teenage ears, it seemed that they spoke with reverence. They were in the presence of great and unusual beauty. These were people who survived the grayest months of winter, so they knew how sacred it was to spend even one meal basking under vividly saturated walls.

I toured the rest of the public spaces of the Lodge. I discovered the "solarium" with the immediate infatuation of a dedicated reader. I longed to stay there instead of our simple cabin, spending my week next to the warmth of the fireplace and those improbable walls. I would have been reluctant to leave even for hikes and excursions to Witch Trees or Canada. I decided, since I knew it was too expensive for just a regular summer week, that someday, I'd get married at the Naniboujou, and when I did I'd spend one perfectly happy week in my own personal temple to beauty.

Anyway, this weekend I finally did get to attend a wedding there, even if it wasn't my own, and I did get to square dance under that fantastic ceiling, even if I didn't have a partner to swing round and round. I also finally lived my dream of sleeping at the Naniboujou, in a single bed, granted, across the room from Fern's single bed, and the bed totally sucked, even for a single bed. But I did wake up the next morning and drag my book down to the solarium for some quality time before I ate my final breakfast under a resplendent ceiling.