Oh, hey! We had The Awesomest Visit from "Uncle Pumpkin" for a couple
weeks and I forgot to write about it. I dunno: there are pictures. I
sort of forgot to be all reflective and stuff and even sort of wondered
if I had anything interesting to write when I was in the process of
talking so much. Then Uncle Pumpkin left and I remembered that I Have
Words To Spend. So I'm back. Also, my friend called to tell me how her
son is watching…. well. Okay. We can skip the "my exiting visitor" recap
and go right off.

So the boys in Squire's class are all sophisticated and stuff. When
I went to pick him up from the "week in wilderness" thingie, I asked
one boy how it had been and he said it was "boring". I don't remember
finding things were "boring" until I was in high school at least. You
know that little window between when you find out how awesomely worldy
you are and how trivial the rest of that world is (high school, for me)
and when you find out that if life is boring, it's because you yourself
are boring (adulthood, for me)? I guess the window is wider now, if it
starts at age 11 and clearly being bored is a lifetime occupation for
some people.

And then this friend of mine was telling me how she caught her boy,
Squire's friend, surfing internet porn. And how she told him that porn
wasn't very artistic. To me this is like telling your child that
learning to drive a Trabant isn't a good idea because Trabants aren't
cool. Which first of all Trabants are awesome, but second of all: Are
you really going to judge joyriding on the basis of the car brand? No:
stay with me! This is true. We had a family friend who, upon
discovering that their child had been stealing Playboys, told the child
that if he wanted naughty magazines they would buy them for him,
because stealing is wrong. Stealing is wrong?! Here's what's wrong:
kids reading porn. Leave aside for the moment my own arguments against
porn (and/or cars): The problem with this particular argument is that
kids can't handle this thing, this thing that sometimes is useful but
causes damage that can't be underestimated; this thing that is
absolutely inappropriate for children even though it's legally and
perhaps morally approved for adults. I do tell Squire a lot of stuff
about sex (and about cars) because I don't want him going off of the
bad information he'll get from his peers, but it is made clear that
this is Future Stuff. I can't imagine finding him doing something
illegal and trying to reason with him about the quality of it.

It breaks my heart, these parents who give their kids so much
beyond them. Were their childhoods so miserable, and their adolescence
so marvelous, that they need to rush their kids through the one in an
effort to reach the other at top speed? It just seems so terribly sad.
It's not like I want to bubble my child out of his teen years
altogether. But in my mind, adolescence is the time that you start
taking personal responsibility for your actions, when you start to
realize you can choose something different from what your parents might
have wanted, and when you step up to the consequences of those
choices.  It's when you start to understand the relationship between
privilege and responsibility, where the former is conferred in
correlation to the latter. And it's when you learn what happens when
you totally screw up, in the period in which you still have a safety
net under the risk of your fall. But what I'm seeing increasingly is a
lot of the privilege and a little of the responsibility: I'm seeing a
big safety net and a very low high wire. Kids have mobile phones for
what? For the awesomeness of sending each other snuff videos (I wish, I
wish I were making this up.). We knew to hide what we were doing if it
was wrong; these kids seem to know that if they're open about it
they'll be forgiven for the virtue of their honesty, as if that were
all that mattered.

Without wishing to be all "I walked uphill through 10 feet of snow
to get to school" — because actually, I walked uphill to get home, and
also because there was never so much snow — or all "Damn kids on my
lawn" –because I don't even have a lawn– nevertheless. Nevertheless
and still. Kids are human beings, and I tend to find them absolutely as
annoying as I find all other human beings, but in this case I can see
how they got to be that way, and there are some parents I really want
to punch in the face.

So I had over two weeks of feeling like the saddest bag of mostly salt water ever, convinced that I was entirely alone behind a wall of sorrow, or alternately convinced that I was within a web of equally inarticulately tormented people and the whole world was going to hell. I felt like a mouse running uphill on metal, scrabbling and desperate and hopeless. I was somewhat less than delightful to be around, I expect. Then I remembered that feeling that way is really, really boring, and I slept for about 14 hours and then I forced myself through some steps on a "to do" list and then I felt better; it was just in time for my birthday and I’m sure we’re all very grateful that I managed to ring in a decade with a modicum of self-respect. Now I’m feeling quite nearly chipper, all things considered, and they have been.

So, hm. We went to the cottage. Some photos are here. I pulled up about 200 dandelions because I don’t want the neighbors to entirely hate us but otherwise we’re letting the garden go a little wild to see what all will grow, instead of trying to cut it into some shape when we don’t know what shape it might already want to be. First of all, it keeps us from being robbed like the neighbors on both sides of us. Secondly, we may have some beauty already there that we’ve overlooked. Like: we just realized we have tulips. Everything is a metaphor for something.

So I decided to start writing to businesses that annoy and please me, instead of just being annoyed and pleased all on my own. I was unaware that instead of resolving the issue, it would ratchet up the level of annoyance.

Dear ProFlowers customer service,
I appreciate updates about specials and seasonal offers and I would prefer not to cancel the e-mail update option. However, I object to the use of my first name in these promotions. You aren’t talking to me, but to a mass mailing list, and in no case are we friendly enough that you should use my first name; similarly, I don’t like the automatic first-name referral to the person for whom I’ve purchased flowers. It isn’t impressive that you have the technology to plug in the names of users that have accessed your services before: it’s distressing that you think that inserting a name makes a more effective pitch when you can’t be bothered to address the target with respect. It doesn’t seem like it would be that much more difficult to use first and last names for both the purchaser and the recipient.

I appreciate the ability to order via the internet and I appreciate the quality of your product. I do wish I didn’t wince at the e-mails; it creates an unpleasant association in my mind for what is otherwise a reliable service and a fine product.

–Anne Tuckova

Dear Anne,
Thank you for contacting ProFlowers. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience our mailings have caused you.
Thank you for your suggestion. I will forward this immediately to the
appropriate department for further review.  We appreciate your feedback
as it helps us to provide better service and more options for our
customers.
Again, we are sorry for this inconvenience.

A friend of a friend of mine is a gardener/landscaper/nature freak type person, and she came out to the cottage on Sunday to take the lay of the land and tell us what we could plant with our black thumbs that wouldn’t die. I have had green thumbs that were a result of dyeing, but that’s not the same. Still nobody finds that joke as funny as I do. ANYWAY. She gave some advice, we listened and were grateful. When she was leaving she mentioned the street where she works, which is the street where a different friend’s husband works. "Oh," I say, "his son is my son’s circus teacher!" And she says, "So you’re the Anne that took M on the road trip across the States!" Yes, my friends, I live in a village.

At the cottage I was so unbelievably tired so early that I thought all the newly awakened insects were bearing malaria, and cast them glances of great aspersion, though they sluzzingly insisted they were harmless. I went to bed at an unheard-of 9:30 p.m.. When I woke at 5 it seemed suspiciously light, though Squire hushed me back to bed while he stoked the fire and made coffee. After the coffee I realized that when spring springs forward, it not only awakens the bugs but also advances the clocks. Which we had neglected to change at the cottage, and which do not change themselves. So. I’m not saying a 10:30 bedtime on a Saturday night and a 6 a.m. wake-up the following morning doesn’t mean I am an old, old woman: it just means I’m not quite ready to take my teeth out before bed.

Oh, and before we went to the cottage I picked a total fight with Friar. He is a difficult person to pick fights with but I gave it my level best. I kept him up ’til about 2 a.m. Friday blazing my tirade and then started fresh on Saturday morning like I’d just had my eyelids slit and was ready to go all in. Childhood pain was invoked and also a moderate dollop of pure, grown-up nastiness. I fight in an even tone, I rarely veer off the topic, and I give my opponents time to finish their sentences, but my hand is never off my sword. Sorry, but I think weapons metaphors might work better than boxing, about which I know one movie’s worth. Fortunately for Friar, he is an expert parrier, having studied his Agrippa, and so by the time we were walking through the woods to the cottage we were all laughing and well. And in my case, getting ready for sleeping sickness.

And what else? Only six more weeks at the high school; I went today to tell them ever so politely "never again". If I ever learn that when I say "never" the first time I mean it, I’ll probably be able to solve all the world’s problems with all the brain space I have left over to learn new stuff.

If you are the sort of person to whom a totally hot brilliant woman could say, "Hey do you want to come on an all-expenses-paid trip to Greece for which the main goals would be: play games, drink booze, look at pretty stuff, and sleep late," and you would say, "No," then you are the sort of person to whom yours truly is married. Who are you people and what the aitch-ee-double hockey sticks is up with you? I don’t get it. Sometimes it is hard to be a boomerang.

Hey so I helped certain wise people color hair this weekend. Does anybody else find the whole "dying/dyeing" thing funny? I mean particularly after Easter and with the whole "the eggs are dying" thing? Just me? Well alrighty then. Apparently I think I am immortal, and therefore I have Wicked Witch of the West fingers. It is stupid and I know it is stupid but it wasn’t a fatal mistake, and I spent the weekend saying things like "I’ll get you my pretty!" which was totally funny to everybody and not just me, every. single. time.

I forgot to tell you about a hundred things. I’m sorry about that. One of the most important has to do with coming to terms with my limitations and how acknowledging that I can’t do something is the most soul-wrenching fact to voice, but once it’s over it’s the most liberating thing ever, because it means I don’t have to worry every day about getting caught being as weak. When you play Scrabble it’s normal to want to save your tiles for a seven-letter triple word score, but unless you’re a master it’s easier to give that up. Then you get to play with the tiles you have, and then you win. It’s a whole thing.

So Squire and I did a whirlwind tour of California/Nevada, did I mention? Started at my parents’, drove down the coast, spent a few days in Disneyland, drove over to Las Vegas, spent a couple days there, flew to Sonora and visited friends there, and then left. Saw some great people. Drank some great booze. Ate some great food. Altogether a fine time.

We managed to catch the CSA bus on the way home; this is the bus that
you have to stand in line to buy a ticket and then stand in line to get
a boarding pass and then hope the bus hasn’t taken off while you do
these things, so catching it is kind of a miracle. On the bus the
driver handed out our "complimentary snack"; I asked what kind of meat
it was and he said "It’s not meat, it’s ham," and I laughed because it
is what it is and it’s good to be back in my first/second-world home.

Uhm, there are a lot of pictures here.

I wrote this in Disneyland:
In Disneyland I feel sad, the sort of sad that’s like I have cancer and I’ll never bring my child here again or see my grandchildren ride the teacups, and it’s all terribly fragile and transient, and then I am weeping in Fantasyland except I don’t have cancer and so in Disneyland I feel not only sad but also utterly ridiculous.

That feeling of heartbreaking nostalgia for the moment I was inhabiting was present for a lot of the trip, though I only had to pull the car over to cry once, I think.

I also wrote a long thing about Red Shirt Day, but I don’t know if it interests anyone enough for me to transcribe. I didn’t write, but thought a great deal about, the interesting differences and similarities among my friends, the nature of fear, and the inner battle between sparing someone pain and the need to let people learn their own lessons. And I thought about boomerangs.

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel.
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that’s turning
Running rings around the moon

(from Windmills of Your Mind, by Alan and Marilyn Bergman)

except, not really relaxing and hypnotic and windmill-y. More like: SCREEEEEEE! It’s like the Factory Floor of My Mind or something. Passport, credit card, lipstick, warm socks, see you back here in a couple weeks.

I went out for a few beers with a friend of mine last night and it was
good, though I came home singing which Friar will tell you and nearly
everyone else will agree is not my greatest talent. He told me to shut
up, using more words and more politely, but I got the point so I killed
him at Scrabble and went to bed.

I’m re-entering one of my periods of having no idea how I look, but
getting a distinctly bad feeling about it. I once went about a month thinking I
oughtn’t leave the house without a paper bag over my head. It’s not
that my image of myself has greatly improved since then, but more that
I’ve realized that people who sit around talking about how ugly they
are are either genuinely ugly, in which case they make others
uncomfortable, or are not genuinely ugly, in which case they make other
people bored, and my fear of being awkward or boring generally
outweighs my desire to tell people they don’t have to look at me when
they talk to me if they don’t want to. Anyway this is not the best
timing, self-image wise, but there’s not much to be done. I think I
will sew myself up a tent this weekend and wear it til the feeling
passes.

For reasons entirely beyond reason I decided to start The Life of Pi.
Dear Yann Martel I am very proud of you for doing all that research!
How many authors can list animals in a zoo for pages and pages? How
many authors can list deities of various religions with the same
fervor? I want to brush your pretty poetic hair for you and pinch your
sweet clever cheeks, but if you do not get me a plot in the next 20
pages I am going to throw your damn book across the room.

Last weekend Squire and I hung out with some old friends of mine,
people who think I’m a good singer by the way, though I think they’re
just impressed that I always know all the words. I remember everything.
I hadn’t seen these friends in uhm five years, so it was strange and
interesting to be sitting around like no time had passed, yakking away
and laughing. Squire fell asleep listening to Jan Werich read Svejk and
when I went upstairs to bed he was still smiling. In the morning we
drank strong coffee and watched the roe deer running in the
field up the hill.

YOUR KEYS (check all that apply):
are on a keyring
face the same direction on your keychain (all teeth to one side)
line up in the order you normally use them (outside door, inside door, or whatever)
are stored on separate rings according to function (house keys, work keys)
are all on one master ring
have those little color tabs on them so you can find them quickly
are accompanied by an item that is not a key (laser pointer, army knife, rubber toy, etc.)
follow the rules of the James Spader character in "Sex Lies and Videotape"

TRUE/FALSE:
I didn’t know the jagged part was called "teeth".
I already knew the jagged part was called "teeth" but did not know that the part between the head and the shaft was called the "nape".
I knew teeth and nape.
I remember that the character’s name was Graham and am insulted that you spelled it out.
I understand all of these questions.
Yes, even the subtext, pfft.

ESSAY:
Describe your key system.

I’m stuck in a moderately nasty memory loop. It’s that I remember so
much stuff and so much of it is awful that I think I made it up; and
then I try to remember something bracingly good, and presently I’m
counting dust motes and I’m no fun to be around at all. I can remember.
Just sometimes Billy Pilgrim drinks me under the table and there’s no
Montana Wildhack to comfort me.

So okay, we’ll do updates, shall we. Oh let’s! We meaning I took down
the decorations, the tree and the lights and everything today. I am
madly efficient and did it with only one cigarette break. It is very
funny how once the tree is gone that part of the room looks so empty.
When you put the tree up, you’re like, "Now how on earth shall I get to
my back issues of Scientific American for the next two weeks?" and then
two weeks later you’re both "Whoo, there’s that article on the temporal
lobe that I was looking for!" and also "Hey, should we buy some more
furniture or something?"

But we should not buy more furniture because in fact we’re meaning I’m
having the living room painted next week. I had to tell Friar about it,
because he has to clear off his desk. I was sort of tempted for a
minute to go ahead and have the room painted and see if he noticed but
the burden of clearing the desk frightened me into reason. So he
cleaned his desk while I undecorated. I believe he required quite a few
more breaks and he’s not done. Some people are not fixated on
completion.

The cat has been put on a diet because she is a fatty fattness. She doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo. Yowr.

Oh, and I shaved my head. Partly because I watched Violently Happy and
it seemed like a good idea. Also because, as they say, I could. And
also, of course, because it was there.

New Year’s was magically delicious. We went to the beer garden for the
first fireworks, which were at 11 for reasons rather too Brno-esque to
detail. Then we went downtown and saw the midnight fireworks. The whole
thing was lovely and crazy and nearly precisely what I love about
living here, and I had it all encapsulated in my mind but then I didn’t
write it down immediately and now it seems so much my standard Making A
Big Insight From A Small Event, whoo, that I can’t quite bring myself
to do it.

Sometimes I feel like U2 on tour or something, ratcheting up the
emotion every night just to make a point when what I really want to do
is crash back with a bottle of whiskey and a pretty groupie or
something.

But my face is my own, as the poet said. What to say when you see me.