The confused ramblings of a deranged mind....

Finding my happy place....

2012-01-28T22:07:00.000-08:00

"The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the economy, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny." - Albert Ellis

"Most barriers to your success are man-made. And most often, you're the man who made them." - Frank Tyger

"One man's creativity is another man's brain damage." - Roland Fischer

"Imagination and fiction make up about three-quarters of our real life." - Simone Weil

"Live on the abnormal and unheard of... sing the anguish of ultimate grief and discover the cavalries of the earth, arrive at the tragic by way of what is mysterious." - Santiago Rusinol

These are just a few of my favorite quotations that now decorate and pretty much define my newly made happy place. I'm not going to post all the pics on the blog, because we'd have more pics than blog, but anyone who would like to go over and see the album on FB can do so here. I hope I've got the settings right to have made it publicly available.

Back at our old house three years ago shortly before we moved, I created what I was calling my "creativity corner", which back in the day consisted of a card table in a corner with some random stuff pasted to the walls around it. Then we moved, I became employed (yes, in that order), and creativity of any kind sort of got lost in the shuffle, much less the making of a space for it. I sort of pasted a lot of that same random junk on the wall by the computer downstairs, but that was as far as I ever got. Strange, because most of my creativity happens in my bedroom, and it happens after dark. Apparently I cannot create in the daylight. I sort of discovered accidentally last year that lava lamps and purple chili pepper lights, for whatever reason, put me in a creative happy place. I discovered accidentally a few weeks ago that blacklight doubles this effect, especially when I'm surrounded by an awful lot of stuff that glows in blacklight. Also, for years now, I have had a file on my SD card titled "quotebag", in which I keep track of all the little quotes I stumble upon on the internets that make me happy.

The coalescing of all these events has finally culminated in the creation of my new Happy Place... the place where hopefully I'll finally get some songs written and go about doing this thing I've recently decided I'll never forgive myself if I don't at least try to do. There are an awful lot of band things in my Happy Place (not nearly enough pics of Shaun Morgan yet, but I'm working on that.) That much I expected. I was not expecting so many skulls to show up, but they did. I guess skulls just make me happy... especially the decorated Mexican ones. (Brings back fond memories of catrina-hunting in Metepec, maybe, I dunno.) The quotes on blacklight-reactive post-its were a stroke of genius, however.... proof that the magic of the Happy Place is in effect. Also I've noticed that I'm blogging more since I started pulling the bits of the happy place together, which is either a sign that the creative juices are starting to flow again or a sign that I like boring my literally ones of readers with the minutiae of my attempts to grow out of the box I used to put myself in.

Either way, you're stuck with me. I'm not going away. In fact, I'm probably only going to get louder as this thing progresses. I've finally found my voice, and I'm about to start using it. So stand back.... *evil laugh*

Song o' the Day: "Trip the Darkness" by Lacuna Coil. I do not know why, but this song just makes me happy at this point in my life. (Not as happy that the white Cristina in the vid looks like Yolandi Visser from Die Antwoord, but you can't have everything I guess.) Follow me, follow me, as I trip the darkness one more time....

The Creative Process....

2012-01-26T22:48:00.000-08:00

(Sweet Sacrifice - Evanescence) (I should probably note that there will be a lot of female artists floating around on this blog today, because I'm listening to a playlist on my iPod rather than iTunes proper on my computer.) (Swimming Home - Evanescence)

Well, it's certainly been an eventful couple of weeks in my life! Perhaps this is just me overly romanticizing my life again, but I have this weird sense that last Saturday was sort of a turning point in my existence.

In the wake of my successful (in my view, though I didn't actually get in the band) audition last week, I had another browse of Craigslist. I made contact with a guy in Oregon City who composes his own stuff, tracks his own demos, and is looking for a female vocalist to sing for his demos and maybe join the band if it works out well. (What You Want - Evanescence) He sent me six mp3 files of rough demos he's cooked up for me to play with. And by "play with" I mean "listen to repeatedly and try to write lyrics and melodies for".

Surprisingly, this task does not seem as daunting to me as it probably should. (What I See - Lacuna Coil.... I'm getting distracted by LOTS of shiny things right now) It's a challenge, yes, but it's so far been a fun one. So I thought I would share with you all the tactics I've decided to use for this project, plus my own semi-whacked maunderings, and if anyone who reads this has ever done anything similar before they should feel free to leave a comment advising me on my technique.

So, what does someone with no professional experience in music do when presented with the task of composing lyrics and melodies to six heavy metal tracks? Well, first I put my kid to bed. Then I go into my bedroom, turn on the lava lamp, the black light, and the purple chili pepper lights, and I grab the good headphones (the purple Skullcandy ones that are the most expensive pair of headphones I have ever owned), the laptop, a bottle of water, and the official notebook designated to be the repository of any and all song/band-related ideas from here on out until it has no more pages. (Since You've Been Gone - Kelly Clarkson)

These items gathered, I migrate to the desk and establish base camp there. Headphones are plugged into the laptop, pen and notebook are laid out beside the laptop, bottle of water within easy reach (not because of singing, but because water is the beverage of champions), and the six mp3s are downloaded into a single folder on the desktop for convenience.

The first song to be listened to has been determined randomly by a system we call "the order the computer put them in, which is not alphabetical". (Dolphin - Poe) First listen through, I don't think about it too much... I just listen and sort of get a feel for the rhythm and tone of the song. The correct position for this is eyes closed, elbows on the desk, hands over the earpieces of the headphones making sure no extra noise gets in. For the second listen through, I pick up the pen. I listen once again with eyes closed, but if I have a sudden flash of insight I open my eyes and scribble it down.

This is the bit where it's gonna sound like I'm on crack, but I swear I'm sober. Tired, but sober. Anyway, by the second listening, I start to hear words. No joke. Just fragmented sentences here and there, but generally sticking to a theme. I jot all of these down, even if I'm not going to end up using all of them (or any of them!) (Choking the Cherry - Poe) The third listen through I do pretty much the same thing, and usually by the end of it I at least have an idea of a melody in my head. I have been told that the guy writing all this music would like to have melodic female vocals combined with male screaming/growling (a combination I happen to like), and occasionally I even think of some good parts for the guy and jot those down too. I'll listen to the song a fourth time to see if I get anything I missed, but that's about it.

See, this guy (who is called Paul) has just asked me to pick one or two of the six songs that I want to play with and develop those two, then he can judge for himself if he likes the directions my mind wanders in. (Sorrow - Flyleaf) The titles he has assigned the mp3 files, he says, are only identifying titles he knows the songs by and not necessarily the final title of the song or at all indicative of what he thinks the song is about. So mostly I'm to ignore those, though some of them would make good band names... lol. I think probably that's indicative that we would at least jive creatively, since I like his completely fake song titles and think they might make good band names.

(Fly Away - Poe) I have so far only been through this much of the process with four of the six songs, and of those four I have a clear favorite and another that I will consider if I end up not liking the two I haven't listened to yet. My idea is, once I have narrowed down which two I want to work with, I will take my quick impression notes for those two songs and try to develop them into full lyrics for the song. If and when I get that far, I'll make a seriously low-quality recording (possibly on my phone, but maybe with my computer) of myself singing my lyrics and melody along with the rough demo he sent me. This I shall submit for his approval, and if he likes it I presume the next step would be to get together and record some better quality demos and start getting the band together. This, at least, is my understanding.

(I'm Not an Angel - Halestorm) So anyway, I'm enjoying having the creative freedom to pretty much give these songs whatever treatment I want. I'm feeling all Lacuna Coil up in here, and I Like It (to borrow the title of a Lacuna Coil song). And just for fun and games, I took a nice little picture of my workspace this evening and I thought I'd add it to the blog to give it that homey feel....

Oh, and Wide Awake by Lacuna Coil came on the iPod while I was fiddling about pulling the picture off of Facebook to stick on the blog. Perhaps this is fitting, given my current state of wakefulness at a time at which I should reasonably be sleeping rather than blogging or lyricizing (which may not actually have been a word, but it is now!)

Speaking of things that just came on my iPod, I didn't even know there was such thing as Italian Reggae until I discovered Radici nel Cemento because one of my Italian friends posted the song Bella Ciccia on their Facebook wall. Once you get over the absurdity of Italian Reggae as an extant genre, it's kinda catchy... lol.

Song o' the Day: "Swimming Home" by Evanescence, because I was singing it in the shower earlier after Zumba. My neighbors will probably be really glad when I finally move out... lol. I'd link you to a place to see/hear this one, but I'm feeling lazy. YouTube it yourself. You won't find a vid because there isn't one, but no doubt some fanboy/girl has uploaded the song to YouTube along with a montage of stunning photos of Amy Lee.

For the record, Cristina Scabbia is hotter. And generally more likeable as a person, from what I can tell. ;-)

So I'm not in a band... but who cares?! :-)

2012-01-22T21:10:00.000-08:00

Though I was not notified directly (at least not as of the time of this writing), it would seem that the band I auditioned for yesterday has decided to go a different direction. I ascertained this from the guitarist's Facebook posting referring to the new vocalist as "him" and then checked my anatomy and determined I was out of the running.

Hardly surprising... rock is still a man's world, but we're making headway!

However, I feel the need to elaborate a bit on some of the positive things that came out of this experience, lest people think I'm going to sit around and cry now. No, I'm not crying. I haven't cried. I'm not going to cry. I think that covers all my verb tenses.

See, here's the thing... yesterday, I did something I've always wanted to do but only dreamed of doing. Cross one off the bucket list. And you know why I never did it before? Because the idea scared the crap out of me, that's why. I'm totally comfortable singing in cars, showers, my own house, etc., but going and singing in front of complete strangers knowing that they're judging me every second? Heck naw, bro! But I did it anyway and you know what? It was amazing. It was fun (after the first few moments of terror), I met some cool people, and perhaps more importantly I learned that I can do stuff I didn't think I could do. Seriously, I pretty much feel like I could take the world on now... so what if a bunch of musicians picked a dude instead of me?! I learned that I can overcome the fear and self-consciousness and do instead of just dream, and I think that's a pretty valuable lesson, TVYM. Well worth the two hours I spent on the audition process.

In that spirit, I've done two things today... I set for myself a rather lofty goal which I shall perhaps detail in another post, and also I e-mailed another musician off of Craigslist. This one was specifically looking for a female, according to the ad, so already I have one of the major qualifications. Go me!

I shall take the advice "Tall Chris" gave me, and not stop doing what I'm doing. Because for the first time in a long time, I was excited about something and it was very cool. I guess you could say I had a little taste and it hooked me... I'll definitely be back for more.

Oh, and those guys have my number for when the guy they picked flakes out on them... lol. And until then....

Song o' the Day: "So What" by Pink. (I refuse to put an exclamation mark in her name. That's just stupid. Sort of like Ke-dollarsign-ha, which is how I prefer to pronounce "Ke$ha" out loud. Pee-exclamationpoint-nk is just too cumbersome, though.) I really recommend watching the video because it's funny and I like the overall snarky tone of the song, though I mostly picked it for the chorus. Those too cowardly to watch the video can read the chorus lyrics below. Those brave enough can click the song title for a link to the vid.
So what? I'm still a rockstar!
I've got my rock moves
And I don't need you
And guess what? I'm having more fun
And now that we're done
I'm gonna show you tonight
I'm all right, I'm just fine
And you're a tool, so
So what? I am a rockstar!
I've got my rock moves
And I don't want you tonight

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

2012-01-21T22:19:00.000-08:00

Too excited! Can't sleep! Gonna blog and then go dye my hair (again) instead! (Lost in Paradise - Evanescence).*

Yeah, anyway, our story begins about a month ago. I was bored one night right around this same time (9:20) (Diamond Eyes (Boom Lay Boom) - Shinedown). So I got on Craigslist. This is because I think Craigslist is a cesspool of humanity and it amuses me to see some of the lame that goes on there. I checked out the "musicians" community where bands that need members put ads and members that need bands put ads. Because generally the musician types make some pretty funny posts. I saw one there that said "MOLALLA" and suddenly I was intrigued. Because I happen to live there. I read the ad and liked most of the influences listed, so just on a whim, I e-mailed the guy, who was the guitarist, and asked if they were opposed to the idea of a female vocalist. Because some macho rock bands just don't want chicks up in their business, that's why. I then got off of Craigslist, because if I start replying to things I know I'm really bored and need to go get a life. Total time on Craigslist: about 5 minutes.

Much to my surprise, the dude e-mails me back less than twenty minutes later and says no, they're pretty open-minded and they don't mind the idea of a female singer, so did I want to audition? (Give it Away - Red Hot Chili Peppers) After a momentary fit of "they weren't actually supposed to respond!" panic, I thought, "Well why not?! I've been dreaming about being in a band for years... why not audition?" So I emailed him back and said sure, and he almost immediately gave me a date and time: January 21st at 2:00.

I decided almost immediately what song I would like to do at the audition, then promptly forgot all about it for nearly a month. I did not start thinking about it again until yesterday. And even then, I didn't get nervous. I was like, "Yeah, I'm gonna go sing a song." I was fine in English class this morning. I was fine when I got home from English class this morning. The nerves hit when I got in my car for the less-than-ten-minute drive to the audition. Fine timing, that! (Zithande - Freshlyground) I sang my song in the car and told myself that I was just going to fake confidence and go in and do my thing, and whatever happened would be okay.

I got out of the car and went toward the house and was greeted by the bass player. I later learned that he is called "Tall Chris", "Bass-player Chris", (the guitarist is also named Chris) or "Long-legged Freak". Chris the guitarist is "Bald Chris" or "Short Chris" or "Chris Dawg". Not only was I on time for my audition, but I was actually five minutes early. The drummer (who is not named Chris) was not there yet. In the end, in fact, he was over half an hour late. (Insert joke about unreliability of drummers here.) (Natural Life - Breaking Benjamin) This gave me time to talk with Chris and Chris, and Bald Chris and I discovered that we actually went to school together briefly during my sophomore year, and we have had a friend in common since that time. I pretty much clicked with them right away, so by the time the non-Chris drummer got there I was feeling much more comfortable. Right until the point where we got down to business about 3 o'clock.

They had a card table set up in the practice space, and the three of them sat at the table with spiral notebooks, ready to take notes on my performance. And suddenly the nerves hit again, because it was on. (I Am Not Your Gameboy - Freezepop) Three guys I just met are sitting at a table with notebooks and pens, staring at me, waiting for me to start singing so they can write down notes/critiques on my performance. Yikes.

The song I picked to sing for the audition was "Make Me Wanna Die" by The Pretty Reckless. (Click the song title if you wanna hear it... I put in a link.) None of them had heard of that band, and all of them liked it. Score points for me! Anyway, I just tried to pretend I was in my car and nobody was listening, and that was how I got through the first verse. Right around the first chorus, I realized that the acoustics in the practice room were awesome. I was really enjoying the way my voice was bouncing off the walls, and I started having fun and playing with it, seeing what I could make the noise do. Nerves gone. (I Wanna Talk About Me - Toby Keith) As always, though, the song got over just when I was really getting into it... curse these short songs anyway! (And I just want to mention, I killed on the high note at the end... better tone than I've ever done, I think. Basically I knocked the audition out of the park.)

When I was done I noticed they were all looking at me kind of surprised-like, then Bald Chris said, "Wow... that was really good." The other two quickly agreed, and I sat down at the table and they asked me some questions about the style of music I like and what experience I have (next to none), and we made chit-chat for a few minutes, then Tall Chris said, "Let me just say something... Even if we decide to go with someone else, don't stop doing what you're doing. Find another band or start your own, because you've got some talent." Now that made me extra happy. Because it was the first time I'd scraped up the courage and fake-confidence to actually audition for a band (which is something I've always wanted to do... I've always dreamed of being in a band), and the guy tells me that. Insert happy face here. :-)

(Blind - Korn) I hung out with them until about 4. Partly because the non-Chris who got there late had parked me in, but also because I was just having fun hanging. I even like Bald Chris's wife, who was also hanging around there. The guy who was supposed to audition at 3 flaked out, which made me look really good, and when Bald Chris called him he made some lame excuse about his girlfriend's car breaking down and rescheduled for tomorrow. But also I was just having fun getting to know them and talking to grown-ups (a rarity for me). They're all late-twenties to mid-thirties, all of them have at least one kid (Tall Chris has six), and they pretty much seem like mature adults. Who happen to be in a rock band that is far more successful than I knew about.

I am glad I didn't know this ahead of time, because it probably would have intimidated the heck outta me, but this is a band that won Portland's Battle of the Bands the first year they entered it. The second year they did it, they came in second place. They were offered a $20,000 contract from a small independent label, but turned it down because they figured out they would have had to pay out about $5,000 out-of-pocket for the tour and none of them had it, and the profit they would have made from CDs and downloads was pretty negligible (lousy contract, I guess). The walls of the practice space are almost completely covered with posters from gigs they've played. They have opened for a couple of touring bands that came through Portland that are more well-known. They are the real deal. (Someone Who Cares - Three Days Grace) While I was there hanging out being parked in, Bald Chris started cleaning out a storage tub in the practice space and found a bunch of old merch and a stack of demo CDs. They gave me two of the demo CDs, a stack of band logo stickers, and a band logo T-shirt for the Chamaco (they didn't have any left in my size). It probably should be mentioned at this point that their plan is to find a new singer and basically start over fresh. They want to write new songs and find a new band name. The old one (which I won't mention here, but if you really want to know you can ask me) is to be no more, which is why they were giving away the merch. So even if I don't get into the band, I didn't walk away empty-handed... I got some pretty cool souvenirs. Not bad for my first audition! (The Big Issue - Chumbawamba) Definitely it has given me the courage to try it again sometime if I don't get into this band (which I hope I do).

Anyway, they have I think 3 auditions scheduled for tomorrow, the last of which is at 5, I believe, and then they plan to make a decision immediately. I could very realistically know one way or the other by 7 or 8 p.m. tomorrow. And I say again - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! As much as I told myself I was just going to do it and whatever the outcome was would be fine (and it is... I'm not going to cry if I don't get in, but I will be more disappointed than I initially thought I would be), I'm currently more excited than I've been about anything in quite some time and I don't know at all if I will be able to sleep tonight. (Día Especial - Shakira)

Only adding to my general elation with the day, when I got home and went over to check the mail, my new Lacuna Coil CD, "Dark Adrenaline", which I pre-ordered, was in the mailbox. Three days BEFORE the release date! Yay for pre-ordering and fast shipping! You can't even walk into a store and buy it until the 24th! So when I got home and settled, the Chamaco and I first listened to "Dark Adrenaline" (I am in love with "Trip the Darkness") and then the demo CD the band gave me. My house has been very musical tonight... even more so than usual.

Somewhat frustrated now, because I want to sing loudly in my house and can't because I live in an apartment and it's after "quiet time" (which never stops my neighbors from singing loud, drunken karaoke, but I'm nicer than them, I guess). (Sk8er Boi - Avril Lavigne) Also the Chamaco is in bed. So I'm going to go do unspeakable things to my hair and try to find an outlet for my sudden creativity overflow. Maybe I'll try writing some lyrics down just in case... or I'll ponder potential band names. (I spit out one randomly at the audition that they all actually kind of liked.) (Sacred Lie - Disturbed) I'll have to think of something to do until I get tired enough to be sleepy. Gonna be a fun morning getting up for church tomorrow!

Thanks for reading my excited-babble!

Song o' the Day: Gonna have to repeat myself and do "Trip the Darkness" by Lacuna Coil. Check it out if you didn't already!

*If you didn't catch on to what's up with the random song titles scattered throughout the blog, I put iTunes on shuffle when I blog and type the name of each song that comes up whenever it does. So not only do you get a small taste of my musical schizophrenia, but you also get to see roughly how long it takes me to focus long enough to type a paragraph at 80+ wpm. Yes, I type that fast, so when I get about 1 song per paragraph it's because something slowed me down. Probably something shiny.

January update... welcome to 2012!

2012-01-13T22:38:00.000-08:00

So, I remembered a few minutes ago about this thing I used to do in blogs where I would put iTunes on shuffle and just add the name of any song that came on in parentheses like this (Para tu amor - Juanes) for the duration of the entire blog. Not only does that give the reader a glimpse into the sort of diverse music I put in my ears, but also it gives you a general sense of how long it takes me to write a blog. Not because I type slow, because I certainly don't... I can type 110 wpm when I get going. Mostly just because I keep getting distracted by shiny things. And Facebook. Is Facebook shiny? I don't know.

Anyhoo, I figured I'd do some sort of catchy-uppy-thingie about how things are going since I do not blog nearly as often as I used to. (Cuando tú no estés conmigo - Flans) Something about having a life now, I guess... ha ha ha! I'll go roughly by categories.

WORK LIFE: Well, I'm working full time... 40 hours a week. Sometimes 42, like this week. (Ifa um canto pra subir - Margareth Menezes) I am also actively seeking other work, because I really do not like my job. This year I changed to a new center (same organization) because it was only a mile and a half from my house instead of 35 miles. And it was full time instead of 25 hours a week. I like the short commute and more pay, and I like the people I work with, but I dislike the job itself and I extra dislike the current state of the administration. They have become like a many-handed Hindu goddess and none of the hands have the foggiest clue what the other six or seven are doing. You could throw a query out into the ether of administration and receive back three or four very authoritative and very different replies, all from parties who insist that they are correct and the others have it wrong. (Sálvame - RBD. Why is everything coming up in Spanish or Portuguese tonight?) It was bad enough in September and October that I would have quit had I had anywhere else to go to. Since then it has improved to the point of being tolerable, but it's definitely not enjoyable. And I know people say, "It's not supposed to be fun! That's why it's called work!" To those people, I say, "Perhaps you have accepted that you have to spend the majority of your waking hours doing something you hate, but I refuse to be robbed of my joy unnecessarily." There are lots of other jobs out there, and as soon as I find one that seems like a good fit, I shall be on my way. (Misery Business - Paramore)

FAMILY LIFE: I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I feel like the Chamaco and I have a closer relationship now than we have had in previous years. I don't know if it's just that he's getting old enough and witty enough to be good conversation or if it's just that my longtime policy of openness and honesty with the child finally seems appealing now that he's getting old enough to ask questions about adult topics. In other news, the Chamaco acquired a little brother in October of 2011 (not through any doing of mine, mind you). A lot of people seem to think I should be upset about that for some reason... one person asked me, "Doesn't that just make you feel..." and then he mimed being stabbed through the heart. Answer: No, it does not. I ceased to care at all where my ex-husband chooses to put his penis several years ago when it became clear that I was not among his top choices. And personally I'm thrilled that the Chamaco finally got a brother and I did absolutely nothing! (How Do You Like Me Now? - Toby Keith) In fact, he and I were just having one of our "grown-up" conversations the other day and he asked me if I would ever have another kid. I said, "Probably not, because even if I were to get pregnant tomorrow you would still be almost 11 by the time the kid was born. That seems like kind of a large gap to me." He agreed that it was. It still boggles his mind that by the time his little brother enters kindergarten, he will be nearly 16. That kinda boggles my mind too, honestly. (So What - Pink) We even had a discussion about how I'm not one of those "career mommies" whose sole mission in life was to have children. I told him I had it figured out that when he's 18 I'll be just barely 37, and I rather liked the idea of being that young and not having young dependent children. He said he thought he understood that notion. He really is surprisingly adult for his age sometimes. (My Life Would Suck Without You - Kelly Clarkson)

HOBBIES: Well, I'm still a language nerd. Some things never change. I spent a large chunk of summer 2011 working on my Italian. I'm not yet fluent, but definitely conversational. My Italian is probably at the same level that my Spanish was when I first arrived in Cuernavaca in 2005. The difference is that I'm not about to go immerse myself in Italy for 6 weeks and have it be like taking both 3rd and 4th year Spanish in a month and a half. I'm giving consideration to picking up either French or Portuguese next, or I might re-learn German. I had two years of German in college and promptly forgot almost all of it. I actually work with someone who speaks German now, and it might stick if I had someone to practice on.

On to the music bit... I'm still trying to self-teach guitar when I find the time. Also I will be fulfilling a longtime dream next week by auditioning to be the vocalist in a rock band. No joke. If I actually get the gig, that would be another longtime dream fulfilled, so fingers crossed all! (When it Rains - Paramore)

While my 2011 weight loss sort of stalled out after June, I managed not to gain much of it back either and I have made sure to keep my activity levels up. I got Just Dance 2 for the Wii, and I can easily spend an hour playing that and not noticing the elapsed time. This past week I started going to Zumba classes at my new gym (the old one went out of business, which was a blessing in disguise I think) and I love it! Dancing has always been one of those things that I really liked but was too self-conscious to do publicly (sort of like being a singer), and I'm secretly glad that I seem to be shedding some insecurities as I get closer to 30. I have no idea what the steps are (I've only been to 2 classes) and I'm sure I look like an idiot, but when I mentioned to one of the other ladies in the class that I was having a hard time figuring out the steps, she said, "It doesn't matter! Just keep flopping around and have fun!" I like this attitude, and I think I'll take her advice until I figure out what's going on. (Sympathy for the Devil - Guns and Roses)

Oh, yeah, and I'm still teaching ESL at the church on Saturday mornings, which I guess counts as a hobby since I certainly don't get paid for it! (Reasons to be Beautiful - Hole) A few months ago I started co-teaching with Kyle, and I sort of like that system in that my primary function seems to be to have ideas bounced off of me and to answer questions asked in Spanish. Oh, and read out loud the Spanish sections of the book we use. Really I don't mind that. Mostly because it gives me a good 2 hours a week in which I can pick on Kyle. ;-)

SOCIAL LIFE: Huh? What's that?

Kidding... sort of. My social life mostly consists of gripe sessions with Adrianne, Teresa and Rachael before and after work and my Friday evening hangouts with Sammich. As I mentioned in the last blog, I went on one date in 2011... a 100% increase over the amount I went on in 2010, and in fact every year previous to that. It was actually the first official date I have ever been on. That is what happens when you marry someone you met before either one of you was old enough to drive. (Monsters - Matchbook Romance) It is also what happens when, after you divorce that person, you have such a dismal opinion on humans in general that you don't even bother looking for a date for close to a decade. Encouraged by my little sister's successes with online dating, I signed up on a site in the later end of last year that resulted in one date. It didn't go horribly or anything... the dude just talked incessantly and reminded me a little too much of someone I divorced in that I couldn't get a word in edgeways. But I got Chinese food out of it and successfully killed a Sunday afternoon. (Stay and Play - Saron Gas) Oh, and then there's the part about how he lives in Montana. At the time he was a long haul truck driver and was coming in to Salem every other weekend, but he has since changed jobs and I doubt he'll be back in the area again. Just as well, I say. Anyway, just in the last couple of weeks I've started conversations with a handful of guys, so we'll see how that turns out. I've already ruled out one of them... another perk of my advancing age is that I don't worry so much about offending someone by saying out loud what will and will not work for me.

That's pretty much the summary of now. As for the future... I know I said this last year and I was kind of right but not as right as I thought I would be, but I really think the calm stability of the last few years is coming to an end. At least if I get my way! This year I actually have goals, which is a nice change. I would like to change careers ASAP, and I want to move by the end of the year (ideally ASAP after changing jobs). Now that the Chamaco is older and more self-sufficient, I think it's time for me to branch out a little bit and try some new stuff... like Zumba and auditioning for bands. And a new profession. And, knowing me, probably several new hair colors. (I'm Sorry - Flyleaf) I do not want to be one of those moms who is without purpose once her kids have moved out. Don't get me wrong, I love my son, but I also think it's natural and healthy to have other interests outside of parenthood. I'm not even sure it's healthy when people say things like, "My kids are my whole world." Because kids aren't permanent, that's why. They grow. And so should you. (Un fantasma tra noi - Lacuna Coil) Being able to do things aside from breeding and raising our offspring is what sets us apart from the animals! Diversify! Specialization is for insects.

So I will sing and dance and embarrass my son in the kitchen. I will continue to play guitar badly. I will learn how to get into trouble in as many languages as possible. I may even learn how to get myself out of trouble in a few more languages. I will continue pursuing that mystical unicorn which is a job that I like doing that pays well enough for me to live. I will hope. I will dream. I will not let the world beat the joy out of my soul. I will dance like no one is watching. I will love like I've never been hurt (one of these days). I will completely and unapologetically be myself, because I didn't get the instruction manual for being anyone else. I will mismatch my earrings if I feel like it. (Immorale - J-Ax... yay for Italian rap!) I will continue my evolution from observer to participant. I will wander in my mind and in these blogs wherever my thoughts feel like going. Oh, and at some point this year I'm going to try karaoke in English. I've only done it once before, and it was at a cantabar in Mexico. ;-)

I do not know why, but I can't shake the feeling that 2012 is going to be a pivotal year in my life. The word "crossroads" keeps coming to my mind. In the sense of arriving at a crossroads and having to decide which way to go. I also have the sense that at least one of the roads potentially leads to destruction and ruin. I just hope I know which one it is and have the sense to avoid it. (Falling Away from Me - Korn) Not that I'm psychic or anything. I could totally be wrong, but like I said... I was right about 2011... just not as right as I thought I would be. Maybe I was a year early. (Serenata Rap - Jovanotti)

Well, if you kids will excuse me, I'm off to go do my nightly revision of Craigslist's job postings and snuggle down in my bed where it's warm. Tomorrow morning I'm off once again to teach English and live the dream. At this point I'm still not sure exactly whose dream it is, but I'm working to take ownership, don't worry. But before I go...

Song o' the Day: "Trip the Darkness" by Lacuna coil. Their new album, Dark Adrenaline, comes out Jan. 24th. I have it pre-ordered... can't wait! And the video for "Trip the Darkness" is pretty cool, and reminds me of why I've always had a girl-crush on Cristina Scabbia. See/hear it here. Speaking of that, lots of my fave bands are putting out albums this year. Shinedown has one I think releasing in February, and Halestorm's will be out later in the year. Evanescence just put out a really good one a few months ago that I never got around to reviewing on the blog, but I shall have to do so soon. :-) (Vuelve - Shakira)

The changes THREE years can bring.... (belated year-in-review for 2011)

2012-01-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

So, the last two years in a row I've been doing a sort of year-end contrast thing to see how things change in my life from year to year. There were some major changes in the last few years, but I'm not sure much has changed this year. Then, I haven't really looked at it yet. I copy/pasted last year's blog into this one, and I'll be adding 2011 as I go... we'll discover it together, I guess!

2008: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
2009: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.
2010: We live in the same apartment as last year. Have somehow managed to keep paying the rent. Praise God!
2011: We still live in the same apartment. I have an eye toward moving before the end of the year, though, because I'm close to being able to afford to at this rate.

2008: I was unemployed. All year.
2009: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly poeple who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.
2010: Same job situation except it has dawned on me that I really don't like teaching. Okay, so I knew that all along, but now I'm really starting to get the urge to move along... still like the people I work with, though!
2011: I now work FULL TIME for the first time since 2001. I adore the people I work with, but I like teaching less and less. Looking to move on (and when I do that apartment change thing will probably shortly follow).

2008: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
2009: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!
2010: Primarily Wal-Mart again. No huge change in this department.
2011: Again, no change! What can I say? I like Wal-Mart.

2008: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
2009: An organization called to offer us a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needed it worse than we do. After I hung up I realized what I'd just been able to say and I almost cried.
2010: Nobody even offered us a food box this year.
2011: I don't even get food stamps anymore. (Well, $16 a month, but that hardly counts, now does it?)

2008: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
2009: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.
2010: I can still pick up my nine-year-old boy for brief periods of time
2011: My kid turned 10 this year. I can still pick him up, but I can't carry him much of anywhere. I realize that the only reason I can pick him up is because I routinely lift up to sixty pounds of child at work. He clocks in at about 74, last I knew.

2008: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
2009: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.
2010: My son cooked dinner a few weeks ago. I supervised him, but the only thing I actually did for him was turn the knobs on the stove, because he can't reach them yet. He's older but still short... lol.
2011: My kid can stay home by himself for increasingly long periods of time (I haven't yet pushed it past an hour and a half). He has a cell phone. As long as there is a microwave and a stocked freezer, he can feed himself indefinitely. This works out well for me going to Zumba classes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

2008: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
2009: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.
2010: All of the above, plus a couple of new friends... :-)
2011: Loads of new people in my life this year. Some of them are even male... lol.

2008: I was single.
2009: Still single... no change there. : )
2010: Despite some rumors you may have heard, still single. But I guess there were at least rumors this year. Maybe next year there will be something to them! ;-)
2011: Still single! But I did actually go on ONE date in 2011. Which is one more than in the previous eight years combined, so I guess that's progress... ha ha ha!

Yikes!

2011-12-09T00:24:00.000-08:00

An event just sort of snuck up on me. I knew it was coming, and for a long time there I had myself convinced that it wouldn't matter so much, but now it's here and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

The time as I write this is 11:05 p.m., December 8th, 2011. That's more or less exactly the time on this day 10 years ago that we decided to take a little drive over to Willamette Falls Hospital.

Fast-forward to 1:25 a.m. on December 9th, 2001 (yes, a mere 2 hours and 20 minutes later). Look out world... Damian Richard Ford is born!

I've been doing a lot of reflecting over the last few days. Because I cannot believe that ten years went by so quickly. Heck, I'm not even supposed to be old enough to remember ten years ago so clearly, am I? But then I remember that I'm actually 29 (or "almost thirty!" as Damian likes to state it), and that 10 years is actually more like a third of my life than the half that it feels like it ought to be. Where does the time go? Seems like yesterday I was sitting on a hospital bed holding a newborn baby and laughing with Sammich so hard that my sides hurt (I don't remember what was funny, but I remember laughing). I was 19 (barely), had been married not quite six months, and I thought at that point I was a real grown-up. Fast-forward a decade and I'm a full-time working single mom, and I just finished packing my fourth-grader's lunch for tomorrow and cleverly figuring out how to get the birthday card to fit inside his lunchbox without actually folding it in half.

Really, though, my kid is awesome. And just to prove the point, I figured I'd hit a few highlights of his already illustrious career as a human being.

Mere matter of days old: Teaches Mom not to underestimate his capabilities. When placed a good couple of feet from the edge of Grandma and Grandpa's king-sized bed and left unattended for approximately two minutes, manages to pitch self onto floor. No lasting harm done (except to Mom's nerves), and Mom learns the origin of the phrase "bouncing baby boy".
2 weeks old: Sleeps through the night for the first time. Makes Mom very happy.
5 months old: Still thinks sitting upright unassisted is for losers, but dislikes being horizontal for any reason other than sleep.
7 months old: Decides to give sitting up a try and masters it.
8 months old: Decides to give crawling a try and masters it.
10 months old: Has walking while holding onto couches, tables, etc. down to an art form. Mom leaves him at Grandma's while she goes to work one day, and when Mom comes back, Damian is standing holding onto the couch in the living room. Mom says, "Hi Damian!" and walks past him into the kitchen. Damian lets go of couch and follows her in. Walking. Mom says to Grandma, "When did he start doing that?" Grandma replies, "He's been doing it all day. I assumed you knew about it."
Around 2 years old: Begins repeating the word "key" over and over. It takes Mom and Dad a couple of weeks to piece together that he says it when he sees the cat, and he's actually saying "kitty". Regardless, it's his first word. The first of many, because once this child decides to do something, he doesn't go halfway (see sitting up and crawling).
Toward the end of second year: Mom is helping Damian put on his socks. He looks at her and then says, "I have two feet. You have two feet. That's four feet, Mom." At this juncture Mom realizes that he will be better at math that her probably sooner rather than later.
Three years old: We take a trip to Mexico. Damian dislikes Mexican food, we learn. However, he is full of fun in the airports. During an 11-hour layover in San Francisco, Mom takes Damian out to the end of one of the terminals so he can watch the planes taxiing around. A plane passes very near to the window and Damian begins to jump up and down and point excitedly, "Mom! Mom! Look! I can see the piglet!" "The what?" Mom asks. Exasperated, Damian says, "You know, the piglet! The guy who flies the plane!" Several hours later, boarding the plane, we are standing in line in the jetway, just about to step through the door of the plane itself. There is about a three inch gap between the end of the jetway and the door of the plane, and you can see down to the ground, which is quite a ways away. Damian, standing there and looking down, announces in a loud voice, "Man, I bet if we fell down there we'd get DEAD!" much to the amusement of the other passengers standing nearby. On the return trip to the States (another layover in San Fran), immediately after disembarking from the flight from Mexico City to SF, Mom (who has been speaking Spanish for weeks now), tells Damian, "Vamos a buscar un baño." Damian puts his hands on his hips, glares at Mom, and says, "Mom! We're in America! Speak English!" To this day, Mom has no idea how the heck he knew that we were in America, especially given that everyone around us at that particular moment was Asian. But seriously, the kid is THREE. How does he know we're in America, much less what the difference between Mexico and America is or that one should speak English in America and Spanish in Mexico????
Somewhere in the fourth year: Mom and Damian are driving in a car. Car trips tend to inspire Damian to deep thought. Out of the blue, Damian says, "I think I like living with you better than I would like living with my dad." (We separated shortly before Damian's first birthday.) Mom asks, "Oh really? Why's that?" Damian replies, "Because at your house you have rules. Dad doesn't have any rules at his house, and that doesn't seem very safe to me." And again, Mom is blown away by a preschooler's capacity for deep thought.
Kindergarten: Damian brings home a worksheet from school on which he is supposed to find shapes in the picture and color them a certain color (triangles blue, squares yellow, etc.) and then count how many of each shape and write the number on a line. Mom is watching over his shoulder as he colors the squares yellow. The squares happen to be windows on a building in this picture, and there are four rows of four windows. Damian silently taps the first window on each row with his pencil, then writes "16" on the line. Mom goes, "Whoa! Wait! How did you do that?" Seemingly exasperated with Mom's slowness, Damian taps the same four windows again, this time counting out loud, "Four, eight, twelve, sixteen!"
Later that same school year: Mom has a friend over from work. At this point Mom is working at Damian's school with grades K/1, and the coworker is working with grades 4/5. Damian's latest project is writing songs, and he has a spiral notebook full of lyrics he has written. He asks the coworker if she would like to hear his songs and she says, "Sure!" so Damian drags out the notebook, flips it open, and starts singing his lyrics to an improvised tune. Coworker is very impressed and asks Mom, "Do you even realize what he's doing? That's some high-level thought he's got going on there! I wish I could get some of my fifth graders to do that!"
Also that year: In the car, Damian is complaining that all the kids in his class are pairing up and that Yoselin is is best friend AJ's girlfriend, and that they want this other girl to be Damian's girlfriend, and Damian says, "But I really don't like her that much!" Mom says, "Well you know what? You guys are way too young to be worrying about all that boyfriend-girlfriend stuff anyway. You don't have to have a girlfriend if you don't want to. In fact, you can just tell them that your mom said you're not allowed to have a girlfriend until you're sixteen." Damian brightens noticeably. "Really?! What a relief!!"
First grade: Teacher complains to Mom that Damian is talking in class to much, but admits, "I think it's because he's done with the work. The problem is that everyone else isn't done, and he keeps them from getting done." This seems like a no-brainer to Mom, who says, "So... do you not have some extra worksheets you can give him? Because he'll do anything you put in front of him. Give him as much work as he can handle! I don't care!" Same teacher complains that, while Damian's reading skills are excellent, his comprehension skills are practically non-existent. Mom laughs this off because she knows that he's reading and applying information gleaned from Pokemon Strategy Guides at home, and he just doesn't give a crap about penguins or whatever the teacher was making him read.
Second grade: As early as the second week of second grade, Damian refers to first grade as "a massive waste of my time." He likes second grade much better, however, and by Open House in late September his second grade teacher (who clearly catches on quickly) has made available to Damian a box of things he can work on when he's done with whatever was assigned in class. Later on in second grade, Damian conducts his first and only test of mom's "two-for-one" rule (Mom told him the first day of Kindergarten that she had a two-for-one deal with his teacher - "you get in trouble at school, you get in trouble at home!"). He puts this rule to the test by getting in a fight with another kid on the playground "because Jeremiah said something I didn't like." He will not say what Jeremiah said, and thus Mom is not convinced that it was worth getting into a fight over (Mom concedes that some things might be worth fighting for, but something Jeremiah said probably isn't one of those things) and suspends all "electronic entertainment privileges" (computer/TV/DS, and pretty much anything else with a screen) for a week. Damian has yet to test this rule again.
Third grade: School work is finally catching up with Damian's ability level, thank goodness. One day in the car, Damian says, "Mom, I have to tell you a secret... there are, like, six girls in my grade who find me attractive!" Mom sighs... it has begun. But Mom can't complain too much, because she had her first completely fake boyfriend when she was Damian's age.
Fourth grade: So far, so good. Damian has a male teacher this year for the first time, and it seems to be working out really well for him. He's in an extremely challenging reading/spelling group... some of the words that show up on his spelling list, Mom has to look up to know how to pronounce properly. After a somewhat rocky start during the first trimester, Damian finally got it together on the spelling and has done very well on the last few spelling tests, including a 100% on the first spelling test of the second trimester, which was also his first letter-graded assignment ever. So far that's a 4.0 GPA, right? ;-) His primary interest at the moment is designing his own card games, which involves hundreds of index cards all over my front steps most of the time.

Despite the fact that he has grown up with me, my son is an intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive and caring individual... all while retaining his boyish fondness for fart jokes. He's undeniably the ringleader of the kids he hangs out with in our apartment complex (ranging in age from 4 to 12), but not because he's bossy... it's because he's just that charismatic and he has the most fun ideas. Neighbors have remarked to me on how well he plays with younger children. Said one, "I was watching Damian sword-fight with one of the younger kids and I could tell that Damian could have just totally beaten the snot out of him, but he didn't... he was letting the little kid do well and was giving him pointers." (My son has an extensive collection of fake weaponry... he's all boy.) His closest friends, however, tend to be several grades older (middle schoolers that he meets at his after-school program). He has intelligence, depth of thought, and vocabulary beyond his very-soon-to-be-ten years and the sort of creativity and desire to learn and grow that television has mostly killed off in his generation. In other words, my kid is epic. My kid is small for his age, has no siblings to fight with, and probably can't beat up your kid, but my kid will probably never need to beat up your kid because he gets along with everybody.

Damian Ford: Bringing more awesome to the world every day since December 9, 2001.

We are the 11%!!!

2011-10-14T21:32:00.000-07:00

I think today I have been subject to more political discussion than I have since the last major holiday on which all my male relatives were in the same place. If you know me at all, you know I hate that (political discussion, not having all my male relatives in the same place). I'm never posting anything on Facebook that could be misconstrued as me making a political statement again... strictly entertaining fluff from now on. I'm not gonna talk about politics in this blog entry either... I'm gonna talk about common sense, along with some of my own opinions that are kinda political (but I'm not about to go about holding signs and protesting on their behalf).

First off, let's be real here. If you live in America (and all but a few of my friends do, so that's probably you), you're not "the 99%". You're probably in the upper 15% of the world's wealth, in fact. (I wonder if the rest of the world will gang up and picket our borders holding signs proclaiming that they are the 85%? Nah, they probably can't afford to make the signs.) Not so sure about that? Check out this thing right here.... http://www.globalrichlist.com/ There you can enter in your own personal yearly income and learn where exactly you rank in the world's percentages. I'm at the 11.4% level, and most of my friends who read this are likely to be higher. Also I am the 682,571,530th richest person in the world, according to this site. I find that less credible (because really, how do they know that?), but still interesting.

Let it be known that I have no great love for the American political structure. Sure, it's better than some, but I don't love it with great patriotic fervor and I don't necessarily think it's the only way to go. And a few of you flag-wavers are going to say that I'm free to leave if I don't like it. Well, no I'm not. My custody arrangements with the ex say that I need court approval to move more than 60 miles from him, elsewise I'd have bailed in 2005. And it's not because I hate America. I don't hate it. I don't love it either. I just was born here through no fault of mine. I am neutral like Switzerland on the subject of America, how's that? I do, however, think that we Americans have created a political structure in which is is completely essential to be corrupt in order to rise to the level of serious candidacy for any of the higher-ranking offices. Therefore, anyone who is up for election I will not be voting for. (Really, I think we should put the "servant" back in "public servant" and make all politicians work for free. That'd get rid of the ones who are in it for the money and make way for the people who actually care about the people of the country and want to serve.)

Here, in a word, is where I think we went wrong with the economy: credit. People said, "Well, I want this but I can't afford it. Loan me some money and I'll pay you back." Maybe it was even something they needed, but I've found people have sort of a distorted idea of "need" anyway. (Food, water, air and shelter are needs. Anything else really isn't. And in most parts of the country, breathable air is still free.) The banks said "Okay," and gave the people money and charged them interest. The banks thought this was great because they got their money back plus some. The people thought this was great because they got to buy stuff they couldn't afford and pay for it "later". More and more people did this, and suddenly the banks went "Whoa! We don't have any actual money left! Pay us back now!" and the people said, "But we don't actually have any real money! That's why we spent the money you gave us!" Meanwhile the government, perhaps taking its cue from the masses, spent trillions of dollars it didn't actually have with the idea that they'd just tax it out of the people, who appeared to have lots of money because they were sure buying a lot of stuff. Except the people didn't actually have any money either. Oops.

Here's a simple fix, America: Stop spending pretend money. Real money is that green stuff you can hold in your hand. Some of it comes in coins. That stuff you can spend. Oh, and try to stick to buying stuff you actually NEED. If you want to buy something that you just want, make sure you're buying it with the green stuff, and make sure you have enough green stuff left over to buy the things that you actually need. (Again, people, "needs" are food, water, shelter and air. Healthcare may also count as a need. In this day and age, transportation probably counts. If you want to have a job, a phone probably counts. Computer/internet is still not a need, I don't care what you say. Neither is television/cable.)

And no, I'm not perfect. I have credit card debt. I have student loan debt. And I have recently resolved not to accumulate any more of either, and I'm actively working toward paying those off. But I recognize true needs as opposed to wants, and any wants that I really cannot afford have been rather aggressively eliminated from the budget.

On another note, I'm currently most of the way through my first listening of the new Evanescence album, cleverly titled "Evanescence", which I bought with the green stuff after tending to more pressing needs like "being able to see" (I paid out-of-pocket for an eye exam and contact lenses today because my insurance apparently thinks I only need to see one out of every two years). But back to the music, so far I'm liking it (I'm on the next-to-last song on the album). Much better than 2006's The Open Door, which was the vehicle for the most depressing song of all time, "Like You". Overall, Evanescence is heavier than both The Open Door AND Fallen. I consider this a good thing. And in the continuing spirit of musical goodwill...

Song o' the Day: "What You Want" by Evanescence. First single/video from the Evanescence album. See/hear it here.

Confessions of a 29 year old makeup idiot....

2011-10-01T01:01:00.000-07:00

I realize it has been quite a while since I wrote anything. My apologies for having a life. :-) But I thought tonight, since the Chamaco is spending the night with my mom, I'd go ahead and conduct an experiment I'd been wanting to try. And I thought I'd document it with pictures.

The first step was to dye my hair black. You here in blog-land are a little behind the Facebook times... my hair hasn't been black in quite some time. It has actually been the natural color, plus some blonde highlights. But I have a deep fondness for black dye... it's almost like black is my power color or something weird like that. And I was missing it. So black to black again for me. And then I decided to see if I could save myself $15 by cutting my own hair. Mostly I wanted the bangs cut because they were getting in my eyes. So I did that, and it wasn't horrible like last time. And on the advice of the last person who cut my hair, who told me when I complained about how thick my hair was that she would thin it and that, "If you want you can get your own thinning scissors and do it at home. You can't really mess that up too badly unless you go way overboard," I procured my own thinning scissors and had a go at that too. Lots of hair in my sink, but still plenty on my head and what's on my head feels much better now, so I think I did all right.

Believe it or not, though, this is not actually what I wanted to write about tonight. You see, here's the thing... biologically I'm female. I've given birth. And even then I wasn't completely convinced, but these yearly checks of my anatomy that are oh so much fun would seem to indicate that I most likely am actually female. Most females, seemingly, begin experimenting with makeup sometime in middle school and by the time high school rolls around they pretty much have it down. Maybe it was my gender confusion taking hold, but I sort of forgot to do that and somehow made it to 29 with only the most tenuous grasp on how eyeliner and mascara work and really no clue about the rest of it. Sure, I've accumulated lots of bits and pieces over the years that I always intended to learn to use properly, but somehow there was always something else to do that seemed more important. You know, like watching rugby. (The Americans are not gonna make it out of pool play in the world cup, just so you know... go New Zealand!) But I decided tonight that I was going to find myself a decent tutorial on how to do basic rocker-chick makeup. Because how can I be a rocker-chick when I grow up if I can't even get the makeup down?! ;-)

Anyway, I've been listening to a good bit of music by The Pretty Reckless lately (along with the Poxy Boggards, which is sort of an odd combination, really), and it just happens the lead singer is a rocker-chick with makeup that didn't look too complicated. It's a color scheme I understand and often apply to clothing: black, black, and blacker. And of course there are tutorials available on YouTube specifically geared toward said lead singer, who happens to be Taylor Momsen. The video I was using you can watch here if you're really that interested.

It was quite educational. And the first thing I learned is that this Jessica Harlow chick goes WAY too fast. I hit pause a lot. I also learned the vital importance of either having a separate brush for your black eyeshadow or making sure it's REALLY clean before you switch over to your "champagne" shade. Maybe this seems like a no-brainer to you, but I'm a makeup idiot, remember? Anyway, I got about half done and it looked like this:

Guess which eye has makeup on it! Half done!

I apologize for the poor quality of both my face and the pictures of my face that I took in my poorly lit bathroom with my iPod.

Anyway, doing the second eye went much faster and I think I actually did a better job. But I guess you can be the judge of that. :-)

Both eyes done! And I have eyelashes! (my own, not fake)

Then I thought, hey, while I'm messing around with it, might as well put on foundation. So I did. And then I thought, well, I should put on some red lipstick too... might as well go all the way, right? But did I actually have red lipstick? Yes, it turns out I do, and I have no idea when I bought it. And it seemed to me that I should probably be using lip-liner before applying red lipstick... but did I have any? Yes, turns out I did. Did I have the foggiest idea how to use it? No. None. Did I even know where my lip line was? As it turns out, sort of. The top was pretty easy. I think I may have faked the bottom a little bit. Also apparently I have had a stroke or my mouth is uneven... lol. But I did get red lipstick on, and here you see the final result:

These pics taken in my bedroom, where the lighting is slightly better, but not much!

Having had my fun (and realizing it was midnight by this point), I decided it was time for this stuff to come off. Then I learned something else: red lipstick loves you, and it does not want to let you go. And in a somewhat whimsical moment, I had a flashback of that scene in Mulan where she wipes the "bride" makeup off of half of her face. (And let me tell you, it does not come off that easy in real life!) But I decided to take such a picture, so here you go.

My apologies for the strap slippage... this nightgown is too big. Also the colors are a bit different because I actually took this picture with my cell phone, not my iPod.

So now you know what I look like both with and without all the "fancy" makeup, and you can let me know which you prefer. Though in the future I think I will probably skip the red lipstick in favor of a nice gloss in a milder shade.

And in keeping with my own traditions....

Song o' the Day: "Make Me Wanna Die" by The Pretty Reckless. See/hear it here.

The end-of-June update...

2011-06-30T16:57:00.000-07:00

I haven't got a single profound thing to say, I'm afraid, so I'll give you this instead:

I. Am. Bored.

How's that?

No, seriously... I don't know what it is about this year that's different from all the other years, but this year I have officially decided that unemployment SUCKS. I seem to remember I used to kind of enjoy the summer down-time, but this year after about four days I was done and ready to go back to work. To that end, I've been trying to find a summer job (or a year-round job to replace my other job that leaves me in this state in the summer). Had an interview a couple of weeks ago that didn't go anywhere, despite them sounding all very enthusiastic at the time... perhaps they said those nice things to everyone? (Or maybe it's just that 10% of the state is unemployed right now and competition is fierce... who knows?)

My good friends over at the Employment Department have been giving me the usual run-around about my translating job for the school district and debating if they should have to pay me at all, and if so, how much they should have to pay me. I'm tired of playing that game, so I won't be returning to work for the school district in the fall. (If you're from the MRSD and reading this and you were shocked just now, sorry. My annual fun and games with the Employment Department are not the only reason for this decision, trust me.) Don't know where next month's rent is coming from at this point, but I'm not too stressed about it... I always figure something out. God provides. And if nothing else, I can just go through with the bus driver training.

Yes, that's right, I got the e-mail yesterday. My primary job, which has been harping at me about not having a CDL for almost two years now even though I had already gotten my CDL permit and was just waiting to be trained, has finally scheduled my behind-the-wheel training to start on July 11th. I had really been hoping to get out of having to do that by getting the other job I interviewed for, but looks like no dice. See, when I was hired I was told that getting a CDL was a requirement of my position that I had to fulfill within 90 days and training was done in-house and I said okay. I got my permit, took the 8 hour CORE classes, and waited for them to schedule my behind-the-wheel training. 11 months later my CDL permit expired. So I renewed it. Then my DOT physical certification expired. So I redid it. And I got a nasty e-mail from HR reminding me that holding a CDL was a requirement of my position and I would be expected to complete it within 90 days (this nearly 2 years after my hire date). I sent back a nice little e-mail reminding Mrs. HR that I had done everything I could possibly do on my end, was waiting for behind-the-wheel training, and she should probably tell the transportation director to get off his butt and schedule it if she was all so worried about it. (Not in those words exactly, but it was implied.) Next thing I know, the transportation director is asking me if we can schedule it during the summer. Apparently I'm being punished for my competence. This is all particularly stupid because the center I work at doesn't even have a bus... we're self-transport, and many of the kiddos live within walking distance. So HR is flipping out because I don't have my CDL and can't drive the bus that my center physically DOES NOT HAVE in the first place! Gotta love administration. But maybe I can make $85 bucks off of them so I can have my car's registration renewed before the end of August when it expires.

I've noticed something lately about Oregon... all my friends are moving elsewhere or making plans to do so. I would really like to move elsewhere as well. Perhaps I should start checking for jobs in other parts of the country? Because I don't think it's very fair that apparently a lottery was held to determine who would get to leave the state, and not only did I not win but I wasn't even notified it was taking place so I could participate. I'm thinking someplace warmer and drier. Arizona. Or New Mexico, maybe. (Or maybe even the old Mexico... I could totally see myself living there.)

Really I just wanna move. To Oregon City if nothing else, but I've started to hate this place. That means it's time to move on. Because I know from past experience that more than six years of living in a place I hate makes me generally cranky and unpleasant to deal with, and I've gotten rather accustomed to not being such a horrible *BLEEP* all the time... just some of the time. ;-)

Song o' the Day: "Fur Cue" by Seether. (From the new album that came out on May 17th, which I still have in pretty heavy rotation over a month later.) Hear it (but not see it, no video as of yet...) here. My money is on this song and "Tonight" being singles 2 and 3 from this album. #1 was "Country Song", which is worth a listen and the video is hilarious. See that here.

Oh, and I've been finally making some progress on the guitar playing and I'm thinking I'll have to learn to at least play the electric part from "Country Song", if not the twangy little acoustic riff which actually looks harder. :-)

SIDE NOTE: If anyone was curious enough to wonder what happened to my Dishwasher, he's off sudsing up some chick who spells her name funny. Ancient history.

Wow... been a while, hasn't it?

2011-06-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year about six months late! Okay. Exactly six months late. Shut it.

Sorta forgot I had a blog for a while there. It's been an eventful six months... not so much professionally (other than having been really busy) as personally.

Somewhere around January 1st, I got it into my head that I was going to have another go at losing weight. Around the same time I joined a gym and started being fairly strict about what I eat. Now, six months later to the day, here I sit... 28-30 lbs. lighter than I was in January (depending on which day I weigh), and with a distinct lack of clothes that fit well. I figure I'll worry about that when I'm DONE losing weight... still like 90 lbs. to go so whatever.

2011 so far has been the year of the boy. As in me being boy-crazy. I guess eight years of single was enough for me... not that I'm not still single, 'cause I am, but I've been putting myself out there more I guess you'd say. So far, though, it's been a series of near misses. There was a guy a few months back that I was interested in that I thought was interested in me, but I misread that one and later decided I wasn't interested anyway. There was another last month that was interested in me but I was, shall we say, less than enthralled. And now I've met and am communicating with a third that I am undecided about. I realize this all doesn't sound like much, but that's more action than I've had since high school, all packed into only 6 months. So for me, that's high traffic!

2011 has also been the year of Seether FINALLY putting out another album. It just came out last month, it's called "Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray", and despite the cumbersome title it's quite possibly their best ever (though the last one, "Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces", is still high on my favorite list). Hopefully we won't have to wait 4 years for the next one, because they just keep getting better. My crush on Shaun Morgan is renewed.

I'm also currently super-excited for ASBA, which is starting up again THIS SUNDAY!!!! This year I get to be the villain for a change, which means I get to be the pirate queen (holler!). It also apparently means that I only have about 2 lines. If I get to refer to Abby as my minion, that might help me feel better. Still trying to decide if I'm doing over-the-top evil or more of a sultry evil (while still church appropriate, of course). I'm leaning toward the latter, but I guess that'll be finalized at rehearsal on Saturday.

So anyway, I'll try to remember to put something here occasionally from now on. I was finished with work last week, so I should have more time until the end of August (or until I find a summer job).

What makes a Christmas?

2010-12-25T23:53:00.000-08:00

As I was driving out to my aunt's this afternoon and listening to a song called "The Secret of Christmas" (gotta listen to the Christmas music before tomorrow right?), I was considering the lyrics and wondering what actually does make a Christmas for me. I'm sure it's a little different for everyone, but here are some things that are essential parts of Christmas for me.

#1 - The album "Brand New Year" by SHeDAISY. (Yes, they capitalize all but the E like that. Don't know why.) But this is my favorite Christmas album of all time, and usually my Christmas season starts sometime after the Chamaco's birthday on the 9th when I pop in this CD and sing along while putting up the Christmas tree. Disturbingly, the Chamaco's favorite song on the album is "Santa's Got a Brand New Bag". He probably doesn't realize it, but the premise of the song is that Santa has basically had an extreme makeover and now the girl singing has the hots for him.

#2 - The shopping trip with my sister. At some point not too long after the first event, my sister and I will go out on a big shopping expedition. I always think I'm going to get all my shopping done that day, and it never happens. But generally we sing in at least 3 stores. And the car. And generally we find stuff that we would like for ourselves that the other agrees to buy and wrap on the condition that the other acts surprised on Christmas morning.

#3 - The Ladies' Ornament Party/Cookie Exchange. This is where the season really starts hopping... nothing says Christmas quite like laughter, theivery, and multiple exclamations of "Oooh, shiny!!!" And most of the time I bring home an ornament that isn't even hideous! My Christmas tree does not have a nice set of themed ornaments, oh no... it is a random mish-mash of stuff my kid made, stuff my mom gave me over the years (she's been giving me an ornament every year for years, on the premise that when I grew up and moved out I would have some... she's still giving them to me), and mostly ornaments garnered from Ornament Parties over the years. Also the all women singing of Christmas carols is pretty awesome.

#4 - Smashing candy canes to bits with a hammer. No, seriously. I do this every year. There's a reason. A few years back one of my co-workers at MES made this stuff she called "Christmas Bark" and we all demanded the recipe. It's easy enough that even I can do it, so I made some that year, and have done so for the family Christmas gathering every year since then. One of the requirements is smashed up candy canes, and I have found the most effective method of smashing is to put them inside a couple of plastic bags and then have at them with a hammer. Fun and festive. : )

#5 - Wrapping. I almost don't know why we bother, because by the time we've helped Mom wrap everything, we've seen pretty much everyone else's gifts and maybe one or two of our own, but I guess it takes me back to the days when I was the only one old enough to wrap presents so I'd help Mom wrap everything for my younger siblings and my dad. This year I did it while wearing reindeer antlers, which was a new twist.

#6 - The annual "me singing 'Police Stop My Car' and someone else looking at me like I'm nuts. Many years ago when I was in Community Chorus and we sang at Zoolights, one of my choirmates taught me this song (to the tune of "Feliz Navidad") and we ran about through the zoo in the dark singing it. Instant holiday classic. Lyrics follow, so that you may all be educated. (This should be sung in a fake Mexican accent, ideally.)

Police stop my car
Police stop my car
Police make me stop
Walk a straight line and blow a balloon up

(chorus)
He wants to wish me a sober Christmas
That's why he always pull me over, Christmas
He just wants to make sure
There's no open bottles in my car

Police, road they block
Police, road they block
Police, road they block
And I can smell the donuts as they smell my breath

(chorus)

Police lock me up
Police lock me up
Police lock me up
'Cause when I blew, I blew a 2.1

(chorus)

Item #6 leads us to...

#7 - Unconventional Christmas songs. To me, Christmas isn't Christmas without at least one listening of each of the following: "Merry Christmas From the Family" (Montgomery Gentry), "Merry Christmas from the Whole Fam-Damily" (Cledus T. Judd), "Leroy the Redneck Reindeer" (Joe Diffie), "'Twas the Day After Christmas" (Jeff Foxworthy), "Christmas at Ground Zero" (Weird Al Yankovic), "The Night Santa Went Crazy" (Weird Al Yankovic), "Spice Girls Got Run Over by a Reindeer" (no idea), "Grandpa Got Runned Over by a John Deere" (Cledus T. Judd)... Not to mention the aforementioned "Santa's Got a Brand New Bag" (SHeDAISY). There are probably more, but I have to hear all these plus three "normal" Christmas carols... "Angels We Have Heard on High", "Carol of the Bells", and "O Holy Night" (as sung by Martina McBride. Josh Groban or whatever his name is can just zip it.)

#8 - Christmas morning with Mom and Dad. 28 years now and I have not missed a Christmas morning with Mom and Dad. Sometime if I ever get married again and/or move far, far away (or even move near-ish but have in-laws), I might have to miss one, but I haven't done it yet.

#9 - Christmas afternoon get-together with extended family. Sometimes this happens up to a week after the actual Christmas, but when it does it's Christmas all over again. And it always leads to...

#10 - Hilarious family game. It just wouldn't be a family get-together at all if we didn't have at least 4 or 5 of us sit down to play what seems like a perfectly innocent game and then have some sort of hilarity ensue. This is often Apples to Apples, but can also be Mexican Train, Outburst, Taboo, Chicken Foot, or any of a host of others. Today it was a new game called simply, "What?" And I learned that my relatives are all so weird it's hard to tell which wacky idea came from who... I love that about us.

With the top ten list out of the way, I also wanted to share something... maybe it's a week early for this, but the title track of "Brand New Year" is a song that I always like to listen to a little bit after Christmas and as I head into January. I'm going to put up the lyrics for you, and I suggest you consider them...

Learning to turn the outside inside out
Having the courage to find what life is all about
Loving so purely can surely melt a frozen heart
Knowing sometimes all over's the perfect place to start

(chorus)
Welcome to my revolution
Lucky you, lucky me, the way we were meant to be
This is my one resolution
And I make it with no fear
To live, to love, today
'Cause it's a brand new year

Seeing the world through rose-colored eyes
Yeah, this is my one big chance, and I'm gonna take it twice
With the past down below I know love lifted me up here
So I'll take a breath, kiss the sky, toll the bell
'Cause it's a brand new year

(chorus)

Resiliently reclaiming me
Refining my recovery
Untwist my fate, unlock the gate
Let's make a little noise
'Cause it's a brand new year!

I mention this song because, as a career pessimist, it has always been my inclination to say something to the effect of "Hey, a whole new year.... just like the last one!" in a very sarcastic tone when January 1st rolls around. But maybe, just maybe mind you, it would be okay to look at New Year's with a little optimism... like the song says, "sometimes all over's the perfect place to start" and there's just something symbolic about taking last year's calendar down off the wall and tossing it in the trash... last year is over and done, and you get to start all over fresh in a brand new year. This is probably why people make new year's resolutions. I make new year's suggestions, but that's another blog... ;-)

Song o' the Day: "Bury Me Alive" by We Are The Fallen. It keeps being stuck in my head. (Bet you thought it was going to be "Brand New Year", didn't you? Ha!)

The changes TWO years can bring...

2010-12-21T22:46:00.000-08:00

Last year I wrote this blog comparing Christmas season '08 and Christmas season '09. I figured I might as well keep the chain going and compare Christmas season '10. And since I'm a great fan of color coding, 2008 will be in red, 2009 will be in yellow, and 2010 will be in green. :)

2008: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
2009: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.
2010: We live in the same apartment as last year. Have somehow managed to keep paying the rent. Praise God!

2008: I was unemployed. All year.
2009: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly poeple who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.
2010: Same job situation except it has dawned on me that I really don't like teaching. Okay, so I knew that all along, but now I'm really starting to get the urge to move along... still like the people I work with, though!

2008: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
2009: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!
2010: Primarily Wal-Mart again. No huge change in this department.

2008: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
2009: An organization called to offer us a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needed it worse than we do. After I hung up I realized what I'd just been able to say and I almost cried.
2010: Nobody even offered us a food box this year.

2008: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
2009: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.
2010: I can still pick up my nine-year-old boy for brief periods of time

2008: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
2009: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.
2010: My son cooked dinner a few weeks ago. I supervised him, but the only thing I actually did for him was turn the knobs on the stove, because he can't reach them yet. He's older but still short... lol.

2008: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
2009: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.
2010: All of the above, plus a couple of new friends... :-)

2008: I was single.
2009: Still single... no change there. : )
2010: Despite some rumors you may have heard, still single. But I guess there were at least rumors this year. Maybe next year there will be something to them! ;-)

I was remembering that when I started working where I work in September of 2009, my supervisor asked me what my goals for the future were. I told her I didn't feel I'd had enough stability in the last 7 years or so to have made any goals... I'd been in constant survival mode. My "goal" was to create as much stability in my life as possible. Looking back over 2010, it's been actually a pretty quiet year, devoid of any major upheavals. I worked a lot, I played a little... we were housed, clothed and fed. Money was tight but we were never completely without anything we actually needed. Things have been relatively stable. So I guess I got what I wanted. And maybe I'm imagining it, but I have this feeling that 2011 is not going to be anywhere near so quiet... I have the feeling that big things are about to happen. I just have no idea what. So everyone hold onto your hats, because 2011 is just around the corner!!

Build-an-owl...

2010-12-18T22:05:00.000-08:00

So, I have a confession to make. Last night, I bought a stuffed animal. And it wasn't for my kid... it was totally for me.

Sammich (not her real name) and I were digging around through the stuffed animals at Goodwill. She was looking for a Christmas gift for her child/dog Frank (not his real name, but close in a way!) and decided the ideal thing would be a stuffed animal he could play with/slowly rip to bits. Sammich found Frank an giant purple stuffed platypus... how awesome is that? Basically it was a big, round, fluffy disc (think fat, hairy frisbee) with little feet and a bill. We decided it was probably actually a platypus and not a duck. It makes me really happy to know that someone out there is making stuffed platypuses (platypi?).

That was when I saw something. A stuffed owl. It was white with black speckles, big yellow eyes (though really not big enough for an owl) and a black beak in its white face, little flipper-like wings and big white feet with black claws on them. I couldn't recall ever having seen such an adorable stuffed owl before. Or much of any stuffed owl for that matter... at least not of the variety that are clearly intended to be given to children as toys. He was also wearing a big blue satin ribbon around his neck that I thought most undignified. I picked him up to check the price tag and noticed the tag on him... he is from Build-a-Bear Workshop. Somebody went to Build-a-Bear and built an owl instead. How awesome is that? And he was only $2.99 (though unfortunately not a red tag, so I didn't get him for half price). So I just had to bring that little piece of awesome home with me... I now share my bed with a stuffed owl. Okay, and actually I'm holding it in my lap right now while I'm typing. Sometimes you just gotta snuggle something. (Oh, and also I took off the stupid blue ribbon. He looks much more dignified now.)

Somebody check my brain...

2010-12-15T00:28:00.000-08:00

*commence guitar riff here*

No, just kidding. This blog post actually has nothing at all to do with the Alice in Chains song "Check My Brain" (which is a fabulously awesome song by the by... click that link and go check it out).

I thought it might be worth my time to somebody to check in with the state of my mind after last night's cookie experience (see previous entry if you have no idea what I'm talking about, and it might do you good to read the one before it first so you know how I got to that point). So here's how the day went.

I woke up today feeling unusually cheerful and pretty good aside from the slight lingering headache that usually follows me for a day or two after letting myself cry (still have it, actually). I was pretty determined that today was going to be a good day and there was pretty much nothing that could be done to dissuade me from that viewpoint. Indeed, not even a meeting with the manager of my apartment complex to fill out a zillion more forms and have it explained to me yet again that HUD calculates my income with funny math that results in them basing my rent on a yearly income figure that is in fact $6,000 more than I actually make in a year and thus makes my rent nearly half of my actual monthly income could dissuade me from feeling pretty darn good about things. I told her to tell corporate to call me and I'd tell them what I thought of their math, but I said it with a smile... quite often I leave that office fighting tears of injustice because I have the highest rent in the whole stupid complex because I actually work and I don't lie about my income or sit around on my butt collecting unemployment/child support. Heck, I don't even get child support. But you know what? Somehow I've managed to pay my rent for almost 2 years now and I've only been late once (and it was totally the Unemployment Department's fault... it took them 6 weeks to figure out that I'm not a 12-month employee of a school district, so they didn't want to give me any money until they had that settled), so today I said to myself, "No matter what these morons do to me, God has taken care of us in the past and I see no reason to believe that he will not continue to do so in the future... he even gave me cookies!" And I had a bit of a chuckle as I left the office.

Shortly after I was done with that, it was time to make my daily drive from Molalla to Estacada for work. Long about Colton, the midway point in the drive, I started getting these texts:

"There's a storm just south of Molalla that actually made a tornado in Aumsville, OR." (Barney)

"Tornado warnings for Clackamas and Marion counties!" (The Empress)

"Tornado in Molalla. Weird weather and sky today." (Micro Machine)

"Tornado coming to Molalla, took 3 houses near Silverton." (Tazzy) (BTW, the names of the senders are their names as they appear in my phone. The owners of the aliases know who they are... only Tazzy actually gets called that to her face. Well, and maybe "The Empress" as well...)

So for myself personally, I didn't care about this at all... I wasn't in Molalla and wouldn't be returning to Molalla for at least six hours. However, the Chamaco was still in his school. In Molalla. And part of my brain wanted to panic that my (9 year old) baby was 30 miles away and possibly in the path of an oncoming tornado (Seriously Oregon... make up your mind what sort of weather you want to have!). The rational part of my brain, however, said, "Come on... this is Oregon! If one tornado already touched down, two would be completely unheard of and what are the odds of a second freak tornado hitting the school?" And the new part of my brain that is just starting to find its voice and apparently likes to listen to a lot of Flyleaf said, "God's got him... whatever happens, God's got it. Just do what you need to do and don't worry." So I decided to listen to those two voices and went about my setting up of the classroom (for by this time I had reached Estacada) after sending off only a short text to my good-friend-who-needs-an-alias-desperately telling him about the tornado thing because I figured he'd be interested since he used to live in Texas and all. He expressed the opinion that it must be a lot warmer south of Silverton because where he was currently located (Tualatin) it was too cold for tornadoes.

When Nancy (who needs no alias because as far as I can tell she's got nothing to hide!) got to the school she told me the last she had heard was that the storm system was breaking up and while there was still a chance of some severe thunderstorms, the tornado warning was cancelled. So I put it out of my mind completely at that point... no stress, no worry for the Chamaco's safety. (I did call my mom later to make sure he'd been picked up as planned, but that's just because I'm his mom and I have to verify. Also my mom has been through chemotherapy and sometimes her memory has gaps.)

I went onward through my day mostly humming to myself the line from the song "Io Canto" about "i rami che si intrecciano nel cielo" because the kids are talking about trees and there was a good bit of stuff about branches going on. (For you non-Italians, "rami" = "branches".) But as soon as I got back in the car, Flyleaf again. I'm pretty shocked that I'm not more tired of it than I am, though later in the drive between Estacada and Oregon City I did put in my old AVB cassette tape that I dug out. For those of you not in the know, AVB was the earlier incarnation of fairly well-known Christian vocal group Acappella... I got the AVB tape when I was probably about 7. It is truly an antique. Aside from the pure nostalgia of listening to those songs that I must have listened to a million zillion times as a child, however, it seems that the new bit of my brain that is still really amused about the cookies and keeps telling me that God is in control prefers to listen to Christian music.

I learned tonight that I only like Christmas carols (especially "Silent Night", which I quite despise in real life) when they're sung by my sisters at OC, many of whom are actually quite good singers and between them have a pretty good mix of altos and sopranos. "Angels We Have Heard On High" is my favorite, if I were forced to pick a favorite of the more common carols ("Carol of the Bells" is my all-time favorite, but wandering carolers rarely sing that one), and it sounded awesome with our ladies singing it. I really wanted to stop singing along and just listen.

I neglected to mention that our annual ladies' ornament exchange was tonight. I had the best seat in the house (right between Aracely and The Empress) and also drew the #1, which is one of the better numbers you can get, really. I got an ornament I quite like, I didn't have to steal from any little girls and make them cry, and generally I got to spend a good bit of time enjoying the fellowship with my sisters and eating more cookies than I even want to think about until next year's ornament exchange.

So yeah, I didn't get home until about 10:15 or so, I had a bit of translation to do and some other stuff I wanted to accomplish before I even got around to writing this blog, and now it's a bit after midnight. Nothing spectacular or particularly awe-inspiring happened today (no more cookies! lol) but maybe the most astounding thing about today is that I was pretty consistently happy and in good spirits all the way through it. For me, that's weird. But it's the good weird.

Song o' the Day: "Tiny Heart" by Flyleaf... there's not an official video for this one, sorry, but the link will give you audio, lyrics, and a few pretty pictures.

COOKIES?!?!

2010-12-14T00:12:00.000-08:00

Other possible titles I considered for this entry:

"Seriously God? Cookies?! "

"Come to Christ... we have cookies!!!"

"I asked God for a sign... and I got cookies."

I had probably better start explaining pretty quickly here what I'm on about... sorry if this comes out a little discombobulated, but I'm just almost giddy right now... a stark contrast to last night (see previous entry).

So, tonight I was supposed to lead the discussion in my "depression class". I had already decided a week ago that my topic was going to be crying and not keeping things bottled up. After last night, I was really dreading it, because I'd already been crying all day long, and everything was making me cry, and I knew that I was going to cry if I tried to talk about crying. I thought about ditching at the last moment... it's not like I didn't have other things to do. I had translation work waiting, and somewhere I was supposed to find time to make some cookies for the ladies' ornament/cookie exchange party tomorrow night. And I don't even know how to make freaking cookies.

After much deliberation and wavering back and forth on the subject, I decided to plunge boldly ahead with the class and my intended topic, whether I cried or not, and screw the cookies... I would just go without cookies and not bring any cookies home. Simple, right? It's also important to note that after last night's deeply searching discussion with good-friend-who-needs-an-alias-desperately, I had resolved that I needed to experience God, just as he said. So starting last night and continuing on every time I got a chance all day today, I was praying to God to give me an experience... a sign... something that I would recognize as being indisputably a sign/experience from God, just so I would feel his presence and know I was heading in the right direction.

I did my class. And I cried almost the entire time. And I received more love and grace from that group of people than I knew was possible. But that wasn't the weird bit.

During the entire class there were two big platters of cookies sitting on the table. Apparently Kaye, who had not baked in years she said, had gotten the urge to bake cookies this afternoon and had brought some in the hopes that the class would eat them and get them out of her house. Nobody touched them. At the end of the class, she pretty much forced me to load up a plate with cookies and take them home with me.

It didn't hit me until I got halfway to my mom's (where I was headed to pick up the Chamaco).... not only did I do my class, I had cookies. I laughed out loud and said, "Seriously, God? Cookies?! " And I won't say I heard a voice because I didn't exactly, but I more felt him say, "See? I even care about the trivial stuff like cookies... I can handle the details. You can trust me." And I was laughing at the absurdity of God giving me cookies, of all things, even as at the same time I burst into tears for the zillionth time today. I have never laughed so hard and cried so hard simultaneously. I almost had to pull over. It was a ridiculous, trivial little thing that probably has no significance to anyone else but me (though the good-friend-who-needs-an-alias-desperately said this was an 'awesome story') and totally appealed to my sense of absurdity, but there was no doubt in my mind... God gave me cookies.

And even though I am both emotionally and physically exhausted (all the crying plus lack of sleep, no doubt... I didn't get to bed until almost 4 last night), I inexplicably feel really good. I mentioned that to the good-friend-who-needs-an-alias-desperately, and his response was "Ahhh... the peace of God."

Yeah, that sounds about right.

So, fellow ladies attending the ornament/cookie exchange tomorrow night... I'm bringing cookies. They're homemade, but I didn't make them. God did. So if you think they're nasty, take it up with him... I'm going to bed and resting up for tomorrow, because I don't doubt that God will spend another day or two making me laugh and cry. Maybe longer, even. But I will leave you with this....

Songs o' the Day: "Fully Alive" by Flyleaf, plus "Again", also by Flyleaf. I've been doing a lot of Flyleaf today. In fact, I'll even throw in a third one just because I love the video (and the song is pretty darn good too)... "All Around Me" (All 3 of these songs made me cry today.)

My thoughts on paper (screen. Whatever.)...

2010-12-13T02:18:00.000-08:00

I don't even really know where to start right now... so many things are swirling around in my head. And probably most of what I'm gonna say here isn't anything I haven't said out loud in the last hour, but knowing me... who knows? I think by writing things down... taking it out of my head and putting it there where I can look at it and go "Oh, okay... so that's what that looks like, then." (Oddly enough, I didn't even realize I did that until I wrote that just now.)

This brings me to the topic du jour... introspection. Generally something I avoid like the plague. Whatever's going on in there, I don't wanna know about it. Keep the voices quiet and I'll do my thing and they can do theirs. This only works for so long, though, because voices multiply... try it for yourself. Enter a quiet space, like say an office where people are working, and if you start talking to one person, someone will chime in with their opinion and before you know it nobody's getting any work done because of all the chatter. (This is especially true where I work.)

But I may as well say it and get it out of the way... in many areas of my life I have stagnated. I don't know for how long now I've been sitting here waiting for something to change, and it doesn't. And I rave and rant and rail about how I want something - anything - to be different than it is now, but I never do anything because I haven't got the foggiest idea what to do or what I want to accomplish.

Profesionally speaking, I'm 28 years old and I still don't even know what I want to be when (if) I grow up. Here's what I know by process of elimination - teaching isn't it. Neither is fast food or residential care. I could go either way on funeral transport or living history interpreting... both of those things were still fun when I stopped doing them, but I don't know if they always would have been because I didn't do it long enough for it not to be fun, if that makes any sense. I'm still just "all grown up and still waiting to be a rockstar"... just like the button on my backpack says. (Seriously, in all my daydreams and many of my night dreams, I'm a rockstar... perhaps lame, but true.) (Side note: I just remembered the only time I've ever in my life had any sort of "ah-ha" moment... somehow we wound up at an Acappella concert - the band Acappella, not just people singing without music - and they were doing one of their talky bits between songs and the guy who was talking described them as "musicianaries" (musician + missionary in case anyone didn't get that). I was probably 15 at the time. I remember turning to Audra, who has been around for most of the dramatic moments in my life and saying, "That's what I want to do.") (See, this thinking in parenthetical discursions thing really works for me!)

Spiritually... I've barely advanced from where I was almost 14 years ago when I was baptized. That's a horrible and painful thing to admit (even worse to note that most of that tiny bit of advancement has happened within the last two years). I know I'm not where I should be, and I have absolutely no idea how to get there, which is heartbreakingly sad considering I've been attending church quite literally my entire life with the exception of about two months in 2008. Intellectually I have a lot of knowledge... you don't sit through 28 years of Bible classes and sermons without picking up something. Emotionally, however, it has never clicked... I have a pretty long history of being emotionally retarded, so this doesn't surprise me. I can't cope with my own emotions (in fact, I like to ignore them or bottle them up) and I hate everyone else's. Someone recently told me (like about an hour ago) that I needed to "experience God". That's totally correct, and I've had a few close calls... the mission trip to Toluca was one of them. And this is where the spiritual crosses over into the emotional.

My biggest struggle, the issue that pervades every other aspect of my life, is loneliness, isolation, disconnect... whatever face it's wearing today, I'm talking about the overwhelming sense of being by myself. Even in a room packed with so many people that I can't breathe. I want desperately to not be alone... yet I'm far too scared to let anyone very close because every time I've tried I've gotten hurt. Badly. Part of my growth in the last two years has been letting a select few people get way closer than I've ever let anyone get... still not too close, but progress, I guess. In the last two years I have met four - count 'em, four! - people not related to me who I did not know prior to two years ago who have managed to scale my defenses and peek over. The first three are women, which seemed safe enough even though it was odd at the time because I didn't (and don't) actually like women in general. The fourth one is a man... a surprise latecomer who just hopped over the walls ("Walls? What walls?") and made himself at home. Come to find out, that's just how he operates. (Nobody read too much into that, okay? It's not that sort of a relationship.)

Getting back to my original point (introspection, if you'd forgotten while I was babbling) it is something I have historically avoided because it depresses me to no end. And when you are like me, someone who tends toward depression anyway and even more so during the nine months of Oregon winter, anything that is just going to depress you more is a good thing to avoid. The drawback, though, is that I have not introspected (I don't know if it was a verb before but it is now!) in YEARS and I no longer have the foggiest idea who I am because I haven't bothered to check in. So I am one of two things... I'm either the most authentic person you'll ever meet because I'm deliberately not affecting any change of any kind on myself, or I'm the most fake person you'll ever meet because even I don't know who I really am. It could even be both, because recent events have shown that I'm totally at home with that sort of dichotomy.

So I'll start with what I know: I don't like where I'm at. I don't know where I am, exactly, but I hate it here. I want to get out. I don't know what I'm in, what it is I want out of exactly, or where I would go if I got out, but I want OUT.

What I know from the last few hours, though, is that if I want to get out of the mire I'm currently mired in, there are some things I'm gonna have to let go of... things I've been holding onto tightly because they give me reasons and excuses for how I got this way. But I've also realized that if I don't let go, I'm gonna end up like my dad. (Not trying to be harsh, Dad, if you're reading this, but we both know it's true.) And I'm going to have to be introspective and it's probably going to depress me. A lot. But (there's a big but in every crowd, and it's usually mine!) I currently find myself in the previously unknown situation of having closeish friends. Closeish Christian friends, even. Aside from the one who just jumps walls, I'm going to have to let the walls down and let them in so when I fall (and I'm going to fall... hard) they can catch me. And I have to trust that they will catch me and not let me repeat 2002 (the year of somnambulent suicide attempts). There are a lot of things hindering me, and I have a lot of work to do, and I don't want to do any of it. So why blog about it, then? Well, here's why:

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us..." (Hebrews 12:1)

You, o blogosphere, are my cloud of witnesses... and it's very likely that some of those people I was talking about who scale walls are going to read this. And then you'll know I need a lot of help... more than I'll ever be able to express out loud in words... spoken word is not my thing. (Though I did probably one of the better jobs of it I've ever done a couple of hours ago, and it was still pitiful.) So witness this, people... I am hereby attempting to throw off everything that hinders (my past, certain people) and the sin that so easily entangles (4 of you know exactly what I'm talking about) and run the race marked out for me... as soon as I can figure out where the heck the racetrack is.

Song(s) o' the Day: This one started playing on my randomly shuffled iPod at an oddly significant moment earlier... "What I've Done" by Linkin Park. See it here (and I promise never ever to put up a Linkin Park song again... this is the only one I like). Follow that up with a chaser of "Broken Pieces" by Apocalyptica (yes, we've had this one before, but you can see it again here if you like). And for the grand finale, my parting shot to my ex-husband before I completely put him out of my mind except on Sundays when I have to take the Chamaco to him... "Anything But Love" by Apocalyptica... 99% of this song applies directly to my marriage, which was fabulous in its dysfunctionality and was truly based on anything but love. Never before have I heard a song that so completely said what I was thinking and feeling, and I'm kind of scared to ever have it happen again.

Explanation of my recent silence...

2010-12-04T23:24:00.000-08:00

I've been busy. Do you need any more explanation than that?

Somehow I blinked and missed most of 2010, and the holidays are now upon us once more. For me, however, the precursor to the holiday season is "translating 50,000 report card comments" season, which usually happens the week prior to Thanksgiving and on into the beginning of Thanksgiving week. The staff of the MRSD certainly did not disappoint this year, and I was translating way more than I ever care to do ever again (and yet probably will do again in March).

Seemingly in celebration of the victory of surviving conference translation, the Sunday night before Thanksgiving I came down with the flu. I have not had the flu in almost ten years. I hadn't missed it really. Monday I called in to work both at my primary place of employment and the school at which I'd been scheduled to interpret for parent/teacher conferences that evening. I figured they might not like me puking on parents... call it a hunch. Tuesday morning I was feeling slightly better but I called in to work anyway because our policy is that you're supposed to be vomit-free for 24 hours before you come back to work. And then it snowed. Or technically it had already snowed... I hadn't gotten out of bed to look out the window and know it yet. By Tuesday night, the Chamaco was praying to the porcelain god as well, so I called in for Wednesday. Thursday was Thanksgiving and the Chamaco was still running a fever and feeling puny... sort of a bummer holiday. Fortunately I had both Thursday and Friday off as paid holidays, so I missed a whole week of work with no detrimental effect to my paycheck. Points for me. : )

So now we're in that final stretch before Christmas break... for my friends in the public school system that's exactly 10 more school days before they get two weeks off. For those of us in the non-profit sector it's also 10 school days, but with an extra couple of work days with no students thrown in on top of that. The Chamaco's last day before break is the 17th, mine is the 21st. (BTW, one of the teachers I translate for on a regular basis keeps putting things like "November 23st" in her class newsletters, and it cracks me up. No offense to my teacher friends, but on the whole you guys don't proofread at all and some of you are fairly illiterate. I don't care what degree you have.)

I find myself contemplating last year's posting about the differences between 2008 and 2009. I'll probably do some sort of addition to it contrasting those two years with 2010... really I can only think of one notable difference, and I'm not sure how to phrase it without getting myself into trouble. 2010 has been pretty uneventful, but maybe I needed that after the constant upheaval and negativity that constituted 2002-2008. I sense, however, that the break is over and that great things are afoot for 2011 (to be followed by the end of the world in 2012.... yay!) My Google homepage counts down to the end of the B'ak'tun (the Maya long count calendar)... 2 years and 17 days left, people! : ) According to the Aztecs, however (whom I also track on my Google page), today is a rather benign 11-Acatl and they don't forsee the world even potentially ending for another few years at least. (Every 52 years, according to the Aztecs, there has to be a ceremony to keep the sun moving. Seemingly, though, it's been chugging along just fine without the Aztecs for a while now... if only the Aztecs had realized that it was the Earth that was moving and the sun is actually relatively stationary.)

So anyway, it's off to beddy-bye for me. I regret not having anything particularly meaningful to say to my reading several, but this was really just a check-in post. I will, however, leave you with a steaming pile of...

Song o' the Day: "Show Me How to Live" by Audioslave. Been pondering that one a bit lately. Click on the link to see/hear it... I apologize profusely for linking you to Vevo, but I was left with no choice....

Some thoughts on prayer, and other random stuff...

2010-11-01T23:56:00.000-07:00

Most of you are probably aware that depression is a thing I've struggled with off and on (mostly on) since high school. Most of you probably aren't aware, however, that I've been going to a Bible-based class on Monday nights at the church in Molalla. We also read from a book called "Happiness is a Choice", which was written by a couple of Christian psychologists whose names escape me at the moment. Don't worry, the prayer stuff I mentioned in the title will happen along in a minute here...

Tonight we were discussing how prayer can aid with alleviating depression. Well, we started out there, anyway... we do tend to wander a bit. A question was raised about praying wrongly, or praying for something you don't actually want... praying insincerely, I guess you might call it. This spiraled into another discussion... why are people so often dishonest in prayer? Do they really think that God doesn't know what's actually in their head and in their heart? Somebody mentioned certain things that they felt they shouldn't tell God about, and my reaction was, "What, you think He doesn't know about that already??"

I was remembering back to something that made a pretty big impression on me as a teenager. I went to a youth rally - I think it was actually in Gold Beach - and the speaker there (I forget who it was, but it may have been Kevin Woods) said something to the effect of, "God is supposed to be like your father, right? So how many of you go up to your dad and say, 'Oh Father who art in the garage, if it be your will please may I have ten dollars?' None of you do that! You walk up to him and say, 'Hey Dad, can I have ten bucks?'" That made a lasting impression on my view of prayer, and perhaps also contributed to my "suburban dad" theory of God (see a previous blog entry for more on this).

Those that know me know that I'm not big on formality. Okay, actually I despise formality. And I REALLY hate it when church people, while in the church, put on a façade of being even more churchy than they actually are. This also applies to prayer. If you're going to speak to God on my behalf in front of the congregation, you'd better be speaking to God, not reciting some prayer you memorized, not using your standard form prayer where the only thing that changes from week to week is the names of the people on the sick list in the bulletin. There are certain people whose prayers I can recite almost word for word along with them, and certain people who I know will use the word 'father' at least 7 times in a 45 second prayer... unnecessarily, at that. Who, in their normal course of speaking to their dad, begins and ends nearly every sentence with the word 'father'? Nobody, that's who.

And don't misinterpret... I'm all for giving God the respect that is due to him, but I'm also all for continuing to speak regular English. And as a language nerd, it absolutely cracks me up that people who get up to do public prayers start inserting "thee" and "thy" and the like, as if it makes them sound all formal and holy. In actual fact, "thee", "thy", "thou", etc. are the informal pronouns (direct object, possessive and personal, respectively) from old English. Back in the 1500s, you would have used those pronouns with your children or your spouse. The pronoun "you" (which was the formal pronoun) was used only with adults who were not your family members or close friends, and other people who somehow merited a great deal of respect. Most Latin-based and even Germanic languages still have the formal/informal second-person pronouns (usted/tú in Spanish, Lei/tu in Italian, Sie/du in German, and many more no doubt). English, somewhere along the line, lost our informal pronoun (thou) and decided to just use the formal one (you) all the time for everyone. So in actuality, people who think they're sounding all formal and respectful when they say "thou" or "thee" to God are actually talking to him as though he is a child or close family member/friend. And if they go into it with that attitude in mind, I'm marginally okay with it (though not completely okay, since that has fallen out of use in modern English), but most of them are not thinking of it in that light I guarantee you.

And what's with people who think they can't be honest with God, anyway!?!? It's not like he doesn't already know what you're thinking. Me personally, I'm very honest with God in my prayers. "Hey God... I'm pretty ticked off right now, and I need you to help me refrain from saying something unfortunate to _______" is a fairly common opener for me. I can be open with God on a wide range of emotions, from ticked off to depressed to horny (particularly heavy on the horny lately too, I must admit) and everything in between, because I operate on the theory that I'm not telling him anything he doesn't already know. So why pray at all, you ask? Well, I don't know about you, but with most of my close friends I already know when they're upset or whatever without them telling me about it. But of course we talk it over anyway, because that's the sort of relationship we have, and this is how relationships grow and stay strong. See where I'm going with this?

And actually, I think complete honesty is healthy in any relationship, not just your relationship with God. Thinking it over in class earlier, I realized that all of my best friendships are with the people I feel I can say anything to... the ones who know the good and the bad of me and still like me. Just recently I met someone who seems to have a similar approach to communication, and we have gone in just under 3 weeks from complete strangers to what I would term very good friends, and I think it works because neither of us feels the need to hold back anything. I really do feel I could say anything I thought or felt to this person (and this individual will probably receive a cool blog alias sooner or later) and we could discuss it like rational adults and it'd be cool. I like that.

Anyway, we need a Song o' the Day.

Song o' the Day: "Fully Alive" by Flyleaf. See/hear it here. I've chosen this one because it sort of sums up how I feel lately.

ONE YEAR!!!!

2010-10-31T01:52:00.000-07:00

By freak of chance, I just happened to notice that the first post on this blog was made exactly one year ago today. So happy birthday to the blog!

That thought led me to need to review mentally the last 12 months. Yes, I'm that sort of sentimental. Who knew? But I decided to compare my mental state right now (which, admittedly, is a bit altered from normal over the last two weeks... probably something to do with not sleeping) with my mental state of 12 months ago.

12 months ago I was still mad at the universe. Things had started to turn around at that point, but I hadn't really noticed it yet. I was tentatively beginning to let the walls down a bit and let a few people in closer than I'd let anyone in years and form some real friendships, but I still wasn't very sure about the idea. One of my earlier entries in this blog was about my discomfort with crying and excessively emotional people, probably because I didn't have very many emotions of my own yet... I was still mostly numb.

Now I'm alive again. I laugh, I cry, I gossip and giggle with my select few best girlfriends (though most women are still more than I can tolerate, and I think that's just a personality quirk rather than actual damage). I have at least three friends outside my family that I'm comfortable telling ANYTHING to. I'm no longer repulsed by emotional displays... I still hate concocted drama, but again, personality quirk. I still don't feel things maybe as deeply as most people do, but I feel things. Sometimes things don't go the way I would want them to, but now I have the faith that everything will eventually work out for good in the end. My broken pieces are coming together, and I'm excited to see what I look like when everything's done.

Also, 12 months ago my Italian wasn't nearly as good as it is now. I pretty much rock! LOL

Now, with that understanding of myself and my progress, I have a few new projects for myself:

#1) Get rid of the little voice in my head (which sounds a lot like my ex-husband) that always tells me how worthless and stupid I am. It (he) is wrong, and was always wrong. My fault for letting it (him) make me believe.
#2) Discover what I'm passionate about... or if I'm even capable of such. I'm not sure yet if I don't feel things deeply because I'm still healing, or if it's because I just don't. But I think somewhere out there, there might me something that makes me light up. I'm curious to know what it is.
#3) Figure out what I want to be if/when I grow up.
#4) (this is the corny-sounding one) "Dance like no one is watching, love like you've never been hurt." I want to do that... I want to not feel so self-conscious and defensive all the time. I just want to be me.

Last December I did a post about some new year's "suggestions". I did pretty well on most of those, actually. So it's a little early, but maybe these are my "suggestions" for 2011.

Song o' the Day: An Apocalyptica triple-header! Song #1 is "End of Me" by Apocalyptica featuring Gavin Rossdale. Hear/see it here. Song #2 is "Broken Pieces" by Apocalyptica featuring Lacey Sturm of Flyleaf. Hear/see it here. And finally we get to song #3, "Not Strong Enough" by Apocalyptica featuring Brent Smith of Shinedown. You can hear it here, but all you'll get to see is some album art because there isn't an official video. Yet. I want there to be. ;)

Cuando menos piensas, sale el sol....

2010-10-28T01:22:00.000-07:00

This is/isn't a review of Shakira's new album, Sale el Sol. I say "is", because I'm going to go ahead and give a quick opinion of the album. I say "isn't" because the meat of the blog post will be after that... skip down a bit, you'll find it. I'll even throw in my usual row of handy-dandy asterisks to help you. But now to the music...

I have to say that the album is much as I thought it would be... closer to old-school Shakira, but with some of the newer elements mixed in. The only track on the album I really don't like is "Lo que más", which is a little too whiny of a love ballad for my sensibilities. "Loca" and "Rabiosa", on the other hand, have been taking turns getting stuck in my head for the nearly a week that I've owned the album. Also the title track, "Sale el sol", but more on that later in the blog.

Overall, this is probably the best album Shakira has put out since Fijación Oral, Vol. 1., and is arguably better than Laundry Service, which had its dodgier moments. Really the last great album from Shakira was Dónde están los ladrones?, and I think we've finally gotten some of that groove back. : )
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Semi-permanently lodged in my brain this week has been the title track of the album Sale el Sol. Or more accurately, the first line or two of the chorus. The bit that goes, "Un día después de la tormenta, cuando menos piensas, sale el sol." Translated (and this is not a literal translation, but a translation that matches the spirit of the phrase, for anyone reading who might happen to be bilingual and say to themselves, "Hey! That's not what that middle bit means!"), this means "One day after the storm, when you least expect it, the sun comes out."

There's a lot of truth in that. We humans sometimes get so caught up in life's storms that we forget that no storm lasts forever (unless you live on Jupiter... the Great Red Spot is pretty close to being an eternal storm). And when the storm is over, the sun comes out. Some of us, though, after spending a lot period of time - years, even - in a storm become almost afraid of the sun. I am one of those people.

I am afraid of happiness. I am afraid to acknowledge that things are going well, because whenever things start going well, I wait anxiously for the other shoe to drop and for the storm to start again, because that's where I'm most comfortable... it's what I know. The sun starts shining on me and I'm continually scanning the horizon for the clouds because they've become like old friends.

Well my friends, the sun is shining on me and has been for a bit over a year now. And despite my searchings I'm having a hard time finding any clouds in the sky, and it seems the sun is determined to shine on even brighter, at least into the foreseeable future. So my proposition for myself from now until the end of the year is to enjoy the sun while it lasts... to accept the warmth without keeping one eye on the horizon. El sol ya salió, and I'm gonna soak it up. : )

Song o' the Day: "Sale el sol" by Shakira, naturally. Though to give everyone a break from Shakira and to do something completely different (llama!) I'll also throw in "Here Without You" by Three Doors Down, which is oddly appropriate right now for reasons I don't feel I'm at liberty to explain. : )

Gypsy/Gitana, Romani/Roma

2010-10-03T23:57:00.000-07:00

Both of the first two above mentioned things are Shakira songs. They are, in fact, two different language versions of the same song... oddly, the Spanish version is much less irritating. This is probably why the English version is on the last album, but the Spanish version has to be purchased separately off of iTunes.

Speaking of Shakira, she might be about to come out with a decent album, finally! It's been a while... Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 was the last actually GOOD album I can recall - the English-language counterpart Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 was not nearly as good, and we'll try not to speak ill of She Wolf... though it's difficult. The good news is that the new album, Sale El Sol, is about to drop and judging by the first single, Shakira has finally realized that she is NOT Beyoncé, nor should she try to be. The first single, "Loca", is more old-school Shakira but with her current favorite trick of inviting a rapper to join her. It comes out very reggaetón influenced (kind of "La Tortura", but with a rapper instead of Alejandro Sanz), but I can handle that. The song has been WAY stuck in my head over the last few days.

But I have gotten sidetracked. My original point was to bring up gypsies... or the Roma (or Romani) as they prefer to be called. Turns out, there actually is a thing called "antiziganism", which is to the Roman what anti-semitism is to the Jews. All over Europe (most notably in France, Italy, Serbia and Romania), the Roma are being actively persecuted and even locked in concentration camp type facilities, being denied jobs and housing, and occasionally having their settlements fire-bombed, and for whatever reason this human rights violation seems to be totally cool with the European Union. If you're interested at all in this, check out the website www.mundiromani.com and watch the video "Lashi Vita", for starters. "Lashi Vita" focuses solely on the Roma living in Italy, most of whom are refugees from Yugoslavia. The next vid on that site I plan to watch when I get a chance (the videos seem to run about 30 minutes long, be warned) is "The Last Days of Sulukule", which is about a 1,000 year old Roma settlement in Istanbul that was recently destroyed by the local government of Istanbul. ("Yes, who cares that these people have lived here for a millenium or so? We need a new shopping mall!"... at least that's how I imagine the thinking must have gone.)

Every now and then I get lost in the perilous abyss that is Wikipedia, and end up reading about things like this. In this particular instance, I'm just annoyed with Europe in general for deciding that it's okay to single out one minority, label them criminals, and turn the collective back of the European Union on these people. There are also some pretty good videos about this subject on YouTube... search "I Am a Roma Woman" to see some PSA type things.

Song o' the Day: Today you get two for one! First song is "Loca" by Shakira (see vid here), because it's been in my head a positively wicked amount this week. Second song is "Gitana" by Shakira. The Spanish version wins major points for NOT including the lyric "I might steal your clothes and wear them if they fit me".... I think the Roma might take offense to that. You can see a video for "Gitana" here. I recommend watching "Gitana" first, actually, then watching "Loca". Because then it becomes painfully apparent that Shakira needs a few cheeseburgers. I've never before seen her quite as thin as she is in the "Loca" vid, and I don't think it's a good thing, necessarily.

Luke 6:38....

2010-07-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

It's been an interesting week... I'll see if I can hit some of the highlights.

I've been stressing a good bit over money lately - and I probably shouldn't. God always gets me by in one way or another. But since I got laid off on May 28th and have had absolutely nada de income since then, I have begun restricting my trips to Oregon City and thus to church as well. The first thing I cut was my Saturday voyage to English classes... I offered to hold a class in Molalla for any of my students that wanted to come, only one took me up on it. The Wednesday night church service seemed like the next logical one to go, since I have to go to Oregon City twice on Sundays anyway to pick Damian up from his dad's. I hadn't been to a Wednesday night service since May. But this week I really wanted to go... but I was afraid if I did I wouldn't have enough gasoline to get back to OC on Saturday for skit rehearsal for ASBA and then back to church again twice on Sunday. Yikes! So I decided to practice that "giving it to God" thing. I told him that I was pretty sure if he wanted me to be there, he'd find a way to cover the gas money and I'd just trust him. Did God deliver? Um, yeah, I'd say he definitely made a statement. While I was at church Wednesday night, someone gave me $50 out of the blue. That's TWO tanks of gas. For those who will argue that it was coincidence, let me ask you... how often does someone coincidentally give YOU $50? Yeah, that's what I thought. And God wasn't even done yet.

On Thursday, I found out that the Oregon Unemployment Department had finally pulled its collective head out of its collective backside on and decided that, yes, I am eligible for unemployment benefits... a mere six weeks after I got laid off. And when did this actually happen? Wednesday... the very day I was dithering around worrying about having enough money to drive to church. God had already been all over that one, and I was too busy fretting to pay attention. The money didn't actually get deposited into my account until Friday, but that still would have been in plenty of time to get to skit rehearsal on Saturday. It seems that God was merely reassuring me with the $50... something I'd notice, something I couldn't ignore or overlook. Not the first time God has pulled that particular stunt, actually, but last time it was $5, not $50.

Also one of my students (the one who lives in Molalla and was the only one who had shown up for the Molalla class) critcized me roundly when I told her I wasn't teaching any more for financial reasons. "Why didn't you say something?!" she demanded. "We could have all chipped in a dollar for gas money! Or I could just drive you myself, actually..."

Saturday morning I taught English class at Oregon City. Maria drove me there, and said she would gladly continue to do so for the rest of the term (we're all taking August off). So now not only is God pretty much throwing money at me this week, but he's also lowering my expenses.

And apparently he wasn't even done yet. This evening (Sunday) as I was getting ready to leave to go to evening service, it dawned on me that I had not checked the mail on Saturday. So I meandered over to the office where the mailboxes are and surprise! One thing in my mail box (I usually don't get mail) - a letter from my grandparents. Inside the letter was a check for $150 and a note explaining that they did not want to be paid back... they had just heard (probably via my mom) that money was tight and they "wanted to make sure I was all right".

So tonight after the Chamaco was in bed, I sat down to pay some bills that weren't even overdue yet (I still have 3 days, even), and a verse kept popping into my head. I'm fantastic at remembering general verse content, but I never know where the verses are actually found so I had to look it up...

"Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." - Luke 6:38 (NIV)

Yeah, that sounds about like my week.

Green alien goo...

2010-07-04T00:10:00.000-07:00

AVOCADO: (noun, English) A food substance (fruit?) with a dark green, wrinkly exterior and a soft, squishy, paler green interior surrounding a large central seed that makes a rather satisfying *thunk* sound when dropped on the counter.

~NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH...~

AVVOCATO: (noun, Italian) A person who practices the law profession, in altre parole, a lawyer. Also makes a rather satisfying *thunk* sound when dropped on the counter.

So, here's my current predicament. I find myself in my unemployed stretch of the year, this year scheduled to last until September 7th or so. I have dyed my hair back to a more subdued sort of color because I can't afford the upkeep on the red. The water no longer turns pink when I shower. However, my hair kinda damaged, and the only conditioners I can presently afford are the cheap 99 cent Suave things which do pretty much NOTHING for my hair. Oddly, you can't buy conditioner/shampoo with food stamps. Here's a nice shot of my hair:

Looking a bit fried, no?

As it happens, you can buy avocados with food stamps. And olive oil. I did some digging around on the interwebs for homemade conditioning mixes, and found one involving avocados and olive oil, both of which I already had on hand. The result was this: ---->

Totally looks like something you'd want to cover your head in, right?

But, daring adventurer that I am, I decided to go for it, figuring that if that one didn't help, I'd try the olive oil/egg mix next. Why did I go for avocado first? Well, because I had a surplus of avocados and I was afraid they were going to go bad before I used them all, that's why.

So I got my hair wet and wrung it out a bit, and started putting the goo in my hair with my head hanging over the bathtub. I soon discovered an unfortunate side effect was that it looked like someone had barfed avocados in my bathtub (Speaking of barf, you should have seen the hair clog I pulled out of my drain immediately before I started this process. Looked like the famed Coiled Crap Hound!). I found this vaguely nauseating, because I am actually not fond of avocados as a food product in and of themselves. I like them in their guacamole form, but as far as I'm concerned that's the only thing they're good for at all. I had them on hand to make guacamole out of. I remember when I was in Mexico I complained loudly many times about how I could not get a sandwich from the school cafeteria thing that didn't have avocado slices in it. I don't like the taste of straight avocado, and I'm not particularly fond of the smell either. But I got the stuff in my hair and settled in to wait.

Speaking of other things you can get with food stamps that aren't strictly food - baking soda and vinegar. To you is fun science experiment for kids/papier mache volcano fuel. To me is drain cleaner. I figured since my bathtub was already smelling kind of weird from the avocados (and post hair clog) I'd pour some baking soda down the drain and follow it up with a chaser of vinegar. My mom taught me this trick... poor man's Drano. (My apartment manager also told me that a bottle of bleach poured down the drain once every couple of weeks is a good preventative measure, but you can't get bleach with food stamps.) I just like the hissing noise the drain makes for a while until everything settles down again. It would be good for convincing a little kid that there's a monster living in the drain. :)

By the way, anyone besides me ever notice that there is no generic, cheap brand of baking soda? You can get Arm & Hammer or... you can not buy baking soda. Why does Arm & Hammer have the monopoly on baking soda?!

About 15 minutes in to my half an hour wait time, I discovered something interesting. Apparently after a while the olive oil starts to separate from the avocado and run out from the edges of the shower cap. I just assumed it was good for the skin and rubbed it in, since I was going to take a shower pretty soon anyway. I also rubbed it into my scalp really good, because I could feel the olive oil trickling down there too, and my scalp/hair tends toward dry... can't hurt, right? The recipe I read said to wash the avocado out with "a mild shampoo". I was just hoping I could get the stuff out of my hair. I think that could be rather embarrassing at church in the morning.

SOMEONE: What's that green thing in your hair?
ME: Oh, that's avocado. I guess I missed some.
SOMEONE: (backs away slowly)

It was actually surprisingly easy to get out of my hair... I think I pulverized it well enough before I put it in there. Chunks are the enemy. So far, however, I'm not noticing any appreciable difference in the status of my hair while it's still wet. If something changes after it's dry, I'll let you know.

Crazy Goats, early 1900s Vacation Spots, and Frisbee Golf

2010-05-02T00:18:00.000-07:00

(Resists temptation to write parodied song about "Crazy Goats" to the tune of the song that has been stuck in my head for over a week straight.)

So, Sister Sibling spent the night last night and we were up WAY too late and got up WAY too early, which probably led to this video here being WAY funnier than it should have been. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEmRfxxGGcE

Phrase of the Day established early on: "This is a white man's crazy goat!"

Early in the day it was established that this should be the day in which we play Frisbee Golf. We've been discussing for many long times now about how we need to play frisbee golf one of these days, and today was it, darn it! Who cares if it's horribly windy? Not us! So we set boldly forth to find a second frisbee, since I only have one in my posession. That was easy enough, and we settled upon Clark Park as the place in which we ought to toss frisbees at objects. The wind was pretty crazy, and a few times we had throws that went negative distance... we'd throw a frisbee in the forward direction and it would actually catch in the wind and land several feet behind the position we'd thrown it from. Pars were set ridiculously high and we still managed to go over them more often than not. We did, however, decide that if one under par is a "birdie" and two under par is an "eagle", then 150 or more under par is a "flock of starlings".

Speaking of starlings, I managed to severely startle four of them with a frisbee. I also managed to land my frisbee across a fence and on top of a roof. (Bloody wind!) Fortunately there were some dudes standing around on the ground on that side of the fence, and one of them quite athletically jumped up onto the roof (after climbing on a propane tank) and got it for me and tossed it back.

No squirrels were harmed during our game of frisbee golf.

Having run out of new objects to hit with frisbees, we decided to go ranging about and try to find a new place to play. Ivor Davies Park was too devoid of anything to hit with frisbees except a pond (not an ideal target), Fox and Long parks are both too close to the road and too full of children (and people get mad when you label their child as a par five and then chuck frisbees at him/her), so we decided to go find Wilhoit Springs Park, which was a popular vacation destination in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Check it out here. We found it, and it was cool (pics on Facebook), but not a great place for frisbee golf either.

My left knee has been bothering me for a couple of weeks now... not sure what I did to offend it. But today I banged it into a picnic table at Clark Park in a way it seemed to find most offensive, and then after I made it hike all over Wilhoit Springs it decided to hate my guts. I've been trying to make amends with rest and ice most of the afternoon. So far, so good. And now, my favorite sign of the times...

Song o' the Day: "Anni Miei" by Laura Pausini. For no particular reason.

Chores...

2010-03-15T23:40:00.000-07:00

By now it's not news to anyone who knows us that the Chamaco occasionally has moments of startling maturity. The one that stands out most clearly in my mind happened when he was 4. We were in the car (as we usually are when these moments occur) and he was weighing out loud the pros and cons of living at my house versus living at his dad's house. His closing statement to his own argument was this: "I think I like living at your house better, because you have rules. Daddy doesn't have any rules, really, and that just doesn't seem safe to me."

It helps that he's the sort of kid you can talk to with explanations like, "When I make rules, I'm not just trying to spoil your fun. I make rules to keep you safe, to keep you healthy, and to help you grow up to be a good person." And he accepts this. We'll see if he still believes me when he's a teenager...

But as it stands now he's eight years old. Most of the time he's content to run around making machine gun noises, play video games, and spout trivia about things that I have no knowledge of or interest in either one. But every now and then we get in a car and drive a long way, and the Chamaco has inherited his father's non-comprehension of the term "comfortable silence" - any silence occurring when there is at least one other person present must immediately be filled. So Saturday night we were driving home from la casa de mis tíos in the dark and he started talking. I'm pretty sure he thinks out loud.

"I think it's time I had some chores," he announced.

We had touched on this topic before, but I could tell from his tone of voice that this time he meant business. "That's a good idea," I said. "What sort of chores would you like to have?"

"I'm not sure. What are some things I could do?"

He's been helping me fold laundry and receiving basic folding training for a while now, so I said, "You could fold laundry... you could sweep the floor... you could pick up in your room every day..."

"And I could take out the garbage! Probably. If it's not too heavy."

"Yes, you could do that. Anything else?"

"No, I think four is good to start. And you should pay me allowance for doing chores."

I was not at all shocked by this progression in his train of thought, because only the day previous he had spent the last of his birthday/Christmas money and was now down to only $4. Fortunately I was prepared. "How much do you think you should get for doing those chores?"

"A dollar a week. Or maybe two. I don't know. What do you think?"

Much as I love the concept of cheap labor, I am a member of the so-called "Justice Generation" (as Barney puts it) and my sense of fair play won out. Also, because I know the kid, I took a gamble on the notion that after an initial gung-ho period, he'll get tired of doing the chores and opt out or complain about having to do them. Which led me to suggest, "How about we make a chart, and every day when you do a chore you can check the box. At the end of the week we'll add it up, and you can get 25 cents for every check."

My little math whiz was all over this. "Wow, Mom! That's seven dollars a week!"

I'm still older and (hopefully) smarter, though not as fast at crunching the numbers. "Not really, because two of those chores won't need to be done every day. We usually only do laundry once a week, and the garbage only needs to be taken out two or three times a week. So it'll be less than seven dollars, but definitely more than two. You're probably looking at around $4 or $4.50 most weeks."

"Sounds good. Can we start tomorrow?"

So we got home and made the chart and the details were hammered out. Sweeping and picking up his room he can do every day if he chooses to, taking out trash and folding laundry are done when necessary or when I ask. I'm not going to sit on him to pick up his room and sweep every day... I'll give him the option. He can choose not to do it, and thus choose not to earn the money. (Non-Head Start employees have no idea how very Head Start this system sounds... six months ago it probably would not have occurred to me.)

Today was Day One, and of course he very enthusiastically swept the floor. He got to the picking up his room part, worked for about five minutes, then came down and said, "I think I'm going to do that one a little bit at a time because it's a big job."

"Well yeah. It's a big job right now because your room is trashed. But if you get it picked up nice and then you make sure you pick up every day, it'll take you like two minutes."

"Yeah, I know. But I mostly cleared off the table. Does that count?"

I let him count it. Meanwhile, I was fixing dinner. He asked if he could take out the trash, which was almost full. I asked him to wait until after dinner, because I was going to be throwing some more things in there. Seeing he was a little disappointed, I told him he could go in my room and fold the laundry if he wanted. He ran upstairs, excited once more. It took him pretty much the entire time it took me to make dinner, but he folded the entire load of laundry completely without assistance, divvying things out into piles as I have shown him. He asked where he should put away my clothes and I said I'd put them away if he just left the piles in the floor, so he went and put away his own clothes in his dresser.

We ate dinner at the table together. This is a rarity... usually I sort of work through dinner. But I had tidied the kitchen up while cooking, and had finished my translating while he swept and picked up his room (though admittedly I didn't have much today), so we had dinner together. While we were eating, the lightbulb in the fixture at the bottom of the stairs exploded in a blaze of glory. So after we ate, he took out the trash and then we went to buy more lightbulbs, because I was out. And we still had half an hour before bedtime, which is completely unprecedented and largely attributable to the Chamaco doing some of the stuff I normally do so I dídn't have to. So we played Uno. And then Guess Who. Then it was time for him to go to bed.

Now this isn't a perfect system... he's not exactly a professional-level floor sweeper. The floor could probably still stand to be swept in some areas. Also he can't fold towels to my exacting standards. Enter Head Start...

One of the things they're sort of making me do is read a book called "Positive Discipline for Preschoolers". They're very pro-Positive Discipline, and the concept was totally foreign to me when I started working there. Admittedly the Chamaco is not a preschooler, but I have picked up some things from this book that do make sense regardless of his age. There's an example in the book from a child's perspective - a little girl's mother asks her to make her own bed to save Mommy some time in the morning. So the little girl tugs and smoothes and pats the sheets into place and thinks she has done a pretty good job and is well-pleased. Later Mommy comes in and fixes it. Little Girl comes away with the impression that her work was not good enough and is discouraged from even trying it again.

I had this firmly in mind as I watched the Chamaco sweep the floor. Action plan now in place.
Will I re-sweep the floor? No. He'll do it again tomorrow. Maybe he'll hit those places.
Will I criticize his work? No. This is a behavior I want to encourage, not discourage.
Will I praise him for a job well done even though it is somewhat lacking by my adult standards? Yes, definitely.
Will I ask next time as he's sweeping, "Hey, could you make sure you sweep right here? It looks like that place really needs it."? Yes, probably. And if it's still not up to my standards, hey, the kid tried. No one will die if there are a few stray crumbs on the floor for a day.

Same theory applies for folding clothes. Does it, in the long run, even matter if things are folded in a different manner than I would have folded them? No. Do I want him to continue in this behavior? Yes. Will I praise him and thank him for his help? Heck yes... I hate folding laundry. Strangely folded towels are a small price to pay for not having to fold the laundry myself, and he can fold his own clothes however he likes. No, what is more important in this situation is that the job is done and that he feels accomplished, like he contributed something.

So it's the end of Day One of the great chores/allowance experiment. He earned a full dollar today. And hopefully he's in the process of learning something about responsibility and about working for what he wants, and also feeling like a valuable, contributing member of our little broken family. I'll try to remember to update as this project progresses if anything happens that seems relevant.

Song o' the Day: "Better Sorry than Safe" - Halestorm

Surely we didn't get off THAT easily....

2010-02-25T20:52:00.000-08:00

Those of you who know me well (all 5 of you) know that every winter I struggle with seasonal depression and the urge to crawl into a hole and not emerge from about November 1st through the beginning of July sometime.

This year hasn't been as bad as I've come to expect, and I'm not sure whether to credit living in a house with heat for the first winter of the last 8 or so years, or the fact that this winter has so far been extremely mild aside from a cold snap shortly before Christmas. Maybe it was a combination of the two. Either way, my recurring thought is, "Surely we didn't get off THAT easily..."

Because this is Oregon, and we've had deceptively mild winters before... you know, the ones where it is rainy and only moderately cold December through February, then it turns around and snows most of March and into early April. And if there's one thing I hate, it's snow. Take one thing I hate extremely (cold) and combine it with another thing I hate extremely (wet rainyness) and you get snow, a.k.a. "the ultimate evil".

And in other hellish events, we had an inservice today. Meetings are probably #1 on my list of things I hate, though snow is a very close #2. And the first speaker of the day was, I hate to say it, rather useless. He had some very good ideas, yes, provided that you're working with wealthy, upper-middle class children from stable, two-parent families (in the case of his center, most of the children were the children of university faculty). Unfortunately, catering to low-income, high-risk families is kind of what we do and a lot of what he was talking about just really isn't workable in our program, so why was this guy speaking anyway? Much less going on about it for 3 hours. On the plus side, he had some lovely books in Italian that I was reading during the 15 minute break in his 3 hours of drivel. I might look up some of the books later... or I might not. But really, a guy who got his master's degree in French Literature but speaks Italian better than French and still needs an interpreter for Italian is not to be trusted. With that admission when I asked him, he lost all credibility as far as I was concerned.

Also, who gets a master's degree in French Literature?! (Also, who gets a master's degree in French Literature, then goes on to get a doctorate in Early Childhood Ed.? Kind of a stretch, don't you think?) Also he was wearing four rings, none of which were wedding rings, and Wendy thought his shirt was tucked in weird. Nancy and I agreed.

No, I despise meetings (especially meetings disguised as "trainings" - call a spade a spade, people!) and I'm afraid I got up at 6:30 a.m. today only to be bored into a stupor for the better part of the day. TGI(my)F.

Song o' the Day: "Get Out Alive" by Three Days Grace. Because I thought I wasn't going to.

It's one of those days...

2010-02-16T22:55:00.000-08:00

... in which I entertain wild fantasies about a job that does not in any way involve children.

I don't like children today.

Back in the days of the ELL department at MES, Vickie and I used to go out for a venting session in the parking lot after work. It was nice because we could talk about it and be done with it and for me at least it was a very effective method of leaving work at work, and then going home and thinking about other stuff. And we would always start these sessions with the question, "So, do you like children today?"

I most emphatically do not like children today, thanks for asking. Today was one of those days that makes me question why the heck I work in education. At least 14 of the children I adore on an individual basis, but put all 18 of them together and I don't like children. This is why I could never be a classroom teacher in a regular school. Being in a room with the same 30 children for a year trying to make them learn stuff that by and large they don't care about would make me homicidal, suicidal, or both.

And even on days like today, I still know why God put me where I'm at. Just since September, in the course of working with these kids and trying to help them vocalize their turbulent preschooler emotions (vocalize rather than haul off and smack someone) I myself have learned a lot about coping with my own emotions. I tend to be very reserved emotionally - someone very close to me told me shortly after my husband left me that I did not have the "luxury" of crying because it made me useless, and it left a lasting impression on me - and I tend to ignore my own emotions and shove them out of the way rather than processing them and dealing with them, and it isn't healthy. In the process of helping them recognize and label their feelings, I've learned to recognize and label my own. While teaching them that their emotions are okay and valid, I've learned that my own are okay and valid as well and I'm even beginning to recognize my breaking point before I reach it, which is a huge step for me. Just today (and Nancy probably didn't realize how significant this was), the kids were being awful, my stress levels were rapidly increasing, and it was getting harder and harder to not scream at the children, and finally I told Nancy, "I'm going to step outside for a few minutes before I snap." I went and sat on the front steps away from the kids in the sun for a few minutes, took some deep breaths, and I went back inside a few minutes later when I felt better. Like I said, Nancy probably didn't think a whole lot of it but for me that's a pretty big thing to recognize, vocalize and then deal with my own emotions.

I told Nancy when I met her that I'm pretty much just an overgrown four year old. But it seems maybe I'm progressing slightly.

So even though I know why I'm in the place I'm in now, there's still the question of "what next?" I don't see me working in my current capacity forever... especially not at only 22 hours a week. I was just telling Nancy today I thought it would be nice to at some point have one job that paid me enough that I didn't need to have three jobs. I don't know where I go from here, but it is abundantly clear to me that God has the plan and he knows what he's doing... I'm just along for the ride.

Song o' the Day: "Check My Brain" by Alice in Chains. Awesome song. Go look it up.

Y'know what's depressing?

2010-02-14T22:58:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is depressing.

Reading Craigslist personal ads is depressing. A whole, polluted sea teeming with retarded sealife. Some of them seem like decent enough guys, aside from the fact that they're dumber than a box of radishes (this is, for me, a deal-breaker). The majority, however, are arrogant jerks going on about what a "hot commodity" they are and how they're a "limited time offer". If that's really the case, why do you need to post on CL? Surely if you're that fantastic of a catch, you could just stand out on a busy street corner and the girls would be all over you. (Though I suppose that's only legal in certain parts of Nevada.) Normally I wouldn't bother depressing myself by reading ads on Craigslist, but I figure on Valentine's Day I'm depressed enough already and it can't very well get much worse.

I think next year maybe I'll just try drinking. I've never been properly drunk before, and Valentine's Day seems like the perfect time...

Next year I may have to swear off social networking entirely for the month of February. So it's the 4 zillionth V-Day you've spent with *insert name here*... fabulous. Why don't you go spend time with that person rather than posting about it on Facebook? Because let me tell you, if I could only get Wong over on this continent, I wouldn't be sitting around posting on Facebook about it.

Come to think of it, if I could get Wong over on this continent, I wouldn't have to get depressed enough to browse Craigslist.

Why is the rum gone?

Song o' the Day: "Dear Agony" by Breaking Benjamin. (lyrics below)

I have nothing left to give
I have found the perfect end
You remain to make it hurt
Disappear into the dirt
Carry me to heaven's arms
Light the way and let me go
Take the time to take my breath
I will end where I began
And I'll find the enemy within
' Cause I can feel it crawl beneath my skin

Dear agony, just let go of me
Suffer slowly, is this the way it's gotta be?
Dear agony...

Suddenly the lights go out
Let forever drag me down
I will fight for one last breath
I will fight until the end
And I'll find the enemy within
'Cause I can feel it crawl beneath my skin

Dear agony, just let go of me
Suffer slowly, is this the way it's gotta be?
Don't bury me, faceless enemy
I'm so sorry... is this the way it's gotta be?
Dear agony

Leave me alone
God let me go
I'm blue and cold
Black sky will burn
Love tore me down
Hate lift me up
Just turn around
There's nothing left

Somewhere far beyond this world...
I feel nothing anymore

Dear agony, just let go of me
Suffer slowly, is this the way it's gotta be?
Don't bury me, faceless enemy
I'm so sorry... is this the way it's gotta be?
Dear agony

I feel nothing anymore

Be my anti-Valentine...

2010-02-12T23:00:00.000-08:00

If you're in a happy, functional romantic relationship or you just happen to like the upcoming-offensive-holiday-which-shall-not-be-named, you may want to skip reading this blog. You can just scroll down to the bit where there's a big long line of asterisks (*), because that part will be more interesting to you and might not burst your happy bubble.

I'll wait for you to leave.

Still waiting...

Some poetry while we wait....

I don't need your flowers
They'll just go to waste
I don't want your candy
'Cause I don't like the taste

Okay, now that the undesirables have cleared out, the rest of us are going to have a little talk about this holiday, here. First, the history of it is pretty shaky. There were not one, but in fact two "saint Valentines", both of whom according to Catholic tradition were martyred and coincidentally are buried on the same street in Italy. One of them happens to have been buried on February 14th... how romantic. Anything you may have heard about one of them tossing love letters out of his cell window or anything like that is at best unsubstantiated legend and at worst complete fiction. There's nothing to back that up. And there was, in fact, a third Valentine who also got killed, but he died in Africa and nothing else is known about him really. It must have been a popular name back in the day.

So the history of it is pretty iffy anyway, and then you see what we've done with it... it's gone the way of Christmas - pure commercialization. It was a nice idea to start with, I suppose, but I know many people - men in particular - who dread the day because they know if they don't find just the right gift for their wife/girlfriend, it's gonna be hell. I was more impressed last year by one of my few female friends who on V-day posted on her longtime boyfriend's MySpace page, "F*** Valentine's Day... I love you all year!" That was really the best thing I've ever seen, and I'm about to explain to you why.

I'm stealing a bit from a Foamy rant here, but what V-day boils down to in these times is basically legalized prostitution. (Among non-married couples, naturally.) A guy who is pretty much a jerk the other 364 days of the year will buy girlfriend a gift on this one day and be nice, with the expectation that she will put out on that day. "Here's some chocolate... sleep with me." "Here's some flowers... sleep with me." And even presuming that the guy isn't a jerk the other 364 days of the year, why do we need one day in particular in which we are to express our love? Shouldn't we be doing it all year? If we reserve it for just one day, basically we're doing what we did to Christmas. (Celebrating Jesus only on December 25th rather than all year as was intended, and by "we" I mean society collectively.)

And yes, I am single and slightly bitter about that. But even when I have been in relationships on said holiday in the past, I have been pretty content to let the day slide under my radar (in so much as you can when all the world is red and pink and swarming with winged naked babies and all your friends have changed their Facebook statuses to pictures of them and their significant other - usually a wedding pic, but sometimes just a cutesy couple pic - proudly proclaiming "This is the ___th Valentine's day that ______ and I have celebrated together!"). If I love someone, I'm going to do it every day. I don't need a special holiday for it.

And if you needed further proof that this is a purely commercial holiday, Kmart already has moved the V-day crap aside so they can stock the shelves with Easter stuff.

*******************************
On to other topics now, I have recently become enamored of a new band - Halestorm. Some of you may have heard of them but been put off by their current single which is getting way too much airplay on KUFO and is sort of obnoxious and repetitive.... a little ditty called "I Get Off", which may in fact just plain be too racy for some.

If you go digging back in their archives a little (and there's not very far to dig, since their album just came out in late 2009) you can find a much better song that I've had stuck in my head for several days now called "It's Not You." Other fabulous tracks from them are "Better Sorry than Safe" and "Innocence".

Song o' the Day will obviously be "It's Not You" by Halestorm, but just for something different I'm going to put the lyrics down here so you can read how fantastically catty it is, and then go listen to it because it sounds even better.

I'm in love with somebody
Found someone who completes me
I'm in love with somebody, oh yeah
And it's not you

Read my finger, whatcha gonna do?
See these lips? They're all done talkin' to you
I don't mean to bruise your ego
But I've had you nailed down for so long
And I don't see your name on my tattoo

Hope you understand
It's been a long time coming
It's for the best
No offense

I'm in love with somebody
Found someone who completes me
I'm in love with somebody, oh yeah
And it's not you!

I know who you think you are
Sorry I've turned you on but I'm kissing you off
Your lines and whiskey and cigarettes
They're not enough to make me forget
I've got someone who has raised the bar

I've heard it all before
Stop spinning your wheels
I'll show you the door
No hard feelings

I'm in love with somebody
Found someone who completes me
I'm in love with somebody, oh yeah
And it's not you!

You've probably never been shot down before
I'll try and make it easier...

I'm in love with somebody
Found someone who completes me
I'm in love with somebody, oh yeah
And it's not you!
It's not you!

And as if that wasn't cool enough, here's a little poem I committed to memory years ago. I forget where I heard it, so my apologies to whoever I may have stolen it from.

I hold your hand in mine, dear
I press it to my lips
I take a healthy bite from
Your dainty fingertips
My joy would be complete, dear
If only you were here
But I still keep your hand
As a precious souvenir
The night you died, I cut it off
I really don't know why
For now each time I kiss it
I get bloodstains on my tie
I'm sorry now I killed you
I really don't know why
And 'til they come to get me
I shall hold your hand in mine

Forecast: February blahs fading into spring freakout...

2010-02-09T22:56:00.000-08:00

Generally March is, for me at least, the interminable month of rainy, soggy longness. So I guess it's fittingly ironic and well in accordance with my life that this year, it seems February has taken over as the interminable month of rainy, soggy longness - and February only has 28 days.

Don't know what it is lately, but my hibernation drive is whining at me a lot for not staying in bed and, well, hibernating.

In general I still like the people I work with, but the interminable month of rainy, soggy longness seems to be having adverse effects on the children... so far this week at work has been a small, soggy slice of hell. I don't know if it's just early spring freakout or what. The daffodils behind the center have certainly been confused by this unusually mild winter we're having (not that I'm complaining about that)... maybe the kids' little biological clocks have been confused also.

Spring freakout, for those of you who don't work in education, generally happens right around spring break. It's why spring break was invented... so the kids could go cause havok somewhere else for a week. This probably used to work, but nowadays when kids are home from school Mom plunks them down in front of a TV with a DVD and tells them to shut up, thus burning off exactly no excess energy and coming back to school even worse than they started. From spring break on, teachers count the days until summer vacation, because the kids just get crazier. (Prime teachable time is considered to be that space in between New Year's and spring break... no major holidays to interfere with things, and hopefully the spring freakout doesn't set in too early.)

March had just better not last as long as February seems to be lasting... I'm rather looking forward to the latter part of March, and I'd hate to see the whole first part drag.

Song o' the Day: "It's Not You" by Halestorm.

DDR, how I've missed thee....

2010-02-06T21:19:00.000-08:00

I did two things yesterday. The first was to dye my hair fire engine red, but most of you probably are used to me doing that sort of thing and did not just bat any eyelashes. The second thing I did, however, was to buy DDR (Dance Dance Revolution, for you uneducated types) for the Wii.

This second thing could have long-ranging consequences.

DDR and I have a long history together. Back in the days of my first (and so far only) marriage my then-husband and I purchased the Disney version of the game for Playstation - the original Playstation... 2 hadn't been invented yet. I don't remember why we did it, but I remember getting hooked pretty quickly. It was my first brush with the genre of rhythm gaming that would later spawn Guitar Hero/Rock Band. Also, and perhaps more importantly, it's one heck of a workout. Back in those far-flung days of, oh, 2003 or so, the Spineless Worm and I would have DDR competitions. I had actually fashioned an elaborate scoresheet, we would both do every song on the game and record our scores, and the winner got bragging rights. It was fantastic.... we both usually wound up sweaty and gasping (and in his case, partially dressed), his then-wife would laugh at us a lot because she was too prissy to engage in that sort of thing, and we were probably in much better shape then than we are now.

Then my brother borrowed my Playstation. And failed to give it back. Ever.

I sort of forgot about the game. Forgetting it was a lot easier with the advent of Guitar Hero and Rock Band to satisfy my rhythm gaming needs. Those games, however, are mostly finger work (arm and right leg work if you're playing drums) and my poor left leg was getting neglected. Wii Fit has helped somewhat with that, but I still suck at any yoga poses that involve balancing on my left leg.

Fast forward to yesterday, February 5th, 2010. I was browsing Wal-Mart just for kicks because it was my day off and my son was at school and I could, and I just happened to stumble across DDR for Wii. No cutesy Disney songs this time... this version has Lady Gaga and Black-Eyed Peas and even Weezer. Still horribly addictive, however. I put in mucho tiempo yesterday, though I'm not sure how much, got mostly E's and D's (DDR has no F, it has E) and sorta felt like I was gonna have a heart attack. At that point I realized how little cardio I actually do anymore... lots of balance/strength stuff, but virtually zero cardio. :( Today was much better, however. I did about an hour, did not feel like I was going to die, and got lots of C's and B's, a couple of A's, and even one AA. I had a little conversation with the Spineless Worm about this earlier and mentioned the fact that it has been about 7 years since I played the game. He said he last played at an arcade less than a year ago, and he plays anytime he gets the chance. So probably we are not ready for another elaborate competition just yet (at least I'm not), but I'm strangely glad to have the game back.

DDR and I need to not break up again. 7 years of separation is too long. And if Quinn tries to steal my Wii, I will kill him. :)

Song o' the Day: "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga (because I've played it on DDR so many times today that it's stuck in my head)

Faith by living...

2010-01-18T22:27:00.000-08:00

No, I didn't just get the song lyrics backwards.

But for the last several days, I've had the beginnings of a serious thought nagging at the back of my mind. I don't like that... it makes me feel more intellectual than I am comfortable with thinking of myself as. So I was thinking I might start writing about it here and hopefully it will either become a more coherent thought or go away and leave me alone.

Over the last week or so, I've been thinking a lot about fath... specifically faith in God. I've heard a lot of people discussing how much faith they do or don't have, faith they got from their parents, faith they found for themselves later in life, increasing faith, diminishing faith... all over the spectrum.

Inherited faith concerns me. Yes, I know a lot of people say they learned their faith from their parents, and I guess it's great if you can do it that way. But at some point it has to become your own faith and not your parents' faith, or it won't stay with you. I know in my own personal case what I had up until I was about 25 was "my parents' faith", and right around February of '08 it just wasn't enough anymore and for a couple of months I had "no faith". That caused me to have to ask myself a lot of difficult questions... what did I believe in? I know the song is about "living by faith", but that only works if you have faith to begin with. After a lot of soul-searching, reading and experimentation with a couple of other things I came to the conclusion that the faith handed to me by my parents was the right one after all, but I just had to make it mine somehow, not theirs.

My faith may not look the same as your faith or even my parents' faith, but I don't think it's any less correct. Some of you may remember back in the days of my old MySpace blog I had a little mind-dump one day about my idea of God. For those of you who missed it, I don't think of God as the bearded, gray-haired, grandfatherly figure that you always see him portrayed as when people bother to try to draw him. I don't see God as that stern, unibrowed figure who peers down at us from the heavens shaking his finger at us and saying, "Don't you dare do that!"

Nope... my vision of God is a bit different. I see God more as kind of a middle-aged suburban dad (usually I picture him in a t-shirt, jeans and sunglasses), standing out in the backyard watching his kids play and invariably get into trouble and shaking his head and saying with infinite love and patience, "What on earth am I going to do with you kids? Didn't I already warn you that was going to hurt if you tried it?" But God, in his infinite wisdom, realizes that we learn better from making our own mistakes and thus has given us the freedom to make them rather than just chaining us to the wall so that we behave ourselves. (Though I'm sure God, like most parents, occasionally wishes tying the kids to a chair with duct tape were an option.)

But once I had established that I still believed there was a God and he had a certain way he preferred things done, there was the challenge of doing it. At that point, I was at one of the lower lows (though not the lowest low) of my adult life... I had just gotten divorced, I was living in a falling-apart house with no heat, I had no money, and those were just the obvious issues. So I decided to try an experiment... I picked a minor problem in my life and said, "Okay God... I'm going to do as much as I can to take care of this problem, and I'm going to give the rest of it to you to handle." And in my mind, God said okay. And nobody was more shocked than me when things started changing. So I found another larger problem and said, "Same deal, God... can you handle this one?" I was pretty sure he said he thought it would be cake, and of course he would think that, being God and all. But sure enough, that problem started getting better too.

Over the nearly two years since then, I have been acquiring more faith by living... not living by faith so much. Faith by living. Faith by seeing what God can do with my broken life when I decide to let go and entrust him with the pieces. Faith by seeing my life go from being pretty much a trainwreck two years ago to the point now where I write blog entries like the one previous to this one (see: "Can't complain"). And my faith is still far from perfect, I assure you... I am stubborn and there are still some things I don't want to let go of. My faith is probably in its toddler stages, if it were a human child. I can walk, even run, but I still fall down pretty often, and sometimes I insist that things are MINE! and I frequently get distracted by shiny/colorful objects. God still loves me, though, and when I do something dumb while out playing in the yard with the other kids and get hurt, he reminds me that he warned me about that and he hopes I've learned my lesson. Sometimes I have and sometimes I haven't, but he doesn't love me any less.

I guess I'm still not sure what my original point was, other than don't be afraid to find your own faith. That doesn't mean I won't try to teach my faith to my son, but I still hope that someday he will test it and make it his own rather than just accepting what I give him without question. And with that thought, I leave you with a little picture I threw together just in case anyone was curious....

Song o' the Day: "Almost Easy" by Avenged Sevenfold.

Can't complain...

2010-01-16T16:31:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine, who for the sake of this blog we shall call "Spineless Worm" (and that probably became immediately evident to about half of you who I'm talking about... the rest of you probably confused him with Emo Steve, who he is not), called me the other day to whine about how he, like 10% of Americans nowadays, can't find a job.

(I'm just going to pull over for a bit and point out that I have called Spineless Worm a spineless worm to his face many times over the years... it's almost like a term of endearment, because that's the sort of relationship we have. If he reads this, he won't be too offended. He also goes by "CRAKA!!!!")

Anyway, moving on, while Spineless Worm was going on about how he couldn't find a job and they were living with his wife's parents because this agency screwed him over and this other couple stabbed him in the back and he severed all contact with them, etc., I realized something.... I really can't complain much about my current circumstances. It's sort of sad, because I think that used to be sort of a hobby of mine.

But let's be real about this here. I have a job. I'm paying my rent. We have food, water, shelter and toys (yes, toys are very important). We even have video games and electric guitars. We have family, good friends, and the means to visit both fairly often. We have a relatively spider-free home. We have music playing devices in every room of the house except for the Chamaco's bedroom. We even have purple chili pepper lights in our bedroom (thanks Mom!).

I searched my mental database and could only come up with two complaints, one in my professional life and the other in my personal life. My professional complaint would be that one of my supervisors (not naming names) tends to hover and meddle a bit more than is strictly necessary, but that's a minor annoyance since I'm not the top of the hierarchy and I don't have to deal directly with that person too often. My personal life complaint is that I'm still single... and that didn't used to be a complaint. I used to enjoy that quite a lot, actually, but the novelty has worn off I guess.

So no, I can't complain too much. And I'll bet if you think about it, you can't complain too much either. Especially if you were to compare yourself with, say, someone living in Haiti right now. If you've got everything you need and even just some of what you want, you're among the wealthiest of the people on this earth. Go forth and count your blessings!

Song o' the Day: "Smoke on the Water" - Metallica. (Yes, I know this is a cover. I just happen to like Metallica's cover better than the original.)

Haircut!

2010-01-16T16:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (Friday) I went over to the Great Clips in Sandy and let the mom of one of my students do pretty much whatever she wanted to my hair. I had talked to her the day before about what she might like to do, and she said something about "lots of layers" and asked if I would mind losing some length. That was exactly what I wanted to lose, so I just let her play. Here's the end result... I straightened it this morning.

Fish!

2010-01-09T22:38:00.000-08:00

Yes folks, the long petless spell is finally past...

Friday evening I took the Chamaco to Wal-Mart so he could spend some of his ridiculous amount of birthday money (now that it's been a month since his birthday and all). He got the Bakugan game for Wii (no surprise there), a toy lightsaber, and a betta.

I love a good bandwagon, so I jumped on and also got a betta. I favor bettas because they're nice to look at and pretty hard to kill. His is red, mine is dark blue. He named his Ford, and I'm calling mine Skye until I come up with something better. Both fish have pulled through night one and day one, so I'm assuming neither sustained any serious injuries in the trunk of my car on the drive home from Woodburn and will probably be with us for a while. I think they have already outlasted the guppy that the Chamaco got not too long after his 7th birthday. Having heat in this house probably helps.

In other news, first week back at work flew by way faster than those two weeks of vacation did. I mean, really, I was SO bored sitting around here at home too broke to go anywhere or do anything. I'm also glad to have a routine back in place rather than just waking up, drifting aimlessly all day not really knowing what day it even is, and going to sleep sometime when I get bored with being awake and drifting aimlessly. Yay for January!

Now if only we could get this winter thing over with, I'd be content.

Conversation excerpt from a week or two ago:
CTG: Well look at that! You've got four studs on the car and one at the pump!
ME: Yeah, you are the best-looking guy in a Santa hat I've seen for quite a while I have to admit.

I'm still laughing over that.

Song o' the Day: "Did It Again" by Shakira. Pretty well stuck in my head for days now.

New Year's "Suggestions"...

2010-01-01T03:06:00.000-08:00

I don't like New Year's Resolutions. They seem to me like a really good way to set yourself up to feel like a failure come December... as if the holidays weren't stressful enough! In fact, I have never before made a list of New Year's Resolutions. I can't be bothered to write a list of stuff I should do that I probably won't do so I can feel bad about myself later.

This year, however, I feel moved to write myself a list of "ideas" or "suggestions" for things that I might work on in 2010 if I feel like it/get around to it. Stuff that I should do because it would be good for me or for those around me. Things that I should change, because probably my life would change for the better if I changed them. And if I don't change them... well, stuff stays the same I guess. In the words of the great philosopher Tyler, "If you do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got." (That would be Steven Tyler in the song "Get a Grip", in case anyone wondered.)

So brace yourself, people... I'm about to have one of my rare introspective moments! Here are some of my suggestions for myself in the order in which they occur to me.

1.) Spend less time on the computer. I am blind enough as it is. And hand in hand with that...

2.) Encourage "Wong" to either take things offline or give it up already.

3.) Find an outlet for my creativity besides writing short stories that I never let anyone read. Blogging is more narrative than creative most of the time. I'm not sure if I should start trying to write a novel or just start playing guitar more (bet the neighbors would love that), but I think the constantly rotating cast of characters in my head is detrimental to what, for lack of a better term, we shall call "my sanity". It seems to me I also used to do some halfway decent pictures with pastels and colored pencils many moons ago in the far-flung times of, oh, about 1999...

4.) Try to start saving some money. You know, now that I actually have an income. And not far behind that...

5.) Never buy anything on credit ever again if I can possibly avoid it. I would like to pay off the two credit cards I have and then quite possibly get rid of them altogether. They are evil.

6.) Exercise more, blah blah blah... (everyone says this one, I think)

7.) Date someone. Could be Wong (if he were to get himself over here), could be someone I haven't met yet, but seven years of singleness is bloody long enough.

8.) Spend more time out doing things with friends. I think I tend to hold myself back with the "I can't do that, I have a kid" excuse. Perhaps some of that money I might put aside each month could be used for a babysitter one night a month... I think all parents, but maybe full-time single parents in particular, need some regularly scheduled down time. Also it's really hard to meet people to date when I never go anywhere except to work and to church.

9.) Reduce the size of my mean streak. Currently it's at about three miles wide. I'd like to reduce it to a mile or less. I'm pretty sure I used to be a nice person once, but high school screwed me up and I never recovered.

10.) Broaden my musical tastes. Much as I complain about the music snobbery of certain people (who will stop listening to a band if they think too many people like said band), I'm guilty of my own flavor of it... I have convinced myself that if it's not rock of some description, I probably don't care. Don't expect me to start listening to rap, though... I stand firm on my requirement for actual singing talent!

11.) (this one is going to make me sound horrid, maybe you shouldn't read it) Love my kid while I have him. Most of you still reading probably just went, "What's horrid about that?" Well, the awful truth is that I did not want to be a parent. I was dragged into it kicking and screaming, and for several years after he was born I still did not want to be a parent. I did not gaze upon my newborn son's face and instantly fall in love... oh no. For years I regarded him as an intrusion... a time-consuming burden draining my energy and resources that I never wanted or asked for. (Planned pregnancy he wasn't, as you may have guessed). I was bound to him only by a fierce sense of responsibility (Flake, I am not in the slightest, and I firmly believe in the "you make it, you take care of it" principle), and later by the knowledge that of his two parents I was the one less likely to screw him up, which I thought was really sad since I was already so screwed up myself on the subject of parenting. Loving him crept up on me gradually, without me realizing it. Probably he was four before I could say "I love you" to him and mean it at all. And even then an occasional mother would observe me with him and say something like, "You'd just throw yourself in front of a train to save your kid, wouldn't you?" (someone actually did say that very thing to me once) and I would look at them blankly... No I would not! Are you completely out of your gourd?! I would scream internally. Or they'd say, "He's just your entire world, isn't he?" and I would rail internally against that too... No! There is a heck of a lot more to my world than this kid! I am a complex and multi-faceted individual, darn it! But I guess even the most emotionless of us can't help but be eventually won over by a kid who loves you unconditionally and tends to shout things like "Best mom ever!" when you tell him that he can have two packs of fruit snacks if he wants. Fast forward to 2009, when the realization finally sets in that the Chamaco and I are our own broken little family and often we're all each other has. In November during our monthly meeting, I am telling my boss about something he said/did and she comments, "I can tell he's just your whole world." For the first time I do not mentally protest. Conversion from "reluctant mom" to just plain "mom" finally complete... only took 7 years and 11 months. I read in one of those "What to Expect..." books when he was a baby that actually many new mothers don't instantly bond with their child, and in some cases the process can take months. I don't know if anyone has ever taken very nearly 8 years before. Probably I needed/need therapy. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a baby because I want to, but I still don't want to. I really doubt I ever will. I still like kids much better when they're someone else's in general, but I have finally managed to become rather attached to the one I have. I don't think I'll ever be a "mommy mom" (as Tyha so accurately describes herself), but at least I'm a "mom" now instead of an "I'll take care of you because legally I'm responsible to do so". Only in hindsight have I been able to see God's wisdom in this whole situation... had I not suddenly become responsible for a small, helpless person at the time I did, I likely would have continued on the self-destructive path I was just getting started down at the time and I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that my life could have ended (badly) several years prior to now. Also before he was born I thought I preferred a girl and I was going to name him Natalie Renee. Eight years later I often thank God I did not have a girl... girls are too much drama! (Especially from about the age of 8 onward, I'm learning from watching other people's kids.) Anyway, back to the original thought, I may have sort of wasted the first eight years, but theoretically I've got about ten more to try and get things right.

Wow, that was a digression and a half, but maybe now you understand why I laugh and shake my head everytime someone tells me what a good mom I am (which happens surprisingly often... maybe people don't pay attention?).

Anyway, here's to 2010... may it be a fabulous year for all my friends and loved ones (and maybe some of the people I don't like too!).

Open letter to 2009...

2010-01-01T01:55:00.000-08:00

Dear 2009,

I'm kind of going to miss you... overall you weren't a bad year. Certainly much better than some of your siblings in this decade - I'm thinking in particular of 2001 and 2006, which were two of the worst years of my life so far. Indeed, you were even an improvement over 2008, which wasn't terrible but wasn't that great either.

(It has just occurred to me randomly that I can't remember if my divorce was finalized in January of 2007 or 2008. I think I need to look that up. Hard to tell since we separated in 2003... the divorce date sort of lost some meaning. It'll be either two or three years next week since I got divorced officially... might be good to know which it is.) *gets curious and goes away to look* *comes back a few minutes later* (The divorce was finalized on January 7th, 2008. So I guess I'm close to the two year mark now... two years on Thursday. I'll have to take cookies to work and make Wendy and Nancy celebrate with me or something.)

Anyway, back to you, 2009... you had some good moments. Getting a new apartment in March was definitely a highlight (and it's hard to believe we've been here nearly a year already!). I am enjoying central heating immensely... after spending winters 2003-2008 without working heat, I doubt I will ever take it for granted again. I also liked the whole FINALLY getting a job in September (after having been unemployed since July of '08) thing. I'm liking this job so far. And I know lots of people think you sucked because they all felt financially crunched and didn't have as much money as they were used to having, but I didn't mind it too much. I've always been dirt poor, and I think I was actually less dirt poor in 2009 than I have ever been. So thank you for that, anyway.

Yes, I'm kind of reluctant to let you go and move into the uncertainties of 2010, but time marches on and I guess so must I. If you get a chance to have a word with 2010 on your way out, tell it I'm getting pretty tired of being single (like I have been since about May of 2003) and see if there's anything it can do about that. A new decade should bring change, shouldn't it? : )

Sincerely,
Me

The Obligatory 2009 Top-Ten List...

2009-12-31T17:19:00.000-08:00

I have totally lost count of how many top-ten lists I've read or glanced at in the last week or two. Also some very clever videos promising to give me the highlights of the entire decade in 3 or 7 minutes... the 7-minute one was better and had fewer mentions of Britney Spears. It also had the perk of ending with "and President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Collectively, Americans go, "huh?!" Good times...

So anyway, I'm going to sit here and totally improvise my own top-ten list with the highlights of this year (just this year, forget the rest of the decade!) from my own narrow, egocentric perspective. Enjoy!

#1) Moving to the apartment. By far the most exciting thing to happen to me in ages, and a huge change toward the positive. Spidermice, I miss thee not!

#2) Starting a new job. So far I like Head Start, even if some of the rules are a little funny to me.

#3) Brand spanking new friends (but not for spanking). The CTG, Lorena, Wendy, Nancy, Tazzy... people who make my days (and my job) more fun.

#4) Finally getting a guitar. Talked about it for ages, finally did it in May.

#5) "Life Starts Now" by Three Days Grace. Had to wait until September for that one, but it was worth the wait.

#6) The Coiled Crap Hound and the Disco Newt. Thanksgiving will never be the same again.

#7) Finally making it to "hard" on drums on Rock Band. Might sound lame to you, but it wasn't easy to overcome years of CRD!

#8) Learning to drink water. I drink 2 liters every day at work. Formerly on the rare occasion I drank water, my liver would sputter at me and demand "What the heck is that stuff?! Are you trying to poison me?!"

#9) Cinnamon Candy Canes. Those may have existed before this year, but I just found them for the first time. A real nice thing for those of us that like Chrsitmas but hate peppermint.

#10) Homemade tortillas. How did we get by without those?

Song o' the Day: "Life Starts Now" by Three Days Grace

Forced Creativity/The Quest for the Holy Grail...

2009-12-27T21:39:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I did a mini-vacation from the blog because of the whole Christmas thing, and I'm sure absolutely NOBODY actually noticed or cared. Except for me, and that's enough I suppose.

Anyway, the story I want to relate first takes place on Christmas Eve Eve (That's December 23rd for those of you who can't sort this stuff out). The scene: Allison (sister sib extraordinaire) and I are out trying to get all the shopping done. Also important to note is that on December 16th my class made tortillas at work and I learned how, and I was given the leftover masa mix and told where (supposedly) I could buy a tortilla press. Specifically I was told WinCo. So when Allison and I were up on 82nd in Clackamas where there's a WinCo, I decreed that we should venture in and search for the tortilla press. It was INSANE in there... way too many people and no tortilla presses.

This was a scenario that would repeat at Fred Meyer, K-Mart, Haggen, (all in Oregon City) and Wal-Mart and Mega Foods (in Woodburn). Though we were having great fun out running around shopping and trying to make an innuendo of some sort out of every street sign we saw (that was some hilarity there!), the tortilla press had become the Holy Grail of the shopping trip... none were to be found anywhere, even in a Wal-Mart where I can pretty much be the only white person in there.

I was about to give up standing despondently in the Hispanic Foods aisle of Mega Foods when lo and behold, there came a man whose son I used to teach at MES. The kid was also with him and I said hi to both of them. Then I decided there was no harm in asking, so I asked the guy (who happens to be Mexican) if he knew where in the world I might find a tortilla press. He gave me the name of a little Mexican tienda up in the "little Mexico" section of town... that strip where nearly every store and business is owned and run by Mexicans and the majority of the signage is in Spanish. If I didn't speak Spanish I might have been a little freaked about going there, but I do and so we charged on boldly to find the store.

We arrived there shortly before 9 p.m. (we had been out shopping since about 1) and they looked at us a little strangely as we wandered up and down aisles looking at the imported candy. Allison's primary comments were "What's this?" and "Can we buy some?" The place did have a number of tortilla presses, but they were wooden rather than metal and looked more decorative than functional. No Holy Grail. After almost giving up in despair even at that store, I noticed a corner window display area that we hadn't stepped into yet. And there, in a crate on the floor, were about five metal tortilla presses.

Holy Grail found. Much rejoicing in the camp.

So on Christmas Eve, the Chamaco and I made tortillas. Or I should say really he made tortillas... he rolled the dough into balls and pressed the tortillas, and I just fried the suckers up. About halfway through the tortilla making process I realized I had no idea what we were going to put on the tortillas, so I went digging through the cupboards. I found a can of chicken, a can of corn and some cheese and tossed all three into a skillet. It was surprisingly good... the Chamaco said it was the best dinner he's ever had.

Christmas came and went really quick like it always does, and I realized that we have not much food and not much money with which to buy food until approximately the 2nd of January. So tonight I've been digging around seeing what I can find to feed us for the next week or so. I went by Grocery Outlet and picked up those cheap food staples that I don't really know what to do with... dry beans, rice (the regular kind, not the Rice-a-Roni kind with flavors), some corn... going to be getting creative with that and the tortillas during the next week. We'll see how it turns out.

The changes a year can bring...

2009-12-19T20:49:00.000-08:00

Comparing Christmas season '08 and Christmas season '09...

LAST YEAR: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
THIS YEAR: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.

LAST YEAR: I was unemployed.
THIS YEAR: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly poeple who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.

LAST YEAR: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
THIS YEAR: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!

LAST YEAR: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
THIS YEAR: An organization called to offer me a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needs it worse than I do. After I hung up I realized what I had just been able to say and I almost cried.

LAST YEAR: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
THIS YEAR: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.

LAST YEAR: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
THIS YEAR: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.

LAST YEAR: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
THIS YEAR: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.

LAST YEAR: I was single.
THIS YEAR: Still single... no change there. : )

Thank you God for filling 2009 with so many positive changes!

Song o' the Day: "Blessed" by Martina McBride. It fits. Listen to it here.

I less-than-three "rounded swag"!

2009-12-16T10:23:00.000-08:00

The last few days have been riddled with hilarity and brand new catch phrases, so I shall sum up the best I can. :) A few new entries to the encyclopedia/dictionary are in order.

LESS-THAN-THREE (v.): Some of my more Facebook savvy friends have informed me that in order to make those silly little hearts that everyone is so fond of sticking in their status messages, you use the < (less than) symbol, followed by the number three ( <3, get it?). This strikes me as hilarious, and has caused me to go around exclaiming, "OMG! I totally less-than-three you!"

SWANKY LOUNGE, THE (n.): The little corner of the office at SR with a couch and a water cooler in it.

SWANKY FLYSWATTER, THE (n.): The flyswatter hanging in the swanky lounge.

SWAG, ROUNDED (n.): Due to the strict non-celebration policy at work (we do not acknowledge any holidays at all... we might make seasonal projects such as snowmen, but not Christmas trees), I was a little baffled last night at Family Night when I noticed a number of families making something that looked suspiciously like a wreath. (This was made even more funny because earlier in the day one of the teachers was told that she shouldn't have put the wreath picture on something she sent home with the children because it was a holiday symbol). I was informed by one of my co-workers that it was a "rounded swag". I thought that was hilarious as I went about pointing out how a great many of the "rounded swags" had something suspiciously looking like Santa Claus attached to them, and also how my co-worker's own "rounded swag" had the word "NOEL" prominently displayed. We agreed that this was certainly not in any way a holiday statement and that it only meant to signify that the alphabet now has only twenty-five letters.

Another coworker then pointed out that wreaths, as she so boldly refers to them, come in many varieties, not necessarily tied in with any specific holiday... for example, your autumn wreath. Dang it, she's right! Now if only we could beat that through the heads of the administration! Honestly I would have more patience with this policy if we actually had a family among our three classrooms that doesn't celebrate Christmas... but we don't. So "rounded swags" for all, and a joyous no-12th-letter-of-the-alphabet!

WHADDYACALLIT (n.): I had no word for this last thing, but it's pretty hilarious. We have this chair at work that is broken... the backrest, instead of being at the level of the middle of your back, is at about the level of your butt. Lorena and I have had great fun over the last few weeks trying to imagine the body structure of someone who could sit comfortably in that chair, and last night before Family Night we decided we needed to try to make this guy. Thank God for internet, MAD magazine, copiers, and old socks... Also for Lorena, because I less-than-three her.

Initially we tried making this guy with some gloves, but Lorena decided her own hands would probably work better. Apparently he is "voguing" in this first picture, which is an 80s fad that I totally missed what with not having been socially conscious for most of the 80s.

Song o' the Day: "This Time Imperfect" by AFI. For no particular reason other than that it has been in my head a lot.

The coolest Chinese lady ever...

2009-12-10T23:59:00.000-08:00

I went bowling with Audra tonight. In the second game I got 104 points, which I think is a record for me. Yay! (Yes, I know I suck, thank you.)

Anyway, after bowling we goed Happy Famiry (which in my family is code for "we went to Happy Family, which is a Chinese restaurant here in Mo-Holla run by authentic Chinese people with authentic Chinese accents). And we couldn't help but notice the large and colorful display of not-so-authentic flowers on the table, seen below.

Not the sort of thing you could easily miss, right? Actually when we went into the restaurant, they told us we could sit anywhere we wanted since we were the only people there and I immediately selected the table with the large tacky neon flowers because I am attracted to bright and shiny objects sometimes.

Anyway, while we were deciding what to order, Audra noticed that the waitress was sitting at another table (remember, we were the only customers in the restaurant at shortly after 8 p.m., so she wasn't that busy) making roses out of ribbon. The flowers on our table were also made of ribbon - though much more intricate than the roses - and logical deduction geniuses that we are, we made a connection.

When the waitress came over to take our order, I asked her, "Did you make these?" She said she did, and that each flower took about 40 minutes to do. She also said that the roses she was doing now only took about two minutes. And then she directed our attention to a large mobile hanging from the ceiling, and if memory serves me she said it had taken her ten hours to make that. We were much impressed and praised her artistry because, hey, we can't make flowers out of ribbon.

She was very attentive all through the course of our meal, visiting our table no less than half a dozen times to ask if we needed anything, if everything was all right, etc. And after we'd paid the bill and were getting ready to leave, she said, "Wait, I have something for you nice ladies." And she handed each of us one of the roses she'd been making. I haven't got a picture of it yet, but perhaps I'll add it later... it's quite cool.

Now all I need to do is get Kyle in there to tell me if they're speaking Mandarin or Cantonese. I surely can't tell the difference. :)

Song o' the Day: "Silver and Cold" by AFI. Oh how I tire of these sub-freezing temperatures!

Chuckling evilly to myself...

2009-12-10T10:03:00.000-08:00

This morning I took the Chamaco to school along with 30 cupcakes. His birthday was yesterday, you see, but he wasn't in school yesterday because he went to Seaside with his dad. His teacher said it would be okay for him to bring in a treat today though. So I sent him to school with loads of sugar for his little friends and said a quick prayer of thanksgiving that I have a class of 17 3, 4 and 5 year olds who will not have sugar today as opposed to a class of 26 second graders who will be quite hopped up.

Why 30 cupcakes for 26 kids, you ask? Because the cupcakes come in boxes of 12 or 6. Two boxes of 12 would not have been enough for everyone, so I got 2 12s and a 6.

Know what the Chamaco got for his birthday from his other grandpa? $75. But here's the fun part... $50 of it is in $1 bills. The other $25 is in quarters.

Gotta love relatives with a weird sense of humor. His dad gave him a dictionary.

The super-amazing blog/Christmas list/Top 10 list!

2009-12-06T20:59:00.000-08:00

To the maybe two of you who noticed/cared, I apologize for the lack of posting over the last few days. I have been sick as a dog (too sick to play Rock Band, even!). I am still sick as a dog, but now getting bored with it and ornery about it, which means recovery can't be too far behind... just in time for work tomorrow! This is nicely ironic, because I started getting seriously ill about two hours after I got home from work Thursday (which is Friday for me). At least cold viruses are respectful of my work schedule. On the plus side, I got a new 20" widescreen monitor for my desktop computer, which makes everything I put on it look pretty (and makes my sims look kind of short and squatty if I try to run the game fullscreen. I've found that running it in windowed mode works much better). You may see the screen in all its glory in the following picture:

I am particularly pleased with this monitor because I got it cheaply. Someone had returned it to Best Buy because of some "superficial scratches on the base", so they'd re-boxed it and knocked 20 bucks off the price. Me, I'm not much looking at the base and I don't care if there are a few "superficial" scratches on it, so I said "Okay, I'll take that one." Which is good because it was the only one they had... they apparently sold out on Black Friday and this one came back. So I took the poor (superficially) battered thing in and gave it a nice home.

Being sick has given me ample opportunity to do something I try not to do that much... sit around and passively stare at pretty moving pictures on a screen. I'm talking movies/television here, people. Not my favorite thing in the world. Many of you are under the impression that I don't watch movies or TV at all. This is very nearly true. The only TV show I watch with any frequency at all is "House", and I only watch movies that appeal to my fairly limited interests (and usually I get up several times during because I don't like sitting for that long without doing anything). However, to say that I don't like movies at all would be a lie. So I scratched around and came up with a top ten list comprised of my favorite movies and TV series. Some of them may surprise you, others may leave you scratching your head and wondering, "What the ****?!" That's usually the reaction I'm trying for in these blogs. : )

My rating scale for these can be summed up as "Can I watch this show/movie repeatedly without wanting to barf, and if so, how many times could I watch it before I barfed?" So I would barf shortly after only a few repititions of the #10 item, but could probably watch the #1 indefinitely with no nausea whatsoever. Enjoy!

#10 - "Pirates of the Caribbean" (movies 1 and 2... I didn't bother buying the third)
Had they not made the second movie, I probably could have given this franchise a higher rating. However, each movie was progressively worse aside from the fact that Johnny Depp was still hot in all of them. Seriously, if it wasn't for his Keith Richards-esque portrayal of Jack Sparrow (Captain!) nobody would bother with these films at all.
Vomit Tolerance: About 3 repititions

#9 - "A Bit of Fry and Laurie"
Most of you yanks (Allison and Audra excluded, because they hang out with me enough) are probably not aware of this sketch comedy series that aired in England in the late 80s/early 90s. Sucks to be you. Some of you might recognize the "Laurie" bit of "Fry and Laurie" as being Hugh Laurie who is now internationally known for playing... DR. HOUSE! This just proves that even when my interests diversify, there's a connection. This show is undoubtedly funnier if you're British, but having a smattering of knowledge of British slang/politics lets you in on a good bit of the humour. It also helps to have a Brit on call who can explain to you the stuff you don't understand. (Hi Wong!)
Vomit Tolerance: Can watch all 4 seasons about 3 times yearly.

#8 - "Animaniacs"
This one would have undoubtedly ranked higher were it not for the Chamaco and his tendency to watch things so often that I hate them, even when I started out liking them. But I loved this show as a child (well, middle schooler... that was how old I was when it was on), and now having bought two volumes on DVD as an adult and watched them with my own child I am pleased to announce that most of the more adult humor sails right over the Chamaco's head just as it did mine when I was younger. This show truly has something for everyone, and adults and children find it amusing albeit for completely different reasons.
Vomit Tolerance: Can watch both volumes we own about 4 times yearly.

#7 - "Finding Nemo"
We got this movie accidentally sort of. Wong was fishing about for a good 4th birthday gift for the Chamaco, and I suggested a kids movie, and together we settled on this one which neither of us had seen. In the end, I think I liked it better than the Chamaco does. This is still one of my favorite Disney movies, right up there with Mulan (which someone should get me for Christmas, thus bringing in the Christmas list part), and Lilo and Stitch (which I already own, thanks). There's enough humor and action to keep the kids interested, yes, but for adults - and particularly the parent ones - it's a rather touching story about learning to let go of your growing child a little. Someone pointed out to me the other day (I forget who it was) that "Nemo" is Latin for "no one". Clever play there, Disney.
Vomit Tolerance: I can watch this one once every couple of months.

#6 - "Eating Raoul"
Put the kids to bed early for this one! Okay, this is a bad 80's movie and most of you have probably never heard of it. I bought it initally because it has Robert Beltran in it, who some of you may know as Chakotay off Star Trek Voyager, who I had a huge crush on for about a decade. This movie is hilariously twisted as far as plot goes, and the acting is hilariously bad for the most part. The plot centers on a very prudish married couple (separate beds and all) living in L.A. in the middle of the swinger scene. They want to open a restaurant, but can't get the money. They come up with this grand idea to lure the swingers (who "no one would ever miss") to their apartment and kill them for their money because they're always so wealthy. Enter Raoul (Beltran) who accidently stumbles onto their scheme (while robbing their house) and offers to help them get rid of the bodies. Hilarity ensues... trust me.
Best line: "Honey, would you mind picking up another frying pan? I'm just a little squeamish about cooking in the one we've been using to kill people."
Vomit Tolerance: I've seen it often enough to have it memorized, but I could watch it just about anytime the urge struck me.

#5 - "Lilo and Stitch"
Best Disney movie ever. (Sorry Mulan.) I totally dig the more realistic portrayal of life in this movie, and the message that family sticks together no matter what. Then you throw in aliens. How can it go wrong? Stitch is awesome, don't get me wrong, but for me it's Lilo that makes the movie. I could totally see myself in her place... a little kid with high intelligence, an overactive imagination, and some weird obsessions (pictures of fat tourists, anyone?). For me the real winner is when the social worker comes over and Lilo is sitting on the floor shaking some spoons with faces on them in a jar of pickle juice with a book titled "Practical Voodoo" at her feet. "My friends need to be punished," she intones. Hysterical!
Vomit Tolerance: One time the Chamaco made me watch it almost every day for a month. That was too much.

#4 - "Batman Beyond"
This was airing on TV when I was in high school, and I used to look forward to it every day. For those of you who don't know, this is second-generation Batman... Bruce Wayne has given up the game because he's an old geezer. Enter Terry McGinnis and a spiffed-up batsuit. Actually, everything is spiffed up... Gotham looks way more futuristic complete with flying cars (and most of the signs rather suspiciously in Japanese), the villains are spiffed up (even the old ones who come back, and there are bunches of new ones), and even the theme music is way more listenable. I own seasons 1 and 3... someone really needs to get me season 2 (and any others that might exist) for Christmas! : )
And best of all... no rubber nipples on the batsuit!
Vomit Tolerance: Put in another DVD! Seriously, the Chamaco and I have watched an entire season in one evening before.

#3 - "Dogma"
Another one to put the kids to bed early for. Not recommended for people with no sense of humor when it comes to religion (Catholics in particular, consider yourselves warned). One of the less religiously offensive things about this movie is that God is a woman (played by Alanis Morissette) and it goes downhill from there. My fave part is the whole "Walrus and the Carpenter" scene where one of the "fallen angels" convinces a nun to abandon her faith based on the poem about the Walrus and the Carpenter, made doubly ironic (as his friend shortly points out) by the fact that, "You know there's a God. You've been in his presence!" This film is also notable for being one of the last decent films Ben Affleck was in (ouch!) and for having Jay and Silent Bob in it.
Vomit Tolerance: Pretty high. I'm sure there's a limit, but I haven't found it yet.

#2 - "Shrek" (1, 2 & 3)
I own and adore all three of these movies. And when I get tired of them in English, I switch the audio over and watch them in Spanish... whole new movie! This is one series that has not lost anything from the first movie to the third (and indeed the second movie was arguably better than the first, but this is what usually happens when Antonio Banderas is involved). I hear there's a fourth one in the works. I sincerely hope they don't screw that one up.
Vomit Tolerance: Amazingly high.

#1 - "The Crow"
Yeah, sort of a jump there from animated comedy to gritty drama, huh? I think a lot of people, upon watching The Crow, get caught up in all the revenge, death and violence and miss the point... The Crow is the ultimate love story. It's about a love so strong that nothing can stop it... not even ~~death~~ violent murder on the eve of your wedding. Even so, there is enough violence, sex, drugs, etc. in the movie to make it unsuitable for children and faint-hearted adults. Also the soundtrack is pretty awesome.
Vomit Tolerance: Pretty limitless.

Song o' the Day: "Love Like Winter" by AFI... stuck in my head today since it never got above 35 degrees and the video is very snowy. See it here.

This morning....

2009-12-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

I staggered out into the hallway toward the bathroom, still rubbing at my eyes and trying to get my brain to engage, and I happened to glance at the stairs. The Chamaco was sitting there on the stairs, playing his DS.

"What are you doing?" I asked him. (Though at that stage of morning it probably sounded more like "Whuttreyadooin?")

He looked me in the eye and said, "I decided I didn't want you to boss me around this morning, so I got up and got dressed and got my coat and shoes on. I didn't brush my teeth yet, though... you can tell me to do that."

I tried to make sense of this for a moment, then I asked, "Did you remember to get your snack for school?"

"Yep," he said. "I already told you... the only thing I didn't do is brush my teeth."

So I left him there on the stairs and went about my morning routine, issuing exactly zero orders for small people to get their shoes on or whatever. It was sort of oddly silent. Then came the point when I went downstairs and opened the blinds on the kitchen window to let some light in, and realized that everything was white out there (frost, not snow). A glance at the thermometer (33!) made me decide I wanted to go back to bed. Unfortunately that's a no-go on Wednesdays (and pretty much every other day of the week too). And then the Chamaco came downstairs ready to go out to the bus, and I looked at him and said, "Get a warmer coat. It's all icy out there."

"What?!" he demanded in that tone of derision that he has mastered so perfectly. This is his standard response anytime I tell him to do anything he doesn't want to do. He likes the flimsy little gray jacket, and he argued with me about whether or not he should have to put on a different coat for a few minutes. But I prevailed, got him into a warmer coat and gloves, and we headed out to the bus stop. As soon as we stepped out the door, he exclaimed, "Brr! It's cold out here!"

"Like I said," I reminded him. "See? Sometimes I still know stuff."

I don't know why, but it seems especially lately I'm on a quest to prove that I'm still relevant as a parent. Aside from cooking meals and washing clothes, he can now do pretty much everything else for himself. I even left him home by himself for 10 minutes the other night while I ran to the store to get some milk after I discovered that ours was more of a chewy solid than it was a liquid. He didn't die or burn the house down. In fact, when I got home he said, "I didn't even move the whole time you were gone." And indeed, he was sitting on the couch playing Wii right where I had left him ten minutes previous.

With his 8th birthday now a mere week away, I'm struggling to get my mind around the concept that the part of parenting where he is completely dependent on me for his every physical need is over. Now comes the hard part... it falls to me to try to guide him as he develops mentally, emotionally and socially, and to help him make good choices for himself until his brain matures. Yeah, he'll still grow, but his physical development is pretty much going to take care of itself from here on out provided I remember to feed him occasionally. I'm a whole 10 years away from being the parent of a legal adult (don't get me started on whether or not 18 year olds are mentally adult).

And no, that thought does not make me want to have another one, thank you for asking.

The first freeze of winter 09-10 this morning prompted deep ponderings of how much I despise Oregon weather. At one point in the planet's orbit you have to wrap yourself in multiple layers just to keep warm, and a mere six months later you find that your skin is bubbling. I am firmly opposed to all things cold and wet, and this includes rain, snow, and animal noses (especially dogs), which means I live in entirely the wrong state, and especially the wrong part of it. Every time I look out my window in the morning and see the ground is white, it prompts thoughts of hibernation... I could totally see crawling into bed and emerging sometime in late May or early June. I mentioned that this morning to the CTG and how ill-suited for Oregon life I consider myself to be. He shrugged and said, "Lots of animals here hibernate." Well fabulous... all I gotta do is get someone to pay my bills and excuse me from work for the next six months so I can crawl into a hole until the weather is nicer.

Or alternatively, I could move back to Cuernavaca where the weather is fabulous year-round and they have way more thunderstorms. (Did I mention that even the rain in Cuernavaca is generally warm? I had never experienced warm rain until living there.)

This was the view from our bedroom window in Cuernavaca. More of this, please!

It is most assuredly NOT beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

2009-11-29T21:58:00.000-08:00

Around this time of year, many people assume (wrongly) that I don't like Christmas. I groan and cover my ears when I hear Christmas music playing and I make disparaging comments about people who already have their Christmas trees up/Christmas shopping done/houses decorated. This often gets me the "bah-humbugger" label, applied by people who haven't actually picked my brain on the subject.

Let me assure you, nothing could be farther from the truth.

In actual fact, Christmas is one of the precious few holidays that I care about at all (the other three being Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Halloween... though my love for the latter is diminishing a bit). I never liked Valentine's Day, I'm not even remotely Irish (despite the fantastic American melting pot that is my DNA) and I don't drink hardly ever, so I don't give a whooping funt about St. Patrick's Day. Easter is sort of a throwaway holiday to me... it's when the rest of the world finally gets around to celebrating something that I, as a Christian, try to celebrate every day - the resurrection of Christ. And I still don't get what rabbits and eggs are supposed to have to do with that, especially since rabbits don't lay eggs (with the notable exception of the Cadbury Bunny). I only care about New Year's in the sense that I have a legitimate excuse to stay up ridiculously late and hang out with my friends... which is another thing that I would do at any time of the year. Otherwise, hey, a brand new year... just like the last one. Big fat hairy deal.

No, I like Christmas. What I object to is the overcommercialization of Christmas. I object to the fact that Christmas has become 99% about buying stuff and 1% about being with your loved ones (and forget Christ, because we have taken him out of Xmas). I object to having Christmas goods on display as early as late September (August in Cuernavaca, which I think is funny since it doesn't even snow there). In fact, I object to the general retail practice of having your holiday goods in stock at least two months in advance of the actual holiday. Because I assure you, the day after Christmas they will start putting out stuff for Valentine's Day. And once that one is over it'll be Easter merchandise. I object to the fact that the overcommercialization has, for many people, made the holiday season more stressful than enjoyable. I object to the fact that every year my own mother stresses out because she feels like there's not enough money available for us to have a "good" Christmas. At Christmas of 2006 (right after she almost died) I told her that I thought we would all be content this year with the fact that we still have a mom. I don't think she believed me then, and I don't think she believes me still. Don't get me wrong, gifts are nice, but I won't feel Christmas was a failure if there is not a sufficient quantity of gifts under the tree or if the gifts do not add up to great enough of a cash value. I object hugely to that... if you've let your kid get the idea that Christmas sucked this year because he didn't get the $300 gift he wanted (or even the $100 gift he wanted), you and your kid both need a sound beating.

Let me repeat: Christmas is NOT ABOUT STUFF.

Christmas is about being with your loved ones, showing them you care (be that with presents or presence), getting the whole gang together and letting hilarity ensue. Christmas of 2008 in my family will forever be remembered as the Christmas that Dad tried to melt the ice in the driveway with a crab burner so Grandma and Grandpa could get their car out of the driveway. Thanksgiving of 2009 has officially been labeled "the Thanksgiving of the Coiled Crap Hound". I can't wait to see what Christmas 2009 will do... but it's not bloody Christmas yet! I mean, come on people... you just wore yourself out over one holiday! Give yourself a little down time before launching into the next one, why don't you?

I propose a two-week non-holiday period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Also that'll give me time to get my son's birthday celebrated and not have him have to deal with Christmas getting all over a day that is supposed to be about him.

So in closing, yes, I do wish you a Merry Christmas... but not for another couple of weeks, all right?

Much too young to feel this old...

2009-11-28T23:34:00.000-08:00

That red-headed chick was working the self-checkout at Safeway again today. The Chamaco and I were going through the line, he was buying something with the $2 I had just given him for helping me return cans, and I was teaching him how to use the self-checkout machine thingie. And that girl came up to me again (she has spoken to me before) and this time she asked, "Is he your kid?"

"Yep." The Chamaco replied for me. Which I guess gives me some credibility.

The look of surprise on her face was one I have seen before, and she said in awe, "You don't look old enough to have a kid!"

Shrugging and going about my checkout, I said, "I'm twenty-seven and he'll be eight in a bit over a week."

"But you don't look twenty-seven!" she protested. "And I think I've told you that before."

"Yes you have, lady, but you telling me that doesn't magically make me the nineteen you think I look," I thought but did not say.

There are two times of year when I get a little cranky about my age. One of them is when my birthday is approaching. The other is when the Chamaco's birthday is approaching. Unfortunately the two events are only about three months apart, so just when I get over feeling old because of my birthday, it's time for his.

If you want to be technical, no, I'm not old enough to have a kid who is eight. Because that would mean I had him when I was 19, and that would just be... oh, wait a minute. I did have him when I was 19. And technically I could have had him much sooner... I mean, a friend of mine in high school gave birth when she'd been 15 for a week or two. So really, speaking in the strictest of biological senses, I am more than old enough to have a child who is on the verge of turning eight. But every time I have to add a year to his age in my head, I feel about two years older myself.

It doesn't help that he's now old enough to be capable of reminding me verbally how young I'm not. One day while we were driving in the car, a Seether song came on the radio and the Chamaco asked me, "How old is this band?"

"Well, they started in 1999, so about ten years old," I said. Because this is the sort of trivia I know about Seether.

"How about Nirvana? How old is that band?"

I thought a moment. "I'm not sure when they started, but I think they ended in 1993 when Kurt Cobain died. So at least 16 years." (And boy did that make me feel old.)

With an air of frustration, the Chamaco asked, "Do you know any bands that I'm older than?" Having to admit that I couldn't think of one off the top of my head (that both of us would know) was kind of sad for me. I felt ancient.

That being said, I know I don't look my age. People I meet and ask to guess my age usually guess somewhere around 19. The good folks down at Bi-Mart card me to buy fireworks every July (for my non-Oregon friends, you have to be 16 to buy fireworks here). And most people, upon meeting me and my sister together, assume she is older (she is eight years younger). Still, sometimes I feel like a real dinosaur. I'm sure it's something psychological. But the good news is that I'll be 37 when the Chamaco graduates high school. If I avoid having any more children maybe I'll get to have another go at that being a teenager thing that I never really did the first time around.

In unrelated news, I talked to Smiley Dick today, which is something I try to avoid. I couldn't help but notice two things... he has shaved off all his hair, and he was smoking a cigarette. I was surprised by both, because he is fond of his hair and he had led me to believe that he quit smoking. So I asked him, "When did you start that up again?"

"This?" he asked me, waving the cigarette about. "You're presuming that I actually stopped."

"Well, yes, because you told me you had quit," I pointed out.

"No more so than you'd quit eating chocolate," he said.

I refrained from pointing out how retarded of a statement that was for a few reasons. First, I didn't want to continue the conversation. Second, I don't actually eat chocolate hardly at all. And third, most people aren't addicted to chocolate, thus they don't need to "quit" chocolate, and nobody notices if they don't have chocolate for a month or two and then they start back up again... and as excited as he was when he "quit" smoking, you could tell it was a big deal to him. I don't expect to get a text from him telling me that he's "quit" eating chocolate. Also nobody thinks it odd if a kid starts eating chocolate when he's 11 (other than maybe it's weird he didn't do it sooner). But one of the things I'm getting really good at with Smiley Dick is learning when to just smile and walk away so I don't have to have these arguments which will make him shake his head at me in that despairing fashion of his, as though I am just so unbelievably stupid because I cannot grasp his higher-level wisdom.

There's a reason we're divorced.

Song o' the Day: "Bitter Taste" by Three Days Grace. (In honor of S.D. Go look up the lyrics.)

Quote o' the Day: "Something awkward just happened in my kitchen!"
-and-
"Just so you know, Damian and Mindy are in bed. He's showing her how to use the force."

Really I should have switched those two around, because the latter quote was what led to the former. :-)

Creation appreciation...

2009-11-27T20:41:00.000-08:00

And a big thanks to "Barney" for reminding me of this hilarious term that I haven't heard in quite some time.

I read an article once about how Church of Christ lingo sounds odd to non-members (I wish I could remember where I read that and what terms it said were odd). And I am just imagining to myself a conversation in which I try to explain to Wong the meaning of the term "creation appreciation" and how ridiculous he will think it is. I'm giggling now just thinking of it (but then, this often happens to me when thinking about Wong, because he happens to be one of my favorite creations to appreciate).

So anyway, following up on the spirit of Thanksgiving, I've decided to provide an illustrated list of my favorite creations to appreciate... with the exclusion of Wong, because he doesn't like to give me pictures of himself. (If you're reading this, cariño, know that you're only left off the list because you like to torment me by not giving me pictures. So there, butt-head.)

Creation #1: Shaun Morgan
Now here is a creation I could appreciate all day.... This particular creation is appreciated quite a bit on my bedroom walls. And then there's the green guitar, the voice, the sense of humor.... it's not all about looks, you know!

Creation #2: Perttu Kivilaakso
Because cellos are sexy, cellists are sexy, and cellists who play metal music and beat on their cello with the bow and run about the stage holding aloft an instrument with a 2 foot spike on it are triply sexy. Also Perttu can rock the top hat, which is one of those difficult hats to rock. You must be a real man to wear the top hat, otherwise the top hat wears you.

Creation #3: Cristiano Migliore
Sense a pattern developing? Long haired foreign musician types seem to do it for me. Anyway, this one's Italian (the previous two were South African and Finnish, if you're wondering), he's a guitarist, and I really don't care that his nose is that big. (Sister-sibling and I were discussing this subject in the car earlier. She is opposed to Italian noses.) Note, that's a seven-string guitar he's holding. The guitar is also quite sexy.

Creation #4: Brandon Lee
Sadly, this is the only creation on my list who is actually dead now. Still, The Crow is high on my list of favorite movies, mostly because this guy here plays the part well.

Creation #5: Batman (the Terry McGinnis incarnation)
This is mostly a bonus creation, but I love this character. He's not bad looking for a cartoon guy, but the sense of humor is the clincher. I like the way the guy thinks. Also the new batsuit is way cool. The Chamaco and I have been watching a ton of Batman Beyond lately (someone needs to get me the second season for Christmas... hint hint!).

Creation #6: The CTG
Yes, he has a name. No, I won't mention it here. No, I do not have a picture (more's the pity). But he's married anyway. Still, he's often the highlight of my Wednesday mornings. Nothing wrong with appreciating God's creation a little, right? :-)

Song o' the Day: "Breath" by Breaking Benjamin. Yes, I'm on a Breaking Benjamin kick.

Video 'o the Day: Today you get a two-fer. Look here and here. Both of these make me ridiculously happy.

Hiohhhhhh!

2009-11-26T11:22:00.000-08:00

I think that must be British for "Happy Thanksgiving", but it's hard to tell some days. ;-)

(Note: "Hiohhhhhh!" should be read as sort of a ninja yell. I have a sound file but I don't know how to add it to the blog.)

So, Thanskgiving... commence the obligatory blog on stuff I'm thankful for.

1. Wong, in all his "hiohhhhhh"-ing British silliness.
2. My large, crazy, extended functional/dysfunctional family.
3. My larger, crazier, even more extended functional/dysfunctional church family.
4. The spiders, for staying out of my bathtub until after I'd showered today.
5. Having a house with heat this winter. I'm loving it.
6. Humans with deranged minds... I'm thinking mostly of the guys who made "Monty Python" and the guys who made "Eating Raoul" here.
7. My coworkers (especially Lorena, who always makes me laugh) and my "other 17 kids", for helping me not take life too seriously. ("Soy un tiger! Rawr!")
8. Seether, Nirvana, Lacuna Coil, Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, and all the other purveyors of the loud stuff that keeps me going from day to day.
9. The makers of Diet Coke.
10. The CTG, for making my Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays a bit more bearable.
11. Eleanore, for the best turkey I've ever had at lunch yesterday. You rock.

Blog not moving after all!

2009-11-24T00:35:00.000-08:00

It didn't take me real long to figure out that I don't like WordPress that much at all. So I shut that one down, and now I am back here and plan to stay. :-)

Had the Chamaco's conference today. Academically he's fine. Behaviorally... he's seven. His teacher and I discussed our plans to secure his coat to his body with a staple gun. No, just kidding, but I got the impression that his teacher was about to consider something drastic. She suggested sending him to school without it and letting him freeze, in that sort of "I'm joking but I wish I were serious" way. Who knew a kid could be so obnoxious with a coat?

Most shocking to me was the fact that he had perfect attendance this trimester... 54 out of 54 days, he was in class like a good little monkey. I don't think that's ever happened before.

Anyway, I'm hoping to get to have a nice chat with the CTG tomorrow morning since I haven't hardly seen him in a couple of weeks... sad! This having a life thing does not leave much time in my schedule for stalking gas station attendants.

And for those of you who missed the announcement over on the other, short-lived blog, I am back on Facebook in a limited sort of way. No games, no silly time-wasting survey things (unless someone is in the hospital and I'm killing time in the waiting room or something, maybe)... just I post a status message, read yours, then I go buh-bye. Don't invite me to join your mafia, 'cause I won't. Nor will I tend your farm.

Song o' the Day: "So Cold" by Breaking Benjamin. I highly recommend seeing the video for this song here if you missed it because you didn't read the other blog. I do love a good music video, and this is one of those cool ones that sort of tells a story but leaves a lot of unanswered questions. (Like, what did that dude do to get into this situation?)

Bonus Song o' the Day: You get an extra today since the other is actually yesterday's and was posted on the other blog. Today's song is actually "Without You" by Three Days Grace. It's from their new album that came out in September called Life Starts Now, and it's actually a very good album. And I like the cover art.

Blog Moving...

2009-11-22T21:46:00.000-08:00

So, the whole colorful cast of characters (Wong, the CTG, Caveman Fred, Emo Steve, etc.) and I are moving to a new blog site I'm trying out for a while to see if I like it better. If I don't, I'll be back. You can follow our adventures on the new blog at: http://meaganmireya.wordpress.com/

Go there. There's a good link to a music video. And there'll be more good stuff later when I'm awake, I promise. Oh, also a news bulletin of interest to at least four of you will be posted shortly.

Teenagers need soccer!

2009-11-19T23:15:00.000-08:00

(Note: Those of you whose eyes glaze over when I talk about languages - I'm looking at you, Wong/Muffinhead - should skip down to where you see the asterisks. There's cool stuff after that point and I'd hate for you to miss it because your eyes have glazed over.)

So today I was down in the basement of the SR center and I saw a pair of posters on the wall... the English version proclaiming, "Teenagers need calcium!" (why we have this in a preschool, I'm not sure) and its Spanish twin, "Los adolescentes necesitan calcio!" And I burst into hysterical giggles, because I'm a language nerd.

Perhaps I should explain.

"Calcio", which means "calcium" in Spanish, also happens to mean "soccer" in Italian (though it does mean "calcium" as well... I'm sure that would be confusing if we made an Italian poster to go with the other two).

For those of you who are curious (probably none of you, but oh well), the Italian name for soccer, "calcio", comes from the verb "calciare", which means "to kick". "Calcio" in Italian is also a noun in the sense of "a kick", as in "I gave him a swift calcio in the rear." I find this a bit less sensible than Spanish, which calls soccer "futbol" (foot + ball... not that complicated).

Really the ones who don't make sense are us Americans. (And that sentence.) Where do we get off calling it "soccer" when the entire rest of the world is pretty much calling it "football" (or at least nouning a verb related to kicking)? I mean, even in German - one of the weirder languages I've been exposed to - the game is called "Fußbol". (That weird B thingie sounds like an S, for those of you who don't speak German.)

And now for an end to the lingustic maundering and a beginning to me saying something slightly meaningful.

*****

This afternoon I spent some time under an umbrella with a three year old girl that I don't particularly like. Sure, she can be sweet when she wants to be, but usually if I come home from work wanting to shake a child, she's the one.

It bears mentioning that we were indoors. Sitting on the floor. Under an umbrella.

"It's raining really fast!" she said to me. And she looked up at the umbrella, the and in the light filtering down through the ladybug pattern I could see that she had that look in her eyes... the one that adults don't get anymore unless they've been doing hallucinogenics. It's that look little kids get when they're seeing something you can't see. For her, it really was raining fast in that room.

"Wow, looks like it's raining pretty hard," I commented. "Is it making lots of puddles?"

"Yes," she said. "And mud. You better get on the chair so your butt doesn't get wet."

I got in the chair. Her hugely pregnant mother scowled at me for the ease with which I got off the floor. And the little girl climbed in my lap and held the umbrella over our heads, and together we watched the rain.

Stuff you learn from three year olds....

2009-11-18T21:56:00.000-08:00

Probably I've made mention of Yeymi before. She's one of my favorite small people. She does not speak English, per se, though she is learning rather rapidly. This being the case, she tends to stick pretty close to me as I am our center's designated speaker of español. She is also hugely introverted... when we go to play outside her first impulse is to sit down at a table and watch everyone else with those big brown eyes of hers. We're supposed to try to get them to interact with others, so usually it falls to me to get her away from that table, which is fine. First I taught her to go down slides... the first several times I had to hold on to her all the way down. (Good thing the slides are short, 'cause tall I ain't.) Then I had to promise to catch her at the bottom, and even then she would hesitate a good long while at the top, deciding whether or not she really trusted me to catch her. Then she started doing it by herself. Then she wanted to climb up the slide, but she kept slipping and many, many times exclaimed, "Me voy a caer!" (I'm going to fall!) So I had to teach her to use the soles of her shoes rather than her knees. And now she climbs slides. And now we're working on the monkey bars. And that is all well and good, but I taught her something way cooler today.

All our kids have a journal, and their name is printed across the top of every page. The instructions we give them every day are, "Write your name any way you want, and then draw a picture." Some of them don't actually write their names, but some of them are three so that's okay. Yeymi is a very young three, and usually she just draws pictures. Then yesterday at journal time I was sitting next to her and I asked her if she wanted to write her name and she said she didn't know how. So I held her little hand in mine, she held the marker, and I guided her hand to make the letters. And it dawned on me... She's been sitting there all these weeks staring at those letters, and no one has showed her how to form them. As adults, we take writing the letter Y for granted, but when you're three that's kind of a daunting letter, getting all those lines to connect up right, and she's got two of those suckers in her name! And then what about the lower case "e"? And the "m"? (She was all over the "i", though... that one was easy.) It never occured to me that she might just be sitting there waiting for someone to come along and guide her... "Okay, this is how you do Y..."

So today we get out the journals and the very first thing Yeymi does is look at me and go, "Ayúdame!" (Help me!) So I sat down by her and held her little hand in mine again (she is so tiny!) and we did one page with me guiding her hand to make the letters in her name. Then she said she wanted to do another one, so we turned to a clean page and this time I held her hand but I didn't guide her. I was just reassuringly there. And she made the Ys by herself. I had to help her a little with the "e" and the "m", and she did the "i". And she said, "Quiero hacer otro!" (I want to do another one!) So we got a new page, and I held her hand but didn't guide her. And she did the whole thing. The "m" and "e" were a little funky, but not at all bad for being three years and five months old. I could recognize them. And she wanted to do it again. And the next time I didn't even hold her hand and she wrote her name. And she ran off to play (because by that time everyone else was done), and I'm sitting there looking at her little book thinking to myself, "I just taught a kid to write her name."

And so I put the date on the pages she did and put the book away and wondered where she went. Usually she likes to do puzzles (she's a pretty smart little kid), and I expected her to be there, but no... today she was at the writing table, marker in hand, busily writing away. I'd never seen her at the writing table before... usually those four chairs are pretty coveted and she's not pushy enough or big enough to fight for one. I asked her what she was doing and she said, "Estoy haciendo una carta para mi mamá, porque ahora sé escribir." (I'm making a letter for my mom, because I know how to write now.) So I left her to it and moved on to make a train with Angel, and pretty soon Yeymi was there tugging on the hem of my shirt. She just wanted to inform me that she had finished the letter and put it in her cubby to take home, and I said okay and she started playing with trains.

So later I went and peeked at the letter in her cubby because I'm nosy. She had put a few scribbles and a drawing on her "letter", and without looking at anything had done a pretty good approximation of her name at the bottom. And I was thinking to myself, "Man, what is her mom going to say when she sees this? The kid's been in preschool for all of two months and today she brings home a 'letter' with her name written at the bottom. Her mom's gonna cry." And I almost wanted to cry, because my little baby (all 17 of them are my babies) had gone in one afternoon from thinking she couldn't write her name to believing she could write a whole letter to her mom.

It makes me wonder... how many doors would open up to reveal whole new worlds for us, even as adults, if rather than just putting a task in front of us and saying "do this", someone would take the time to sit down and guide us once or twice before letting us fly solo. Would we also go from thinking we'd been given an impossible task to believing we could do above and beyond the task before us?

And I wonder how often we get impatient with people who are struggling to do something they've never been properly shown how to do. Maybe that chick who can't get your order down right at McDonald's is struggling because she was never given a proper tutorial on that touchscreen thing... I used to hate those. Especially since the management kept moving things around. You'd learn where something was and then one day it wouldn't be there anymore, and nobody would have told you where it had gone to. Or you're a dinner hour worker normally, and then they ask you to come in and work breakfast and they get annoyed with you because you don't know where anything is on the stupid touchscreen. (Have some pity on your fast food workers, people... the job is beyond sucky, especially at McDonald's.) And I know a lot of the parents at our center were baffled at first by the sign in/sign out book. There'd be a line of increasingly impatient parents forming behind the one mom who was hesitating, trying to figure out where she needed to write what, and finally I'd go over and ask if she needed help and she'd nod, and I'd show her, and then try not to smile as the two parents behind her watching over her shoulder realize that they've been doing it wrong (quickly, yes, but still wrong).

Since I started working here, I've started seeing the world through the eyes of a three or four year old in little glimpses. I'm taking field trips back to the time when you could just decide that you were going to be Ariel for the rest of the day, when a red wagon could be a bus, and when a climbing structure was a pirate ship... when learning to spell your four-letter name was a HUGE accomplishment (I'm thinking of another one of my three year olds there... Cloe was forgetting the L for a while). And suddenly I'm remembering back to a time when I used to spend entire days making myself Ninja Turtle costumes out of crepe paper and scotch tape and probably driving my mom bonkers. I remember when a windstorm knocked over our apple tree in that nice, pulling-half-the-roots-out-of-the-ground fashion, and once the tree had been cut away and only the tilted over stump remained, the stump became the "turtle van" and the hole where the roots had formerly been was "the sewers".

I miss those days big time. But now for the confessional section....

I suffer from chronic overactive imagination. I played those "let's pretend" games well into my teens. Then I went from acting everything out to just playing out the scenes in my head. That nearly drove me nuts, though, so now I write it down. I have scores of half-written epics on my hard drive... characters I invented, played with for a while, and then got bored with and abandoned. There is always a story going on in my head during any moment of the day in which nobody is actually speaking to me or demanding that I do something, and it usually gets written down in the evenings. Even now, as an adult, I suffer from a very shaky grasp on "reality" and sometimes for me the fantasy/reality line is a very blurry thing. This is why I don't like to watch movies. I don't need someone else's fantasy... I've got plenty of my own. In some ways I'm a three year old functioning as an adult (at least I think I'm functioning as an adult, but due to that fantasy/reality problem, I'm never completely sure). And now I throw song lyrics at you:

Don't bother pretending I seem fine
I like that I'm a mess
I can't stand much longer in my head
But it's not time for a bullet yet...
("So-So Suicide" by Finger Eleven)

Bragging on my kid....

2009-11-17T22:06:00.000-08:00

Tonight was "Family Math Night" at the Chamaco's school, which I wrangled to get out of having to go to work tonight so we could go to. Turned out to be a very positive thing.

Aside from getting free pizza for dinner, the Chamaco played a lot of math games and won raffle tickets. Then he participated in the second grade math competition and kicked serious butt!

Okay, yeah, I know... they're kids, it's all in fun. But let me say this: Given a sheet with 100 addition facts to do in 3 minutes or less, my kid can do them all in about a minute and a half and only missed one problem (probably carelessness from going so fast). He was pretty excited, though, and he won a $5 gift card to Blockbuster. And then later one of his raffle tickets got drawn and he was given a $5 gift card to Safeway as well. So he had a fantastically thrilling night and he's already plotting what he's going to buy.

As for me, I had agreed about a month ago over email to participate in something called a "Quiz of the Obvious", which I was told was something where they asked you questions that seemed like the answers were obvious but they really weren't. Among the other adults competing were the school principal, a few teachers, and a handful of parents. There were 10 questions. I got 9 of them right, and that was enough to win. Second place got 8 (go you, Bjorn!). So I'm supposed to be getting some sort of prize too (probably a gift card) but silly math specialist guy sort of forgot and gave my prize away as a raffle prize, so he said he'd get it to me later. Fortunately the school knows where to find me. The questions were things like, "Which of these sentences is correct: 'The yolk of an egg is white' or 'The yolk of an egg are white'." The answer of course being "neither, egg yolks are yellow." Stuff like that. Two of the parents accused me of being "a teacher or something", and after the quiz kept calling me over to explain to them the correct answers of the questions. It was fabulously Molalla.

So anyway, thank you Lisa for letting me wriggle out of doing childcare at Sandy Ridge/Estacada's Family Night tonight and go do something meaningful with my kid instead. :-)

Anti-....

2009-11-16T09:06:00.000-08:00

Just a short thought this morning.... has anyone else noticed how we are "anti-" everything anymore?

I mean, start with your hand soap, which I'm pretty sure is anti-bacterial if you live in the United States (and probably other parts of the world too). Speaking of things that are anti-bacterial, likely your dish soap is, your toilet/bathroom cleanser is, and any sort of spray cleaner you use to wipe down surfaces in your kitchen is likely to be anti-bacterial as well. Because heaven forbid that our spoiled American immune systems should have to work by having to cope with any of those harmless bacteria (and do they really think you're going to be down there licking the inside of your toilet bowl or what?).

I got some new soap for use in the shower the other day that is not only anti-bacterial, but also claims to be loaded with anti-oxidants which will "help protect my skin against damaging free-radicals that have been shown to be a cause of cancer". I sort of missed the sixties, but I thought the worst the free-radicals were going to do was get you stoned/pregnant. Nice to know they've apparently progressed on to causing cancer... I'd hate to see them unemployed like everyone else. Fortunately, they apparently hate the scent of cranberries. Speaking of which, I got two bars of that soap out in the shower... one lower down for the Chamaco, and one higher up for me. Our entire bathroom smells like anti-oxidant cranberries, and it's the first thing you smell when you come up the stairs. I guess there are worse things.

And then there's that word, "anti-oxidant". "Anti-" is a standard prefix in English generally accepted to mean "against" or "preventing". "Oxidant", however, looks more akin to "oxide" and "oxidization", which are fancy words for "rust". So following that logic, an "oxidant" would be something that causes rust. Therefore, I fully trust that my anti-oxidant soap will prevent my skin from rusting. Thanks, Dial! I was really worried about that skin rust. (Cancer is not a bad thing to avoid either.)

Then there's all those cool drugs you can take nowadays... anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, anti-inflammatories, anti-acids, anti-histamines, anti-podeans... (I just threw that last one in there to see if you were paying attention. An "antipodean" is someone who lives on the opposite side of the earth, and I've heard the term applied to Australians.) But really, what are all our depressants, psychotics, inflammatories, histamines and acids going to do with themselves now that we're all so violently in contro and throwing pills at them right and left? I know a few psychotics, at least, who are going to be standing in the unemployment line.

Have a heart... don't be an anti-psychotic. Lots of psychotics are merely misunderstood and are in dire need of loving homes. But be sure to have your psychotic spayed or neutered, because you wouldn't want that thing breeding!

Public apology...

2009-11-15T20:45:00.000-08:00

Hey, so yeah, turns out Barney's an A.D.D. kid too and saw a shiny thing and just sort of left the conversation hanging at an awkward point. Sorry Barney. :-) I love you, you love me, right?

The brand new stupidest thing anyone has ever said to me....

2009-11-15T15:39:00.000-08:00

This must be a red-letter day! You guys get a new alias to guess at, and I got to marvel once more at how dumb my fellow humans can be sometimes. Aren't we lucky? :-)

Meet Barney, so named because he is often in the company of many children (but without the creepiness of having a giant purple dinosaur head). Barney came up to me this afternoon and said, "So we were going to invite the Chamaco to (other kid's) birthday party, but you're not on Facebook anymore." (Naturally I have left out Other Kid's name, because that would make Barney readily identifiable.)

I wasn't sure I had heard him correctly. Of all the stupid reasons! Okay, first off, that sounded kind of like a diss. "You're not on Facebook anymore, therefore your kid isn't cool enough to have at our kid's party." Or maybe, "Since you're not on Facebook anymore, it was too inconvenient to contact you to ask if your child could come to our child's birthday party, because phone-dialing/emailing would have been required." And probably it's more a case of the latter, which is equally retarded and here's why: I know Barney has a cell phone. He's always carrying the thing around. Phones call people, and I do believe that Barney's particular phone does internet as well. His phone likely emails people. Secondly, my phone number/email address are readily available in the church's phone directory, of which everyone received a copy at the beginning of the year. I pointed out to Barney that they have these things with buttons on them called phones, which can be used to contact other human beings, and of course he pulled his out to show me that it in fact does not have buttons. It has a touchscreen. So does mine. I can still call people. Nice try though, Barney.

I remarked upon this before in my now-defunct MySpace blog (that blog in fact was the beginning of my withdrawing from MySpace/Facebook), but I want to know when humans (in particular Americans) got so afraid of not being in constant contact with the rest of the world 24/7. I'm only 27 years old, not old by any stretch of the imagination, and I can remember a time when all phones had buttons. Furthermore, all phones were stationary objects attached to the walls in your house. Al Gore hadn't invented the internet yet (ha ha!), email didn't exist (for that matter, neither did Facebook and MySpace), we listened to music on these rectangular pieces of plastic called "cassette tapes" that we shoved inside a large box called a "cassette player" or a smaller, portable box called a "Walkman", and if someone called your house and you weren't home, the phone would just ring there by itself until they got bored and hung up. And they called back later if they still wanted whatever they wanted the first time they called. And surprsingly, the planet kept chugging along in its path around the sun, spinning merrily away on its axis with a 35 degree tilt, and we actually found ways to keep in touch with the people we cared about. Sometimes we sent letters. On paper. Via a system called "the United States Postal Service". (Speaking of them, I bet those guys really wish you still remembered how to do that, because they're hurting for business.)

But back to my original point, there is absolutely no reason on earth that Barney couldn't have gotten a hold of me if he'd actually wanted to. Be real here.

And then someone else came up to me asking if I'd add her again as a friend on Facebook because her Facebook crashed and she lost a bunch of her friends and I told her I wasn't on Facebook anymore and the look of shock on her face was priceless. And then I had to explain to her why. *sigh* Kids these days... So I'm going to send out some emails here in a bit to people who seem to have found it fantastically hard to contact me without Facebook, and if you're reading this because you got one of those... congratulations! You remembered how we used to do stuff prior to Facebook!

Probably I'm too young to be this nostalgic, but I kind of miss the 80s, and even the early 90s. My family got internet in 1996, and it ate Caveman Fred not too long thereafter. I still remember that fateful afternoon when Caveman Fred came home, tossed me an envelope and said, "Here, I got this from the phone company. It's called internet. Install it and make it work." (Like most kids born after 1980, I heard things like that a lot from my parents.)

Seriously, though... if Facebook and MySpace are what is representative of society today, I withdraw my membership. There's more to life than Mafia Wars and FarmTown, people! (Hey Wong! Does that statement earn me a spot under your rock?)

Brokeneck Baby....

2009-11-13T21:18:00.000-08:00

So today I got to spend 7 1/4 hours in various trainings for my place of employment. I put trainings right on the same level as meetings.... horrid. A few interesting things did come out of it, though.

The CORE trainer for the CDL classes is a former bus driver of mine. She was telling about her experiences driving a route in the MRSD fondly known as the "route from hell", and I asked, "Hey, was that my route?"

"Route 11?" she asked.

I nodded. "Sawtell Road?"

"Yep," she said. And as we discussed the years in which she drove the route, which corresponded roughly to my sixth and seventh grade years, I realized I did in fact remember her, but she looked much younger in my memory. Which I suppose is understandable, since it was 16 years ago. I probably looked younger then too. I told her, "This is how you would remember me." I then proceeded to put my headphones on, cover my head with my hood, and hunch down in my seat, making myself appear to be nothing more than a black blob. I told her I usually would sit as close to the front as possible. She said she didn't remember me. I told her that was the idea. I vividly remember trying very hard to be invisible on that bus. It's good to know it worked at least some of the time.

Later in the afternoon I got to go to a first aid class, which was pretty much exactly the same as every other first aid class I've taken except for two things: The trainer and the Brokeneck Baby.

The trainer was a man who in this blog I shall call Busdriver Bob. Busdriver Bob has a mullet. But not just any mullet, mind you. His is business in front and a drunken party in back. What I mean by that is that the back is long and pulled back into a ponytail, except for this little halo circle of hair around the base of the ponytail that is short and curly. I'm not sure what look he was going for, but he missed. By a lot.

And then there was the Brokeneck Baby. Since there were eight students in class today, we were divided into four pairs and each pair was given an "adult" CPR dummy and a "baby" CPR dummy. I was paired with Robyn, and Robyn and I got the Brokeneck Baby. All the CPR dummies have the heads that you can tilt back and lift the chin so as to practice opening the airway. Our baby, however, had a head that lolled oddly to the side and had a black piece of metal sticking out through its rubbery flesh. It also had a bit of black metal sticking out of the side of its left leg, but that was covered up by the little red pair of shorts it wore and not nearly as disturbing as the broken neck. Robyn and I tried valiantly, but we decided that the Brokeneck Baby could not be revived. The adult dummy, however, went on to make a full recovery and will no doubt be used in other classes in the future.

Oh, and the other fun thing about the baby dummy was that we got to tear its face off. Because each of us had our own personal, sterilized rubber face to put on the baby dummy. First you had to shove the plastic "lung" back in its skull cavity through the little hole, then you had to fit the "face" on top of it, and then practice breathing while covering both the mouth and nostrils and no doubt if this were not a drill you'd be getting baby boogers in your mouth. 'Cause babies gots mucho boogers... even the unresponsive, non-breathing ones. The adult dummies just had a nose and mouth that came off and the rest of the face was hard molded plastic.

Speaking of which, one of the dummies revenged me... no doubt for cracking its sternum during the chest compressions. But we were supposed to be practicing the Heimlich, which was difficult since the dummies weren't made for that and were actually quite solidly plastic about the abdomen. While I was holding the dummy close and trying to save it from choking my jamming my fist into its diaphragm, it got its vengeance by flipping its heavy plastic head back (remember the open airway thing?) and clocking me right on the bridge of the nose. I may actually have a black eye tomorrow... it was a pretty solid hit. Still a little tender. Nobody noticed that event, though, and I didn't say anything.

Last detail - it was flippin' cold in that room. The thermostat was set at 66 and it was locked, so we got to freeze in there for 3 1/4 hours.

Situational updates...

2009-11-11T23:31:00.000-08:00

I haven't had anything happen to me recently that would cause me to say anything profound, and I've been busy with mind-numbingly boring things not conducive to creative thought, so I figured I'd just hit the highlights of the last couple of days lest someone should wonder if I died. (This goes double for those of you who attend the same church as me and might have noticed that I rather stealthily did not attend this evening.)

FACTOID #1 - My dad (hereafter referred to in this blog as Caveman Fred, due to his tendency to joke about how he misses brontosaurus steaks) had surgery today to correct achalasia, which as I understand it is when your esophagus is not straight like it's supposed to be, but is instead all twisty and baggy and it makes it difficult to swallow things. Like food. So anyway, he had the surgery, so far as I know he's doing okay and he'll be out of the hospital Friday, but he's on a pureé diet for I think four weeks... he gon' be skinny!

FACTOID #2 - I've been told I'm teaching my own English class Saturday. Ugh. Five weeks... Next term if I teach, I want something other than beginners. I am still not real pleased with the situation there, but I'm now thinking it has more to do with certain people who can't make up their minds than it does with the class itself.

FACTOID #3 - Speaking of classes, I'm head teacher again tomorrow. Nancy's going to a funeral which doesn't start until 1. I wanna know who the heck has a funeral on Thursday afternoon anyway? So it should be a long and very tiring day, which will followed by Friday, a day that promises to be even longer and more tiring. Friday, you see, I have a 4 hour training from 8-12 as part of getting my CDL, then I have another 4 hour training from 1-5 (first aid). So if I drive real quick, I might get back in time for Damian's bus, which generally drops him off here at 5:45-ish. Yay.

FACTOID #4 - Working all the time kinda sucks... it is taking me ridiculously long to finish Guitar Hero 5. Still not even half done. But with parent/teacher conference season upon us, I am translating an increasing amount and will be interpreting next Monday and Tuesday after work. And my primary employer has been kind enough to supply me with lots of things I can do at home and/or on Fridays... I want my freakin' Fridays back, people!

FACTOID #5 - 3 plants repotted... so far none have died. Freaky!

FACTOID #6 - I'm feeling very warm and fuzzy toward Wong lately... bless his little English Muffin heart. ;-) Less so toward Emo Steve. Haven't had time lately to chat much with the CTG, which saddens me greatly, and have been mostly managing to avoid Smiley Dick... score! I think that covers all my aliases for the day.

FACTOID #7 - I have been blessed/cursed with a child who doesn't believe me when I announce that for my next trick I shall need music and dirt. Then he acts all surprised when I walk in with a bag of dirt. Silly Chamaco.

FACTOID #8 - Killed an organism that was growing in the floor in the backseat of my car today. I think it started life as mold, but it was mutating horribly while feeding on Cheese Nip crumbs and Capri Sun.

FACTOID #9 - I was hoping not to have to resort to this, but I'm now moderating comments after somebody tried to use my blog to sell Nikes. If your comment is, you know, a real comment, I'll leave it alone. I'm very opposed to spam advertising, however.

FACTOID #10 - I'm taking out the music player. Instead, I'll just put down on every blog a song I think you ought to run off and listen to if you get a chance. Today's pick is "Supermassive Black Hole" by Muse, which I loved a lot more before the lunch lady called it "that song from Twilight" and told me it's the song playing when the vampires are playing baseball. That kind of ruins it for me, so I'll probably have to wait a while before listening to it again. You might like it, however.

3's and 9's...

2009-11-10T01:12:00.000-08:00

(Smile if you got the obscure musical reference there. Getting it would probably require either too much time spent playing Guitar Hero III or an extensive knowledge of Queens of the Stone Age. Either way, pat yourself on the back.)

Anyhow, as I made mention of yesterday (or two days ago, if you want to cruelly point out that it's 1 a.m. and I'm not asleep yet) I went through Damian's room and cleaned it out yesterday (or the day before. Whatever). What I did not mention is that under the table in his room I found one lone domino, nine dots on one end and three on the other.

What, you ask, is at all significant about a stupid domino? Well, in and of itself, nothing. I left the domino on the bathroom counter because I was in a hurry to leave for church, and the bathroom counter is my usual transfer point between upstairs and downstairs. Mindful of my grandma's admonition to "make your head save your feet", I generally stockpile things that need to go up/downstairs in central locations, and take the whole pile whenever I think of it. The "to go downstairs" pile is on the bathroom counter, because that is a place I'm likely to visit during the day.

This morning I was in the bathroom brushing my hair and the Chamaco was in there brushing his teeth, and the domino was still on the counter. He glances at it and goes, "Hey, twelve!" And it just blew my mind. Here's why: I look at that same domino and I see 3 and 9.... the parts that make up the whole, not the whole itself. And yes, I am a detail person... can't see the forest for the trees and all that. I am most assuredly not a big picture person, I live almost entirely in the here and now, and future planning of any kind - even what I'm doing tomorrow night - is a stretch for me. And I look at the domino and I see 3 and 9. The Chamaco, on the other hand, looks at that same domino and the first thing out of his mouth is "twelve". Not only does he add pretty good for being seven-nearly-eight, but he immediately latched on to the big picture (as it pertains to a rather small domino). He doesn't see the parts, he sees the whole. And now that I think about it, he is generally more date-aware than I am... he's more likely to know what day it is and how many days it is until a major event of some sort.

I thought this would make an interesting psychological test, so I stuck the domino in my pocket and took it to work with me. I told Nancy I was going to show her something and that she should say the first word that popped into her head after "domino", assuming that would be the first one. Then I showed her the domino. She said, "dots". This possibly means she is even less math-oriented than me, though I don't see how that could even be possible really. So later I altered the test and told the subject to say the first number that came into her head, then showed her the domino. She said, "three", and then later confessed she said three because she couldn't remember as quickly how many dots were in that particular configuration on the other end. Someone needs to play more Mexican Train. Or drink fewer energy drinks. ;-)

So, readers, here's my first participation survey of the blog... If I were to show you a domino (not necessarily a 3/9, but just any domino) would you notice first how many dots were on one or both ends, or would you notice first the cumulative total of dots? Go ahead and leave your answers in the comments. Could be interesting. :-)

An absence of profundity...

2009-11-08T23:04:00.000-08:00

Yeah, that's right... I've nothing at all meaningful to say today. Woo hoo! So here is a brief summary of my accomplishments today.

1.) Was not late for church. Either time.

2.) Ran into my high school principal/English teacher at O.C. McDonald's. Invited her to eat with me and Damian. Damian lost interest quickly, finished his food and went to play in the PlayPlace while she and I spent a long time catching up. She has 3 kids now, who are actually her step-kids. I find that ironic, since she was very militantly single 10 years ago. (And she was the one who taught me that if a guy is attractive, that means he's either gay, married, or too old/young. I reminded her of that, and she laughed. She is also the one who taught me the proper way to kill someone with scissors.)

3.) Found purple flowerpots at Bi-Mart for my polka-dot plants that not only survived in my care, but bloomed like crazy all summer long and have outgrown their original containers. I shall see if I can kill them by attempting to re-pot them. That usually works.

4.) Bought a 2010 calendar. Before January. Usually I buy them after January 5th when they go on sale, but I found one I liked and it was only $6.99 anyway.

5.) Made good on my bad-cop-parent threat (I've told him repeatedly that if he didn't clean the room, I was going to do it and stuff was going to disappear) and gutted Damian's room while he wasn't home. Got rid of many toys that have been lurking in the bottom of his toybox since he was two that he's probably never even seen and will never miss, and rearranged his furniture. I thought he was going to be upset ('cause I would be if someone went through my stuff and threw a bunch of it away), but he seemed rather pleased, came into my room and hugged me and told me I did a good job. Strange child. But that clears the way for new stuff from his birthday and Christmas, both of which are next month. (groan!) (Note to relatives: Buy him small things. Or give him money or something.)

6.) Played Aztec Tribe for a while. That game reminds me very much of the original Warcraft game (back before it was World of...) with the little orcs or trolls or whatever they were that would enthusiastically reply, "Zug zug!" to any command you gave them and then work industriously to build... whatever it was they built. Pig farms or something. Wow, that was a long time ago.

Irkment...

2009-11-07T12:58:00.001-08:00

Why oh why does the CTG not work on Saturdays? Because if there was a day I needed him to brighten my mood, today was it.

I was doing really good before I left the house. Even my hair was good today. But then of course I stepped outside, the wind/rain ruined my hair before I got to the car, and I just accepted that the messy look is "in" and went about my business.

Without knowing exactly who is reading this (since either nobody is reading it, nobody has anything to say about it, or people simply don't know how the comment button works), I am reluctant to go into specifics about where the morning went wrong. I'll just say that I suppose I should be used to being replaced by younger, prettier, more air-headed women by now and leave it at that. But it put me in a pretty foul mood for the rest of the day, and griping with Paula about the over-commercialization of the holidays was good, but not as good as the CTG would have been.

And so my family had "Thanksgiving" today. My dad is having surgery Wednesday and won't be able to eat solid food for probably at least 6 weeks afterward, so we decided to go ahead and have it so he wouldn't have to miss out. So after English class and my little rant session with Paula, I went up to my parents' house. I was there for close to six hours, which is way beyond my tolerances anymore, apparently. Not only is it really boring, but my dad won't turn on the heat so I was bored and frozen and cranky. Yay.

Finally got home about 8:30 p.m., turned on my own heat so it will get toasty warm in here. Curled up for a conversation with Wong, which would be way better if it wasn't for the pesky North American Continent/Atlantic Ocean separating us, talked to Tyha, and now I think I'm going to go to bed so today will be done, and maybe tomorrow will be better.

Also I'm having a go at growing my own ornamental pepper plant from seeds. I just planted it tonight. If anything actually sprouts, I'll post pics.

Aporkalypse (n): The end of the world brought about by swine.

2009-11-06T16:11:00.000-08:00

So now I'd like you all to remember back with me a few months to April of this year, when nobody had heard of H1N1 (a.k.a. "swine flu") yet and we were living in blissful ignorance. Yeah, them were the days.

Since then, the human population seems to have gotten collectively stupider. All the world around me is freaking out... "H1N1" this and "swine flu" that and "vaccine shortage" the other. And it seems like I am one of the few left standing who recognizes the wussification of America.

I mean, let's be real here, folks. Pretty much the only thing separating this flu from the flus we've gotten every other year since the dawn of time is that we're aware that this one came from pigs. Is that why everyone's freaking out, I wonder? Some residual Jewish abhorrence of the unclean swine?

It has gone far enough that they are offering a free H1N1 vaccination clinic in my son's school. I think this is retarded. Here's why:

The only people in any real danger from this flu are people who are already medically fragile. Asthmatics, diabetics, people with chronic respiratory diseases/conditions, and pregnant women. The rest of us are going to feel like crap for a week or so, but then this really cool thing happens... you get better. No vaccine required. So if there is, as I am so often hearing, a lack of supply of this H1N1 vaccine, why are we wasting time giving it to healthy children? Why not give it to people who actually medically need to not get the flu first, then maybe the big wussy chickens who are afraid of pig flu can have some of the new, untested vaccine that might have side effects we are not yet aware of. I mean, for crying out loud, people... you act like you've never had the flu before! No, it's not fun, but unless you fall into one of the previously mentioned groups it's not going to kill you.

It's no wonder other countries now believe they can come over here and bomb us. We've been so pansified now that the general population is scared to get the flu. Other nations know that we are now too wussy to cope with a week of feeling icky. Way to be, America.

The Chamaco asked me the other night if I was going to sign that paper so he had to get the vaccine at school. I told him no, not unless he really wanted me to, and explained to him that if he didn't get it he might get sick, but he'd just get better afterward. He said he thought he didn't need the vaccine. That's my boy. A perfectly healthy seven-almost-eight-year-old is exactly the sort of person we need to not be giving the vaccine to. Give his dose to my neighbor, who has emphysema and COPD and is on the waiting list to get a shot at her doctor's office. How dumb is that?

So anyway, I guess my point is that before you go line up to get your Aporkalypse shot, consider for a moment whether you really need it or whether you're just standing in line ahead of someone who actually does. If you've got one of those conditions, yes, go get your shot with my blessing. Otherwise, grow a pair and prepare to cope with some temporary discomfort... it's flu season in America. Just like every other year.

An open letter to spiders....

2009-11-05T23:51:00.000-08:00

Dear Spiders,

     It must be confessed... I don't like you at all. Although over the years I have made friends with certain individual spiders such as Christina (my virtual tarantula, who scored huge points with me for not being actually a real spider) and Hugo (the "spidermouse" I captured last summer with the intention of shaking the jar violently, but later released into the wild), in general I still pretty much hate your entire "arachnida" class.

     The reasons for which I do not like you mostly start with your legs. First off, there are eight of them. That surely can't be natural. It is even less natural that you can coordinate your eight legs and walk without tangling them up and falling over. But what is really disturbing is the peculiar, wavelike motion you use to accomplish this feat... it is not entirely dissimilar to the billowing, rippling cloak of a levitating dark mage about to unleash a mighty and evil spell in one of the fantasy type RPGs so much enjoyed by Wong. The longer the legs, the more I hate you... among my most hated members of your "class" are what my grandma used to call "lady spiders" (members of the pholcidae family) who have legs many, many times longer than their own bodies and tiny, creepy little pinheads. I have always found the pholcidae to be very creepy.

     Then there's your eyes... you have anywhere between two and eight of those as well, depending on family and species. Not only do you have creepy, beady black eyes (generally speaking, though I have also seen green), but you also can't even all agree upon a suitable number of creepy, beady black eyes to have - or even a suitable arrangement for said not-agreed-upon number of creepy, beady black eyes upon your creepy little pinheads. I do not like the concept of four pairs of creepy, beady little black eyes watching me while I shower, thank you very much.

     Speaking of my shower, that brings me to another reason I hate you... your disturbing tendency to show up at times/places when I am naked. What are you all, a bunch of voyeurs? I mean, I understand your reluctance to mate, guys - being devoured and killed afterward would probably take some of the romance out of it for me too - but sheesh! I'm not even your species/genus/family/order/class/phylum! That's quite a stretch, I'd say.

    I also find disturbing your keen grasp of irony. This was demonstrated to me just this evening, in fact. This is a completely true story. As I was getting in the shower tonight, I was musing to myself how glad I am that I now live in an apartment where everything in the bathroom is bright and white, rather than at the old place where everything was brown and spiders could very easily hide in my shower where I would not notice them. Especially when I have my contacts out, because I have to be pretty much on top of the spider to see it with my contacts out (unless it is a spidermouse). Just as I was musing this to myself (and not wearing my contacts) as I got in the shower and stepped into the water, I notced what I presumed to be sock fuzz floating in the shallow water near my foot. And then the sock fuzz turned around and ran at me, and I jumped out of the shower. Sure enough, it was one of your smaller brethren demonstrating to me his keen sense of irony. I demonstrated to him my keen sense of stay-the-heck-out-of-my-shower-you-beady-eyed-peeping-tom by pouring scalding hot water on him and then washing him down the drain. Serves him right, I say.

     Speaking of spidermice, I have a few words on that topic. Anything with an exoskeleton is bound to be pretty creepy. Anything with an exoskeleton running across my linoleum is worse. And anything with an exoskeleton running across my linoleum that is big enough to make noise when it does it should definitely not be running across my linoleum! Such size-enhanced exoskeletal creatures should also consider staying out of my shower, lest I should pour scalding hot water on their creepy little pinheads.

     Last but not least, I am not at all fond of the art of camouflage as practiced by your kind. And I'm not just talking about brown spiders in brown showers here... I'm talking about the ones of you that actively change color to hide in places I might want to put my hands. Several times over the course of my childhood and adult life I have picked a beautiful flower, lifted it to my nose to inhale the fragrance, and realized that a rather large yellow/orange/purple crab spider is sitting smack dab in the middle of the flower. That's an evil trick, y'all. Snorting crab spiders is not nearly as fun as snorting Pixy Stix (that isn't fun either, though purple snot is interesting). And I shall always remember the time when, as a youth, I was attempting to climb a tree and very nearly put my hand on top of a wolf spider who was at that moment busily engaged in looking like tree bark. The impudent little jerk actually reared up on his rearmost four legs (even typing that is wrong) and hissed at me. I did not actually fall out of the tree, I am happy to report, but I did withdraw rather quickly. If I were still in the tree-climbing business I would find him and pour scalnding hot water on his creepy little pinhead. Oh, and then there was your friend in the shower today disguising himself as sock fuzz. You see how well that worked out for him...

     However, o thou arachnids, it seems that God has put both of us here on the same planet (though I often wonder why Noah didn't just have the elephants get all stomp-happy back when there were only two of you). Therefore, I propose a peace treaty. This is how it works: You stay away from me, my shower, and my house, and in return I shall refrain from throwing books/rocks on you, hitting you with flyswatters, and otherwise pouring scalding hot water on your creepy little pinheads. Sound like a deal?

Sincerely,

Me

Here in Oregon, we prefer our gas-station attendants to be highly educated...

2009-11-05T20:54:00.000-08:00

Another day, another interesting tidbit learned about the CTG. Apparently he has a bachelor's degree. In production. (Whatever that means.) And he's working at a gas station for minimum wage. I felt kinda bad for him... I've only got an associate's, and I'm making more than him. Also I'm doing it indoors without the "sideways rain and angry customers". Yet he's always so darned cheerful when I talk to him. The eternal optimist, despite the fact that I already know he was unemployed for a year to the day before getting his gas station job. Yet not so cheerful that it makes me want to vomit. I know someone who's like that too. We'll call him Smiley Dick. (Yes, this is a new alias. He might crop up again occasionally.) Smiley also works at a gas station and is perennially optimistic, but he's like sunshine and rainbows and hearts and flowers until it makes you want to puke. The CTG is optimistic, but without being a hazard to the blood-sugar levels of diabetics. Much more tolerable.

Once again I say, send me one like that but less married.

Anyhow, I got to spend six lovely hours in meetings today. The first hour was a guy talking about something about development of children. I'm not sure exactly what, because the printout of the powerpoint was lousy and also we couldn't hear him in the back. The next 2 hours were about sensory development, which was actually kind of interesting. Then we had one hour of a mandatory class about harassment in the workplace and the company's harassment policy (summed up as: don't do it) and then the last two hour class was about positive discipline and basically learning how to make anything you say sound positive even if what you mean is "knock that off right now, young lady!"

I hate meetings...

Had a long and reasonably productive discussion (read: not entirely about muffins or American/British superiority) with Wong this evening. I love that guy to bits, and I do wish he'd get his punk-ass to America already. I do respect his thought that he ought to spend his first Christmas in a decade or so with his mother, but still... sigh. Four freaking years and what for? Reaching the point of desperation/exasperation on this one.

A nice old guy came knocking on my door tonight to invite me to church at Grand View. He asked me if he could ask me a question and I said sure. He said, "If you were to die right now, are you sure that you'd go to heaven?" I said, "Yes, absolutely." He looked surprised and said, "Not many people say yes so definitely. So you believe that we are sinners and Jesus died for us and we're saved by grace alone?" I said, "Yes indeed. That's exactly what I believe." And he wished me a good evening and left.

If only the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses went away so easily...

A strange, girly night...

2009-11-04T23:38:00.000-08:00

"Being attractive... it's the most important thing there is.
If you want to catch the biggest fish in your pond, you have to make yourself as attractive as possible.
Be sure to keep your hair spotlessly clean.
Wash it at least once every two weeks... ONCE EVERY TWO WEEKS!
And if you see Johnny Football Hero in the hallway, tell him he played a great game.
Tell him you liked his article in the newspaper."
- "Popular" by Nada Surf

I'm not sure what got into me tonight. Maybe it was the fact that on two separate occasions today, coworkers told me I should get on eHarmony. But by the time I got out of church, I was feeling like maybe it was time to work on my outward appearance a bit. I've been wanting to darken my hair for a while now... seems to be an urge I always get as soon as it starts being dark when I get home from work (stupid Daylight Saving Time). It seems like during the summer I get gradually lighter, usually arriving at some shade of red, and then as soon as the days get ridiculously short I go right back into the darkness. I resisted the urge to go directly back to black, though, and instead went with "Chocolate Velvet" or "Velvet Brown" or some stupid color name like that. It was the next shade up from "Black Stiletto", that much I can tell you. On top of the red I already had going, I think it has turned out rather well, though I'll have to wait for it to dry to be sure.

Men may want to skip this paragraph, lest they be put off brunettes forever. I'll wait for you to leave.... okay, you'd better be gone now. If not, don't say I didn't warn you. So one day I was having a conversation with the blonde twit who was cutting my hair that day, and she was coveting my insanely thick, dark hair and whining about how hers was all fine and blonde and straight, blah blah blah. I said, "Sure, the thick dark hair is great on your head, but you gotta remember that people have hair other places too." She thought about that a moment, and I could hear gears grinding... or maybe it was just the pea rattling around in that big empty head of hers. But after a few moments the rusty generator finally flickered to life and she said, "Oh!" and agreed that maybe she was glad her hair was blonde and baby-fine after all. I love traumatizing my haircutter people. But anyway, I have never been bothered particuarly by my thick, dark hair except for in one place... my face. I don't think I have any more hair in my facial areas than any other woman does, really. Mine is just thick and black is all, not all blonde and fuzzy. But I've long been slightly insecure about it, especially after a 5 year old Mexican kid told me I had a beard. (Stupid Victor.) So I decided to be all girly tonight and do something about it. Also I shaved my legs.

Earlier today I went by Toad's and wished the CTG a happy Wednesday (very sarcastically, of course). He did his big flirty grin at me and said, "If you didn't come here, nothing good would happen to me today." Sigh. I would love to have somebody who wasn't married (and preferably also of an equal degree of attractiveness to the CTG) flirt with me like that. Wonder if he has a brother... lol.

Anyhow, tomorrow I get to spend 6 hours in meetings. Meetings, in my opinion, are something Dante would have seen on his journey through one of the lower circles of hell. I remain convinced that if, by some unfortunate turn of circumstance, I go to hell, there will be meetings there. Lots of them. Lasting about 1,000 years each, with a 5 minute bathroom break in between, during which the line to the ladies' restroom will be backed up clear back to the edge of the lava pit. Tomorrow, I'm pretty sure, will suck. So I've decided I might as well look good while the world goes on with its sucking. :-) 'Cause after all, if the world didn't suck, we'd all fly off.

It smells like Wednesday in here....

2009-11-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

Of the people likely to read this blog, one - maybe two - actually understood the joke in the blog title and laughed. Or at least grinned a little. Inwardly. I don't know.

If I were more insecure, I'd think my jokes weren't funny.... nah.

But for the rest of you underprivileged souls, here's the joke. You know how sometimes when English-speaking adults are about to say 's---' and they stop themselves halfway through and say something lame to cover it up like 'shiitake mushrooms'. (Which was actually one of the only funny things in the movie Madagascar, by the way. That and 'Hoover Dam!') Well, they're not alone in that... their Spanish-speaking brethren do it too. The Spanish equivalent naughty word is 'miérda'.

If you giggled right there, incidentally, you're too young to read my blog. Go away. I can use that word, because it doesn't sound bad to me because I didn't grow up speaking Spanish. My Spanish professor had a similar problem... he could swear in English and it didn't faze him one bit, but let someone drop a Spanish F-bomb (which in Mexico starts with C, in case you wondered, though he was from Venezuela by way of Spain and they have all kids of crazy F and C and P and other consonants too words in those places) and he would blush bright red. I miss that guy. I oughta go visit him sometime.

Anyway, getting back to my original point, when Spanish-speaking adults get halfway through 'miér-' and stop and then add something lame to finish, they finish by saying '-coles'. Which makes the word 'miércoles', which means Wednesday. Which means a Spanish speaker could conceivably say something like "Aquí huele a mier... coles." Or, "It smells like.... Wednesday in here."

But the reason I was on about Wednesday... I don't like Wednesdays. Neither does the CTG. Though for me, Wednesday signifies that I am officially past the halfway point in my four-day Head Start workweek, I work enough on the other days that it means little. What it does mean is that I will be home for roughly 45 minutes after church, then I will leave again and not be home until after 9. CTG's reasons for hating Wednesday have more to do with being obliged to take classes where he's the least scary guy in the room. At least this is what I gather. So usually I wish him a happy Wednesday when I see him Wednesday mornings, and he laughs and says "Yeah, right," because he knows that neither of us is particularly fond of Wednesday.

Because is it any wonder, really, that 'miércoles' and 'miérda' are such similar words?

And really where I go on Wednesday night is to church, and overall I like that, but with Emo Steve being all pissy lately it hasn't been quite as fun. Also loads and loads of people have been out sick. Also I probably won't have time tonight to translate any more report cards, so grades 4 and 5 are going to be on hold until domani. (Which is 'mañana', to you English speakers.)

Domani... e per sempre domani
Domani... e per sempre domani
Ti prego toccami le mani, toccami le mani, toccami le mani, tocca mi le mani
Vai via... via le mani dagli occhi...

Sorry. Had a little Negramaro lapse there. (That was me singing in text form.)

Oh, spent some fabulous time on the floor with Ivan last night. Not only is the A7 chord pretty easy, but also I think I'm starting to suck at guitar less despite the fact that I never have time to play, much less build up finger strength. Good thing I'm just naturally tough. I'm thinking I'm going to make a special study of the songs "Sympathetic" and "Driven Under" by Seether (both of which I can already mostly play, 'cause they're cake, I just need to work on that playing and singing at the same time thing) and "Rain" by Breaking Benjamin, which is much harder than those first two. But hey, a girl's gotta have a goal.

Un elefante se balanceaba sobre la tela de una araña...

2009-11-03T21:11:00.000-08:00

One elephant went out to play
Upon a spider's web one day
He had such enormous fun
He asked another elephant to come...

We sing this song with the kiddos all the time. It's a bright and shiny English translation of an old Spanish children's song. The Spanish was a little less playful, a little more grim. Less playing and fun, more balancing and testing of limits. Spanish lyrics with my very literate English translation follows:

Un elefante se balanceaba (One elephant balanced himself)
Sobre la tela de una araña (On a spider's web)
Cuando veía que resistía (When he saw that it held up)
Fue a llamar a otro elefante (He went and called another elephant)

It's a counting song, really. Nancy had me make a big spiderweb on posterboard and little dancing elephants to velcro onto it and we sing the song, adding another elephant in each verse. Enormous fun. We can get 10 elephants on that spiderweb.

Really, though, I think the Spanish version is more true to life. In a way, we're all elephants balancing on spiderwebs... big, blundering, oafish creatures precariously balancing ourselves on skinny little spiderwebs that we like to call "lives". And we bounce and bobble around for a little while, checking things out, and if the spiderweb doesn't break we call in another elephant. Then we usually breed with that elephant, producing smaller elephants who grow up to be big elephants, all straining on that poor spiderweb...

Good thing that spiderweb has a higher tensile strength than steel (supposing steel could be extruded to that same diameter), huh?

But where the heck is the spider who made that web in the first place? And how does she feel about all those elephants dancing around on her web? (I say "her web" because in most species only the female spiders spin webs. It is not intended to be a commentary on the gender of God or anything... don't go reading too much into this, people!)

But here again we have an example of the English language taking a children's song that is a little dodgy at best and cleaning it up and making it happy... disgusting, I say. Kind of like how American children have no idea that at the end of the original version of Snow White, the wicked queen is forced to wear shoes made of red-hot iron and dance in them until she falls down dead. (I think the idea of such punishment might deter crime a little better than our current "justice" system, but that's another blog for another time.) Plenty of those happy "fairy tales" (whether or not they involved fairies, they still seem to get called that) were actually a lot more gruesome in their original tongues until English came along and cleaned them up all sparkly-like.

Stupid English.

Anyway, I've had that silly song in my head most of the day because right around the time I woke up this morning (not the time I got out of bed, but the time I woke up) I was discussing the song with Lorena and Nancy, because I couldn't remember how the Spanish one went since it's been well over a year since I taught first grade reading at MES. On the plus side, I think I can probably play the thing on guitar provided that the A7 chord is not too difficult. Because the only other chord in the song is D, and I'm all over D.

Speaking of Ivan, I think I'm off to have a little bonding session with him.

20 little things that make me smile...

2009-11-02T21:37:00.000-08:00

Okay, some of these are actually big things, but others of them are pretty trivial. But lest some reader should start to think that there is no joy in my life and I do naught but whine and complain about stuff that bothers me, here is a list of some of my favorite things. (No, I will not sing the song from The Sound of Music and I certainly will not invent my own song for my list. There will be no kitten whiskers in this list.) This list is in completely random order, so I hope Wong is not offended that he didn't wind up first on the list... though he did wind up second just by happy accident.

1. The squishy gel handle on my new hairbrush. At first I thought it was weird and I didn't like it, now it makes me smile. Also it's purple, and purple is freakin' awesome.
2. Wong... What can I say? Four years and I'm still smiling almost as stupidly as I was on October 8th of 2005 when I met him. ¡Te quiero, cariño! :-)
3. Ivan. Ivan being the name I have finally surrendered and given to my guitar. It was the first thing that popped into my head when I bought him, and I was like, "No, that's retarded!" but the name seems to have stuck. Ivan the Ibanez it is. I just wish Ivan and I had more time to spend together, is all.
4. When my son argues with me about events surrounding pictures taken when he was mere days old like he remembers the incident in great detail.
5. When the demonic hellion child (not my son, one of the ones I work with) forgets she hates me for a few minutes and decides to snuggle instead.
6. When Yeymi insists that I need to sit by her at lunch, then she talks my ear off the whole time. Also when she says, "Ay yi yi!" with more feeling and drama than someone who is barely three should possess.
7. Quando non ricordo what language I'm speaking y me sale así. :-)
8. Shaun Morgan. Come on... you knew he had to be on the list here somewhere! The hair, the eyes, the voice, the GREEN GUITAR OF INCREDIBLE SEXINESS!!!
9. Speaking of incredibly sexy guitars, that 7-string ESP that Cristiano Migliore carries around with him is pretty darn sexy too. I'll take one of those and one of the green ones, please and thank you. (And you can throw in a Shaun Morgan and a Cristiano Migliore while you're at it, hold the Maus.)
10. Headbanging and singing at the top of my lungs in the car while driving, with the full knowledge that my boss is driving the green van behind me. I do this nearly every day.
11. Hugging people who are wearing leather jackets. Double points for suede.
12. When Nancy says "shtuff" and I think to myself that "stuff" is probably not the word she really means to say.
13. Anytime I'm talking to Lorena and I manage to get in a reference to "tagging". Good times... (Lorena still won't let me tag her butt. She's such a party-pooper.)
14. The Cute Toad's Guy... oh my word, HOW did I make it this far down the list without mentioning the Cute Toad's Guy?!?! The in-jokes, the flirtationship, the fact that he's usually the best thing that happens to me on a Tuesday/Wednesday morning (and often Thursday and Friday afternoons too)... I don't give a whooping funt if he's married and has two children (I know his kids and I don't particularly like them)... I like the guy, even if he probably flirts with everyone. He brightens my day, anyway. I may have to give him his own blog entry just to catch up the newbies.
15. Language conversations with Emo Steve on his less emo days.
16. Okay, language conversations with pretty much anyone. I'm a nerd. Deal.
17. Playing drums on Rock Band. There is just something very therapeutic about rhythmically thwacking a plastic circle with a wooden drumstick, and the sound it makes is quite satisfying. The music ain't half bad either.
18. Just the fact that there exists an Italian rock band called "Finley".
19. The concept of punk drow makes me happy.
20. Doing whatever the kids do just to watch them freak out. Today I climbed the slide and hung upside-down off the swings. Yeymi ay-yi-yi'd at me. She thinks I'm nuts. :-)

Cade la pioggia (blog in English - Hakuna matata)...

2009-11-01T23:01:00.000-08:00

Interesting thing... depression seems so widespread recently. And yes, I understand, the economy sucks, nobody has any money except for a few elite scumbags, the politicians are corrupt, yadda yadda... it's a bad, ugly world out there. Or is it?

Ron (who I don't think needs an alias, but if he would like one he should let me know and I'll come up with something cute and edit this post) asked me today how things were going for me lately. I had to admit they've been going pretty good. I mean, lets face it... I've got a job (or three), I've got an apartment, we have food, I am keeping up with my bills... despite the fact that I'm still living below the federal poverty line, I'm actually doing better for myself than I have since my ex-husband left me about six years ago. The budget is tight but doable, we're not going without anything we actually need and we've got some of the stuff we just want. That's doing pretty darn good for the here and now! And as the air gets a bit of bite to it, I'm looking forward to spending my first winter of about the last 8 in a home with both a heating system and insulation. I do not anticipate going into the bathroom this January to find my shampoo has frozen, and I'm looking forward to that not happening. So aside from the fact that I still sleep by myself, pretty much everything is the happiest it has been in Meagan-land in recent memory.

Not so everywhere, however. I know a lot of people are suffering, and the case to hit closest to where I live is a friend of mine... for the purposes of this blog, we shall call him "Emo Steve" (which, incidentally, was also the name we gave to a dinosaur at Prehistoric Gardens this summer... I think it was the ankylosaurus). Despite the fact that I have dubbed him "Emo Steve", I actually do like the guy most of the time... he's one of the few people I know that can hold up his end of a language-based conversation. He does, however, tend to be angsty and agonize a bit more than is strictly necessary and lately he's been more morose than ever... enough to make my defunct emotional antennae start sending out feeble squawks of warning. So I sent him a text asking if he was okay, he sent back what I thought was a rather curt reply (though it's hard to tell over text) thanking me for caring and ending with "Have a good night!" which, besides being rather faux-cheerful, is EmoSteve-ese for "quit talking to me"... I think. "Have a good night!" is his usual text-conversation-ender phrase. (But I usually have to send one more text back just because I am that sort of person.) So I quit talking to him. Some days I curse my social ineptitude. And some days I am just very grateful for Wong, who is less emo and easier to read since I've known him about three years longer. And some days I'm just really glad that I still sleep alone, even though I find that troublesome on some nights. :-) Sleeping alone sucks, but sometimes I think not sleeping alone and then having an extra whiny person around during the day would suck more.

Earlier on I was thinking about el Día de los Muertos, which is a rant/brain dump I visited once many many moons ago on my MySpace blog. For those of you who might be monolingual English speakers or otherwise not in the know, Día de los Muertos means "Day of the Dead", and it's a pretty common celebration in several Latino/Hispanic cultures, though mostly in Mexico. It dates back to an Aztec festival a few thousand years ago dedicated to their goddess Mictecacihuatl (Say that three times fast... or even once!), who was known as "the Lady of the Dead". "Day of the Dead" is a bit of a misnomer, though, because the festival actually lasts two days. November 1st is called Día de los Inocentes or Día de los Ángelitos, and November 2nd is the actual Día de los Muertos (or in some places, Día de los Difuntos, which pretty much means the same thing).

Really I think that the Latin-American cultures in general have a much healthier view of death than we Americans do. Death is seen as the natural endpoint of the life cycle... you're born, you live a while, then you die. No getting around it, no tiptoeing around the subject, no cute euphemisms... death is just part of life. You know... the last part. But they also believe that one night a year, the souls of their departed loved ones come back to visit. On November 1st, the souls of children and babies who have died return, and the souls of deceased adults return on November 2nd. And they celebrate this. I think it's a cool idea, really. (For a cool Día de los Muertos tie in, hop on YouTube and look up Seether's music video for "The Gift". It's set in Oaxaca, Mexico and has a Día de los Muertos theme, complete with a little ghost girl. It also has Shaun Morgan, who is the hotness.) In America, on the other hand, death is scary and we don't like to talk about it. When someone dies, we invent cute little euphemisms like "passed away", "departed this life", "kicked the bucket", "bought the farm", "shuffled off this mortal coil", etc. Really when people do that I'd like to shuffle them off this mortal coil. Making up cute phrases does not change the reality... dead is dead, and if we'd collectively come to grips with that it might make our lives a bit easier. But then, many Americans don't believe in any sort of afterlife either, so I guess death is scary when this is all you've got. I say if this is all we've got, just kill me now, TYVM.

And mindful of the fact that tomorrow I won't have a Facebook, I started the weaning process today and did other stuff. For my 26th birthday (which was the one that happened in 2008, for those of you who don't know), I was given one of those big picture frames with lots of little holes for you to put snapshots in. My grandma has one of those that she's had for YEARS and she's never put her own pictures in and it still has the pictures of the pretend families that are in there when you buy it. We won't let her change it now... those guys are part of the family. We've named a few of them. Lest I should arrive at that point, though, I decided I'd better put pictures in mine. So this afternoon in my Facebook-free time, I got down my box of snapshots, sorted through and found the ones that I would most like to put in the frame. I was about 9 pictures short of filling it, so I found one of my old abstract pastel drawings and stuck it back there to fill space until I have more pictures that I like. Because really... I'm only 27. My life story is still being written, and no doubt many fascinating photos will be taken sometime between now and my death (which I will happily embrace when it comes, by the way... no tiptoeing for me!). So I'll fill that space when I come to it, and until then there is cheerful abstract art and a piece of blue construction paper. But here's a picture of the frame:

That was quicker than I thought...

2009-11-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

I'm done saving my pics off of Facebook. Upon reflection, most of the pictures I had on Facebook were stuff I probably don't need anyway. I did save the ones I took of the moving-in process here at the apartment (we've been here almost eight months now... crazy!) because that was an important and momentous life process thingie, but aside from a few special pictures most of it was fluff.

Which brings to mind something else I hate about social-networking sites - comment whores. You know exactly who I'm talking about... those people who post a bunch of pictures, then in either a status message or a bulletin board post say, "I just put up a bunch of pics... go comment on them!" or something to that effect. Like comments enhance your worth as a person. I don't know.

"Wong" told me this morning that I have now joined a special group of elitist @$$holes (clever, no?) who shun all social-networking sites... yes, he is a member of this group. I asked him if that meant I get to hide with him under his rock now and he said maybe. ;)

So anyway, back to the original subject, my Facebook account closes at bedtime tonight. I'm leaving it up long enough for a few people to find the messages I sent them telling them where I'm disappearing to, and then off into the ether I go. I'm hoping I'm going to ultimately save myself a lot of time by not being on Facebook, and I think it'll probably work because I've spent less time typing this blog than I spend on the average Facebook session (and yes, I do type very quickly, thank you). I realize this is probably my own failing, but given a host of tiny applications to toy with, I will toy with them, and therefore I need to get off Facebook. Sorry to anyone who might feel I don't love them anymore.

Happy November!

2009-11-01T08:34:00.000-08:00

I like the first of the month. You know why? Because I put in a new pair of contact lenses and all the world looks fresh and moist for a while. :)

So just to get the morning started with the proper dose of trivialities, I'm considering wearing lipstick to church today (not sparkly red like yesterday, though), I'm also considering wearing my chain wallet one more day instead of just Halloween, and I'm already upset that Wong* won't take a picture of himself running and flailing his arms about, because I think it sounds cute though he disagrees with me.

I have a hard time letting go of Halloween the day after. Probably because on Halloween I can dress like I want to dress anyway and nobody looks at me sideways, but you try dressing all goth/punk the day after Halloween and suddenly people have issues with it. Halloween is a great festival of liberation, and there's a letdown afterward, I think. This is why I think we should all go with el Día de los Muertos instead... more on that later, maybe (this is an old rant, visited once in my previous MySpace blog-life).

*"Wong" is not this person's real name, naturally. 'Tis but an alias for someone of my acquaintance who lives quite far away and has cute sentence structure... true friends already know who I'm talking about, the rest of you will have to accept that "Wong" will probably be a recurring character in this blog. And if you're reading this, "Wong"... deal. At least I made some effort to protect the "guilty" party, no? And you DO have cute sentence structure, much as you like to say that's horse-radish.

Well that didn't take long...

2009-10-31T23:32:00.000-07:00

I said there would be noise, and behold there is noise! I'm running an all-Seether playlist at the moment, and for those of you who might like to shut it off as quickly as possible you'll find the pause button located to your right directly underneath the "About Me" section.

And now your bits of randomness for the night:

I almost tore off the fingernail on my index finger on my right hand today, and now that finger is very tender and it's a bit difficult to type. I did it while gutting pumpkins. Don't ask how.

I'm to the point in my phasing out of Facebook where all I have to do is get my pictures saved elsewhere. I give it two days, max.

By blogging right now at 23:24, I am putting off going to bed merely because I do not want to. If I were to remain awake much longer, however, I would feel the need to start working on one of the three work-related projects I am actively procrastinating, so soon I will go to bed so as to not have to work. Sometime before Monday, however, I am expected to translate the new report cards for grades K-5 so teachers can start filling them out. The idea of doing this makes me throw up a little in my mouth, because I know it will be boring, will take probably a minimum of six hours, and most of the things on the report cards will be made up "Teacherese" terms that are incredibly difficult to translate. (And they wonder why I don't want to become a "real" teacher...) Also sometime in the near future, I need to read the manual to get my CDL and finish reading "Positive Discipline for Preschoolers", both of which make me sleepy.

You know, I always just talked to my preschooler like he was a normal person. He grew out of being a preschooler, and he seems to be mostly fine (and with an above-average vocab for his age bracket, I might add) so why do I need to read a whole book telling me how to say "knock that off" in a way that sounds positive so I don't damage some child's fragile ego? In my opinion, kids in general don't hear the word "no" nearly enough anymore, and the word "no" is enforced even less. *sigh* If I think on that subject too long, I start having fantasies where I quit the education field all together, start a rock band, and tour the world in an extremely child-unfriendly manner.

Yeah... that'd be fun. *sigh*

The birth of the blog...

2009-10-31T22:35:00.000-07:00

I always liked blogging. I did it a lot on MySpace back when MySpace was cool and people actually went there.

Then came Facebook. Facebook was cool for a while, and then it started dawning on me that nobody really cares "what I'm thinking" (at least I assume that's the Facebook question in English... I always Facebooked in Italian and the question is "cosa stai pensando"), much less "what I'm doing right now" (à la Twitter), and if they did care they could call me/text me/email me/IM me and ask. I'm really not that difficult to contact. I've come to think of Facebook mostly as a vehicle for sharing photos, and I think there are alternatives for that which I intend to be exploring here pretty soon. (Flickr, Picasa... these are words I have heard.)

But I still like blogging, and I no longer have a MySpace, so this blog was born. I figure I'll e-mail the address of the blog to people who might actually bother to read it, and if nobody does that's fine with me, but at least I won't be forcing my trivial bits of madness down society's collective craw like one does with Facebook. But here I can write and if you don't like it, stop reading.

So here's the rules, kids!

#1) I refuse to censor myself in my own blog. I'm going to say/write whatever I'm thinking, and if you don't like it, you don't have to read it. I will endeavor not to name names to protect the guilty parties if I'm having a particularly vicious rant, but that's the most censoring you'll get out of me.
#2) If you read something you didn't like, don't bother posting irritated comments at me. Your fault for reading it. Such comments will be moderated right off the blog.
#3) Should I happen to post in a non-English language that you cannot read, don't come crying to me. See rule #1 and realize that sometimes I don't think in English. Don't worry... whatever I wrote was likely not important and likely not directed at you.
#4) Posts will be sporadic. They may occur every day, twice daily, or weeks in between. If you get tired of checking just to see if I wrote anything (assuming you actually care), subscribe or something. There's probably a button for that, but I'm new here so I don't really know.
#5) I like black and purple. Deal with it.
#6) I like rock music. Again, deal with it. I will get a music player on here eventually, and it will be noisy. You can find the stop button, I'm sure.

With that being said, enjoy my little world and your trip through the dark and scary corners of my mind. Here... have your own personal tour guide: