I Didn't Even Mention the Dentist's Office

This is the book I've been anxious to read.  It's finally here. (www.bestylerner.com)
Sophia can play some of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance on her clarinet.
Chloe is home for Fall Break which means we'll be having a marathon viewing of British murder mysteries and costume dramas.  Halfway through we'll be speaking in foreign tongues.  She does a beautiful Queen's English, I sound like someone out of East Enders.  Or West Side Story.  I can never keep them straight.
MathMan High School's Girls' Softball team didn't do so hot in their state tournament so he's now turning his focus to basketball.  That means he'll stop calling balls and strikes on me.  Finally.  Instead he'll be calling me for traveling and for being all elbowy under the basket.  Nuts.
You wanna know what else comes from doing an hour on the elliptical several days a week? Everything hurts.  This getting fit thing is a joker.
The UPS guy escaped the place where I hid him, but that's okay.  I installed a GPS chip in his neck before the knock out drops wore off.
Nathan has a baseball game tonight.  Whatever happened to the boys of summer?  I'm taking my Hello Kitty Snuggie.  It's supposed to drop down into the 60s here.  For us thin-blooded Southerners, that's practically arctic.
Howyou?

The S Is Silent

A random sampling of what's happening and not happening here.

I'm still losing weight.  An hour on the elliptical each day absolves a multitude of sins including a supper consisting of one Sonic small chocolate malted inhaled on the fly between kid activities and a quarter bag of Brachs Candy Corn.  Please note that I'm keeping track now.  It's not a whole bag or even a half.  That quarter is significant.

And most days, I'm still eating whole grain, beans, lean protein and wearing a somewhat surly, sugar deprived expression.

MathMan's job has changed some.  He's stopped screaming in his sleep so that's nice.

Nathan and his baseball buddies have been doing things suggested by Tosh.0 involving Icy Hot.  I'm convinced that hearing about group testosterone activities makes life worth living.

Sophie, who isn't the least bit interested in the typical tween definition of cool, is in both the middle school band and an active member of its Academic Team.  Her siblings are worried that she's committing social suicide.

"Mom, don't let her do it." Comes the plea from Nate.  He's afraid of  being tainted with Nerdism by association.

"I hardly think that anyone willing to smear Icy Hot on his butt before running in a pack of fools around the ball field is an arbiter of good social sense," I bite out at him.  He shakes his head and limps away.

"But, Mother, it's going to follow her," moans Chloe who had to endure her younger bother's near undoing of her perfect student legacy.

I cluck my tongue at her.  "Seriously?  You link arms with other girls and sing sorority songs and you think Sophie's on the wrong track?" I huff.  "When I was in college, I would have thought you were a total loser.  And so would all of my artsy fartsy punky friends."

MathMan hung with a crowd who mocked the Greek system by calling themselves the Pi Rhos.  In between drinking beer straight from the pitcher and cleverly seducing him hours after I met him (slurring I'd do you in a second into his ear), I obtained clarification on his status vis a vis the Greek system.  I may have been slutty, but I did not fuck frat boys.  I had my standards.

But I digress.  In fact, I rethink.  Maybe if I'd married one of those frat boys, I wouldn't be Brokey McBrokenstein today.  Nope.  I'd have a nice alimony settlement, the condo, a plastic surgeon on speed dial, my half of the Country Club membership and a sporty little convertible. Damn it.  Hoisted by my own reverse snobby petard.  Pretty in Pink indeed.

Cripes. Where was I?  Oh, right. Sophie.  So she's on the Academic Team and those kids are kicking butt and rocking those team polo shirts.  Yesterday I attended the meet and got a little frustrated and stabby (hence the comfort malted later).  The person reading the questions and giving out correct answers when necessary was didn't know how to pronounce some key words like almondine.   Yes I'm an elitist snob.  So what?  At least I didn't elbow my way over to the desk, rip the question sheets from the woman's hands and yell "For goodness sake, let someone who knows how to pronounce bas relief do this, okay?"

No, I just sat fidgeting in my seat, fantasizing about doing that and checking Twitter on my phone.

I think I've paralyzed myself again with too much information about the publishing world.  Every time I pick up the manuscript to work on it, I get all itchy and nervous sweaty.  As an antidote, I've been reading a lot.  I've got two books I'm reading, one that I'm listening to the audio version of when I'm in the car and two in the queue to read.  I scored Jonathan Franzen's Freedom at the library and put it on my To Read stack.  The thing is so dang huge, though, so I picked the audio version up at the library and have decided to give it a listen because I'm such a slow reader, but a fast listener.

I'm enjoying the audio book of Water for Elephants so far except the parts narrated by the ninety-something Jacob Jankowski freak me out a little bit.  That could have something to do with the fact that my birthday is hurtling toward me and I'm going to be half-way to ninety.  When I consider how quickly this forty-five years has gone and then remember that as you age, time seems to go even more quickly (something to do with percentages), well, it sets my brain spinning. Plus it reminds me that I need to reiterate to my children that I would prefer to be taken to a field and shot and left to become part of the circle of life rather than put into a nursing home should I not be able to care for myself.  I am not of the prolong my life at any cost crowd.  Once my quality of life is gone, just end it.  I'll leave a permission slip to placate the authorities.

Well, that took a rather macabre turn, didn't it?  Sorry about that.  Let's have a song and dance on out of here. Before you go, please tell us how's your Wednesday? What's new? What are you reading these days?  Does my butt look smaller?

Seven Things I Like

Juli Ryan, an ex-pat living in New Zealand, tagged me with a great meme that I thought would be perfect for today since lately all I do is tell you what I don't like.  Juli, who is very funny and smart and sarcastic, might have been trying to tell me something.  And I appreciate it.  Because a nudge into the positive column is a good thing for me.

Seven Things I Like

1.  I like mornings.  Okay, let me qualify that - I like mornings after everyone has left the house.  Having to look at those half-open eyes and disgruntled, yawning mouths, and pulling from them what they might want for breakfast because, yes, like an idiot, I do set myself up to be a short order cook, is hardly worthy of rainbows and birdsong.  The good thing about that is that their requests are pretty simple - cold cereal usually. 

But once they are all gone for the day?  I'm all aaaaahhhh, breakfast on the deck with a book?  Why not?  So there's the upside to being unemployed.  In the old days, mornings meant driving, driving and more driving.

2.  Which means it's a good thing I like to drive.  Were it not so expensive and horrible for the environment, I would drive around more.  I love driving fast but not recklessly, I love winding meandering drives through the countryside.  I like city driving.  Emphasis on driving.  Not sitting in traffic.  You can keep that.

The last week or two without access to a car really was a severe clipping of my wings.  Maybe I should consider becoming an OTR driver.  Would I have to have my own truck?  Must research this.

3.  I like old time radio shows.  The Jack Benny Show, The Great Gildersleeve, Fibber McGee and Molly, Suspense, The Shadow, Lux Radio Theater, X Minus One, The Further Adventures of Johnny Dollar, Gunsmoke.   I love how the past is captured in sound and story.  I get a kick out of the dystopian visions of the future in the sci fi shows, the silly, almost verbal slapstick of the comedies, the running jokes in Jack Benny, and Fibber McGee.  Can you guys tell if that influences my writing?

4.  I like order.  Clutter makes me pissy.  But not enough to really do much about it.  Right now, I can see four instances of Lisa-induced clutter, but will I eradicate them today?  Highly unlikely.  Because....

5.  I like having a house fully stocked of groceries. And today is payday so I must go do the gatherer thing.  When we hit the skids, I realized how reliant we'd become on take out and going out.  Now that we eat almost exclusively at home, running out of ingredients and staple goods combined with living in the middle of nowhere is a pain in the cook's butt.  Hence, I love the Buy One Get One Free things that so many of the grocery stores are now doing.  Except, I always have to question - want or need?  Need has become the filter by which all pennies are spent.  This is not whining.  It's a statement of fact and something I wish I'd been more capable of when we still had my income.

6.  I like music.  All kinds.   I've shared with you my like for the sappy stuff we listened to in the 70s and 80s, but I also like 20s jazz, big band, classical, rock, rap, hip hop, punk, new wave, metal, Argentinian tangos, alternative, old school country, pop, emo..... music is playing throughout most of my day.

Recently, I was nudged by this blogger to expand my listening even further.  He sent me a link to some to Opeth and I was, at first, a bit unsure.  Then I listened and listened some more.  And now while I clean and lift weights, which I do when no one is around, because can you imagine MathMan and the kids' faces? this is the soundtrack.  You haven't scrubbed out a bathtub until you've done it to Opeth.

Don't worry, Randal.  I'm not going to muscle in on your territory.

7.  I like getting fun mail.  Like this from Lola who ran a contest which I won!!!!!!

The whole shebang.

I haven't smelled this good in a long time.

Clearly, Lola was prescient in the choosing of this gift.

You remember the Blue Flying Monkey I used to Gaslight my kids? It went missing. Now I have the IT magnet.  Mwahahaha.

In addition to all this cool swag, Lola included a bag of confetti and a blower so we could have a little party while we opened our gifts.  And we did.  Thank you, Lola.  This made for great fun over the weekend.

You guys know how I hate tagging people so here's the deal:  Do this in comments.  Or on your own blog when your muse has gone missing as we all know muses do (the unreliable tarts).  You can say I tagged you.  You.  Yes, you.  And you. 

P.S.  Number 8 of the things I like?  You guys.  I mean it.

Is That a Parable or a Very Subtle Joke

I'm just going to tell you this up front - I don't know how to make this funny.

Every week, and sometimes it feels like every day, I learn of another friend or acquaintance who has lost their job.

Yesterday I drove through an area not far from here that I can only describe as the "Place of Big Ideas, Lack of Financing."  Acres and acres of weeds threaded with ribbons of smooth, black roads with light blue pipes dotting the landscape like PVC stems bearing no flowers.

"Bank Owned Property - For Sale"

What a mess.  Where are the answers?  We grasp at what?   It feels like nothing.

I'm sorry for my friends and acquaintances who find themselves unemployed in this dismal economy.  It's not easy, this recalibration.  We bail out major corporations while those of us in these teeny life boats can't plug the holes fast enough. I asked MathMan the other day if he thought maybe this tipped ship of an economy was righting itself.  Maybe the next generations won't live in a society where it takes two incomes to maintain the illusion of a middle class life.

I hope they learn from our mistakes.  But as so many of them are already indenturing themselves through student loans and will be entering an unstable, uncertain and worker-unfriendly workplace, my confidence in their ability to do better shrinks with each bit of bad news.

Home sales are down.  Another bank in Georgia closes.

We know who to blame.  Or at least we have a pretty good idea. We just can't stop digging.  We'd rather fight over religion.

I'm not a believer, but I know plenty of people who are.  They pray.  I hope it helps.  No matter what, we all must draw together to weather this mess.

Don't be afraid to ask for help.  Don't be afraid to offer it.

This song is in my head. Maybe because it reminds me of happier times.  Times when I still had more of a future ahead of me.  Or maybe because it reminds me of how we all want answers.  From somewhere.

Still waiting...

Tell me your news.

What Will Make You Believe Me?

I keep dreaming of tornadoes.  I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

Last night, I didn't dream of tornadoes, but at one point I did rest in that in-between state - not awake exactly, not quite gone.
And I thought about how lately I see an abundance of the Chevy trucks like the one I lost my virginity in all those years ago.
Having your cherry popped in the bed of a truck does not make for a great romantic tale.
Except there were stars overhead somewhere, I suppose.
I couldn't see them though because my eyes were probably squeezed shut and the camper shell would have made it impossible anyway.
Those were the days.
When I thought Micelob beer was the height of sophistication.
And he was pretty special.  Or, at the very least, convincing.  No, he didn't have to get me drunk or marry me first.  Yes, I'm now friends with him on Facebook.  I mean, how else would I have a complete set?  He's key to the Old Boyfriend Buffet, right?
So now I see those trucks all over town and here's the thing that causes me to notice:
Those Chevy trucks are adorned with those Antique Vehicle license plates and since it's all about me, I conclude:  My virginity is an antique.

Room Service

I call this Make Your Own Vacation

Taking a break to sit in my lawn chair and read that pile of books and Harpers magazines that keeps toppling over and getting underfoot.  It's so hot and buggy out that I've moved the lawn chair to my bedroom.  Luckily, it works with the decor.  Lately, I can't go outside without an encounter with aggressive stinging things.

Before I go, I want to remind you to check out my sidebar.  There's Lola's contest (click the sexy bunny) and lots of great stuff on the blogroll.

Also, a special wish for a safe and wonderful move to susan who has recently retired and will be leaving the Pacific Northwest to go to her new home in Nova Scotia.  That's a lot of change and I can't wait to see what art and stories come from it.

Thanks for the supportive and encouraging comments about the weight gain and IUD.  I called to make an appointment to have the IUD removed and was informed that it would take up to a week to check my insurance benefits.  After that, they'd make an appointment for the simple procedure.  Good thing we don't have that vile socialized medicine.  While I wait a week just to be able to make an appointment because the private bureaucrats have to decide if I'm "approved" or not, I noticed on one of the Mirena message boards that the posting Brits would be on in the morning writing about their symptoms and their decision to go through with the removal and then they'd be back later the same day to about their appointment scheduled in the next day or two to have their IUD removed.  Oh yes, our system is superior.

While I wait for word from the doctor's office, I suggested to MathMan that we do a DIY.  His miner's hat with the light on top (don't ask), some clamps and a pair of needle nose pliers from his tool box and we're all set, right?  Sadly, he declined.  I don't know what he's worried about.  It's not his birth canal.

Oh, BTW, Que.  I mentioned to him how you'd busted me on the sex drive ruse.  You were right.  He knew he was being taken for a ride. Metaphorically.  He responded with a choice one-liner.

"Who am I to get in the way of you and your uterus?"

Indeed.  Tell that to the insurance company.

Have a great weekend, lovers.

Love this guy's lyrics.

Looking for That Magic Number

So what is the magic number?  No, seriously - what is it?

Maybe it's just me and maybe it's because I've been spending time on websites offering expert advice on things like writing, getting published, changing your life and losing weight, but there seems to be an extraordinarily high rate of numbered lists ricocheting all over our beloved internets.

It seems to me that experts love numbered lists.  I bet it all started with an article telling writers how to write good blog copy. Picture it:

Ten Great Ways to Make Your Blog Better!
1.  Use numbered  lists
2.  Use a number in your title

You see what I mean, right?

So here's a sampling just from my rss feed reader today:

5 Money Lessons from the Third World

Top Five Methods of Procrastination 

Okay, so maybe five is today's the magic number.

Anyway, this got me to thinking - what numbered lists could I write?  I'm lazy and don't want to do a lot of research so I must draw from my strengths.  Let's see...

Eight Ways to Camouflage Cat Vomit Stains on Your Carpet!
This one would be super easy for me to do.  I've been practicing for this one since we got Phoebe the Boy Cat back in 1990.

Three Never Fail Methods for Losing and Gaining The Same Four Pounds in One Week!
I could speak to this with authority even with one vocal cord tied behind my back.  Although that title may need some polishing.  There may be too many numbers....

How To Make Those Seven Deadly Sins Less Deadly in Six Easy Steps

• 3.1 Extravagance
• 3.2 Lust
• 3.3 Gluttony
• 3.4 Greed
• 3.5 Acedia
• 3.6 Despair
• 3.7 Sloth
• 3.8 Wrath
• 3.9 Envy
• 3.10 Pride
• 3.11 Vainglory

Okay, this one might take more "research."

Oh and deadly sins - no matter how many there are - don't get an exclamation point.  That would just seem to scream bad taste.

What else?  What else?

Four Moves Any Great Lover Should Use.  Every time!
Now that gets an exclamation point.
P.S.  I will not divulge whether I am the great lover or if I've been on the receiving end of a great lover.  Rest assured there's no knuckle involved.

Three Ways You'll Wish You'd Embarrassed Your Children
Yes, Facebook will be mentioned. Of course!

Wine and Chocolate, Porn and QVC Shopping:  Twenty-three Ways to Multitask Your Vices
Okay, you see through the lie on this one, don't you?  I don't have money to shop.

Stunning Simplified - Ten Tips for Rocking The Sweatpants and Flip Flop Look
I admit I don't own sweatpants anymore, but yoga pants are a useful substitute.  And my memory is intact.

So what is it about numbers?  Does it make the writer of the article sound more authoritative?  Does it lend some some air of expertise to the information?

How is Ten Great Ways to Make Your Blog Better! more appealing than an article titled Make Your Blog Better! (question mark.)  Is it the finite quality of the number?  Does that make it seem more manageable?

I know one way to find an answer.  I'll ask our resident numbers expert Mathman when he gets home.   Goodness knows that man needs yet another reason to roll his eyes at me.  It's been days since I inadvertently set anything on fire.

Meanwhile, I think I will do some "research."  I'm thinking about an article entitled "Five Ways to Make Piles of Cash While Napping."


What expert advice do you have to offer? Number or don't.  We're not picky.  Although, anyone suggesting I don't take any wooden nickels gets a karate chop.  Oh, and be sure to check out the sidebar where I've finally added links to my favorite blogs.  There are new friends and old there.  Go visit!

  

My beacon's been moved under moon and star

Something weird is going on around here. It's a new something weird.  Perhaps it's sunspots or some electromagnetic field emanating from all the back to school ions.  I've considered and dismissed any supernatural interference.  I'm not  interesting enough to have my own poltergeist.

It started this morning when I turned on the TV to see the weather. I noticed immediately that something was wrong with our DishNetwork because the channel that normally houses Turner Classic Movies showed something decidedly not classic, nor terribly theatrical.  The woman in the lab coat spoke Spanish while an 800 number crawled the bottom of the screen.

I investigated.

Food Network was now Pakastani TV resplendent with waving flags and echoing commercials.  HGTV appeared to be something from China.  Maybe Korea.  C-SPAN was, we assumed, coming from Japan.  The newsreaders bowed to one another.

"This is odd."

MathMan had to get himself and Nate out on time so he showed barely a passing interest. He must have forgotten that I'm banned from tinkering with the electronics.

Sophia and I watched a few minutes of something that looked suspiciously like Full House except it was in Russian. Possibly Greek.  And Uncle Jesse was some punk girl with a head full of long, dark hair.

Slowly, channels came back on line.  When Fox News returned and MSNBC continued to be some sort of French news broadcast, I considered the possibility of a right wing conspiracy.  My ability to understand the channels is usually the other way around - it's Fox News that doesn't make sense to me.  But then MSNBC, HGTV, and whatever channel it is that's obsessed with Little People came back.  Not that there's anything wrong with Little People, but how many shows following around Little People while they live their lives do we need?

Anyway, I breathed a sigh of relief and pulled out my phone to post a Facebook status.

"Have TV again, breakfast is made, hubby and teen on their way to school, tween in the shower, the sun is shining and laundry is going.  Life is good."

Mid-crisis, shame and practical issues prevented me from contacting DishNetwork.  If I reach out to them now, they're just going to demand I pay my bill already.  They'll get paid what we owe, of course, but since we've been considering letting Dish become the latest casualty of our fiscal revamping, it might just do to let the service run out.  A natural death of sorts.  My main concern is for all those programs tied up on the DVR.  Poirots, Sherlock Holmes, a whole mess of Miss Marples, several Alfred Hitchcock movies.  I never remember to ask MathMan to show me how to record them onto dvds until it's too late, he's too tired or someone is watching something else on TV.

Still - in the grand scheme, losing a bunch of programs is nothing.  Nada. Rien.  Diddlysquat.

Later, other things started going wrong.  First, the DVD player became uncooperative.  The menu wouldn't come up.  The fast forward and reverse buttons revolted.  I changed the batteries to no avail.  If a change of batteries doesn't fix the problem, what next?  Sledgehammer?  Elephant gun?

Throwing the thing across the room is largely frowned upon in this household.  Being a good example is such a drag.

Adding to the electronic curiosities was the fact that when I pushed the remote's volume button, it would shift the sound up to 100 without stopping.  When I pushed it to decrease, it scrolled all the way to 0.  The only way to get it to stop at a somewhat decent volume was to play a sort of game - push the increase volume button and then quickly push it again where it would stop and stay on say level 16.

The final straw was a visit to the upper channels - the Island of Misfit Toys of the movie channels.  Not the premium channels.

Oh, that movie may have been British.  It was made in the 1990s or 2000s.  It was set on a country estate.  But that movie was not Howard's End.  There was no Helena Bonham Carter, no Emma Thompson, no Sir Anthony Hopkins.  I did recognize one of the male leads.  Matthew Goode.  He played  Patrick Simmons in Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced and was most recently in A Single Man, but I only know that from IMB.  I haven't seen the movie.  Dang it.  A little research tells me what was being passed off as Howard's End was actually Brideshead Revisited.

"Do you suppose all of this electronic humbuggery is due to some cloud around me?  I have been rather difficult, putting off bad vibes and all."  The cat to whom I directed my question yawned and tucked her head under her paw.  "I don't suppose Dish Network would give us a month of free service in exchange for having messed with my head."  The cat remained indifferent.

I realize this is more of the same - modern day complaints.  Back when a person like me would have been out feeding the chickens in a blizzard or poisoning herself with bluing while laundering the Lord's and Lady's bloomers, the notion that pushing a button would cause so much fretting and consternation would have made us peasants laugh with our toothless mouths wide open. But I live now and I have certain expectations and when I turn on the television and can understand Fox and Friends better than I can understand anything else on TV, I think I'm entitled to a little modern day groaning.

I mean, a person can only take so much, right?


What buttons are you pushing today?

I was feeling sensations in no dictionary

A couple of days away from the computer can enlighten a person.  When I look inside, I wish I'd forgotten my flashlight.  I want to tell you about the dark moods, the depression that had me pinned to a chair or the bed.
A book was involved.  Not one I wrote, but one written by Patti Smith.  It wasn't the book's fault.  It was merely an instrument.  A tool.

I started to read Fight Club right after finishing - I mean the same day, the same hour - Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.  (Read my review here, she screamed).  That might not have been such a hot idea.  It caused literary whiplash.  From the English countryside with a dash of curry to Marla Singer and the Brain Parasite Support Group.  It made me want to smoke a pack of cigarettes and kill myself.

I opted for something less smelly and permanent.

I tossed Fight Club aside and picked up Just Kids which had, earlier in the week, passed all those Is This Book Worth of My Time tests and so I took it home from the library and placed it on top of my stack.  Which is more like a tower, but so what?

I'm still reading it.  I am a slow reader, apparently.  MathMan accused me of being devastated by drink.  "One beer," I sighed and accused him of prudery and prohibition-like qualities.  It's not my fault that he's not allowed to drink while taking his Zocor or whatever it is.

I fixed him. I watched a bunch of dvds without him. They were our bedtime dvds borrowed from the library.   British mysteries. After I did that, I told him the ending of an episode of one of the Touch of Frosts.  He said it was okay to tell him.  He could see that I was anxious to spill the beans and emotionally fragile so he gave me that small gift of concession.  I bet he'll hit me with it later - my inability to keep something to myself.  That's the way things go here.

When she is bad, she is really unpleasant.  Somewhat hateful.  Thirty percent bitch.  Easily. I spread the hate around passively and aggressively.

I mocked my friends of Facebook.  Ranted and raved and wished they'd shut the hell up with their posts about what they'd had to eat, what foods they'd prepared, how hot or rainy or whatever the weather was doing.  And those fucking to do lists people post. Really?  The world needs to know that you're doing laundry?  Listen, tell us when you haven't done laundry for six whole months.  That would be interesting.  In fact, I want pictures of that.  Get to it.  Filth it up and free yourselves.  Make being unkempt your gift to the world.

Create dust a la Pigpen.  Please.

This abuse of social media is a scurge. I know.  I'm the person who posts a Smiths song every day.  Or did.
"I'm going to put up a status that says something like "I am judging you and not so silently," I harrumphed at MathMan as we made our way back from the grocery store.  I was checking Facebook from my phone since the desktop computer decided to be all prissy and difficult and we'd run out of things to talk about on our drive. Plus, I could tell his mind had wandered back to its comfort zone of school and mathy stuff.  I can't compete with that.

"Or maybe I'll write something like 'Spare me the details.' and mean it."

Our modern woes are ridiculous.  I would have turned into a quivering mass of jelly right before I keeled over and died if I'd had to live in Victorian England.  I wouldn't have lasted twenty minutes as a homesteader.
My bee phobia keeps me from carrying out the compost, for goodness sake.

Weak as water.  Okay, maybe not the poison water around here.  The stuff loaded with mercury and lead and arsenic.  You could walk across that stuff without being someone's savior.  But weak.  Like me standing in the line at Dairy Queen..  A small blizzard is a triumph over evil.  I'll harbor anger while I eat my small treat while wishing for a large.  With lots of M&Ms and chocolate sauce.  Want to see me get pissy?  Let the DQ skimp on the chocolate sauce swirled into my blizzard and I'll turn thirty shades of purple, but will I ask for more?  Of course not.  They might spit in it.

Things I hope to never see on Facebook again:

1.  Hubby.  Does he not have a name?And oh my word, the noise we'd all make if men started referring to their wives not by their names but by the term wifey.
2.  Woot.
3.  Bilgewater.  Okay, I made that up.  Someone please use it.
4.  Hot.  Cold.  Windy.  Humid.  I know you mean well.  You're just making conversation.  It's an ice breaker.  But please.  Times are tough.  Let's not put our meteorologists out of work, too.  The last thing we need are those folks competing with the rest of us for jobs at McDonalds.
5.  Whoo Hooo!  See #2.  I'd rather see you saying something new like Ta Da!
6.  Referring to your family with the same label every damn time.  I get it.  Your son or daughter isn't a kid anymore, isn't quite a teen. 

You guys stop and I promise you - no more Smiths songs (except for those I put right on La Belette Rouge's and Kirie's walls) and no more cat photos.  I'll even stop posting pix of my favorite beverage of the day.

That book. That bloody book.  The good thing is I don't flinch anymore when Brooklyn is mentioned.  Small victories of memory.  Robert Mapplethorpe, with whom Patti Smith had an affair in the late sixties, was so beautiful. Their affair morphed into a lifelong friendship.  Back when his art was causing a stir, I didn't pay much attention to the artist.  The fisting, the crucifix submerged in piss.   (Thanks for clearing that up, Nan!  I got my avant gardes mixed up.  I do like your take on it, though.)  That was salaciously interesting enough without letting my eyes slide over to any photos of the artist himself.  But there was so much more to that guy who, like so many of his contemporaries, died young.

"Pioneers without a future."  That's a quote of a quote. From the book.  It may have been Allen Ginsberg who said that.  MathMan tells me that the Beat Generation stuff was not his favorite time period for art.  It mystifies me that he even thinks about poetry or words.  That would be like me saying I stop thinking about writing and reading long enough to consider the curve of a slope of sign or co-sign and Pi or all that other stuff he tries to talk to me about and my eyes glaze over and he pushes his finger into the fleshiest part of my arm and says "Hey, are you in there?"

Actually, no, I'm not. 

I don't know enough to declare about poetry, much less Beat poetry, but I would like to see the movie Howl which is about Allen Ginsberg and stars that delectable James Franco.

Someone just recently introduced me to Peter Orlovsky.  Who is mentioned in passing in the book.

The truth is - I don't know that I "get" poetry. I like what I like.  A lot of the meaning is lost on me and my shallow self.  I read poetry with reference books by my side.  If I bother at all.

Anyway - back to my new friends Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe.  It's hard to believe that he was resistant to photography at first.  He preferred mixed media and collages made from found objects.  But then, there you are.  I still remember when MathMan suggested I use his Tandy 1000 to write a paper for some French class and I delivered those now infamous words "No, thanks.  I'll stick to the typewriter."

Their lives were full of art and The Scene of the Hotel Chelsea and all those artsy types in poetry, music, art, homosexual hustling, the book business, movies.  Andy Warhol, blah, blah, Silver Factory, blah.  I haven't gotten to the part where Patti breaks into the music scene.  It's coming. That's the thing about reading nonfiction about the lives of celebrities.  I know what's happened, in very general terms, up to this point.  The rest of the story is a mystery, of course.  Everyone's future is a mystery. Thank goodness.

And I'm interrupting that interesting retelling of an art-filled life to read a text telling me that someone has moved on from laundry to dusting their downspouts?  And it's not even a clever euphemism.  They really are telling the world about their Saturday chores.

Help. Me. Rhonda.

Here's how I know it may have been a visit from the Black Dog - I couldn't even pull myself out of the stupor? torpor? enough to shut off the sms messages that were annoying me.  Lazy or depressed or just meh meh meh.  Does it matter?  A mood. Cranky.  Not devastated by drink.  Not manic.  Not quite depressive.  People overload perhaps.  Being drunk would have been infinitely more fun.  For a while.

"I'm going to stay in our bedroom and not inflict myself on you guys.  I'd appreciate the same small courtesy."
Compliance is nice.  Safe.  Scream free.

All this meh-ness.  It's a build up to something.

A lovely stay in a padded room?  The cognitive dissonance of Snoop Dogg featured in a Katy Perry song?

The fact that I'm not really that fascinated by the whole seventies art scene, but Patti Smith's recounting of her life with Mapplethorpe is well-written, straightforward the way I like them, and a great reminder that one can go from feeling lucky to be able to afford a grilled cheese sandwich to being a household name in the cooler of households.

Imagine if Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe had Facebook pages circa 1969.

Patti Smith is leaving her favorite spot in the Hotel Chelsea lobby and going down to the El Quixote for a tequila shot with @Jim Carroll.  May watch him shoot smack later.  Maybe not.  Have some laundry to do.
Patti Smith hanging out in our small room, waiting for @Robert Mapplethorp to get dressed so we can go to Max's for another night at the Roundtable.  He's worse than a girl or some of our favorite drag queens.
Patti Smith at the laundromat washing @Robert Mapplethorp's black mesh t-shirt and wondering what he's making us on the hot plate.  Hope it's not beans and weenies again.
Robert Mapplethorpe finished washing the walls of our new studio, wonder if I can find any good mags at the bookstall down on 42nd.
Robert Mapplethorpe tired and bored.  Wish @Andy Warhol would notice me already.
Robert Mapplethorpe found a crucifix in the trash as I walked home from hustling down at Times Square.  Wonder what I could do with this?  But first I have to pee.

I love posts where people wonder what famous dead people might have done with the tools of our time.  Have you read those?  You know, for example:  Dorothy Parker would have used Twitter, not facebook.  Those kinds of posts.  However, now I can't find one to save my Google.  Plus my stomach is growling so my attention span for searching wanes.

But you get the idea.

Two kids, one adult down.  One to go.  A couple of more weeks of Chloe.  Now if I can figure out what to do with that cats, life will be perfect.  The house will be all mine again.  From 7:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. all mine.

I just posted a photo of Sophie on her first day of middle school and now friends are leaving nice comments.  How dare they?  Don't they know I'm fed up with all this?

This heat is making my brain melt.  There, I said. it.  Now I have to go fold clothes and make some startlingly fabulous baked good so I can post about it on Facebook, me thinks.  I'm sick of posting pix of my kids and cats. Or maybe I'll just write about the day of the week.  How will people know it's Monday if I don't add my voice to that cacophony trumpeting the day of the fucking week? 

I'm thinking of a live webcam of me ironing.....

Your assignment, you may choose, but you can't choose not to choose:  (1)  Imagine you're a famous person - dead or otherwise (alive, I guess).  What would you post on Facebook or Twitter?  OR (2) What do  you mock on FB or Twitter?  And if you say Smiths songs, I'll hunt you down to administer a titty twister.  Your titties, not mine.

A Rush and A Push

I usually do his on Facebook and Twitter, but today, because I'm short on time and because I love you so, I'm doing it here, too.

Midweek - how is it for you?  Go on, tell us.  You know you love the open ended question.

The Mournful Bleatings of a Former Middle Class Dreg

"Jesus, if I have to see one more person writing their vacation to do lists or bitching about how hard it is to come back from a vacation, I'm going to fucking cancel my Facebook account and never turn on the computer again.  Shit.  When was the last time we took a vacation?  Not work, not visits to family, but a real vacation?  2006?"

"Was that the year we went to D.C. before we went to Indiana and Illinois to visit family?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, lighten up, Lucy.  Your whole life is a vacation.  Just ask your dad.  Now how about getting out and applying for that job at McDonands he keeps talking about."

Some days the thing that really makes this marriage work is the ability to put the other person swiftly and precisely into their place.  When we are kind, it's done with humor.  When we're ready to take out the long knives, not so much.  The truth is, MathMan knows how to get at that deep, dark, ugly place inside me, make me look at it, poke it with a stick, and then bury it back where it belongs until next time.  It's when we deny that that ugly nugget exists that we get into our horrible scrapes.

He neither indulges nor discourages me when I'm being petulant and whiny.  He shoves, lures, cajoles me beyond it so that I can be less self-pitying and like myself just a bit.  Sometimes to his peril.  He's good for me.  The bastard.

If ever I'm standing on the ledge, please get MathMan.  He, to his credit and his everlasting regret, I suspect, knows what makes me tick.  And he knows my preferred chocolate (cheap), wine (Malbec) and ice cream flavor (chocolate marshmallow).

So it's true.  I've been a bit resentful of the social media exposure I've had to other people's fabulous lives and disposable income.  It's made me chew the inside of my cheek and push back from the keyboard on more than one occasion when I want to lash out. 

But then, I thought no.  We're here because of the mistakes we've made, the bad decisions, the drama I have introduced into the fold.  Suck it up, sister.  Deal. And then I read Betsy Lerner's take on vacations and am reminded that I'm a lot like her.  The idea of a vacation is one thing.  The execution of that idea is something else entirely.  No matter where I go, the compulsion to have things just so, the annoying sighs, the short fuse, they all get packed right along with my smelly sandals and that pretty shawl I never take out and wear because I've never worn a shawl in my life.  They don't go well with the cargo shorts, do they?  Even I know that.

So what if you can't actually take a vacation?  That's what books are for!  They transport you.  Well, at least they used to.  Why not stop feeling sorry for yourself and give it a whirl?

Turns out the still do transport.  I picked up Ayelet Waldman's Red Hook Road at the library last week.  I've never been to Maine, but I'd like to go there.  Why not visit through this novel?  If you can overlook the main premise of the story (death of newlyweds, a real downer), it's got those elements that do take me out of my own dreary housewifery and transports me to the salty air and sandy beaches of coastal Maine where I can sail and listen to the seagulls and eat fresh lobster while wearing a swimsuit without the slightest hint of self-consciousness. 

Anyway, I'll be writing a review of it as soon as I'm finished reading it.  It's time to cut the ties binding my to the computer and read.

Before I go, I thought I'd share with you another of life's tiny ironies.  I decided to follow Ayelet Waldman on Twitter.  She tweets almost daily.  And, of course, this week, just when I decide to follow her, she and her husband Michael Chabon and their children are.......on vacation.

Do you take mental vacations?  What are you reading to escape?  When you close your eyes, where do you "vacation?"  And go on - tell me about your favorite vacation, if you'd like.  I can take it.

The Detritus of Life So Far

I don't even remember why I started it, but there I was pulling things from the floor of the closet and asking myself rhetorical questions like "Why is she keeping all these shoeboxes?"

More boxes. Nifty metal rectangular ones from Ikea.  Boxes bursting with photos that will never be put into albums.  The boxes are dented from back in the days when they were pulled off the shelves of the built-in hutch and incorporated into some elaborate scheme involving Tonka trucks, Hotwheels, dinosaurs and those dark green molded plastic soldiers.

"Watch this, Mom!  See this guy, he's going to...."

That was two houses ago.

Stacks of cds, borrowed from the family's collection and never returned to the proper cabinet.  Books by Philip Roth, David McCullough and John Dean.  The entire set of Harry Potter novels in hardback plus some of the audio books.  Old cassettes of Jack Benny radio shows, a full set of David Sedaris books on cd.  Anthony Kiedis's autobiography Scar Tissue.  I wondered where that was.

Some Calculus books.  Did MathMan say he was going to be teaching Calculus next semester?

A Rubbermaid box of things belonging to MathMam.  Baseball memorabilia,  some concert programs from a 1989 Paul McCartney show we attended at the Rosemont Horizon when it was still the Horizon.  That was the same year we went to see Les Miserables at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago.  The same year we moved to Chicago after we graduated from I.U and it snowed on May 5th.  My dad was helping us move in with MathMan's mom.  He looked up at the sky showering us with fluffy snow, then back at me and asked if I was sure I wanted to live in Chicago.

I was sure.

A little box of jewelry, mostly broken, that had once cluttered the top of my dresser circa 1978.  I picked through it and saved the old spoon ring and two buttons:  I'm Like Freakin Out! and J'aime le Francais.  Stuck them right through some poster board so they can grace my "new" office space.  Tossed the rest.

Oh, right.  That's what started all this - I was going to shift Nate's clothes upstairs since we moved him back up to the small room that had been my office.  He was ready to have his own room again, was tired of sleeping in the wide open space of the basement family room with no door that locked.  He's a fourteen year old boy.  I'm not stupid.  I'm not going to be picking up discarded socks from his floor though.

With an assist from MathMan, the record albums in their milk crates were moved out of the closet and given a place, accessible, but out of the way in the corner of what was now my new office/weight room.

He also took down the mystery box from the top shelf.  So that's where they were - the few photo albums we owned, full of pictures form the early days of our life together.  Back when I had the time and inclination to sit down and enjoy the tedium of inserting photos into plastic sleeves.  Back when I had photos developed and the archivist in me had to sit down and write on the back of each one - the people, places and dates.  It was important.  Back before three kids and jobs and distractions.  Before I used the internet to do more than occasionally search for photos of houseplans people could order from Sears and other mail-order companies.  When I would have laughed at the idea of spending large amounts of time in front of the computer during my non-work hours.

We didn't even bother to unpack those photo albums when we moved into this house.

Time to refold those old baseball jerseys and put them into some kind of box for Nate.  And do we still have this iHome charger/player thing?  Here are the instructions.  Did I see that in Chloe's room?

Two Composition books with only a few pages used.  Those might be nice to have this coming school year. MathMan's bassoon repair kit, still housed in the 1970s orange Tupperware it's been in since I've know him.

Sit down and look through that basket of photos that never even made it into the IKEA boxes?

And when did I put this box of Little Tikes building blocks in here?  Those can go in the garage with the rest of the abandoned toys.  Maybe it's time to donate these things.  I don't see us moving them every time we change rentals just because we might have grandchildren some day.  Better to let some kid have them now to enjoy. 

The stack of board games teeters precariously next to my Conn trumpet case, completely ignored on the top shelf.  Dang, I thought that silver trumpet was hot and I was hot shit playing it.  Until I decided that I'd rather march as a flag twirler in a skimpy halter dress instead of those hideous band uniforms with those fuzzy white tall hats.  The joke was on us, though.  The band kids stayed toasty warm in their wool uniforms and we froze our nipples off when the parades took place on early autumn mornings that plunged down into the forties.  With fog.

Do I really need to keep this old cheerleading patch with my name on it?  It's yellowed.  Might be fun to put it on my desk though.  Just for kicks.

That ceramic tic-tac-toe set that Sophie made two years ago in Art Club should be put in something safe before it's crushed to dust.

What's this?  A Samsung phone box from which Hanukkah?  Must have been 2007 or 2008?  We were still in the John Kay Road house.  It was the used phone we bought for Chloe from her friend who'd upgraded to the first iPhone.  Or was it a Blackberry? It was the phone that she dropped in the Target parking lot then accidentally stepped on while wearing those brown suede boots we used to "share."  The ones with the heel that scraped the side of her newish used phone.  I unkindly teased her about not being so graceful for a dancer.

I finished matching up the pairs of shoes I'd fished from the bottom of the closet and stepped back to consider how they now had feet bigger than mine.

What kind of trouble are you getting into this Wednesday?

My Too Late Submission for Project Mom Casting

They wanted a picture of me, so here it is.

This is my late submission for the Project Mom Casting. The idea is that the producers of a reality TV show will be in New York City at the Blogher Conference auditioning potential cast members.

I missed the deadline because I thought all day yesterday was July 25th.  FAIL is my signature color.

And I won't be at the NYC event because I am, as usual, broke.  This being laid off and having no disposable income has really worn thin.  And that killjoy MathMan is not amused by my offer to turn tricks for some fun money.  Or airfare. 

I realize most of you aren't even aware of my blogher aspirations.  I started as a political blogger who shifted to relationship and bad parenting blogging.  I never identified as a "mom" blogger or a female blogger.  Sure I did blog as a decidedly female writer with the lacy black bra avatar, but that was just a way to lure mostly male readers back to PoliTits.  Ah, the good old days.

But here you are, still visiting and for that I am grateful.  So grateful that I keep my clothes on now.

But what if I didn't miss the deadline?  How would I sell myself?  I could say that I have three well-adjusted, bright, funny children who are important to me, but not the center of my life.  I believe you can be a mom without letting that aspect of who you are overshadow everything else. I'd say that I've been married forever to MathMan who is my best friend and totally hot.  I'd lie and say that I'm well-adjusted, too, except for the delusions about becoming a famous novelist, the Gaslighting of my children, the collection of cats, the mild OCD that kicks in after I clean, my lifelong addiction to sugar and ongoing battle with my weight, my murky past as a high school cheerleader, and my desire to be British.

To demonstrate my onscreen persona, I'd show them my facelift video from my aborted attempt to become a beauty consultant and the series of Commute Chats we made with the camera wedged between the dashboard and the windshield. (Note: I don't have a lisp, but if you need someone with a lisp for the show, I can do that! I'm a great mimic!)

And, of course, I'd mention that what I'm in the middle of is writing my first novel and attempting to find a literary agent so that it can be published and won't they hate it if this all turns out uncharacteristically awesome and they made the mistake of passing me up when they had the chance?

Except it's not their fault that I can't read a calendar, is it?

So what do you think?  Shouldn't they make an exception for me?  Don't you guys want to see me, MathMan and those wickedly photogenic children of ours on TV? Careful with your answers, I'm emotionally "delicate" at the moment.  Which also means sober. 

Love and thanks,

Lisa

The One Where That Who Do You Write Like Thing Says I Write Like Chuck Palahniuk and I Go All Fight Club Crazy

 A person can get stuck in a rut, you know?

Wake up, feed the cats, make coffee..............write.........nag my kids and any others who happen to be loitering about........screw around......clean things.....feed the cats again........read.....write.........eat things I shouldn't........go to the gym...lift weights, run on the elliptical.........watch British mysteries..fall asleep.

Like that.

Sometime last week, I'd finished my elliptical workout and Hans and Franz were hogging the weight benches.  I've told you about my impulse control issues so to avoid trouble, I strolled into the small classroom thinking I'd kill some time checking text messages.  As if overcome by instinct, I picked up the pink boxing gloves that lay there like pieces of already-chewed Bubble Yum, slipped them onto my hands where they felt as if they'd been made for me, and started punching away on the heavy bag.

Hey, this feels good!

Since then, I have used the heavy bag every time we've gone to the gym.  Sometimes I use the red dingly bag, too, but that little sucker is wily and needs to be lowered and I'm not climbing up on the folding chair again to do it.  I already had to climb up once and rehang the heavy bag after I knocked it loose.  (Thanks MathMan for doing the heavy lifting, literally!)

But holy cripes, who knew this punching thing was so addictive?

As my brother says, I come from a family where "the only emotion we embrace is anger."  So, yeah.  This should come as no surprise. My pugilistic tendencies are deep-seated and probably genetic even as I strain to keep them smothered under a pile of self delusion and discarded dreams.

I come from a long line of hotheads stretching all the way back to Ireland and Scotland, I remind myself.  They weren't the whiskey drinking, song singing fun Irish and Scots you see in movies and travel documentaries.  At least, they weren't by the time they'd come to inhabit a bend of the Ohio River.  They didn't temper their tempers with spirits.  They were mouthy and angry and there would have been a lot of brawling had alcohol been involved.  Maybe it was because they were Protestant instead of Catholic, but rather than enhancing their personalities with fermented drinks, they chose to overeat things covered with gravy and grind their teeth in silent rebuke of the world.

As for me - the only person I've ever actually fought with was my sister.  The last time we bare-knuckled, we pretty much beat the hell out of one another.  Oh, and there was that guy I grabbed by the ears and bashed his head against the car window frame, but that was just good timing on my part.  Had he not been disadvantaged by sitting in a car and being three sheets to the wind, that embarrassing episode would not have happened.

So now I want to learn how to box properly.  I don't want to break my hands.  I like the adrenaline rush of pounding the daylights out of the bag, but I want to do it correctly.

There's one problem.  The eventual opponent.  I shared my concern with MathMan.  "I want to box, but I don't know if I can take the punches."

MathMan reminded me that I'd had three babies with no pharmaceutical assistance.  "I think you can take pain."

"Yeah, but they won't be punching me in the uterus and vagina.  Much."

"How will you know if you never try?"

I wonder if he might enjoy seeing me get the snot beat out of me as a small repayment for my past sins. Sure it's wrong to be so suspicious, but I can't say I'd blame him.

For now, it's me and the heavy bag, those rockin' pink gloves and the instructions I got off youtube.  But I'm serious.  I want to learn to fight.  The stress release benefits alone would make it worth it.  If I'm going to do it, I want to do it right.  Maybe like this....

Video via theotherlisa Lisa Brackman author of Rock Paper Tiger. 

Okay, so maybe not exactly like that, but close enough. 

A Whiney Placeholder Updated and Expanded

Whoa, I did a hit and run on you this morning.  I thought about taking this post down, but that seems wrong since a few of you were kind enough to leave comments.  Thank you.  Instead I'm going to expand it because (1) There's more I wish to whine about and (2) There is no number two.  It's all about the whining and making you glad you're you and not me.  You sitting there all employed and paid up and thin. 

Oh, and it's about the titles.  I added titles because some website about how to blog better said to have subtitles to break up all the whacko text.



We Have Buckets and Bathtubs, We Can Make Do
It's true, I did wake at 3a.m. to worry about how were were going to pay the extra large water bill this month.  blah, blah, blah. I fretted it about that for a while and then I fell back to sleep and had a dream that ties to the next thing on my list.

Dreams of Mirena
(old) My weight has plateaued meanwhile I crave chocolate ice cream and broccoli. (begin upate)  As I mentioned to a friend the other day, I always spell broccoli wrong the first time I write or type it.  Brocolli.  Sounds more exotic.  It still needs butter.

So here's the dream sequence.  I dreamt that this weight and the strange cravings were a result of a pregnancy of which I'd gone unaware.  I swear to you, I am not pregnant in real life.  I would have felt the kid struggling by now.  So, please, don't worry.  Perhaps this whole pregnancy thing is symbolic of the nearly like giving birth experience of writing this manuscript. 

But here's the thing.  In my dream, I was pregnant, but didn't know it.  I went to the guy who looks up my vagina every five years, announces in a loud voice that I have a tilted uterus and then inserts my IUD while making jokes about the size of MathMan's penis in the form of offering to "cut the string on it (the IUD, not MM's cock)" if it's a problem.  Then I joke that he's making great leaps of assumptions about the fact that I'm even bothering to have sex with anyone these days.  We both chortle then we make a date for five years from then.

So I'm on the table, feet in stirrups, listening to some elevator version of a Nirvana song, and counting the dots on the drop ceiling when suddenly the doctor tells me to push and out pops this red, wrinkled, really pissed off little person.  And what do you know?  There's my fucking IUD planted right in that poor baby's forehead.  No wonder he's all annoyed and screaming.

That's when I woke up.  Well, actually, right before that, I said to the doctor "I thought that IUD felt funny when you put it in."

Then I woke up and groaned to MathMan about my back.  I was so ready to get busy bitching, I neglected to tell him about my dream.  Besides, I read somewhere that morning is when most people have heart attacks and why risk it?  I like MathMan.

Paging Doctor Freud (Pronounced the way Bill and Ted pronounced it during their Excellent Adventure)
This part still stands, but I'm rather miffed at the inelegant way I wrote here.  Alcoholism is no laughing matter, yo. I do think my drinking problem is getting worse and it concerns me that wine may or may not be considered an essential as we cut back our spending even further.  And wine is fucking impossible to find at the food pantry.  Plus there's no Trader Joes nearby so I can't even get two buck chuck.  I do like Alecto's suggestion of wine in a box.  At least that way, I won't feel so much like my departed mother-in-law.  Seriously, get me a some jugs of Gallo, cigarettes, a job in a library, and a penchant for computer solitaire and MathMan has married his mother.

Maybe I should have titled that section Winey.

Where I'm Going Is Nowhere Fast
Then:  Now I have to go.  I'm going to visit the Employment Office again.  Cough cough.
Now:  Okay, so I did this.  It was crowded.  Our community just recently lost 250 more jobs so the competition for the twenty-three jobs listed under our county have even more competition. Great.  Just great.  Eight of those jobs come under the agricultural heading and they want you to be able to climb a ladder.  Hell, I might be pregnant and not know it and I'm terrified of heights so those jobs are probably a long shot.

But at least now I know I have one week of benefits left.  One week for Congress to get its act together.  I don't care who is standing in whose way.  Just pull your shit together, folks, and get those checks into the hands of those people who aren't turning down jobs.  They can't fucking find the jobs.  I swear to Bristol Palin's engagement ring, I'm going to start posting the job postings here and let you guys see how much fun it is to try to find a job right now.

I came home and applied for three more jobs, including the one I got laid off from.  Just for laughs*.  Next on my agenda is the selling of books and other stuff, perhaps some plasma, and shaking down Chloe for more of her tip money.  Truth is - she's been contributing already while saving enough to pay her school fees.  It's the other two we should put to work in the fields.  They're not afraid of heights.  It's not like it's cool to sell them on ebay anymore.  Some dope ruined that for the rest of us a few years ago.  But hey - the cats. Surely, there's someone who wants to buy five cats slightly used.

I'm kidding about some of this, of course, so don't freak.  It's venting and amusing myself, hopefully you.  It's okay to laugh, you know.  If we don't find the humor in this, we may as well just quit now.  As for us, we're not considering a mass exodus yet.  Oh, there was one point yesterday when I thought you guys might be referring to The Goldens in the past tense, but that had more to do with the fact the some people around here are really, really loud and I was trying to work on my manuscript.  We all got over it.  They were banished and I started drinking earlier than usual.

Finally.

Cheer me up, people!  (You're still welcome to do this.)
And hey you, that guy who keeps emailing me about his sex life.  Stop it.  Didn't I tell you once that your situation reminded me way too much of a time when I was ready to tie my whole life to the railroad tracks and stand back to watch the splatter?  Why do you think it's clever to continue to send me your "stories?"  How on earth do you think that might cheer me up?  And yes, I'm being wildly passive aggressive by calling you out here, but sometimes it takes a sledgehammer.

(stet) Love,

Lisa

*Lie

And Now A Craving for Plums, As Well

I know you think I've been slacking.  Not true.

I wrote a shorty story for Black Magpie Theory.  It should be up this week.  I'll let you know when.  And I've clocked my thousand words per day on the manuscript except I took the weekend off.  I finished reading Simon Tolkien's book The Inheritance.  Here's my review.  I watched an extraordinary amount of television, including ten minutes of the World Cup, but I couldn't decide who I wanted to win and started having hornet sting flashbacks from all those horns so I turned it off again.  From the old Bucket List side of things, MathMan and I finished watching the Inspector Morse series.  Yes, I've included watching British Detective Series on my Bucket List.  Look - when you can't even afford a vacation to Mammoth Cave, a Bucket List screaming "Ride a Gondola through Venice" or "Walk the Great Wall of China Backward" is just wrist-slittingly depressing.  So yes - watching an entire series of shows is attainable enough to keep me going another day.

But back to Inspector Morse.  Oh how I miss that man already.  And yes, I cried when he died and Lewis came to the morgue and kissed him on the forehead and said goodbye.  I also crave broccoli with just a bit of butter.  Are you going to draw some conclusions about my character from that, as well?

Hang on.  You don't deserve that attitude.  Sorry. 

See, what I just did there was projection.  That's when you accuse the other person of doing what you're doing to deflect attention away from the fact that you're doing it.  It's a device heavily employed by cheating spouses and politicians.  And no, those aren't always the same thing.  I've never been a politician.  But still I know from projection.  And I know it when I see it, too.

So I was projecting onto you the fact that I have been drawing all kinds of conclusions about things without even the teensiest possession of fact.  And while that might make me a viable candidate for a t.v. show on some cable station or at least makes for a neato parlor trick, it's ..... what?

Thin air.  Nothing.  Nada.  Rien.

But then, isn't that what writers do? She whines.  We make things up.

Oh dear, Harold.  Now she's calling herself a writer.  Does this mean she's going to start drinking whiskey and claiming she's Hemingway reincarnated?

I could, but I won't.  Not today anyway.

Remember a few weeks ago when I told you that one of my bad habits is searching for meaning in nothing?  Oh, baby, baby.  I have symmetry coming out my pores this morning.  But it started last night.

On Saturday MathMan and I made our weekly trip to the library (Please, as you read this, pronounce the word library the way someone who speaks The Queen's English would pronounce it.  That's what I do.)  I sauntered over to the newish books and picked up for the twenty-seventh time Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist.  I did the page flicking test as I read the first page.  Very agreeable page flicking paper.  Test one is a go.  I sauntered back over to where MathMan was reading a Sara Paretsky* novel and sat down.  I hadn't stopped reading Nicholson's funny, engaging writing.  Not even when I tripped over some toddler crawling around on the floor.  She's going to be fine, by the way.

Fast forward to last night.  Right before bed I'm still reading The Anthologist and I come across some references to Thomas Wyatt's poem They Flee from Me.  Now it's vital to this little scenario that you know and understand that I am not a great reader of poetry. I'm not even a mediocre reader of it.  In fact, sometimes I avoid poetry because it leaves me feeling inadequate.  I know some of the names, but I haven't read the poems much and, although I should be so very ashamed, I am not.  While some of you people were reading poems and getting degrees in English, I was reading and quickly forgetting a mess of French literature and poetry.

For someone who sees symmetry and symbols behind every bookcase and cloud, I simply do not "get" poetry.  I try.  I really do.  But it's beyond my reach mostly.

So anyway - I'm reading and there's this line:

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

And then I read a few more pages and Baker writes about meeting with another local poet who wants to start a reading series in Portsmouth.  I think he means New Hampshire.  Let's not go all crazy with details, okay?

Finally, MathMan finishes his Paretsky book and turns off his lamp.  I take this as a signal that he's ready for sleep and since he's the one with the job and has to be up at 6:30 a.m., I follow suit.  We choose an Inspector Lewis for our evening's entertainment and what do you know?  A little while in and someone is quoting Thomas Wyatt.

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

"Hey! I just read that line in this book!"  I woke MathMan up to impress him with my poetry cred.  He's a real trooper, that one.  When he wakes me up with his mathy eureka moments, I'm not nearly as enthusiastic.  I mean, he opened one eye and gave me a half smile, mumbled something and fell right back to sleep.

I felt like a scholar.  For thirty whole seconds I felt like I could fit in over there in Oxford.  England.

To add credence to my need to find meaning in nothing, when I opened up Firefox this morning, my statcounter was in the saved tabs.  And what do you know?  There was an ISP from Portsmouth, New Hampshire at 8:16 a.m.  "I wonder if it's Baker's poet/housepainter acquaintance Victor?" I asked the cat who had jumped up on my lap for our morning snog.  She just shrugged.  She's the least opinionated of all our cats.

I decided I'd better read the entire Wyatt poem and see if I could make sense of it.  Maybe there I would find out why exactly the universe seemed to be pointing me toward it.  (I know, that's a funny notion for a nonbeliever.)  I googled the poem and clicked the link to poetryonline.org.  And what?  What?  There's a sidebar ad for the World's Best Cat Litter!  A rebate for the entire amount of one bag!  And I was just talking to Chloe the other day about wanting to try that flushable litter!

"Look, Ivy!  There's the answer!  That's why everything transpired to get me to look up this poem at this very moment!"  I pointed toward the screen flashing the ad.

Ivy gave the ad a passing glance then looked up into my face.  Her green-grey marble eyes looked so sad.  "You seek something from nothing to fill the void, you silly woman.  You attach meaning to the abstract and random because you fear that you will die before you ever truly understand."

"Understand what?" I cried .  "Understand what?"

She just yawned,  her turkey and liver pate breath hitting my nostrils like the snap of a wet towel.  I printed out the rebate while I read aloud the Wyatt poem twice.


*Quote by MathMan, Mathematician, Pedagogue, Philosopher and Book Critic:  "Man, that Sara Paretstky sure can write a melee."

Work the Kidney, Work the Kidney

Something tells me it's hot out there.

Even so, that sadist MathMan dragged me into the heat and forced me to go to the gym.  'twas upper body day so I pumped iron with the Beefy Boys.  They don't smile much.  They didn't even giggle when I made that "So do steroids really make your balls shrink?" joke.  I guess steroids shrink the sense of humor, too.

And wouldn't you know, that same sadist drove me home in a car with air conditioning in perfectly good working order, but did he use it?  Heck no.  It's only 98 degrees according to my weather.com desktop thingy.  That little thing even has sweat droplets on its upper lip.  But no, we had to ride with the windows cranked all the way down so the supercharged hot wind could whip our tired bodies.  With a situation like that, maybe I don't need Bikram Yoga.

I fixed him though.  I reeked of sweat and surly attitude as I hung my head out the car window.  After yesterday's soap incident, though, I remembered to keep my tongue in.  All I needed to complete my afternoon was a bug in my mouth.

But you're sitting there melting in your own damn chair so what am I bitching about?  It's hot.  Deal with it.  I'm saying that to me, not you.  In fact, it's so hot shut up in this little office that I haven't managed word one of my word goal yet today.  Writing has not happened.  Staying up til three in the morning isn't conducive to my morning pages nor any other kind of writing so I'm still staring at my manuscript without a clue as to how to get started today.

But you know how it is around here during the month of July.  Any semblance of order disappears.  Without a routine, we're all running wild and even I have to be reminded to floss.  There's no school summer or otherwise to keep us on a schedule.  Baseball is essentially over.  We're too broke for a vacation.  So what do we do?  We stay up until all hours.  Chloe's out partying with friends or sleeping off exhaustion from waiting tables. (heh heh)  Nathan's screaming at his XBox Live.  Sophie's in her room creating art and bedlam while drinking Mountain Dew straight from the 2 liter bottle.  MathMan and I are trying to get comfortable on that slab of concrete we call a mattress and watching British coppers solve murders.  And then when the alarm goes off at five thirty because we forgot to shut it off before finally passing out, we know that's really just a signal to allow the R.E.M. sleep to kick in.

It's like someone steps on our circadian rhythms each summer.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

The good thing about being unemployed is that I don't have to go to an office and try to stay awake.  My bed may be uncomfortable, but it's better than trying to nap upright at a desk.

Okay, I have to go.  MathMan and I need to finish our debate over which is better - sweet or unsweet tea and I'm going to solve this heat thing by dropping a few ice cubes into my bra before I settle in to write.

Try to stay cool, lovers.