everything in flux

2002-01-21T23:45:00.000-08:00

Note to self:
Deciding that since you're awake at 1 am anyway, you might as well be doing further research into the link between environmental pollution and chronic autoimmune illness, is an extraordinarily bad idea.

My memory is getting worse as I get older - this is true for most people, but I'm still only 27 (28 in about 2 weeks). I find that I can't remember 90% of what I studied even in college courses I took a couple years ago. When I was in elementary school, I tested as having a genius-level IQ, but now I doubt I'm even above average at all. I wonder: is this lack of retention because I spent too many of my teenage years and early 20s partying? Is it because I attended schools where I was never taught how to study correctly? Or is it the cumulative effect of years and years of dioxin exposure at levels hundreds of times above the US average? What is all this dioxin exposure doing to me anyway, besides obviously affecting my fertility? What happens to Adam as he's getting a steady transfer of my lifetime's worth of dioxin exposure through my milk? I should've never had those toxicology reports done, they confirmed everything I already suspected about what happened as a result of growing up so near to Dow. My blood contains more than 300 times the safe amount of dioxin. What is this going to do to me? I'm offloading a lot of it onto my baby while nursing, so that decreases my cancer risk somewhat, but it's no wonder I've been so fucking sick this past year, what with all those stored chemicals being released into my body as I breastfeed. In my town of 30,000 people, I personally knew 8 kids who had leukemia as I was growing up, including the little girl I babysat for - this is so far above the normal rate of leukemia and I just wonder if my kids are going to end up one of them. I haven't called Lisa in almost 2 years now because I don't want to hear that her daughter died of leukemia, I don't think I can handle it and I hate myself for wanting to spare myself bad news more than I want to offer support to someone I used to be close to. By the time Adam was 6 months old, he had already been exposed to the lifetime so-called "safe" limit of dioxin through my milk (this is true for any breastfeeding mother, so it was probably more so for me since I was exposed to so much more growing up and therefore have so much more stored in my body). What effects is this going to have? I feel like I am a walking time bomb, I don't know what's going to happen. In the past 6 years I've just gotten sicker and sicker and illnesses caused by chemical exposure don't usually get better. Whether you get cancer is the luck of the draw. Will I be around to see my kids grow up and maybe bless me with grandchildren of my own? Will I live a normal life span and just feel like shit? I finally realized a year or two ago that I am never going to feel better - the constant feeling like I'm shaky won't ever stop, the headaches won't stop, the chronic nausea won't stop, my cycles will never become normal, I'll probably never be able to regulate my moods, the pain in my extremities won't go away. This is who I am and what I have to live with and it's fucking depressing. Will my kids feel like this someday, since they grew inside my body and drank my milk? Did I just pass a lifetime of illness on to them? Will I ever be able to change the world and convince people to stop demanding products made with these chemicals, will I ever be able to scream and stomp my feet and yell loud enough to make chemical companies like Dow (though they're far from the only one) realize that if they kill off all of the human race, there would be nobody left to buy their fucking products anyway? Not that it would matter to them of course. I think about the fact that the world is so polluted, our bodies and food and water supply tainted beyond repair, and don't see much hope. The earth will someday recover, I think - it has from other great catastrophes, though it must be noted that the others were natural disasters rather than man-made. But future generations, should there be any, will look back on us and our fall the way we look back on the fall of the Roman empire. Modern Western civilization just wants money, no matter who is destroyed in the process. I guess the leaders of government and big business figure that the earth will still be inhabitable for them for at least the remainder of their own lifetimes, so it's more important to make as much money as they can and forget about the fact that they are slowly poisoning the entire human race. The air is poison, the animals are poisoned, our food is poison, our water is poison, our body has these poisons absorbed systemically throughout. The quest for money destroyed the human race and I really can't even get into the mindset of the people who felt this was ethical or justifiable. I hope I never do understand.

This is just fucked beyond belief. How cheery, huh? Now it's 1:45 and I *still* can't sleep.

2002-01-21T20:04:00.000-08:00

Mega fluff:
My sister and I both have minor obsessive-compulsive (OCD) tendencies, and it drives our mom crazy if we mention this. Actually, Joseph Campbell says that most people in industrialized Western societies have OCD tendencies, because it's an unconscious attempt to compensate for the lack of rituals in modern life. But anyway, today I sunk to a new low of all obsessive-compulsive actions: I scraped soap scum off the shower caddy. Oh yes, I really did. This was no brief swipe over it with a sponge either, it was detailed freaking scraping. I have sunk to a new low. Does it make it better that we're having some realtors preview the house tomorrow morning and that's part of why I did it?

My mom called today and just said she hadn't returned my call or email in so long because she had to work (she never works longer than a 5 hour shift) and keep up with her regular housework and go to doctor's appointments. So she isn't even mad - as far as I know, at least - and I worried for nothing. Instead she is exhausted by her really busy schedule. She's not even 50 yet, but having a dentist appointment is apparently so exhausting to her that she can't do anything else the rest of the day. I hope and pray that I have way more energy than that when I am 47.

Nice resolution department: I had one loser buyer at half.com leave negative feedback for me because the post office damaged their package during shipment, and rather than contacting me to get a refund, the buyer decided to ruin my previously perfect seller rating by saying I did a shitty job on the packaging. I'm very happy to say that a few people have ordered things from me since and they all left positive feedback, one of whom even commented that it was packaged well. Heh heh. So now my seller rating is back up to where it used to be. Selling some of my books on half.com has been a really good way for me to get extra cash these past few months. I don't think I would've been able to buy Christmas presents for people without it, and it paid for my ticket to the Live concert in November. Yay!

Speaking of buying used stuff online, I won another Strawberry Shortcake rag doll on ebay today. I am trying to slowly collect them and only do it when I have enough money in my Paypal account (and don't need the Paypal cash for groceries), but I have a price limit I absolutely won't go over. This one (Apricot) makes my third rag doll; I already have Raspberry Tart and Apple Dumpling. If I got insane with the Strawberry Shortcake collection like some people do, I would spend thousands of dollars and have too much junk cluttering up my house, so I'm limiting myself to just the rag dolls and the original vinyl dolls. I still cannot believe my mom threw away all my Strawberry Shortcake stuff when she moved out of the old house - though I suppose it was really my fault for not taking it with me when I got married. If I still had my collection, it would be worth a fortune. Of course I never had Plum Pudding when I was a kid and I have now decided that she's my mascot because she's the geek girl, but I absolutely cannot afford one on ebay as I have never seen one go for less than $75 and I just ain't spending that on a stupid doll. I don't know why I had to choose such a dorky yet expensive thing to collect.

2002-01-20T22:04:00.000-08:00

Update on Logan and the quest to attend school:
He has decided that he no longer wants to attend school, after all. I think the real shift came when I told him that once we're in Michigan, we will know people there and he will have kids he can play with. I told him that Jill will be there and he can play with her daughter Jordan, and Adam can play with her daughter Emily, and he was so excited. He asked me for a backpack to sweeten the deal and I agreed, and I think that was all he wanted. I know that someday the desire to go to school is going to crop up again, but at least now I have a little practice dealing with it. I don't really know what I'll do if the day comes when he really does want to go to school, period. I believe in following my kids' cues and I don't know if I'd want to hold him back from exploring it, but I really don't think I'd feel comfortable sending him to school before he was at least 10. Everything I've heard, especially with regard to boys, is that the ages between 5-8 are the most vulnerable for children's personality development and I really don't want my kids to be in an institutionalized school environment during that period. Right now Logan is really confident and sensitive and I really love who he is, and I'm so afraid of exposing him to a "Lord of the Flies" environment with other kids and having that change his personality. So for now, the school thing is resolved. And I'm glad, because Dirtwitch's comments about the Waldorf school definitely made me think twice. The ideal school may be non-existent for us, at least in any of the areas we ever plan to live.

We watched the movie Office Space yesterday - it's a couple years old, but it was one of the funniest damn movies I have ever seen. If you've ever worked in an office, so much of it rings true. There's an absolutely hilarious scene where they take one of the frequently malfunctioning printers into a field and smash it to bits, and do so to a soundtrack of gangsta rap - oh my God, I was dying. What a fun movie.

2002-01-20T19:59:00.000-08:00

Snarky comment of the day, from something observed in the grocery store: there is a new brand of disposable diapers that are red, white & blue called "Little Patriots". There is SO much wrong with this concept that I'm not even sure where to begin. First of all, it does seem oddly fitting that a way of showing patriotism would be buying disposable products - what better tribute to the American way, right? Furthermore, are people really so stupid that they will fall for this marketing gimmick? Wait, I know the answer to that, and it lies in my archives: the same people buying the patriotic diapers are those who have 7 flags on their car. But most of all, I cannot stop laughing about the concept that these patriotic diapers are going to be pooped in. Let's teach our babies to show respect for the flag by pooping in something decorated like the flag - what a great idea!

Adam's favorite things in the world (alas, patriotic diapers are not on the list because he wears cloth):
*pulling up on the stove and turning the oven light on and off repeatedly
*grabbing raw potatoes from the pantry and taking a bite out of them before anyone notices, then putting them back
*chewing on socks
*unrestricted penis grabbing
*throwing food overboard from his high chair tray to signal the end of mealtime
*"dancing", which consists of wiggling his butt if he's standing or kicking his feet rhythmically if he's lying down
*turning the TV on and off repeatedly, especially if people respond by getting up and turning it back off when he turns it on
*pulling all the books off the bookshelf then mixing them around until all the book jackets fall off and get crumpled
It is amazing how many of his favorite games were Logan's favorite games at the same age, too.

Logan's favorite book is Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type and he is attempting to learn to read it himself, which is very exciting. More troubling is that he likes us to act out the book, which means invariably that he gets to be Farmer Brown, and J, Adam and I are cow, chicken and duck respectively. When we're playing the game, he asks me a question but if I answer him, he reminds me that ducks do not talk and I should be quacking instead. *sigh*

I have decided that when we go to Ann Arbor, I'm going to try to get a part-time job writing a column for one of the alternative weekly newspapers in the Ann Arbor or Detroit area. Alternative weeklies don't usually require a degree to work for them, and I really think I can do this! By now I'm getting enough publishing credits that I can just take in some of my clips to show them and let my work stand on its' own. I feel very confident about my ability to do this, but in the meantime, I'm going to try to get more publications so my clip file is bigger.

I talked a lot to J today about what to do regarding the situation with my mom, and I have decided that I simply have to stop expecting that I'll ever be able to make my parents happy. I am going to start challenging the things they say that I don't agree with, and I'm going to stop living my life in fear of their disapproval. I think this is going to be a long, gradual process, but it's long overdue. My sister has never hid much about her life from my parents, nor tried to make decisions based on their approval, and she certainly hasn't been shy about telling them what she really thinks. And for a while, my mom was really unhappy with her, but she got over it. I think I can do the same, though it will probably come as a shock to both my parents and me since I've been so docile for almost 28 years. I'm going to be polite while I'm staying in their house, but after that I'm going to start speaking up for myself. They can't hurt me anymore unless I let them, right? My childhood is over, I have absolute freedom over my own life. We'll see what happens once I actually put this into practice. I hope things will be better, but I have no guarantees. But facing their disapproval head-on and allowing conflicts to happen instead of desperately trying to avoid them will mean that I will face my fear, and one way or another I'll be free.

2002-01-18T20:27:00.000-08:00

Something for everyone (except for people who like short posts, who surely by now have given up on my blog) in this blog entry!

I spent a good deal of my online time today at this website about the contrast between rich and poor in America and the world as told in pictures and it's a really moving, though disturbing, website. If you feel up to thinking about something heavy, I can't recommend this enough. But it makes me want to do something, and I've felt too exhausted since Adam's birth to be much of an activist. He's a year old though - I can't keep using the "just had a baby" excuse to justify not doing important things anymore. I imagine that once we get to Ann Arbor, I'll get involved in activism a lot more again since there's a lot of it that takes place on the U-M campus. On a note totally unrelated to socioeconomics, I have to say that I'm really looking forward to the opportunities in Ann Arbor. Today J found out that there are the following in Ann Arbor that I may be interested in: not one, but 3 Buddhist temples (one specifically Zen); an unschooling group; a midwifery training school; and several vegetarian groups. I think we've picked the right place. :) But after viewing that website and getting a strong reminder of the depths of poverty even in our own country, I'm going to shut up about the frustrations of not having a second car or not having money to enroll Logan in music and gymnastics classes. Just the fact that I get to choose where I want to live and will be able to make it there, even if we have to rent a relatively cheap place, means that I still have a hell of a lot of options in life and am nowhere near as poor as I sometimes think I am when I'm feeling sorry for myself. Feeling sorry for myself when I had money to buy some organic shampoo today shows that my perspective has been a bit out of whack.

On a lighter note, I went to rent a movie today (American Pie 2 - hey, it was J's request) and I decided it would be fun to make a little list of the kinds of movies I like and don't like. I'll readily admit that I'm not much of a movie buff - I see less than 20 movies a year and all of them are on video; I've only been to the movie theatre once in the past 5 years and it was a waste of money in my opinion. But anyway...without further ado, here's my movie preference list:

10 Best Movies I've Seen
*Memento
*Dogma
*Clerks
*Fight Club
*The Matrix
*SLC Punk
*American Beauty
*Pulp Fiction
*American History X
*Roger & Me
Probably in two hours I will think of other movies that I like more than one or two on this list and change it, but this is what comes to mind quickest. Generally, I like really well done sci-fi (note that this does not include Star Trek, which I think sucks ass royally), dark movies, things that make me think, mysteries/suspense (but again, this has to be well done; if it stars Melanie Griffith or Kim Basinger we can pretty much guarantee that it is NOT going to be well done). I love love love any movie having to do with the punk scene. I also have a love for movies with a lot of gratuitous but woman-friendly sex scenes, and movies that have quirky, dark humor. Quirky dark humor does not mean Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey, both of whom I despise. Kevin Smith is more my style, though he's not really that dark in my opinion. I like pretentious indie films in general, especially if they feature Christina Ricci or Natasha Lyonne. I love Drew Barrymore films, even though the movies themselves are usually awful. She's just so damn cute.

The kinds of movies I hate most:
Romantic comedies, especially really predictable ones. Exception usually being John Cusack, whom I love, but not enough to rent Serendipity because it looks predictable and lame. I hate movies where the product placements are really obvious. I hate cliched "happy ending" movies. I really really hate overhyped movies like Titanic and Forrest Gump. I boycott them until the hype dies down, then finally convince myself that I've just been a snob and watch it, only to discover that I was right and the movie sucked. I hate movies with female music stars or models deciding to "break into acting", though I may someday rent Mariah Carey's Glitter when it is no longer a new release. I think Glitter would be really freaking hilarious to watch if I had a couple of strong margaritas first. Caveat being that I couldn't watch this movie on a day when I was depressed, because rather than cheering me up, I think it would make me feel far more depressed about the state of the world to think that someone so talentless and psychotic has millions of dollars while I should clearly be queen of the world based on writing talent but earn in a year what Ms. Carey earns in 30 minutes. I personally think that J. Lo should kick Mariah Carey's ass for always talking smack about her, but I'm going to shut up now or people are going to think I really pay attention to celebrity gossip. *cough*

Okay, back to movies. Damn Mariah Carey for sidetracking my discussion. Add that to the list of things to hate about her.
I hate movies starring the Olson twins. I hate movies starring Michael Douglas because he's always so freaking smarmy and obnoxious. However, my intense dislike of Michael Douglas may have more to do with the profile of his personal character in the book Backlash than his acting ability. This is turning into a list of actors I hate so I'm just going to go with it and make a list of that:
Julia Roberts, except for Erin Brockovich, which I liked in spite of myself; Catherine Zeta-Jones; the Baldwin brothers, all of 'em;
Jennifer Love Hewitt; Russell Crowe; former Beverly Hills 90210 actors. Not one of them has been good, though Jason Priestley's role as a hitman in Cold Blooded was actually humorous, though perhaps unintentionally so. Also the aforementioned Melanie Griffith, and Antonio Banderas; either of them alone is nearly intolerable, but together might necessitate Valium for me. And Elizabeth Hurley, who is just a vile and disgusting person that I have hated ever since reading that she said if she was ever as fat as Marilyn Monroe was, she'd kill herself. Someone wanna send Liz a couple dozen Krispy Kremes? Interestingly, many of these people have dated each other. Hmmm...

10 Worst Movies I've Ever Seen:
*Canadian Bacon
*A Clockwork Orange
*Forrest Gump
*Mask (the one with Eric Stoltz, not The Mask with Jim Carrey - though both suck)
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer (though the TV show is the only show I watch)
*Kicking and Screaming (apologies to the friend who recommended this if she's reading, I wanted to like it, it just moved too slow and it isn't personal)
*Picture Perfect with Jennifer Aniston
*Hellraiser 2
*any and all Monty Python
I'm saving an open slot at #10 for Austin Powers 3 because my most hated singer on the planet, Beyonce Knowles of Destiny's Child, is going to be in it. My most hated singer plus the violation of the "singers turned actresses" rule means it's going to be the hugest clunker ever.

I did something very weird and woo-woo hocus-pocus-y to try to sell the house today, but I ain't saying what it was.

And if you saw my blog earlier today, yes there was an entry that I have since deleted. You are not hallucinating. I just decided that I was being too gossipy and snarky, even though the person I was talking about actively tried to get me kicked out of a website where we both once participated a couple years ago because I wasn't AP enough. Just because her life is now a mess of her own creation doesn't mean that I'm going to share the dirt in my blog. But I'm fighting the urge real hard...

2002-01-17T23:13:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is weird. I'm just now getting to go through the day's mail, and I see that I have gotten some personally signed letter from a "director of polling and message development" from the Democratic National Committee. They say that I have been selected to participate in a focus group for the DNC to help choose their campaign platform for 2004. They say that I was selected because I'm such a vocal supporter of the DNC. This is news to me. How did they find me? What's weirder is that it's addressed to my full name (Holly maiden name last name) that I only use on my email (which wouldn't have access to my home address) and professionally in my writing. None of the places I've submitted writing for publication seems like a likely choice to put me on a political mailing list. This is just weird.

They enclosed a survey for me to fill out and asked me also to call about participating in one of the upcoming local focus groups. This is just so weird. I voted for Gore even though he wasn't my ideal candidate - I wanted to vote for Nader because I liked his policies, but I knew he'd never win and I also knew that he wasn't experienced enough in politics to get Congressional cooperation. I knew Nader in office would be a disaster if it happened, though I love a lot of the Green party's platform. I'm not really loyal to any one party. Even though he's conservative, J and I both dug John McCain and would've considered voting for him. Yet whenever I take political selector quizzes like this one I always come out as socialist or "radical", so go figure. Though on many issues I come out favoring Libertarian as well. I just have too strong of feelings in favor of gun control and social welfare programs to be a Libertarian, but I do like their take on keeping government out of people's business. But the modern Democratic party is anything but liberal, so I don't know how I suddenly got pegged by them as this great supporter.

Hmmph. I suppose if it helps get Dubya out in '04, I'll do anything, though. My dream candidates for the '04 election: Dubya, Gore and McCain as an independent. McCain would slaughter them and I'd think it was hella cool.

2002-01-17T15:06:00.000-08:00

Logan has been making huge developmental leaps just in the past week or two. He has learned how to color inside the lines of pictures (not something I ever mentioned one way or another, I just noticed him doing it), figured out how rhymes work and loves finding rhyming words, and is learning how to draw pictures that are recognizable. He also has the dreaded LeapPad my mom got him for Christmas, and we've been working on this game in it that helps him identify the 50 US states, and he's to a point where he can recognize as many as 10 states in random order in under a minute. It's just incredible - now that he's four, he seems to have just made this leap where he's no longer babylike and is so much more articulate.

I think I want to try going vegan again. Every time I try, I have no trouble giving up eggs, honey or gelatin because I despise them, but my downfall is always cheese. I'm to a point where even cheese grosses me out; I open a package and I can smell that sour baby-urp smell right away. ::shudder:: It doesn't smell good to me anymore, and doesn't taste particularly good either. The creamy texture of real dairy (as compared to its substitutes, which always seem too thin) used to be the one thing I couldn't live without, but now it just seems slimy. I've definitely made the correlation between my chronic congestion and dairy, and the stomach-doubled-over feeling after consuming it is surely indicative of lactose intolerance. I don't care at all what other people eat, even people in my own family, but I'm just realizing that dairy is grossing me out so much and after any time I have something like a dish of ice cream or a latte I ask J, "why didn't you remind me how miserable I'd feel if I ate this? when will I learn?"

But I hate dietary modifications. I went back to being vegetarian about a year ago and that wasn't hard, because I read Fast Food Nation and that just seriously reminded me of why I had been a vegetarian for nearly 10 years. But I think a lot of people in alternative subcultures give up certain foods because it's the fad to do so (and I don't mean just alternative parenting - it's true among other groups like the punks too). I admit that I tried giving up dairy a couple years ago and I really had no commitment to it, I was just doing it because the reasons made sense and everyone else I knew was doing it. Obviously it didn't last long. Now my commitment is more genuine and I have a pretty solid body of convincing arguments in favor of it, but I just don't want to be one of those dietary restriction kind of people. It's bad enough that when I order a latte, I'm one of those obnoxious "half-caf iced Irish cream low-fat organic latte" kinds of people that I used to roll my eyes at. Plus I have so far not met any vegans who were down to earth people (if you fit this description, please write to me). All of the vegans I've met have been really pious and judgmental of people who consume meat or dairy and I don't want to be that kind of person. I have enough trouble working on being non-judgmental as it is.

I guess I'll give it a try. But what am I gonna do about my beloved iced lattes? Soy lattes taste like ass, but the thought of giving up lattes forever is more than I can bear right now.

2002-01-17T00:09:00.000-08:00

Everyone else is sick of hearing about it, so I'm not going to post about it anywhere except my blog, where I can say whatever I want.
It's 2 am and Adam is NOT ASLEEP and that means neither am I!!! Just when I think we've hit some breakthrough and get 5 or 6 nights in a row of good sleep, something (teething, overnight visit from someone, babysitting, one night out too late, wind blowing too hard, alien spacecraft landing on the moon and causing subtle shifts in the goddamn tides...) comes along and wrecks it and we're back to where we've been for most of the past year: wide awake at 2 am. Will I still be awake with him at 3 am? What do you think? Of course I will! I know I should learn to go with the flow and accept this as some type of spiritual challenge but dammit I would really like some sleep! To top it off I have insomnia, so half the time on the nights when he actually IS sleeping I cannot! What kind of cruel joke from the cosmos is this?
Someday he will sleep.
Someday he will sleep.
Someday he will sleep.
And if not, at least someday he will move out and someone else (lover, spouse, roommate, hamster) will have to deal with it instead.

If they ever find bin Laden, I don't think they should kill him. I vote psychological torture of Sisyphean proportions: I think they should wake him up every hour, 5 minutes after he falls asleep, for the rest of his life.

2002-01-16T21:13:00.000-08:00

I got my period back today, the first one since Adam was born. It seems almost eerie how much it coincides with his first birthday. It's kind of a mixed feeling for me. On the one hand, I'm excited to have it back. But on the other hand, it really closes a chapter in my life because it means there will be no "oops baby". Since J got snipped in November but could still be fertile for another month or two, part of me was secretly holding out hope (even though the timing would be so bad) that I'd get pregnant in that time.

I'd like to find some kind of reclaiming celebration to do for getting my moon back, but just can't think of anything.

2002-01-16T14:00:00.000-08:00

Weird quiz...

Which drink are you?

2002-01-16T11:48:00.000-08:00

I feel like my blog has come a long way. If you want a laugh, check out the blog I attempted to start in September, and you will see why I quickly abandoned the effort. :)

Through a very weird chain of networking, I got the name of a woman in Midland who does a lot of environmental activism, particularly against Dow Chemical. Last night I realized that moving to Ann Arbor rather than Midland might mean that we'll have to rent a house rather than buy one for the foreseeable future because the Ann Arbor housing market is so unaffordable. So I was really trying to ponder whether I'd rather rent a house in a cool town or own a house in a lame town, and I wasn't sure because I have enjoyed homeownership the past couple years. But the email I got from this woman about Midland has definitely further cemented my desire to go straight to Ann Arbor. She has been researching and tracking Dow's moves in the community for almost 25 years. She told me that, among other things, Dow has 150 miles of underground pipeline running through all of the Tri-cities carrying brines (used in producing chemicals) and chemical wastes. All the land is highly contaminated. She knows families who lived nearest to some of the disposal points who got really sick as a result. Have you ever seen the movie "Erin Brockovich"? It's totally like that. The only one of the Tri-cities that has a decent job market is Midland, but it has a better economy because of Dow, who have made it literally the most polluted city in Michigan. Dow's pollution is no secret to anyone in the area - how can it be when you knew 8 kids (from a town of less than 30,000) with leukemia? - but it is really underplayed. Most people don't think about it that much. I remember the first time I stayed the night at J's house, his mom called to let us know there had been a chemical spill, but she was so nonchalant about it that I was just stunned. J said that when that happens a couple times a year, after a few years you can't help but get used to it. Even though I'd been sick with my "mystery illness" for so long and really thought I was doing all the research on it that I could, it took me about 6 years to put together the link between autoimmune disorders and the environment and start looking in the right direction.

2002-01-15T11:41:00.000-08:00

OK, so I've been trying not to stress about the house sale thing because I will drive myself insane if I do (presuming I'm not already insane, which is debatable). We had 8 people look at it in the first 12 days it was on the market - but there's only been one person in the past week. Yes, I know it hasn't been on the market long, but J's last day of work is a month from Friday. The realtor came by and put flyers in a box on our for sale sign so that when prospective buyers drive by, they can get some information.
Here is what they say:
Ready for move-in and in great condition is this recently updated home. New carpet as of 10/01, fresh paint, updated bathrooms, and recently replaced water heater and dishwasher. Vaulted ceilings. Open concept floorplan. Ceiling fans. Huge family room with corner woodburning fireplace. Good size bedrooms. Very large yard with room for a pool. Extended patio. Close to desirable Keller schools and shopping. Won't last at this price! Call to see!

My house is pretty. It is in the starter home category, so it is reasonably priced. So where are all the buyers? ARGH!!!!

2002-01-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

More commentary on Bush's choking incident. I think he's drinking again, because the only time I ever looked like that after a fall was after consuming several pitchers of beer. Have you seen the picture of the bruise? This bruise was supposedly obtained by falling off the couch. I've fallen off the couch and never looked this bad. My kids fall off the couch all the time and don't scrape up their faces like this.

Quoting from a poster (mamaste) at hipMama:
What kind of idiot motherfucker can't chew a pretzel? Babies manage pretzels, for the love of pete.
What's the logic of the 'position of the dogs?' Is this like the grassy knoll?

A few people I know have suggested that Bush fell off the wagon again. It would seem that it's either that or something else being covered up. If our President is really so dumb that he can't eat a regular old pretzel (what kind was it, anyway? soft? mini-twists? rods? heh heh I said rod) without nearly killing himself in the process, we are in so much worse shape than I thought.

And if karma exists at all, I'm going straight to hell for mocking this right after meeting my own untimely death by choking on a Newman's Own pretzel twist.

2002-01-14T22:07:00.000-08:00

Logan really wants to go to school when we move to Michigan. My pretend Waldorf interview disaster post was exaggerated and tongue-in-cheek, but at the same time, I truly don't know if we're crunchy enough in the Waldorf way to fit in with a Waldorf school. Plus I have been really focused on the homeschooling plan for the past couple years and I've been doing a lot of reading on the subject lately, etc. Honestly before thinking about being in an area where good private schools are abundant, it was cut and dried - even if Logan wanted to go to school, if our only options were public school or parochial school, we'd homeschool. But now there are some great options out there and he wants them. What do I do? I believe in following his lead, and we'd have a good 6 months or so in Michigan to get acclimated before he'd have to start, so it wouldn't be that many transitions all at once. He's a social kid, he loves to learn, and most importantly, he is asking me for this. But do I give it a trial run to follow his lead, or assume that my original homeschooling plan was a good one and stay on course (no pun intended) with it? Opinions wanted.

2002-01-14T21:03:00.000-08:00

One good swiped quiz deserves another :)
This answer did not surprise me AT ALL:

Take the Which Beatle Are You? Quiz.

2002-01-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

Mmm...I'd forgotten how good fresh ground coffee tastes. I got this really kick-ass coffee grinder for Christmas from my mother-in-law. Okay, I'm lying. She actually got me a really hideous Tiffany-style table lamp shaped and decorated like a peacock, and I was able to exchange it for the coffee grinder. I almost never exchange gifts because I feel too guilty and instead just leave the unwanted items to rot in my garage. This lamp was so ugly that I was afraid it would scare away prospective homebuyers who might run across it in the garage.

I just discovered that there is a Waldorf school in Ann Arbor, and another in Detroit not far from Ann Arbor. I've thought about Waldorf for a while and incorporated some of the principles into our daily lives, and always said that if we lived somewhere with a Waldorf school, I'd want to send the kids there. Now I've actually got that opportunity (well, assuming we could cough up the hefty tuition, which is unlikely). While I was in the shower today, I contemplated what Logan's placement interview for a Waldorf school would actually be like.

I make sure that he doesn't wear any of the synthetic-fibre outfits or Reebok-emblazoned sweatsuits that my mom is so fond of buying for him, but I doubt that the all-cotton plain clothes we buy him at le boutique Tarjay would look appropriate. I have to lurk around the school grounds to spot what the students there wear, go to downtown Ann Arbor where all the spendy bohemian stores are and pay as much to park my car as I had budgeted for an entire outfit. Finally I realize there are some hip, only marginally overpriced thrift stores in A2 and go there and find an outfit that might be acceptable for him to wear. If he gets accepted, I'll figure out later how to get him a full wardrobe. Since I've never really bought one and just depended on gift clothes from Nana (inappropriate as they may be), it's probably time I actually pay for his clothes anyway.

The outfit question out of the way, I make sure to drill him Yet Again on the importance of not picking his nose or eating the boogers, at least not in front of people. I also tell him that he is not to mention any of the following under any circumstances: Blue's Clues, Scooby Doo, LeapPad, VCR, race-car shoes (oh damn! I guess I have to get him some different shoes too, and probably cannot return to Payless). I beg of him NOT to mention the fact that we ever had cable TV or that he really misses it. I coach him on the food issue, since he's going to stay for snacktime during his classroom visit. I go to Whole Foods and prepare a crash course to expose him to a wide variety of foods he has never seen before: tempeh, daikon, bok choy, wheatgrass juice. I promise him that if he eats whatever they put in front of him, we can stop at Wendy's for some chicken nuggets on the way home. I hide all of his favorite toys for a week in advance and leave him only with the wooden toys that he normally will not touch, hoping it will rub off.

The day of the visit and interview, I feel strangely confident that we will pass muster. I put on my best j.jill outfit and actually blow-dry my hair instead of letting it air-dry into its usual style that resembles bedhead, not to be confused with the style of bedhead that is actually considered chic. We get to the school and it doesn't look very intimidating, except for the fact that my Saturn is the only car in the parking lot that is neither a Subaru Outback nor a Volvo wagon. I see the playstands, the Stockmar crayons; this is going to be okay, these things are familiar. I meet the director and she is very friendly. Her haircut appears to cost more than my wedding ring, but I remind myself that my personal worth is not equal to that of my possessions. She talks to Logan and asks if he wants to join in for Circle Time, but he runs off to another corner of the room before her words register. The director gently tells me that if I want him to be more sedate, putting him in more neutral colors might help. Damn! I kick myself for thinking the red shirt was okay. We walk over to where Logan is "playing" with other kids. He has snatched some play silks out of a little girl's hands and is pretending they are a "rock guitar". He says, "Look at me! I'm in an Ozzy band!" and strikes a heavy-metal-god pose and sings a few offkey bars of his favorite Black Sabbath song. The director says nothing, but I can sense the change in energy next to me and am starting to get the feeling this isn't going well.

We are finally spared by snack time, which I hope will be his opportunity to redeem himself. He sits down, and I watch nervously when the boy pretending to be a crocodile sits next to him, as he has a terrible fear of "crocadollars". I make eye contact with Logan and mouth the word "chill" to him, which in conjunction with sucking his thumb seems to work. Until, that is, they actually bring out the snack. The snack today is plantains and soy milk; I cross my fingers that it will be okay. Of course it is not. He jumps from the table and starts screaming. "Help! Help! I freaking, I not wanna eat this poopoo food!" The teacher gently asks why he doesn't want them and points out that plantains are much like bananas. "You lie to me, mean lady!" yells Logan, "those not be bananas, those be the wrong color!"

I assume it is all over for us, but to my surprise the director takes pity on me and still proceeds with the interview. Logan tells her right off that he is now Chef Logan and he is going to make some food that doesn't taste like poopoo. He picks the hugest booger I've ever seen from such a small nose and shoves it in his mouth. She asks, innocently enough, about whether he has any pets. He launches into an almost unintelligible rapid-fire rambling, the only words of which can be understood are:

Blue. Magenta. Scooby Doo. Arthur. Powerpuff Girls. Dragon Tales.
He finishes off with a stomp of his feet and says, "Just forget about it, you chicken nugget! You pawprint macaroni! Forget about it, fruity lady!"
Whether he realized it or not, he was also telling me to forget about it. I know it's going to take the Waldorf school three weeks to restore their sense of calm and innocence after just one morning with us.

2002-01-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

This is a philosophy I try to embrace:

I have nothing to fear
'cause I found a way to flow
in a host of things that grow
these babies become old
and love is bought and sold
the mouth of god is wide
so I'll just fall inside
and let every damn thing go
(from "Flow" by Live - can I talk about this band any more in my blog, anyway??)

If you've been reading my blog, you know that I often fail at this miserably. I am a stress-ball by lifelong habit but my biggest spiritual quest is learning to stop being such a stress-ball and just go with the flow of things and accept them as they are. I have found that such acceptance really does bring peace. But after a long weekend of heated discussion with J about the next stage of our plan, I have to come to some very major realizations. Sometimes going with the flow of things is not the right approach; sometimes instead you have to make strong resolutions and make active attempts to create change. That's where I am in the process right now.

This is a very un-PC point of view in the alterna-mothering world, but I have realized that I really don't want to be a SAHM forever. I knew that it would be very hard for us to make it on one income without a greater degree of struggle in any of the areas to which we're planning to move. I thought for a while that J would need to just need to find a way to make more money, but then recently started exploring the possibility that I would need to get a part-time job. As we were talking today, I finally came to the realization that I really miss having a job. There, I said it. I've been suppressing this for a long time, and the people closest to me could see that I felt this way, but I was largely not admitting it to myself. I'm supposed to love being home with my kids so much that I don't need the unique fulfillment a job brings, but the truth is that I DO want that fulfillment. I want a paycheck. I want to see other adults on a regular basis. I want to be using my brain for more than typing on the computer or occasionally writing something for publication. It is not just that I'm okay with the idea of getting a job. I want one. Nothing will change as far as my feelings about my kids always being with one of their parents, but Adam is getting to a point where he enjoys being with J and Logan for a few hours and I have every confidence that he would do okay with it.

J and I were also talking about keeping separate bank accounts, an idea he's suggested several times over the years that I have always rejected. He will still pay the bills and my income will be solely mine to do with whatever I wish. The more we talked about this, the more I thought it sounded really good and potentially empowering. I've had trouble being completely dependent on him the past couple years. He's never held it over my head at all, or treated me like it was "his money", but I still miss the sense of economic equity. I worked from the time I was 14 years old and always had my own money. I always liked being able to pursue my own ambitions and have some control over a space of my own. My main focus in the discussions J and I had this weekend was that I feel so trapped in my mother's life. I have said for my entire life that I would not be happy staying home like she does, only leaving the house every couple days. I always had goals of my own that I wanted to achieve, and for the past couple years I have felt very disappointed that I was no longer working on any of them. I have really felt like my life was over, at least for the next 18 years, and that I had given up all my dreams. And I'm not going to sugar-coat things because I know that many people who read my blog do not think that mothers should work at all. In most cases, I even agree with that - but one situation does not fit all people. We are never going to change our minds about how we want the kids to be raised, but there are multiple options available so that I can still pursue my goals and get out of the house in adult company once in a while without requiring that the kids be in any kiddie-warehouse setup (daycare, public school, etc). Maybe J will be a stay at home dad someday, and in the meantime we can do what we have in the past of coordinating our work schedules so that one of us is already home.

For anyone who read my panicked worst-case-scenario blog entry from yesterday, you will be relieved to know that if/when I return to work, I will NOT be going back as a secretary. In fact, what I think I might do is just get a job at a cool cafe or someplace like Whole Foods, and save some of my income so that I can go back to school. I still really want my degree, and what better place to go to school than U of M? Since they're the largest employer in Ann Arbor, maybe J could get a job there and get discounted tuition for us. How liberating to realize that I can take steps (like getting a part-time job doing something other than clerical work and finishing my degree) to ensure that my worst case scenario *won't* happen!

I feel so much better about things now; so much less worried about the move. I figured out that if I get a job working only 20 hours a week at relatively little pay, it would be the factor that would enable us to live quite comfortably in the Ann Arbor area. It doesn't make sense to me to settle for living in the Tri-cities just so I don't have to work, when in fact I think I'd like to work. (And the truth is, anyway, that the job market in the Tri-cities is so bad that I'd probably have to work there too - and probably have to work MORE hours because I'd be unlikely to earn more than minimum wage.) I feel like my life exists again, that I do not have to give up my original dreams just because I had kids. I will surely need to adapt the dreams a bit or adjust the time schedule for their achievement to accomodate the needs of my kids, but I don't have to shelve them altogether and stay home. I do have to admit that if I'm staying home with the kids just because I think I "should", being utterly depressed and unhappy with being home isn't going to benefit the kids. I remember all those years when my mom was depressed, just staying at home, and though she said she didn't want a job, I remember wishing she would just do something. She was a total martyr about being home and I never thought, gee, I'm really glad she made that sacrifice for us. I really remember wishing she would do something that made her happy. Is a sacrifice worth anything if it's one that no one asked you to make, and you'd rather not be making anyway?

So anyway, maybe some people won't be happy with the realization I've made but I AM. I've spent the past couple years trying to fit my square-peg self into a round hole situation and I think that's why I've been so prone to depression. I don't regret spending the time at home with the kids and I don't think it's been bad for them, but I've definitely been kidding myself if I thought that being a stay-at-home mom was my life's greatest ambition. Sometimes going with the flow means realizing what you really want to be doing, instead of forcing yourself to stay in a mold that doesn't fit anymore.

2002-01-12T22:16:00.000-08:00

Today's question, courtesy of a conversation that J and I had:
Does wanting something inherently mean that you are unhappy with what you have? And does it depend on what it is that you want? Does a lack of wants inevitably equal happiness?

2002-01-12T19:00:00.000-08:00

I wrote this whole long entry basically about why the Tri-cities suck and why I want to be in Ann Arbor instead, and my annoyance with J because he is not committed to either one and will take whichever place offers gainful employment first. He does not really share my hatred for the Tri-cities and does not understand the deep-running fears I have about what would happen to us as people if we moved back there. Because the job market is so bad there, he'd have to take whatever job he could get, and what if that meant he had to go back to doing factory work? He's been out of factory work for almost 3 years and has been so much happier; I know that having a more professional job did wonders for his self-esteem. And in doing so, it really improved our marriage and has contributed to our relationship being so good since then. I deleted that other entry because it was a rehash of everything I've already said and doesn't get to the root of my real fears. What follows actually does get to those fears.

I'm going to lay out my worst-case scenario here in attempt to free myself of these worries. The worst job and lifestyle situation I can imagine is:
J gets a factory job paying $9 an hour, and we can't afford to live on that. So I have to borrow like $1500 from my parents for a 15-year-old car, get a secretarial job paying $7/hour, and leave the kids with my friend Kim so I can go to work. Once the kids got old enough for school, they could be enrolled in the same horrible schools I attended (ranked 1 on a scale of 1-10, 1 being worst, according to bestplaces.net - this is true). J decides that he's not really that unhappy with the lack of culture in the Tri-cities and learns to enjoy watching lots of TV, watching Three Dog Night play every year at the River Roar in the summer, and goes back to eating hamburgers because he recalls how much he loved cookouts with the family. My cousin Ken invites him to go to Hooters on a regular basis. My sister and I go out once a week to Steamers Pub and eat greasy french fries and drink pitchers of crappy beer like Bud Light, smoke lots of cigarettes, leave without tipping, rant about Mom and go to Taco Bell on the way home. My kids grow up loving McDonalds and play Nintendo and never want to read books, because they want to fit in at the public school rather than get beat up. After my uncles teach Logan and Adam how to hunt, deer hunting becomes their favorite activity and J gets past his objections to realize how much he really loves hunting. J puts a "Say yah to da U.P., eh?" sticker on the back of our Saturn, which is the last nice car we'll ever own. We live in an upstairs flat (like we did when we tried moving back 5 years ago) and the kids have to be quiet and there's lead based paint and the downstairs neighbors cook disgusting smelling cheap meat all the time and offer it to the kids when they get home from school, because they're latchkey kids. After work, I won't leave the house, ever since foolishly going to the Saginaw mall alone and getting mugged in the Sears parking lot. I forget that I ever bought organic food because Whole Foods is two hours away in Ann Arbor (which is way too far to travel for any reason, since everything I want is Right Here in the Tri-cities), and start realizing that my parents and sister really were right, and organic produce didn't taste any different and since the government allows hormones in milk, it must be safe to consume. On our anniversaries, J and I leave the kids with my parents and get to go for an exciting chicken dinner at the Bavarian inn in Frankenmuth (the billboards brag "it's broasted!"), where the servers actually wear lederhosen, because that's where everyone goes for their anniversaries. I start defending everything about the way I grew up, and decide that my parents were right that I never needed a college degree, because being a secretary is really fulfilling after all. I stop thinking that Dow is really such a bad company since they provide a living for so many people I know, and that they probably are telling the truth that the rare cancers of so many of my friends have nothing to do with their pollution. As the kids get older, my favorite things are going to high school football games, as I have since totally revised my opinion of high school and decided it was the last good time I ever really had. By the time they're 12 or 13, we're able to afford a $50,000 house that is not really that close to being condemned. I listen to the kids talk to me about their desire to go to college and get out of the Tri-cities and I remind them that we left and it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Once the kids are out on their own, J and I finally feel like we have tons of money and we spend it rather than save it for retirement, and we go to fancy-schmancy places like Red Lobster, because their fried shrimp lunch special is really a good value, and he buys me my dream house in a different neighborhood, because by then even our old neighborhood has deteriorated so much that people are getting killed in drive-by shootings. By then I'm able to afford a brand-new car again and I get something as fancy as a Chevy Cavalier. J finally gets the little Chevy S-10 pickup truck he always wanted, which he uses to go hunting and to haul lumber back from the lumberyard so he can build us our very own deck on the back of our house, which we can only use for 2 months out of the year, because it's snowing the rest of the year. The kids get married and have kids of their own and they and our grandchildren are the only thing we live for. Logan and Adam's wives decide to breastfeed but I am sure to let them know that nursing beyond a year is disgusting and if they want to quit before then, it will be just fine to switch to formula. Above all, I make sure to impress upon them my Christian philosophy that one's relationship with their spouse takes absolute precedence over that with their children, and if it means that you completely ignore your children's needs for the sake of what you think your spouse wants, then by all means you should do that. At their bridal showers I am sure to tell them that the secret to a happy marriage is getting "date night" without your kids at least once a week, even if all you do while your kids are sitting at home (in fear of their abusive babysitter) is get really drunk and dance to covers of Top-40 songs at the lounge at the Holiday Inn. The kids will understand when they get older that getting drunk with your spouse takes priority over your kids. I become obsessed with convincing the boys to move back to the Tri-cities and make all sorts of plans for my opportunity to raise two kids again. I will plan their birthday parties for them, I'll offer to babysit but only on my own terms, I'll feed them all kinds of food that their parents don't want them to have. I'll buy them all kinds of stuff they don't need even after their parents tell them they have too much junk already, and I'll never pay attention to whether or not it's made out of PVC or age-appropriate, because everything on the market is safe or else they couldn't sell it, and the only important choice in toy buying is that I like it. But alas, my own kids will not move back because they will get fulfilling lives of their own in places they actually like. To cope, I go on regular drinking binges every time they come home for a visit, which results in visits being cut short abruptly and I decide that the kids moved because they hate me. I am too immature to face what their real issues with me are, so I overreact and assume that every decision they make that differs from mine is a passive-aggressive slam on my choices. And they will have found a way to get college degrees in spite of our efforts to discourage them from doing so or the obstacles we put in their paths. And I'll be all alone, but at least I'll be in the town where I grew up and have lived most of my entire life, save for a relatively short stint in Texas, by every other member of my family. Because for a while I was the only one who had the nerve to break away from the extended family, and everyone knows that Our Family Just Doesn't Do That.

Ridiculous worst-case scenario, maybe, but sadly not that far removed from possibility. And yes, almost all of those possible events are based on real things that have happened. I have huge issues with my family and my upbringing that just really do not feel resolved enough for me to move back there.

2002-01-11T15:38:00.000-08:00

Note to the people in my town: God gives you no brownie points for having the most American flags on your car. One is enough, really. Having 6 or 7 flags on your car is overkill. Someone in another state, please tell me it's not like this where you live! There must be a bastion of sanity somewhere.

2002-01-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

I think we're going to Ann Arbor, after all. We've ruled out Detroit because of the announcement that Ford is closing their Dearborn plant - that's going to be thousands of people out of work and competing in the job market in the Detroit area, and that's not a great situation. And I talked to my mom today and she said that the job market in the Tri-cities area is really pretty bad lately, especially for decent paying jobs. She had it in the back of her mind all along that we might end up needing to look in the bigger cities for jobs since the job market in the Tri-cities is so bleak, but she didn't want to tell me that before we moved because she didn't want us to be discouraged. I was also looking at the housing rentals in the Ann Arbor area and there were far more relatively affordable listings than I thought. I think that's where I really want to be, and I feel relieved to have finally realized this. When we tried moving back 5 years ago, I think part of the reason it didn't work and we ended up going back to Texas was because we were focusing on the Tri-cities rather than Detroit or Ann Arbor. I'm really more of a city person. And, I have to admit that I want a little bit of space between us and my family. My mom is already making a lot of plans that I'm going to have to address, and some will be outright vetoed. She is talking about inviting us over to cook burgers on the grill in the summer and she knows that we do not eat them - what's up with that? Does she think she can coerce us into changing our minds? I know she didn't just forget that we don't eat meat, because this is the same person who still remembers the name of the boy I had a crush on in 4th grade. She says that my dad wants to take Logan to high school football games, and I'm not sure about that either - Logan loves my parents, but he hasn't been away from us very often AND I'm not sure my dad is up to date enough on watching toddlers to be able to keep Logan in his sight at all times. Plus there's the whole food issue - my parents are so obsessed with hamburger and hot dogs that it's totally conceivable that they're going to try to feed them to the kids every time I turn my back. The downside of being in Ann Arbor, though, is that while my mom was totally supportive of us being there (which surprised me), she said that because it's a couple hours' drive, when she babysat the kids, maybe it would have to be overnight. Right away I told her that overnight visits won't happen for at least a year, and probably longer for Adam. I think she was offended. She almost never left us overnight with anyone, and certainly not when we were the ages that Logan and Adam are now, but I think she sees it as different. I fear that we are going to have to some difficult discussions ahead about what will and will not be okay when it comes to my kids. And that's going to suck because I hate confrontations.

I am done babysitting! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! I have decided that maybe the greater purpose of babysitting for this family was for me to get a sense of perspective on people's parenting as it differs from mine. I tend to be more forgiving of people's differences than a lot of people in the AP communities - I can believe that breastfeeding or homebirth is totally right, but I can also accept that other people may equally strongly believe that bottlefeeding or medicated hospital birth is totally right. Still, I admit that I've had moments where I've looked down on people for using disposable diapers or giving certain vaccinations (like chicken pox, my pet peeve of vaccinations). And after babysitting for these people, I've gotten a good perspective check that the only parents who really deserve my criticism are those who put no thought at all into the care of their children. There's a difference between just going along with the mainstream without questioning, and putting so little thought into your child's care that you become negligent.

The bright side of being sick: I lost 5 pounds in the past two days and my regular clothes are too loose, and I can fit into some of my smaller clothes. Yes, I am shallow and vain. Ask me if I care.

I think I finally got a comment box set up! Thanks to Madame Fabulous for the help, she truly lives up to her name.

2002-01-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

I give my heart and soul to the one

we spend all of our lives goin' out of our minds
looking back to our birth, forward to our demise
even scientists say, everything is just light
not created, destroyed but eternally bright
masters in everytime lord in everyplace
those who stood up for love down in spite of the hate
we spend all of our lives goin' out of our minds
they live in the light

we made it to the moon
but we can't make it home
waitin' on a rescue that never comes
made it to the moon
but we can't make it home
maybe home is where the heart is given up
to the one
to the one

from "They Stood Up for Love" by Live

2002-01-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

I have decided that I'm going to focus on Ann Arbor or Detroit. If I get up to the Tri-cities and they seem like the right place, then I can stay. But if financial considerations are the only thing holding me back from living where I really want to, I'm going to meditate on finding a way to pursue my dream. Maybe I can work on freelance writing for some extra cash. I don't know why I'm so afraid of submitting for publication. My writing has never been rejected and I know that string will be broken sooner or later. How's that for wimpy? People have been telling me since I was 5 that I am a good writer. I went to writing schools where I had to submit portfolios of work and in some cases, I even bypassed really long waiting lists. I know I'm a good writer. I just don't know if I'm exceptional, and I don't think I have the confidence to query editors and deal with rejections. If someone came to me, I could write really great things with confidence. I am just not a "go-getter" of the sort necessary to be able to market myself. I'm the type to say, well they might not like me so I'll just stay home rather than find out. I must get over this. I know through online writers' groups some really untalented (in my opinion) writers who just a year or two ago decided to pursue freelance publication and have made substantial amounts of money and gotten numerous relatively high-profile publication credits. If they can do it, I can...I just have to figure out how to kick my own ass into gear.

We have another person coming to look at the house today. Thankfully I got plenty of advanced notice today and the prospective buyer will be coming after the kids I babysit for will have gone home. This morning, I finally told the people I babysit for that I won't be able to do it anymore. I'll finish out the week, and if they asked me to do it another week because it's short notice I would (but they led me to believe that they would not, and it was always conditional week-by-week anyway). I am so relieved that I won't be doing it anymore. Logan jumped up and down and yelled "woohoo!" when I told him I'd only be babysitting for 2 more days. But I don't think he's a total misanthrope because a few minutes later he informed me "I love my baby brother. He's great and he makes me feel special."

Babysitting rant #609823047785431: I just found out from their older daughter that the baby had a stomach bug early last week and was up all night throwing up. Which means that odds are very high that when Logan had that puking incident late last week, that he'd caught it from her. Which also means that the parents knowingly brought a sick kid over for me to watch and didn't even have the courtesy to tell me first. I do not tolerate this sort of thing! To me this is possibly the single most offensive parenting practice, in terms of how other people's parenting actually affects mine. Pretending that your kid isn't sick just so you don't have to miss work or a playdate and meanwhile exposing my kids to nasty viruses is just the lowest of the low. Next time someone does this to me, I'm calling them at 1 am to clean up after my sick kids! And when the father came to pick up the kids today, he told me that he was feeling really ill and said "I ate some Wendy's hamburgers yesterday that didn't smell right, so that's probably why." Now tell me, who in their right mind thinks their meat smells weird but eats it anyway?? This isn't rocket science, people, we have our senses of smell for a reason. And if anyone reads Fast Food Nation or even so much as contemplates how e.coli is transmitted and then how it would get into meat and still eats hamburgers anyway is either a) incredibly brave or b) incredibly stupid.

Aside from the evils of babysitting, I am actually in a great mood today and am feeing very hopeful about the future. The move out of Texas has been a long time wished for and it's so exciting to finally see it coming to fruition. Even if we don't start out in Ann Arbor, it would be a lot easier to plan a move there from the Tri-cities. Making the big jump out of Texas is more important. I'm feeling like our parenting decisions are right and I'm proud of what we're doing. I am also reading a lot about homeschooling and feeling very excited. When I first started hanging out in the AP communities online, I thought homeschooling was just not for me. But through education (of myself) and contemplation and faith in my abilities, I've come to the point where I can't imagine doing anything else. Knowing what my own educational experiences were like, it also seems like a natural decision to make. I just feel like I can do anything.

2002-01-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ADAM BOO! He chose to grace me with a great long nap for his birthday today. And he is being a little giggle bug and his usual cuddly self. What a sweet baby.

I am still obsessing about the move. Fortunately since this is MY BLOG I can say whatever I want BWAHAHAHA so it's up to me if I feel like obsessing neurotically about the move. I was spending a ton of time at one of my favorite sites and comparing towns in Michigan and the area we're intending to move to - also the same as where we grew up and our families still are - is hella bleak. Check out this comparison between Saginaw and Ann Arbor (where we actually want to move, but feel we cannot afford):
Violent crime
Ann Arbor 327.6
Saginaw 1,753.3
US Avg 446.1

Property crime
Ann Arbor 3,299.9
Saginaw 4,977.7
US Avg 4,162.2

Murder
Ann Arbor 2.7
Saginaw 15.7
US Avg 3.9

And employment, housing appreciation, average educational level, and health are proportionate. There's something that keeps us from Ann Arbor, even though it's where we really want to live:
Median home cost:
Ann Arbor: $174,550
Saginaw: $72,950
US Avg: $146,102

And:
Average household income
Ann Arbor: $50,774
Saginaw: $26,589
US Avg: $44,958

Since I really want to stay home with the kids and homeschool them - and at the very least, can't return to work anytime soon since we share a car, affording housing in a market as expensive as Ann Arbor on one income is not going to happen. I feel like my hands are tied. I don't want to go back to the Tri-cities. J says Midland is the one of the Tri-cities that's actually better than Saginaw, and the numbers bear that out, but it's largely only better if you work for Dow. If you don't work for Dow, the crime rate is safer, but housing is totally unaffordable. And I don't think I want to be in towns that small where all the industries are pulling out, and where everyone I know left years ago for towns with better opportunities. J has no desire to pursue making enough money that we could live in Ann Arbor or even the safer 'burbs of Detroit, so either I have to accept living in a shithole town with no future, or plan to go back to work. And because I've been out of work so long, if I could get more than $11 or $12 an hour it would be a miracle. Add truly rotten credit to all this and I'm feeling like we have to go back to the Tri-cities as our only option. And I really don't want that. I want a little bit more distance between our families - I don't think I can handle being in the same town as them when we've been 1300 miles away for the past 7 years.

I feel totally trapped because we're poor, and I don't even have words for how frustrating that is. I just want to cry.

2002-01-07T21:53:00.000-08:00

One year ago tonight, the midwives were here and I was in active labor. At this time of night a year ago, things were still good. I was 9.5 cm with a cervical lip and still laughing, still birthing so well. It wasn't until I let the midwives intervene in their evil, frustrated-OB-in-disguise manner that things turned downhill. I never would've gone to the hospital had my midwives been more patient. I was really achieving the painless birth I'd prepared for so long. I fought *so hard* to have my homebirth. I have to get these feelings out now because tomorrow I want to focus on my joy of having this sweet baby here with me. But his birth is so bittersweet. I've been shoving a lot of my feelings about it inside for the past year because my disillusionment and regret and - yes, anger - is so much to deal with. It was my fault for choosing the wrong midwife. It was my fault for seeing the warning signs that my midwife was nervous about me being her first HBAC and not feeling like I could switch birth attendants - again! - at 36 weeks. That homebirth was mine, I was cheated. I was. I don't care how many people say I should still be happy because I had a successful VBAC. For every person who says that, there's someone else who has told me that maybe Adam couldn't have been born at home anyway because he was so big. And that is bullshit. Ten pounds is not too big, VBAC or not. I dealt with 3 weeks of prodromal labor, fighting her off when she started whispering about the fact that maybe I'd need a repeat c-section. I felt so scared of a repeat section, it was so hard to keep my spirits and strength up in the face of that when it was so hard to have faith myself. But I did it: by all accounts, I was succeeding. I made it through 6 hours of transition (yes, it was really 6 hours!) before Gail finally said I either had to consent to more of her manual dilation or transport to the hospital. I will use their real names because only the innocent get to have their names and privacy protected. I did not give up. I'm sure in the back of some people's minds is the memory that I wasn't sure I wanted a homebirth after all for a while in my second trimester, but I did not give up. I made a strong resolution and commitment to homebirth and I should have succeeded. There was nothing wrong with me, only with my impatient midwives. I didn't hire Gail for a reason - if Bonnie hadn't merged practices with her, would I still have transported at 10 cm? I don't think so; even though Bonnie was nervous about my VBAC, during my labor it was Gail who was trying to accelerate the pace. She was the one who wanted to rupture my membranes even though I was at 9.5 cm. And in the end, when I was dealing with the first few hours of transition, the midwives were watching TV in the other room and it was all J helping me. We could have gone unassisted. He was far more competent and confident than my midwives. I shouldn't have been in the hospital, staying awake all night to fight off the nurses who were insistent that Adam would need to go to the nursery to let me sleep. My husband and other son shouldn't have been at home while I stayed in the hospital, our family disconnected. I shouldn't have been fighting with any hospital staff about HepB or eye ointment or circumcision, and I sure as hell shouldn't have been dealing with the asshole pediatrician on call who, the minute J left me alone, berated me for "so dangerously attempting homebirth after a previous c-section". I can't believe I've been bottling this up for the past year but I am so fucking angry that I didn't get my homebirth. I am so angry that when I think about this I can only see a pure white rage and I want to destroy something! I don't want the midwives to have my picture on their walls, and I don't want to hear that they brag about the "amazing 10-pound VBAC birth". I want them to apologize for destroying the last chance I had to have a homebirth. That is unforgiveable.

So much for my peace and love philosophy. Some people don't deserve it.

2002-01-07T13:41:00.000-08:00

J is driving me nuts with the house selling issue. The house has been on the market for a week and we've already had 6 people come see it, which I think is awesome. It averages out to almost one per day and you can't ask for much better than that. But because only one person came over the weekend and the realtor told us she expected it to be a busy weekend, J is freaking. He's already talking about wanting to lower the asking price of the house, and I think he's...well, he's on crack. It's actually kind of cute that he's stressing, because he is normally Mr Calm and I am the one running around like Tweek and screaming "I can't take this pressure!" Now we've had this total role reversal and my practice in positive thinking and calmness these past couple years is paying off. I'm using lots of positive thoughts to counteract his negative ones. We are NOT going to be selling the house for 10 percent less than the asking price. It's a good market here, our house is nicer than the competition (I've checked), and we have two months. It's all gonna be okay.

Adam is on the floor next to me playing with my CD-rom drive. He has just discovered that you can push a button to open and close the little drawer. You can see the little wheels in his head spinning and he looks like a pothead watching the Teletubbies. "Whoa man...did you see this crazy thing? Open, close, open, close, just like magic! Buttons, man...trippy!" He is the cutest baby in the world. In my biased opinion, of course.

I guess I'll weigh in one last time about all the online soap operas. I wish I hadn't posted about them in the first place. It's been nearly two years since I left AMU and I've spent that time trying hard to stay out of all the scandals. They just get my blood pressure up and I wake up in the morning with that sick feeling of dread in my stomach before I turn on the computer. I think it sucks if people create completely false online personas to get attention, especially because the sympathy those people generate for their fake situations only makes it harder to believe the people who really are in trouble. I don't want to become hardened to the people who really need help. But I didn't know who Peggyann was before this because I'm no longer involved at the sites where she posts, and that's why I said I didn't really care what the outcome was. To me it's like news from a galaxy far, far away - remotely interesting, but not too applicable in my daily life since I don't even know her. But I didn't want to get involved in all these scandals again, and I think people had maybe forgotten about me until I weighed in on the subject in this here blog, and I really liked it that way. So in the future if there are more online scandals involving people I don't know I think I'll do the wise thing and just let the news pass without comment.

But the darker side of online scandals is like what's happened with Lisa. I don't know her especially well either - I remember her from AMU, but that's about all. Now I'm hearing about how badly she was abused, and how other people I know similarly online are being abused, and it makes me feel so helpless. There's this code of silence in the online world about the real, major issues like this that are going on, and it just sucks. People don't hesitate to comment on what they think of someone else's birthing choices or where/if/when they send their kids to school, as though these issues are really major in comparison. I've seen online fights go on for days about these subjects. But when we know someone is living with serious abuse in their own homes, we're curiously silent. This seems like some misplaced priorities, here. And that's what I've been trying to say all along about the online communities I've frequented. The decisions we make as parents do count, absolutely. But wouldn't it be great if we could assume that our parenting styles are similar enough that we can focus on something else? When real people's lives hang in the balance and we know about it, I think it's irresponsible to go on talking instead about the need to kick dairy or debating the use of the phrase "potty learning" vs. "potty training". What we're doing in our own homes with our kids is making a small contribution to the future of the world, but it cannot end here. We have to take some of that effort and expend it on other people who need the help.

2002-01-06T20:38:00.000-08:00

I'd been feeling vaguely depressed all day and couldn't really figure out why. Then it dawned on me that it's about the fact that Adam's first birthday is on Tuesday. Now, I shouldn't be sad about his birthday; the first one is a milestone and I'm happy that he's been a happy, healthy baby. But he's my last baby, and I know that the first birthday sort of signals the end of my days in the infant stage of motherhood. He's going to be walking soon - he's a bit later with walking, just like his brother was - and he's already trying hard to talk. His own little personality has really emerged. He wants to do everything just like Logan does. He steals Logan's cups and if Logan is drinking from one, Adam wants to also, though this makes me a little concerned that Adam will wean early. And while I have had an incredible struggle with nursing him this year, especially with the recurrent thrush, something in me is sad to think about that phase of our lives together ending. I realize it probably isn't going to end soon - though I do have moments when I wish it would - but I know that when it does, the era of my life as mother of a baby is gone forever and that's almost too sad to contemplate. The rest of the world hurries independence in babies, and I did with Logan too, though to a much lesser degree than average. When Logan turned a year old, I felt like he was well on his way to toddlerhood and I didn't feel too sad about leaving infancy behind. I try so hard to go with the flow of life, to accept that things always change, but I don't feel ready to let Adam's babyhood go. So his first birthday is really bittersweet for me. I want him to grow and I want to celebrate that we made it through that crucial first year. But despite his clear attachment to J and Logan because he seems to identify already with "the boys" in a way that Logan never did, he still holds that strong attachment to me as mama. And I don't want that to end.

For some reason, Logan was bouncing off the walls today. From the time I woke up until the time he went to bed, he was just really loud and animated and it wore me out. I'm hoping that means he'll sleep well tonight. Logan almost always sleeps well, though. I once thought I had something to do with that, but then Adam came along and proved me wrong. With Adam, I never know if it's going to be a (lucky) night when he only wakes up once or twice, or if it will be a rough one where he wakes up every hour. His sleeping habits at a year are no better than they were the first month, and in some ways they're worse.

Stressing about the move to Michigan today. We only had one person in to view the house this weekend, though the weather yesterday was terrible. Our realtor had said that she expected this to be a very busy weekend and it was disappointing when it wasn't. And even with only one person coming by this weekend, that's still four in the first week, which isn't bad at all. I didn't expect to sell the house the first week it was on the market, but I suddenly feel aware that there is this countdown until J's layoff date and I feel like every minute counts. Ugh. Must do some type of centering and guided visualization or something.

Well, I thought the babysitting job was over since they never brought the kids by on Friday and never let me know about that, but they asked me today if I want to babysit again this week. I'd like to say no, but we so desperately need the money. I have no way to pay the water bill, which was due the 2nd, unless I babysit. So I guess I'll be doing it again. At least it's only Tuesday through Friday this week, and I'll be grateful for tomorrow off. I admit that I'm relieved to have found a way to pay the stupid $80 water bill. That's $80 for just one month, and according to the city we are using about 1/3 LESS than the average household. It's just outrageously expensive for water in this stupid 'burb - one more reason to add to the already huge list of reasons that I can't wait to get out of Texas.

2002-01-05T18:42:00.000-08:00

CD of the day: Live V
They were really awesome in concert. I'm so glad I went. Yes, I did leave my then-10-month-old baby with his daddy for 3.5 hours to go to a concert with my friend's husband. And I'm glad I did; it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. Yet one thing about the show that really stood out was when Ed came out in the end of the show to sing "Overcome" - a song that had been somehow picked up as an anthem for the Sept 11 victims - he was literally wrapped in the flag, and a lot of people mistook that as a patriotic gesture. First of all, anyone who really listens to Live and has an inkling of a clue about their politics would understand that patriotism is not something they're going to embrace. I really can't stand it when people claim to love a band and have no idea what the band is really about. But secondly, if any of those people who were so moved by the supposed display of patriotism actually understood that wrapping oneself in the flag is considered disrespectful to the flag, they would've been offended. I mean, this is good old Texas: you have to love God and your country and all that stuff. Meanwhile I knew about both Live's politics and the meaning of what they were doing and I thought it was cool as hell, because patriotism is small-minded and absolute loyalty to something as abstract as one's country is precisely what got us into this mess. But I digress.

Today was a banner day because I finally got to see the new issue of brain, child magazine in which my writing appears. Julie told me about it a couple weeks ago, but because I don't subscribe, I hadn't seen it yet. I'd honestly forgot that I'd even submitted the piece. I really like that I'm at a point with my writing career that I can get published and forget about it, and have other people point out to me when they see my name in print. Of course, my reaction is not going to be this blase when the book comes out. Oh - for anyone who hasn't been aware, one of my stories is being published by Seal Press in an anthology titled "The Moment of Truth", sometime this spring. No, I will not at all be taken by surprise when it appears; nobody else will notice it on the shelves before I do. I'm going to be aware of the dates it's available for pre-order on amazon.com; I'm going to be reading ALA Booklist and Kirkus Reviews regularly to see if any of the reviewers find my story and comment on it. I can't believe I'm going to be making myself open to reviewers. I can't believe I'll be able to walk into any old Barnes & Noble or Borders and find a book containing ME on the shelves! This is a dream that has been many years in the making. Maybe I'll send a copy to Mrs Harrison, my writing teacher at the arts school I attended, who thought for sure that my archnemesis Melissa was more likely to be published than I.

Seal has a call for submissions for an upcoming anthology about spiritual enlightenment and I'm really intrigued by it. I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to submit anything, and I probably won't tell anyone about it before I've actually written something. I made a big deal about the 30-day novel writing challenge and never wrote anything, and I'm not doing that again. But the deadline for this book is in 16 days and I doubt I can write anything good enough in that time frame. We'll see how motivated I can get, though.

I was planning to write at length today about my feelings about online communities, but have been distracted by the brain, child appearance. I can just say that I'm a little tired of the whole online community scene. The same thing happens at all of them, whether it's a writer's group or hipMama or MotherSpirit. Everyone has an agenda, and what begins as a great way to find like-minded people ends up being a big push for conformity. I think it's possible to have a sense of community without requiring that everyone follow the same rules, or have to suppress what they really think. I've privately talked with so many people I know from online communities, and always hear the same thing: people are hiding the parts of their real lives that don't totally fit with the accepted mission of the site. This is really ridiculous! Why are we measuring ourselves against people we'll likely never meet face to face? It is just as phony to live one's life - or pretend to - by the standards of people on a website, as it is to completely make up details of one's life to gain acceptance. And in an effort to protect this homogenized atmosphere, people are holding back what they really think, sometimes to the detriment of very real lives offline. I know of someone online who is seemingly not at all bonding with her baby, and apparently harbors a lot of resentment and anger toward the baby, and almost everyone sees it but nobody will intervene because being nice at all costs is the bigger goal. I'd rather see someone speak up and say what they see, because maybe then someone can step in to get help. But in the interest of being perfectly nice, it gets swept under the rug. And I'm as guilty as anyone else. Something is wrong with this picture.

2002-01-05T00:29:00.000-08:00

Which Rocky character are you?

More from the babysitting for losers file: I don't know if my babysitting job is over or not. They didn't bring the kids (any of them) over this morning for me to watch, and I was listening closely for a knock at the door so I know it wasn't a case where they came over and I just slept through it. (Yes I can sometimes sleep through a knock at the door, even the doorbell ringing!) But they didn't give me any notice of what was going on, either before or after. They never came over at any point during the day and say, "hey we're home today for [whatever reason] and I just didn't want to wake you up this morning" or any such thing. They just left me hanging. So I didn't babysit two out of three days this week, and they paid me in advance. J thinks that I should be prepared to refund the money for those days, but forget it. They showed up with an extra kid for me to watch on Wednesday without any advanced notice, and then today totally stood me up without any explanation. I don't give refunds for shit like that. I have to say that even though we can definitely use the money, I'll be just as happy if I don't have to babysit anymore. Especially now that the house is on the market, we have to be ready to show it at an hour's notice, and that's too hard when I have a houseful of messy kids. My kids aren't as messy as the ones I was watching - I'm not biased; it's actually true. My kids don't eat the trash either but I think I'm veering off into a judgmental tangent here. :-p And Logan has said pretty clearly that he doesn't like me babysitting. He has fully accepted that Adam is part of our family and includes him readily, but beyond that Logan does not do well with other kids sharing his mommy.

I've been reflecting a lot lately on how much we make our own realities. A pretty clear example was our desire to move to Michigan. I even set a specific amount of money that I felt we needed as a minimum to be able to make the move. and that figure was pretty high. But it appears as though everything is working out as planned. I mean, exactly as planned. J got the layoff notice, which frees us to go, and we'll have the severance check and the proceeds from the sale of the house which will likely give us at least the minimum dollar figure I figured we'd need to be able to move comfortably. We focused on these goals quite a bit. How many other things have manifested based on our beliefs, both positive and negative? It's kind of staggering to think about how many things in our lives happened because we envisioned them, or how many things still could happen if we channeled that thought power.

Some people have accused me recently of being too focused on touchy-feely spiritual things. I don't even know how to address that. The people who have said that about me are generally pretty bitter people who delight in the misfortunes of others, and that's just contrary to my world view. I think its really sad that people are so cynical that those of us striving for "love and light" in our lives are viewed as suspect. But I don't care, and I'm not going to change. I want to live with compassion and forgiveness for people. No, I'm not perfect in this (see rants about trashy neighbors). But rather than look for the failures in others and report back on them gleefully, I want to help those I can. Those who can't be helped are better off ignored, if you ask me.

The meds I've been taking the past few days finally seem to have kicked in, and I'm feeling like I'm on the mend. A lot of my dreams are coming true these days and overall, I'd have to say life is good.

2002-01-03T23:40:00.000-08:00

Three days later - note almost everything is coming in threes:
I am now on antibiotics (that don't seem to be working) for the 102 fever, muscle aches etc that quickly went away for the guys but which were the precursor to a combo ear/sinus infection for me. So maybe I could've taken natural remedies and avoided the antibiotics - you know, I don't care this time. I have kids to babysit, a house to prepare and maintain for sale, and writing deadlines to meet. I don't have the time to lie around in bed waiting to recover right now. And I never said I was a purist anyway, which I've been told is what some people dislike about me. (Apparently lack of dogma is a negative trait in the eyes of many.) I'm just not messing around when my ears are infected enough that I'm too dizzy to drive.
I painted 3 more rooms because the house needed more last-minute prep to be perfectly showable. But I got some sort of very severe allergy to the paint I used because I wound up in an urgent-care clinic today with my hands so swollen they were turning an angry purple-red color and puffy enough that I couldn't even snap Adam's diapers (so I had to get Logan to help me each time). Should I mention this hurts like fucking hell? At the doctor's, I got two different cortisone shots in my ass so that brings my med total today to three.
Three different people have viewed our house in the past two days and it's only been on the market since Sunday - and Monday and Tuesday were holidays. I hope this is a sign of things to come. I can't wait to get the hell out of Texas and back to Michigan. I am optimistic.

Recently, one of my online friends sent me links to check out some blogs of people I sort of knew from another time. It was sad to see that the gossip and obsession with what others are doing hasn't ended. :-( So apparently there's another big scandal in the AP communities of someone not being who they pretend to be. I figured out a long time ago that those people want to be figured out because then the attention is all on them while the mystery is being solved, and I'm just not interested in feeding it. With planning a cross-country move, and corresponding with editors about revising my writing for publication, and most importantly, taking care of my really great kids, I just can't devote that much time to online drama. I don't have the mental energy or entire days to expend on trying to piece together the little slips someone made that will ultimately be their downfall. I don't think many people read my blog because frankly the lack of scandal herein probably doesn't make it very interesting, and that's great with me since it's just a substitute for writing warm-up exercises. But in case anyone does want to know if I heard the rumors, yeah, I heard them. And I don't really give a shit one way or another about the outcome. I turn on the TV once a week to watch "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" - if I'm gonna follow a soap, I want some half-naked vampires and witches engaged in a battle between love/hate with each other. Now that's my idea of a soap opera! As soon as I figure out how to add links and pictures, maybe I'll post some Willow and Spike pics just for some pleasant background scenery while you read.

I had to confront my biggest phobia last night - puke. J did not believe me that Logan was going to hurl when Logan was writhing in bed and crying and saying "Daddy, help me, my tummy feels sore". He thought Logan was hungry so he gave him milk and a PB&J. Now that, folks, is explanation of why there's no such term as "father's intuition". I heard the gagging start and headed for the other room for some calm meditation breathing. I can deal with almost anything in the world except vomit. Seeing someone puke provokes a panic reaction in me like flying or an enclosed elevator does for other people. But somehow I survived the puke-fest and now I'm just really praying this isn't going to be a virus that makes the rounds of the family. Anyone know the name of the patron saint of nausea and vomiting? I need to ask them to intercede on my behalf.

Sorry for the negative entries. I've been in a pretty positive place for the past several months, but this string of illness has got to be broken soon. Off to down some more vitamin C and garlic and try to get some sleep before I have to babysit the snotty-nosed ramen-eating neighbor kids tomorrow morning....

2001-12-31T08:40:00.000-08:00

102 degree fever, chills, muscle aches, stiff neck, sore throat. Hooray for me. J, Logan and Adam already had this and they were over it in about 24 hours. J's coming home at noon today, so I'll get to nap this afternoon (oh yeah, I only got less than 2 hours sleep last night, because though I was tired, I was too miserable to sleep). Maybe if I can nap, by all calculations I might feel better by this evening and be able to celebrate New Year's Eve.

Big changes in the year ahead. We'll be leaving Texas for good and starting over in Michigan. My writing will appear in a real, bonafide book for the first time, in the spring. I do have some resolutions, but for now I'd start with not being sick anymore. I've had one cold after another this year and I'd really like it if that string would end.

2001-12-29T21:41:00.000-08:00

I skipped a day because the realtor was coming this morning to list the house, and we spent the last 24 hours frantically trying to make the house look perfect. We were up until 3 am painting and de-cluttering, and awake again before 8 am to go to Home Depot and get more supplies. Stupid Home Depot used to be open 24 hours and of course now they close at midnight. (I'm an American! Things I want should always be available 24 hours for my convenience! Isn't that what this country is about?) We were ran out of paint at 1:30 am and J had to run to the 24-hour Walmart to get some white paint that apparently was way heavy on the VOCs and gave me an instant migraine. This morning, I felt like I would drop from sheer exhaustion. Our house looks like a freaking model home. I had no idea if anything we were doing was really necessary or if I was just being my usual OCD perfectionist self. Well, of course the realtor loved our house. She'd seen it before because her parents (also realtors) were the former owners, and she was astonished by the changes we made. She was marvelling over the condition of the house, and the fact that it looks much more spacious than it actually is, and how well we (I) have decorated it. And I tell that while she's paid to be enthusiastic, I don't think she was bullshitting us. And she listed our house for a fair price - she actually wanted to ask more, but we explained that we wanted to have the edge over our competition both in price and house condition so we can sell it by the time J's office closes. She says that based on the condition of our house and the recent sales trends in our neighborhood and price range, we should have no trouble selling it and probably at very close to the asking price. If we do get close to the asking price, our net profit all told could be in the 5 figures. I've never seen money like that before, but it certainly makes the move to Michigan sound a lot easier.

Since the day began on such a good note - being reassured that our house will likely sell well and for a good price - we decided to splurge and go out to eat. We almost never go to a restaurant where actual waiters come to your table, so we went out for Mexican food and it was a treat. After that we went shopping since we had some Christmas money left from J's grandparents. Logan got a bathrobe (oh he is so excited! now he is just like Daddy!) and picked out a Blue's Clues game that teaches the solar system. Adam got a new book. I got some pajama pants, some wonderful scented room spray, new bras, and J got new pants for work. And I got the coolest - no, really! - winter hat and gloves from Target. For the first time I found a hat that actually looks good on me. It's sort of like a ski cap style, deep purple (my favorite color) with grey trim and a little Powerpuff Girls embroidery on it. If J ever helps me figure out how to upload pics from the digital camera to the computer and I then figure out how to get my images to actually show up here, I'll let you see how cool I look in this hat. Hey, stop laughing! I do look cool, I do!

I'm scared of moving. I love our house here, and since we're moving to an area with a depressed economy and our credit is now screwed, I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever again own a house this nice. I have to admit that if money were no object, I'd rather live in Ann Arbor or one of the northern-most suburbs of Detroit than in Bay City or Midland. Going from an area with over a million people to about 25,000 people sounds like it has some major advantages, but it also sounds like I might feel a little claustrophobic. I was reading the Bay City message boards and saw so many things that just seemed so lame - like the fact that tanning salons are still a big trend and the biggest event is still the River Roar - and I felt kind of panicky. Wanting to get out of Texas is not in question; I can't wait to get out of here. But I'm just not so sure about my hometown. What I think we're going to do is go back, try out Bay City or Midland for a year or two, and see how things feel. I'm going to give myself time to adjust to the change of lifestyle. If I'm feeling bored or claustrophobic or we can't get good enough jobs, maybe we'll try going to one of the bigger towns. It all really depends on the job outlook: if we move up to Bay City or Midland and J is working temp jobs with no benefits for $10 an hour or something after a year, we'll go; but if he can get a good job and we could afford to save for a house, then we'll stay. The houses (especially with some acreage, which is our dream) are more affordable, but the key will be getting a good enough job. So I guess I need to focus on that. While I want to live a more simple life than we have here in the suburbs of a big city, I'm also a little nervous about switching back to a small town because it's going to be culture shock. Starting over as we are is both exciting and scary at the same time.

Update on the babysitting situation: I feel so sorry for the kids I babysit. Before I started babysitting for this family (our neighbors), I thought they were nice enough people, and just more "country" than we were. They're originally from a rural Texas town and sort of act like it. But now that I'm babysitting for them I'm learning a lot more about them, and I'm discovering all kinds of new things that are hard to reconcile. I felt bad taking money from them for the babysitting, because they seem so poor (though they set the price and I felt it was fair, and I learned my lesson in the past about offering free child care). I just thought they were struggling a lot, though when the mother went back to work I knew they were earning more than we are. Yet in comparison our lifestyle seems a lot more affluent: they have three very old cars to our one new one, we have nicer furniture, clothes in better condition, etc. They bring their 16-month-old daughter over with a package of beef ramen noodles to be given to her for lunch; their 11-year-old came over the other day (they didn't want to pay me to watch her, so they left her home alone!) and told me she'd had sweet tea and ramen noodles for breakfast and there was nothing to eat for lunch! I thought, wow, they are really struggling. But we found a Walmart receipt on our floor that they'd apparently dropped and the father had spent over $100 on fishing supplies! They have cable tv, but no phone. They go to McDonalds almost every day. And meanwhile they said that the baby takes a bottle at naptime but that they have no bottles for her, so I had to find one. They suggested I give her chocolate milk in her bottle (as if!) and her clothes always have holes in them. The kids have chronic coughs because the parents smoke around them. They don't put the baby in a carseat anymore - once she outgrew the infant "bucket" seat, they just didn't put her in another one. I offered them a car seat since we have an extra from when we still had a second car and they said they weren't interested. I've given them other things before and they're always asking to borrow stuff, so I know they didn't refuse out of pride. And I just can't comprehend any of this. I know we worry probably more than most people about our kids, but I can't comprehend feeding kids such unhealthy food or going without a phone in favor of cable or having babies ride around without a carseat with the windows rolled up in a smoky car. It just makes me so sad. Their 6 year old doesn't know her ABCs yet and their 11 year old cannot tell time. The 11-year-old asked what we watch on TV at night and I told her that we turn it off around noon and leave it off the rest of the day and play games or read stories or work on the house together, and she said she wished they did things like that at her house. These kids are sweet and I think they have potential to be bright, happy kids, and I just feel like the parents are setting the stage for a life of problems and teaching them patterns that will be hard to avoid in their own adulthood, thus perpetuating another generation of more of the same. And that just makes me so sad. :-( It's hard to know what to do because I generally keep my mouth shut, figuring that what other people do is none of my business and that if I share my opinions, it won't change anything. But this is a case where my tendency toward wanting to rescue everyone (J calls it "taking in strays") is really hard on me. Will I be able to make enough of a difference in these kids' lives and with any luck maybe rub off on the parents just a little, or will it instead just bring me down?

2001-12-27T20:32:00.000-08:00

Sure enough, Logan and Adam came down with our colds. Fortunately it seems to be a short-lived one, since J and I are feeling a bit better today. Adam just has a slight touch of it - hooray for breastfeeding! - but Logan seems to have it the worst. He slept all day, only coming out of his bedroom for periodic sips of water. Poor kid. He seems to be improving though.

J and I have recently discovered something pretty interesting. We've noticed that the more we give to others, the more our own needs are met. This has invariably proven true without exception. Maybe it is sending that good energy out into the universe that increases the probability of it returning to us in kind. Regardless of how much or how little we have, we are determined to keep giving. It really seems to make a huge difference in our quality of life, and hopefully for the recipients as well. But enough of the soapbox.

Here is the latest list of things that rule and things that suck:

Things that rule:
System of a Down
Live
Propagandhi
Ani Difranco
Tori Amos (but what is up with her new album? Eep! I used to be a diehard fan, but it's dreadful!)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Fudge
Guaca salsa (guacamole with cilantro and jalapenos, oh my god this stuff is incredibly good)
Coffee coffee coffee (but decaf, geez I'm getting old) - especially iced lattes
Anything purple
My kids
Forgiveness
A good marriage
My comfy bed
j.jill clothes
Burt's Bees products
10-year-old Doc Martens that still fit better than any other shoes, even after two kids and accompanying foot growth
Reruns of "All in the Family" and "Roseanne"
Getting published
Attending college
Getting books (from bookstore or library)
Road trips

Things that suck:
Texas
P.O.D.
Puff Daddy/P.Diddy/whatever the hell he calls himself now - get over yourself!
Low-rise jeans
Macy Gray
Fundamentalists who think I'm going to hell for not believing in their religion
Similarly, people who view the world in black and white
Having to pay $3 for a half-gallon of milk to avoid icky nasty growth hormones
Gap ads
Rolie Polie Olie
People who ruin your half.com seller rating because the post office screwed up the shipping and the buyer chooses to leave negative feedback about your packaging abilities rather than contact you first and arrange a refund
Babysitting for people who are really bad parents but feeling compelled to continue doing it for the sake of the kids
Envy
Ordering a bean burrito from Taco Bell, taking a huge ol' bite and finding out it has ground beef in it (I'm vegetarian)
Heinously tacky stained-glass lamps shaped like peacocks (gift from MIL)
Shallow people (especially people who are shallow but think they're really deep)
Not being able to fit into your older, much cooler clothes
Your child's favorite toy being a light-up musical phone with deranged singing cat noises

2001-12-26T22:32:00.000-08:00

It figures. The last thing we possibly need right now is to be coming down with any kind of illness, and it's happened. Of course J has it so much worse than I do, if you ask him, and I'm just not going down that I'm-sicker-than-you road with him. Right now we have so much shit to do here and he's backing out on excuse of being sick. And of course that means that while he's sitting on his ass feeling sorry for himself (and making some time to alphabetically sort his CDs and download tablature for his new guitar, natch), I'm the one packing boxes. We don't have to move until February, and that's not the reason for our hurry. The reason for our sense of urgency is that the realtor is coming on Saturday morning to check out the house and list it for sale. Things need to be packed up, put away, thrown away, cleaned, and overall shuffled around to give the illusion of less clutter and more space. But if I am online for a few minutes he says "why are you getting on my case about needing to pack? You're not doing it either!" Now that's constructive and helpful, isn't it?

The kids were out of control today. Adam was screechy and refusing to sleep most of the day, which is always fun. And Logan decided to (quite uncharacteristically) throw major tantrums all day long, finally culminating in a huge ugly power struggle with J over bath time. When Logan refused to share a bath toy with Adam, J totally overreacted and got Logan out of the tub without washing him, sent him to his room and told him he had to go to bed without the normal bedtime ritual of storytime as soon as J was done washing Adam. This of course sent Logan into further tantrums and hysterical screaming, and I get to be the one to not totally undermine what J has tried to do - though I certainly didn't agree with his discipline tactic, I wasn't up for that argument today - and still somehow calm Logan down enough that he can breathe well again. J accuses me of being too much of a pushover, but what are you supposed to do when your kid is sobbing uncontrollably and managing to gasp out phrases like "I still need a bath! I don't want to be dirty when I sleep!" and "I'm scared, I'm going to have bad dreams tonight now and Daddy's gonna yell at me when I wake up!" Thanks a lot, J. You put your foot down and looked like the bad ass, but it didn't stop the tantrums and it didn't create peace in the house, and - in keeping with the theme of the rest of the day - you left me to pick up the pieces.

And yeah, I totally know already that the kids' horrendous behavior today probably means that they're going to get our colds tomorrow. What's more fun than two adults with flu-like symptoms, too much work and not enough time? Two adults with flu symptoms, too much work, not enough time AND two sick kids.

What's more is that I know this cold is the same one affecting the little girl I just started babysitting. Her older sisters are in school and so now we're getting exposed to all the normal illnesses that go around elementary schools. How lovely that being exposed to all these germs at the worst possible time is my price for being able to earn a bit of desperately needed cash. And the babysitting itself has been another thorn in our sides. We need the extra cash and it's supposed to be mine to do with whatever I wish - I wanted to get a few things for myself and save the rest for the move. So far all of it has gone to last minute items that we supposedly desperately need. Today I wanted to go to Old Navy and see if I could get some Christmas pajamas at 50% off (of course they didn't fit and I walked out with nothing for myself). Instead of deciding to stay home and work on the numerous projects that need to be done, J and the kids came along. J decided that Logan will desperately need a new winter coat this year - here in Texas you only need lightweight jackets during most of the winter - and that even though we'll be moving in early March, we all now need heavy ski parkas, scarves, hats, gloves, the whole shebang. So where did my babysitting money go this week? You guessed it: winter gear for himself and the kids. We now have more stuff that we have to pack that we probably won't even be able to use until next fall.

I don't like babysitting. There, I said it. I don't think anyone else's kids are as cute or endearing as my own and I find it challenging to deal with the different parenting styles of the kids' parents. I can't bring myself to make beef ramen noodles for a 16-month-old, I hate using the disposable diapers, I hate knowing that the kids get spanked. But the people I babysit for now are fair about paying me and do so on time, they don't set a lot of restrictions on what they want me to do with the kids, and they're fine with the fact that it's short term because we're moving soon. But I still don't like doing it.

And of course there's the fact that J thinks the house should stay clean while I'm babysitting. He says that I should confine all the kids to only the living room and kitchen, only allow a certain few toys, and require that all food and drink remain in the kitchen. The little girl I babysit often gets dropped off in the morning with her bottle and something (invariably crumbly and messy) for breakfast. According to J, if this little baby tracks crumbs through the living room or knocks over her bottle to lie dripping on the carpet, I am responsible and should have prevented it. Maybe I'm just exceptionally terrible at taking care of kids - which he seems to be implying - but I just can't figure out how to keep a preschooler, two babies and often also a 6-year-old from making a mess, and how to keep them all happy confined to two rooms. But you know, he thinks he could do it. Tonight Logan found a carton of garlic dipping sauce (leftover from Papa John's Pizza long ago) and for reasons unknown decided it would be fun to open it and pour garlic down the front of his brand-new-for-Christmas shirt. We threw the shirt into the washing machine with some other clothes, and even after 3 washings, the whole load of clothes still reeks of garlic. J was in the kitchen making dinner while Logan got into the garlic sauce, but of course that TOO was my fault because he was cooking and therefore I should've been supervising. This is no new theme in our marriage, though - the "everything is Holly's fault if you trace it back far enough, even things I did when you weren't around" argument pops up every few months. So much fun.

Tomorrow's gotta be better, right?

2001-12-25T11:00:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas, and we're recovering from the onslaught of presents. The kids woke up early, but J fed them breakfast and allowed me to sleep until 8:30 am - I know I may not be so lucky every year! Our families are in Michigan, so they mailed the gifts, and we got together yesterday with our only family in the area. So, the rest of our Christmas is all for us! It's so relaxing. This is the last year that we'll be by ourselves at Christmas, and I'm trying to savor it - next year, the true chaos of running back and forth from one family's house to another with tons of kids around will begin.

My kids got way too much, as usual. I had been buying gifts here and there for them throughout the year as I had money, and of course by the end of the year it turned out there was a sizable accumulation. And my mom got them even more than we did! We're trying to reduce clutter, which includes many of the toys from previous years. There's really way too much. Sometime once we move back, I'm going to have to have a talk with some of the family about the need to scale way back on the gift buying. Right now, I think some of it might be overcompensation for the fact that we're separated by so many miles, so I feel bad about saying anything. But all that will change. The kids had some favorite toys of the day, though. Logan's favorite toy, above and beyond all else, was the "rock guitar" that was his Santa gift. He's obsessed with wanting to be in an "Ozzy band" and loves hard rock music, so he got a fairly realistic electric guitar and he loves it. He also got a Leap Pad from my mom - not something I would've chosen for him, but again, he really likes it. He also got a toy cash register and some tools. He really loved almost everything, but these were the highlights. Adam got far too many battery-operated toys with lights and sounds, but of course he loves them. He also really loves the bath toys and trucks he got, because he loves his big brother's trucks and bath toys. And of course, the Talking Periwinkle. I admit it, we try to do the natural toys, but I bought Adam the talking Periwinkle. Logan showed it to him in a toy store and it actually stopped Adam from crying instantly, and ever since has had the same effect. I can put aside my own preferences once in a while if it makes my kids happy. Adam also got some sippy cups with handles in his stocking and I think those were his favorite gift of all.

I got money from family, so I bought some clothes and J wrapped them up. I also got some philosophy shower gel , sugar-cookie scented lotion from Bath & Body Works (YUM), a Burt's Bees facial kit, candles and a Godiva chocolate bar. I also got numerous smaller gifts from friends and family scattered far and wide. J got an electric guitar as pretty much his only gift, and he is in heaven. Between J and Logan with their "rock guitars", I think I'm going to have a migraine for the rest of my life!

In listing this haul, I feel grateful, yet almost ashamed of how much we have. We've been packing up some of our things to prepare the house to be shown, and it's astounding how much you can fit into a 1250 sq ft house! I've been sorting all of our things into four piles: keep out, box up for later, donation/sale, and trash. I've been pretty liberal with the trash pile. Simplify, simplify, simplify. It feels good to reduce the amount of things we have, and I want the things that remain to be things we truly value. The fact that we have things that we can throw away makes us blessed. We're on the upper range of what is considered "low income", and I don't feel that way at all. I feel truly affluent - and not just compared to the rest of the world, where people often don't have running water or central heat, let alone luxuries like a dishwasher or TWO computers or even a refrigerator. I look around in my house and see that almost everything I own is a luxury item, and they're things that most people take for granted. Microwave, washer/dryer, food processor, froofy good-smelling shower gels, a truly enviable book collection, a gorgeous comfortable bed, VCR, cordless phone - none of these things are necessary, and I think most people take them for granted. Sometimes I take them for granted. But my life is richly blessed. My needs are always met - most are met immediately, but always within a matter of days. Most of my wants are met, and I am happy that there are a few elusive things that I cannot get. If I could get everything I wanted whenever I wanted, I think life would be sad because there would never be a goal.

Our finances are terrible, probably in the worst shape they've ever been. J's being laid off, we have to sell our house in a hurry, we only have one car, and we're making a cross-country move without another job lined up. But you know what? This is also the happiest I've ever been. I feel free, I feel hopeful for the future, I feel like we are making decisions by our principles. I have a really great husband and exceptional kids. I have pride in what we're doing. Life is good and I'm counting my blessings - how about you?

2001-12-24T20:11:00.000-08:00

Today's music: System of a Down. I just discovered this band, but they really kick ass! They're from Armenia, and they write a lot of songs about spiritual and political issues. My favorite kind of music! Discovering a good new band is one of the coolest things, don't you think? I'm really picky about music, so it's fairly rare that I find something I enjoy. (No 'NSync for this mama.)

Well, it's Christmas Eve, and what good are the holidays unless you feel a little maudlin? Maybe that's just my own family's warped tradition, but I feel vaguely weepy and I haven't even touched the champagne yet. The kids are in bed early and that's the advantage of Christmas: the kids are so excited for it to happen that they willingly go to bed early! I was thinking about Logan and the fact that everyone really remarks upon how special he is. He's one of those kids that everyone comments on and remembers because his personality is really exceptional, and I'm not just saying that because he's my kid. There's something different about him. He's really empathic, and happy, and he has a unique and humorous outlook on life. And while I was nursing the baby, I was looking at Logan and the thought occurred to me: what if something happened to him? Maybe he's one of those kids who is so special and different because he's not meant to be with us for very long. It was more than I could bear to think about, really, but for some reason once I allowed that thought to cross my mind, it was hard to turn back. So now I'm left wondering: is this something every mother worries about every now and then, or is it a premonition? It's just the most awful thought. So I need to think about something else.

True to form, I have another thought, but it's not much cheerier. We had to go over to my SIL's house for their Christmas celebration today, and as we were driving there I couldn't help noticing all the people who were out shopping. They were still shopping at 5:00 pm on Christmas Eve! Maybe I'm just getting into my Grandpa Simpson grouch mode but it seems like not that many years ago, there weren't so many businesses still open well into the evening on Christmas Eve. And even the number of businesses that will be open on Christmas here is pretty astounding. I can understand the ubiquitous 7-11 or gas station for those last-minute sort of minor emergencies, but why is Walgreen's going to be open 24 hours? Is nothing sacred? I realize that Christmas/Solstice/Yule/Hanukkah has been more commercial than sacred for many years now, but I find this tendency for businesses to be open through more of the holiday to be disturbing. It's like there's no pretense anymore that it's a sacred holiday at all. And I'll spare you all the rant about the American shopping machine, but it just seems like capitalism could take a rest for a couple days a year. The world won't stop if Taco Cabana is closed on Christmas or Walmart is closed on Thanksgiving. (Yes, Walmart was actually open on Thanksgiving. I was appalled, but what else do you expect from Walmart?) You know, after Sept 11th, a lot of the Middle Eastern commentary was about the fact that America is a nation of infidels. I'm not all about thinking that we need to be better Christians or go back to an archaic standard of spiritual life, but it's hard to prove that there's anything sacred in our culture anymore. I think the assertion was that our collective god is money, and it sure looks that way from here.

2001-12-24T00:50:00.000-08:00

We finally got our wish: we're moving back to Michigan. I am so sick of Dallas and the materialism and corporate culture and the obsession with everything bigger, newer and more expensive. I've been listening to Ani Difranco's Reveling/Reckoning album lately - it has a very good tone for winter, for contemplation and making peace. The song "subdivision", in particular, is really resonant with me lately. It's about how sad it is that, in the interest of avoiding the older and more racially integrated parts of town, our cities are being destroyed as everyone moves out to the suburbs. Hell, yeah! This year I've been on a big kick to scale back and start living more by my principles, and I feel like this new move is a very big step in that direction. My kids (Logan, 4, and Adam, 1 in two weeks) will grow up with their extended families in their lives. We'll know the landscape well enough that I can teach them to identify edible and medicinal plants in the wild; go camping; establish an organic garden in soil actually fit for growing things. We've tried to have a garden here, but the soil in N. Texas is full of rocks and clay. Can't grow a damn thing in it except jalapenos, and while I love jalapenos, it would be nice to be able to grow more. Land is cheap where we're going, and we're thinking of buying a house on 2-5 acres and having a mini-homestead. We're homeschoolers, and I think learning how to be relatively self-sufficient and live a more sustainable lifestyle will be a great experience for the kids.

Life takes interesting twists and bends. Seven years ago, when J and I were newlyweds and just moved here, I wanted nothing more than to be in a big city. I wanted material success for the first time in my life, since God knows I didn't grow up with that. But then the babies came and the faster-newer-flashier lifestyle was no longer appealing. And now J's office is closing and his last day will be in February. I stay home now, but between the two of us, this is the fourth layoff in as many years. The signs are clearly pointing us in the direction to leave!

And it couldn't be soon enough. We went to Michigan for a visit in June and Logan has been talking about it since. He cries almost every day because he misses my parents (and their dog Gidget, whom he refers to as "Gidget-dog with the super action-y power!"). And I miss the water. God, I've dreamed about that crystal-blue cold water every day that I've been here. I dream of sitting on the shore of a remote beach, Queen Anne's Lace growing tall beside me, and writing until sunset while J and the boys fish. I dream of sitting in Hartwick Pines, surrounded by 100-foot trees so dense that sunlight barely shines in. Being there isn't going to be perfect - my family and in-laws are likely to give us crap about my nursing a toddler or our refusal to allow them to feed ground beef to the kids. The job outlook isn't as good; but while there are fewer jobs, the ones that exist are much more stable. I just can't wait to be back in an area of ecology-minded, liberal, Catholic, working class people. I wanted to deny it for a long time, but now it is clear that it is home. We belong there.

Back to packing boxes...