Someone mentioned to me today, “soon we’ll need to be gearing up for the holidays.”
And I thought, when did we gear down?
Life is flying at such a frantic pace this fall that I honestly don’t believe I can squeeze anything more out of the days. The idea that soon we’ll be juggling what we have plus a boatload more is not particularly appealing.
Must be time to go play with the kittens.
It was a crappity day for everyone under my roof.
I counted four meltdowns in our house today, and one of them was mine. I was sending memorial flowers from my family today when I remembered I could not put my Dad’s name on the card–I’ve been a little raw ever since. Though he died in May, I am still trying to wrap my head around the new reality. Evidently grief is neither a smooth nor predictable process.
I also spent 4 1/2 hours driving today–mostly carpool and after school activities–and was consequently unable to finish two crucial projects that are due tomorrow afternoon at the very latest. I am hosed.
Meanwhile, Miss 11 failed a math test, which she had to bring home for me to sign. She has a major project due tomorrow–still unfinished–and a test to study for. Miss 9’s after school activities kept her busy until we arrived home at 6 pm. At that point, she was too tired to approach her long division and decimals without a flood of tears and a complete cranial shutdown.
Luckily, at about 6:15, the spouse got home with a new crop of therapy fuzzballs. We’ve been fostering kittens on and off all fall, which is pretty great unless they have diarrhea or persistent confusion about the litter box. Constantly scrubbing everything with bleach and enzymatic cleaner is less gratifying than petting and snuggling and playing. This batch seems pretty well adjusted, however.
While I cooked dinner, I sentenced the girls to mandatory kitten time, and after dinner, I made myself go down there as well.
I’d write more, but I could use a little more purring.
Many hours of my life are spent trapped in a moving vehicle crammed with middle school girls. In the clear minority, I have had to relinquish radio control and speaking rights in exchange for survival.
More than once, I’ve thought about that scene from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles where Steve Martin says: “When you’re telling your little stories, here’s a good idea: Have a point! It makes it so much more interesting for the listener.”
For some unknown reason–perhaps I was too exhausted to say no–I recently found myself chaperoning 400 sixth graders on their field trip to the Academy of Sciences. Now, I do love the Academy, but you can imagine how much inane commentary filtered through the scientific learning experience.
The trip also involved walking long distances with hoards of whiny youth and taking public transport without losing anyone. Imagine the expressions of the other folks riding the bus when they saw a group of 75 12-year-olds poised to board. Priceless. I’m sorry I didn’t snap a photo of that scene.
In fact, the only photo I took was of some poor stuffed creature who symbolized for me the gangly-awkwardness of this particular age of kids.
I began to pretend I was an anthropologist, studying an unknown community of slightly shorter, hormonally challenged humans. When possible, I surreptitiously typed notes on my phone to review later. I only wish I’d taken more. A sampling:
“We had very, very different ideas about what toast is. It all has to do with the multiplicative inverse.”
“My feet hurt. I should have worn a wheelchair.”
“Everyone knows unicorns poop strawberry cheesecake.” Well, I do now.
My approach made the whole experience bearable.
As a special bonus, chaperoning “allowed” me to drive two extra carpool loads last week. Though I can’t take notes while driving, bringing a ton of snacks does cut down on the chatter somewhat. That will have to suffice until I can get a decent recording device set up.
I am staring at the page wondering: where are all of my ideas?
Over the weekend, I spent an embarrassing number of hours dragging a short story out of my “creative well.”
I had to beat it into a recognizable shape, and stretch it to meet guidelines and parameters. It was neither a graceful process, nor a painless one.
The story is not horrible; with a little fine-tuning I might like it.
What’s horrible is the black hole left behind–the fear that it was the very last idea I will hatch.
Fortunately, I can always write about writer’s block.
Had to write and submit an entire short story today, which nearly put me under.
Since I can’t squeeze out even one more coherent thought, I will instead share my favorite flow chart of all time.
Today I have written a 100-word story in solidarity with a friend who has pledged to write a 100-word piece every day of November. Best of luck, Mr. Maher!
****
They stand in uncomfortable silence, staring at the door.
Arlen gestures vaguely with his laptop bag and considers his words.
“That was nice,” he says thinly.
Why is she still here?
She mustn’t come into his office building. He could be tainted associating with such weakness.
Cindy senses his acute disdain.
If only she were the Marlboro Man, she could fill her timid silence with a plume of smoke and a blatant disregard for consequences. Oh, to wield a tiny white stick of power and death, burning so brightly and briefly.
Instead, she folds herself into the space around him.
When I was in high school, the Rocky Horror Picture Show came to my Midwest hometown for a screening or two. Since there was nowhere to go and nothing to do for persons of a certain age, hundreds of teenagers erupted into the theater, ready for anything.
Keep in mind that this was before the Internet had made such cultural phenomena ubiquitous. There was no shared cyber understanding of what Rocky Horror might mean or require. We just knew Rocky Horror was a Thing. We knew you were supposed to bring stuff and do stuff.
So people brought whatever they found lying around.
People dressed up, too–wearing next to nothing, or robes, or goth-wear, or ripped jeans with chains made out of safety pins. A bawdy girl from the Catholic high school was savagely drunk and dressed as a nun. “I’m here, bitches!” She barreled down the aisle as the movie started, laughing maniacally.
It took my breath away. I’d never seen anyone but a nun sport a habit.
The movie began.
Audience members didn’t know what to yell or do or throw, so they yelled and did and threw whatever occurred to them.
Pandemonium ensued.
As toilet paper comets launched across the room, and raw eggs and soda dripped from the screen, I saw the theater manager start pacing and muttering, “What to do? What to do?”
A guy in the front row clutched a ginormous box from Mr. Donut in his lap for no apparent reason. “Do you want a jelly donut?” he offered the distraught young man.
The manager grabbed it, chewing, while continuing to pace and mutter, his agitated shadow head joining Tim Curry and the rest of the cast on screen.
Even today, when I think about Rocky Horror, this is what I see: a donut-wielding twenty-something-year-old, poised to lose his job, a blob of grape goo in the corner of his mouth. There he was–the victim of our ignorance.
At one point, as the Brad and Janet characters were driving through a rainstorm, hundreds of people started throwing water around the theater. Squirt guns, bottles, cups, spit, whatever they had.
A drunken woman in her thirties lurched to her feet in front of me.
“What are you guys? A bunch of amateurs?” she yelled, completely hysterical. “They’re still in the car, fools. THEY CAN’T GET WET YET.”
Saavy woman. She must have been from Minneapolis.
In times of duress, I write the most critical information on my left hand.
Not on my palm–where it might be less noticeable–because that is less noticeable.
Also, more likely to wash away.
Now that I know better, I take notes on the triangle of flesh on the back of my hand, between my index finger and thumb.
Today when I awoke, I saw “MC” in black sharpie in my Very Important Memo triangle. MC?
I’ve spent the day ruling out a steady stream of possibilities–all clearly wrong:
Sigh. Any ideas?
I was up half the night for reasons unbeknownst to me, then startled early from my sliver of sleep by the odd thumps of an imaginary intruder. Heart pounding, I dismissed my fears, forcing myself to lie still as a board for another forty-five minutes.
Today, bleary-eyed and unproductive, I parceled 15 minutes to close my eyes and breathe. My plan? To reboot and arise again, convincing myself I felt refreshed and clearheaded. But the second my head touched the pillow, the strangest sound curdled in my cat’s throat. Next thing I knew, a flailing blob of black fur hurled itself across the room and a small bird began dive-bombing my eyes. Swell.
Clearly a moment of zen was out of the question. Instead, I heaved myself back into a vertical position and set about finding the bird. I had to get that creature out of the house before the cat disemboweled it on the bed.
The weird thing was, I couldn’t find it. The cat was no help, either. She was just as perplexed as I was.
How long are you supposed to look for a trapped bird?
Eventually I gave up and settled back in front of the computer to knock out some work.
After five minutes of relative peace, there was a little scrambling sound, followed by something hopping on my foot.
You might imagine that the problem was now solved–bird located!–except it can be quite a production to convince a bird to try the open door rather than flying into shelving units and closed windows. It’s like trying to shepherd a drunk friend out of a party, and they keep curling up on a pile of shoes or wandering off into a closet.
Later, I found myself ruminating on the frequent appearance of birds. They are everywhere for me these days. I hear them mentioned in a turn of phrase, a discussion of Halloween costumes, or see one staring at me while I eat breakfast. Two surfed on the hood of my car for a block or two after I stopped for coffee recently. I suppose I shouldn’t mention that the bird pictured above was killed in a brutal showdown in my bedroom and then hidden by my triumphant feline friend. I didn’t find that poor soul for a few weeks. And that’s not all. Almost every book I have read in the past few months has featured birds…including:
Even Hyperbole and a Half, by Allie Brosh, had a chapter about a parrot that I read and reread repeatedly throughout the summer. And on my book list to read next? When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams. I swear. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I also read Gone Girl, which has no significant bird that I recall).
If they were all crows, I would assume something terrible were about to befall me. I’m hoping I attract birds for a more benign reason. Perhaps I smell like a flower, or a heap of birdseed.
In any event, it’s time to get a feeder and a bell for the cat.
I used to love snail mail. Despite the fact that my mailbox was mostly stuffed with adverts and bills and eye appointment reminders, getting a real live letter was so delicious that it was always worth a check.
Now I am afraid to look.
The transition happened very gradually. As the years flew by, there were fewer and fewer Victoria’s Secret catalogs, and a lot more Pottery Barn Kids. Not surprising, really. Once I’d ordered diapers online, all hell broke loose. Not that I minded looking at baby clothes now and then, but I was a little offended that the folks in the marketing department assumed I had switched to sensible undergarments.
As my kids got a bit older, my junk mail haul further devolved into catalogs of clogs and tchotchkes. I didn’t fully digest the severity of the situation until I found myself staring at a picture of a dung bunny. That’s right. An adorable rabbit statue made of manure. You leave it in your garden and as it decomposes, it adds vital nutrients to the soil. Suddenly, I realized: I am f*#!ing old. Some marketing director took one look at my profile and decided, “This lady does not exercise or travel. She no longer needs yoga pants or Bose speakers or groovy furnishings. This lady putters in her garden and makes loving decisions about mother earth. It is way more important for her ogle progressive, thoughtful novelty items than anything else the commercial world has to offer.”
Despair.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, The Most Important Gift Catalog in the World arrived:
That’s right. Heifer International sent me a catalog. What demographic does that put me in? Wait. Don’t answer that. I definitely don’t want to know.
Next up was a magnetic schedule of the San Francisco 49ers with a plumber’s contact information on it.
I don’t get it. What is the connection? Let’s see, my toilet is broken, but I wonder when the game starts? And why me? Am I so old they think I can’t look up game times and phone numbers online?
Monday. The final straw. I received a postcard from a life coach.
Great. Now I can lie awake wondering where my life is going and whether my spouse loves me. You know, I didn’t need the life coach until I checked the mail. I’m not calling this one, though. If they can make me feel this horrible by sending me a postcard, why would I want to spend time and money for continued contact?
Most importantly: did they review my past purchase patterns and assume I needed some help?
Or…maybe they just read my blog.
Bad Parenting 101 