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Madhousewife: I have an idea. Why don’t you and Mister Bubby play video games while Princess Zurg and I build her bookcase?
Sugar Daddy: Okay. Are you sure you want to build it?
Mad: Unless you don’t want me to.
SD: If you want to, go ahead.
Mad: Then when it turns out like crap, you can walk in there everyday and go, “Argh–women!”
SD: I do that everyday anyway.
Mad: Well, that’s what I’m saying.
Saturday is not my favorite day of the week. I like Friday night because I go to bed thinking I’m going to sleep in the next day. Which I do, but come actual Saturday morning, waking up later than usual, it never feels like enough sleeping in. So the anticipation of sleeping in is really better than the sleeping in itself. And my husband has a way of making me feel guilty for wasting the day away by sleeping past 9 a.m. 9:30 is somewhere between decadence and pure sloth. 10:00 is flirting-with-eternal-damnation territory.
To be fair, he only has this effect on me because I too have this mindset that everything important should happen before noon. I just don’t have the temperament for it, unlike some people I know personally and very well. SD is a morning person. I am more of a 10:30-2:00 person. Whether it be 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. or 10:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., it really doesn’t matter. I like to hang around the meridians. That’s when I feel most alive. The rest of the 24 hours really don’t do it for me. There’s probably a pill I could take for that, but instead I have SD and my conscience to keep me awake and functioning.
Anyway, back to Saturday. I don’t like Saturday very much because it tends to be a day of intensity. I’m not an intensity person. Which is probably why I was attracted to SD because he is an intensity person. It’s a good thing, you know, it’s like that yin and yang, blue and yellow make green, etc., usw. But it is not really my intention to write an essay about how awesome my husband is and what a great counterpart he makes to my non-awesomeness. I was kind of hoping to complain about how he always ruins my Saturdays with his crazy plans for “accomplishing something” or “spending time together as a family.” Every Saturday is either a work Saturday or a play Saturday–and you know me: I am just a big blob of lazy goo. I neither work hard nor play hard. I just want to sit around and do nothing sometimes. Okay, all of the time. That’s me. That’s why SD married me–SO HE COULD REFORM ME.
So two Saturdays ago I helped PZ go through the boxes that have been sitting at the foot of her bed ever since we moved back into the house after the fire–that would be almost a year ago, yes, very good–and we cleaned out under her bed and stuff, and it was a nightmarish process that lasted several hours, but in the end I was glad we did it. Except for the part where at the end her room looked worse than it did when we started, but that’s not the point. The point was that something was accomplished. There are no longer 6-9 boxes sitting at the foot of her bed. There are three boxes hanging out in the hall, waiting to be taken down to the garage by someone with greater upper body strength than myself. Who could such a person be? Well, Superman is going to move into my neighborhood. Maybe he will be my new pool boy. When I get a pool. Give me a break, we’ve only been back in the house 11 months. Where was I? I was going to start a new paragraph.
You see, I am tired because I didn’t sleep in this morning, and it is not yet the meridian.
Anyway, it was a sunny day on Saturday, and since we all worked so hard last Saturday, SD was making noises about taking the kids on a hike or something, and I said that sounded fine because the last time he asked me if I wanted to do something fun and I said no, he got mad. Anyway, we were going to go on a hike, but then it became apparent that although the day was bright and sunny, it was still colder than hiking weather, and Mister Bubby was sick, so hiking suddenly seemed a poorer idea. That’s when I got the idea that SD and MB should play video games, and I should go build a bookcase because what I definitely didn’t want to do was end up going to the Saturday market downtown because that would have SUCKED. Also, I just felt like building a bookcase. Sometimes I just do. It was 10:30 a.m. and I was in the zone, you might say.
It totally doesn’t look like crap, incidentally. And PZ helped. She nailed some stuff. And some of the places where she nailed stuff, it looks a little like crap, but those are on the bottom of the bookshelf and thus don’t really count.
My novel, on the other hand, IS crap. I totally have not NoWri’d this NaMo. It was a foolish plan. I would need a month of Saturdays and SD cracking the proverbial whip every twenty minutes to write a novel. And the threat of Saturday market with four children in 50 degree weather. I just haven’t had the right supports, my friends. But the failure is mine, not yours.
NaNoWriMo is proving even more difficult for me than I previously thought. It’s been too long since I’ve written to a deadline. I really resist such things now. Maybe I could have a NaNoWriMo(GOT6T8W*) instead.
* Give Or Take 6 To 8 Weeks
This morning on the drive to school Mister Bubby told me all about endangered animals. Did you know that 100 years ago there were over a million black rhinos, and now there are only about 2,000? And a few years ago there used to be only about 650 giant pandas, but now there are about 2,000. So 2,000 is good for pandas, but not so good for the black rhinos. It’s all relative. And the Siberian tiger is the strongest tiger. Don’t correct me on any of this. My son is brilliant.
Speaking of brilliant sons, Elvis spent some time before breakfast this morning raking the leaves in the front yard. I think he thought he was being naughty because he stopped doing it as soon as I showed up.
“Daddy’s rake. All done leaves.”
I like Elvis. He’s a handy guy to have around. Yesterday he took apart a GE power strip and put it back together. He might have broken it, but at least he wasn’t replacing batteries.
My husband bought me a new cell phone. It is entirely too fancy, better than I deserve, really, but you know what the best part is? It plays this ringtone:
Also known as AWESOMENESS DEFINED.
Speaking of music, Sugar Daddy has just been asked to be the choir director at church. In other words, his life’s ambition has been realized! He has exactly six weeks to put together a Christmas program. Can he do it? YES HE CAN! And not just because this is the Age of Obama. Like Hillary Clinton, he is READY TO LEAD FROM DAY ONE. And like Mitt Romney, he is a MORMON WITH TOO MUCH MONEY. (The money part is sort of irrelevant, but I needed to make the paragraph bi-partisan. This is a time for coming together, dammit!)
Speaking of coming together, I should get back to the novel. Ha ha, just kidding. I’m going to eat some cereal and play Challenge Sudoku on Facebook. That’s change you can believe in.
Okay, so it’s not a change. It’s business as usual. But I’m a Republican, what do you expect?
Well, yesterday was pretty depressing, but today is yesterday’s tomorrow, and the sun has come out–not literally, of course (it’s only April), but figuratively, the birds are singing. And not that annoying chirping thing they do just before the crack of dawn, but a nice sound. For one thing, I got a shower this morning (mark your calendars). For another thing, there was in my mailbox the best thing a writer can get short of an acceptance letter and that is a Personal Rejection Letter. My very first! I’m so proud.
I’ve been collecting the form rejection letters for the last couple of months, trying to put a positive spin on them like Stephen King has always instructed me to–since you can’t get rejection letters unless you’re producing and actively trying to sell something to be rejected–but it’s gotten a little old, if you want to know the truth. For the last several days I’ve been going through what I was hoping was a pre-premenstrual funk, unable to work on any of my manuscripts in progress because I don’t know what happens next. Not knowing what happens next is a serious handicap for a storyteller, by the way. So I would sit there and think, “This is it. I suck. I’ll never amount to anything.” And I don’t write anything. Except maybe “I SUCK AND I’LL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING”–which doesn’t do a whole lot to advance the plot either, in case you were wondering.
I had my first national publication last month, and you would think I could bask in the glory for a while before crawling back into “I Suck” territory, but you’d be wrong. Up until a couple hours ago I was pretty sure that I’d sold the last manuscript I’d ever sell in my life–being that I Suck and all–and no one wants to peak in the Spring of 2007 at the ripe age of almost 36. I want the vast majority of my successes to be in front of me. At least I want to be able to kid myself that there is more success in my future, and thanks to Mr. [Name Redacted] of [Redacted]: A literary journal, who wrote me his regrets with his–or his personal assistant’s, I’m not picky–very own hand, with what appears to be a genuine ball-point pen, my confidence has returned. I will live to write rejectable material yet another day.
Mister Bubby: I wish I had two mommies.
Giraffemom: Two mommies? What would you do with two mommies?
MB: One mommy to sleep with me and one to sleep with Daddy. But I want you to sleep with me and Daddy to sleep with the other mommy.
GM: We’ll keep this wish between the two of us for now, eh?
MB: Mommy, I want $20,000.
GM: What do you need $20,000 for?
MB: To buy lots of stuff.
Speaking of money, I have the opportunity to copy edit someone’s doctoral dissertation. The someone in question is a pal of SD’s from grad school, and his first language is not English. Most emphatically not English. I looked over a couple chapters last night, and I wondered if I had it in me to perform such a task. The poor English doesn’t intimidate me. It’s that the poor English is being utilized to explain experiments in solid state chemistry. Riveting stuff, sure, when it was my husband’s dissertation we were talking about, but I don’t feel so personally invested in this one. On the other hand, it is an opportunity to make money using my limited professional skills. I found myself wishing the other day that I had gone to beauty school instead of college. Except that I would have been a really poor beauty school student. I dunno. I’m just glad the husband bought that extra life insurance (and that I won’t have to share it with another mommy).
I got some good news on Friday: I sold an essay to Brain, Child–the one I slaved over a hot keyboard to prune 1,200 words from–and it’s supposed to appear in either their Spring or Summer 2007 issue. So, lessons learned: a) It pays to edit, and b) It pays to lay off the blog every so often. Also, c) My husband will buy me all the Thai food I can eat when I exhibit signs of productivity. (It was supposed to be a laptop, but I won’t complain. Yet.)
So a couple of Sundays ago a good sister was speaking in church about gratitude. She told about a bunch of things she was grateful for, including her husband and kids, blah blah blah, and then she told a story about the time she went to Moscow with her dance troupe. I forget what venue they were at. Probably if I googled “famous buildings in Moscow,” something would trip my memory, but I’m too lazy for that. Some Big Important Place in Moscow. Boris Yeltsin had spoken there earlier in the day. Anyway, she said it was nice, but the bathrooms were horrible because they didn’t have flush toilets. She went into the bathroom to use her toilet, which was just a commode atop a very deep hole, and apparently there was some solid waste in the bowl, which she had to shove down the hole with a brush-stick-thingy. ::Shudder:: Well, at least they had brush-stick-thingies, but never mind. Her point was that she was grateful for flushing toilets, something that many people in developed countries take for granted.
Myself, I am grateful to go to church where ladies make specific references to fecal matter over the pulpit. No shrinking violets we.
Monday was our Family Night, and Princess Zurg was in charge of our activity, so she had us all color turkeys and put stuff we were grateful for on each of the turkey’s feathers. And yes, I did write “Indoor Plumbing” on my turkey. And PZ said, “Why not say ‘flushing toilets’?” My daughter believes in plain speaking. That’s what church has taught her.
I am not doing any serious writing these days, but I am taking unusual enjoyment in my magnetic poetry kit. Actually, I have two magnetic Shakespearean kits, one for insults and one for love poetry. Together they are a formidable literary force. They are superior to ordinary magnetic poetry kits because in addition to words like passion and embrace and beauteous, they have also have words like whoreson and milksop and scurvy. Not to mention the always-useful strumpet.A sampling from our refrigerator:
BEHOLD AN IRKSOME INFANT INSATIATE AND MAD!
HEREAFTER THE PUNY LUNATIC WILL SMITE YE WITH PEEVISH CHEEK ~Madhousewife
IF EXCESS DELIGHT AFFLICT THEE COME WOO A RUMP-FACED HAG
SUCH AN OFFENDING WRETCH SHALT RUIN THEE ~Sugar Daddy
Culture is alive and well in these parts.
Mister Bubby, No One’s FoolMister Bubby: Mom! Quick, hide!
Giraffemom: I am hiding.
MB: No, you’re not.
GM: I’m invisible.
MB: No, you’re not. I can see you.
GM: You must have special powers.
MB: I don’t. You’re just pretending.
Sugar Daddy Returns Home at 9 p.m., Greets His Family WarmlySugar Daddy: The downstairs smells like feet.
Madhousewife: Well, that was dinner, hon.
Bet he’s glad he’s cooking the turkey this year.
Happy Thanksgiving, kids!
In my other life, I am an actual writer, even if I am less productive than I would like to be. I’m slowly surrendering to the fact that housewives with young children must work slowly. Verrrrrrrrry slooooooowwwwwwllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. And if you think that was hard to read, you should try writing that way sometime.
Most of my work is fiction, but there is an essay I have been working on in one incarnation or another for the last two years or so. Dear me, “or so.” Is it possible? Unfortunately, yes. Part of me is grateful for the wide time frame, as it probably made the piece much better than it set out to be. On the other hand, the more time that goes by, the more I re-read and re-write until I just can’t stand to look at it another minute, and that’s when I give up and work on something else, which is why, two years or so later, I have not finished it.
A couple months ago I felt that I was very close to finishing. So close, and yet so far. It was all coming together, only…not. I was writing great stuff–I knew I was writing great stuff–but it wasn’t cohering the way I wanted it to. I didn’t have an ending. That’s a problem, see, because all good writing must eventually come to an end. It’s only the bad writing that goes on and on forever (“or so”). I asked a fellow writer to look at it because I had re-read and re-written to the point that I no longer trusted my own judgment. “It is rambling and incoherent and I can’t do a thing with it,” I told her. “Take it apart. Be brutal. Be brutal, I tell you.”
Well, thanks to her input and the much-deserved vacation from the infernal essay, I managed to figure out where I was going with this piece and how I was going to get there, and I finished it. Sort of. It was now coherent (good), but still much too long (bad). To the tune of about 1,200 words too long (very bad).
When writing a personal essay, there is this temptation to start with the Dawn of Time, gloss over the less dynamic aspects of the Second Ice Age so that you can focus more on how man came to smelt ore and forge tools before finally getting to your effing point. I admit I suffer from this malady. At least I know myself. And as “Know Thyself” is the first law of self-editing, I figured I could trim 1,200 words off this beast without shedding too many tears. I’ve given birth four times without anesthesia, for crying out loud. So, like a rich old lady carving ungrateful grandchildren out of her will, I set out to cut, cut, cut. Like an evil corporation downsizing its loyal employees for the sake of its bottom line, I resolved to lay off those 1,200 words like the dead weight they were. I’m not like those other writers, in love with every word they’ve ever written–pssshhh! I blog, for goodness sake. Is that the pastime of a writer who cares too much?
An hour and a half later, I had trimmed 200 whole words.
Well, 200–that’s not bad. It’s almost…twenty percent, which is only half of forty percent, which is…NOT EVEN HALF OF WHAT I’M SUPPOSED TO BE TRIMMING! IT’S HOPELESS! AUUUUGHHHHH!
Okay, and then a week later I sat down for another hour and a half and trimmed about 250 more words.
The following week I took a much-needed break.
Today I knew that I must sit down and prune this sucker back once and for all, but as I sat down to do so, I began to despair. I came very close to scrawling I AM A FAT, VERBOSE LOSER! over the front of the manuscript and stuffing it in the Put Me Out Of My Misery For The Love Of God file. But then I remembered that time at the newspaper when my editor was struggling to cut a couple inches off something she’d written for the Home and Garden section. “You see,” she said, “I’m still a writer at heart.” And I knew that I must never give up. Never, never, never!
So I set to work, chanting, “I’m an editor, not a writer, I’m an editor, not a writer” over and over–well, not out loud or anything, only in my head, and you know the voices in my head are all that count–and about forty minutes later I emerged triumphant. I had cut 1,200 words. I was at fighting weight, by gum!
The only problem now is that I’ve spent so much time on the piece, I am back to hating it. Not because of what I’ve cut–that was pure swill, ack! phooey!–but what’s left is strangely uncompelling. I know. You’re going to tell me that I fear success or some such crap. I actually think my Zoloft needs adjustment. But it mattereth not. I proved that I could do something when I set my mind to it. And who knows–perhaps the voices in my head will talk to the voices in my potential editor’s head and we can work something out.
Did you realize that this post is 887 words long?
When I was in college, I went to church with a woman who was a published author. (Two books!) She had seven children, ranging in age from pre-school to high school. Orson Scott Card published her first book, and in the introduction he remembers asking her how she found time to write with seven kids. "I don't," she said. "I neglect my children."
Back then, I thought she was kidding. Now that I have children of my own and no writing career to speak of, I realize that she was telling the truth. It only sounded funny.
Today Elvis was supposed to start using the toilet. Yes, I decided that. After all these years, I still think I have some control over the event. Well. I think I've finally disabused myself of that notion, at least temporarily. I'm fresh out of Nemo underpants and patience, and I've decided that perhaps it is Sugar Daddy's turn to toilet-teach a child. When he'll find time to do that, I don't know. (Maybe between business trips to Paris–ooh la la!) But I am done, for today and maybe for ever, because how can I clean carpets when I have so much else to do, and more still that I'd rather be doing? How can I give Elvis the attention he needs to successfully master his sphincters when what I really want is to neglect him and finish the manuscript(s) I started two and three years ago and keep abandoning because my family needs me more? Stupid family.
I almost finished something last month. I came so very, very close. I may yet finish it. Perhaps even this very year. I have a whole seven and a half months left of it, you know. Perhaps Elvis will be toilet-trained before the age of four as well. He will be setting a Madhousehold record, in that case. Oh, it's only April and I'm still so full of optimism. It's the magic of spring, I tell you, the magic of spring.
So last night I started my tap class again. I was a few minutes late because–oh, who cares, I'm always late for everything, does it even matter why anymore? So I was a few minutes late, which was okay, because it was the first class of the term and nothing gets done in the first few minutes anyway, so as I'm walking in my instructor says, "Hi! I'm so glad to see you back."
"I'm glad to be back," I say. "It means I'm no longer pregnant."
You'll be glad to know, kids, that my five-month vacation from tapping has had no adverse effects on my dancing abilities. It's like riding a bicycle. I tap dance just as crappy now as I did in August, when I had a fetus bouncing on my bladder with every shuffle. At least back then I had an excuse. Oh, well. I had a great time anyway. The only sad part was that none of my friends is in this class anymore. They've all moved up to Tap II. (La-di-da!) I feel like the dumb kid left back in school, bigger than all the other students and still can't get any of the steps right. Okay, so I don't exactly suck that much. After a year and a half of this class, I think I am finally the second-least bad tapper in the bunch. 2006 is going to be my year, kids. I can feel it.
Actually, I was a little melancholy last night. I think that during the day when I'm hanging out with the kids, nursing a baby, emptying the dishwasher, sorting the laundry, herding people into the car, and wondering why I still take the paper when I haven't had time to read it in the last five days, I am mercifully distracted from the fact that I'm getting nowhere in life. You know, if there's anything that's been done to death in the world at large and in this blog in particular, it's the whole I'm-at-home-with-my-kids-all-day-and-I-have-no-time-for-myself shtick. This is when my better half steps in and says, "Shut up! If you wanted to spend your days engaged in rewarding intellectual pursuits and reading Dear Abby, you should have stayed single and went back to graduate school. You're pathetic! Stop whining! You're not fit to wear the uniform! etc." I really don't want to be this person. I was on the phone with another friend who's going through a case of the blahs–doesn't want to get out of bed, go anywhere, do anything–because, really, what is there to do? What difference does it make? I told her she was suffering from post-partum depression. "Really?" she says. "But I'm medicated. Doesn't that mean I get to skip this part?"
Eh, technically, no.
Her recurring theme during this conversation was the same sort of self-flaggelation I engage in when I start feeling sorry for myself. "I feel so lame," she said. "Why am I so lame? I didn't used to be lame. I used to be cool. Why can't I stop being lame?" Then she told me how her husband told her that he didn't think she was happy staying at home with the kids and maybe she should consider going back to work. But she wasn't sure if she really wanted to do that.
"You don't want to do that," I said. (Not because I'm all-knowing, but I know her and I know she doesn't want to do that.) And then, because I'm so much wiser for other people than I am for myself, I said, "If you're not happy at home, you're not going to be happy at work. We always worry that there's one correct choice we can make, and that choice is what will make us happy, but that isn't the way it works at all. We can't make choices that way. You have to make the choice you can live with, and you make it work. If you're going to be happy, it doesn't really matter where you end up doing it."
"I guess you're right," she said.
Of course I'm right. I believe all the crap I say. I just don't follow my own advice. I've never seriously considered going back to work myself, but at home I find that I'm constantly, desperately searching for a life strategy that will remove the bulk of the drudgery in my day-to-day existence and allow more enjoyment of my children and my own interests. I think if I can get everyone to hang up their towels and put away their own laundry, I will have time to be happy. If I only had enough storage containers and and an organized spice cabinet, I could be happy. When I can stop getting someone juice every five minutes, I will be happy. How do I stop getting people juice? This is the central question of my life. I know so many people in my same situation who say, well, you know, there are seasons to life, and this is your season to be with your kids and get them juice. But I don't accept that. I don't accept that the time to live the life you want is always in the next season. I'm a carpe-diem type of soul. You know, a carpe-diem soul trapped in a quiet-desperation type of body. Who blogs too much and lives too little.
Who's so freaking corny today that she makes herself want to throw up.
I used to belong to an online support group for mothers who write, and one time there was a thread on the fear of success. You know, how the fear of success paralyzes us and keeps us from becoming all that we can. Everyone kept responding, "Oh, yes, I see how I totally fear success," and people would reference that inspirational message by Marianne Williamson that's always misattributed to Nelson Mandela, about how we're all too timid to be brilliant, but who are we not to be, blah blah–and I finally couldn't stand it anymore and I tapped out, "Am I really the only person here who actually fears failure?"
I don't need some convoluted explanation for why I don't take risks or don't take action period. I don't think I'm in denial when I say, with all sincerity, that I have no fear of success. I laugh in the face of success. Success can just wait in the dark alleys and hide under my bed all it wants, it doesn't scare me. Failure scares me. Failure is what starts giving me the creeps every time I return to the piece I've been working on for the last year–or the one I started on three and a half years ago–and am nowhere near finishing. Success isn't what's lurking in the darkest corners of my personal ambitions. Success doesn't say stuff like, "Face it, Mad. You are really not brilliant. You are one of those people who showed promise when she was young but has never lived up to her apparent potential. Sucks to be only theoretically brilliant, doesn't it? Well, get used to it." If success is trying to be some bogeyman out to get me, it's really not very good at it. It could take some pointers from failure. Failure knows what it's doing. It's been well-trained.
Well, that's enough crap writing for one day. I'm off to unload the dishwasher because I'm finished with nursing the baby. Yes, I was nursing a baby the whole time I was typing this. If only I would channel these abilities toward something productive, maybe then I would be happy.
Your Giraffe Blog turns one year old today.
I feel like I'm at a crossroads. I've been thinking for the last few months that I'm going to quit blogging any day now. By this time, of course, it's clear that I'm just kidding myself. I'll keep doing this until my real life gets so fabulous and fulfilling that I no longer feel the need to indulge in these narcissistic ramblings. I can no longer pretend that I'm just doing this for kicks. No, I seem destined to become an institution, or a tired old has-been whose best days are behind her. How exciting.
Sugar Daddy and I were having a disagreement of sorts over Star Wars Episode III. He promised the kids months ago that he would take them on opening day–as if that really means anything to people their age–but that was before we found out it would be rated PG-13. He wanted to take them anyway, but I made my furrowed brows and wouldn't stop furrowing them until he agreed to at least preview the thing first. Actually, he came to that conclusion on his own, after reading a few advance reviews, which is good because my eyebrows were getting tired in addition to getting me nowhere. I can now make my scheduled trip to
Virginia in peace, knowing that my much-younger-than-13 children are not going to be having nightmares about Darth Vader while I'm gone. Well, at least not any nightmares based on the movie. Princess Zurg tends to dream about Count Dooku, anyway.
Sugar Daddy and Madhousewife come to an agreement about Episode III
Sugar Daddy: What you don't know is that the PG-13 rating is actually for the scene where Luke and Leia are conceived.
Madhousewife: What makes it really creepy is that it isn't a sex scene. He just uses the Force, like that scene where he slices the fruit in Episode II.
SD: "If Master Obi-Wan saw me do this, he'd be very grumpy."
MH: Heh heh.
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Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers.
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