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| Every other image of love or marriage or weddings seemed kind of boring/traditional. |
Our vacation recuperation day started out promising. I spent most of the morning getting my proverbial ducks in a row. Wrapped a present for my nephew, made calls to verify items I needed to purchase and store hours. I put away travel stuff and took something out of the freezer for dinner. I puttered.
Then, the skies started to darken and that lit the fire under my puttering ass. There was drywall to be bought and unlike wood or fabric, drywall does not reconstitute well once it's been soaked. It turns into, what we call in economics, a sunk cost.
We hopped into that butch and beautiful Tundra and headed over to the place...where in fairly short order, 14 sheets of 4'x10' 1/2" drywall was fork-lifted into the truck bed. When we finally got home (25mph at a time—I know, I know, St. Barbara's caution is all wisdom and common sense) we unloaded the sheets onto the porch just as the rain began to fall. Can I get a hallelujah?
Drywall sheets are often paper "bundled" in sets of two. This keeps the good sides facing each other for protection. So, we maneuvered them into the house two at a time. Just like Noah. We are strong women (St. B is, admittedly, taller and stronger than me...but I like to think I carry my own weight (...that's funny, I rarely stumble upon self-referencing fat jokes)) but this extra-long sheet rock is dense. Of course, I had to look it up: each 4'x10' sheet weighs 64lbs. So we moved 128lbs every time we carried a pair into the house. Seven times.
I figured that was all the hard labor I could expect to deal with in one day. Unfortunately Barbara pulled something in her ribs/back and began to experience pleurisy-type pain, so she was off-duty for the duration. Thank Buddha we were done.
My shirt was covered with sweat (Oh, say ewww, if you must. Sweat is the natural antidote to spontaneous combustion, thank you very much) so I cleaned up and put on a fresh one. We headed back out to finish our errands. And there on the front passenger side was a very flat truck tire. When we picked up the drywall, we got a large nail in our tire for free. Sheeyit.
Now Barbara was out of commission, and much as she protested, this job was for me. I've changed plenty of car tires but truck tires are...well, they're fucking big. And unwieldy. I'll spare you the details. Well, most of them anyway. You have to lower the spare down from under the truck with this ridiculous rigged crank the manufacturer provides. Once it's on the ground, you have to get under there (did I mention it was raining intermittently?) and drag that bad boy out.
To get the flat tire off, you have to put the wrench on one lug nut and stand on the other end of the wrench and bounce carefully, until the tightened nut breaks free, without you losing your balance. Repeat 5 times. Finally, you set up the piece-of-shit jack and try like hell to figure out from the mystery diagram where to set it up so you don't break your truck by setting up under a weak joint. All this while wiping the humidity, grease and dirt off your glasses so you can see enough to kill the mosquitoes draining your blood. Did I mention I just changed my shirt?
ANYHOO...the first round with the jack provided us with a heart-stopping slip. As in, a few thousand pounds of truck starting to slip off a jack the diameter of a cheap flashlight. Cranked the thing all the way back down, repositioned, slipped some wood under it for stability and started over. The best news? The spare was not flat!
I put on the spare, hauled the dead tire and it's hole-making spike into the truck bed. Then, I went inside and scoured the incredible amount of filth I'd accumulated off of me...so we could head to the tire store. Could they patch it? My emotional brain said sure, my frontal lobe said, are you fucking kidding? You've had these tires for 9 years! I threw a tarp over my frontal lobe...
...which was mercilessly yanked off at the tire place as the cute little butch girl measured (in microns, I believe) what little was left on my tread. On all the tires. I know. I know. It was time. Jesus. Four new tires the day after coming back from vacation. Like a vacation stinger.
There you have it. My post vacation blues got pushed out of the way for the crisis-at-hand. This is not unlike the second hammer thwack on your thumb erasing the pain from that first misguided hit.
In spite of all of this, I am happy to be home and grateful for a wonderful vacation. What's more, I've got the happiest event to anticipate and erase these little bumps in the road: my sweet, wonderful daughter is moving back to Houston! She'll be here in the next 2 weeks and I can't wait to kiss her face and give her one of those pick-up hugs.
Ernest Hemingway about his writing:
I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.'This for me and for my dear Eric.
—Ernest Hemingway, quoted on today's Writer's Almanac
I wrote to a friend:
The last full day of vacation tempts some people to begin mourning the inevitable end. But vacation time is too short to waste a single minute whining about going back to one's "regular" life. Besides, one should love great swaths of one's "regular" life and not hate to return to it.But still. I have waited to see my firstborn again these 18 months and am hard-pressed to keep every seam of my resolve sealed against sorrow. It leaks in a bit.
There are few things more wonderful than being transported from a hot, muggy Houston summer into a lovely, temperate Eugene summer.
But one of those things is getting to spend time with my boy. I am delighted to be here.
I was writing to a friend about the ongoing, internal sparring match in me brain.
In the far corner The Inner Pragmatist dances in anticipation of a slugfest with The Inner Purist. It's a necessary battle, I believe. But not constantly. Except while you're in it, it sort of feels like you're always in the ring.
Here's how it goes. I agree to do "x" because it's sensible and potentially beneficial financially. Inner Accountant raises its arms in victory. Inner Philosopher sulks and starts picking a fight because "x" is also time-consuming and sucks a little of my soul out.
I agree to do "y" because it's practical and appropriate (goddamn, I so hate that word). Inner Intellect applauds, Inner Emotion jeers.
Oh, fuck. Enough with the "x" and "y". Too much cryptic annoys.
I agreed to be a supervisor at work and I'm crabby as hell about going to meetings and I'm letting myself get all anxious as if I'm responsible for the fucking world. That kind of hypocritical, egotistical, counterproductive whining is OBNOXIOUS to the nth degree. And yet, here I am.
Come down off the cross, we could use the wood, I tell myself.
The "y" is so much harder. A couple of years ago, I/we stopped paying for our children to fly home for the holidays. (Which, by the way, they never asked us to do and were ever grateful for the gift.) Economic constriction made it easier but ultimately, they are adults and need to figure out whether they want to come home enough to figure out how to do so, she said firmly...
...while her heart howls with grief.
I just can't get this shit aligned.
My son and his friend (now ours as well) came to visit. We had a week of laughter, conversation, good food and company. To have such a delightful relationship with one's grown child is amazing. Amazing. I feel very lucky and, since The Fates demand payment, full of sorrow at our parting.
Glass half-full, glass half-full...
Dammit.
California: Second Set of Octuplets Born
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 27, 2009
A woman gave birth to eight babies in Southern California, the world’s second live-born set of octuplets. The mother, who was not identified, gave birth to six boys and two girls weighing 1 pound 8 ounces to 3 pounds 4 ounces, doctors at Kaiser Permanente hospital told KCAL-TV. “Eight newborns are in stable condition, and they’re doing quite well,” Dr. Karen Maples said. Myra Suarez, a Kaiser spokeswoman, said she could not release any information about the mother, including whether she used fertility drugs. The first live-born octuplets were born in Houston in 1998, and one baby died about a week later.
[via nyt]
Who are these people? We are not livestock.* Two breasts, not eight teats. Motherofgod, who would want to put themselves and this many babies at risk?
I understand the desire for children. I was lucky. Had two children and happily put up the Closed for Business sign. I understand the risk of multiple births with invitro or fertility drugs. But too often this is about abortion.
If you have 8 eggs implant (one might question the dosage of the fertility meds or the enthusiasm of the fertility doc) you get to choose between the probability of losing some or all of those embryos or having children with untold number of physical and mental problems due to lack of natural development and almost guaranteed premature delivery. Well, shit. Unplant (read: abort) five of them and have two or three children who have a better chance of not spending their lives with full or partial blindness, central nervous system disorders, serious learning disabilities, chronic respiratory problems, etc. and worse.
Just because these 8 babies are breathing on their own doesn't mean they are going to be a-okay. Furthermore, this story is the exception. Dead or damaged multiple births don't make the news. The long term effects of medical intervention need to be highlighted with stories and photos.
We are not livestock.*
P.S. "...Kaiser spokeswoman...could not release any information about the mother, including whether she used fertility drugs." That's okay. You don't have to release information about whether she's ever had sex either, we can figure it out.
ADDENDUM: Of course, many of you have now read that Miss Reproductive America has six other children under the age of 7 at home. This, obviously, is the big footnote to my opinionated thesis. But even if she weren't...crazy is the only adjective I can call up, this is still a deeply disturbing decision. Either the fertility doctor didn't do his homework or she's one hell of a liar.
*Apologies to most livestock. They usually do not drop that many calves, lambs, etc. I should have said, "We are not hogs or household pets."
(Holy shit. I've just used a post script, addendum and asterisk for post post commentary. There must be a name for people who can't stop editing. Or clarifying. Oh, that's right, it's called obsessive-compulsive opinionating. Ha, ha. Beat you to it!)
When people (the real ones and the others knocking about the cluttered anteroom of my brain) talk about success and income and metrics, I often have to pause. I am clearly a part of middle America: becubed and belawned. But what measure do I use for these status-stained ideals? Most of what is batted around as a gauge for success is deeply unsatisfying.
Often these references are about my children. And what they are doing. In terms of the capitalist fast-track, they are not doing. In terms of everything that matters, they are so fucking engaged in life it's breathtaking. I admit to worrying about health insurance and financial stability while I marvel at their consciousness. An excerpt from my son's recent post:
it's been a good week, though long. my feet howl at their abuse and my heart scratches at my ribcage. the summer is almost here, bringing more changes than the season. it's after three in the morning and i just got home from work. the show tonight was simply awesome; the music, the people and the night itself. i scored 106 points on a scrabble word and it made me giddy. all i had to eat today was two cups of tomato basil soup and two stout helpings of whisky. i am erratic and unhinged and i don't feel the need to be otherwise. when this life is done i will consider myself lucky beyond measure.If that's not rich with satisfaction, jesus, I don't know what is.
In the middle of a conversation with my daughter the other day she looked at me and basically said, you're writing a blog about this in your head right now, aren't you?
Goddammit.
P.S. For those of you who give a shit, I've upgraded my template. On my computer "normal" font size used to look ginormal, so I used to use a smaller font because I'm a designer, blah, blah, blah and I didn't like the way it looked. After upgrading, however, it looked like the bottom line of the hardest optical chart ever created. I've also taken a mensa class and figured out how to add the blogs I read and some other impressively mundane bits. SO. Sorry for the unreadable and/or huge font size swing.
The girl-child has been home for a week. What a delight it is to have her home. I heard someone use the phrase "an embarrassment of riches" the other day. I know it has negative connotations of excess and materialism but the expression reminds me of how I feel about my family.
Anyway, having her around brings to mind many a silly anecdote from her childhood. When she and her older brother were young and would squabble, as siblings do, I would sometimes lose patience, as parents do, and yell at them,"If you two don't stop bickering this minute, I'm going to drive down the courthouse and change your names to Buford and Eunice."
The Yankee sarcasm was lost on them but they knew that I was rounding the patience bend, so they usually took a break from battle.
Years later, my sweet daughter (hands down, the more compliant of the two) told me that she always thought that I was saying,"I'm going to change your names to Buford and Anus."
She thought I was going to rename her Anus. Who would threaten to rename her offspring after a bodily orifice as punishment? Evidently, the woman who writes this blog, that's who. Me, Epiphagina.
I'm home sick today and yesterday. And homesick is a lovely accident of meaning. I've worked through much worse viral infections but the need to take a break was too powerful to ignore this time.
When I have the opportunity, I surround myself with as much silence as I can. No television, no radio, no music and precious little conversation. It is, without exaggeration, like gulping cold water when extremely thirsty.
I try to suspend linear thinking and guilt as much as possible. I roam from activity to activity without a road map or checklist. Read, clean, walk, write, eat, nap and think, reflect, ponder. There are moments of such clarity and focus that I feel I am on the cusp of great insight. I believe those moments eventually accumulate and become something tangible.
This smattering of thoughts produces random commentary. Like this stuff.
Ironic meets moronic
Military Inadvertently Recruits Gays (via Mombian)
You've got to love this oversight.
Riverbend returns
Riverbend of Baghdad Burning has made her first entry since escaping Iraq on September 6th. I have not written about this blog because I have been overwhelmed by how to begin. Let me just say that no blog entry but hers has ever compelled me to go back and read each post in chronological order--which spans from the beginning of the war in 2003. She is a gifted writer chronicling an enormous tragedy.
Employment or not
We received this email two days ago at work:A staff reduction in the five percent range, through layoffs and the elimination of open positions, is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, October 29 and 30, 2007. If you have any questions regarding this program, I encourage you to contact our Human Resources Department.
Ah, yes. So many ways to be vague. What does the five percent range mean? Do you think that by the time this letter was scanned (weird) and released as a jpg via email they didn't know who was going to get axed? Methinks not. They could have said 78 positions or 5.2% cut...which would have felt less range-y. Of course, the dates of this five percent range reduction are pretty clear. So. Is that for fair warning and preparation? Or just to make the 95%-range retained grateful and quiet after the fact? And that whole offload onto the HR Department is just hysterical. They should call HR Departments SD Departments for Spin and Dodge--so adept are they at avoiding the real questions and churning out copious amounts of (earnest-sounding, supportive-like, diversity-dripping) verbiage that answers Not. One. Question.
We are uneasily assured that the online division is not going to be impacted. But I wouldn't take that hope to the bank. I am not, however, that concerned. It is like natural disaster, prepare as well as you can and accept you don't have control over anything after that but the clean-up.
Not that the rest of us are stupid
Thanks to Dave for posting this: The Boy With The Incredible Brain
This is so phenomenal in part because captures how little we understand about our brains. Which means our intelligence potential is exponentially greater than we currently know. Yes, greater can mean more destructive, too. But I find this potential a source of great hope.
[Now if you could just show me how to embed video in my blog, Dave, I'd be very grateful. Because I lost interest after the preliminary foray into the land of how to post a video to your blog. This reassures me somehow, as the writing is more compelling for me than the technology. Of course, this from a woman who owns a pair of 1GB USB stick earrings and knows how to use them. That's 1GB per ear. And thank you Sal, for ratcheting up my geek cred.]
Corpses and calamity
Watched the fifth (final?) season of Six Feet Under recently. Overall, this has been a great show. Probing death and drama in fresh ways. Well, for the most part. I found this last season completely maddening. It gave me crisis fatigue. I became unfazed by car accidents, wild animal attacks or hints of incest. Adultery made me yawn. Nasty infighting and psychotic episodes were passé. I found myself praying for spontaneous combustion or bestiality just to stay focused. Not one person in or around that family was not on the verge of some enormous existentially-destructive event. What were the writers thinking? Anyway, the final episode was great. A little artificial in the wrap-up but novel and refreshing after the preceding apocalyptic overload.
Offspring
So as not to confuse this arena with anything vaguely mommy-bloggish or brood-motherish, I often hold back a little on kinder-commentary. However, my "baby" turned 26 this past week and both she my firstborn continue to delight and challenge in ways that astound me. This might be construed as gushing by some of you. If so, my suggestion is to go read something else right now.
For some people, having grown children with whom you can discuss fetishist subculture or share the discovery of stumbling simultaneously on the word autochthon thousands of miles away from each other--for some, this might not be a brilliant feather in their maternal cap. It is for me. Whether it's philosophy or language or criticism or art or politics or dirty jokes or a million other peculiarities of human culture, I have these two bright, insightful people who bring to me and accept from me ideas and laughter and conundrums. In an unarticulated young woman's musings, these are the children I dreamed of.
