The Wifest

Happy Birthday RAB

2010-03-29T13:20:00.001-05:00

A special request for a special day:

The Books of 2009

2010-01-27T22:01:00.005-05:00

I read a lot in 2009, what with the not having a full time job and not going to school. For the first half of the year I had a newborn and it was nice and sweet to read to him as he nursed or hold him while he slept and read for awhile with a book in my lap. I started keeping a list when it was January and I had already finished five or six.

Here is that list, kind of in order.

- A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
- The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
- Rookie Mom’s Guild
- The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
- Northanger Abby by Jane Austen
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- Emma by Jane Austen
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
- The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
- America the Book by John Stewart and the Daily Show
- Celebration of Discipline (spiritual discipline, not like spanking your kid) by Richard Foster
- The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
- The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
- The Friday Night Knitting Club (sucked)
- Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Take the Cannoli by Sarah Vowell
- Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- World War Z by Max Brooks
- Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
- Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer
- The Backyard Homestead
- The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
- Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
- The Mentoring Mom (sucked so much)
- Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I feel pretty good about it. (Although now that Alton is older and sleeps much less during the day, I don't imagine my 2010 list will be quite so long.) There were only two books that I really didn't like. I finished them because I was reading them with groups—my book club and my moms group. Otherwise I would have thrown them out. Everything else I really enjoyed. Oh, I take that back. I was disappointed with The Wordy Shipmates which I was really looking forward to because I like Sarah Vowell so much. But it was only so-so.

What did you read last year that you loved or hated? Any recommendations for 2010? I've already started a list of books that I want to read this year. What is it about me and lists in January?

Happy Birthday

2010-01-05T22:13:00.003-05:00

It's my mother's birthday and so I shot some videos of her grandson today. They may not be that interesting to everyone, but I know she'll love them.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

Alton Goes to Lake Tahoe

2009-10-20T12:41:00.002-05:00

Alton turns one this Saturday.

This past weekend we went to Lake Tahoe to take a little vacation and see some family. It is really one of the most beautiful places I've been. Here is a short video of Alton playing in the lake.

Container Gardening

2009-08-20T12:46:00.019-05:00

One of my goals this year was to better utilize my patio and balcony space to grow plants — specifically plants that we could eat. Like so many others I have been inspired by the idea of urban farming and local and sustainable eating. So I'd like to say I had high ideals in mind of lessening my carbon footprint and taking my money out of the agribusiness machine, but mostly I just thought it would be cool to try.

I did the majority of my planting around Mother's Day and things have been going very well. I wanted to share some pictures because I'm very proud of myself.

Here's what I planted in the beginning of May:

The top left corner is a potato plant. Next to it is the lemon tree I planted last year that I thought was dead for sure. But I pruned it and it came back. In the rectangular boxes, I planted a bunch of lettuce varieties. They are still growing. I haven't bought lettuce since May. Any time I want to have a salad or some lettuce for a sandwich, I just grab my scissors and clip some off.

In the lower left corner you have some cherry tomatoes which I was uncertain about. Tomatoes need hot weather and a lot of sun. The summer is pretty cold in San Francisco and foggy, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go. But it's worth a try, right?

In the smaller pots are some herbs.

I planted peas and squash on my front balcony. Peas are climbing plants and thry like cool weather, so I figured they could grow up the railing and handle the wind off the ocean.

I did some balcony harvesting last weekend:

Everything was delicious.

The potatoes were kind of cool — I grew and dug and cooked my own potatoes. After I planted it though I learned that I should have done it a little differently. So next time I'll get more than five potatoes. Still it was fun.

In the potato pot, after we dug out the potatoes, I planted kale and scallion seeds. They're still little, but I have high hopes. Notice, in the pot to the right, my fully recovered and flourishing lemon tree.

The tomatoes are growing like crazy. I have lots of little green tomatoes and a lot more flowers. If they ever turn red, it will be amazing. We've had maybe three ripen, so we'll see. Otherwise, we might have to look into fried green cherry tomatoes.

If we ever get a backyard, I'm going to go wild planting and growing (and maybe even raising chickens). If anyone wants to get me The Urban Homestead or The Backyard Homestead for Christmas, they would be used and appreciated.

Now some of you don't care about gardening, I'd imagine, so as a reward for making it through this post, here's a picture of Alton on his 9 month birthday. We went to the zoo. There is a farmyard area where you can pet sheep and goats and sit in saddles. The sweater he's wearing was handmade by a friend in Brooklyn. It's beautiful, Emilie. I get compliments all the time.

And here's one from today. He's getting so big. He'll be 10 months old on Monday. All of you are invited to his 1st birthday party on the 24th of October. Get your plane tickets now.

Crawling Videos

2009-08-10T22:42:00.005-05:00

My mother has been asking for videos of Alton crawling. She is sad that the next time she sees him he probably won't be crawling anymore but walking.

So these are for you mom. Enjoy.

Alton's Crawling

2009-06-12T21:30:00.002-05:00

First Mother's Day and Current Favorites

2009-06-06T18:01:00.009-05:00

We went camping with friends for Mother's Day in a redwood forest about an hour south of San Francisco. It was cold and fun and beautiful. This was Alton's first camping experience, and he had a great time.

I was afraid Alton would freeze to death sleeping outside. But he slept better than I did, and I slept pretty well.

There was a goat farm in the nearby town of Pescadero. On our way home, we stopped to pet goats and taste goat cheese. The goats were cute, the cheese delicious. Then we stopped by a pizzeria/general store. They had a yard with live music where we ate.

All these pictures are a little smudged because of fingerprints. Alton's, I think. I guess I learned if you are going to let a kid play with your camera, you should clean the lens when you get it back.

New Family Favorites

Alton's favorite solid food: Sweet Potatoes. If you try to disguise broccoli by hiding it in sweet potatoes, Alton will not be fooled.

My favorite new hobby: Container Gardening. I am growing peas, squash, basil & other herbs, a bunch of lettuces, cherry tomatoes, and potatoes. I thought I killed my little lemon tree when I pruned it back a lot. But it's sprouting back.

My new favorite wine: Old Moon Zinfandel. I picked it up for $10 and really liked it. Then I found it at Trader Joe's for $4.99.

Alton's favorite method of locomotion: pushing on his stomach backwards. "Maybe he's stuck in reverse." My grandma says.

Current family favorite TV show: The Wire. We're on season three. Why are there only two episodes on these DVDs? We only get one movie at a time from Netflix, so it's taking a long time to watch them.

Alton's favorite toy: Dad's glasses.

I'm Strong to the Finish Cause I Eats Me Spinach

2009-05-18T13:51:00.003-05:00

A Little Children's Story

2009-05-01T12:42:00.014-05:00

While I was looking at a bunch of photos I shot in March, a little story emerged. I call it Alton Wrestles the Alligator. Maybe thisisntjimmy would want to illustrate it for me and together we can get it published and make a million dollars each. We could be the next Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle... or not.

Anyway, it's sort of silly but the pictures are cute. I hope you enjoy....

ALTON WRESTLES THE ALLIGATOR

One day a boy named Alton went out to play with his friend the Blue Elephant.

Alton and the Blue Elephant loved to play together. Today they were having so much fun that they didn't notice the Striped Alligator sneaking up behind them.

Alton and the Blue Elephant kept right on playing and the Striped Alligator snuck right up next to them.

Suddenly, the Striped Alligator pounced on Alton and knocked him to the ground

Alton was surprised but he fought back.

They rolled this way and that way.

They pulled each other's legs.

They climbed each others backs and pinned each other to the ground.

In the end Alton wore the Striped Alligator out. The Striped Alligator was too tired to fight back anymore.

To show the Striped Alligator that the fight was over, Alton took a big bite out of Striped Alligator's straw hat. (In the illustration the alligator would be wearing a straw hat the whole time.)

"This happens every time, Alligator." Alton said, "You surprise-tackle me, we wrestle, and then you get too tired to play anymore."

Alton was a good sport, so he invited the Striped Alligator to stay and play awhile with him and the Blue Elephant.

The Striped Alligator did stay and play, and the three of them had a very nice time.

THE END

A Supposed BBC Reading List

2009-03-22T10:11:00.011-05:00

I saw this list on a friend's facebook page and thought I'd do it too. Evidently, the BBC figures that most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books (or series) listed. So you are supposed to go through the list and mark which books you've read. I don't know where the list came from or why they picked these books or why Hamlet is listed by itself while the rest of the Shakespeare is lumped together under "Complete Works."

I put an (x) next to books that I have read and a (-) next to books that I read way more than half of but never finished, or books that I know I read all of but don't remember at all so I really shouldn't claim to have read them.

At the end there are some pictures of Alton, so if that's the only reason you check this blog, I've got you covered.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (x)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible (x)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (-) two of three
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (x)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (-)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (-)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (x)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (x)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (-)four of 7
34 Emma - Jane Austen (x)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (x)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (x)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (x)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert (x)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog inthe Night-time -Mark Haddon (x)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (-)
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac (x)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (x)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (x)
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (x)
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (x)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (-)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Bank
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I think that's 28 that I've read and about six more if we were playing horseshoes. There are a few in there that I've never heard of like The Faraway Tree Collection. What is that? And what's up with my baby-food cookbook Super Baby Food telling me to mix tahini with yogurt? Sounds gross.

There's an awful lot of Dickens on this BBC list, but I guess they're British, so....

The two books on the list that I'm most proud of reading are Ulysses and Moby Dick.

Brideshead Revisited is in my stack of books to read this year. And I'd like to read Winnie the Pooh to Alton in the next couple of years. We'll see if I read any others.

What are your favorites from the list? What book are you most proud of reading (or most ashamed that you haven't read)? Let me know in the comments. You can also comment on these pictures of my adorable son.

Here's Dad and Alton reading a book — No, David! — and playing a maraca:

This week we took Alton to a playground for the first time. In Golden Gate Park, he had his first ride on a swing, his first slide down a slide, and he got to play in the big boat with Dad.

Alton won't take a bottle. He thinks they are dumb. So we've decided to try and teach him how to drink milk from a sippy cup instead so dad can have a chance to feed him once in a while. Nobody's screaming, so that's an improvement. Of course he's spilling most of it down his front. But that's what bibs are for.

To avoid being pinched on St. Patrick's Day, Alton wore this little leprechaun number. Thanks for the new clothes, Aunt Sarah!

This week we tried the Johnny Jump Up seat for the first time. I'm so jealous. If they had adult-sized ones of these at gyms, I would totally exercise. Alton doesn't quite get it yet. So he kind of stands and swings and twists a little while he watches me cook.

Alton's Four Months Old

2009-02-26T15:18:00.006-05:00

The 24th of February was sunny, so I put Alton in the front window and took a bunch of pictures. I need your help to decide which of the following three I should enter in a cute baby photo contest.

HAPPY BABY

SERIOUS BABY

or DROOLING BABY

Please tell me which one you think a panel of five women would like enough to give me $500. Also, do you think we should photoshop out the tattoos or do they make the pictures? Thank you for your help.

New Haircut and Other Updates

2009-02-08T20:18:00.009-05:00

I got my hair cut two weeks ago. I really like it. It's fun. And now, when the baby pukes on my shoulder, my hair stays milk-free.

Alton is three and a half months old now. He started to laugh a few weeks ago. He makes these little squeals and my heart just overflows. He's also grabbing his feet and curling up into a little smiling bundle. He rolls himself onto his side this way. He's putting everything in his mouth now — especially his fingers. He chomps, too. I haven't felt any teeth, but he's working on changing that.

Over Martin Luther King Jr Day weekend, husband and baby and I went to Brooklyn for a fly-off-to-Rome-on-a-moment's-notice type of weekend. I bought tickets on Friday at 6 p.m. and was on a plane that same night at 10:55. Alton slept the whole way out. No red eyes for this baby.

It was 11 degrees in Brooklyn and it snowed. It was great to have a little winter this winter. I loved walking around in the cold with the baby, in his fuzzy coat, strapped to the front of me.

It was really great to see all our friends in New York. With a few hours' notice, they pulled together a party with 30 or so people. It makes you feel loved when something like that can come together so fast. Alton was a big hit. He smiled and cooed and made everybody love him. He's good at that. It's one of his best tricks.

Back on the West Coast the weather is the same (surprise, surprise). And I keep banging my elbow on door frames. I've hit the same elbow in the same place in different doorways at least ten times now — probably more like 15 -- over the past few weeks. It really hurts and I don't know why it's happening. I have always thought that I had a pretty good understanding of where my body starts and stops. But lately, man, it hurts to use my whole right arm. And I'm right-handed.

Did you know that you can't sell breast milk in California? It's against the law. It was just a fleeting get-rich-quick idea I had, but illegality makes it too tough. You can donate your milk to a milk bank and they will in turn sell it to hospitals and wherever, but I can't sell directly to milk banks or directly to people (moms and non-moms) who want it. I'm not sure what I think of that. If I really want to get rich off my surplus, there is (of course) a thriving online black market for breast milk. It's pretty easy to find. What you do is go to google and type "breast milk".

I will leave you for now with this:

Alton, 7 weeks old

2008-12-28T13:00:00.007-05:00

Sorry — I'd accidentally made this a "private video," somehow. It's "public" now, which means people can actually see it. Enjoy!

Alton Hates Turkey

2008-12-16T13:18:00.004-05:00

But he likes doing the laundry.

We are going to have to work on this kid's taste.

My in-laws were here for Thanksgiving week. The baby was a huge hit and so was my bathroom where three of the six adults in the house spent all day on Turkey day throwing up. It wasn't my turkey or underdone stuffing. This stomach bug hit before dinner was served and left 24 hours later. Only three of us ate the meal. The others spent the evening laid out around the living room. Luckily I didn't get sick. Instead I cooked and didn't let anyone touch the baby. Alton's first Thanksgiving was a little lame. But he won't remember it, so it doesn't really matter.

It's no wonder everyone felt like barfing; the temperature was like 70 and sunny. Thanksgiving is supposed to be the gateway to Christmas — snowy, cold, beautiful Christmas. "Over the River and Through the Woods" is the traditional Thanksgiving song and it has cold wind stinging noses and biting toes. Hello — the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifting snow. How do people in California and the South stand this crap?

Now that I'm taking care of a baby, it's harder to finish what I start. Like this blog post, which I started a week ago or more. It's actually been a little chillier the past few days. Not December chilly, more like Halloween chilly. But it's helping. We bought our Christmas tree. It's standing in the living room and finally has some lights and things on it. Two weekends ago, we drove to Sacramento for an indie craft fair. Our aim was to do something Christmas-y and to look for some gifts while we were at it. The fair was small and by itself not worthy of the two hour drive. But the weather was brisk, the part of town was cute, and the company terrific. And for the first time it felt a little like a holiday season of some sort.

We ate in the train car at a Spaghetti Factory. It was good and cheap and in a beautiful old train station. Alton had on his Christmas sweater and looked adorable.

The baby and I have set ourselves the task of getting all the Christmas shopping done this week. Luckily it's easier to shop with a newborn than work on the computer. Here's hoping we can do both.

I will leave you with this picture of Alton and his cousin Will — just a couple of handsome guys hanging out. I will try to get you some more pictures soon — especially the ones of Alton in his Santa Suit 'cause they are CUTE.

Alton's First Week

2008-11-04T13:36:00.019-05:00

Alton's first week of life was full of adventure and heartache. Well, not really heartache (or adventure for that matter). It was quite mild, really. But he doesn't know that. He's a baby. He's never done any of these things before.

Last Tuesday we came home from the hospital. We've borrowed a car seat from a couple with a one-year-old, but we didn't get the instructions. I hear it took a little while to figure out how to install it correctly. I wasn't there. I was up in my hospital room watching cable.

Mo greeted Alton excitedly but with civility. We were proud of her. She has been licking his face every chance she gets and running into the room when he starts to cry to see if she can help. When she realizes she can't help, she paces around for awhile and then goes back and lays on the couch.

On Wednesday, about 18 hours after Alton, Brian, and I finally left the hospital for home, we all piled right back into the car for Alton's followup appointment. "He looks great," the nurse practitioner said. Plus, he was already gaining weight (breast-fed newborns typically lose an ounce or two each day at first, until mom's milk comes in), which meant I didn't have to worry about waking him up every three hours to feed him. For the past six days, Alton has slept four and a half to five hours straight every night. He wakes up in the early morning, I feed him, and he goes back to sleep for two more hours or so. I'm very lucky in this respect.

Later on Wednesday, Alton and I were taking a nap. Husband came in and sheepishly told me that one of his colleagues was having a birthday party that night at a nice wine bar downtown and wouldn't it be kind of fun to go and let everybody see the baby [trying to keep from bursting with pride] and we wouldn't have to stay for long but I know you're not feeling well so we probably shouldn't go and it's probably dumb to take Alton out in public so soon, and in such cold weather — it's OK we don't have to go. And then he disappeared from the bedroom.

When I woke up again about an hour later, I felt much better and thought that it would be fun to go and see some people and let Brian show off his new baby to all his friends and coworkers. Alton wanted to look nice for his first party, so we put on this little number — a onesie with a sewn-on tie. (Thank you for this, S. and J. Frankle of Chicago, IL.)

On Thursday, Alton debuted his cool new red cap (knitted for him by his cool new Aunt Veronica) when he took his dog to the park for the first time. We walked the four blocks slowly, no hurry. It was our first time wearing the baby sling, which is pretty comfortable, and which it turns out Alton loves. I don't even know if Mo knew Alton was there. Alton slept the whole time. I consider the walk a triumph because we didn't have to call my parents to pick me up in the car. I felt good. And Brian had a blast taking pictures of his family. A successful first outing, it was.

Friday was Halloween and Alton's one-week birthday. We spent a lot of the day imagining the cool parties that he'll be able to have as he gets older — the costume parties, the trips-to-the-pumpkin-patch parties, the scary-movie-marathon parties. Little boys whose birthdays fall exactly one week before Halloween are blessed with fun birthday-party themes.

We had some trick-or-treaters, too. I've never lived anywhere as an adult where kids trick-or-treat, so it was really exciting to hear the doorbell ring. Husband answered the door like this and scared more than a few two- and three-year-olds:

Alton also started to smile a little this week. Not really at me or anyone else, but in his sleep or right after he poops. It's really cute. I know I'll burst into tears the first time the smile is on purpose and directed at me.

His eyes are getting more defined already. His pupils are more distinguishable and you can see them dilate in the light. I know it's hard to tell in the pictures, but his eyes are a steel gray-blue color. And they are big and they are beautiful. So far he hates tummy time and diaper changes. But he loves eating, sleeping, and if the smile is any indicator, pooping. Everybody else is doing fine. The whole family is healthy and having a good time — maybe a little tired, but loving it.

Alton, not quite three days old

2008-10-27T13:53:00.008-05:00

Here's a video from 8:30 this morning. We three will go home tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.

Welcome Baby Alton

2008-10-25T18:59:00.010-05:00

After 18 hours of induced labor resulting in no more than 4 centimeters of cervix dilation and a very tired Katie, the baby's heart's impersonation of the stock exchange just wasn't funny anymore. He just didn't have enough amniotic fluid to keep him and his umbilical cord cushioned during contractions. Low amniotic fluid is why we decided to induce in the first place. (Induction was all but insisted upon by numerous doctors.)

So at 11:50 am (PST), on October 24th, Alton Pendragon McMullen was born. Healthy and pretty cute. In the operating room, a nurse shouted out that his birth weight was 3485 grams (7 lbs 10 ozs), and that's the official weight that got recorded. But! When he was re-weighed twelve hours later, the scale said 3895 grams (8 lbs, 9 ozs). The nurses were shocked. Did Alton gain 11 ozs in 12 hours? Nope. That's impossible. The nurse who re-weighed Alton (on two separate scales) concluded that a number must have been transposed in the operating room. Someone shouted out "3485 grams" when they should have shouted out "3845 grams" (8 lbs, 8 ozs).

Mother and baby are doing fine. I'm recovering well. He's learning to breastfeed like a hungry genius.

He does look a little old-mannish, but not too wrinkly or alien. He is already starting to hold up his neck a little. And he has beautiful eyes.

Thanks to all of you who sent out warm wishes and prayers. We can't wait to introduce you to our son.

Here's Dad bonding with his little son with some skin to skin contact.

One of Alton's proud grandmothers.

Still Pregnant

2008-10-15T23:25:00.014-05:00

This baby is officially two days late. And I am officially getting tired of being pregnant. I think on average babies born to first-time mothers come about four days late, so it's not at all abnormal. I am not comforted, though, by the people who keep telling me things like, "my daughter was 14 days late," or "I was born three hundred weeks late." I don't care. I want this baby out now.

Hopefully within two days or so I'll be able to report that there is a new little person in the world and we won't have to have any induction talks with doctors next week. I took two power walks today and I just might have to take our laundry down to the beach tomorrow and wash it by hand on rocks if that's what it takes to get this thing going.

On a slightly different topic, I'd like to say an overdue thank you to everybody from Brooklyn who got together to send us a baby shower in a box. What an amazing surprise and what amazing gifts. Thank you. Thank you. Way to answer the call for Brooklyn baby clothes before I had even dropped my oh so subtle hint in the last post. You guys are amazing!

I only wish I could have been in New York with you all so you could help me eat the cookies you sent. Mo was so excited by all the smells of home that her laser eyes kicked in and she almost caught the carpet on fire. Thank you so much. I can't wait to bring the baby to New York and have him meet all of you.

I'm not thinking about much else besides the baby lately (well, the baby and and the presidential campaign, but I don't feel up to writing about debates and candidates with these 30 extra pounds sticking out in front of me and getting in the way of my typing), so I feel like all my posts are lame and belly-centric. Hopefully that will change soon and in the midst of all the exhaustion of the first few months with a newborn I'll be able to "eloquently" tell you all how impressed I am with Joe Biden's history of standing up against genocide — not really a politically advantageous thing to do — or how afraid I am that too many people will say that they will vote for Obama and his promise of hope and change but when they close the curtain of their voting booth, remember that he's black (or something) and get scared and change their mind. But until then I will end this post by showing you the baby stuff that I've spent my "nesting" energies putting together. It's less scary and takes a lot less brain power.

Here's the baby's play corner. It's full of toys that are totally inappropriate for an infant. He won't be able to play with most of this stuff for years. But it still looks exciting and I love it, even though the easel is completely inaccessible.

Here is the baby's corner of our bedroom — changing table and crib, a Diaper Champ, and some fairly-traded stars on the wall. I'm pretty excited about how nicely it all fits. I will tell you, though, that I first put the crib together in the living room while watching a movie, not giving any thought to the fact that it was way to big to fit through the door frame. Oh well, what woman who is nine months pregnant doesn't like to spend an evening taking newly-built furniture apart, carrying the disassembled parts 30 feet east, and putting it all back together again?

Finally, a close up on the crib and crib stuff. I think his little hippo-gator is super cute. Now if only he'd come out, I could show him all his wonderful toys and lay him in his cozy crib and change his diaper on his sturdy changing table. Let's go kid!

The Home Stretch

2008-09-28T19:15:00.009-05:00

The baby is already 7 pounds 3 ounces says my midwife. I'm not due for two-and-a-half more weeks. They tend to gain as much as a pound a week toward the end. This baby is going to be huge! I'm increasingly uncomfortable, so whenever he's ready, I'd be happy to carry him on the outside of my body for a while.

Brian says he feels confident in his credentials to be a parent even though he has no experience because he can often see children from his house.

But beyond that undeniable resume builder, last Thursday we finished the fourth and final week of birthing classes. We now know when to go to the hospital, how to breathe during and between contractions, a bunch of labor positions, and have seen enough birthing videos that if we were stranded in a elevator or a desert island I feel like we could do it ourselves.

We also took a tour of the birthing center last week. It's really nice. If I'm lucky, I could get birthing room #3 which is a corner suite. On our tour we had 25 people in there with plenty of extra room. It has an amazing view — the Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin Headlands to the North and downtown San Francisco to the East. The other birthing rooms have nice views too and are plenty big, but #3 is the presidential suite of the hospital. So cross your fingers for us.

I have my hospital bag mostly packed and our birth plan is mostly finished. We've decided to go with a diaper service (it's cheaper and better for the environment — win, win) and our first delivery arrives this Thursday. Once we have those, we are all set.

Actually not quite. I was just thinking the other day that this little guy does not have a Brooklyn onesie or any I-heart-NY anything. (Hint, hint.) How's he going to know where he comes from? But I digress.

Yesterday we went to the largest book sale on the West Coast. It's an annual fund raiser for the SF Public Library. It is held in a huge, football-field-sized pier. Over 350,000 books, none of them over $5. It was pretty crazy. I went looking for a few specific titles, but that was a disaster. When books are categorized kind of willy-nilly and not organized in any way within a category, it's just nearly impossible to find anything intentionally. You just have to stumble across things. I did come across a few good finds. Brian found a third copy of Fup by Jim Dodge, a book about a farmer and a duck which he insisted that he did need. However he didn't make it back to the self-help books to look for copies of the 1976 Avon paperback edition of Your Erroneous Zones to add to his enormous collection. Someone recommended decorating the nursery with Wayne Dyer's face. Sounds like a good way to traumatize the kid for life.

Here's another undie picture of me taken two Sundays ago, I think, when I was 36 weeks. (The one at the top is about 32 weeks.) I feel a lot like my skin might rip off my body, like if you tried, I might be able to open up like a cadbury egg with a baby instead of a sugary yellow yolk. Maybe he'll come early.

Great with Child

2008-09-05T13:45:00.033-05:00

With only six weeks left until my due date, I think I can finally say that I am "great with child." Up until now I've been saying that I was "good with child" or "fair with child." But it's time.

My ribs are sore from being kicked and spread apart. It gets uncomfortable to sit in the same position for too long — mostly because everything gets squished together and there's no room. This little guy (still nameless) moves all the time. Big rolling movements that you can easily see through my shirt — not just kicks and punches. It looks very much like Alien. The doctor says everything looks great and all test results have been perfect. So all is well in pregnantland except my maternity shirts are getting a little short. I may be flashing my midriff before this is all over.

It's been awhile since I've posted anything. July and August were a lot busier than I thought they'd be. Mostly because I hosted and tutored two Japanese college students: a 19-year-old boy named Takashi for two weeks in July and a 19-year-old girl named Ritsuko for three weeks in August. They stayed in our guest room, I cooked them food, and I sat down with them for two to three hours each morning and we practiced English.

Takashi and Ritsuko are two of 150 Tokyo International University students currently enrolled in a yearlong program at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. (They arrived in February and they'll go home in December.) Most of them spent the summer traveling, and a lot of them did a "homestay" with an American family for a few weeks as a part of their travels.

Overall it was a good experience, hosting these students. It paid really well and it was fun to get some experience with ESL. (By the way: does anyone know why we say The Golden Gate Bridge but not The St. Mary's Cathedral? I don't. That was one of many questions I couldn't answer about our sometimes-inconsistent language.)

There were some weird things. Number one in weirdness was my second student's excessive use of toilet paper. I'm pregnant, so I go to the bathroom more than most people. Even so, Brian and I go through maybe one roll of toilet paper a week. Maybe. When Ritsuko arrived, we had ten rolls of toilet paper in the cupboard. Seven days later, we woke up to a spent cardboard tube and an empty storage cupboard. She had used it all! Brian took an unplanned 7 a.m. trip to 7-Eleven and bought us another eight rolls. One week later, those were gone too!

The disappearance of the toilet paper remains a huge mystery. She wasn't stealing the rolls. (Once we noticed the disappearance phenomenon, we saw each roll dwindle before our very eyes.) And she didn't use the bathroom excessively. (In fact, she was out of the house for many hours most days, sightseeing.) We ended up going through at least a roll a day for the whole three weeks she was with us. I've thought about googling "Japanese girls" + "toilet paper" to see if it's a cultural thing, but I haven't done it yet. Would I just get a bunch of porn sites? What was she doing with all that toilet paper?

Anyway.... Both students had a habit of switching their L's and R's. I figured the movies probably exaggerate that issue, but it was "lice" instead of "rice" with both of them. In one exercise, I told Takashi about my family. He had to listen, then tell me about them. (He was allowed to take notes; I made it a rule that I wouldn't repeat myself.) I told him that my mother's name is Lynn. In his notes I saw him write "Rin," but he pronounced it perfectly when he said it back to me. It was funny and confusing. They also both switched H's and F's. And Ritsuko had a bad habit of ending her words with O: cat-o, post-o, etc. But I guess that if I were Japanese and every word in my language ended in a vowel or an N, it would be hard for me to come over to the USA and start ending every English word I spoke with a hard consonant.

My sister came out to visit at the end of July. We did a lot of walking and exploring. At the end of the week my feet, carrying their twenty-some new pounds, told her to go home. We went to Muir Woods while she was here, and that trip cemented Muir Woods as my favorite place in the Bay Area. I became a member while I was there, so when you come to visit me, I will take you and we can see the tallest living organisms in the world for free.

Fireworks and Squirt Guns: the 4th of July in Southern California

2008-07-08T14:13:00.020-05:00

Husband and I spent the long weekend in Yucaipa, California — a town about two hours east of LA, in a region of the state called the Inland Empire. Husband's aunt and uncle live in Yucaipa and invited us down. Two of three cousins were also present, and we all had a really good time.

Kyle and Ellen (the aunt and uncle) have a huge and beautiful house with a huge and beautiful pool. I haven't spent much time in a pool since puberty, and I was amazed by how much fun I had. We spent the better part of three of our four days in the pool. We had handstand contests, a marathon Marco Polo game, and innumerable shot contests with a floating basketball hoop. This basketball game is a lot harder than it seems, but given the lack of backboard and the constantly changing location of the hoop due to the movements of the water, it is embarrassingly difficult. 2 shots out of 20 was the average for the weekend. The record stands at 7 out of 20. I won't tell you who holds the record because it would sound like I was bragging. But I will tell you that it's not this guy:

I think one of the reasons that I had such a good time, or maybe it's better to say that one of the reasons that I, and many women, have avoided swimming for the most part since we were 12 is the stupid swimsuits and the wearing one in front of people. What a terrible thing to do to a girl — strip her down to her underwear and put her outside with her peers where the sun highlights the flaws in her pasty white skin. What a nightmare!

But I'm older now and more comfortable with my body. I have a swimsuit that I like and to top it all off, I now have a 42-inch waist that's cute. This weekend was the first time that I can remember wearing a swimsuit without worrying about holding my stomach in. Not being able to see my thighs over my belly helped too, I'm sure.

In addition to swimming in 35,000 gallons of water while 1,400 wildfires burn and the state is riddled with drought, we celebrated America's independence by super-sizing as much as possible. I had two venti (that's the big one, right?) decaf mochas from Starbucks. We went to Costco.

And we got the big popcorn and the big soda when we went to the movies to see WALL-E. For the most part I do my best to minimize my consumption, buy locally, and avoid Milk Duds, but today, I will happily admit that I had a wonderful time. Happy Birthday America!

On the Road: A Book Review

2008-06-30T11:40:00.009-05:00

After we decided to move to San Francisco, I rented a travel documentary about the area — Globe Trekker or some such program. I didn't learn that much from it, really. I think they like to stay away from the tourist spots that everyone has already heard of. They like to find "hidden treasures" and tell everyone about them. They did not go to Fisherman's Wharf, for example, or the Golden Gate Bridge. Of course that's a problem when the reason you're watching the program in the first place it to learn things about your new city that you don't know but everyone else does. So it was kind of a bust.

But one new thing I did learn (if I'd ever known it, I'd forgotten) was that Jack Kerouac and all the Beats lived in San Francisco and hung out in North Beach, and that On the Road is basically Kerouac's travel journal of his trip from New York to San Francisco.

I had never read On the Road, but had always wanted to. It's one of the great novels of the 20th century and the defining work of the Beat Generation (or so it says on the back of my copy). I thought, wouldn't it be kind of cool to read On the Road while driving across the country to California? And that became my plan — for about a week and a half — until the all-day morning sickness kicked in and had me throwing up every day. I opted out of the two-week car trip and chose the five-hour plane ride instead. And I sort of forgot about the book.

In May, after we'd been in San Francisco for about a month, I started looking on craigslist for a book club. I thought a book club would be a nice way to meet some new people. I loved my book club in Brooklyn so I gave it shot. I found one and they let me in. I didn't even have to interview. The second week in June I went to my first meeting. We read a book called Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje of The English Patient fame. It wasn't that great. I don't think the timeline made sense. He had a girl with a limp that developed as a result of her bout of polio circa 1982. Were there any cases of polio in the U.S. in 1982? (Within 60 miles of a major city?)

But the discussion was good and the women in the group seem really nice. One of them is also pregnant. She's about a month behind me and it is also her first baby. So that's kind of exciting. Maybe we can get to be friends over the next few months at book club and then we can hang out some once we both have babies.

About a week and a half ago I got an email announcing the book that we will be discussing in July: On the Road by Jack Kerouac. How convenient. And I already have a copy on my bookshelves.

So I've been reading it. I’m a little over a quarter of the way through, and so far, not that exciting. I'm a little disappointed about it. I was expecting to be inspired, to long for freedom, honesty, and the open road. So far mostly, I wish he were more responsible with his money.
The main character, the autobiographical Sal Paradise, leaves New York with $75. He plans to hitchhike most of the way to his first big destination – Denver, where all of his friends have made their first summer waylay. Sal imagines himself hitching across the country on highway 6 – one straight red line all the way across the map. What he doesn’t realize as he gets off the bus at Bear Mountain State Park about an hour north of New York City, is that all the truck traffic in the United States had already moved to freeways by 1947. Nobody drove on highway 6 anymore. Or at least that’s what he figures after trying to get a ride in a rainstorm for a couple of hours.

He heads back to the city, defeated, and buys a bus ticket to Chicago. He complains about having spent over half his money and a whole day only to come right back where he started. But he comforts himself that by tomorrow night he’ll be in Chicago.

Now that strikes me as a pretty disappointing start to the great novel of discovering America as you traverse its roads and rivers. He sleeps through a third of the country on a wimpy night bus. He doesn’t even try to hitch from Bear Mountain down to the Freeway. He gives hitchhiking a go for about an hour and then gives up, then squanders half his cash to get not halfway and misses all the experiences that he says he’s hitting the road to experience.

The other half of his money is gone by the time he gets to Denver – spent mostly in silly ways. I don’t mind him spending a lot of it on cigarettes and booze. That’s pretty much what he set out to spend it on, so who am I to criticize doing what he’s planned to do? It’s the other stuff. He does hitchhike from Chicago to Denver, so good job Jack. But twice he rents a hotel room early in the morning, sleeps all day, and then leaves in the evening complaining about how much it cost him only to get back out to the road to complain about how hard it is to get a ride at night.

If you are going to pay for a hotel room on your See America trip, why not sleep in the bed you paid for at night and spend the day seeing America?

Or what’s wrong with sleeping in a barn or outside somewhere? If you want to be a hobo so bad, be a hobo.

He does the same stuff after his stint in Denver. He wires his aunt asking for $50. Then spends half of it on a bus from Denver to San Francisco. Kind of lame if you ask me.

Once he gets to San Francisco, he gets a job and starts sending money back to his aunt. This is admirable, I guess, but not necessarily smart. He’s making $50 a week, 40 of which he’s sending back east. Then he’s stiffing his roommates by only pitching in $5 a week for groceries (which they complain about) and spending the rest on beer and smokes. So he's perpetually broke. And now he wants to get moving again but has no money set aside to get going with.

He doesn’t tell us any immediate reason why he needs to send so much money to his aunt every week. He lives with her in New Jersey where he doesn’t appear to pay rent or have a paying job of any kind. So presumably she’s doing okay without his money. She had $50 extra to send him a few months back in Denver, so what's up with sending 80% of your earnings back to her?

That’s where I am so far. I’ve found a surprising lack of description of American towns or landscapes. Also very few character sketches other than his friends whom he knew before he left the east coast. Mostly there are stories of going to bars to drink and trying to “make” women. Pretty much the equivalent of somebody today writing a string of stories of how, “we went out to this bar and got totally wasted.”

I still have 200 pages to go so maybe it gets more interesting. Or maybe it was just a lot more radical when reading it was an alternative to watching The Mickey Mouse Club and Leave it to Beaver. I’ll let you know.

IN OTHER NEWS:
The baby has learned a one–two punch combination and was doing them all weekend. He's also learned to kick on one side of my uterus and punch on the other at the same time, which feels really weird.

As for me, I keep having dreams that I'm back in high school or college and I've forgotten to go to a history class for the entire semester and now it's too late to drop the class and the final is soon but I don't even remember where the class meets. Or, last night, I went to my first class of the day in high school and remembered that we had a really important paper due in the afternoon. But as I'm trying to get the information about what's supposed to be in this paper from a friend, English class has started and I haven't read the short story that we will be discussing right after we take a pop quiz on it.

I've had about five of these dreams over the past couple weeks. Can anyone guess what my subconscious is worried about? If you guessed "being a terrible, forgetful mother who leaves her baby in the car seat on top of the car and drives away," you guessed correctly.

In real life, I missed back-to-back appointments this weekend: one on Friday, one on Saturday. Both were really important, and I just forgot about both of them. And I remembered that I forgot the Friday one before I forgot about the Saturday one. What's wrong with me? Good thing I don't have a car.

Mo Catches Flies

2008-06-20T14:09:00.013-05:00

We don't have screens on our windows. But we do keep the windows open frequently. Naturally we get some flies in the house. Now nobody likes flies in the house — they're kinda gross and noisy if they're the big black kind, and you know, they carry diseases and throw up on your food so they can digest it. So it's not the most fun thing to have flies zipping around your house all the time.

But my amazing dog is a fly-catcher. It's unbelievable. Without having been taught or encouraged, Mo tracks, traps, and eats houseflies. She gets excited and jumps up on window sills and follows the fly's intricate moves with her head and then smashes her muzzle into the window and comes away chewing. Who knew?

This past Saturday, Husband and I went for a nice long walk down to a stretch of road that is filled with Asian markets, Asian food, etc. Husband wanted dim sum. I kind of wanted a donut, but what else is new? These days I pretty much always want donuts. I try not to go crazy allowing myself to constantly eat deep fried bleached flour and sugar. (But there was one day when the train stopped in front of a donut shop and I grabbed Husband's arm and we jumped off. We caught the next train while I was eating my cinnamon twist.) So dim sum was a better choice.

I'm not the biggest dim sum fan. I've only had it a few times though. Husband's brother loves it and we always go with him when he visits. And it's always fun because he loves it so much and has such a good time. But as far as the food goes, I'm always kind of thinking, "Where are the egg rolls and fried rice?" or "What's with all the sweet dough wrapped around pork and seafood?" But it's growing on me.

So on Saturday we got some takeout dim sum — pork buns, pot stickers, and shu mai — then walked over to the park (one block away) and had an impromptu picnic.

Yes, this picture was taken on June 14th. And yes, I'm wearing a sweatshirt. This is what I wear every day, because this is what the weather is like in California. And it never changes. The grass is all brown because we are having a drought. They will be rationing water soon. All of our rain is falling in the midwest, evidently. Don't blame me, I voted for Gore.

My mom requested more pictures of my belly. She wants to get used to seeing me pregnant before she comes out here at the end of August and has a heart attack from seeing her baby great with child. So here is me today, mom — the beginning of week 24. Sixteen weeks to go.

Mountain or a Mole Hill

2008-05-30T14:28:00.008-05:00

I heard through the grapevine that some readers were a little uncomfortable with seeing me in my undies. So in the belly update picture below, I drew on a shirt so nobody has to see my bra. But you will get to see my photoshop skillz.

Week 19

The belly is even bigger now. I'm at 21 weeks - just over halfway. I had an appointment yesterday, and my doctor while looking at my belly said that my skin looked really nice. I was flattered by this statement. I might have even blushed. I figure she sees a lot of bellies and probably knows what nice belly skin looks like. Also, since I've had all of the other terrible side effects of pregnancy - raging morning sickness, incapacitating exhaustion, now some pretty powerful heartburn - I've been scared of getting hideous and everlasting stretchmarks. So her unexpected compliment made my day.

Last Saturday, Husband and I and longtime blog friend Shower Feelings went to a Birth and Baby Fair. What's a Baby Fair? you ask. Well it is not a convention center filled with babies from around the world in glass cases on display like one might think by the name. Instead it's a convention center filled with tables of organic baby food sellers, prenatal yoga teachers, diaper services, cord blood banks, baby clothes, financial planners, and more. We got a bunch of information, a bunch of free stuff, and this baby bib.

The fair was pretty fun - a bit over the top - but a nice way to spend the afternoon and see a new part of San Francisco.

In other news, I think I have a job. I went to an interview yesterday and on Monday I have to go and observe for a few hours. The lady said it was a formality in my case because I'm "a slam dunk." I'll be working part time with an environmental nonprofit helping in their development department. It's really flexible and I think it will be kind of fun. I'll be working with a bunch of young idealistic environmentalists trying to change the world. Not a bad way to spend four or five months.

Thanks for all the inquiries about the job status. The other interview went well, but ended with an email that said, "We hate you and we think you're stupid." C'est la vie.

But on a happier note, as of Tuesday, our guest room is fully furnished. Nice comfortable queen bed, desk, and leather chair. Now everyone can plan your trips out to see us. I know you've been putting them off until we were ready for you. So, we're ready now and you will have your own room which is nice and bright during the day but the picture below was taken at night. As you can see, Mo likes the carpet, but is not allowed on the bed. Book your dates now. Come and see us!

Coming Soon: As soon as I find the cord for our scanner, I'll scan the ultrasound pictures we got last Friday and post them for you. Just to let you know in advance - our baby is cute. Also Gabe, I'll get a patio picture up for you soon. It is looking good out there with a little herb garden, hanging flowers, and a lemon tree. But there is still room for two chairs and a grill. A perfect place for you to smoke your pipe when you come to see us.

Life Across the Country

2008-05-12T11:30:00.003-05:00

Our furniture and boxes were loaded onto a moving truck outside our Brooklyn apartment on March 25th. They didn’t arrive at our new apartment in San Francisco until Saturday, April 12th. One month later, only 12 boxes are not unpacked and the place is shaping up nicely. (And you're right sooprgrrl, we have great natural light.)

Here are some pictures of our apartment....

This (following two pics) is our living room, and although you can't tell from the first picture, all those books are in categories and almost all are in alphabetical order by author name.

This is our cute dining room. This is where we eat our dinner and where I put my computer during the day to look for jobs and read your blogs.

Here are a few notes about our neighborhood. It’s very nice and very clean. The houses are all well maintained, lots of people seem to have dogs and kids. There is a huge Catholic church (and school and convent) two blocks away. They have bells that play every day at 7:20 (a.m.!), 8:50, noon, and 6:00 p.m. as far as I can tell. On Sundays though, all bets are off. I can’t figure out when they play. My guess is they play at the end of mass and therefore do not have a set time. So that’s the nice part of having the church right behind our house. The bad part – huge glowing church steeple and cross at night blazing through all the bedroom windows. The bells are beautiful; the steeple – a little tacky.

The weather is weird. All of you who are picturing me sunning myself in my tank top and sandals have the wrong picture indeed. It is very windy and mostly cold. And I don't mean breezy. It is not breezy here. It's windy — like can't wear your hair down 'cause it blows around your neck and chokes you and flies into your mouth and eyes. It's windy. And it's cold — not winter-coat cold, but sweater or jacket and always pants and almost always long sleeves. I have the heater set at about 62 degrees and it comes on every night.

There have been about three days that have been beautiful. I wore my flip-flops once and short sleeves maybe twice. This morning, I walked Brian to the train in jeans, a long sleeve shirt and a sweater. I pulled my hands into the sleeves of my shirt to keep them warm. It's sunny though — almost every day. It's only rained once and that was really only a sprinkle. Some days start or end foggy or cloudy, but for most of the day I need sun glasses.

This week I definitely need to find a job of some kind. Housewifing is fun for a few days as you plan and cook meals and arrange your house, but then it gets kind of lonely and isolating. So this week, I have big plans for human interaction.

Baby Bump Picture Series #1

2008-05-08T15:30:00.007-05:00

WARNING: Below there are pictures of me in my underwear.

This first picture is of me when I am 4 weeks pregnant a few days after we found out back in February.

This second picture is of me this morning now at 17 weeks. We heard the baby's heart beat again last Friday. In two weeks we will be able to find out the sex of the baby if we want to. Husband is all for knowing. I'm not sure. All I know is that I'm feeling fat as I sit here typing with my pants unbuttoned.

My Dream Car

2008-02-06T20:16:00.000-05:00

If I was going to buy a car (and I could conscience buying a car that didn't run on vegetable oil or hydrogen), I would buy an old Jeep Grand Wagoneer.

Isn't that the coolest car you've ever seen? I love the wood paneling and the luggage rack. I've had a crush on this car for two years.

Cows — the perfect animals?

2008-01-30T21:12:00.000-05:00

I've been reading Dave Eggers's latest book, What is the What. I have really been enjoying it. Enjoying is the wrong word to describe reading an account of a brutal genocide, but I am touched and compelled by the story.

The title of the book comes from the Dinka creation myth. This creation story tells us that after God created man and woman, He offered them one other thing. They could choose between cattle or "the what". The first Dinka man and woman wisely chose the cattle over the unknown. They could tell that "cattle were God's most perfect creation, and that the cattle carried something godlike within themselves."

Humm.

Yah, I guess I can see it. Beef, milk, healthy birthrate, easy to graze, peaceful, cute. Pretty close to perfect.

As I read this book, I can't help but think about some of the horrific genocides and bloody massacres in recent history. It's depressing. And convicting. Kurt Vonnegut writes in Slaughterhouse-Five that he told his sons that they were in no way to participate in massacres. I've always hoped to instruct my children likewise. But is it possible? I wonder how much money I have contributed in my lifetime to massacres by buying chocolate and coffee, cheap clothes and gasoline. Happily, I own no diamonds. But my two-person household owns three computers with toxic metals that may one day contaminate poor communities in distant parts of the world I'll never see. And then there are the mass murders funded, officially and unofficially, by my tax dollars. How can I tell my children not to participate in injustice and oppression when I have been, to some degree, a happily ignorant participant my whole life?

Well, the first blogpost back is always the gloomiest, right? I take two months off and come back with this ray of sunshine. Nice.

On a lighter note, the cow pictures were taken at the Vermont State Fair this past August while husband and I were on vacation. It was a great day. We saw pig races, sheep shearing, and lots of cows. We ate ice cream and maple syrup and kettle corn and barbecue.

Another Novel Excerpt

2007-11-13T08:11:00.000-05:00

THE GIFT ASHTRAY

I must have been four or five – still in preschool. At craft time we were gluing small blue tiles on to the bottom of metal ashtrays. The tiles were pretty I remember – different shades of blues and teals. No body at my house smoked. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do with an ashtray. Then I remembered that my dad smoked. How exciting! I could give it to my dad in a few months when I saw him.

Months passed and my mom, my sister, and I were standing in a mall half way between Huntington and Michigan City. (Michigan City is where my mother’s parents lived. They had a house right on Lake Michigan and we spent a lot of time during the summers there on the beach.) I stood there next to a bench in front of a potted plant facing an entrance and waiting with cheap little blue tiled ashtray in my hand for my dad to come. I was excited but mostly nervous and scared and already homesick. Even though we went every year, when you’re little you don’t like leaving your mom for three weeks to go live with practical strangers.

There they were, my dad and my grandpa, coming in the door smiling. Both were big men around six feet with big barrel chests and happy wide faces. Both of them had great smiles. I carry some of that smile on my face today. We all exchanged pleasantries. My mom liked to keep these exchanges short. She never got to the point where she was comfortable around her ex-husband after he was an ex. But before we all filed out to the parking lot to move luggage from one car to the other, my mother nudged me and gestured toward my little hand. “Don’t you have something you want to show them?” she reminded me.

Oh, of course. “I made this for you.” I said as I held out the blue-bottomed ashtray to my father. “It’s an ashtray.”

“Oh, I don’t need it. I quit smoking,” he said. He put his hands up in a gesture to show that they were empty and then put them back in his pockets. I was left standing with my arm outstretched offering my present to no one. He didn’t even take it and look at it and then give it back. He just didn’t take it. He seemed very proud that he had stopped smoking as well he should have been. But aren’t you always supposed to take the presents that your children give you even if you have absolutely no use for them, even if they’re ugly and cheap? Aren’t you supposed to take them and praise the workmanship and tell your daughter that the ashtray she made was beautiful?

I feel like I knew that even at five. My mom clearly knew that for she reached out with an incredulous look at my dad and took the little ashtray. “We’ll give it to Grandpa Main,” she offered. “He smokes pipes and he would love to have a new ashtray.” She put the ashtray in her bag and changed the subject quickly and got us all moving toward the parking lot.

I don’t think I was too hurt by it at the time. I certainly didn’t feel how I imagine feeling now if I saw something similar happening to a child. And I don’t want to paint my father in the wrong light. This little discourtesy may have been the only time in my life where my dad hurt my feelings. So in all honesty he was a fine father and a caring parent. It probably was just one of those times when the excitement of an accomplishment and the lack of parental experience come together to break a little girls heart. Luckily I was a tough little girl with a fast healing heart and no insecurities about being loved by my family.

The Third Novel Writing Novemeber

2007-11-04T13:04:00.000-05:00

It's November again and for the third year in a row, I will attempt to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days as a part of National Novel Writing Month. I've never made it all the way. In fact the farthest I've gotten is about 12k last year. But that was almost double what I wrote the first year. And this year, I've roped a few more friends into doing it with me in the attempt to make it more of a game. I work harder when there is some competition.

So for this month, most of what I'll be posting here are excerpts from that larger undertaking. They will be mostly true stories since the novel that I'm trying to write is a remembrance of my grandpa's life and about my childhood experiences with him. At least that's what I think it's going to be about. Below is the first of hopefully many excerpts.

DRIVING LESSON
This is the high school where I had my first driving lesson. I must have been 8 or 9. It was a Christmas vacation. A handful of times we spent Christmas with my grandparents in the house on Cherry Street. There was a fireplace there. We did not have a fireplace at my house in Illinois and I was always confused as to how Santa got in. But in Huntington it was clear. I knew how he got in, but I didn’t know why the presents that he gave in Indiana were so much suckier than they were at home.

This year it snowed and it was beautiful. Sarah and I were riding back with my dad from seeing a Christmas light display at a local park when we stopped into the High School parking lot. There were no cars and the whole thing was covered with six to eight inches of snow. My dad put the car in park and looked at Sarah and told her, “It’s time for your first driving lesson.”

I was shocked. I knew that it was against the law for anyone to drive a car who was under 16 years of age. Sarah was only 12 or 13. This was illegal! But Sarah scooted across the bench seat to sit behind the wheel. She drove in slow circles around the empty lot barely touching the pedals. My dad gave pointers and laughed as the car swerved around in the snowdrifts.

I was so jealous. And so ecstatic when he turned around to the back seat and told me it was my turn. My feet hung twelve inches from the pedals and I could barely see over the dashboard, but I was driving. The car crunched through the snow at a creeping pace and I controlled its course. I directed it right and left. I held the lives of my passengers in my hands. It was exhilarating. I felt so grown up so mature. Of course that night we were sent to bed at 8:30 and it deflated my adult bubble a little bit.

All Alone for Three Months

2007-10-26T11:30:00.000-05:00

Husband left last Sunday to spend three months in San Francisco. Maybe now I'll find some time to update this blog (if I can see the keyboard through my tears).

I was writing him a note this morning on this postcard:

The plants decorating the front of the house reminded me of a permanent(?) exhibit Husband and I saw on our vacation in New England this past August. We went to MASS MoCA — the largest contemporary art museum in the world — in North Adams, Massachusetts. The museum is housed in an old mill in the Berkshires. The buildings are huge and beautiful and the exhibits are likewise huge and for the most part remarkable.

Outside the museum, there is an ongoing exhibit of hanging trees. There are six, young, live, maple trees suspended upside down from huge poles and wires. They've been there for eight years. This summer it looked like only four of them were still alive, but you could see in their curved trunks that all of them were straining to turn themselves over to grow toward the sun.

It was very pretty and very interesting but also kind of sad. Those trees won't be able to live upside down forever. While I was standing under them, all I could do was think of my third-grade science fair project, "Do Roots Always Grow Down?". The answer is yes, and I know this because as an eight year-old I did countless tests sprouting seeds pressed against clear plastic surfaces. Once each sprout had a root and a stem established — root growing down, stem growing up — I would turn the container over so the roots pointed up and the stem down. Every time, within two or three days, the root and stem would both change course and continue growing the original direction (roots down, stem up). And if you turned it over again, they will switch again and again, even after the science fair was long over, as long as you remember to water them. Forgetting to water the seeds is the fastest way to kill them, I found.

Hope You're Feeling Better, Chesty O'Massman

2007-08-03T12:54:00.000-05:00

This is my brother-in-law. Two weeks ago, doctors cut him open and collapsed his left lung in order to remove an unidentifiable mass behind his heart. They removed the mass, stitched him back up, and gave him painful breathing exercises to re-inflate the lung. He is home now sans mystery mass (which contained no cancer cells — thank you Jesus) trying to heal up.

For a distraction from the pain (and I'm told lung-inflating and chest-surgery healing is crazy painful), he bought a copy of The Grapes of Wrath. If I were trying to keep my mind off excruciating pain, I would have chosen something fluffy and happy and light. But not this mountain man. He chose bleak dust bowls, Depression migration, and starvation to keep his mind occupied. This is a tough cookie. This is a guy who shoots limbs out of trees as a part of his job. This is a guy who pulls his own EKG stickers off his hairy chest.

Feel better soon, Captain RibcageRage. We're thinking about you.

Steve Martin - My New BFF

2007-07-15T14:50:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, BOMB, Husband's magazine, had its annual fundraising gala. Tickets to this shindig were $600 each. We did not have to pay but we did get to attend.

It was a snazzy dress-up event, so Husband and I both got new clothes. Husband got a new suit — his first new suit since our wedding. It's a great suit and it doesn't hurt that Brian's so attractive. Needless to say, he looked great — very debonair. I also got a new dress to wear and a cute pink headband to add a splash of color to an otherwise grey ensemble. My outfit cost about ten times less than Brian's, but sometimes that's just how it goes.

We took this picture the night before the gala when Brian brought his suit home from the tailor. The actual night of the party, I took a shower and wore hose and I did my hair like this:

Fun side note: You can play a fun Highlights-like game with the first picture. Can you find among the bric-a-brac of our living room, a hiking boot, Rapunzel's braid, two moose, a fly swatter, and a chicken?

The big news the week before the party was that Steve Martin — everyone's favorite wild and crazy guy — had sent in his RSVP and was expected to show. I made lots of plans to take incognito pictures of me standing next to Mr. Martin while he was talking to someone else and unawares. Little did I know I would have the opportunity for much more interaction than that.

The party was held at The Park, a restaurant in Chelsea with a lovely, enclosed garden. The evening started with two hours of cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Then we sat down for a delicious dinner, two lifetime-achievement-type awards to an artist (Kara Walker) and an art critic (Irving Sandler), and thank-you-for-comings. Throughout the evening a silent auction was going on. Art from more than 40 friends of BOMB had been donated to this fundraiser auction. The art was hung all around the restaurant. On the walls, next to each piece, were bid cards on which potential buyers would write their names and top bids. Since this was a fundraiser and a New York art event and an art event featuring some famous artists and some really great stuff, the opening bids were a little (actually a lot) out of our price range. So Husband and I were content to eat free food, drink free drinks, and look at the art and discuss which pieces we would buy if we had an extra few thousand dollars laying around.

When I arrived at the party (about 45 minutes after Brian) there had been no Steve Martin sightings yet. I had to settle for being introduced to some artists who had done work for BOMB that I really liked, finally meeting a few of the more elusive of Brian's collegues, and Brian pointing out Eric Fischl, an artist whom we had seen speak a year ago. Toward the end of the cocktail hours, Brian and I were standing at a bar in the back of the restaurant with a BOMB coworker. Brian was ordering a Mojito and I a white wine, when suddenly and without warning, Steve Martin is standing right next to us also ordering drinks. He looked just like himself — a little older and slightly less thin than he appears in my mind, but still just like Steve Martin. He was wearing a (presumably) black suit and nice black-rimmed glasses. His hair — as white as I could have hoped.

I am hopeless when it comes to spotting celebrities. I've lived in New York City for almost five years but have an abysmal celebrity-sightings list. Unlike sooprgrll who can spot a celebrity at 100 yards, I don't see them. In spite of the fact that Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Jennifer Connelly (and hubby Paul Bettany), and I hear Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, all live five to seven blocks away from me, I've never seen any of them. Okay, I saw John Turturro, but that's because I went to his play and even then Brian had to point him out. I missed seeing Steven Spielberg in Central Park as he walked right past us because I was sliding around on the ice pretending to be at the Olympics. And I would have missed Steve Martin standing at the bar right next to us if Brian and his coworker hadn't seen him. Brian had turned around and welcomed Mr. Martin to the gala on behalf of BOMB and received a cordial reply — "I hope you make a lot of money!" — before I even knew what had happened.

This is a picture I took from about ten feet away without him knowing. After taking it, I thought I had gone about as far as I could go. I had been standing four feet away while he ordered drinks, I had been close enough to overhear him being introduced to an artist that Brian had introduced me to a few hours earlier, and I had taken this sneaky camera shot to commemorate this day forever. What more could I have hoped for?

After the dinner and ceremony there were "only twenty minutes left to make your bids" on the silent-auction artworks. Like I said before, Brian and I weren't bidding; we couldn't afford it. But we took a walk around during the last twenty frenzied minutes to see what the going rate was for two or three of our favorite pieces. This is one of them. There were three other pieces by the same artist: Ellen Berkenblit. All very similar, featuring the same woman and snake. This four-piece series was our favorite work (two of the pieces in particular) in the silent action.

We approached the Berkenblit pieces to ascertain the going rate and we noticed a name: S. Martin.

"S. Martin. That's Steve Martin," Husband said to me.

"Oh my gosh, Brian. Steve Martin bid on your two favorite pieces." I said loudly to Husband just before I realized that Steve Martin was standing three feet away from me guarding the pieces he had bid on.

"You cannot outbid me," Steve Martin said to me as he raised the pen in his hand to eye-level, ready to rewrite his name alongside his new, higher bid amount. His eyes never moved from the artwork but still his comment was funny and playful and — did I mention? — addressed to me.

"Oh is that right?" I replied, giggling a little. "Brian, I should outbid him," I said as I turned to Husband.

"That'd be funny." Husband said and nodded. Did I mention that there was a two-hour cocktail hour and wine with dinner? Because I'm going to blame a little too much wine for the ridiculous decision to walk up to the bid card and write my real name next to a bid for $2000. The wine might also have had something to do with the bravado that led me to turn around, touch Steve Martin's arm, and say to him, "I'll leave you to make your bid" and then walk away. What was I thinking?

I walked to the other side of the room and then turned around thinking I could watch Steve Martin take out his pen again and out bid me. But he didn't move. He was stood still looking at the paintings, watching the four he wanted, but making no strides to reclaim the one that I had just stolen from him.

I started to sweat. Why wasn't he moving? He told me I couldn't outbid him. He pretty much dared me to bid him up. Why wasn't he upbidding me? I cannot afford to spend $2000 on a piece of art. Why in the world did I use my real name? You can't welch on a bid when you have the same last name as an employee. What was I going to do?

For about ten more minutes, I was in a small panic. Then the announcement came that the bidding was now closed. Mr. Martin calmly took out his pen, walked forward, and wrote his name and his final bid on the four pieces that he wanted. Then he walked away.

A sigh of relief. I could breath again. We went up and took a picture of the final bid card with my name sandwiched between two "S. Martins." With my pulse back to normal, I was about to think about how silly and kind of rude I had been. I just cost Steve Martin $500. So if you ever read this blog, Mr. Martin, I'm sorry. It was rude and thoughtless of me. And I really enjoy watching you in movies. And thank you for reading my blog.

Pyramid Mountain

2007-06-14T10:32:00.000-05:00

Husband's boss is in Italy this week and she asked us to car-sit. In New York City, every street is swept once or twice a week by huge sanitation street sweeping vehicles. To accommodate the sweepers, all the cars on a given side of the street must move for a three-hour period. They call this "alternate side parking." On holidays and really snowy days, you will hear on the news that "alternate side parking is suspended for today."

Because of alternate side parking, you can't leave your car parked in one spot and go on vacation for a week, or you'll get a $45 parking ticket and a big, neon green, hard-to-remove sticker on your window that says something like "this street wasn't cleaned properly and it's your fault!" So if you own a car and you want to go somewhere without it, you have to ask someone to move it for you while you're gone.

This is why we have access to a car this week. We've been trying to take advantage of it. Last Sunday morning, we loaded up the car with ourselves and our dog and drove to Boonton, New Jersey's Pyramid Mountain Natural Historic Area to go for a hike. The weather has been quite nice this week — cool and breezy. Sunday was likewise pleasant. It was overcast and sprinkled on us once or twice for a minute or two. But we had our raincoats and were sheltered by a canopy of leaves and branches, so we didn't mind.

This is a map of the park and all its trails. The path we took is marked in purple.

Being in the woods and hiking on trails marked with "blazes" stirred up our Appalachian Trail aspirations again. While we hiked we shared remembrances of A Walk in the Woods, the Bill Bryson book about hiking the AT, that Husband and I read together last summer. We even discussed spending our annual anniversary trip hiking and camping in New England with the dog instead of going to Europe which was our preliminary plan. We'll see.

I have always liked hiking. I love the woods and being in nature. I like the smell of it and the way the sun shines through millions of leaves. Last summer we took Mo with us for the first time and my love of hiking increased by a power of ten. A dog with the freedom to run in the woods while having the assurance of her owners' presence on the path not far away is the happiest creature in the world. The bounding through the underbrush, the splashing in streams along the path is a guaranteed spirit lifter if the glory of the woods isn't enough for you. Mo spends the whole hike running ahead or to the sides about 30 yards and then turning around and running back to us to make sure we're still there. As if to say, "Hey guys, are you still coming? I love you" before she runs off again.

A beautiful day, in the indescribable beauty of the woods, with my beloved husband and the happiest dog in the world, I'll be surprised if I find anything better than this.

I Keep Telling You (the NO video)

2007-06-08T00:47:00.001-05:00

Husband recorded this song last night (with backup vocals by me), then recorded this video for it.

Here's my video for the song:

Three Two-legged Chihuahuas

2007-06-04T07:54:00.000-05:00

For those of you who saw the discussion several months ago about Faith the Two-legged Wonder Dog, it might interest you to know that there are three baby chihuahuas here in New York all learning to hop around like Faith on their two back legs. You can read more about them and the horrors of "backyard breading" here. Their names are Carmen, Venus, and Pablo, and they will presumably all be up for adoption in the near future.

The End of the Line: Adventure Under the Big Top Part V

2007-05-24T17:58:00.000-05:00

The final episode of this branch the story. If you would like to read the previous four parts, follow the links below.
part one
part two
part three
part four

You wake up to a bucket of water in your face.

You sit up and realize that you are sitting in a wagon filled with hay. The air is crisp and you figure that you were cold even before you got your cold water wake up call.

You look around and see a stone farmhouse and barn. Mountains are in the not to distant background. You hear the sound of chickens and pigs from the direction of the barn.

The man holding the now empty bucket is large and wearing clothes that make you think of European farmers in the dark ages. He is yelling at you in a language that you don’t know and don’t even recognize. He doesn’t look happy.

“I never should have followed that man down that alley.” You say to yourself as you push yourself up on your elbows and prepare yourself for your new life.

The End

Happy Birthday TheWifest!

2007-04-17T10:06:00.000-05:00

It has been one year since I posted my first post. That sure went fast!

To celebrate, here is the long awaited next section of our Adventure Under the Big Top. If you need to refresh your memory about the other steps of this Choose Your Own Adventure story, here are the first three parts of our adventure.

part one
part two
part three

Run For Your Life, Adventure Under the Big Top Part IV

“No!” You scream out and step back. The spell is broken. Your head feels clearer as you turn on your heels and burst through the tent flaps into the open air. You make a run for it while the men in the tent recover from their shock. The sound of muffled yelling and chairs falling are the last thing you hear before you make a quick right turn past a row of tents. Then you make a left turn and another right in quick secession. You don’t know if you are being followed but you don’t want to stop and find out.

It would be smart to notice which direction you were going. It would be comforting if you had the presence of mind to think about where you had come in to this strange place and run that direction. But you don’t do either of these things until you are hopelessly lost in a maze of tents and equipment. There don’t seem to be any exits into the real world.

You are completely out of breath. You stop and double over holding the stitch in your side.

“Where am I?” You think. “How am I going to get out of here? Everything looks exactly the same.”

“How could you be this stupid?” You scold yourself out loud.

“I beg your pardon?” A women’s voice calls out indignantly from behind you.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” You say as you whirl around to face a gypsy woman in long flowing clothes and a shawl draped over her head exiting her tent. “I wasn’t talking to you, ma’am.”

“If you wasn’t talking to me, then who was you talking to?” She looked around at the open air under eyelids as heavy as her accent as if expecting to see something.

“I was just talking to myself. I didn’t think anyone was around to hear me.”

“Are you sure there is no one else out here?” She took a step out of her tent and dreamily looked to the right and to the left. “Not everyone can you see, you know.”

“No. It’s really just me. I was just talking to myself.”

“This woman is a piece of work,” You think to yourself.

“I don’t suppose you know how to get back out into the fairway, do you?” You have very little hope the she knows much of anything, but no one else is around and she isn’t carrying a knife that you can tell.

“Come closer, you. To tell you the path to take, I’ll need a closer look at you.” She holds out her hand to request your palm.

“I don’t need my palm read. I just need to know how to get back to my friends, back to the fairway.” You tell her.

“Come, come,” She says to you and takes a few steps toward you – her arm outstretched. “You will never see the direction to travel while you running. You must stop to see where you is and where you is to go.”

“What can it hurt? Here.” You hold out your hand.

The gypsy lays your hand in the palm of her left hand. Her right hand closes around your wrist.

“Ouch! That hurts.” She has a steel grip on your wrist and it hurts. You try to wiggle your way free, but she only tightens her hold. She begins to smile and then to laugh – a wild laugh.

Suddenly you feel a strong arm around your neck choking you. You gab at the arm with your free hand, but you are no match for its strength. The gypsy woman reaches out to grad that hand too and catches it in an unbreakable clasp.

You see a white cloth coming toward your face. You feel the cloth press against your mouth and nose. You smell an unfamiliar odor. You struggle against the strong arm to shake your head free of the cloth. You pull on your trapped hands to no avail. Things grow foggy until your eyes close. You are unconscious.

Stay tuned for the next installment. Tell me what you think should happen in the comment section. It's not a vote though. There is not a choice between two things; you've been overpowered so you'll have to take what comes. If this were actually a Choose Your Own Adventure book, this would be a page that ended not with a choice but instructions to turn to a certain page.

Katie Shrugged: Initial thoughts on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

2007-04-13T11:11:00.000-05:00

I hate every character in this book. It seems impossible to me that not a single person in Rand's created universe would have a sense of humor or any hint of joie de vivre. Certainly Rand herself knew one happy person — one person on whom she could base a character who was warm or generous in spirit. The world of Atlas Shrugged has no such character. So far everyone falls into two categories: stupid and despicable or smart and loathsome. And that is as far as it goes.

This is not to say that I hate the book. I do not — not so far. Likewise, I do not love the book — not so far. I do not find the story particularly compelling, but it is not usually a chore to read or listen to. (I have it on my iPod and have been listening to it as I walk to and from work and while I do the dishes and once while I played a video game.) I think mostly it is predictable — both the characters and the plot devices. I am looking forward to seeing if my predictions about John Galt are correct though.

I am not finished with the book. I am only about halfway through. Things could change, but somehow, I doubt it. I am reading this book because it is one of my father-in-law's favorites, and I am mentioning my first impressions here at his request.

Again, I have not finished the book. Please no one give anything away. This book is a million pages long; I won't have anyone ruining the ending for me when I've put in so much work. So no spoilers in the comment section PLEASE.

Early to Bed

2007-04-07T15:47:00.000-05:00

For the past few mornings, Husband and I have been playing a rhyme game before we get out of bed. We've been changing the last line of the old Ben Franklyn maxim "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."

Here are a few that we came up with. Can you think of any more?

Early to bed and early to rise,
Sounds kind of nice
I might give it a try.

Early to bed and early to rise,
doesn't give you the right
to pinch my thighs.

Early to bed and early to rise,
makes
me want
to eat
French fries.

Early to bed and early to rise,
under the sheets
you will find
a surprise.

Early to bed and early to rise,
whatever you say
as long as I'm with (pointing to bedfellows)
youse guys

I can golf... sort of

2007-04-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of me playing my first-ever golf game in October 2005, on Prince Edward Island, Canada, where Husband and I spent our third-anniversary vacation. There were golf courses all over PEI's scenic coast, and we picked one sort of randomly. Instead of paying a hundred dollars each to play on the 18-hole course (which we didn't have the clothes for, anyway), we went to the golf academy and played nine holes for 30 dollars for both of us.

I finished 50 over par. Not bad, eh?

While we were on the sixth hole a father and son started out behind us, on the first hole. They were the only people we saw the whole time we were out there. By the eighth hole they had caught up to us and we let them play through. They were a lot faster than me.

I had a lot of fun. I insisted on playing my ball no matter where it was. I made Husband do the same, which is why we have pictures of him hitting his ball from an out-of-bounds area full of knee-high weeds.

The most devastating part of looking over these pictures and remembering this golf game is not my abysmal score or that I have not played golf since. It is instead that the pants that I am wearing in this picture have been lost forever. I left them and a red pair just like them at the laundromat back in July. They were my favorite pants of all time and I lost them. If they were to turn up somehow, it would be even more exciting than finding my monkey-sock book.

It Started with a Sock Monkey

2007-03-15T09:37:00.000-05:00

About six years ago, Brian gave me a book called Things to Make for Children. He found it at a Chicagoland garage sale and bought it for me because it had a pattern for making sock monkeys. Around that time, I had found some monkey socks at a craft store and had been talking about wanting to make a sock monkey.

The book — about 100 pages, 8.5 by 11" — was filled with sewing patterns and woodworking projects that parents could make for their kids. It was the most exciting book I had ever seen. It had puppets and dollhouses. It showed you how to build portable clubhouses and cardboard igloos. It had how-tos for tree houses and indoor playroom paraphernalia. The most impressive project was the "Giant Rocking Giraffe." It was essentially a rocking horse. But this had room for three kids, who would sit on its back and put their feet in stirrups. It must have been seven or eight feet tall and incredibly dangerous to ride without a helmet by today's standards.

This book started my collection of things-to-make-and-do-with-children books. But sometime between graduating college and moving to New York, I lost this amazing book. I couldn't find it. I couldn't figure out what happened to it, and since it was published in 1973 (and since I couldn't remember the exact title), I knew that I couldn't go pick up another copy at the Barnes & Noble. I was resigned to having lost the coolest book I would ever own. I tried to replace it with other books of its kind.

I have Something To Do: 300 games, hobbies and pastimes for all the year round (purchased by Brian in Hay-on-Wye, Wales in December 2003). I have Disguises You Can Make and Indian Crafts for Boys & Girls. I have two books from a series called The Family Creative Workshop, a book on how to make cool kites and one on how to make models out of cut and folded paper. And a great book called Muppets Make Puppets. While all of these books are amazing in their own ways, I would kick myself from time to time for having lost the first of my collection — the crown jewel.

Just recently, Brian and I went to Vermont for a weekend of skiing and relaxation. We stayed at my parents' condo, and they came up to ski with us and hang out for one day of the trip. In the evening, my mother came up to me with a book in her hand and asked me if I knew anyone who might want this children's craft book. I looked over and in her hand was my lost copy of Things to Make for Children. I was so excited; I spent the rest of the evening looking through it and showing Brian things like "The Shoe Playground":

Now that I have my book back and I know how to make "A Barrel for Cavorting," maybe it's time to have some babies. Of course none of my books are about playing with babies or toddlers. This book collection doesn't allow me to be a good mother until my kids are four or five. Oh well, how important can those first years be?

Happy Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T11:32:00.000-05:00

This morning we woke up to an inch or so of snow on the ground (the picture above was not taken this morning but during a big snow we had two years ago). I saw it out the window while still laying in bed and said to Brian, "Thanks for getting me snow for Valentine's Day."

For the past ten or even 15 years, I have been asking for snow for Christmas and my birthday. Not that this is the answer anyone wants to hear when they ask me what I want for Christmas, but it is what I want.

Brian rolled over and looked out the window and said, "I don't think I can take credit for the snow."

"Why ever not?" was my reply.

It's still snowing or at least sleeting, and it looks like it will keep it up all day and into the night. We may not get the accumulation that the midwest is seeing, but it's the first real snow we've had. I love the snow, so I am happy.

I'm getting my hair cut today. It probably won't be anything drastic. Never the less, I'm excited.
Maybe I'll post pictures.

I hope all of you have a lovely day. In the words of St. Valentine, "Chocolate is good for you."

A Spanish Play

2007-01-27T10:14:00.000-05:00

On Thursday night we went to see a new play by Yasmina Reza called A Spanish Play. Reza is a French playwright of some renown. In college I read her most famous play 'Art'. It's a play about three friends and how one of them purchasing a piece of art changes and affects their friendship. The piece of art is a huge canvas painted white and it wasn't cheap. It was a funny play and I remember it making me think about the value of art and also the value of friendship and how friends influence each other and help each other develop as people.

I read the play six years ago out loud to Brian in the car as he drove us to his grandparents’ house. It was my first time meeting them. I don't think of myself as a clumsy person usually, but before two hours had passed, I upset a whole box of Russell Stover’s assorted dark chocolates onto the pristine white carpet. The box had just been opened; one piece had been eaten. So I scooped all of the chocolates back into the box — no reason to waste all of those delicious goodies and, as I mentioned, the carpet was very clean. I later learned that chocolates that fall on the floor are to be thrown away in this family.

Later than night, Brian's grandma asked me if I liked black licorice. I said, "No. Not really. I am growing to like my mother’s anise cookies, though." She told me she had just the thing for me. She took me into the kitchen and poured me a shot of Zambuca (a licorice flavored liqueur) and then set it on fire. Hot licorice flavored alcohol. It was terrible. Brian's brother finished the drink for me after my first few sips.

A Spanish Play is about actors rehearsing a Spanish play in which some of them play actors — one of those actors is rehearsing a Bulgarian play. So there are three layers (at least) going on. While there's a lot of comedy, especially from Denis O'Hare, mostly it’s sad. The characters, in each layer, are sad and lonely. Their relationships are falling apart. They are losing their grips on who they are. Do actors exist apart from the roles they play? Is it better if they don’t? Is there an end to anything? To art? To relationships? To pain and loneliness? To existence?

I really liked it. All the actors were amazing. I’ll remember the sadness though, I think, more than anything else. The actor rehearsing the Bulgarian play has a line about liking happy, “jolly” plays, but the sad things stick with you longer. I think that’s right. We’re all so afraid of sadness and loneliness (or so familiar with it) that seeing it on the stage or on the screen resonates louder and reverberates longer in our hearts.

The play was directed by John Turturro. It was a square theater with about five rows of seating on three sides. I think that’s called a three-quarters stage. We were in the second-to-last row in the center section (excellent seats that we got for free because Brian’s job is awesome). We went in as soon as the house opened — about fifteen minutes before the show started. We sat and watched the seats fill up. About five minutes out, three men came and sat down in the seats right behind us. Brian says to me quietly, “That’s John Turturro. He’s sitting right behind us.” And sure enough he was. We were able to eavesdrop as he talked to the other two men about what had been happening in rehearsals and the differences between doing a new play and an old play. During the play, Brian was treated to and distracted by some of his commentary. He was sitting directly behind Brian. I couldn’t hear much after the play started. I did hear him curse once or twice in reaction to some technical difficulties. But mostly it was just cool to sit in front of a famous actor who also happened to direct the play.

This is a picture that Brian took of John T. on the set of A Spanish Play.

Dog Tricks

2007-01-22T08:17:00.000-05:00

We have had our dog, Mo, for a year and a half. We love her. She's a great dog, and she's very smart. Or at least she is very easy to train. In the first six months we had her, I taught her all kinds of tricks. I bought a trick book and spent time training her almost every day.

Then I stopped. I got busy or lazy or overly proud of my past training accomplishments. But this year, as you might have read below, I have a goal of teaching her at least five new tricks. I wanted to document the tricks she already knows (so you can see how brilliant she is), and list the tricks that I want to teach her this year so that I don't forget to do them.

Here is Mo's repertoire:

SIT

LAY

SIT PRETTY

SHAKE
DANCE
SPIN

ROLL OVER

"BANG! BANG!" (PLAY DEAD)

Mo can also jump over things — a broom handle most often, and she stays very well. She also can "go get" a few specific toys. So as you can tell, she's brilliant.

In 2007, I will teach her at least five new tricks.
Here are some ideas:

1. balance a treat on the end of her nose, then flip it into her mouth
2. go get her leash before walks
3. crawl
4. go get her food dish
5. take something to Brian
6. go upstairs
7. go lay down in a specific place

We've already started the first one. She's doing really well. I'll post a picture once we have it perfected along with pictures of the other tricks as she learns them.

New Year's Eve

2007-01-17T13:46:00.000-05:00

On New Year's Eve I was in Montara, California, 35 minutes south of San Francisco on Highway 1. My family — my mom and stepdad; my sister Sarah and her husband Nathan; my sister Heather and her long-time boyfriend Rob; and me and my husband Brian — gathered together at a lighthouse hostel for five days of post-Christmas holiday time.

The day started with a trip to Muir Woods — the redwood forest just north of San Francisco most famous for its cameo in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. These are the woods where Kim Novak shows Jimmy Stewart her birth and death on the rings of a cross-section of redwood tree, speaking in a dreamy, possessed-by-Carlotta-Valdes voice.

The eight of us hiked a three- or four-mile trail through the woods, up a mountain, and back into the valley next to a creek where salmon migrate. We were surrounded by thousand year-old trees, any one of which could have housed gnomes or fairies if this were another world. Some of these might have been homes to Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. Muir Woods is where George Lucas filmed the Endor scenes.

The greens, the reds, the browns, the age and majesty of these giants left me speechless. It looked like a fairy tale. It was the kind of place that makes you wish you were a little kid or a princess or a little girl pretending to be a princess. It's the kind of place that makes you want to move there and be nearby and walk here often and always and with your children who haven't been born yet or even thought about seriously but if they did exist, or when they do, they need to see this place and this beauty, and so do you. It was the kind of day that makes you wonder about people who don't like to hike or don't like "the outdoors." Is it possible that those people really exist? And if they came here and saw these trees and breathed this air, — the fresh, fragrant, crisp, clean air — would they feel the same?

I enjoy hiking or group-walking like we did that day because it's beautiful and exciting and also because it offers a chance for personal and varied conversation. As we walked, our large group would split into smaller groups and some would lag behind a little and some would pull a little ahead always to reconvene, rearrange, and redisperse. This happened every quarter-mile or so. I loved this because it gave me a chance to have in-depth conversations with my sisters, one at a time and together, and with my mother and with everyone in our party in every permutation without another person in the hearing distance but with everyone in sight. Walking together, in my experience, lends itself to getting past small talk and into meaningful conversations. From reminiscing about old memories to dreams for the future to regrets and hardships, I talked about everything as I walked in the woods that day.

As night fell and midnight approached, we found ourselves back at the lighthouse ready to implement our mildly illicit plan. Ever since we started talking about this trip a year ago, we had talked about ringing in the New Year with a bonfire on the beach. But once we arrived at the hostel, we noticed some prominently rules: (1) You can't be on the beach after dark. (2) You can't have an open fire anywhere on the grounds. (3) You can't have alcohol at any hostel in the United States.

Sarah had some second thoughts. She has some trouble with willfully breaking rules. Luckily the rest of us don't. At 11:20 we gathered our six bottles of champagne and our firewood and walked down to the beach. The fire was ablaze in minutes and the bar was officially opened. We counted down to midnight, toasted, kissed, and sang Auld Lang Syne in harmony. We each shared our best memory of 2006 and some resolutions, if we had them, for 2007. Then we played a moonlit and champagne-lit game of charades before heading to bed.

I have a friend who says that New Year's Day should set the tone for the whole year. She usually goes swimming at Coney Island on New Year's Day when the average temperature in New York City is below freezing. I think the idea is that she wants to spend the rest of the year being brave and adventurous and a little death-defying; not that she wants to spend the whole year in her bathing suit with Russian members of the Polar Bear Club.

I spent New Year's Day from 7 a.m. until after midnight in airports and on airplanes. Needless to say that is not how I want to spend my year. But if I could use my New Year's Eve as my marker for the year to come, it will be a wonderful year full of natural splendor, deep and affectionate conversation, daring and jovial celebrations, and time with loved ones. I could deal with that kind of a year.

Happy Birthday To Me

2007-01-13T13:24:00.000-05:00

Me being stabbed through the heart by a pirate

Last Monday was my Birthday — January 8th. I am twenty-seven. David Bowie, who shares my birthday, turned 60. And Elvis also got a year older, but since he's probably dead, we don't need to keep track of his age.

Husband's birthday was also last week on Wednesday the 10th. It's kind of a nice set up because it easily becomes a whole week of birthday celebration, a whole week of going out to dinner with friends, seeing movies, going shopping, getting presents, and drinking champagne. Last week we saw Notes on a Scandal and six short films by a self-taught animator named Brent Green. I bought myself two new knitting books and some new clothes. We had dinner out a few times and drank Sofia Coppola champagne.

My birthday comes at a good time of year for another reason. It is exactly one week after New Year's Day. I like the idea of New Year's resolutions a lot and having the new calendar year fall so closely to a new year of life makes New Year's resolutions a little less arbitrary. It feels that way anyway. I can say, "These resolutions are not only things that I would like to improve or change about myself in 2007 but also things that I would like to change and improve for my twenty-eighth year of life.

Last year I made two big resolutions. I became a vegetarian and I decided not to buy any clothes. Small exceptions were made at the beginning of the year for Thanksgiving dinner, socks and underwear, and a few other things. I did a good job keeping these resolutions, but they were really hard — the not buying clothes more than the not eating meat. This year I have a few different ideas, and inspired by Best Friend, I'll list a few of my plans for 2007 betterment.

1. Always have a bottle of wine in the house (which naturally leads to drinking more wine, and although drinking more wine is not a resolution, I'm not against it.)

2. Learn to sew. I know the basics but I'd like to be better and do it more often. I've already taken strides toward this one. I bought a fun intruction book and have finished three projects already this year. I've also already broken a needle on my sewing machine.

3. Go to Europe with Brian. This September will be our fifth wedding anniversary. We think a big trip could be a fitting way to celebrate.

4. Write more often. I'd like to blog once a week and finish my Choose Your Own Adventure book. I'd like to have something published somewhere.

5. I'd like to teach my dog to do at least five new tricks this year. Maybe I can document them for you here on the blog.

6. I'd like to make a movie with Brian and our amazing new video camera or maybe a couple movies.

There are a few others of a more personal nature that I have no desire to share in such a public venue. I'll monitor my own success on those goals.

I hope that 2007 is treating you well so far. Please feel free to share your resolutions if you made any this year. And if you have any tips on how to stop popping your knuckles, please share those too.

Thanksgiving in Ohio

2006-12-06T18:21:00.000-05:00

We drove to Columbus, OH, to visit the husband's family for Thanksgiving. It's extra special because the Husband's family includes my best friend from college who is now my sister-in-law. This is a picture of the best friend and me getting the turkey ready to put in the oven.

Side note: I made the sweater that I'm wearing in the picture. I'm very proud of myself.

We took our dog Mo with us on the nine hour car ride and five day stay. She was a great success. She did not eat the turkey before it made it to the table a la the Bumpus Hounds. She did not eat either of the two cats living in the house. She did not go to the bathroom in the house at all. And although she was upset to find that she wasn't allowed on the furniture, she was content to lay on a leather foot stool instead.

When we were asked by some friends the following week how our trip was, Brian answered "Perfect!" and he's not far from right.

Halloween Night

2006-10-31T23:07:00.000-05:00

I wrote this poem in the third grade and now I'll share it with you.

Halloween Night is a scary sight
Where ghosts and goblins play
Scaring people
Far and near
Halloween Night is here.

Holy Halloween Party, Batman

2006-10-29T13:56:00.000-05:00

Brian calls this one "Batman and Bobbin."

N is for November and November is for Novels

2006-10-14T17:07:00.000-05:00

Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month? Well it is. And there is an organization called National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) whose whole purpose is to encourage people to write a 50,000 word (175-page) novel within the 30 days of November. They give people who have always wanted to write a book what many of us need to get things done: a deadline. The time constraint also gives permission to write a lot crap since you don't have time to edit and tweek everything (or really anything) that you write.

Last year, I signed up, but I did not reach my 50,000 word goal. Brian took my computer with him to Belgium for one of the four weeks of writing time. It's hard to write 1,600 words a day by hand — mostly because you don't have the amazing word-count function in a paper notebook. Also I went to New Orleans for one of the remaining three weeks of November. It's hard to go on a service trip and find and hour or two each day to write a couple thousand words. So really I only tried for about a week and a half which is why I only made it up to about 10,000 words.

But this year my November looks a little less busy. I think that I might be able to do it.

So I signed up again. It doesn't cost anything and you get your own profile page where you can count your words and put a picture of yourself and a exerpt from your book once you've started it. There are chat rooms and help pages like plot ideas and lists of potential character names. It's pretty fun.

Anyone else want to write a book? Want to do it November? Want to do it with me?

Reading with Husband, Part I

2006-10-03T21:52:00.000-05:00

Me in a tree on Bear Mountain just a few feet off the Appalachian Trail.

I had to pass an interview to get into the book club I mentioned two posts ago. It was informal, at a coffee shop, and mostly to make sure that I wasn't crazy before they invited me into a group that meets in people's homes. I told them that I had a degree in literature and that I had read (and understood most of) James Joyce's Ulysses and that I had personal connections to the literary and art world through my husband the art-magazine editor. But what they have remembered the most and most fondly, is that Brian and I read books out loud together. Even now, two years later, Kavari will tell new members of the group, "she and her husband read books out loud together. Isn't that wonderful?"

The most recent book we've read together is Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods which we unrepentantly stole from my parents when we went to visit them in Vermont. (Sorry mom and Bobby. I will give it back.)

A Walk in the Woods is a travel memoir about hiking the Appalachian Trail that makes us want to walk the 2,000+ miles from Georgia to Maine. The author sets out to "thru-hike the AT" (a little lingo for walking the whole trail in one go) with a fat, barely-reformed alcoholic college friend who would be played by Paul Giamatti if they ever made a movie. The story of his hike is interspersed with history and lore — from the trail's creation to its wildlife and geology to the nine murders that have occured on the trail since 1937. It is hilarious and inspiring even though Bryson doesn't finish hiking the whole thing.

Brian and I have walked on the AT three times in the past year or so. While visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park we hiked on the trail to reach the "top of old smoky." Last month the two of us and our dog Mo got to hike some of the trail in beautiful Vermont (you can see pictures at the link above). And then last weekend we happened upon the tail unexpectedly. We went to a wedding at Bear Mountain State Park a little upstate. We drove to the top and then hiked around. Near the end of our hike, we notice some white blazes, 3 inches wide by 6 inches long, painted on trees and rocks. The white blaze is the offical mark of the Appalachian Trail. These blazes appear regularly on the trail, to keep hikers on the right track. We were so excited to find them, we walked fifteen minutes more and were almost late for the wedding.

Brian on Bear Mountain.

Me, Mo, and Bobby on the trail in Vermont.

The funniest bumper sticker

2006-09-27T17:20:00.000-05:00

Monday, I was sitting in the coffee shop when a regular customer who lives on the block came walking by and stuck his head in the door. He said, "I just want to tell you about this bumper sticker out here." I didn't have my camera with me, but the good people at google images were able to help me find this picture so that I could share the laughs with you.

Anniversary Scuba-Diving Spelunker

2006-09-19T16:11:00.000-05:00

We celebrated our fourth anniversary two weeks ago. One of the things we did during our day of celebration was play our own little game of exquisite corpse while having coffee together after a very good dinner.

We both started writing a story, Brian in one notebook, I in another. Then after 10 minutes or so, we switched notebooks, read each other's story beginnings and then took about ten minutes to draw a picture to accompany the story. After our pictures were complete, we spent ten minutes continuing the other person's story and then switched books again and started the cycle over: read, draw, write, switch.

Here is my favorite drawing from the evening. I drew it:

Fermata Means Hold

2006-09-18T19:44:00.000-05:00

For our September meeting, my book club chose to read Nicholson Baker's book The Fermata. In this novel, the narrator/main character/"autobiographer" has the ability to stop time. Like the main characters in the 2002 Disney hit Clockstoppers, The Fermata's protagonist remains conscious and free to move about while everything else in the universe has halted.

Now, what Arno (that's his name) chooses to do with his superpowers is, pretty much exclusively, take off women's clothes, touch inanimate women, look at women, and masturbate. Before he restarts time, he redresses (and cleans up if needs be) everyone, and no one is any the wiser.

It's by far the dirtiest book I've ever read. But it isn't just "rot" as Arno calls eROTic stories. It's clever and the magical realism is convincing. It’s funny and lighthearted most of the time. Arno is an endearing character and I didn’t hate him in spite of my better judgment. There is a blurb on the back of the book from the Seattle Times that says, "The Fermata may well be the most sexually explicit book ever published by a mainstream publisher, but its warmth and generous spirit are undeniable."

The book ends well. I was afraid that wouldn't be possible and that, in the end, Arno wouldn't have grown or changed or learned anything. He is never punished for his abhorrent behavior, but there is a little progress, a little growth, and a little change, and so I'm glad.

My book club is attended each month by 6 to 10 women ranging in age from about 24 to probably 75. We meet at someone's home and discuss a book we’ve chosen. I've been in this group for over two years. I found it on craigslist. I knew none of the women the first time I went. Now I know them all quite well. After reading The Fermata, we talked (beyond whether or not we liked the book and why) about morality without consequences: Are there things that are wrong in a vacuum or was Arno hurting himself even if he wasn’t hurting the women he undressed without their knowledge?

Then, of course, we talked about what we would do with this power if we had it. Napping in the afternoon, snooping in people’s drawers and bank books, stuffing ballot boxes (it was Primary day when we met), writing books, and reading books were some of the innocuous ideas that we came up with. Some of the less tame ideas were practical jokes, revenge, easy petty theft and complicated grand larceny. Walking into the White House and scaring the crap out of everyone by stabbing the President's tie into the table a la X-Men 2 in front of all his security people and the Joint Chiefs of Staff was also mentioned.

If you could stop time at will (for any length of time—a split second or years), what would you do?

Tell me your ideas. (You should think beyond sexual stuff; Baker/Arno thought of everything, and I don't need to read it again.) Remember that you would be alone. No one else can be "awake" with you. And you will continue to age while others’ aging is on pause. In case that matters to you.

Tom Sawyer and our Vacation to Missouri

2006-09-02T13:45:00.000-05:00

We'll get back to the choose your own adventure later. Watch for the exciting conclusion and the exciting steps toward that conclusion. All coming soon-ish.

My husband and I just got back from a week long trip to southwestern Missouri. We went camping, canoeing, hiking, swimming, four-wheeling, and the whole trip culminated in the wedding of some friends from Brooklyn in Kansas City.

Our anniversary is next Saturday, and this trip was our anniversary trip this year. My ideal way to celebrate our marriage is to go on a trip together. Brian's ideal way to celebrate most everything is to go out for a really nice meal together. We've been combining those ideals for the past four years by going out for a really nice meal in another state or country. It's been working out really well.

Missouri was great or at least the trip to Missouri was great. I don't think that I'd choose Missouri as the spot for my time-share, but it's a fine state. We spent a lot of time outside and saw a lot of animals. Here is our impressive wildlife list in the approximate order seen.

Bison - 30 plus
Vultures - 9 plus
Armadillo - dead and alive
Deer - a bunch
Rabbit
Toads
Frogs
Crawdads
Minnows
Catfish
Ticks - lots and lots only two attached though
Great Blue Heron (I bought a bird book and positively identified a couple birds)
Bobcat - has anyone else seen a bobcat in the wild?
Wild Turkey - lots
A Walking Stick
Green Heron
American Bittern - a brown and white water bird (aren't you proud of me mom?)
River Otter - has anyone else seen a River Otter in the wild?

It was a pretty good week for wilderness sightings. A bobcat -- can you believe it?

On Thursday we took a canoe trip. We rowed 8 miles down a river or maybe it should be called a creek. That's were we saw the water birds and the river otter. It was raining lightly most of the trip. It was warm though, so we didn't mind. It kept other canoers away and most fisherman too, so we had the whole river to ourselves. It was beautiful and peaceful. Fog covered the water in most places and made the trip seem a little like a dream. We ate lunch in the boat just floating a long.

To connect even more with the region, we brought along with us a Modern Library copy of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. We thought if we were going to be floating down rivers in Missouri, we ought to learn what we could from the original Missouri river floaters. One thing we've learned already is a sure fire way to get rid of warts using spunk-water (rain water collected in a hollowed out stump). I'll quote you Tom's remedy.

You got to go all by yourself, to the middle of the woods, where you know there's a spunk-water stump, and just as it's midnight you back up against the stump and jam your hand in and say:

'Barley-corn, Barley-corn, injun-meal shorts,
Spunk-water, Spunk-water, swaller these warts,'

And then walk away quick, eleven steps, with your eyes shut, and then turn around three times and walk home without speaking to anybody. Because if you speak the charm's busted.

I read this book in the 5th grade, and I remember liking it. But I don't remember all these great rhyming superstitions that I'm finding throughout. I also don't remember there being grave robbing in the story or the word "nigger" for that matter. But I'm loving it. I'm hoping that, when we've finish, my father-in-law sends us $5. That was the price he offered Brian to read it in the 3rd grade.

Down the Alley – Adventure Under the Big Top Part III

2006-07-28T15:34:00.000-05:00

Click here for part I
Click here for part II

“You guys go ahead. I’ll be right back,” you tell Andrea and Peter quickly and then turn away.

The man in the long coat turns and begins to limp down the alley. You follow him, keeping your eyes ahead of you. You know that if you look back, Peter and Andrea will call after you and stop you, but you don’t want them to. Your insides are jumping with excitement and fear. You keep hearing your mother’s voice telling you to stay with your friends and not to go off by yourself. You can’t help but think what your dad would say and how mad he would be if he found out that you were following a stranger down an alley, but your curiosity is making the decisions right now. You need to know who this strange man is and what this game is. The mom and dad in your head will just have to be quiet.

The man makes a left turn behind the row of fairway booths. You follow him. He moves more quickly than you expect a man with only one leg to move. As you exit the alley, you enter something like a field flanked on one side by the small booths and tents of the fairway and the sideshows and on the other by the main tent — the Big Top. This field is littered with housing tents, boxes and crates, empty animal cages, and feathers, poles, and props for the show. There are circus performers milling around, clowns in only half their costumes, acrobats warming up. You are getting a behind the scenes look at the circus.

You are aware of several changes immediately. It is much quieter back here. It is also darker. With the lights all over the circus grounds illuminating everything, you hadn’t noticed that the sun had gone down, which doesn’t make complete sense to you. You haven’t been at the circus long enough for the sun to go down. But you don’t know how else to explain the dusk.

“Hurry up now,” you hear the whisper in your ear again as the man throws you a look over his shoulder. You hadn’t noticed, but you had slowed down considerably. There is so much to take in as you walk through this maze of backstage paraphernalia.

You follow the man through a cluster of tent. “In here,” he says as he ducks into one of them. You freeze in your tracks just inside the entranceway. The tent is stiflingly hot. The air is heavy with perfumed smoke. The light is dim but warm and seems to be coming from two sources: the burning embers of three communal pipes sitting on the ground at the edge of the tent and a glowing crystal ball on a small, wooden table in the middle of the room.

The man you have been following takes a seat at this table where two other men sit. One man dressed in a wrinkled brown coat, very little hair, and very large eyes, is holding a small dagger in his right hand. His left hand is flat on the table — palm down, fingers outstretched and spread apart. With incredible accuracy and speed, he stabs his dagger into the table in the spaces provided by his outstretched fingers. He is clearly well practiced. The table is full of knife marks and his is looking only at you.

The other man at the table is also looking at you. He is wearing bright blue and yellow robes. He has a turban on his head and has dark penetrating eyes. As he stares at you and you look back at him, you start to feel a little dizzy and disoriented. Is he a mind reader? You quickly look away.

The only other people in the room are three women — belly dancers if you had to guess by their costumes — that reclined on pillows placed around the outer edge of the tent. Each of them is smoking one of the communal pipes: the source of the sweet smoke that fills the tent.

This is not the kind of place that you should be. The man with the dagger seems to be looking not at your face but your neck as he repeatedly stabs the wood of the table, eyes bulging. When you look at the man in the turban your head whirls and you find it hard to stay on your feet. The smoke is affecting you too. Your knees are weak and all you really want is to sit down for a minute and clear your head.

“Take a seat,” the turbaned man says to you as if he read your mind (which is what you fear he is doing). He gestures to the fourth chair at the table.

“This was a terrible idea,” you say to yourself. “What were you thinking?”

“No it’s fine,” you answer yourself, “Remember what he said about the prize. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Are you kidding? That guy’s going to stab you as soon as you sit down. We need to make a run for it.”

“No. The game. The prize.”

“Take a seat.” The turbaned man repeats himself in a voice that draws forward one step.

You must choose. Will you run? Or will you sit down at the strange table?

Vote in the comment section.

A Walk Down the Fairway - Adventure Under the Big Top Part II

2006-06-19T13:51:00.000-05:00

Click here for part I

"I'm sure the carnival rides will be open after the circus and that way we can ride them in the dark," you say to Peter. "Let's go check out the sideshows. Do you think they've really got a girl who can throw lightning bolts?"

"And look," added Andrea, "there's funnel cake down there by the ring toss."

The three of you make your way down the fairway stopping now and then to see some one knock over a pyramid of tin cans with a baseball to win a big teddy bear. You pass your dad throwing darts at balloons while your mother watches and cheers him on.

"Come on. Let's get some food," says Peter and he leads you toward the funnel cake stand. He buys one and gets powdered sugar all over his face and shirt. Andrea gets a caramel apple, and after some deliberation, you buy a bag of assorted saltwater taffy and immediately select a rootbeer-flavored one and start chewing.

"Cool!" Peter yells. "Over here guys -- a shooting game. Look! You get a beebee gun and you try to shoot as many moving targets as you can. The winner gets to choose any of these prizes. Look at that water pistol. It looks real."

Peter has found a game called "Shootout At The OK Corral," where wooden cutouts of villians, indians, and animals roll out on a track or pop up from behind rocks and shrubs. It looks really fun and the prizes all look great. But the water gun is by far the coolest item. It does look like a real gun but it has a big reserve so you wouldn't run out of water very fast. You would love to have it. You would love to scare your sister with it and then get her soaking wet. You also have a fleeting idea that you might be able to shoot some of the animals with it through the bars of their cages without anyone noticing.

"Let's do it," Peter continues. "We can all play and it only costs $1."

You put your hand in your pocket to get your money and are about to agree to play when a strange voice whispers in your ear, "You don't want to play that game."

You whirl around to see who's standing so close to you, but nobody's there. As you look around you notice a man standing about fifteen feet away from you. He is standing in a space between two game booths and he's staring at you. It's the only space like that that you've seen. It's almost as if a booth had been removed to make this alley where the man is standing.

He motions for you to come closer. He's a strange-looking man, short and sort of round and hunched over. His hair is thin and feathery. There seem to be clumps missing. His right eye is noticably bigger than his left which is small and squinted. He is wearing a long black trench coat, or it could be a robe, open in the front, revealing a wooden peg leg and shabby clothes.

You are a little scared and don't know what to do when he motions to you again. You take a few steps closer to him but still keep your distance.

"I have a better game," the man says. Although he's standing right in front of you, his voice still sounds like he is whispering over your shoulder into your ear. "The prize is far more valuable and the game is much more challenging. I think you will like it. It's right this way." He turns sideways and with a gesture invites you down the small alley leading out of the fairway.

This man makes you scared and uncomfortable, but you are very curious about his game and the valuable prize. You look over your shoulder to see the puzzled faces of Andrea and Peter, who are standing in front of the OK Corral game. They have already given the barker their dollars and want to play the game.

...

Do you want to find out who this man is and what kind of game he is talking about? Or would you rather stick with the plan, and try to win the water pistol and then head on to the sideshows?

Vote in the comment section. (And if you voted for carnival rides, animals, and funnel cakes at the end of Part I, that string of the story will be available soon!)

Click here to read the next section.

Adventure Under the Big Top - A Choose Your Own Adventure-Like Story

2006-06-07T21:17:00.000-05:00

If you didn’t read Choose Your Own Adventure books when you were younger or have forgotten how they work, they are second person stories where you are the main character. Throughout the story, you are asked to make decisions that shape your adventure. I am attempting to write a story kind of like that.

Below is the beginning of an adventure starring you. At the end of this segment of the story, there is a decision to make. I would like all of you, gracious readers, to vote on the choice and help shape the story. Cast your vote in the comment section and look for the next episode of the story in about a week.

Thank you for reading and enjoy your...

Adventure Under the Big Top

It’s finally Saturday! You’ve been waiting all week. Ever since the circus caravan marched through town on Monday afternoon, you’ve been dying to come to the Big Top.

Everyone in town came out to see the parade as the circus traveled from the train yard to the fairgrounds on the other side of town. It was difficult to miss a fleet of elephants marching down Main Street followed by fire spitters and tumbling acrobats. There were horses prancing along on their back two legs and clowns by the dozens. It was the best parade you have ever seen. The Ring Master, who led the parade, said that the parade was just a taste of what you would see at the fairgrounds, so you knew that tonight would be something special.

Your parents said that you and your older sister Julie could each bring a friend with you, but you have talked them into letting you bring your two best friends Peter and Andrea. The three of you are inseparable and always have a good time together.

As you pull up to the parking lot on the outskirts of town the air in the car is charged with excitement. As you walk to the gate, you can feel the anticipation of everyone in your group. Even your sister, who is trying to act cool in front of Claudia – her new best friend, is giggling and jittery as you stand waiting for your dad to buy your tickets.

All of you make your way through the gate and your eyes are met with a festival of color, activity, and sound. The red and white stripes of the big top tent tower above everything and the entrance to this enormous tent is directly in front of you about twenty yards back from the gate. Off to the right you see a bustling of movement as hundreds of animals move about their cages and are readied for performance in corrals. You hear a lion roar and the crack of a whip.

“The Lion Tamer must be warming up,” says Peter beside you.

Beyond the animal staging area you can see colorful lights whirling and spinning. It’s the carnival rides. You can see a Tilt-A-Whirl, a Ferris Wheel, and a Merry-Go-Round all filled with laughing children and there are more rides around the side of the big top out of your line of sight. From where you’re standing, the lines don’t look that long.

Andrea tugs on your sleeve and points over to the left of the main tent where a man on stilts wearing polka dotted pants is juggling flaming torches. Behind him is the fairway with games to play and prizes to win. You can hear the barkers calling for contestants to “Step right up” and test their strength or try to toss a ring around a bottle neck. On the far side of the fairway you see the sideshow tents. They are covered with posters announcing their performers. You can make out the posters of Go-Go the Electric Girl, Aquanina the Hawaiian Mermaid, and Marco the Magnificent World Famous Magician.

“Okay kids,” your Mom says, “We have an hour and a half before the main show starts to look around. Everyone has their tickets, right? We’re sitting in the second bleacher section. We’ll meet you there. Stick together you three and have a good time. We’ll see you inside. Your Mom and Dad walk off down the fairway. Your Dad has been talking all week about winning a big prize for your Mom. Your sister and Claudia are on their way to the cotton candy seller.

“What do you guys want to see first?” you ask Peter and Andrea.

“Let’s go ride the Tilt-A-Whirl and get some funnel cake. That guy over there is selling them.” Peter points to the right of the cotton candy seller across from the zebra pen. “Plus I want to check out the animals, especially that Lion Tamer. I heard he puts his head in the lion’s mouth. What a nut!”

“No,” says Andrea. “Let’s go see the side shows. The posters out front say there is a woman completely covered with tattoos and an elastic man who can sit on his head. Plus I think that guy’s going to jump from that platform into that little bitty bucket of water.”

Do you want go see the lion tamer and ride the carnival rides?
or
Do you want to go see the sideshows?

Cast your vote in the comment section.

Click here to read the next section of the story

An incomplete list of things that I would like to do in my life

2006-05-25T15:48:00.000-05:00

1) Be an organic farmer with any or all of the following crops and livestock:
a. sheep
b. alpacas
c. apple trees
d. bees
e. chickens
f. concord grapes
g. wildflowers
h. horses
i. a big garden with lots of tomatoes and strawberries and all kinds of vegetables. Then I could can them and not have to buy anything from the store in the winter.
2) Write a novel
3) Live in another country for at least one year
4) Backpack across Europe with Brian
5) Travel on all the continents
6) Have about 6 kids (some of them adopted)
7) Be a great mom and do all kinds of really cool things with my kids and have them all turn out really well. Healthy, happy, mentally stable adults.
8) Sail around the world
9) Run for public office
10) Bike ride across the country or part of the country or some country.

What are some of the things that you would like to do? Tell me in the comment section.

What I want to be when I grow up

2006-05-12T21:26:00.000-05:00

When I was sixteen, my family took a road trip to Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. During this trip, my sister kept a notebook of my family's quotable quotes (there were many of them) and a running list of all the things that I said I wanted to be or do. When we passed sheep pastures, I would talk about how I wanted to be a shepherd and live on a ranch in Montana. And when we would travel roads that followed the path of mountain rivers, I would look down at the rapids spilling over the rocks and boulders and talk about being a whitewater rafter or learning to kayak.

I've always done this and still do. I have all these visions for my life. All these things I want to become, all kinds of hobbies I want to have. I can't possibly do them all at the same time. It will be hard to be a missionary in Africa and a shepherd in Montana or New Zealand while being the delight of New York's literary world and a major museum curator.

One of the best conversations that I ever had was with my best friend a few years ago. I had gone to Mexico to visit her. She was living there for a year working on a documentary. We spent a day at Monte Albán which is the site of Zapotec Indian ruins. We sat down on steps that were built thousands of years ago and we talked about life. We talked about wanting to take trips and see places. And how we didn't want to wait until we retired to go the places we wanted to see and try things that we wanted to try.

We talked about not wanting to make working our life. Instead of living to work we wanted to work to live. We talked about how nice it would be to work at a job for awhile and save up some money, and when you had enough, quit your job and go sail around the world or take a few months in Europe or explore the Great Wall of China. Then come back, get another job, work for a couple of months or years, and then do something different. (We did discuss the importance of retirement and insurance and blah, blah, blah. I know.) But the point was to work not just to work or because you're supposed to have a job, but to work to be able to afford all the things that we dreamed of doing.

The very best commencement speech I've ever heard, in fact the only commencement address I remember anything about, was at my sister's high school graduation in 1994. Besides being an excellent storyteller, the speaker had three really good points that I've tried to remember: 1) Do what you have to do, 2) Do what you love to do, and 3) As soon as you can, make them the same thing.

I think this is a good idea. I am trying to live that way.

In my next post I will share an incomplete list of things that I would like to do with my life. Don't miss it!

Things I learned from my mailman in a recent conversation

2006-05-08T12:40:00.000-05:00

When a mail truck and a fire truck at emergency (with sirens on) meet at an intersection, the mail truck has the right of way.

Mailmen carried guns until the late 40s.

The most often seen unconscious reaction to seeing a mailman is checking one's watch.

Mailmen get uniform allowances up to $300 a year, but this amount hardly covers their very expensive uniform pieces.

Trips to Florida

2006-05-02T08:33:00.000-05:00

I was four years old when I first went to Florida. The summer of 1984 my family piled into our Chevy Malibu and drove from southern Illinois to visit family, see friends, and go to Disney World. My brother did not go, so that left me and my two sisters (ages 8 and 10) in the back seat for three days.

Somewhere in Mississippi or Alabama, Robert, my step-dad, accidentally put diesel fuel into the gas tank. The pump was badly marked. A few miles down the state highway, our radiator exploded. We pulled into a back road mechanic and waited for him to fix it. Oh, we were also pulling a pop-up camper. I remember it was really hot, and we could only find about six inches of shade to sit down on and have a picnic. There was a really skinny dog hanging around the garage - all skin and ribs. He stole our bag of bread after we had all made our sandwiches. We felt so sorry for him that we didn't take it back.

We went to Sea World on our trip and during one of the dolphin shows, the emcee asked for a volunteer. I raised my hand and was chosen. I walked down to the swimming tank and was kissed on the cheek by a sea lion. Robert was also chosen as a volunteer. He held a fish in the air and a dolphin jumped up and ate it from his hand. When he was called down to the tank. He jumped up on the walkway that circled the tank. That's where all the trainers were walking. He was asked to get down and for a spilt second, he thought they were asking him to get in the water with the dolphins.

I rode my first roller coaster at Busch Gardens. I loved it. I wasn't tall enough to go on the one that went up-side-down but I wanted to. We also went to Disney World and rode a bunch of rides. My best memory from those theme parks happened at Epcot Center. We were eating lunch in the German section at some restaurant that had a live band playing polka music. There was a dance floor but nobody was dancing. An especially fast and exciting polka started and I asked my mom if she wanted to go and dance. She took me by the hand and she trotted down to the dance floor. I had never been taught to polka, but somehow I knew what to do. We flew across the floor in huge circles. We held on tight to each other. The music was so fast and we moved with such vigor that centrifugal forces were pulling us apart. I felt like I was flying and my mom was smiling and laughing the whole time we danced.

I went to Florida again last week. Here are some highlights and some pictures from that trip.

I came in 6th place (6th=last) in a family mini golf tournament held at Congo River Adventure Golf. You can see a picture and a video here.

I spotted an alligator in the wild at a city park in Mount Dora, Florida. The park was filled with palm trees and oaks covered with Spanish moss. The alligator was big and scary. I was there with my best friend so it was even better.

We built a huge drip-castle on the beach and made up a town history as we built it. At the end of the day we threw a baseball several times at one side of the castle attempting to destroy it. The castle mostly withstood the onslaught. Brian doesn't much like that I'm posting this picture of him shirtless. I tried to explain to him that it's important for scale to have a person in the picture and that most girls including me don't make pictures of themselves wearing swimming suits readily available.

Girl Scout Cookies Make Me Think of Krissy

2006-04-24T20:36:00.000-05:00

Krissy Kercher was my best friend in the second and third grade. We were good friends until the 6th grade when she moved away. We lived close enough to each other to car pool to and from school. We also lived close enough that I could ride my bike to her house to play after school, but far enough away that I never rode by bike back home in the evening. My mom would always come and pick me up. It was probably three miles.

Krissy’s parents let her drink Kool-Aid and so I got to drink Kool-Aid when I was there. My mother would have nothing to do with Kool-Aid. Krissy and I both had the Disney Channel, and we both watched the New Mickey Mouse Club religiously. Her favorite girl was Tiffany; mine was DeeDee. Her favorite boy was Damon and mine was Chase. We watched the MMC (I was just reminded of this insiders nickname after a more difficult google search than I anticipated) in the late 80s when our favorites were the stars of the show. The second wave of stars in the early 90’s included Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, and the girl from Felicity. I wasn’t watching it then. The cast I loved had moved on to a short lived band called The Party which had one or two songs that did fairly well on Casey’s top 40.

It was at Krissy’s house where I first saw Dirty Dancing. It was also at Krissy’s that I first played Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers II, and III. My thumbs would be numb after spending the night at her house. She introduced me to The Babysitters Club books and we went to at least one New Kids on the Block concert together in St. Louis. I have a lot of good memories of this friendship.

Krissy’s parents smoked. That was weird. I had never been exposed to that much cigarette smoke. Their house always smelled like stale air and smoke. It was dark and a little cloudy. They had terrible carpets and furniture. And even at the time, I knew that although there were things that I could do at Krissy’s that I wasn’t allowed to do or didn’t have access to at home – Kool-Aid, Dirty Dancing, a Nintendo - I preferred the clean air and the well-lit rooms at my house. Krissy had chronic bronchitis and was sick a lot. Probably because of the smoke, my mom told me.

I also first saw (and probably heard) of birth control at Krissy’s. She had two older half-sisters who were in their 20s. One of them had a baby in the years that I knew Krissy. She wasn’t married. I didn’t know that could happen – having a baby without being married. I didn’t quite understand the abortion subplot of Dirty Dancing.

Sometime in the fifth grade, Krissy had our friend Amy over to stay the night. Krissy, Amy, and I were all in the same Girl Scout troupe. We had some kind of an event on Saturday morning. Amy had stayed at Krissy’s Friday night and had come to the event with her and her mom. I was already a little jealous that someone else had stayed over in my place. But as Krissy’s mom dropped Krissy and Amy off, I saw something that made me sick to my stomach with jealousy and rejection. Krissy’s mom stood facing Amy on the sidewalk outside the car. She put her hands on Amy’s shoulders. Krissy’s mom told Amy how glad she was that Amy had spent the night and what a pleasure it was having her and how they would love to have her come back any time. Krissy was standing near them, and I was just a little further off and completely within earshot. I had been spending the night at Krissy’s for three years and had never gotten this kind of attention from her mom. I had always been a good guest – I thought. I still think.

I was washing dishes on Saturday when this memory came to mind. I remember it so vividly by hadn’t thought of it in probably 13 years. As I write about it, I still feel hurt. Isn’t that weird? And it’s weirder because it wasn’t Krissy who chose Amy over me. It was her mom. I wasn’t friends with her mom; I was friends with Krissy. Krissy never spurned me or brushed me off. As I said, we were friend until she moved away. I think it was unfair for her mother to show that kind of favoritism toward her kid’s friend in earshot of her kid’s other friends. I had been Krissy’s friend a lot longer than Amy and had put in a lot more quality time with the Kerchers, but I wasn’t their favorite. That really bothered me. I don’t think I got much out of that day’s Girl Scout outing. I think we were collecting canned goods set out on neighborhood porches.

A Real Dream with a Tasty Candy Coating

2006-04-22T10:43:00.000-05:00

I had the weirdest dream last night. I dreamt that I was a kid still living in the house on Brown Street where I grew up. The house was a little different of course like those things are in dreams. The front yard was identical though.

Anyway the dream was about snakes – being overrun with snakes. The house was being bombarded and they were all trying to get in the front door. I often saw snakes in my yard as a kid. Maybe not often. But at least once a summer I would see a garter snake or two. Never two together only one at a time. But in this dream the yard was covered with pairs of snakes – two black snakes, two rattle snakes, two pythons. It was like my house was Noah’s Ark for snakes and they were coming in twos to get on board.

We tried to keep them out, but it was no use. They were everywhere and they were finding ways in, filling up the hall, and making their way to the living room. That’s where my family had gathered. We all ran to the couch. It was a sofa bed and it happened to be opened up in its bed form, which was convenient since there were five or six of us trying to sit on it to get off the floor. From the couch we could see out the front door and into the yard. This is one of the ways the dream house was different from my real childhood house. You couldn’t see the front door from the living room. They were separated by two doors and a large foyer. It made sneaking out undetected easy the one time I did it.

Anyway, from the couch we could see the yard and the streams of snakes making their way into the house and straight toward the living room. It was then that I realized my cousins John and Jake were on the bed with us. I was happy to see them at first. They didn’t visit often, but we always had a good time when they did. Then I noticed that they weren’t talking and they seemed a little plastic. Not like plastic. More like marzipan. Textured. Powdered. Do you know what I mean? Fake. I shifted positions on the bed to get a better look and accidentally bumped both of them. The slight bump knocked both marzipan cousins off the bed into the growing pit of snakes covering the floor.

They hit the floor and poof. They changed into snakes. Black and white striped snakes. They had been imposters. Oreo Snakes, my dad told me.

That was it. I woke up.

I think I should stop going to singles bars.

Family Ties

2006-04-21T11:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had lunch with my cousin, a Marine who has just returned from his third tour in Iraq. He has been in the corps for about four years. He is 21 and is finishing his commission in July. He starts college in the fall where there are as a rule less guns and insurgents. I'm glad he's back and that he's still alive.

Back in December, I started sending letters and packages. His two previous tours, I sent nothing and thought about him infrequently. When I went away to college, I lived for letters from people back home. I was lonely in a place where I knew no one and everything had changed. Can you imagine instead of going to college, going to war? And not just joining the Army, but joining the Marines in war time and being shipped off at 18 to start a war in Iraq. He was there for the beginning. He and two other guys from his unit were on the cover of the New York Times in 2003. I saved a copy, but I never wrote him to tell him I had seen it. Every time I thought about him, I thought about writing to him, but I never did.

Why is it so hard to do good things that we know we should do - that we want to do? Why is it so hard to think about other people? I really like writing letters. I really like my cousin. Why did it take four years to get my act together? What was I doing that was so important?
He's back now. His girlfriend lives in New York. He was here visiting her this week. I met her yesterday at lunch. He will probably be back to visit her regularly. It will be good to see him more once in a while. He'll also be a freshman in the fall. Maybe now that I've started, I will keep writing him and sending him the occasional care package. I really did like getting letters in college. I still like getting letters. Everyone does.

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

2006-04-19T11:22:00.000-05:00

I'm starting a blog. I'm scared. I don't usually let people read what I write. I don't write much though, so it's easy to keep people away. I have decided to get over that fear and start writing and letting people read what I write.

Will anyone want to read it? Will I even tell anyone about it? We shall see. But it is definitely the beginning of something.