Anything Said: January 2008

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

It's oh so quiet

Hi there! Oh, I'm sorry -- have you guys not been formally introduced? Blog world... meet my upstairs neighbors.

This right here? This is Mama M. Mama M. is a single mother who works at a semi-famous local eatery selling tasty treats to Chicagoans. Next to her you have Baby M. Baby M. is fifteen and a freshman in high school. That tiny, screeching, rat-faced black beast she's holding? Allegedly, that's a dog. It lives with them. It may or may not dine on human flesh.

If you'd like to pay Mama M. a visit, better make it a late one; Mama M goes in to work close to noon, and her car usually doesn't pull back into the driveway until around 10:00. See, I know this because 10:00 is usually the time I try to haul my gentle ass to bed. Note that I said "try." Because it sure is hard to go to sleep when Mama M bursts onto the scene, stomps about ten laps of her hardwoods wearing what seem to be steel-toed boots, turns on her giant television (conveniently located directly above my bedroom), sits down on some kind of movable piece of furniture (a desk chair? a forklift?), and proceeds to work her way through the entire stored directory of her cell phone. She has many friends, that Mama M., and apparently they are all funny people. Very, very funny people.

Mama M's favorite shows are the local news, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, and E! News. She loves all these shows so much that she watches them all in a row, over and over, all night long. Sometimes she likes to take a little break between viewings, pausing just long enough to allow me to finally fall asleep before bursting into my dreams a few hours later for her 3:00 AM Mary Hart fix. The husband and I try to soothe ourselves to sleep with the aid of instrumental music on repeat (Marigoldie, the Bedtime with the Beatles CD you sent when Cletus was born has come in handy), but even these efforts are no match for the tuneful melodies Mama M. shout-sings to her rat-dog in the middle of the night. The rat-dog, as you might imagine, answers in turn. Theirs is a special kind of love.

Where is Baby M during all of this, you might ask? Why she's enjoying an array of hip-hop CDs in her bedroom, located right above Cletus the Former Fetus' sweet little crib. Cletus isn't usually bothered; she falls asleep to the sounds of the seashore (via a white noise machine) and besides, Baby M. doesn't seem to stay up as late as her mother most nights. No, Baby M. uses her PM hours to rest up for the party she throws in her apartment each day between 12:30 and 2:00. High school, it seems, has gotten a lot more fun since I attended. When I was a freshman, one of the main things I remember about school was that I had to, you know, stay there. Like, all day. Not the case for Baby M. Baby M's high school apparently takes a siesta break over the lunch hour, during which time Baby M. and about 75 of her closest friends clamor up the steps to her apartment, break out the stilettos and party hats, roast up a suckling pig, and open up an impromptu Studio 54. There is music. There is screaming. There is anarchy. The one time I dared to interrupt the revolution to suggest that Baby M. might consider piping down for the sake of her sickly, napping 16-month-old neighbor, she replied with a half-smiling little "Oh, I'm sorry!" before quickly retreating upstairs to her friend's plaintive cry of "Get your black ass back here, bitch!"

What's that you say? They sound like lovely people? Why, they are indeed. And no lovely family would be complete without a lovely pet to cherish and hold. Mama M.'s "dog" is the kind of multi-hybrid lap animal that one sees frequently adorned with bows and ribbons. It yaps with the ferocity of a thousand caged beasts. It lunges around its home as if possessed and enraged, its scratchy little nails dragging along the floor and echoing into the night. I entertain myself with visions of Frodo the Pug kicking its ass. Except that, if introduced, Frodo would probably sniff its ass and, failing to recognize it as a fellow canine, try to beg it for table scraps.

So. Now that you've been introduced, would you care to join us for dinner this evening?

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Back in black

Thank you for the nice condolences, People in the Computer. My grandma's funeral was yesterday and it was really, honestly lovely. A Brethren minister who is also a family friend conducted the ceremony. His sermon was a mix of personal stories -- telling tales of growing up shooting BB-guns with my uncles in my grandma's backyard -- and Bible readings. He held up my grandma's worn-out Bible and quoted passages from the Psalms that she had marked in the margins with notes like "For when I feel afraid" and "For when I'm joyful." He looked over at the casket and cried and said, "Well done, Neva."

My grandma had six children, 23 grandchildren, and 36 great-grandchildren. I'd say that's a life fully-lived. I hadn't seen a lot of my cousins or my cousins' kids in years. The oldest son of each of my grandma's children served as the pallbearers. It was a little surreal to see my brother and our cousins dressed up in suits, somberly carrying the casket out of the funeral home. They looked like a bunch of overgrown kids who had just come in from a basketball game, and now they were playing dress-up.

After the funeral we went to my family's church for a lunch. Is this a tradition everywhere, the old ladies of the church getting together and making sandwiches and jello salad for the family and friends of the deceased? I hadn't set foot in that church for something like ten years or more, but the old ladies who were handing me ham salad on Saturday were the same old ladies who were passing around the offering plate back when I was a kid. And the church -- the church looked just the same. I took the husband into the sanctuary and we climbed the steps up to the left balcony where my family always used to sit, back when we used to go to church alltogether and take up two whole rows. I showed him where, in junior high, I used to sit in the balcony's front row with my girlfriends and pass notes back and forth during the service until the fateful day when I accidentally dropped my hymnal over the railing, sending it careening down onto the head of some woman below.

We spent the rest of the day at my parents' house, eating pizza and watching basketball and in-demand movies on tv. My mom is taking another week off from work. She runs an in-home daycare and isn't yet feeling up to wiping the snot off of a bunch of kids' faces. I am back to the grind tomorrow. The husband has two new job interviews next weekend, one in western Illinois and another in Pennsylvania. I have an appointment with my therapist and a new antidepressant that has given me a week's worth of heartburn. I'm deeming that a side effect of the Not Ok variety and will be reevaluating my relationship with Mr. Lexapro.

Things are almost back to normal, interweb friends. January blew. I for one will be happy to get this February show on the road.

Edited to add: Yes, those are ads over there on the sidebar. I'm trying it out. I might donate any vast riches I earn to science. Or buy a boat.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The vacation that wasn't

So the plan for my mother-in-law's visit, which began last Wednesday and ended about thirty minutes ago, went a little something like this: the husband and I would lounge around eating bon-bons while Cletus bonded with her grandma. Maybe we would go out on a couple of long, lazy dates -- maybe dinner AND a movie. We would sleep in and take long showers and otherwise luxuriate in the presence of an extra pair of child-minding hands.

Of course, what actually happened was this: the husband and I both came down with some kind of ridiculous flu-like disaster which knocked us on our asses for days. We stayed in bed and coughed and sneezed and grouched. The husband ran a 103 degree temperature. Conveniently, I had also chosen that exact weekend to start my newly-prescribed, first ever antidepressant, which made me fuzzy and nauseous.

Then, on Sunday morning, my grandma died. This was my mother's mother, the grandma who filled that cookie-baking, story-reading, snuggling role for me and my siblings. She had been sick off and on for awhile so it was not exactly a shock, but the ferocity with which her illness took over her body in her final days was upsetting to everyone involved. She was in congestive heart failure; she basically suffocated to death. Here is where I start to have trouble: my grandma was one of the most traditionally religious, truly faithful people I've ever known. She prayed and she worshipped and she meant it. During those last few days in the hospital, she shouted out again and again for God to "take" her, begging for the suffering to come to an end. And yet she lived on for days, days full of nothing but pain and fear and morphine IVs that wouldn't stay in.

My mom says we're not meant to understand these things, and that my grandma wouldn't want me to get upset about it. They're both better people than I, I guess. I'm pissed off. But I'm working through it. My head is already so messed up when it comes to faith and religion, I don't want to lose the few things that have always been clear.

I spent yesterday in Indiana with my mom, picking out flowers for the casket, putting together some casseroles for later on in the week, accompanying her to the doctor's office to have her huge, swollen neck (a result of a week without sleep, I'm guessing) examined. I'll be back there over the weekend for the funeral. Meanwhile my husband is at work right now, teaching a class through his fever and dripping nose. Cletus will go down for a nap soon and I will lay on the couch and take a nap.

It's not all bad, but... when it rains, you know?

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Frodo the Pug, rappin' at ya from the d-o-g house

Look, bitches -- it's not like I meant to do it:

Lady was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I was hungry. JUST LIKE I ALWAYS AM. And mom was paying attention to the baby. JUST LIKE SHE ALWAYS IS. I don't know what that baby has to cry about anyway. Do you know what she got for breakfast this morning? Cheerios and a banana and yogurt. Do you want to know what I had for breakfast this morning? Oh, let's see, well I started out with a nice cheese and veggie fritata, followed by some biscuits and gravy, washed down with freshly squeezed OJ and topped off with a piping hot cinnamon -- fuck it, I got kibble. And not even a whole bowl full, either -- I got a quarter of a cup, measured out in a little vial my parents got at the vet's office, like, would it KILL them to eyeball it, just this once?

Speaking of the vet's office, my mom got all freaked when she found the amputee and called them, all "Frodo ate his sister's toy, boo hoo hoo!" I was stoked for a minute because I thought the vet was going to ask my mom to bring me in, which would be awesome because at the vet's office you can pee on the floor and instead of yelling at you they bring you water and treats, and then yes, sometimes they poke their fingers into your eyeballs or put you under so they can cut out your ladybits, but it's a trade-off, right?

But the vet just told my mom to watch me closely to make sure I don't hurl, and to keep an eye on me when I poop. Which is a total invasion of privacy, but whatever. Humans are pathetic when it comes to manners and decorum.

Anyway, that's what's up with me today. Keep your fingers crossed that it all comes out in the end, if you know what I'm saying. Until then, though, if you need me, just look down -- I'll be sitting right beside you on the couch, sniffing your ass. What?

Woof,

Frodo

Take 2 it is

Actually, consider this Takes 1 through 100, because I could easily spend about another week trolling through free templates online if I let myself. Thanks for all your suggestions. I liked the last template too, but I didn't know how to "play around with it" to add a title because, see, the part of my resume where I list my "working knowledge of HTML" is a straight-up lie. So is the part about my high energy people skills.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Messin with your head

It's still me, I promise! Just, with smaller print, and without a discernable title. What do you think? Should I keep it, or should I try for Take 2?

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Shower me with your love

In a couple of hours I am going to a baby shower, and I have shower anxiety. Like, as in: will everyone else be dressed up? Will there be precious games to confuse and alarm me? Will my gift be appropriate for the occasion? Will my inability to gift-wrap be held against me? So many factors for the obsessive-compulsive mind to mull over. Once I was at a lovely bridal shower for one of my favorite friends, R., and I had bought her some colorful egg cups off her registry for a present. But during the gift-opening portion of the event, right before she got to my contribution, R. opened a big box from one of her mother's friends that contained a complete place setting in her china pattern AND the same egg cups that I had purchased, which the gift-giver said she had THROWN IN TO BE FUNNY. Because R. is fabulous and kind, I did not actually die a hundred little embarrassing deaths when she opened my present next, but I did for a brief moment consider creating a diversion ("HEY! LOOK OVER THERE! IT'S A THING, WITH STUFF!!") and bolting from the room.

Most of my shower anxiety over today's shower in particular stems from previous experience with my fellow invitees. They are members of my local moms group, but unlike me, they all also belong to the Club Where You Always Wear Matching Outfits and Makeup and Carry Those Big Purses That Make You Look Like a Hitchhiker. They are perfectly nice to me; I just don't quite fit in, and that's fine. But on occasions like these, for some reason, it causes me stress, and I have conversations like these with my husband:

Me: [packing my shower present into a gift bag] I'll bet the other presents are immaculately-wrapped, with ribbon on them. And the ribbon will be all curlicued.
The husband: You could curlicue some ribbon.
Me: I don't know how to curlicue ribbon.
The husband: Oh.
Me: I don't want to curlicue ribbon.
The husband: Ok.
Me: Where are all the other people who don't want to curlicue ribbon?
The husband: They're hiding in their houses, like us.
Me: WHY IS IT SO HARD TO FIND PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO CURLICUE RIBBON?

Can we abruptly switch topics so I can share with you some things I AM enjoying, for a change?

First, I finally saw "Once" last week. I'd been wanting to see it since it was in theaters last year but never got around to it, and then when it came out on DVD a few weeks ago I Netflixed it right away but then, for some reason, kept finding reasons to delay watching it. I think that subconsciously I knew how much I would love it, I mean really REALLY love it, and I was just savoring the anticipation. Because when I did finally sit down and watch it, ohhh I was filled with the happy. And now I can't stop secretly humming and talking to myself in a bad Irish accent.

Second, two People Whose Friendship You Should Covet have started blogs. The above-mentioned R., a close friend of mine from college as well as a former roommate from my Boston days, is sharing stories and crafts on Dog Named Banjo. Just about everything in R.'s life is creative; she owns (and uses!) a food dehydrator and a pickling drum, bakes German treats with names I can't pronounce, and - most importantly - makes beautiful clothes, bags, and other fancy treats. If we butter her up enough she might even start selling them, and then the whole world will benefit!

Also, my friend RB recently joined the world of bloggers with her contribution, The Misplaced Hoosier. You might remember RB from her former role as The Other Young Librarian At My Work. She has since moved on to become My Good Friend Who Abandoned Me For Moderately Less Dysfunctional Pastures. Her blog shares her adventures in library land. Leave her a comment and ask her to tell you the story of how she and her husband taught their dog to obey the command "Lick your wiener!"

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

At least I have my youth

Have any of you ever had a job interview go horribly awry? Like, you're interviewing for a job you really, really want, a job you've been waiting to come along for a long time, a job you would pretty much sell a kidney to get? And you get to the interview and there's a panel of, like, 75 people there to drill you, and they read questions off of a three-page form, and some of the questions don't even make sense to you, that's how much you are sucking? And a couple of the questions are so hard that you just sit there for a couple of minutes trying to figure out what the hell is going on, and then you open your mouth and what comes out is akin to "blahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, once i ate some cheese"?

Sigh.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

I resolve to find some resolve

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but about sixteen months or so ago I had a baby. A real one, squeezed out from my nether-regions. For quite awhile after said baby was born she was not much more than a crying lump, which meant that I could eat boxes of cupcakes and watch entire seasons of The L-Word in her presence and she was none the wiser. Then the baby moved on to a phase wherein she became mobile but remained conveniently mute and moderately clueless. Accordingly, I installed a few baby gates to keep her in my line of vision while I watched entire seasons of The L-Word and tossed a few graham crackers in her general direction to occupy her while I ate boxes of cupcakes. She appeared placated and we co-existed peacefully.

But now. Now the child is mobile, increasingly adept with the comprehension skills, and SPEAKING WORDS. When the television is on, she watches it and laughs. She knows that the remote control turns it on and off. She knows that it makes Elmo appear and disappear. She hears me when I tell her things and then she responds, sometimes with babble and sometimes with actual snippets of the English language. She notices and demands a taste of every single solitary food item that I attempt to put into my mouth, as well as a few of the dog's meals as well. She has favorite toys, books, songs, and places. She is, in short, a real live girl. And I am supposed to be, I don't know, raising her or something.

Now I am not about to stop watching entire seasons of The L-Word or eating boxes of cupcakes. That was never even in question. But what I do have to start doing is monitoring what I do in the child's presence. I am not a New Year's Resolution kind of girl. I do not believe in setting myself up artificially for failure and disappointment; I will attain those twin goals au naturale, thank you very much. But here's as close as you'll get to a list of resolutions from me -- Habits and Activities That Must Cease And Desist During The Baby's Waking Hours Of Seven A.M. To Seven P.M., Starting Now:

1. Watching television shows and/or listening to music that portray violence and/or are demeaning to women. Dude, yes, I will still totally watch America's Next Top Model and The Bachelor during the PM hours, and no I cannot explain to you why. It's all fine and good that I can pretend to find postfeminist humor and irony in an Eminem song. I can live quite comfortably with these kinds of double-standards; I've been eating a solid diet of my own own consumer-culture shame for years now. But fighting The Man while embracing The Man? It's too much for a toddler to handle. When she's awake, it's Sesame Street, the Wee Hairy Beasties, and the benign folky bluegrass wing of my Ipod or nothing at all.

2. Inserting various forms of the word "fuck" into every other sentence that comes out of my mouth. This will be a tough one. I swear like a sailor. It is most unattractive and yet fully, fully satisfying. Cletus the Former Fetus is like a large adorable parrot. It is only a matter of time before she asks me for a fucking bottle. And while I will admit that such a request would make my heart secretly laugh like it has never laughed before, I am not prepared to accept the societal consequences of being That Mom. Plus Cletus is going to have enough ingrained social issues to deal with on account of being a product of her parents; she doesn't need to start out on a bad note with a baby potty-mouth.

3. Being too rough with the dog. I will admit that sometimes I yell at Frodo the Pug too sharply, or push her away from contraband with too much force. It is easy to make this mistake, for she is a pug of ill will and also a total bitch. But she is also a loved and valued member of the family, and it's unreasonable for me to expect Cletus the Former Fetus to understand when I am instructing her to be "gentle, geeeeennnnnntle" with the dog one moment and then cramming the dog into her crate with the rage of a thousand angry suns the next.

4. Drinking directly from the milk carton. (Note: if you are my real-life friend and have had milk at my house, recently or in the distant past, I didn't drink out of THAT carton.) Never mind that this is the tastiest way to enjoy the cold rich goodness of dairy. Never mind that sometimes you just don't know exactly how much milk you are thirsty for until you start drinking, and that if you pour your milk into a glass and then discover you poured too much you usually end up wasting milk, and milk is expensive, people. Noooooo, apparently there are "germs" to worry about, and "good manners" and "cleanliness." So it's milk in a glass or no milk for me. But I've got to tell you -- this is going to be a hard one to enforce.

Friday, January 04, 2008

The morning after

Last June, the fiance of one of my coworkers was crossing a set of train tracks on his bike when he forgot to look both ways, coasted forward, and was run over and killed by an oncoming El train. Then in November, another coworker was vacationing in Hawaii, a trip her family had been saving for for years. She and her husband went snorkeling, except that when he emerged from the water he had a massive heart attack and died on the beach before paramedics could arrive. And then last weekend, a third coworker was walking out of a Subway sandwich shop with her husband. The sidewalk was icy and he slipped and fell, smashed his head on the pavement, was pronounced brain-dead at the hospital a few hours later, and was taken off of life support on New Years Eve. The memorial service is today.

In summary: there are many reasons I want to quit my job, but most of all? I love my husband and need for him to stay alive.

Speaking of staying alive -- oh, Hillary. Hillary, Hillary, Hillary. I'm not going to go all melodramatic on you or anything, but third place in Iowa is a big disappointment. I'm not a fair weather friend; I still rock my Friends of Hillary bumper sticker even though she gives in to making sexist jokes on The View (the main difference between Hillary and her Democratic rivals for the nomination being, of course, how much longer it takes her to do her hair in the morning). But it's hard to see someone I've believed in for so long losing momentum and, frankly, making some decisions I'm not thrilled with. I guess maybe I should start answering the phone when the Hillary people call, which they do, about ten times a day? If I've got complaints, the least I can do is air them.

My brother-in-law was telling me a story about how a week or two ago, when he was putting my niece and nephew (who are 6 and 3, respectively) to bed, they got into a little conversation about the current presidential campaign. My niece, excited, pointed out that this year might be the first time we get the chance to vote a woman into our highest office. My brother-in-law reminded them that not only might that be true, but that we could also get the opportunity to vote in our first president of color. So many great possibilities, when you cut losers like Romney out of the equation! (Ok, he probably didn't say that, but still.)

My niece cleverly summed up the options for her brother: "You could have a woman, or you could have a brown man. Which would you rather have?" Apparently, after mulling it over for a few moments, my nephew declared his allegiance to the latter. But my niece would not be swayed from her cause. "Remember," she said, "a brown man is still just a man. A woman, though, has ALL of the things that make her a woman!" I'm sure I'm misquoting and making her sound like a baby-racist, but I assure you it was a very cogent argument. And an adorable one.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Nothing to read here

New Years Day has got to be the worst holiday, at least for people who aren't into football. Every place I might want to go is closed, and besides, my husband took the car and drove it to work this morning, and the sidewalks are covered in fucking snow and ice so a stroller walk is out. I think Cletus the Former Fetus and I are going to do laundry and eat New Years Eve leftovers all day, and I think I'm going to lift the "no daytime tv except for Sesame Street" rule so that I can watch Lifetime movies (it's television for women!).

We have some good Netflix in the house right now: the last two discs of Big Love, and the movie "Once". I'm hoping I can convince the husband to neglect his laptop for one more night tonight. That's the problem with the whole ambiguously-long "holiday season" -- you can keep extending it, day after day after day, until suddenly it's March and you realize that you're still eating appetizers, chocolate, and wine for every meal.

There's a little New Year's anxiety going on over here in our house, with all the stuff we filed away in the "let's worry about that after the holidays" folder now sitting perched atop the itinerary. The husband is teaching a class, his first class, starting next week. It's an upper-level seminar for undergrads at the university where he works. He conceived of and designed the course and I think he's going to rock it, but there's still that First Day of School Fear to contend with. And here's something else: we both have job interviews this month. I won't say much about that now, partly because I don't want to jinx the situation but mostly because I don't want to feel like an asshole if we both get soundly rejected. In which case I will tell you everything so you know where to direct your hate mail.

Cletus the Former Fetus is currently chasing a kickball around the living room, shouting "Ball! Ball!" while simultaneously clapping her hands in time with the music on the radio. It's ridiculous, this child and the cuteness. I wish you could come over and see it. But mostly I wish you could come over because I'm bored.