Household Math

Household mathematics have a special kind of magic. The algorithms don’t fit the norms. Some items diminish and deplete instantly. For example, the other humans in the house can sense if I’ve filled up the cookie jar without my saying a word. Which I did last night. The contents in the jar will disappear within 24 hours. Never fails. Other things multiply exponentially without reason. These items almost always take up too much room for their value and they usually tumble out of their spaces when given the chance.

Today I found myself armpit deep in dirty water bottles. The sink was full. The dish drainer could barely handle the capacity after I washed them. I asked myself, why do four people need twenty or so water bottles/insulated tumblers/smoothie cups? And while we’re in the cupboard, why so many coffee cups? Only two of us drink coffee, yet there’s a collection of mugs cluttering up the shelves. Some of these mugs are perfect, some passably functional, and some are freebies from groups we donate to or volunteer with, but they are unattractive. No joy being sparked in them, they are the mugs of last resort. We use the perfect favorites and when they aren’t clean, we move onto the next best mug. After the third string mugs are used, we might use one of these hideous cups, but we may just as likely wash out a better one instead. Under no circumstances are guests served drinks in these sad cups. So why hang onto them? If they were all mine, they’d be gone, but most of them are not mine. I have a couple of second stringers, but when I get ugly mugs now (an occupational hazard) I put them out on the “free table” at school. Unless someone at school gave it me. I’ve made that mistake before.

I want very much to learn how to find common denominators in our household items. I need to divide and conquer the clutter, and not allow it to simply multiply in stacks. It’s almost spring so I’m getting ready for the new math.

 

Anagram Musings on Switching to Daylight Saving Time

The first day is not so bad. It’s a Sunday and therefore usually less rushed than a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. You go around the digital gymnast hive* and dutifully reset all of the little clocks on the appliances and in the car. It’s nice to see the sun, or a hazy, light-colored sky at dinner time. You might even feel like throwing a little daisy ginghham vittle* celebration just thinking of the coming spring. Then your child’s bedtime rolls around and a chorus of “but I’m not tired yet,” leads you to have some thoughts of light vintage dismay*.  Next, it’s time for you to go to bed, only it feels quite early and you don’t need to even navigate sight dimly* yet. You don’t feel tired in that physical,  “ready to sleep” way, just exhausted in that existential, “isn’t everything just so evil, shitty, damaging,*” way. You toss and turn, trying to find sleep but it eludes you like the hazy memories of the Invalid Amethyst gig* you once went to back at the Paradise in 1989. Finally, you sleep, but fitfully so because there is always the chance that you might have that dream again, where you are tapdancing on a cruise ship and a mighty girl invades it*, interrupting your big number and capsizing the whole boat. You are left to wrestle against mighty devil *girl until the bleating of your alarm clock wakes you. Trembling, you stagger down the stairs to find your supplements. You shake one into your hand, but you’ve dropped it. You find yourself on the floor, searching for that shaggy vitamin D tile* to add to your spinach smoothie and hope it will help you make sense of this dark, new day.

Greta Recites Poems

She stood up there and recited words

written by others but somehow

meant for her.

She held each word in

her heart,

her mind,

her soul,

before she released it out to us.

Her clarity and strength

moved me

and gave me such hope

such hope.

Less Pretty These Days

“Pretty in Pink” was on tv last night, and I found myself sucked back into its Aquanet vortex. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy for me to suspend my disbelief this time around. When the rich boy character, played by James Spader, smokes a cigarette while standing in the stairwell of his high school, I wonder, “why is this kid slumming at a public school?” Sure, the more reasonable question might be, “why is this kid smoking in school?” but I was a child of the 80s and I remember smoke-filled teacher’s lounges and designated outdoor smoking areas for students. This isn’t as outrageous as it seems. The rich kid wearing designer suits and Italian loafers to public school is where I must call, “foul.” Never mind, his hair was exquisite and I would have paid any amount of money to have that feathery, bi-level look myself. Today, I like knowing that James Spader and I share our follicle challenges. Nice to know he couldn’t keep all that glorious hair either.

I also remember being completely enamored with Andrew McCarthy, who plays the conflicted rich boy, Blaine, in the film. When I first watched him realize Andi, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, played by Molly Ringwald, is the one for him, I cheered. Not so this time. Andi has too much integrity and personality for that slice of brat pack milquetoast. Sure, Andrew McCarthy is cute enough in a non threatening, not-too-sexual way, but his default expression reminds me of someone trying to read an eye chart after having their pupils dilated. Lots of blinking with the mouth slightly agape. I’m not sure what I saw in him at age 17. Safety? A lost soul who needed purpose? Somehow the film was able to make me identify strongly with Andi and root for her to end up with the undeserving Blaine. Sad.

And don’t get me started on that prom dress Andi constructs out of two used, pink, prom dresses. It’s a clunky, off the shoulder sheath that hangs on Molly Ringwald like a hospital johnny. Molly Ringwald was gorgeous, with creamy skin, bouncy red hair, and legs for days. Her character loved vintage clothes, why couldn’t she wear a beautiful, vintage dress that flattered her? Why did they put her in that boxy thing for the prom? Yes, yes it was meant to show her avant- garde fashion style, but it was neither pretty nor edgy, it just looked sad. At least her confused friend Ducky had some fun with his clothes. I would wear that blue, patterned, smoking jacket of his. Although maybe that’s not really a ringing endorsement of its coolness now that I think about it…

The ending was also sad. Out in the rain, between the cars in the parking lot, Andi and Blaine share a post prom kiss that has all the inevitability and charm of the seasonal snow melt revealing layers of dog poop in the yard. Some things get better with age, and some just get old.

Mouth Guard

The phone call from the school nurse is never a welcome one. It generally involves a fever or some unpleasant bodily fluids. When she called me yesterday, I was prepped for some vomiting, or maybe a suspicion of strep throat. Stomach virus and strep are both making the rounds of the middle school where I teach and I figured they had made their way to my son’s elementary school. Instead, it was a recess accident involving my son’s face, the blacktop, and the mysteries of gravitational pull. Something about a kickball game, losing his footing, and finding his teeth submerged into his lip. Lots of blood and his new orthodontia made for a few moments of heightened awareness on my part. His pediatrician referred us to the ER where they determined the teeth were all intact, the wound would heal, and no sutures were needed, just a thorough, painful, clean out and some antibiotics.

Fast forward to today where he is sitting on the bench watching his teammates play basketball. He can’t get his mouth guard in his mouth, and he can’t play again until he can wear the mouth guard. It has me thinking a lot about the mouth guard.

I think I could use a guard for my mouth. My rickety, creaky teeth could use some shoring up, but more than that, I think I could use a barrier between my mouth and the world. Keep out all the things that shouldn’t go inside –  doughnuts, chips, or that one drink over the line. Stop things from exiting that the world doesn’t need – like saying yes to doing something I don’t believe in, or speaking my truth just a bit too loudly or frequently.

In the meantime, I’ll sit on the bleachers across from the bench where my son sits watching his teammates. And I’ll try to bench myself when my imaginary mouth guard isn’t enough.

 

26 and Counting

Last night we celebrated our 26th Wedding Anniversary along with our children. Is Wedding Anniversary something that requires capitalization? I’m sure I’m supposed to know that as I currently teach ELA to middle schoolers, but like a mammogram or a pap smear, it only comes around once a year, and I think I’ve established on this blog that my memory is being used for really important things these days, like childhood friends’ birthdays and song lyrics from the 70s and 80s. In any case, we were pretty sure that the 26th anniversary was to be celebrated with processed food, just as the 25th one is supposed to be celebrated with silver. We do like to follow tradition. Last year we bobbed for loose, silver-colored coins in the local mall water feature and made just enough money to go out to eat in the food court. Last night we had the traditional Gillis-Luf celebratory meal of nachos (true, this is our Christmas family meal) and watched tv. This celebration had all of the markings of family tradition we’ve come to expect- such as last minute substitutions and mild, almost piquant, simmering resentments. To make the nachos, some mysterious sliced muenster cheese had to be added to the small nub of Monterey jack we all were convinced was much, much larger the night before, although no one would own up to eating any of it. Seriously though, who slices and eats Monterey jack as if it were cheddar or some other hard slicing cheese? I have always thought of Monterey jack as a melting cheese. None of us were willing to give up on our meal of nachos so we soldiered on with the muenster. Until we realized there were no black beans. This was too much for me, and I refused to allow pinto beans on the nachos. We were using the “good chips” dammit, and there would be no substitutes on the beans. Standards were adhered to and there were no beans. In the end, we ate chips and cheese with guacamole, peach chipotle salsa, and sour cream. So basically, our anniversary was spent eating ball park food and arguing over the tv. An absolutely perfect evening with the people I absolutely love the most.

My Car Does Not Define Me, But It Probably Could, Metaphorically Speaking

“You been to Formel’s?”

“What?”

“Your gas cap. It’s a different color than the rest of your car!”

“Come on, it’s practically the same color as the rest of the car.”

“Nah, I know junkyard chic when I see it, ’cause I’m their best customer.”

“I want you to know that I had that gas cap door put on professionally. If the color doesn’t match exactly that might be because the car is a 2006 and the gas cap door is painted the color the car might have been in 2006.”

“No payments though, am I right?”

“That’s right. Bought used, gonna be driven into the ground if I have anything to say about it.”

“Damn straight. A car gets you from point A to point B safely and reliably. Anything more? Icing on the cake.”

“My car does not define me, but it certainly fits me.”

It’s So Annoying When People Tell You About Their Nonsensical Dreams, Isn’t It?

I had six or seven cats clutched to my midsection as I carefully crossed the trestle bridge. It looked just as rickety as you’d imagine, with some missing crosspieces. I couldn’t remember the name for the wooden crosspieces that go across the tracks, and that distracted me. Greatly. So much so that I looked up and found myself at an internet cafe that had started out looking sleek and super modern and morphed into an old timey train station.  Maybe steampunk describes it, but maybe not. The cats in my hands had been replaced with two blue balloons, which were quite heavy despite the fact that they were floating. The irony was completely lost on me at the time. Suddenly exhausted, I sat down and waited for what I thought was a train but turned out instead to be my sister-in-law who needed my help tailoring her red, bias-cut, silk gown. It had one long sleeve and one bare shoulder and the sleeve needed to be pinned up just a bit. I went into my kitchen, but not my kitchen, to search the junkdraw for needle and thread. When I returned, my sister-in-law’s shoulders had become impossibly small and her arms dangled at odd angles. Somehow this was my fault and I knew I had to fix it so I began to push her arms up, with great force, which made her scream. At this point, her screams were replaced with the cries of a cat. This time it was no virtual cat, but a lonely nocturnal one who actually exists in what I like to think of as the real world, and I opened my eyes to see the angry red numbers on my alarm clock reading 3:42.

Universal Lessons in Stirrups

Karma. Simple concept. You put the energy out into the universe and like a psychic boomerang it comes back to you. Sometimes karma changes its appearance and it takes you awhile to see through the dye job, the weight loss, or the new glasses. Other times you recognize it immediately and you greet karma with a warm hug. Or you turn your grocery cart and move in the other direction when karma comes your way uninvited.

So why the surprise when I’m forced out of my comfort zone and pushed to work with strangers? Or even worse, colleagues? Don’t I make a living grouping awkward middle schoolers into pairs and trios against their will? Why should I be spared the indignity myself? And yet, when I’m asked to partner up at a PD workshop or made to endure a ghastly ice breaker activity, I react as though someone were telling me I needed to scoot down a little more and plant my feet firmly into the stirrups. Every time. It’s a personal affront.

I am a believer in the universe, the divine creator, or perhaps someone named Marsha, handing us out the lessons that we need to learn in this life. I recognize also that I am a slow student, or at least a reluctant one who demonstrates inconsistent effort. I get the same lessons handed back to me for revisions a lot. When it comes to learning social skills and being connected with other humans, I’m the kid who leaves the room and hides in the bathroom for 15 minutes to avoid the work. I would much rather do the work involved in writing a 20 page report on parasitic diseases by myself than work for 30 minutes with a group of people on poster depicting the steps to making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I don’t practice what I preach. And I make kids work with other kids not of their choosing sometimes. I want to believe that I do this so that they will be better humans than I am. No, scratch that, I want whoever might be reading this to believe that I do this so that my students will be better humans than I am. What I really think is that it is good for them to get used to working with people they might not choose as partners because this will keep happening to them in school and work. I ask them to do it because sometimes I want the students to benefit from some groupthink. Sometimes I want the work to be done efficiently. Sometimes I just want them to build up their social skills so it’s not so painful for them when they are told to scoot down and firmly plant their feet into the stirrups.

To Disappoint

My daughter recently told me she is afraid to disappoint me. She said this in the context of rehearsing for a poetry recital competition she is involved in today, this Sunday morning. She wanted to rehearse the piece but she wasn’t sure she wanted me to witness the rehearsal. Maybe she wanted me to see it. Maybe she didn’t. She was feeling fragile. She was feeling unsteady. Maybe she wanted approval or feedback, maybe she didn’t. In the past I would have pushed her to show me and to perform for me. I would have assured her that she was strong, fierce, clear and her recital was moving. But I didn’t do any of that. I didn’t. I just told her that if she wanted me to hear the poem I would love to hear it, but if she didn’t want that, I wouldn’t push it.

When we go to competition today, I will be surprised by her performance. I will not be surprised to see her bravery and her wisdom and her vulnerability up there, and yet, my heart will catch in my throat because it will show up in unexpected ways. Even if I watched her perform the piece 20 or 30 thirty times, it would still catch me by surprise. She who is so much mine and so much her own. She will bare her soul in this performance in a way I cannot imagine doing myself. Even if I try to think back to the time when I was brave and free enough to do what she will do today, I know that I always held back a piece of myself onstage. As I do in most of my real life interactions to this day. If there is any disappointment to be had, it most certainly will not come from anything she does.

The world disappoints – almost as a default. Our dearest ones can disappoint. We disappoint ourselves. Endlessly. To be disappointed is to be human. To disappoint is to love. I hope that I have no reason to feel disappointed for my child today. I know with every certainty that I will not, for one second, be disappointed in her.