Waffles Waffles

Retirement? Or Depression? Or just a contemplative silence...

2011-12-21T22:29:00.000-08:00

I am not sure which these quiet passing months signal.

I've mainly:

worked
fed kids
worked
seen Jamie through another big heart scare
worked some more

I sense a theme... At any rate, things are better than last month here in Wafolandia.

I am from

2011-07-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't done a meme in a long time, but Mr. Show of The Jason Show posted one that I liked. Template from Loulou's Views.

I am from flip-flops, from Cheerios, and mountain lakes.

I am from the suburbs, concrete slab patios, aluminum window frames, the salty smell of a rare rain.

I am from pruned roses, green and manicured lawns in the desert, and crepe paper in the cultural hall, but also from wild buttercups, deep canyons, quaking aspen, and high, cirrus clouds.

I am from Monday night board games and vintage movies, from The Philadelphia Story and The Bells of St. Mary's. From Ragtime Cowboy Joe, Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam, and Let Us All Press On.

From four-part, 4/4 harmony in a major key.

I am from horsey laughter and scripture quotes. I am one of the booper sisters.

I am from Mormons and Hosanna! and handcart reenactments. From 2-year food storage and canning tomatoes and crisp white shirts and a quilted scripture cover.

I'm the adopted one born in Los Angeles, and also from chicken-and-broccoli casserole and ambrosia salad and a dusty antler rack on a cabin wall.

From brilliant sisters and a retreating brother. I'm the Bishop's wild youngest child - the apostate. I'm from walking to the library and cello lessons and Christmas lights shining through sheer curtains.

I am in that photo of 3 girls in a red canoe, taken right before we capsized. That beauty in the cloche and fur collar in that picture at the back is my grandmother, and this one is my grandfather taken right before the Great War. The one with 30 people posing in Sunday clothes? That's my family.

I am from the sound of a fiddle by a fire, from the smell of toasted marshmallows, a river rushing through pine trees, and the creak of a battered wooden chair.

This is NOT a post

2011-05-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

...it's a post-it.

I cannot go online at work. This has changed my online relationships and interactions greatly, particularly blog-wise. At home I choose parenting, but clearly at work I don't always choose work. Unless coerced.

My employer is benefitting, presumably, from their rules. But it doesn't exactly make me like it there.

Scoliosis

2011-03-08T07:00:00.000-08:00

I really hate talking about my back.

In Jr. High, I remember being both impressed and super-depressed that a kid in orchestra was literary enough to nickname me "Quasimodo".

Nobody likes being different.

My parents never wanted to talk about it or give me language to deal with it. When the school called them in to talk about possible back therapies or surgeries, their response was shame, and lecturing me on good posture. But. But...it's hard to blame them. My mom grew up having survived polio. Her right leg was withered and her foot was clubbed. Having powered through a life of self-consciousness, of COURSE she wasn't going to allow her adopted baby to whine about a little spinal pain and some teasing. Nor would they spend money trying to change how God made me.

So I looked hunched and walked a little funny and tried to stand up straighter.

When I was a vocal music major in college, my department called me in. Together, the staff had decided to add a little money onto my scholarship to pay for some physical therapy and improve my singer's posture. And while I was so touched by that gesture, I was also deeply, painfully shamed that my problem was so obvious that they had talked about it in meetings.

Whenever I've started a new yoga class, or seen a new doctor, especially related to my spine, I immediately return to feelings of shame and embarrassment: I have a problem people can see just by looking at me. Sometimes they ask about it, and I have a tough time answering in a detached way. It's like I want to blind the world rather than have them tell me they can see my problem.

It hurts. Constant, like a bad tooth, but familiar. Occasionally that bad tooth turns into a screaming nerve ending...but usually everything returns to general malaise...particularly if I do a little yoga every day.

And then...yesterday my MD suggested that I investigate breast reduction surgery to alleviate the pain.

Huh.

I have had big boobs since puberty: 34DD until I had children. Post-children: 34FF - circus/porn-sized.

But even though they are big, boobs didn't give me scoliosis. However, they could have contributed to how my back deals with gravity. I'll always have a curvy spine, but possibly something as simple (ha!) as surgery could change how my back FEELS. Forever!

We'll see. I'm freaked out, but also hopeful that I may NOT be living with constant back pain.

Wish me luck!

The Wrong Guy #3

2011-03-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

My 2nd year in college I had a writing class with a boy I thought of as "Frat Guy". Frat Guy used to wait after class to chat with me and asked me out a couple of times. However, what with Thing 1 and Thing 2 already occupying my attention, as well as my general mistrust of all things Macho and Fraternity, I turned him down and forgot about it, other than to feel completely puzzled that someone like that (American footbally and back-slappy) was in any way interested in someone like me (gothy, glasses, geeky).

One day at work with my friend, Old McLiz, I pulled out some homework from that class, which included critiquing a short story written by Frat Guy. And because Salt Lake City apparently has eleven occupants total, of COURSE Old McLiz knew Frat Guy.

While I can't actually remember a 22-year-old conversation, I do remember Liz loudly bleating at me that afternoon about how could this ~possibly~ be the guy about whom I had complained? Did I know what an amazing person Frat Guy was?? Did I know he worked to support his MOM???!? That he was smart and popular and his senior class' president and football team captain and walked on WATER??!?!

No, I thought. None of those things had ever occurred to me as I listened to Frat Guy talk like he owned the world and it owed him some courtesy. But Old McLiz generally thought I was a little socially backwards and was always trying to improve my awareness of how the rest of the world functioned. And the idea that some freakishly popular person had asked me out (~and~ that such a request impressed Old McLiz so much) felt far more weighty to 19-year-old me than it ever should have.

So the next time he asked me out, I said Yes. And truth be known, I never got what made him so special to Liz or anybody else. He ~was~ funny and handsome and smart, but also pompous and unkind. But he REALLY seemed to like me, and, although I missed John - my ever-vanishing sometime-boyfriend - at first, at least, I couldn't help feeling important that someone so socially gifted thought I was a good match for him.

Colossal mistake.

Frat Guy, it turns out, was building the circumstances that would end up getting him sent to federal prison for drug dealing (cocaine, pot + drugs he stole from the hospital at which he worked as an orderly).

He was also on the verge of a major psychotic break. Dating him, I learned, meant exposing myself to danger. He wasn't physically abusive, but obsessive and scary. My stories about him are so crazy-sounding. And it was always so bewildering. For example:

While we were dating I gave him a key to my apartment. Soon after, I found a bright blue woman's hair scrunchy tangled in my bedsheets with long blond hairs hanging out of it. (My hair was purple at the time). My favorite memory of this was screeching at him "what did she think of your flowered sheets, asshole??" And while that ~should~ have been the end of him in my life, it wasn't (although I did get my key back).

Despite this, he remained obsessive. I know it doesn't make sense, given that we hadn't even been dating that long before he cheated on me IN my apartment, but...I don't know. It's confusing to me (always) that he both cheated on me and had such a crazy time when I broke up with him:

While we were still dating he HAD to know where I was. Always. So much so that he would wait for me after class or work and call me numerous times. At 19 I thought that was sweet. After we broke up, I thought it was scary, but not yet dangerous. However, he always seemed to know exactly where to find me.
After finally breaking up, he followed me on dates with other guys. I found this out after one such night - he climbed my fire escape (middle of winter/middle of the night) and started kicking in my windows and screaming "whore!" at me, telling me how he saw me at one place, and then another (2 different nights) and that I couldn't go anywhere without him knowing. So at 2AM I grabbed the phone and called...his mom (Lord, why WHY didn't I call the police?) and told her to get him some psychiatric help. He bolted only after I screeched at him (while I was still on the phone) "I'm on the phone with your MOM!"
After that, I would see him occasionally outside my work or house, until I moved to a different town, 20 miles East of Salt Lake. Then, sometimes at work I'd look up and see him standing outside the doors at my job, so I changed jobs...
Weeks after that, in a movie theater far from where I worked or lived, I realized about 1/2-way through the film that he was sitting right behind me. THAT was when I started checking the crowd everywhere I went. And the cars behind me while driving. And across the mall when I was at work. And sometimes, he would be there, just watching. And the phone would ring but nobody would answer (after this, I thought *69 was the greatest invention ever!)

Awful. And more terrifying in retrospect than it was at the time. Still one of the worst dating experiences I've had. And like I said, not the last - my mistakes and bad choices have been appalling and numerous. It ended only after he went away to prison for drugs the following spring. About which I feel amazingly lucky...

Given the number of stalking and rape victims I've advocated for over the years, I look at my blind choices with Dennis (that's him - scary, scary Frat Guy) and am blown away that I came off with only a few battle scars.

Resonance

2011-01-18T13:01:00.000-08:00

It’s been 6 months since my adopted dad died. And I haven’t been able to write much about him, not just since he died, but for many years before he contracted Parkinson’s. Some of that is a combination of grief and estrangement, and some of that is guilt for the many ways I was never the child he wanted me to be, and some of that is that he is and has been a very tough person to do justice to.

My father was a good person.

That just doesn’t give those words enough resonance, so let me say it in a different way: my father was a Good Person.

And because he was so busy being so very, very good, in a way I never knew enough about him as a person, other than that if there was something on behalf of others that needed doing, my father was going to be there with his hands outstretched. It’s hard to explain how relentlessly flawless he seemed.

Dad was very religious. Our days started with scripture study and ended with prayer, and our weeks were often spent studying and volunteering for church service. Among other church roles, dad spent 5 years of my puberty/teens as a Mormon bishop, which in adapted terminology is like being the minister or pastor. Mormons don’t have a theological education or ministerial training program, per se, although some of the weekly 3-hour church sessions include priesthood leadership classes for men. Being a bishop is, therefore and like all church roles, a lay-person’s calling. However, I’ve never known anybody better suited to that job: if someone needed a bed to sleep in while their marriage fell apart, they spent a night or five in our basement. If there was a flood, if somebody’s car broke down, if someone was ill, my father was there, calm, and thoughtful, and listening, and infinitely helpful.

I’ve been thinking recently, both as a parent and as his child, about a disciplinary concept he used a lot, which was to remind us that whatever we did, good or bad, had resonance in the rest of our lives and the lives of everyone to whom we were connected. For me, this really stuck, and the results were not so great, as they fed my already strong sense of depression and outsider-ness. While I had probably a usual number of parent/child run-ins, this sense of resonance made me think that every infraction committed was permanently blackening the person I was becoming and infecting those around me. The voices that praised me (and there were enough of these) seemed nearly silent, while the voices that blamed me seemed very loud.

Probably there are people who can resolve to do better and succeed easily, but I’ve never had those skills. It’s taken me years to find my inner mettle and to find the person within of whom I am proud rather than guilty – and to stop covering that guilt with a mixture of defiance and sarcasm. I now think that dad was probably trying to help us build strong characters amplifying our strengths, not remind us that our characters were going to be comprised of the mess resulting from every bad judgment, self-serving lie, and half-cocked argument we’d held. But because I thought of myself as bad and unworthy, I didn’t have a healthy way to expunge those feelings of guilt.

Also, because the way I was supposed to heal my feelings of unworthiness was through the Mormon path of confession/forgiveness to the bishop, which meant confessing my guilt and doubts to my father, I ended up avoiding what possibly would have been cathartic in that way, choosing instead to avoid any cause to talk to him as his congregant. This may not have been as cathartic as I imagine - I am not sure what this deeply religious person who was also my father might have done with doubt-riddled me when he put on the confessor hat.*

I miss him. My siblings each have seemed to try hard to be the same kind of person: infinitely good. I have to confess that, while I admire that strength and devotion to a path of hyper-vigilant excellence, it’s occasionally a bit irritating in a sibling. It’s lately occurred to me that my mother, who, while averagely good, isn’t a deeply Good Person in the same way (interesting, vivacious, fun, and prone to emotional intensity, yes), has been discovering her own level without the constant excellence-by-example my father provided. I’m sure she misses him tremendously, but I can see that she’s also more her own self than I’ve ever known her. This has been difficult, but also very interesting.

I’d like to think I can parent my kids in a way that organically evolves as they get older. I have no fear that they’ll think of me as exceptionally Good. Hopefully they won’t think of me primarily as Muddled, but that’s at least a fairly human example. At any rate, I’d like to think that I can grow my relationship with them to encompass their ever expanding intellect and sophistication – remaining both Mom and person, and that I can help them build characters that acknowledge the possibility of what occasionally may feel like endless mistakes without the weight of endless resonance.

* Not a literal hat

Abundancherelish!

2011-01-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

The end of the year seems to always bring around a slog of Deep Thoughts about the Big Picture for me - and maybe for you as well? And really, I think I've been big picturing it for two crappy years. Very very heavy. And dull.

Last year I made some resolutions I probably didn't keep. Something about doing everything "better". Since that, in retrospect, was something of a fail, I'm going to try for this instead, except I need a word for it. Something about cherishing and relishing the abundance that already exists in my life.

Situationally, I hope 2009 and 2010 don't recur EVER. But even if they do, I am RICH with friendships, love, family, comforts of all kinds, and tremendous luck in my circumstances in ways over which I have no control but should acknowledge with more embrace-iness, to be sure.

So this year? This year is ABUNDANCHERELISH year! And theoretically, I'm going to try to have at least one "Things That Rock/ed" post per month. Which would be both 12 more positive posts per year than I achieved last year, and also might motivate me to blog with happier thoughts and fingers.

Wish me luck!

12 books, 12 months: Room, by Emma Donoghue

2010-12-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

I have moved this post to my word/book blog "WordNerdBird.Blogspot.com".

12 months/12 books: Post #2 "The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance" by Elna Baker

2010-11-30T15:34:00.000-08:00

I have moved this post to my word/book blog "WordNerdBird.Blogspot.com".

Flacking update

2010-11-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

Mormons have a distinctive cache of words-to-use-instead-of-swearing. Not all of them are unusual: Heck. Gosh. Darn. Jeez. Crap. But they also have a much bigger array of F-words: Flip. Fetch. Freck/Frack. Frap. Fard.

These are employed a LOT. Heck, I grew up thinking that everybody in Utah WANTS to swear more than average, because no matter how you say it, conversations that start with: "Crap! Fetching COW, JEEZ!" or "Shit! Fucking COW, Jesus!" are on the high-end of curse-tolerance for normal conversation anywhere.

Basically, I think Utah is packed full of pissed-off, quasi-cowboys, since nothing says cowboy like a triple assault of fake cursing.

I've been trying to clean up my use of swearing. It's a ridiculous legacy from when I was leaving Mormonism but hadn't quite wiped out the mock-sailor habits of the average Utahn... I tend to notice what I say and when curses are forthcoming much more than previously.

October, though...the month of October has forced me to suppress a big load of relentless Flips, Farks, Shizzes, and Bums.

To keep it real, and really brief:

At the end of September, I started my FOURTH new job of 2010. I left the swoosh in June, and worked through a couple of contracts before I found interesting, challenging, satisfying work. I quit 2 jobs in a row to get here, which was difficult and a little daunting in this economy, but has (thus far) worked out for the best.
In the middle of October, right after starting job #4, I took my 3-year-old with me to Utah to provide a couple of weeks of in-home care for my 78-year-old mother following hip surgery. I used some of my time to provide round-the-clock nursing, clean, and cook 1-person meals for mom, and a little bit of my time to provide a modicum of relief for my 30-year-old niece who has essentially taken over all the household duties for her family since my sister (her mom) died.

(I just want to interject a thought here: I think the majority of my family spent the years prior to 2009 facing down SMALL problems, and that 2009-10 has proven that we were accumulating some bank before a tidal wave of CRAZY-BUM problems. It's pretty tough to be incredible and awesome and selfless when life hands you cancer, death, financial woes, and other miscellaneous problems without letting up. So for next year, I'd like to believe that the karmic wheel is on the way off of our crushed bodies for a good, long while.)

Anyway I spent a sort-of crushing time in Utah trying to be helpful and not getting much sleep. Then I rushed home to start up being awesome at my new job. I got home Tuesday night late and returned to work Wednesday.
Mid-day on Thursday, I collapsed and passed out at work in tremendous pain. Was rushed away in an ambulance. Diagnosis: full gall duct blockage and bile overflow. Emergency surgery. Ow ow ow ow ow!

So today I'm waving my white flipping flag. I really think: enough, enough, farking, ENOUGH!!!

12 books / 12 months Post #1: Under the Dome, by Stephen King

2010-09-29T16:29:00.000-07:00

I have moved this post to my word/book blog "WordNerdBird.Blogspot.com".

A Book Challenge!

2010-09-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

12 Some Books, 12 Some Months Challenge

brought to you by The Latter Day Bohemian, courtesy of Middle-Aged Woman, and mixed up a little by me

Pick 12 titles from your To Read Pile. These should be titles you ~~currently own~~ have wanted to read for a while, but to which you haven't gotten around.
Post your list in your public space of choice by ~~September 1, 2010~~ whenever. If you prefer not to post, you can just leave a comment with your list.
Read all 12 titles between now and September 5, 2011 (or, you know, whenever).
When you finish a title on your list, post about it in your public space of choice. If you prefer not to post, you can just leave a comment with your thoughts.
Once a month, I’ll try to post a round-up of the reviews/thoughts posted from that month so that we all know what everyone else has read.

My list (in no particular order):

The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, by Natalie Angiers. Why haven't I read this yet? It's been in my "To Read" pile for at least 2 years. And I'm still totally excited about it, but every time I start a new book, this one isn't it.
I'm Down: A Memoir by Mishna Wolff: A memoir about growing up in a white family that identified most with their black neighbors, this caught my eye when it first came out and I finally bought it (on sale - thanks, Powell's Books!) Now to get it off the bedside table, where it could otherwise languish...
Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl by Susan Campbell. Well, duh. This one practically lept into my arms and said "Your Life! Here! Buy me!".
Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship by Gail Caldwell. I bought this because it's supposed to be a "great novel about coping with grief"...but then I started reading it and realized that it's about 2 women who bonded over dog raising and AA. Both of which are...yeah. And then one died and the other one wrote a book about it. Hopefully the grief-coping part will grab me, because I've been languishing on page 100-something for a while now.
Under the Dome by Stephen King. I've heard this compared to the best of Stephen King's work (The Stand, It) enough to know I want to try it. This one is a bit of a crapshoot, but I am hoping to LURV it.
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. See #1. Same. Exact. Problem.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. I think I've tried this exact same thing before. Everybody loves this novel, and I love the ~theory~ of this novel, but couldn't make it past the first chapter the last 2 times I tried to read it.
The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. I thought I had already read this until my niece blogged about it and then it didn't sound familiar at ALL and I wasn't sure I ~had~. So maybe this will be a quick recognition...
My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover If Not Being a Dumb Ass Is the New Black or a Culture-up Manifesto by Jen Lancaster. I have a lot of guilt around liking uptight, right-wing Jen Lancaster. But...she's funny and sharp and - when she doesn't talk about politics - I like her. I haven't been able to wince my way through her latest book yet, but...maybe this is my motivation.
Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin. I love UKLeG's writing, but this one has been on the bedside table for a while now...here's my chance to reinvigorate my interest in this book.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. I'm not sure if I'm kidding about this one. It's sat on my shelves for 100 years because the first chapter is about war and then...I never got to Chapter 2. Maybe this year...
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Jamie loved it. I loved the first 80 or so pages, and then I put it down and then...I don't know what happened.

What are YOU going to read?

Give!

2010-08-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

I volunteer with the Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC) of Oregon (USA).

SARC is one of thousands of international organizations who (on miniscule budgets) provide advocacy, case management, funding access, education, counseling, and a lot of different kinds of individualized support to current and past survivors of sexual trauma.

Currently, my agency is in the midst of a fundraising blitz, and I've been badgering my family, friends, co-workers, and sundry strangers to donate time or money to this cause.

[Ahem. I'm including the link to my current fundraising page, but encourage you to donate where YOUR community is most impacted.]

There are organizations in every state in the US, every province in Canada, and most major cities globally who focus on helping the survivors of sexual assault rebuild themselves and navigate their lives post-trauma.

Sexual assault is an ongoing epidemic more likely to impact someone you know than heart disease, cancer, or car crash.

Every survivor deserves to receive careful, thoughtful support and advocacy. I can attest from my own experience as an advocate that programs like these fill a crucial gap between experiencing an assault and trying to navigate the legal and health systems and services, and psychological and emotional healing process.

I wish there were programs that fought the cause of sexual assault better, and could certainly opine about how violence against women is something MEN need to take ownership of and FIX ALREADY. However, I am proud of the amazing women and men I've met in this field who do the work every day to help with the aftermath.

While April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the USA, there is ample reason to donate your money or time now: despite the fact that sexual assault reporting appears to be on a slight decline for most age groups, reported sexual assault of college-age women is at an all time high. Now is the time agencies like mine are gearing up to provide safety training and information to high school and college-age women and men.

President Obama's new Office on Violence Against Women provides a list of US resources (one per state) who can point those desiring to donate or volunteer to appropriate community agencies:
http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/statesexual.htm

International agencies include Stop Violence Against Women.

If you know anybody who has experienced assault, you have seen (or felt) the devestating heartbreak and pain caused by sexual violence. Please take a minute today to think about this epidemic and what you can do to help.

April, May, June, July...

2010-07-25T16:23:00.001-07:00

Somebody graduated from Kindergarten.

Somebody likes the color pink. Still.

Imitating a cricket.

Himself.

My immediate family. Or most of it.

Dad

2010-07-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

So...my dad died on July 6. He was 81 and had been fighting Parkinson's Disease for over 10 years. His death was sudden, and not directly related (we think) to the Parkinson's. And I am pretty sure that at some point I'll have more to say about this. But for now, all I can say is that I am very very tired of feeling sad. I could use a bit more dancing.

This is dad's favorite poem. Well, one of them - he really loved poetry. But this one is a pretty good summary of how we lived and how he approached life:

"If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store
Two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and from the dole
Buy Hyacinths to feed the soul."
~ Sheikh Muslih-uddin Saadi Shirazi ( The Gulistan of Saadi, 1270 )

Shhhh...

2010-06-17T14:37:00.000-07:00

Did you hear that? It's the sound of me not blogging. I haven't felt like there's much I want to say, of late. And I think that's echoed many places. The Women's Colony closed. And many more blogs are just...abandoned. Is the Blogging phenomenon going the way of the Pet Rock? Is the economy bust making us more verbally economical as well? Because one thing I can't imagine my depression-era grandmother doing? (Well, this and maybe a few others) Blogging. Sad sad sad. I catch up on the lives of people I really care about, both those I know and many more I don't "know" except through bloggy intimacies. I don't know about them, but I'm pretty sure I'll be back, er, I think, imaginary friends. If only to post on: More job woes! Milo NOT in Catholic school anymore! The end of Stupid! All this and more...soon, I think.

And the Best/Worst Mom goes to...

2010-05-10T15:45:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day was pretty good: Milo gave me his first wholly hand-written card "YOU ARE THE BEST MOM IN THE WHOLE WORLD". Awesome. This was THEN, of course, followed immediately by a major fit during which he screamed "you are the WORST MOM EVER if you don't find me a chocolate croissant for breakfast".

Did you catch that? Double SCORE! By doing NOTHING I get Two Championship Titles!!!

Zel only called me stupid a few times, in honor of my special day. Because that kid? Is 3-years-worth-of-crass. She tells her loving family, friends, and - to my immense pride - complete strangers that they are poop heads. Or stupid. Or that they can poop on their stupid heads. Or stupid on their poop heads. Which is basically a barrel full of awesome.

I keep hearing (and practicing) the "ignore it and it will stop" philosophy. We've tried the other stuff, the "we don't talk to other people like that", and even the "I think you need to spend some time in your room, young lady" stuff...so now I'm trying the ignoring it route. Sorry, people at the grocery store/park/school/doctor's office. She's just a little er, I don't know. Mainly, just don't cross the 3-year-old.

Jamie made me a pretty amazing breakfast in bed, and then we all went for a family bike ride on the river esplanade in Portland AND a hike in the hills. More awesome.

I also contacted my: adopted mom (she liked the flowers I sent her), birth mom (hope she liked the song Zel half sang on their answering machine), birth grandmother (very nice, and even SHE has seen Avatar - I am completely alone in my Avatarlessness, and yes I know it's overrated, but still...), birth step-mother (another message, because she is a very awesome, very patient, complete workaholic), and mother-in-law (ditto flowers).

The person I couldn't call, of course, was my little mama, my oldest sister and mother stand-in. But I spent some of the day thinking about her and all the ways she did a lot of de facto parenting of me. And thinking of/reaching out to her kids on what must have been a day similarly full of bittersweet.

For maybe the first time in my life, I think about Mother's Day as a holiday for me as a parent, and not strictly for the many many mothers in my life. Not that I don't celebrate them, but I think I finally see myself as a member of their ranks. I'm not sure why it took me 6 years of being a mother to get here, but woo! Apparently I'm the Worst Mother Ever, but DEFINITELY it was MY day to shine at it!

Broken

2010-04-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

My son goes to Catholic School.

And in a couple of years, barring a miracle, I guess my daughter will go to Catholic School too. And the fact is, Catholic School would have been right up there with Druid School before our lives as parents intersected our lives as citizens in a pathetic school system.

I'm not an educator or a public administrator. I've got ONE kid in ONE school. So this rant is pretty personal and focuses on that ONE experience.

Nevertheless, there's a LOT I could rant about when it comes to WHY we chose Catholic School. Such as how, by the time we settled on parochial school for Milo, we'd already been completely flattened by a difficult year personally, and then again by our perceived failure of both the local public school and then of the public school lottery system, through which, theoretically, we could have sent Milo to one of the slightly better public focus or charter schools.

Anecdotally, I repeatedly hear my parent-friends and neighbors kvetch about how the Portland public school system thunderingly fails to provide their children a good, challenging space for that child to reach their education potential. That's a mouthful, isn't it? But it seems to be true: most schools here in Portland seem to feel they are successful if they've provided the mean basics to about half of their students.

Most schools have no art, music, PE, or any other instructors for subjects deemed "Extra". And the No Child Left Behind Act hasn't seemed to make any kind of impact toward "improvement" other than to make the schools dramatically reduce anything not accounted for by that program.

Our local school, which has always been ranked "Low" (on a scale of Unacceptable > In Need of Improvement > Low > Satisfactory > Strong > Exceptional > Outstanding), is still "Low". Their test scores are still some of the lowest in the city. Except now they also don't have any of the Arts or other extras to sweeten the day...

And when I spoke to our local school principal about my fears regarding their rankings and ratings, about the anecdotal negatives we'd heard from our neighbors regarding their focus on English as a 2nd language and how kids in that school are falling far behind grade level by the time they take 3rd grade standardized tests, she put the onus back on us - if the school fails to teach your child, then you need to be involved: come to the school, volunteer there, improve the school with your own energies! Which...huh. Sure.

In that paradigm, what do we need the school for? We are involved parents...who work full time. Our expectation is that the school is supposed to provide enough challenges and varied, exciting curricula that our involvement can remain at the homework/discussion/extras-like-music-lessons/reading-at-bedtime level; that the school will still do their job well enough that our child is an enthusiastic learner each day in their classrooms using the materials and skills ~they~ bring to the table.

My son isn't a genius. He's average. He's MY average kid, with his own uniquely challenging and sweet personality.

I'm not talking about trying to meet a gifted or special needs child's educational requirements.

I'm talking about I am not sure he would be reading/writing/doing math/learning history and science at grade level in the Portland public school system.
I'm talking about boredom, overcrowding, apathy, limited classroom options, and a system that is barely ~barely~ making it.
I'm talking about a kid who, in that program, would grow up thinking "PE" and "Recess" are synonymous.
Who would never hear a symphony with his classmates, or see an in-school play, make art with an instructor who really knows something about art, or even just go on a field trip.

And even THOSE gaps are ones we as parents can fill, if only the basics weren't failing as well.

So, because we can - barely - afford the sacrifice, we chose to not put our kid in our local elementary school. Which makes me feel like an elitist, but also like a very fortunate parent who can choose whether my kid goes to a failing school or learns how to genuflect while he attends a generally more successful school. For money.

Also, I'm pissed. And even though I believe the sacrifice is totally worth it - given our choices - I'm PISSED that I have to make it at all. Mainly for all the people who can't afford anything LIKE Catholic school. Because what does a failing system mean for them? That they work just as hard as they can and KNOW that their kid will still have to be exceptionally motivated to excel in a poor system?

It's broken.

I could go on all crazily even further when it comes to the focus/charter program. And the wealthy neighborhood schools vs everybody else's opportunities. And the $18,000 private secular schools. (Seriously? $18,000 for KINDERGARTEN? Previous rant aside, is there ANYTHING worth that much that a Kindergartner needs?) Sigh...

Love

2010-03-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday it will be 1 year since Jamie's heart surgery. One, long, pretty rough year. And also? A year with a major avalanche of love on all sides. And with every pain and every bump and scuffmark, we've also gotten a LOT of powerful and generous help and compassion from so many people. My birthday was this month, and once again my friends proved what angels they are. I feel undeserving, but very full of warm lovey-love.

February: Ann's Eulogy

2010-02-18T10:58:00.001-08:00

Grief is such a trip.

It's this invisible cloud surrounding me and through which my entire life is filtered, but nobody else can see it. I really GET why people used to wear mourning or mourning symbols in previous - whether recent or ancient - cultures: it's because you can ADVERTISE your state of mind.

So I'm trying to do small things in my life which both speak to my feelings of grief and process them. Like deliberately bringing my sister into conversations (not mindlessly, but relating experiences with her more deliberately than I used to, just to be able to TALK about her). And taking time to do a lot of silent, mentally untaxing tasks, like sewing, leaving my mind free to focus on that process.

So THIS post is a copy of my notes from her eulogy.

Giving a eulogy at a Mormon funeral was full of unexpected pitfalls, which is a completely different post about how out of touch I am with my roots, so much so that I hadn't thought I'd feel like such an outsider in that world at my own sister's service, and maybe a bit about the collision of my disbelief in an afterlife with the grieving of people convinced they'd see my sister again. But that's not today.

Ann's funeral was attended by 350-400 people, and it was held at the same church I attended my entire childhood, at which my father served as a Mormon bishop. The meeting house was packed, so full that I gave an involuntary squeak when I stood up at the speaker's podium and realized that the room was full all the way through the chapel and attached gymnasium.

Ann Marie was really loved and really impacted many many people. I miss her terribly.

Ann Marie's Eulogy - 12/16/2009___________

Hello and welcome.

I don't know how many of you ever spent much time with my sister, Ann Marie, on the telephone.

Ann is not a chatter. I doubt in the past thirty-odd years we ever talked about the weather, current events, movies, or our hair.

Phone conversations with Ann, like everything else in her life, were held eclectically and passionately. No detail of anyone's life seemed uninteresting to her. With her amazing mind, she knew and catalogued information about the smallest details of everyone's life, and would always respond to any confidence with a lot of heartfelt advice.

I never spoke with her without taking away information about what I should eat, a book or article I should read, a lecture I should locate, or some other specific, personalized symbol of how much she was listening to me and caring about my well-being.

Right now I have saved on my cell phone the last voice mail I'll ever get from Ann Marie. It's nothing unique in the history of our relationship: in the course of 2 minutes, she gives me the name of a supplement she thinks I should be taking, the website where I can order the supplement, the name and telephone number of a doctor she looked up for me to see in Portland who would prescribe the supplement if I needed, the location of the article she first found mentioning this supplement, including publication, issue and page number and it's author. She left that message three weeks before she died, when surely every bit of her energy was precious.

I grew up in a family of bright, intense, highly spiritual people. And of all of us, I think it's safe to say that Ann amplified those gifts to megawatt brilliance. I doubt there is any facet of her life that she didn't approach with a deliberate, scholarly thoroughness, whether it was child-rearing, home decorating, cooking, gardening, and, of course, reading.

Her passion was health, particularly nutrition, but no subject seemed unworthy of her intense scrutiny.

Ann had a wonderful sense of the ridiculous. Her eyes were always full of sparkle, and I can't think of her without picturing her gesticulating and rolling her eyes at something that made her laugh, whether from pleasure or disdain.

Some of you may know that Ann studied and could read in multiple languages, mostly to support her private scholarly pursuits and read historical and biblical texts in their original form. The few I remember are Ancient Greek, Ancient Hebrew, Mandarin Chinese, and I think Korean, as her husband Marshall spoke that language.

In Marshall, Ann was so lucky to find a partner who could match her brilliance and intensity. The two of them have always seemed so in love, and I have many early memories of observing their courtship and thinking how well suited they are.

I've always loved Marshall, but I have to tell you that these past few months seeing and hearing about his work to help Ann fight this, the worst battle, Marshall has been not just her partner, but Ann Marie's hero. During several conversations this summer and autumn, Ann repeatedly said that Marshall made her feel like a princess in a story.

I said that we never talked about movies, but many times she noted that she felt like Princess Buttercup from the movie The Princess Bride, with her Wesley telling her he would always come for her.

Marshall, Ann loved you so deeply and she knew how loved and cherished she was as your wife.

I've probably exceeded my allotted time. And in some ways, I don't think I will ever be able to stop eulogizing my sister. But I did want to tell her children - my wonderful nieces and nephews, who so obviously reflect their parents gifts - how loved they were and are. You don't have the smallest toenail that Ann wasn't interested in and devoted to, and I am proud and so happy that, while I will always miss her, that I will also always see her shadows and reflections in each of you.

Spin Cycle: The proper state of peeve (aka: nerd at large)

2010-02-04T15:19:00.000-08:00

I'm trying my hand back at blogging in general via the ever-lovely Sprite's Keeper's Spin Cycle.

This week's spin is Pet Peeves. Which was tough-ish because I am, by and large, not a peevish person.

I know, I know, if you read any blog post from last year this might be news to you. But it's very true. Even REALLY crazy and potentially annoying people have to do a LOT to cross my crank line.

But this week I reported for Jury Duty, which brought me smack against one of the buzzing flies of my own geekiness: Improper Use of Verb Tenses.

Jury Duty was, well, 10% fascinating (and 90% sitting in the Jury Room for 7+ hours doing not all that much). Parenthood has clearly shrunk my world to the familiar pocket groups of family, other parents, a few old friends, and co-workers. And Facebook. And surprisingly, even my 3-year-old has a vague grasp of grammar construction.

Not so the general Portland population... Which was weirdly riveting, but also freakishly frequent. And I sat all day listening to people tell each other "I be on a jury before", "this judge help a cop put my son away and give him shock treatment" "I got a brother is a cop" "I works in retail". Which once or twice would be vaguely colorful, but 8 hours worth was just...yikes! Enter the little grammar geek on my shoulder tsk-tsk-ing in my ear.

My grandmother, a former teacher, used to red-pen the letters I wrote her. And back in my nine (!) years of college, I got fed up with the correctness and posturing of other academics. And so, with one thing and another making me probably more peevish with people who correct other people, I tend to blow past grammar casualties.

Jury Duty day, though, was a grammar bloodbath. And a bit of an epic fail in my goal to remain unphased, even though I'm pretty sure nobody else knew why I kept raising my eyebrows.

And I didn't get selected for any jury. Which was great, since I am unpaid for days I don't work. And also? I could wait a while before I do that again.

Better

2010-01-03T12:39:00.000-08:00

I'm not a resolution kind of person. I think I had to learn that the hard way by failing to fulfill most/any resolutions in years past. This year, though, I think I just want to make one: That I will do better:

Be a better friend / parent / spouse / daughter / sister / aunt / cousin / grandchild
Do better at saying less and hearing more
Do better at eating less and savoring more
Do better at trying less and "being" more
Do better at the quiet ways of being present for people
Do better at changing my current status quo

It's all subjective, and nobody can gauge my personal "better" aside from me, so it's a bit of a trick-win/win. But it's at least a way of thinking about 2010 that makes me feel...better. Also: I've gotten a bunch of notes/comments/calls offering a little love since Ann died. I haven't been very responsive outwardly, but I want to acknowledge how much I have valued that, to those of you who read the blog. Happy 2010:

1958-2009

2009-12-12T13:41:00.000-08:00

My heart is breaking today. I will miss my "little mama" forever.

Thankfultude - belatedly

2009-11-30T13:27:00.000-08:00

This year. This year preeeettty much could bite me. That's right, 2009. You know why.

However. My world may have been full of a lot of tenuousness. And doubt. And fear. But there are a lot of good-enoughs about this year which sort-of disappeared in the face of all the, you know, ratcheted up to 11 insanity. And I need to swing my pendulum of downerism back into the reality of, er, reality.

Like:

Jamie may have a lifelong cholesterol/heart problem...but his bypass surgery went more than perfectly. Most importantly, he is ALIVE, and will most likely have a normal, healthy life span.
My kids are BEAUTIFUL. Smart, strong, sassy & healthy. If you want chaos and sweetness in pretty much equal measures, the Wafol house is where you belong.
Milo is a KINDERGARTENER! And he loves it. How great is THAT??
Zel is a PRINCESS! And a stubborn, smart, cute little joker.
Every day I think about them and realize what a wonderful, amazing world it is where every dark cloud can be gilded by my two little stinkbugs.
My tumor and attendant illness was a PITA, but fricking OVER!
And my tumor led me to work a little harder to get back in touch with my birth mother. Which is still shaky, but woo! That's pretty good all by itself.
My birth grandfather lived to be 86. It sucked to lose him, but great to have known him at all.
My sister is hanging in there and fighting the cancer HARD. It's almost a year since her diagnosis, and she's still CRAZY-TOUGH! If anybody has the willpower to beat cancer into submission with sheer intensity, it's definitely her.
And my dad is stable. Not great. Not awful. Parkinson's is sucky, and being far away from him is double-sucky. But we can still talk on the phone, and he usually knows who I am and more or less what's going on. And my mom has elevated my respect for her a thousandfold with her attentive, selfless care for him. She's not always the person I thought she was, which is a great lesson to learn.
We're all employed. Comparatively healthy. Mostly sane. The good so vastly outweighs the bad that I'm a little ashamed of my year of hand-wringing.

So, December ends the year of the pity-party.

2009 - you are almost out of here. See you NEVER!

Enough, but not too much

2009-11-19T12:00:00.000-08:00

Last night I was reading the essay Cracks in my Foundation by Marian Keyes about her love-affair with cosmetics. (And let me just digress to say: I love her writing, which is narky and smart, and, sure, chick-y, but also just hilarious and insightful.) She gave me a good bit to chew on about the pursuit of beauty, one lipstick and face cream at a time. 20+ years ago, I applied to a department store to work as a night janitor. My thinking was that I could clean at night and attend college classes during the day. Instead, based solely on my clear Jewish/Irish skin and lack of any demonstrable cleaning skills, the hiring manager offered me a part-time job selling cosmetics for Lancôme. When you are 18 and insecure, working at a cosmetics counter is like heaven and hell combined. I was a mess, and soon many well-groomed career cosmetic women descended on me to judge, pluck, cluck and instruct. It was ridiculously painful and overwhelming and I never did completely get the hang of things. I actually have no idea what the process of learning personal grooming was like for other women. I don't know if their mothers sat them down and helped them figure out what to wear or how to shave. If they were given things like razors or mascara (and then shown how to use them). My mother was not very personal groom-y. She got her hair set once a week, and slept on a neck pillow to keep her hair in that globular shape from Friday to Friday. My sisters were 8 and 12 years older than I, so by the time I went through puberty, they were not around to instruct me on things as simple as tampon usage and as difficult as "how much is too much?" My personal grooming lexicon consisted of randomly gathered half-clues, like glimpses of Seventeen magazine and spying on what other girls did to their faces between classes in the Junior High bathroom. And I then puzzled over all that in the family bathroom late at night using bottles of witch-hazel, leftover dull razors, dried up lipsticks found in the backs of drawers, and a deep-seated desire to fit in and not, for God's sake, go through life with an orange line of foundation around my face. I was highly underskilled at this. My mother's one concession to "beauty" was that she insisted I hot roll my hair starting in the 7th grade. This is mainly because puberty's other gift to me was a giant head of frizzy, schitzy, frizzy hair. Hot rollers make my hair very Breck-girl for an hour or so before the frizz overwhelms any other temporary states. But Breck-girl hair in no way compensated for my so-awesome braces, giant glasses, giant cello, and tiny stature. It was like putting Barbie hair on a troll doll. Also of note? At that time, I was also desperately anaemic, so standing around with hot rollers on my head at 6AM often led to fainting. However, my family always brought me around so I could sit there, sweating and miserable, while the rollers cooled on my head during early morning scripture readings. Anyway...throughout college, I sold lipsticks and gave makeovers and passed on probably terrible beauty advice to hundreds of women. I was mocked by most of my non-cosmetic job friends, and if anyone in my more serious majors (philosophy and critical theory) learned about where I worked, I had acres of ground to cover to re-establish my classroom gravitas. Once those days were safely behind me, I began to realize how ingrained the habits I learned during that brief time had become. I still "cleanse" my face daily. And use moisturizer. And often lipstick. I tend to let small things grow (like my pores, leg hair and eyebrows). But I think I'm fussier than my inner self-image (Rebekah Punky-Funky Cowboy) would want to admit. What about you? Were you raised by a parent who instructed you on the vagaries of femininity? How to apply lipstick? How to avoid buying things requiring dry cleaning? How to restore your shoes to prolong their life? How to keep your hair & skin soft and supple? Because seriously, I STILL wonder if I will ever get this part of my life at the right balance of enough-but-not-too-much.

A bang-up job being gloomy...

2009-11-02T10:30:00.000-08:00

(Note: I just had to add that my daughter saw this picture of Doris Day as a goth and said "MOMMY!" "Not Mommy." I said. "No," said she, "that's Mommy." So...yeah.) I've always had a tendency to make a hash of mordant despair. Other people's misery tends to trigger some latent Little Ms. Fixit in my soul. Religious upbringing? Innate Pollyanna-ness? Post-Mormon perkiness? No clue. But I'm not sure I'm capable of true darkness, past few months notwithstanding. Even my own existential angst tends to feel more Jerry Lewis than Woody Allen. I'm pretty sure I'd make a crappy therapist. Something about other people's misery makes me attempt to come out with something cheering, like "well, hey now, at least your OTHER leg didn't fall off!" And...I was a lousy goth, during that (strangely prolonged) phase of my life. I had the right clothes, but couldn't carry off the right cool, slow, miserable gaze. Ditto my punkrock phase. When I was 6, a poem I wrote made it into my elementary school newsletter: "Becky decided to write a poem about our haunted house. We thought she did a very good job:

Look at our Haunted Mansion

Going to waste....

Needs new boards and a lot of paste!

Fix it up! Use the glue!

We'll make that house look

Just like new!"

So...yeah. Clearly my style tends to be more zip than zap. And also? I've used elipses inappropriately from a young age...

I did a review!

2009-10-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

Ha! Catch me waffling on The Powwow Highway HERE.

The knight and the beast

2009-10-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

My sister, A, is in Germany this week pursuing an experimental treatment to stop her cancer from spreading. It's, oh, geez...I'm very happy that there IS an experimental anything to interrupt cancer's rampage. And this experience is such a perpetually delicate, painful thing. I'm not sure I can really write about how afraid and wistfully hopeful I am.

We had this great talk, she & I, about her husband and his efforts to find the right treatment for her. She compared him to Wesley in The Princess Bride, doing anything to keep his love safe, and I know he'd come back from the mostly dead to save her if he could.

My brother-in-law is just blowing my mind with his desperation and determination to help my sister get the treatment they believe may stop the attack of new tumors.

As a physician, my sister's husband has access to a number of resources (hospitals, doctors, cancer research institutes, medical investors and entrepreneurs), and the industry clout which gives him credibility when he assaults those resources with his agenda.

He has stayed awake nights compiling reports and packets and amassing and clarifying data on this experimental treatment, which he has then packaged professionally and sent to any credible institution or research facility that might put this treatment into place soon enough to help A.

I'm amazed, and very very moved, by his fierceness, and am clinging tightly to my hope that his tenacity, this German doctor who just gave A the treatment yesterday, and just the power of chance, medicine, and determination, will put cancer - that bitch - on the run.

A little Waffle autumnal update

2009-10-08T09:48:00.000-07:00

This autumn has brought about a few changes:

One of us is (still) a princess!

One of us started school! One of us changed colors with the cold weather! One of us is the Great God Pan!

(one of the kerjillion reasons I love love love this man)

And we're ALL pretty grateful for a month of (knock wood) mild normalcy...

Mistakes have been made...

2009-10-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes not wanting to be a soccer mom takes a bad turn.

Possibly this is one of those times.

Although good for the upcoming season.

Sigh...

New Addition Announcement!

2009-09-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

Evil. Not one of these: One of THESE:

WordNerdBird. My (technical) writer's musings and queries of the darkest, vaguest, stumbliest kind.

A big tornado of awesome

2009-09-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

I have some lovely, exceptional friends. For various reasons, this blog is not where I typically honor - or even mention - my friends except possibly anecdotally and briefly. But I really am perpetually amazed by the sustaining and enduring friendships I've been able to make in this incarnation of my life, post-college, post-bad-marriage(s), post-Utah. And this is as good a place as any to note something a bit convoluted: My friends have - most likely unbeknownst to them - helped me process my ability to be a friend, and helped heal my perspective on past experiences. There is absolutely a time - more recent than I wish - when I would never have been able to, without judgment, speculation or fear, embrace forgiving, loving relationships with past friends, if I didn't have current friends who feed my sense of self-worth. I'm not even sure that makes sense to anybody but me. I guess my point is: I have a loving community around me full of women who have REALLY showered me with not just kindness and acceptance, but praise, sustenance, love and genuine affection. And the insecure or wounded parts of me which didn't think I deserved any of those gifts have finally, I think, been mollified into quiescence. Last night, in a WHOLLY unexpected move, several of my friends (and with Jamie's help and blessing) surprised me with a half-birthday-and-congratulations-for-surviving-3/4-of-the-suckiest-year-ever party! I can't even express how amazed and moved I was. Am. So thank you, Angie, Jen, Joi, Karen, Ruth and Sarah. And Jamie. And the many other friends and family - online, long-distance, or otherwise - who have been supportive, kind, and just generally THERE recently. Because you have really made me happy. And loving. (And even a bit tearful.) From a very grateful place today, -R Waffle

Unbelievably...

2009-09-14T10:43:00.001-07:00

Even though today is close to my six year anniversary of being a parent, it's my first day as the parent of a kindergartener. And since I have about 8 snippets of memories preceding my own life prior to Kindergarten, I can assume that at most, the past 6 years will be encapsulated into 4 minutes of memories for Milo, 34 years hence. Good to know my time has been well spent. (and hold me - because today is just a big, jaw-dropping day of GAH! Kindergarten!)

The knife

2009-08-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

Technology is so cool! So Monday I go in to get this tumor out of my neck. They'll take it and the left lobe of my thyroid to which it is attached. Then, ON THE SPOT, they'll biopsy it for papillary cancer. While my neck is still sliced open and I'm (hopefully) asleep on the table!! If it's that kind of cancer, they'll remove my entire thyroid and the surrounding lymph and tissue right then. So let's hope not. If it isn't, they'll sew me back up and send the tumor off to some mega-lab to look for more subtle kinds of cancer. If that came up positive, I'd come back and rinse/repeat surgery for a full thyroidectomy. So let's hope that one isn't it either. Either way, I get to sit in the hospital, high on drugs, and watch a lot of daytime television for at least 24 hours. Not that I'm all, you know, gung-ho about this in general, but if watching Ellen high on morphine is the biggest plus I can get out of this, woo - ELLEN! And then? Back to normal! (I know, at this point, chaos is normal, but I'm rooting for 2008 kind of normal for a while.) I wonder if there's ANY chance they'll let me keep my tumor in a jar?

Milton Waddams

2009-08-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

I wear glasses. I think I first was diagnosed as near-sighted in the second grade. And until age 30, I did all the dances:

Aviator frames
Big Sally Jesse frames
Contact lenses
Clip-on sunglasses
Tinted contact lenses
"Funky" frames

I was night blind. Once I lost my contacts on a river-rafting trip and spent 3 days being walked into the scrub to make sure I didn't pee on a rattlesnake or fall into a ravine. I was never able to wake in the night and read my alarm clock without picking it up. At age 30, I invested in Lasik and PRK surgery (due to my pituitary tumor, the left eye required PRK). Followed by three years of amazing 20/20 vision. Then I got pregnant and instantly needed a little correction to drive. But even then, a pair of glasses when driving is NOT the same as not being able to see your face in the mirror without aid. So even without being 20/20, I'm very happy with how my eyes have been. Recently, however, this thyroid tumor seems to be accompanied by an autoimmune response attacking my eye muscles. Possibly Graves disease. Possibly a few other things less easy to deal with. This necessitated changing my prescription to prismatic lenses. Do you know what those look like? This: Sigh. Eat your heart out, Milton Waddams...

Why why why can't I write about anything else?

2009-08-19T10:27:00.001-07:00

I need a new focus that's not me, my tumah, or anything related. But I am in monkey brain mode, so...ech! CT scan next week. Surgery TBD. So, dear remaining one reader still malingering on with me, since I'm oh, jeeeeeeez, so pathetically inarticulate, I'll send you HERE. They just blogged about my, well, 3rd or 4th favorite book ever, The World According to Garp. (eeee!) Plus it's Sprite's Keeper, who is always awesome. Plus my head is busy exploding.

And the point to this is...?

2009-08-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

Biopsy results: inconclusive. Which means...lord, long-winded things, but the short-winded is that there weren't enough cells to determine cancer or not. So...biopsy #2 scheduled for next week. Then another week of waiting. And by then? My head will have exploded.

Waiting...

2009-07-31T09:02:00.001-07:00

So, the tumor is in a funny position in my neck. The MD decided to forgo an outpatient/in-office biopsy and I have to have a hospital biopsy. In a week. Gah! I KNOW there are people out there who just compartmentalize successfully. "Biopsy in a week? I'll think about it then." But...I am not any of those people. I've lived out every possible scenario in my head about 37 times since finding the lump in my neck, proceeding to drive myself (and ~possibly~ my entire family) completely batshit. But mostly myself. I think I need a yoga class...and a valium.

Melodrama

2009-07-28T10:10:00.001-07:00

Hey! I finally want to post again! But my reasons are sort-of mental-hamster-wheel rather than because I have something thoughtful, seasoned and interesting (to anybody else) to say. However, I'll blurt it out. Remember how I had a benign brain tumor (okay, pituitary growth) in college? I do. Boy do I. So, a few months ago I recognized that I was experiencing some similar symptoms: Moodiness, exhaustion, weight gain...and some inexplicable joint pain. Crap. So, you know: blah blah blah Doctor...blah blah blah Blood Tests...blah blah blah Inconclusive...blah blah blah More Blood Tests...blah blah blah Rapid Growing Tumor on my thyroid which appeared 2 weeks ago and is already almost 3 cm in diameter (that's about 1.25 inches)... Crap. I'm guessing it's benign (80% of them are). But I have a family history of papillary thyroid cancer...which means, I guess, that I'm in that one place. You know the one: WhatIfLandia. Tomorrow? Biopsy. And the results from that a few days later. So yeah. You know, I'm feeling all...huh. I don't feel sick, just fat and tired. And thanks to the anti-depressants, not moody. (Or not particularly given the extreme heat wave we're having this week in Oregon.) And it just seems COMPLETELY UN-POSSIBLE that any more drama is warranted on the health front for any member of my family this year. But apparently I'm wrong on that front. Wish me luck...

Not for everyone

2009-07-23T10:25:00.001-07:00

I've had a, well, not awesome few months. And I learned that when I'm depressed, I don't have much interest in blogging. However, I DID find something that cheered me up enormously yesterday. Before you play it, however, be warned that there are many words here you may not want your 2-year-old singing over and over again. Take it from me...

Wizard School

2009-05-29T14:24:00.000-07:00

Remember how we told Milo that "God" was really an imaginary powerful wizard some people believe in? Probably that automatically means that we aren't Catholic School material. Right? Because we just sent in an application to one. Wizard help us...

Cheeeerist in a tutu!

2009-05-26T16:48:00.001-07:00

Figure it OUT already, California!!! Because I'm tired of my own anger. Quoting from The Dallas Principles: The following eight guiding principles underlie our call to action. In order to achieve full civil rights now, we avow:

Full civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals must be enacted now. Delay and excuses are no longer acceptable.
We will not leave any part of our community behind.
Separate is never equal.
Religious beliefs are not a basis upon which to affirm or deny civil rights.
The establishment and guardianship of full civil rights is a non-partisan issue.
Individual involvement and grassroots action are paramount to success and must be encouraged.
Success is measured by the civil rights we all achieve, not by words, access or money raised.
Those who seek our support are expected to commit to these principles.

Gadget Man Defies Gravity!

2009-05-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Jamie's not-so-secrety spy name is Gadget Man. And I'm going to leave it at that, letting you imagine the discourses ~~endured~~ enjoyed discussing shutter aparature, gigabyte capacity, widget blah blah. Ultimately, if he's happy, I'm happy. And, sure, sometimes I learn more about something I will never actually use (cough cough video camera) than I might ~~ever in a zillion years want to ever ever hear about~~ need, but that's just fine. Really. However. However, there's one thing I think is worth talking about: gadgets require care. If you take it somewhere, you need to bring it home. For example: a couple of years ago, I pulled into my parking space at work (a 17 mile drive), when something loud clunked down the windshield. That something turned out to be Jamie's super special hand-held GPS navigation system. Which had apparently been capable of clinging to the top of the car for at least that drive. And then there's yesterday. Burned forever in my mind as The Great iPod Hunt 2009. Yesterday, the Waffles went to:

The pool
The bank
The toystore
The bike store
The grocery store
The river for a picnic

And after the kids were in bed, we ripped the car and house apart searching for Jamie's iPod - last seen at the pool. Guess where it was? That's right. Once again, the top of the car was the culprit. Apparently, I'm no speed freak...or Jamie's gadgets are resistant to things like motion and wind speed. And gravity.

Mother's Day...Late and later...

2009-05-15T09:14:00.000-07:00

It's been sixteen years since I first (as an adult) met my birth mother, J****. I can't imagine what she went through as a pregnant fourteen year old, and then as that girl, the one who had a baby, when she went back to High School and then on through the rest of her own young life. I may not have mentioned this about her before, but she's really amazingly smart. She got a Ph.D. from a really REALLY prestigious university AND received a really prestigious fellowship. She took her life story and turned it into one of strength and hope and positivity. When I met her, I was amazed at what a warm, bright, happy person she was. Sixteen years ago, I was...oh, not all that awesome in many ways. I was in a series of muddles: married to Big Gay Ex, having lots of problems with my adopted family, dropping in and out of college as I could or could not pay for each semester. I was articulate, which sometimes made me seem bright and driven and determined, but I wasn't really, just smashing my way through a messy young adulthood. I screwed up a lot. J**** is someone with whom I desperately want to have a relationship - for many reasons. Some of which I acknowledge are healthy and some not, in that they are snarled up in my own self-discovery rather than in focusing outward on that relationship. At first, I'd communicate with J**** every few weeks, though all the chaos that was my life in my twenties. That time period stretched until it was just at holidays - and when we did talk, things were a more and more awkward. Things in her life also got more complicated, and a number of good things, but also a number of sad things, happened to her, which seemed to make the distance between us broader. A friend gave me advice to remember that J**** had a baby as a child herself. She went through HUGE difficulties to become the woman she is. Whatever painful stories she has been through, those, along with guilt and anxiety, surface for her every time we communicate. And each time might be as painful as the first time we met. I've really tried to take that to heart. So lately (as in, the past 4-5 years), I've been sending her little e-mail notes 2-3 times a year, with pictures of us and a little summary of where we are and what we're doing. Usually there is no response, but occasionally I'll get an e-mail and photos back. And even though each time she doesn't respond is privately wrenching, I just keep trying. This year, my most recent e-mail, with an update about Jamie's surgery and Mother's Day greetings, bounced. That was my last point of contact with her, and I have been finding this devestating. She's not dead, but she's removed the one way I had to reach out to her. That's all. I had written a longer, more self-absorbed post about all the screw-ups I've made which may have brought her to decide, despite my lack of recent crazy, not to know me, but ultimately, ULTIMATELY, I can only say that I've made mistakes but so does everybody. The mistake I want to NOT make, however, is that of giving up hope completely. So, in hope, and with the only method left to me at all, Happy Mother's Day, Janet. I love you. And thank you always, -Rebekah

God's underpants...

2009-05-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

At our house, naked isn't common, but it's also not particularly noticeable. I think Jamie & I are modest by nature, but we're also not overly concerned with hiding ourselves.

Since the kids were born, I always wear pajamas (at least in part to prevent my still-nursing, co-sleeping 2-year-old from latching on in the night without my consent). And in general, I TRY to close the door to the bathroom when I'm using it (largely unsuccessfully - I can't count the number of discussions about WHO gets popsicles after dinner that I've carried on while I'm SO wanting privacy). But I do try...

Comparing nudity at our house to, say, my own upbringing, however, I'd have to say we're a bunch of nudist hippie freak-jobs.

When I was growing up, we weren't provided words for any underwear-covering body parts aside from "down there" and "bosom". All euphemisms were determined obscene and discussion of bodily function was taboo in the extreme. I was raised to use the words "urinate" and "defecate" unironically; I once got grounded for using the ubiquitous 80's words "pissed off". And (my personal favorite), around age four, when I noticed that I had a mystery "third hole" in my genitals, my mother snapped back quickly "No you don't!" (Because thinking your vagina is aberrant is apparently better than acknowledging it and - god forbid - having to name it). Sigh...

So, I'd venture a guess that my idea of middle ground regarding body privacy, nudity and prudery might be skewed. Probably the Waffles are somewhere on the conservative end of that spectrum between all-out nudists and the completely over-the-top body-phobes I call "family".

When wonderful, lifesaver sister #2 came to visit and help with the kids last month, our free-flowing, laidy-back-nakedy habits got a bit of a system shock. Jamie's first night in the hospital, I came home to find my kids having a bath together, just like normal... ...but wearing their swimsuits. I don't know how she intended to actually WASH them, but I was intrigued by what the point of hiding their genitals was.

Since I was preoccupied with other things that week, though, I let that one go for a while.

Am I crazy to think that covering them up is like a fast-track to fetishizing? Generally, I am interested in the weird correlation between religious prudery and how that so much comes across as sexual preoccupation. Because if there's one thing Mormons are VERY good at, it's pushing young people to get married early and have babies (also multi-level marketing, but that's another discussion). This is such a big deal, they've designed their own mystery underpants to WAY cover all those dirty bits. And, from my armchair, it seems like my upbringing was FRAUGHT with preoccupation with general genital (of the boy/girl variety) business. Getting married was pretty much the #1 game we played as kids. And why? Babies? Sex?? I can't speak for any other person's upbringing, but I can certainly say my own was FAR more focused on sexual attractiveness, arranging pre-marital boy/girl get-togethers, discussions of marriage and having children at an early age, than my own children's is.

So what's the deal? If bodies weren't so taboo (I think they use words like "sacred"), would Mormons have this same preoccupation? Which came first, the prudery or the preoccupation with all things body, sexuality and underpants?

Spin Cycle: Mountain, meet Molehill (also, God hates Tauruses)

2009-05-05T10:30:00.000-07:00

This week's Spin pretty much nails my inner flim-flam. I've got what I think are some mountains. AND what might be molehills. It's deciphering the difference that has me flummoxed. Apparently, if you are a Taurus, prepare for a YEAR OF PAIN! Jamie (37 last week!) doing better. Healing. Slowly back to normal. My hero. Next week - back to work! This week - driving! Sister #1 (51 today!) is back on chemo. Chemo blows. Cancer blows harder. Bah! Dad (80 next week!) is doing...not well. Parkinson's is weakening him. Melanoma battles seem to be holding steady. Dizzy spells+Seizures=The pooh. Birth grandmother (87 last week!) also on chemo for leukemia. Blown immune system means we can't visit. The suck! So...it's a bit of a spin-the-bottle - which health problem to focus on? If I were rich, I'd be traveling to where they are, instead of armchairing it up here. But jobs and money say otherwise. School: Amazing. The lottery process? The school visits? The 4-leaf-clovers? Netted us exactly zilch. Milo got into zero of the five schools we attempted to lottery into. Fortunately, his preschool has an awesome kindergarten program, and we'll try again for the 1st grade lottery next year when (please lard) our lives and finances aren't so shaken up. But our friends? Are bilking the system cheatenously. Sigh...ethics. Also? We should not be buying lottery tickets anytime soon. Job: Currently, we're both employed. Swoosh is facing some cuts, and I'm white-knuckling that my job stays in place through December as planned. January? Jeeebus I don't know. Did I really used to blog about wearing bad culottes in the 70's?

Recipe to kill crabs...

2009-04-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

Not that kind of crabs, natch. Just the regular pissy-hate-the-world-why-are-you-so-stupid-stupid-stupid-annoying-did-I-say-stupid kind. Complete with stress-related migraine. I don't think I woke up crabby today, but several successive events made me crankier and crankier. Now, late morning, I'm just in a ranty-pants mood. And it's all ridiculous. AND (did I mention?) gave me a migraine. I need to back the hell off. So, without delving into the source of my crabs, because? Boring. Also? Many things I want to rant about are just...minor and evidence of my mindset, not an authentic assessment of events. (Except co-workers calling me at home at 7:30 AM to bitch about other co-workers, because that's just lame). Here is today's recipe for cheer:

Big and blue

2009-04-22T09:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Earth Day! With unrelated ridiculousness!

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

All the wonderful you never needed

2009-04-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

This year my birthday was pretty cool. And weird. It fell a couple of weeks before Jamie's surgery, so it was full of anxiety. A few of my favorite family in-laws came down from Washington state for a visit, which made it special. And they, along with Jamie, gave me this:

Do you have one? I've NEVER had one. Until March 16th, if I wanted to listen to something specific, I packed a brim-full CD case around with me to play in my laptop or car stereo. A veritable homage to 1996. But now...NEVERMORE! And it is AWESOME!! And scary. You know the hidden thing that comes with an iPod? Need. Because suddenly I NEED albums by my favorite singers. And books. I NEED audiobooks I was always content to read in original format. And MOOOOVIES! TV Shows I've wanted to see but never had time for. As a mom, it's like getting a time machine - I can LISTEN to books at lunch while I walk. Or sit at my desk and watch the pilot for Chuck. I've seen more TV and watched more movies in the past month than in the past 5 years, I think.

It's like the most amazing marketing tool EVER!

EVIL! GENIUS!

(and wonderful...I'll never go back, but OY! Who knew??)

Facebook

2009-04-20T12:21:00.001-07:00

This year has easily provided the most self-loathing opportunities of my life. Every failed relationship, every person who saw me at my worst, every person who knows things about me I wish weren't true, THOSE PEOPLE are now back in my life. Or at least enough of them that some days I think I've been nothing but a terrible person, the regret I feel just seeing their names.

The friend from High School I one day couldn't face dealing with anymore because her food issues made me upset - so I stopped talking to her with no explanation?
The boy I dated in HS who turned out to be gay AND who stabbed me in the back during a senior year, debate-tournament scholarship competition? (we're not "refriended", but he's friend to many of mine)
The friends I never called back? The ones I was disloyal to or too busy for?
The roommate I bickered endlessly with?
The boy I had a painful crush on?

All there. Every mistake made, careless word said. All. right. there.

Okay. Here's the other side of that. The "half full" part: I've reconnected with a LOT of people whom I have, at one point or another, shared really meaningful, positive experiences, friendship and love with. It's MY issue that the worst parts of those relationships are the ones I focus on, the things I didn't correct and now, 10 or 20 years later, I'm trying to sort-out (in my head or literally) and puzzle back into my self-image of happy-go-lucky kind person. Also? I think I have self-esteem issues.

Moving away from home (my theme, apparently, for this week), I've lost touch with more friends than I wish. Perhaps. And Facebook is like voluntarily returning to a giant reunion which is sometimes amazing, and sometimes absolutely bitter. I think I'm bad at Facebooking. I've used FB to apologize to a couple of people, only to never hear from them again...maybe because I reminded them that my "friendship" isn't what they want. Is this typical, my complex love for and loathing of Facebook? Am I just overly neurotic and self-loathing?

My favorite place...

2009-04-17T10:29:00.000-07:00

When I moved to Portland, I bounced around for a while trying to figure this city out. It wasn't like Salt Lake or New York, but sort-of a weird combination:

Like New York, one of the first days I was here, I watched a group of junkies (or a diabetics club) shooting up out in the open.
People didn't seem to like to walk here.
It was DIRTY.

Like SLC, the mix of uptight people and punks made me feel at home.
There were a lot of independent bookstores and coffee.
The scenery was amazing.

Unlike NY, I could afford my apartment. Unlike NY, nobody seemed to be SO intent on being cool, going to the right school or buying the right shoes. Unlike SLC, nobody said anything that invoked God, scriptures or the lord to me without raising an eyebrow to invite me in on the joke. (For a week at least - my first job here was bizarrely populated with Mormons). Unlike SLC, I never just randomly ran into people I knew - EVER. (This is still true). Moving to a new city, even one in the same country, even one sort-of the same size as the one you grew up in, is disorienting. Everything you know isn't the same. All your comfortable places, the sights and behaviors you are used to - all gone. It's exciting, but also...hard to find ways to comfort yourself. Then I found this place:

The Tao of Tea is this amazing, cozy (possibly pretentious) teahouse. Jamie & I had many dates there pre-babies. (And pre-Jamie, I had a preposterous number of first dates there).

They also have the fancy-schmancy-disney version at the local Classical Chinese Gardens, but the main house, the shabby one with too few tables, is my secret Portland-home-away-from-home.

Oh yes I did...

2009-04-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

When your cute, lego-obsessed five-year-old, who is carrying around Lego INSTRUCTIONS at the grocery store, because he loves those ~~stealth foot maulers~~ little plastic pieces THAT much, asks you to put the instruction book in your back pocket so he can wander around unencumbered? Say no. Because otherwise, maybe, you'll forget until you go to the bathroom. < <> > What was that? Yes it was. And then you will yell, and your son will cry. Because? He wanted to look at this ONE illustration of an alternate thingymaboo warship ma blah blah blah what? in the middle, no not that page, THIS page, no THAT ONE! And you? Despite the countless diapers changed, would rather do ANYTHING than turn each sodden page for him.

Open hearts

2009-04-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

My little boy has been figuring out love for a while. He asks great questions, comes up with amazing hypotheses and takes his experiences to new and unexpected places. Even after he gets married, for instance, he's still going to come home at night to sleep in the family bed. And I'm still going to help remind him to do his chores, especially when he has too much laundry (HA!). We recently figured out that I'll probably not be able to help him with "major" bottom wipes, so he's been working on that one, thank the stars, because I had been trying to figure out how to walk into a board meeting and call adult Milo out for a wipe down... At least one BIG conversation, for me at least, has been about WHO he wants to marry. At five, just like at four and three, Milo has given his heart and future plans to his friend Devious. Recently, his friends Trouble and Frat-bound have also joined that circle. Together, the four of them intend to buy a house and get married when they are older, like eight or nine or sixty. They'll live together building Legos and pooling their money to buy cool toys and eating chocolate all day. I couldn't be prouder. Seriously. I know it's time to insert a snarky comment here, like about my future in-laws, Mr. and Mrs. Devious and their recent, silly immigrant comments. Or just generally about my son and his boyfriends. But it AMAZES me that he's so intent on building a loving circle around him of people he intends to always care for and about. The fact that Devious, Trouble and Frat-bound have mocky nicknames doesn't mean I don't adore them for being kind to and beloved by my son. But this brings me to the bigger, meatier issue: WILL he be able to marry Devious, Trouble, or Stan or Aiden/Jaden/Kaden or any other boy he wants to? At least twice now, another child has told him that he CANNOT marry another boy. And both times, he's come to me looking very solemn and asking for reassurance that his world is exactly the way he left it - marriage to boys intact. I don't know who Milo is going to grow up into. I hope all the fine things I see in him now - his sense of honor, of gentleness, his analytic and engineering prowess, his artistry, his humor, his love of words - grow into gifts of mind and spirit that bolster him and keep his life beautiful and meaningful. And I hope that his capacity to love and embrace his friends and remain loyal to them only increases. He may, like many boys, discover that girls DON'T have cooties. And he may take any number of paths toward adulthood, toward love both romantic and sexual that continue to shape and alter him over the years. Whomever he loves, though, what I hate, what I DESPISE, is how at some point I have to help him recognize that there is a world of people out there opposed to love the way he sees it today. Jamie and I have told him, every time he asks, that even though WE are a man and a woman, many families have two dads, two moms, one mom or dad or other combinations - and we point to the families we know like that. And every time he asks about how he can be a dad (which he very much wants), we've pointed to all the people we know who are adopted - like his mom - and found a home and a family created by love rather than by biology. It may be that we've given him seeds he doesn't need. That he'll fall in love with a girl or four and never need to worry personally about the people in this world who don't want love and commitment to be about love but instead about conformity and gender. I don't get those people. I'm mad at them. At the ones I know (hi, Mormon nephew who posts anti-gay-marriage-Facebook links) and at all the ones I don't (hello 51% of California voters). My little boy is growing up in a world that I just want to shake by the shoulders and point out how VITAL love is. I want Milo to perceive of his world as loving, embracing and beautiful. Not hating. Not angry. Not biased or prejudiced or small. So today, I want to say "Thank you, Iowa and Vermont. Thank you, Massachusetts. And FIGURE IT OUT, everywhere else." My boy is five. And I'm 39. And I expect to dance at his wedding.

He's home!

2009-04-07T09:32:00.001-07:00

And doing great...omg, bejebemusbums and all that is sacred, amen and hallelujah!!!!!

Friday ramblings...

2009-04-03T17:09:00.000-07:00

Jamie's doing great. After slight hiccup in ICU, he was moved to a private room today. He's rocking it and will have some SCARY scars to freak small children out with forever. Also? Morphine makes people say some very strange things. Note to Jamie: I video-recorded it all... Mwahahaaahahahahah! Sister A. The one with cancer? Had a hysterectomy/partial colectomy/large mass removed from her pelvis today. Cancer, you bitch. Hopefully this removes a lot of the source of her problems, save the tumors in her liver. She seems to be doing okay, but she'll be in the hospital for 7-10 days. My family is having a challenging week - my energies are divided between the crisis at my home and the crisis at theirs. Sister J. The one staying with us? Is AWESOME! AMAZING! She's really helping us. My week? Very. Crazy. Today: 6 AM Wake, Shower, Dress, Eat. Feed kids, comfort sad 5-year old. 8 AM Drive to hospital, sit with Jamie, help check him out of Intensive Care 10 AM Drive to work. Try to focus on large project due next week. 12 Noon Drive to Milo's school, take him for hospital visit. Visit Jamie. Feed Milo. 1:30 PM Drive Milo back to school. Return to work. Ditto, large project. 5:30 PM Drive home. Pick up kids. Drive to hospital for evening visit. 7:30 PM Drive home, eat dinner, get kids ready for bed. Yesterday? Rinse, repeat. Tomorrow? Same. Minus work. And (sadly) sister. Is it 2010 yet? How fondly I remember when anticipating the day Pres. Obama took office would be the way I remembered 2009...

The day after

2009-04-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

Jamie made it through his surgery FABULOUSLY!! He's a champ and a warrior and a hero and all things strong and mighty. Also? Very very high on hospital drugs. Also...PHEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWW! Jebus-gawd the relief!!!!!! Here's what happened yesterday:

Pre-surgery

Post-surgery

Discovering he'll need respiratory help the rest of his evil life...

It was easy to convince him to put on the helmet...because? High on drugs.

Also, he won't remember this until I post it as his Facebook profile. Did I mention? High. On. Drugs. Thank gah for those, however, because they wear off too quickly and he's in a tremendous ammout of pain until they get him his next dose.

It's been a rough (and long waiting/stress-monkey) road to get here. Today. To the other side of all things heart-full.

He'll be out of critical care soon. And home maybe early next week.

You know, I discovered today that I have no filters left as I was vaguely describing his incisions and "artery harvest" to a co-worker and she turned green and backed slowly away from me.

I think I might need some recuperation time when all is said and done to regain some lost people skills.

Thanks again to you, blog friends, for all the love and support!

My new niece

2009-03-31T09:50:00.001-07:00

I'm an aunt. THIRTY TIMES OVER!! Each of my sisters have 7 children and my brother has 6. Jamie's siblings have a collective 10 kids between the 6 of them. Grand total=30 niblings (new word). And 2 great-nephews! THAT is what happens when an ex-Mormon marries an ex-Catholic. My sister, the one coming to visit us tonight, is in the process of adopting a teenage girl. I don't know this child's story, other than that it's a difficult one, but I have to say how pleased and excited I am for their family. And how happy I am that my sister, who is amazingly maternal, and her family have made this choice. I know their experience - and my new niece's - will be stressful, but I also really love how committed they are to loving their new daughter and helping her gain resiliency to face the rest of her (new) life. As an adoptee, I have a lot of respect for and sadness around the world of reconfigured families, and the multitude of attendant complexities. Mainly, though, I think it comes down to helping a child be raised in a safe, nurturing home. There are a lot of difficult and sad stories out there, and it's not like the foster/adopt system is flawless, but I hope that for my new niece, this is the happy ending to her old life she needs, and that she receives from my sister and her family the tools and resources to move forward positively in the rest of her life. Annnnd....pictures of my great nephews (because they are ADORABLE!!): Take my word - these babies look SO much like their parents, my niblings, it gives me little hot-flashy flashbacks of extra love!

Guitar Keith

2009-03-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

My 1st cousin, Keith Taylor, is an amazing guitarist. And a bit offbeat (not musically). Some of my favorite early memories involve sitting around a campfire listening to him play. His giant sideburns are gone, but he's still clearly amazingly gifted. Here are a couple of his latest videos:

Tick tick tick...

2009-03-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -Albert Einstein

_________________

Tomorrow is Jamie's pre-op. Wednesday morning, early, is his surgery. My sister gets here tomorrow. Before then I need to (deleted long list of a whole hellofa bunch of things)... Jamie's brother and his wife are driving down tomorrow, so they'll be here too. And Jamie's parents are driving down and staying with us Wednesday. All very amazingly kind. I'm so overwhelmingly touched by their generosity.

Yesterday J bought this Giant Recliner on Craigslist. Seriously, it's this big, poofy thing as big as 3 people in the middle of our living room. Like the proverbial elephant, but bigger. And from there, post-surgery, he will do his convalescing. And eating, because OF COURSE it comes with a tray. And heating pad. And vibrating massage...hmmm... And then...that's it. Are we ready? Nnngaaah! (that's my back-of-the-throat-sound-of-agony/fear/throat-clearing noise)... My friend R is helping us around childcare needs and helping my sister if/as needed. My friend Mrs. Naked Monkey is organizing apparently a load of some food love. EVEN though they both are totally busy with work and their own lives and has a bunch of difficult stuff going on themselves. And a huge group of my stellar and loving friends are contributing food this month - even though making vegan food is a lot of work. So much love. Jamie's brother T the 1st set Jamie up with an iPod full of music and books. Jamie's sister T has sent us books and movies and food gift cards and has generally gotten Jamie anticipating his convalescence - two AMAZING, AMAZING, WONDERFULLY KIND things. So...we have SHOCKINGLY stellar friends and family. Which so rocks, I can't TELL you...except I did. In no way effusively enough.

Here's my thank you, in the form of one of my all-time favorite songs: My nails aren't going to survive this week. I can just tell. If that's the least of my worries, I think that will be just fine...

Spin cycle: "quirky" rudeness

2009-03-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

This weeks Spin Cycle: Quirks.

___________________

So...this isn't maybe a quirk. Or maybe it is. It's annoying to me, but much worse, it's rude. I don't answer e-mail. I mean, I do. Sometimes ridiculously so. Ad nauseum. But...there are many many messages languishing in my inbox. One friend of mine, someone I REALLY like, hit me in an e-mail lull. And then I got embarassed, because her e-mail sat there, unread, unanswered, for...a month? Two months? Ridiculous! It caused a RIFT! Because I was RUDE. Ridiculously so. For months. I don't even know WHY I'm lousy with e-mail. Or what it is that makes me choose to answer some stupid 3-second Facebook comment about what SHOE you are, but let a real e-mail from a REAL friend just languish and die. I apologized to my friend a couple of days ago, but things are...frosty. As they should be. Because I suck. Is this a quirk? Sigh...

Getting stuff done

2009-03-26T12:03:00.001-07:00

When I think how long it takes me to write one sentence some days...
World Builder

Schrandom

2009-03-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

Muflafla fluh. Blob. Ranom. Ranom blob posht. That's what I sound like when I talk right now. Because I just got back from the dentist where I had a CAVITY filled. My first in...a long time. 10 years?

I forgot that novocaine makes my face do this:

Fine. Not THAT much different, because I'm already a bit lopsided, but seriously, I look palsied.

And...I've been having a rough time. Parenting. Partnering. Working. All...rough.

All the material preparation for Jamie's surgery I've done hasn't prepared me/us emotionally. We've all been cranky. Frustrated. Touchy.

Milo in particular is having a hell of a time coping with just being five, let alone being worried about his father's health. One of his teachers is out on disability as well, so his world is getting less familiar and more fearful each day. For him, this is catastrophic.

So today we're calling in some extra help to make us stronger.

We have tried on our own. We even had a woo-woo ceremony with some friends of ours who are...grounded, but a bit of the woo. Which was good. Chanting. Smudging. Stuff like that. It sounds...not like us. But it was sort-of what we needed. A ritual to stop all of the mental running around with our ghosts, extraneous drama, personal fears, etc. But it was just a focusing step to remind us that we can overcome feeling afraid. I think we need more concrete answers to help us actually get through.

So, I'm asking for some strength this week. Jamie's surgery is a week from tomorrow. And I just want to continue to achieve being an awesome, rock-like person, instead of the wreck-like person I feel.

I guess this isn't that random. But all strength, both suggested and...empathically sent out over the ether...welcome. Very.

pictures

2009-03-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

I've been sort-of out of the picture loop, but we've had christmas

birthdays new glasses

and general zaniness

Spin Cycle: Creative Writing Day!

2009-03-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've had a book/story/something sort-of percolating for a while. But I could never get it to gel. So, Internet, I'll at least try out the first bits and blops here. For Sprite's Keeper's creative spin.

________

Zorah lived in a small farmhouse surrounded by:

trees; wildflowers; a vegetable garden
a stream
a cow pasture (shed; cows)
a defunct outhouse
a tire swing
a water pump
a dirt road

If you went far enough down that road, you'd find another farmhouse with it's own verge, cows, outhouses, swings and so forth. And, further down, another, and another, spreading in a more-or-less uniform way from the foothills of Cedar Mountain down through the plains of Mahonri Valley. Each Saturday, Zorah and her sisters would climb into the back of the pickup to be driven 10 miles down the canyon road to Silette's Cash & Supplies. Their pace, as always, maddeningly decorous - with their mother ever watchful should their father unwittingly put any pressure on the gas pedal. Each Sunday, they'd make the same trip, driving with even greater funereal sobriety to keep the dust from their best dresses, to the next town over for church. This pattern, and the long days between, were the framework surrounding Zorah's life. At age three, labored over by both Jill and Pam, Zorah learned her alphabet. First using their small collection of battered Reader's Digests, Boy's Life magazines, and - of course - the scriptures, she strung together words and sentences, until she had pored through every scrap of paper in the house. By age four, she knew how to make Laughter her Best Medicine, tie on a hook and lure, and could describe Jaredite battles and the more recent trials at Adam-on-di-Amon. Eventually, with many admonitions and scrutiny, she was allowed access to the meager lending library kept on one shelf behind the cash-register at Brother Silette's Cash and Supplies. It was her father who delivered both the news of this gift, and the weight of it's limitations. "Zippy," he began solemnly (for when was he not solemn?) "There is a world..." he stopped, possibly searching for a way to talk about everything NOT part of his small Scandinavian-Mormon farming community. Or possibly to give his words extra weight. "There is a world beyond our life here. And books can tell you about it. But some books can be deceivers." He squinted at her. "Books can make sin seem like saintliness. "We rescued you from that outside world, to bring you into the safety of our home. Into the church and eternal glory. Remember - that is what counts to our heavenly father." And with one last, ever-sorrowful look, he left her there to wonder. Her mother's comment was sparser, and possibly even more of a mystery. "Boys," she sniffed, trying to smooth Zippy's frizzy hair flat as she spoke, "don't want to marry a girl who reads too much." So, what with one thing and another, that small trove of books was beginning to take on it's own, highly desirable, mythology.

________

Zipporah Lee Baker was not the name she was born to. She often imagined that her real name - the name given her by that unknown hippie girl whose trajectory through Utah left a baby in her wake - was something beautiful: Daisy, Moonlight, Raincloud, Dawn. But at age three months, she became Zipporah: a cumbersome, unlovable, bible name given her, in all likelihood, to counterweight the potentially flighty genetic tendencies of that same lost hippie parent. Her sisters, Pam - 12 years older - and Jill - 8 - completely unencumbered by the same sobriety in naming, attempted to turn her name into something light-hearted by dubbing her Zippy. She was Zipporah at church, and Zorah in her most private conversations with imagined heroes, orphans, wanderers, and magic doers.

________

Brother Silette was a fairly kindly man. Although his indoor job kept him from the leathered face of most other men in the valley, he had the lean build and way of squinting past women and children typical of most men in Mahonri. His wooden storefront looked possibly the same as it had 100 years ago, including hitching post and saddle guard. Only the the vending and ice machines on the narrow porch indicated it's presence in the modern world. Similarly, the short row of books behind the counter appeared to come from another era. After some muttered discussion between her father and Brother Silette, a thick book with a dark blue, water-damaged cover changed hands. Her mother glanced at the cover, pressed her lips together and nodded. "At least it sounds respectable," she said. Zorah knew better than to ask for it before they were ready to pass it to her, and it wasn't until they'd parked the truck back at their house, 10 long, slow miles later, that her father, with the mildest of twinkles in his eyes, handed her the book for her own inspection: Little Women, she read, by Louisa May Alcott.

Nails...

2009-03-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

I'm a nailbiter. From forever. My adoptive mother says I gummed my nails as a baby. So maybe it's intrinsic. My birth mother said she bit her nails until she was in her 30's. So maybe it's genetic. I've always hated my hands, but... But. I have never been able to control that impulse. Sitting still for any length of time almost inevitably leads to me gnawing on my nails. Gross? Hugh betcha. But...true. For my wedding to the Evil Mad Scientist, I got fake nails put on (yuck), which I then chewed off as we made our way through Pakistan. Other than that, I've tried toxic-tasting pastes, gels, polish, aversion, little post-its reminding me to not bite, even accupuncture. Nothing has worked. At all. Ever. If you look closely at this picture, you can see what my hands usually look like.

As of today, though, I'm a Month Gone not biting. At age 39. I'm not getting too excited yet. I usually have a late-winter lull where I notice the biting seems to slow down. Why? I have NO idea. And if there is EVER A TIME to be biting my nails, you'd think waiting for Jamie's open heart surgery would be the time.

What about you? Any habits or compulsions you've shed (or would like to)??

Ready? Steady? Spaghetti!!!

2009-03-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

Who's having a crazy party! Me!

Spin Cycle: Surviving

2009-03-13T10:25:00.001-07:00

This week's spin topic sort-of freaked me out: I had a LOT to say. But because of that, I had NOTHING to say. Because...where to start? I don't post about this often. Or maybe ever...but I spent a huge part of my pre-kids adult life as a volunteer peer-counselor for survivors of abuse. And by survivors, sometimes I mean people like the woman whose husband beat her in the head with a hammer, and sometimes I mean people who, through external circumstances or completely self-created drama or a combination of both, have gotten into Major Messes and need some extra support. Typically, two Fridays a month, I would be on a late-night, 6-hour phone shift for a crisis center. Occasionally this would entail forwarding the phones, then getting in my car and driving a caller from danger to safety with police backup. Then, every Saturday morning, I drove out to the minimum-security women's prison to co-facilitate a group-therapy session on anger management with inmates. One evening a week, I also co-facilitated group therapy for survivors of sexual assault. I'm not a therapist. Peer counseling is sort-of like volunteer friendism. No judgment. No prescriptions. Just listening. It's amazing work, and I miss it, although with the raw tenderness motherhood gives you, I'm just not sure I could put myself out there again. I was in therapy myself almost the entire time I was a volunteer, because otherwise, I don't know how I could have born all my bitterness and sadness. Generally speaking, I'd say that I've spent a lot of time talking to people whose experiences make my own personal dramas seem frail. Not unreal or invalid, just not particularly noteworthy. I know people all over the place who have experienced hell. Little hells. Major hells. And I have my own stories, but overall, they are so bourgeoisie...so toe-stubbish that they just don't bear telling.

Things immigrant parents do better than me...

2009-03-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wonder why you can't work out your relationships with certain people? Like...you want to, but...something is off?

I've got someone like that. The mom of Milo's friend Devious. She baffles me. In my world? She's rude. In her world? Maybe she's smart and witty. Or really passionate and thinks we are terrible parents. I don't know.

Here's our most recent exchange, about this certain school we'll call FAR AWAY MATHS ELEMENTARY (FAME) which she and I have discussed repeatedly. They are sending Devious there, but we aren't applying: (this makes more sense if you know Portland, but we live close to downtown)

Me: " You know, after looking at it, FAME is off our list. Because, really, it's not feasible. Jamie would have to always work in (remote area East of Portland vaguely near FAME) and never have personal plans or get sick. If Jamie couldn't come get Milo or drop him off every day for the next 6 years, I'd have to perform miraculous feats of time/space travel to drive 10 miles East to drop Milo at FAME, back downtown to Zel's preschool, and then another 15 miles to (suburb West of Portland where I work at the Swoosh) every day by 8 AM. And the same in reverse by 5:30 PM. We actually did a test run and decided we'd go insane by October of this year, let alone by October of 2015."

Her reply: "As for the totally inconvenient drive, I can't believe you. Immigrant parents sacrifice everything for their kids and you can’t drive across town for the right school?!"

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

I know it's not that dramatic. It's just immigrant icing on an already cold and bitter cake. Fueled by repeated weird judgmental comments over the past 2 years.

Sometimes I think people should come with their baggage all out there and ready to hand you. Like a name tag reading "Disapproving Parents Made Me Bitter and Quick to Judge You."

Mine would be "Secretly really lazy and sometimes snarky! - Should never be an Immigrant!"

What about you?

Did you ever wonder what your secret self image is...?

2009-03-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

I want to share something extra special with you. These: Do you recognize these? No? Is that because unless your sister for her Home Economics class made you a pair of Simplicity Pattern 7715 Zipper Jumpsuit Coulottes in BRIGHT ORANGE POLYESTER, and which were your only new school clothes in 1977, you were unaware of this fashion experience? Probably. Lest you forget, I was frizzy haired. With very thick glasses. And a cello. And before I had braces, I had very large, buck teeth a mile apart from each other. And also? A zipper coulotte polyester jumpsuit - in orange! Not to belabor this moment or anything...

drama

2009-03-06T09:13:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, Jamie & I got peripherally involved in a family custody case. And by "peripherally", I mean that we helped a father track down the whereabouts of his 3-year-old son, and deposed against the mom in the custody hearing. Here's what we hoped would happen: more people with rights to help the son would be there to do so, thus improving his overall support network and quality of life. Here's what we also hoped would happen: the mom would get help for her obviously serious drinking problem and related anger-management. Here's what we didn't hope would happen: half of Jamie's family would, well, ~~hate us~~ be very angry. 1 out of 3 ain't bad. Especially because we DID get the first one, and it seems clear the boy's life has stabilized. There is a bajillion-word-long backstory to this. I typed it out, and realized it's a novel and probably too violating-of-other-people's-privacy to put on the interwebs. We didn't take custody away from the mom - in fact, nobody hoped or expected she'd lose custody completely. She did it to herself by violating court orders and repeat, escalated run-ins with the law for alcohol-related violence while the case was pending. I'm not sure why precisely some of Jamie's family sees that differently, because all we've heard is, well, angry. I think they believe that the mom is a terrific mother when sober - which is possibly true, if anyone could guarantee she would stay that way. They don't like the dad, but they also don't try to know him. He's done a lot and jumped through many hoops to become a devoted, single dad, and it's difficult to argue with that. I wish we could repair the rift with Jamie's family, but don't have much humility about how to approach it. I believe we did the right thing, and that the court did the right thing with the information and parental response they had. What do you think? Have you ever made a decision you felt strongly about, but which you knew would help some people and hurt others? Have you ever second-guessed every minutae of your decision for the next kerjillion years, knowing that the biggest losers in custody battles are often the children? Have you ever done something which led to an unbroachable rift between some people you care about?

Spin Cycle: "Adventures" in Technical Writing

2009-03-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

For this week's spin, I thought I'd try to liven up the world with an adventure-filled account of what it is I do. Because? Technical Writing is like...whatever Chandler's job was. Technical Writing, What is it? 101: If you ever bought, say, one of these:

Chances are you received one of these: Which looked something like this:

Written somewhere, like say, here:

(gauzy finish courtesy of scratched camera phone lens)

By someone like THIS:

Who tried to make it interesting, accurate, grammatically correct, and laid out beautifully.

What this means is that I know a little bit about how to do a lot of one-time, ultimately obscure things. Like setting up your yacht navigation software. Or how to flash printer firmware. Or how to use your home gym equipment. Or set up retail software to track sales of athletic gear.

Naturally. I know all that. It's a GREAT hit at parties...

Maybe. I also have selective-job-amnesia, so I forget what I've written pretty much as soon as it goes to press.

I sound more and more like Indiana Jones/Tarzan all the time. Right?

Here's a question: How often do you use Owner's Manuals? Every day? Seriously. Have you ever read one? Ever?

That's what I thought...

Grr...attitude

2009-03-02T08:58:00.000-08:00

Generally, I think I'm sort-of half-and-half on the half-full/half-empty thing. Like half "things are so great", and half "but why did THIS PART go wrong??" I feel lucky and grateful a lot, which I think I express. Sincerely. But when facing mixed blessings, maybe I've been a bit...cranky and cynical. Not my most endearing qualities. For example, when someone offered to give up their own time and personal life to help me cope with what is most likely going to be a pretty rough week, and did so in the most AMAZINGLY KIND WAY...I'm afraid I wasted a little time thinking it might be motivated solely by the proselytizing opportunities. Possibly that is because the BIG thing to worry about, like WHY ANYONE NEEDS TO MAKE THAT OFFER AT ALL, is so monumental that being cynical was easier. Time to say, "Duh, self! Get over your, er, self." So, in the spirit of opening myself up to the kindness that has been thrown so ENORMOUSLY in front of us all, I want to open my arms wide and say THANK YOU: To my Internet friends: Thanks. Even though we've never met, your supportive words provide a touching little bubble of good feeling that buoys me up daily. Thank you to my family, who has been IMMENSELY supportive to Jamie, even though they don't know him very well. The phone calls, advice, offers of help and yes, the prayers, are tremendously important to us. Thank you to Jamie's family, who have been very kind to me, and, some of them, SO VERY STUPENDOUSLY nice to Jamie since his diagnosis. Jamie doesn't see or speak to most of his family all that much. There's a lot of complicated history there. But they mean so much to him, and when his family does something nice like come visit and make a fuss over him, it is a HUGE, MOVING, VERY BIG DEAL. (You know who you are!) Thank you to my group of amazing friends. So many of you have made some great offers and just been generally supportive and kind and solicitous. And a few of you have listened to me go berserk over this latest development. Which I wish were anomalous to this one thing, but you know me well enough to know that my head spins around and I yak endlessly over trivialities too. Ahem. I hope to never need to repay in kind some day - but if the need arises, I'm 1000% there. Because I owe you all. A lot.

Wizards vs. Lovers

2009-02-27T11:04:00.000-08:00

I had a good conversation last night with another mom at Milo's preschool. I regurgitated to her my fears that when my sister (not the one with cancer - the other one) comes to visit, she'll use her time alone with my kids to talk about God, golden plates, and "sister wives". (This isn't particularly paranoid of me - she ALWAYS finds time to corner me when I see her and ask about my current stance on religion. I have filed away an unsealed letter from her labeled "Open me when you are ready to talk to God". PLUS...Mormons=proselytizers. Those boys on bicycles aren't anomalies, you know, they're part of the general Mormon worldview on "getting the Jesus word out". Except they call it missionary work.) Anyway. Like me, this other mom is not very religious. She said when they talk about the word "God" to their kids, they tell them that it's how some people refer to "Love". Which made my cynical little heart feel kind-of small. Because "a wizard" isn't a very loving or respectful picture to have given Milo of religious beliefs. Cough. So...we're ramping up toward April. I'm anxious that the surgery be over. I'm thrilled that my sister can come help us. And this is as good a place as any to say that my sister is, by the way, totally dropping a crazy-busy life, including teaching elementary school, full-time parenting 4 of her 7 kids and foster-child, and a time-intensive church job. My gratitude is immense, which makes my fears feel even more petty. Which, really, I guess they are. I doubt Milo or Zel are suddenly going to start singing "I'm a Mormon, Yes I am!" (Real song. Seriously.) after a week with my sister. And...we're reminding the kids who my sister is, since we only see her 1-2/year, so that her transition into our lives is smooth. Annnd...we're helping Milo prepare for potential Wizard talk. Respectfully. Maybe not changing the terminology, but at least injecting the conversation with some politeness. We hope.

The Dreaming...

2009-02-26T11:17:00.000-08:00

The other day, I was at my friend Amy's house admiring her large brood of cats, including her "special" cat, who was legless, shaped like a furry amoeba, and moved through her house like a manta rey. Unfortunately, before I left, I accidentally caught her high-end espresso machine on fire and burnt her kitchen down. Last night, I was part of Jennifer Lopez' entourage for a while, and she was SUCH a diva! It's been a strange few weeks of dreaming. Seriously. Also: Apocalyptic illnesses. Earthquakes. I guess this is normal. Vivid dreams about cats and fire. But it's been a sort-of categorically frightening. Word: April 1. Surgery day. Maybe I'll dream easier after that.

_________________________

Here's a tough question. Suppose someone you really love made you a very VERY generous offer of something you need. BUT...every time you hang out with this person, they've tried to pass along part of their own personal agenda about...something that rhymes with "Squormonism". And, while overall you want to take them up on their offer, part of doing that involves letting your kids be alone with this person for long periods of time, possibly hearing all about, er, Squoseph Smith. I love this person, but am not sure if the added stress of having to prep for and deconstruct any possibly religious conversations is worth the goodness of this offer. What do you think? Suck it up? Hope for the best? Say something politely about how offensive and omifuckinggawd-don't-take-advantage-of-my-vulnerability-to-push-your-god-on-my-family that might be? Ahem. Do tell?

_________________________

Here's Kate. I love her. She's CRAZY! I can't think of another artist quite so amazing as a dancer AND creative-geniusy.

Spin Cycle: Loose change

2009-02-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

This week's Spin is about CHANGE. And since I think of myself as having had multiple incarnations, I decided to just pick one changed thing I miss.

This is Liz.

She's my BFF. From forever ago. We worked in the Lipstick Trenches together putting ourselves through college. Liz lives in Denver being a psych nurse at an outpatient mental health facility. Often she is the emergency-omg-I-forgot-to-take-my-meds-there-are-snakes-on-me nurse. Sitting here in my cozy faux-asian office with mood lighting and rice-paper/bamboo walls at The Swoosh, I think Liz's career=DIFFICULT. Now that I have kids, I don't see Lizzie very much. Only once in the past 3 years. Last night we had our annual 3+ hour phone marathon critiquing the Oscars. Our take: Perhaps Sophia Loren had the WORST Oscar Dress of 2009, but her body is amazing. And, to be perverse in our logic, botox needs to go, because all those immobile 20-year-old faces were creepy (cough cough...Alicia Keys). But the CHANGE that I'm writing about is that, before kids, before Jamie, the way I got to see Lizzie was ROAD TRIP!

Me alone in my car for a day each way, unless I took detours. I once stood on the Wyoming highway replacing all the belts in my 20-year-old Subaru because one broke and took all the others out with it. I had 50 cassettes (see 20-year-old-Subaru) I'd compiled of Road Trip Music.

Since Jamie/kids/etc. the number of times I've driven anywhere far alone=zero. I miss it. And my favorite bobo.

_____________________________________

¡op uɐɔ ı ʇɐɥʍ ʞool

_____________________________________

Because? My boyfriend Davey in his saxiest incarnation (sez me).

I would so totally hide a body for you!

2009-02-19T08:56:00.000-08:00

Guess what? I got a blog award!!! From Jason, my favorite neighbor-I've-never-(yet)-met! (be warned, J, my birth-dad lives in your hood. I might track you down in the OC someday!)

OK. Before anybody calls me on this, I will admit: I actually have received a couple of these in the past. And I never know what to do with them...because they embarrass me. I'm the person who would shove an Oscar in the back of a closet in case you thought I was being all braggy. And yes SO an Oscar=Blog Award. Shut up. THIS one, though. THIS one I HAD to post about. Because? Ex-goth. (Sigh...I know...but I so seriously loved my lacy black sack dresses, eggplant long hair, Victorian boots and Edward Gorey prints.) So accusing me of hiding bodies with you is like playing a load of Dead Can Dance while we stare into candle flames... Someday I will post about the Wrong Guy who wanted to have sex in the cemetery...sigh

The Rules:

Put the logo on your blog.
Add a link to the person who awarded you.
Award some other blogs.
Add links to those blogs on yours.
Let the other bloggers know they received your award

My practical side says I should probably award this to the 3 people most likely to hide a body with me. Otherwise? Offensive! :

J at The River Grey. Because? She would. Without questions. Also? She'd know the best way to create this need in the first place.
Sara at A Little Radish...she might ask about the ecological soundness of where we put the body, but otherwise? She's my corpse-buddy for sure.
Turkey Sandwich Guy at Irish Gumbo. He lives across the country, but I believe would thoughtfully advise me the best way to mail him corpse-parts...

And now, for a little melancholy with your dead body:

The new normal

2009-02-18T15:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Jamie & I met with his surgeon. Or, anyway, probably his surgeon unless the 2nd opinion guy is for some reason more compelling. Based on that meeting and a conversation with his cardiologist, we are going to wait the 6 weeks until his disability kicks in. Which is, well, ok. A little egshelly. A little full of Please Please Please Don't Die! And every day, I'm in what appears to be the old normal life. Jamie doesn't have obvious symptoms - he looks the same. He acts mostly the same. There's no heart-clutching drama, anyway. I think we're sort-of happy and, well, the same. Most of the time. Gah knows we are eating better. And if we hadn't seen the angiogram, we might still be living the fantasy that his chest pain is asthma. It's good. I get to focus on this whole kindergarten thing. And maybe it gives me time to put to bed all my crazy fears. Because every day I have a few minutes all to myself, usually in the car on the way to/from work, where I just freak out and do all the things I can't do the rest of the time: cry, yell...mainly cry. Someday this will be "last month"...and someday "that time, a few years back, before we became SUPER fit". Right?

Tuesday musical randomness...with feeling!

2009-02-17T12:09:00.000-08:00

Jamie & I both majored in music...sort-of. Which is to say, we each have a couple of years toward music degrees, but then veered off into slightly more lucrative (for us) fields. Jamie is by far the more accomplished and diversified musician, but I can carry a tune and play a few instruments and between us we've performed and fiddled and twiddled for most of our collective 70+ years (yikes!) Our house is pretty music-full and we assumed we'd have kids who inherited this tendency. Which we do...sort of. Here's a little snippet of how music is lately enriching our lives: Scene: Family car, Sunday drive in the Columbia Gorge Zel (in a sing-song-sotto-voce): There's a tree....out my window... Milo: WHEN are we going to get there? Zel: (more singing) wheeeennnn arre we going to geeettt theeeeere? See the birdie...on that treeeee... Milo: SERIOUSLY GUYS! We've been driving infinity long! Zel: (still singing) infinity guys...a long time...driving...cuz we are driving.... Mom: Milo. We'll be there soon. Can you please? Not? Whine? This entire trip??!? Zel: (still singing) Mama sez don't whine Milo, so we will siiiinnnnnngggggg! A soooonnnnng! Milo: GAH! I hate driving! I want to go HOME! Zel: (still singing) Can we? can we? can we go hommmmmmeee? To our houuuuusseee? Jamie: Can you sing with Zel or look out the window, Milo? We'll be there soon. Milo: NO NO NO NO NO! (immediately begins singing) Mummy in a coffin, coffin, coffin! Mummy in a coffin. Look he pooped. (both kids start raucously giggling) M & Z: (giggling) Mummy poop poop poop poooop poop poop Mummy poop! Poopy doopy poopy doop coffin coffin poop! ... (a whole hour later)...poopy doopy doopy mummy coffin poop poop. I poop. you poop. poop poopy doopy poop!... Thank you very much. We'll be here for infinity...

Who is this man...and WHY is he carrying that stick?

2009-02-13T16:41:00.001-08:00

So...here's a romantic, valentine's day, heart-filled conundrum: Suppose the person you love needs heart surgery ASAP, but his disability insurance doesn't kick in for 80% of his salary until April 1st? Do you wait on the surgery, hoping he doesn't die in the intervening 6 weeks, or do you get him to the hospital and live without the mortgage-paying income his job provides? Of course. OF COURSE we choose that he lives, income or no. And hope that we can figure out how to fill in that many-thousand-dollar gap. But...holy crap, world. ENOUGH! Portland Trailblazer's basketball tickets are NOT a good exchange for all the rest of this zaniness.

Plain old regular insanity

2009-02-12T08:40:00.000-08:00

So...I may have mentioned before that I tend to have this vivid idiot morbid imagination. My tendency is to imagine things that never happen...except in horror novels, television shows narrated by Jon Walsh, COPS, Unsolved Mysteries, or Will Smith movies. More on this in a second... Here in Portland, it's Kindergarten Roundup time. For us, this entails numerous trips to all the schools we'd LIKE Milo to get into. Portland Public Schools work this way:

You can go to the public school to which you are assigned by district boundaries.
You can go to private school.
You can home school.

You can put your kid's name in a lottery for up to 3 public schools of your choice, including any public school not in your neighborhood, and something called "public charters", which function like private schools and focus on art, math, environmental living, or some other specialty.

You can sign up for demi-public school lotteries for some slightly MORE specialized charter schools. Their lotteries are held separately from the public school lottery.

Confused yet? Our local school is ok. But not all that great. Their test scores are low. Their primary focus is on ESL (English as a 2nd language). We'll register there, but we're hoping to get into one of our lottery schools. So, every couple of evenings, Jamie & I find someone to watch the kids while we go to these mandatory roundup and miscellaneous get-to-know-you meetings at the lottery schools. Our kids go to an amazing preschool with a zillion teachers per classroom, fenced property with secure entrances, organic food, lots of staff vetting and reporting. Here's what I've learned: Kindergarten is not like preschool. Kindergarten is all...just like it was when I went. Big open spaces; no locks or keycards or gatekeepers; big playgrounds, big kids, big expectations; one teacher per 20+ students. It's just overwhelming and my imagination goes into crazy-lady overdrive. On each of these tours, all I can think is: "This is where someone could just stand and shoot at the kids" "This is where the kidnapper would hide and nobody would notice him" "That teacher looks SO depressed. What if she shoots herself in front of the kids?" "WHAT? They grow their own vegetables HERE in this garden where anybody could come along and inject POISON into the EGGPLANT???" Milo is ready for kindergarten. He's nervous, but looking forward to it. Me? I'm going to sit on the street outside the building all day looking for poisoning suicidal alien vegetable nappers.

Hey, Universe, you're a funny...um, entity

2009-02-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

You know what the Universe threw at me yesterday? Free winnings! I donated to our local Public Radio station like I do...most every year. Usually. And THIS YEAR, I WON A GIVEAWAY!!! Prizes included: NEW BIKES! FLAT PANEL TV's! IPOD! TRIP TO EUROPE! MAC AIR!!! TRIP TO EUROPE!!!! (I know - twice, but it's what I so wanted) We won...free basketball tickets in a suite. You know what we don't really get into? Basketball. Like...never in the 7+ years of our relationship and never in the almost-39-years-of-my-life. HOWEVER...this year, Jamie is slated to have his surgery sometime soon (dates still unknown) after this game. So he's going to have himself a PARTAY with his Dude friends! Catered suite! VIP parking! BASKETBALL! It's funny. There are a lot of things I'd like to do for Jamie, and this isn't what would have EVER occurred to me, but...it's sort-of a cool thing I never would have imagined. So, thanks, Universe, for being WAY smarter than me I Rebekah.

The list of...is this the right list?

2009-02-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

So...people, including you, blog people, are amazing. AMAZING. Since we first got a whiff of bad news, we've been INUNDATED with kindness of all kinds. Offers to give us food. Care for the kids. Drive us places. Pray for us. NOT pray for us. Do the woo-woo dance for us. Vet our MD choices. Tell us your stories. Tell us you are thinking of us. It's a big load of awesome, and you, blog people, are really, really deserving of all the good, best things. We'll be repaying everyone for the rest of our lives. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So now, I'm trying to figure out how to harness the kindness without knowing, at this point, what we might need. Here's the general lay of the land:

We need babysitters for a couple of appointments we had anyway. This has nothing to do with the surgery, so don't be duped into thinking it's helping us in a way we wouldn't normally have asked. So...that, but we've probably got it covered. (thanks MNMs)
We then also need babysitters for a couple of MD appts. This could include picking up the kids from their so-awesome preschool. At this point, we're a bit in the dark about how long it takes to talk to surgeons and jump through their hoops.

Once the surgery is scheduled, we'll need a couple of specific things:

The day of surgery, we might need someone to take the kids to preschool. Or pick them up. Or both. And to hang with them until I come back from the hospital.
The week after the surgery, if the kids can't visit Jamie, we might need people to help me take care of them while ~I~ go visit him in the hospital every day. I'll be working FT, but after work would like to be able to see J for a while before I go make things as normal as possible for the kids. Again, whether they can visit, visiting rules and hours, all unknown.
The month after Jamie comes home, he'll be not doing much. And possibly bored. He might want a visit, but since he's vaguely surly at the best of times, he might want no visits. He might appreciate funny e-mail. Facebook jokes. DVDs or music. His mom will be staying with us that first week after he comes home, and she's amazing. But after that, I don't know what J will do with his time or how he will get his needs met.
He also can't drive for the next 6-8 weeks after surgery. Since I'm concerned about the impact to our $$ if I take time off work, I might ask someone else to help drive him to a few of his follow-up appts. Which might be numerous or not. So many unknowns.

Food.

We would love a few meals, and would be a huge relief to not have to think about every one of them during the time right around the surgery. BUT... hum. But we ALL are going on a cholesterol-conscious diet. Forever. Jamie's problems are hereditary, which means the kids have to eat the same healthy things he does. This means our foods need to be super low fat, low-processed, low...whatever it is I like in food, I think I can't enjoy it again. Jamie is living vaguely vegan right now (he eats fish and fish oils, but no other meat, dairy or eggs). I hate having to follow other people's food restrictions, but as with many things, the thing I most don't want to do is the thing I'm doing. So...vegan. PITA, but there it is. So, while we would worship you, it might just be more than most people could do.

I don't even know what to say. It feels all grabby to put this out there, but...I am. And I hope it's clear: I love everyone who has offered. We are grateful and humbled. Thanks...

Down the rabbit hole...

2009-02-07T10:20:00.000-08:00

Here's the word on Jamie's heart, actually two: Quadruple bypass Here's another one: ASAP (maybe technically that's four) So...here we go. I'm already overwhelmed by lists. What do do next. Who to call. How to cope with the 4000 things that have to be done: phone calls. A zillion of those. Scheduling everything. The budget. OMG. We don't have awesome insurance. In fact, we took a gamble and LOWERED our insurance a couple of years ago. So now...our out of pocket for this is going to be pretty high. Today's is Zel's 2nd birthday. Next week we start kindergarten round-up at the FIVE schools we're trying to get into. That's five times 2-3 meetings with each. So...that. Jamie will be out of work for 6-10 weeks. I can't take time off. Because? Money. So we're figuring out who can come help out with his needs. Hopefully his mom. And we're getting 2 opinions next week on surgery options, but it's pretty clear: there are five blockages in his coronary arteries. Waiting, as the cardiologist put it, is like adding a lot of "the unknown" to our choices. Frankly, I liked it when THIS was "the unknown".

A little more cheez, please

2009-02-04T09:10:00.000-08:00

I may or may not have heard this song before this morning. It hasn't registered with me. But it was playing on the radio during my drive in, and I should have pulled over, the way it made me...oh, sap out. I love this guy's voice and the passion just resonated so deeply with me today.

A month of heart...

2009-02-02T09:30:00.000-08:00

Did you hear this one?

Man says to doctor I eat spamburgers daily: angioplasty!

Ahhh...haiku. So wise.

Jamie doesn't eat spamburgers. Not even once. But apparently his heart hasn't heard the news. This Friday he's scheduled for an angiogram to see why his heart's not doing the things it orta.

Jamie is 36. He's my younger man! But he's inherited the cholesterol problem of someone much older.

After a routine physical last week, it seems like we've gotten daily doses of bad news about the state of his health. Words like coronary blockage, out-of-control triglycerides, stent, bypass. Immediate action. Words like heart attack.

Ironically, it's almost St. Valentine's day. February. The month of love. And hearts. There are effing hearts everywhere I look right now. But the one I'm looking at with real emotion is scaring me.

I don't want to overreact. Or overdramatize. We have options, doctors, insurance. I don't want to be so wet, but this is my partner - my kid's dad. It's been a strangely tremulous year, this 2009.

Thus far, I'm all for burning off the things which slow me down, make me less of the person I want to be. But a trial by fire from fear-of-loss, fear-of-death, just fear, I'm not sure I'm ready for all that.

We'll make it, but I'm afraid of being afraid.

And now for something passionate...

2009-01-30T09:46:00.001-08:00

There are a few artists I really love. And sometimes I may like one song by an artist I'm otherwise indifferent to.

THIS guy, though, I think everything he recorded is sort-of gold.

Chris Whitley, who died 2 years ago now, gave me a lot of happy moments. I was fortunate enough to see him live, and he put on one of the most dynamic, beautiful shows I've ever sat through.

The news in my world isn't good. This is my current band-aid.

Poison Girl by Chris Whitley

More Chris Whitley music on iLike

The Wrong Guy, #2

2009-01-27T16:19:00.000-08:00

I have loved a few people in my life.

I've been IN love for at least 5 minutes with more than a few people. But this guy, this very wrong guy, is definitely one of my high-points-of-screw-up.

I met John during my HS Senior year when I was 16. Big guy - 6'8". Big personality. Smart. Funny. Beautiful...SO beautiful. I've never laughed so hard or talked so easily with anyone. And, for me, that. Was that.

Except it wasn't.

I was raised middle American. I expected us to follow some familiar dating/mating trajectory. But for the next 3 years, we mostly didn't. We were immediately fast friends. We would sneak out in the middle of the night and go drive too fast listening to cheesy music. Sometimes we'd lie in my backyard and stare at the stars. We confided a lot in each other. Long phone calls. Lots of angst. Lots of philosophizing. Lots of intensity. We were different. We felt our pain. And we were going to make a difference.

Sigh...I was so sure this - THIS - was my soul mate, even though I was often confused. A lot confused.

Underneath all the Hegel and Kant and bad music and fairly chaste necking, I just kept thinking "Where was this GOING? Did he REALLY LIKE me?" Sigh...

Let me say again: three. years.

I dated some other people, but not all that much. Nobody else was John.

And then one day, without warning, he took off for California. For a year.

He tracked me down when he came back. Told me he loved me. That he came back for me. Which seemed straightforward. He loves me. Let's go with that. And we did. Fairly passionately. For about a month.

And then he left for Texas. For another year.

We exchanged some letters. Some Christmas reconnection. And then he left for...I can't remember... somewhere else. For a year.

Then back into my arms.

Rinse. Repeat. Redux.

He went to: California. Texas. Hawaii. Europe.

I went to: College.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't ever particularly passive, dewy-eyed, compassionate or forgiving, and I think my response to any impending absence was some form of "don't expect me to wait around for you, maybe you'll die, asshole". And I didn't wait. But...I didn't exactly want to be with anybody else either. Or maybe one person, but that's another story...

Finally, when we were both 23, and had been doing this on/off dance for, well, let's say four of the seven years we'd known each other, we got married. Not quite that stupidly, but...yeah, pretty much.

We were both paying for college and on our own didn't qualify for grants, each scrapping around doing our thing, and we LOVED each other, we'd been doing this form of dating for SEVEN YEARS...so maybe we could make it work in ~~his~~ our cock-eyed way.

By then, too, I felt like my heart had been broken by him so much that I didn't know how to HAVE a relationship with someone I trusted to stick around and love me all the time. So why not?

We got married.

And he immediately and predictably freaked out and took off somewhere else. Another year passed.

We stayed in touch, but...I was sort-of done. I moved in with that one other person and gave up on John. Time passed and we never reconnected in the same way. I was in love with that other person and John first got one woman pregnant, and then got engaged to a different woman.

And while I moved on, I couldn't help but hash it over and over and over again...why? Why? WHYY?

His reasons for this dance of love and freaking out over the years were myriad, having some to do with figuring out his religious beliefs, and some to do with wanting to travel the world unfettered by a relationship. And I bought it. I really did. I thought coming to terms with Mormonism and the desire to be free were really his deal.

FOUR years ago (making it...11 years or so since we got married), I finally heard through some indescribably complex grapevine that John was gay.

GAY.

Well...duh.

The entire brick house fell on my head. I just didn't see it. I mean, I know! SO STUPID. How could I miss that? My best friend from HS was gay. I'd dated other sexually-flexible people, and had ample reasons to really, truly GET what might have been going on. But despite all of that...he never told me and I never, ever guessed that his so-reasony reasons were a smoke screen for something so simple.

We've lost touch, of course. Which I regret, although I have so much anger at those wasted years of loving him and looking inside myself over and over again to wonder why he didn't want to STAY with me, that I might not be able to be friendly to him precisely.

SEVEN.

EFFING.

YEARS.

Lots of other stuff happened to me during that time, including many other relationships during all my free time, but holy...doodle. Cow. Herd.

What about you? Did you guess "GAY" the minute you read this?

Sigh...

Countdown to 40...

2009-01-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

Mr. Jason Show & I are close in age. OK. 13 months. But...that's close. He posted a countdown of accomplishments you are supposed to have done by 40...I dunno if this is universal...but if so, clearly I need to maximize the next year + 6 weeks... However...since I'm lazy, I think I might spin this one a bit sideways... If I have done this, it's in red. Not=black.

Slept under the stars
Played in a band
Visited Hawaii
Watched a meteor shower
Bathed in a river
Been to the Taj Mahal
~~Walked on a glacier in Alaska~~ Been glacially cold
Caught and held a snake
Spoken in front of a big crowd
~~Bungee jumped~~ Hell. No.
Had a whirlwind love affair that broke your heart
~~Taught yourself an art from scratch~~ Learned how to glue googly eyes on lanyard critters
Rescued an animal
~~Seen Mount Rushmore in person~~ Seen North by Northwest
Grown your own vegetables
~~Seen the Mona Lisa in France~~ Read the Da Vinci Code
~~Slept on an overnight train~~ Sat near someone on the subway who probably had slept in the subway station
~~Hiked to base camp on Mt. Everest~~ Thinks hard-core mountain climbers should find a safer hobby...like auto-erotic asphyxiation
Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
Built a snow fort
Gone skinny dipping
Learned a foreign language
~~Ridden in a gondola in Venice~~ (This is so Eurocentric) Ridden a canoe in the Rockies
Seen a total eclipse
Stayed up for more than 24 hours
~~Been on a cruise~~ Been on a ferry
Seen Niagara Falls in person
Visited the birthplace of your ancestors (Yes. If that means the hospital where my parents were born)
~~Seen an Amish community~~ Dressed like an Amish person
Can drive a stick shift car
~~Won over $1000 in a raffle or lottery~~ Won over $1 dollars guessing jelly beans in a jar
~~Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person~~ Leaned over
Gone rock climbing I might stop here...because 35 on is basically STUFF I NEVER HAVE DONE... Check out Jason's list for the real "40 ADVENTURERS CHECKLIST" Here's some stuff I HAVE done...
Gained weight
Had a talent I don't use anymore
Traveled a little
Wished I'd traveled some more
Fantasized about traveling more
Changed a diaper
Changed 1,000,000,900 diapers
Fallen in love
Fallen in love
Fallen in LUVE
Hated lists...
Hate Dirty Dancing (the movie)
Loved dancing zanily
Known crazy people
Been crazy people
Been involved with crazy people
Been DONE with being involved with crazy people
Done it again
Lost friends
Found friends
Had curly hair
Had frizzy hair
Had 80's hair
Cut off all my hair
Spent too much
Felt worldly
Felt provincial
Felt foolish
Drank too much
Had children
Loved my children
Wished gypsies would take my children
Regretted that thought (not really)

That's it. Anything on your Accomplishment To Do list? Anything so not?

Spin cycle: the hokey-pokey!

2009-01-23T09:48:00.000-08:00

My first attempt at Spin Cycling! Jamie & I aren't necessarily the most overtly romantic couple you'll meet. Like, uh, at all. But we are closet cheeseballs. And this? Is our song. All passioned, bad hair, big plaid shirted 80's angsty rip-your-heart-outyness.

Because of COURSE we need more dancing...

2009-01-22T08:35:00.000-08:00

Kyfed from Cappie Dumbass, who kyfed from Meg Fowler. I know. Not a real post. I've got bloggers block.

Interview, Part II

2009-01-14T14:21:00.000-08:00

Remember this post? From 2 days ago? Babawawa time! A few people agreed to be my interviewee-guinea-pig types - Hooray...suckahs!

Arwen, of The Difference Between Shooting Stars & Satellites, All Your Yarn Are Belong to Us, and Basically, we effing Rock! (because she's prolific like that). Arwen is hilarious, and touching and spunky and all of her blogs are delicious. Check her out!
Captain Dumbass. Does anybody not read his blog? He's like...the blogger demigah. Half the blogs I read are part dumbass. In the good way...
The River Grey. I'm too close to this knitter/chef/snarkass to quantify her. She's the snide in the snide patch who would give you her last...barbaloot. Cooler than crafty-punk, sweeter than mojitos. Smarter than most.
Mamazen. Another blog lovah. Plus back-cracker, fighter, artist mama and source of cheer.
Jenn at Wordy Mama. Boy, so I just started reading this blog, and it's SMART. And funny in a stealthy, ear-worm, creep-up-on-you-and-then-stay-with-you-way. Woof!

So I think the deal was that I would send each of you guys 5 unique questions, but instead I'm just going to put a bunch of questions here, from which you can choose 5. Or 15. Or 2. Please answer on your blog, link back, and comment on this post when you've done so? And please join in if you want. Because? Why not! Questions

Are you now or have you ever been psychic? How do you know?
Would you rather die heroically or cowardly?
How hard would it be for you to live somewhere without fresh indoor water? Electricity? Plumbing?
What is your primary cellphone ringtone?
Are you more witty or snarky?
Most extreme personal change or changes you've ever made?
Favorite city you've lived in or want to live in?
Has your life up til now been more blameless or messy? Moving forward from here, which one would you choose?
Worst kiss (or kiss-like experience)?
You HAVE to pick a religion to practice. Evangelical Christian, Zoroastrian, Jainist or Scientologist? (and why?)
The person you are romantically involved with announces they are getting a sex change. Would it change your feelings for them?
Meat helmet or thigh-high golden boots with large wings attached to them?
How many times have you been what you consider REALLY in love? Do you still love those people/that person?
When you die, what do you think happens? Do you hope to be disappointed or somehow wrong about that?
Do you know your ethnic ancestry? Is that interesting or otherwise important to you?

Gently reconnecting my head to my body

2009-01-13T16:30:00.000-08:00

So I recently returned from a trip home to see the familial bosom and hang out with my sister and the rest of my family. My mind is still racing. Here's what I like about Utah: Here's what I don't like about Utah: I have a lot to say about the state of cancer, the state of my family and the state of Utah. But I think I'll sit back until I'm less frustrated and overwhelmed. Glad to be home, though. Yes indeedy.

Interview Pass it On by The Jason Show!

2009-01-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

(like a me-me, but different!)

Have I mentioned The Jason Show before?

I should have. I found his blog via Bossy a few months ago, right around the whole Prop 8 debacle and very soon after I found my friend Chris' Gay Mormon Teen Torment letters in my garage.

Jason is an easy-to-lurv ex-Mormon with a touching personal story that has always particularly spoken to me given our matchy-matchy upbringings in the bosom of Vatican City, Mormonville, USA. As far as I know, we never met, but we COULD have...

Today I'm participating in Mr. Show's Interview Pass Along...skip to the end if you don't want to hear about me, but DO want to be interviewed your own sassy self!

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you ask them five (different) questions.

1. How old do you wish you were and why?

Huh. Sometimes I think I'd like to be 25 again and go whisper some truths into my own ear. But I think I'm talking about time travel... What was the question? Anyway, if I WERE 25 again, I'm sure Mistakes Made would be Mistakes Remade. I'm pretty happy being 38 as is, because the sweet things in my life far outweigh the problems I could have corrected with my fabulous hindsight.

2. If you found yourself, entirely by accident, on a nudist beach, would you go native?

Sure. I would and I have, but maybe not if all the other nudists were my co-workers or my parents.

3. You're 15 (or whatever) and the world's about to end. Is dying a virgin really the thing that concerns you most?

Whaa-aaaa-at? I'm so confused. WHEN I was 15, my preoccupation with virginity wasn't all that powerful (17, yes, maybe...probably). If I was a virgin and my own 38-year-old-self simultaneously, I might wish I'd made a few more lascivious choices. But wait...the world is about to end? I'd want to hold on tightly to the people I love and comfort them. I think at any age that would have outweighed getting it on.

4. Why do you find yourself coming back for more and more of The Jason Show?

Because Jason is so endearing, of course.

5. Why did you leave Mormonism?

Because...oh, 5000 things. Because Mormons kept telling me things that didn't jive with my own experiences and observations. Because I never REALLY felt any burning bosom or still small voice, just my own brain sometimes appreciating their small truths, and more often not. Brown skin is a curse from God? Men get Priesthood, Women get Motherhood? Casseroles and jell-o taste good? Celestial Marriage? Relief Society? Popcorn popping on the Apricot Tree? The planet Kolob??!? But mainly, I probably left when and how I did because I was supposed to BELIEVE, not just coast along pretending. My father was a Bishop and my entire family was UBER Mormon. Up at 5 AM reading the D&C before breakfast every day, my whole life. Scripture games at the dinner table. Kneeling-down family prayers at least twice daily. We were supposed to REALLY FEEL it. Tesimony x 1000. So when I wasn't feeling it, I couldn't just let that be my answer. I tried. But it felt less and less true. The more I dug, the more it stank. A lot contributed to my realization that I didn't believe in Mormonism or (eventually) religion in general, but once my blinders came off, Mormonism in particular seemed like a farce. Ahem.

So...wanna be interviewed? Wanna submit interview questions for others? Comment me!

migraine

2009-01-07T15:01:00.000-08:00

This is sort-of an unedited stream-of-consciousness post. I'm at work, but unable to do anything because I can't see.

I get periodic cluster migraines which center around my vision. I got my first one when I was about 6 years old, which means I have had them, on and off, for almost 33 years. Right now, I see shimmering flickers in the same pattern I always do (sort-of geometric and a bit like islamic decoration in that it's squares and triangles which also curve and arabesque in a very regular way) all around my field of vision, with a sort-of jagged shimmering hairline fracture cutting horizontally across my entire primary focus point.

In a migraine, I'm not in a lot of pain. Some. My neck always hurts at the base of my skull. I feel a little floaty and mentally unfocused. Years ago, the pain was so bad I'd just lie in bed, but for the past 10+ years, it's not the pain as much as the confusion and inability to see.

I've driven, parented, worked, and functioned generally normally in a migraine, but with tremendous mental effort. It's exhausting. I don't take drugs for them, since I'm still breastfeeding Zel. Maybe a couple of Advil sometimes.

Often, migraines are triggered by stress or my monthly cycle, and occasionally by sudden changes in lighting, but only if that's in combination with one of the other two factors. Today I had an eye exam, and tomorrow I'm flying to Utah without my buffer husband to keep me sane. AND I'm bleeding. Triple whammy.

Usually I try to drink a lot of water. I just drank a liter. Help.

Welcome to your post-apocalypse

2009-01-06T14:53:00.000-08:00

So I finally saw the movie wall-E. And I've been thinking about how it fits in the lexicon of children's film and fiction. Which it so doesn't. I mean...stripped down, this is a movie about garbage, dystopia and solitude. Everything potentially familiar to children like cities, roads, houses, humans, and toys have disappeared, been covered with waste, or converted into square garbage-based-building-blocks. There is no greenery anywhere and it's pretty heavy-handedly explained that the familiar world has been destroyed by short-sighted human consumption. Human beings, meanwhile, have turned into amorphous, futuristic-wheelless-chair-bound, disconnected blobs living on a space outpost. They perpetually use Facebook and shop using the digital screens attached to their wheelfree-chairs. And drink Big Gulps. Human babies live in incubators tended to by robots. Only wall-E displays anything like a familiar "humanity" or a childlike interest in the world around him. If this were not animated, it would be the bleakest, grossest, saddest movie of the year. wall-E lives in a battered bunker, his playthings are beloved, muck-covered cast-offs, and he comforts himself by singing along to grainy videos of Hello Dolly and cuddling his pet cockroach. Then he goes to space and uncovers a plot to keep the blobs away from earth forever because the garbage problem is unsolvable. And he finds love. With another robot. Who is 800 years younger than him. So, as plots go, you know, GLARGH! When I was growing up, I remember my first glimpses of dystopian society: Logan's Run. Planet of the Apes. Westworld. What strikes me is that I was frequently drawn to dystopian film and literature because it was so completely opposite from my own childhood. The order and straightforwardness of my world made these films ludicrous and therefore enjoyable. Although my family believed in a pending religious apocalypse, it was clear there wasn't much concrete about that. Jesus rising in the East like the sun? 1000 years of war? 2 years of food will keep us safe? Oh...kay. I wonder what my kids think about this movie. It's almost impossible to chat with them about the grimmer aspects, and they both think wall-E is cute. Which he is. Scarred little freak. What do you think? Is wall-E part of the Soilent Green lexicon, or more Bugs Life? Did you see it? Did you like it?

"Help"

2009-01-05T14:22:00.000-08:00

As I type this, I'm on hour 2 of daytime television, eating a slice of ham and my 2nd can of rootbeer. Did you know that Tyra Banks and Bonnie Hunt have their own talk shows? (Clearly, Waffle House does not come with cable TV). Why? Why am I not diligently working at the Swoosh in my bamboo cubicle pretending to be AWESOME again? Because...here's why: Me (slightly hungover, slightly late, totally ready to Buckle Down): (type type type) Laptop: Your account has been closed. Contact System Administration. Me: ???? Nuh-uh (type type type) Laptop: Your account has been closed. Contact System Administration. Me: (on telephone with my ears spontaneously bleeding as I listen to musak versions of the Ramones!) Voice on phone: "Help" Desk. Me: Um...yeah, so I'm trying to login, but... VoP: Closed! Me: No. My contract ends 12/31/200NINE! VoP: Closed! Me: Nuh uh. Blah blah blah ticket reference number, blah blah blah bosses signature blah blah. VoP: Uh. We'll call you back. They don't. Me: (ears again bleeding - musak REPLACEMENTS!) VoP: Hello? Me: blah blah 2nd ticket number, login not working - VoP: Closed! Wait! We'll call you back. They don't. Rinse, repeat. Musak Skinny Puppy. Me: Blah blah blah! VoP: I see. This will be resolved in 24-72 hours. Except that it took 3 hours of waiting, 75 minutes of being on hold to get to that last statement. So. For now. I'm working on stuff on my home machine instead of on the network. Er, if "working from home" can also involve watching something called Celebrity Trivial Pursuit (you know who isn't very good at that game? Kathy Griffin). Also, laundry. Also? It's one of the first times I've been alone in my house, without being really ill, for...forever. Also? I don't think working from home is all that suited to me. Or do I mean vice-versa?

Happy Waffle Day!

2008-12-31T09:57:00.001-08:00

Today is a magical day.

Four years ago today, someone named Folsom and someone named Walsh, inspired by the sweet news that GW Bush had changed domestic partnership taxation on public employees, hastily joined themselves together in sweet monkey matrimony to become the WaFols tribe forever more. (Wafols. Geddit?)

Here is a recreation of the beautiful moment when we decided to entwine our lives and taxable incomes together forever more:

Him: CRAP!

Me: What?

Him: I just got this notice that I have to pay taxes on all the domestic partnership benefits my work gave you that were untaxed all year! CRAP!

Me: Suck!

Him: OR...we could get married and the benefits would become nontaxable spousal benefits.

Me: So it's December. Couldn't they have told you earlier in the tax year? Effers. Whatever. I guess let's do it. (to Milo) Sorry little buddy. I guess we can't legitimately call you our little bastard any more...

See? We've always had that secret, romantic je ne sais quoi.

Last night, Jamie and I went out a day early (because when you get married on New Years Eve, every day is a holiday. Also, babysitters on NYE? Ha!) and celebrated with the alcohol and the raw fish and the reminiscence, reflecting upon all the words we now use only ironically. Like "romantic" and "privacy".

And we also did some good couple bonding and threatening.

Like...you can never die/divorce me/something-else-unforeseeable because we are In. This. Together. Like it or not, damnit, baby!

Because that? Is hot sweet magical monkey love. Baby.

Happy New Year/Waffle Monkey Love Day to you all!

DISLCAIMER: Our sitters are awesome and would probably totally have sat for us tonight. Just so's you knows.

PS: Thank you tremendously for all the love about my sister. Here's hoping for a healing 2009!

PPS: So....sometimes I'm a bit harsher than is strictly necessary. And even though the above is all more-or-less true, it doesn't capture the fact that we are a pretty nauseatingly happy-together couple who are delighted to find ourselves where we are. And even if GW hadn't been evil, babies not in our picture, and privacy something we could say without snorting, we might be in precisely exactly the same place. There, Jamie. I lub you and I may not be particularly publically mushy, but it's ALL MUSH ALL THE TIME in our reality. (OK, not always, but sometimes).

Sweet and sour

2008-12-29T11:15:00.000-08:00

Things have been a bit weird in Waffle land.

We had what was, with blinders on, a delightful holiday weekend. We didn't give or recieve a lot of presents, but what we did and had was meaningful.

We got to spend part of the 'smas with our favorite Naked Monkey friends.

On Boxing Day Jamie's sister and her daughter, who live in France, and a friend of theirs from Oregon, came for a visit and truly added to the pleasure of sharing in the best of Christmas spirit.

Minimal drama at home/maximum warmth. Lots of cooking, game playing and sweet, cozy times. In a normal world, the biggest blot on my horizon would be that the garbage pick-up didn't happen due to bad weather. Because? Chicken bones+wrapping-paper+boxes=Crap!

However, from an inner perspective, my holiday was...well, the suck. And typing this out makes my hands shake.

My oldest sister, easily one of the most vital, life-force-filled people I've ever known, collapsed on 12/22. Doctors found a mass in her pelvis and did a colonoscopy which found that her colon is riddled with tumors. Her liver shows some masses as well.

There are some good things to add, like her lungs are clear and the initial colon biopsy came back as precancerous. But basically, each phone call home delivered news that was/is more and more somber. By Christmas I was a wet wreck.

I don't know what to add to that. That she has 7 kids, the youngest of whom is 5? FIVE! That she JUST became a grandmother this year and needs to see him grow up? That she, more than any of my living family members, made the greatest impact on me as a person and I want her to keep doing that for a LOT MORE YEARS? That she talks more animatedly than anybody I've ever known and that a phone call to her is the most fascinating roller coaster about nutrition, green-living, education, and 45 other random topics which interest her at a given moment?

She's intense and a force of nature and SO opinionated. She loves books. She loves music. She loves helping people experience the best of things, particularly with regards to health and nutrition.

I don't believe in God, which is good for God and good for me, because I'd be SO FUCKING RADICALLY RABIDLY CRAZY if I thought there was a being anywhere in the universe who could change what is happening to my sister. Which is to say, I held it together for Christmas. Had fun with the kids. Was loving and loved. And now I'm trying to figure out all the random intricacies of being a supporter of someone with cancer.

How does anybody do this?

And now for something happy...

2008-12-25T14:41:00.000-08:00

Perspective is a funny thing. I think my general mood lately has been stressy and cranky, which is naturally reflected in my so cheerful blog posts about transgenderism and theft. Anyway...a couple of days ago, right before the 'smas began, I got some news so unexpected and devastating that all my tiny woes and cranks and grousing were immediately put in a completely different light.

Right now, I feel so embarrassingly petty and pointless that I want to erase my entire blog and instead write beatific, Joan-of-Arc-ky-(minus voices in my head)-Buddha-like posts about...oh, inner peace and loving your family and holding every tender moment close like a fragile um, precious fragile thing. Unfortunately, good news or bad, I'm still me, so I'll just leave you with some happy holiday thoughts. And this:

Did you...?

2008-12-20T09:07:00.000-08:00

Did you ever have a crush on somebody a long time ago? Somebody sort-of awesome and perfectly unattainable? And then did you ever just find out that that person went through gender reassingment surgery and isn't exactly the way you left them? No? Huh, is what I have to say about that today. Just...huh.