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So last week I finished reading book seven of Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Clare Fergusson-Russ VanAlstyne mystery series, and it was so good I read it twice. I’m not kidding around. And then I went back and read most of book six again. And some of books four and five. And yes, three. I still have them all here. They’re not going back to the library yet. Not that JSF shouldn’t take it as a compliment that I can’t let go of her characters, but I think it is probably a sign of depression as well. If I had a real life, I would have just enjoyed these books and moved on. Instead I’m…wallowing.
I had a similar reaction when Veronica Mars went off the air. I don’t think it’s healthy.
Anyway. I’m trying to get back into my usual reading routine. I’ve got a crapload of unread books on my Kindle. I’ve got three I’ve been reading since April 8 or something, and I just can’t seem to finish them. They’re not bad. They’re just not what I want. One of them is a 99-cent special I wouldn’t have bothered with (probably) because I’ve learned from sad experience that there’s a world of difference, quality-wise, between the 99-cent Kindle books and the $1.99 Kindle books. You wouldn’t think a dollar would represent such a huge difference, but it does. I guess a dollar is a huge difference at that level, economically speaking, but the quality increase from 99-cent book to $1.99 book is exponential in nature. Anyway. I wouldn’t have considered it under ordinary circumstances but I decided to take the risk because Oprah recommended it. I mean, her magazine recommended it, which is sort of the same thing, isn’t it? Her face is on the cover every damn issue; I assume her essence resides within every written word inside (but maybe not so much inside the pictures that aren’t of her). So yeah, I bought this book and it’s okay. I’m (finally) about halfway through and I’d like to know how it all turns out, but I’m not dying to know. In point of fact, I could live quite contentedly never knowing. Except that I paid 99 cents for this book on Oprah’s good word, and I’d kind of like to hold her accountable at the end–which I can’t do if there’s no end. So I’m going to finish it. It’s just such. hard. work.
The other book I’m reading is about a young woman’s mental illness and how it affects her family–it’s all literary and character-driven rather than plot-driven, but the problem is that I don’t really care about any of these characters. Well, I guess I care a little bit about the dad. No, not really. Never mind. I’m about…golly, am I halfway yet? It seems to be taking forever. Oh, would you look at that. I’m actually 61% through. I really turned a corner there. Too bad I still don’t care. I don’t remember how much I paid for this one. It may have been as much as $2.99. Possibly even $3.99. Incidentally, I have not found the quality difference between $1.99 books and $2.99 books to be nearly as substantial as the difference between 99-cent books and $1.99 books. I mean, it’s there, but it’s not astonishingly huge. And the difference between $2.99 books and $3.99 books is so insubstantial that paying the extra dollar almost seems like a rip-off until you realize, dude, I’m getting a whole book for less than four bucks–that’s pretty righteous.
Just in case you’re wondering, I have paid as much as $12.99 for Kindle books. I think once I may have even paid $13.99. I’m not only interested in the cheap books. I’m just especially interested in cheap books, the same way I used to hang around used book stores looking for gems. Only looking for cheap digital gems is even more challenging and therefore particularly rewarding when I find one. Some people play the lottery, I buy cheap Kindle books. It’s my way.
The way I’m still holding on to these JSF library books makes me think I should have just shelled out the $7.99 a pop to get them on Kindle. I feel like I owe JSF that money, morally speaking. Here’s a funny insight–not funny ha-ha but funny I-don’t-know-what-other-word-to-use-so-I’ll-say-funny: I’ve always thought of myself as a lover of literature. I would never put it that way because it sounds corny, but I think of myself that way. Only I freely admit that I’m also a lover of serial-killer books and (I’m discovering, much to my chagrin) romances and other stuff that is dismissed as Not Real Literature. I myself dismiss it as Not Real Literature because no one will teach it in school and not even Oprah would have it in her book club if she still had a book club. (Does she still have a book club? I don’t really follow Oprah, my occasional perusal of her magazine in my daughter’s psychologist’s office notwithstanding.) But which do I love more? Clearly I love Not Real Literature more because as much as I love real literature books, do I sit around reading them over and over again and thinking about the characters and worrying about them like they’re real people? No.
And yet, will I pay $12.99 for Not Real Literature? Well, I haven’t yet. Am I sort of a hypocrite, or am I just cheap? Am I cheap hypocrite? Do I owe Julia Spencer-Fleming about $52 for all the pleasure her books have given me over the last few weeks? Or does she owe me $52 for addicting me to her mystery-romance crack and ruining my life?
Maybe we’ll just call it even.
I was just thinking–I haven’t gotten to the point yet–about how I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and I always wanted to write Serious Books That Are Real Literature, but I’m really not that kind of writer. I’ve accepted that. Unfortunately, I’m also not a writer of serial-killer romance novels. I just don’t have those skills. I haven’t found my calling in life yet. Unless it’s this blog, which I refuse to consider because if you haven’t noticed lately, the blog is just barely alive anymore. (Because I’m too busy reading other people’s crack books? No, it was mostly dead before that, too.) Anyway, I’ve decided I have a new impossible dream. I no longer want to write Pulitzer Prize-caliber books. Which is good because that was never going to happen anyway. I think I would rather write books that make depressed housewives send me invoices for $52 because I ruined their lives. I’m almost 41. It’s time to start diversifying my delusions of grandeur.
Also, I should probably take a shower. That is another thing grown-ups do.
Mister Bubby: It was hard enough getting the shoes in my backpack, so I’m just taking the fur and the belt as a carry-on.
Madhousewife: What shoes are you taking?
MB: My church shoes. What do you think? I’m in a play. I’m Leif Erickson. Vikings didn’t wear Nikes!
Mad: They didn’t?
MB: Nikes weren’t even around in those days!
Mad: They weren’t?
MB: Mom, this play may be fake, but it will teach you something. Humph!
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Girlfriend is home sick today, so she is relaxing by watching Blue’s Clues. Unfortunately, it is TV Turn-off Week, so she isn’t lying on the couch watching it on the big-screen TV. She is crumpled in a chair watching it on the computer because she is convinced that that won’t count. I don’t have the heart to tell her that it actually does. Also, I don’t care. TV Turn-off Week bugs me. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment. We should all watch less TV (except for those of us who already don’t watch any). I just don’t like being told when I’m supposed to turn my TV off. Maybe I celebrated TV Turn-off Week last week. Maybe I’ve been celebrating it for the last six weeks straight, but this week I feel like watching old MST3Ks on the Netflix. Is that any of your concern? No! Have I been celebrating TV Turn-off Week for the last six weeks, or any of the last six weeks? No, technically–but theoretically I could have, and anyway, it’s still none of your business.
The school invites us all to observe TV Turn-off Week and sends home this form for me to sign off on which days my child has not watched TV. Every child who participates gets a prize. I think it’s a pencil or something. I dunno. Who cares? I think Mister Bubby managed to not watch TV for the whole week last year, but he has no enthusiasm for the project this year. Girlfriend has had one TV-free day this week. Or at least she said it was TV-free. Obviously, I have since found out that she has a letter-of-the-law approach. Oh well, I’ve already signed off on it. Because I don’t care! I’m not going to let The Man dictate my media choices. Even if it means teaching my daughter that it’s okay to be dishonest sometimes? Well, yeah, I guess so. I don’t care!
You know what gets me about TV Turn-off Week? Aside from the implication that our family is addicted to TV and we need outside help to get us to turn it off? They send home this sheet of paper with the “rules,” and list all the things that count as watching TV. Watching a video or DVD counts. Watching something on the internet counts. I think under “video games” it says, “Ask your parents.” (Well, thank you sooooo much for the vote of confidence in my parental judgment.) But watching a movie at the movie theater doesn’t count. (What if you have a movie theater in your own home? HMMM?) And watching TV at school doesn’t count because that’s school. Hypocrites!
Well, these days MB likes to unwind after school by watching National Geographic documentaries on Netflix. No, for real. The other day he was telling me all about the situation in North Korea. (It’s bad.) That’s educational. That’s like school–or does it only count as school if it’s government-approved television-watching? Hypocrites! Totalitarians!
I’m still grumpy from Tuesday when I had to pack Elvis a “zero-waste” lunch in honor of Earth Day. It wasn’t a big deal, but my husband thought it was ironic that they had to kill trees making the flyers notifying us of Zero-Waste Lunch Day. (Not only did they send home a notification on paper, but they sent two! Tree overkillers!) And of course I’m freshly irritated at the advent of TV Turn-off Week, so naturally it rubbed me wrong that they were once again deciding for me when I should be a responsible earth citizen. When my child goes on a field trip and has to pack a sack (made of paper!) lunch, they tell me everything I pack in it must be disposable. So it’s okay to hurt the earth when it’s convenient for them. Hypocrites!
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Sugar Daddy: I’ve figured out the perfect frivolous thing to do with my prize money. When Rhapsody of Fire comes to town, they’ll be selling VIP tickets. So for an extra $150 per person, we can hang out with the band before the show and we can go to the after-party. Won’t that be awesome?
Mad: But Luca Turilli’s not even in the band anymore.
SD: No, but there’s still Fabio Lione and Alex Staropoli!
Mad: Do we even want to go to an after-party?
SD: I don’t know. I’ve never been to an after-party.
Mad: It could just be drunken debauchery.
SD: Probably. But it’ll be drunken debauchery with Rhapsody of Fire.
Mad: Your point is well taken.
Where have I been? I’ve been busy. At least I think I have. I recall being quite busy on Tuesday.
When last did we speak, gentle readers? Oh yes, I blogged on Princess Zurg’s birthday. And a couple days before that I confessed a random crush on Jack Coleman. Who I still find very attractive, by the way. And before that I was ranting about PayPal. Which I did NOT use to pay for my clogging shoes that I had just ordered.
Which have just arrived, yay! I mean, they just arrived yesterday. I have not been so excited for anything in quite some time. When was the last time I was so looking forward to a thing? I couldn’t tell you. I was a little worried about buying shoes over the internet–it really didn’t seem like such a good idea, except that I’ve been meaning for the last four or five months to drive to the other side of Portland to the only store in the metropolitan area that sells clogging shoes and haven’t managed to do it, so I thought that even if these mail-order shoes didn’t fit and I had to return them for an exchange, it would still be quicker than driving to the other side of Portland to try some on in real life. It seems that I chose wisely because now I have real clogging shoes, and they do in fact fit. They are just very stiff. Make that very, very stiff. I am going to have to log some overtime to get them worn in before the next performance. But they look good–and more importantly, they are oh so loud.
I should be wearing them right now, but I don’t feel like it.
What else have I been doing? My mother-in-law left for California on Monday. She will be back in 40 days, give or take. I’ve been spoiled for the last six weeks because I haven’t had to arrange childcare for anything–just foisted the kids off on Grandma whenever I felt like it. (Well, that’s the price you pay when you move 1,000 miles to be closer to them, amirite?) Tonight I have a book club meeting that I should have hired our sitter for but I didn’t do it because it is a long story. “It is a long story” is an explanation for why I’m not explaining it to you, not for why I didn’t do it. I’m going to leave PZ in charge of the younger kids for an hour or so and hope that I can tear myself away from adult conversation in time to come back and read bedtime stories and hug and kiss everyone because while PZ is reasonably responsible, i.e. she won’t let anyone burn down the house or kill themselves, she is not very good with the bedtime rituals (and probably shan’t be until such time as she decides to have children of her own, if ever).
In other news, I’ve been reading Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Clare Fergusson-Russ VanAlstyne mystery series, and I want to tell you kids that these books are like crack. I put one down and I immediately pick up the next one. I finished book five on Monday and I had put book six on hold at the library and it had “shipped” but it hadn’t arrived yet. On Tuesday it had still not arrived. The library I had requested it from was only, like, half a mile away from my library, so what was the deal? Come on! COME ON! (You might be wondering why, if the other library was only half a mile from my library–or a whole mile, even–I didn’t just drive over to the other library and get the book instead of requesting it to be shipped to my library. See “Clogging Shoes Principle” in above paragraph. Also, when I made the request I had not yet finished book four. I thought I could afford to be lazy. Also, does anything I do make sense? Only to me.) Where was I? Oh, yes. COME ON! I was on pins and needles waiting to discover what would become of Russ and Clare. Yes, we’ve been on a first-name basis since about the middle of book two. I haven’t been so emotionally invested in fictional characters since Karin Slaughter ripped my heart out and stomped on it with Book 6 of the Grant County series. (I’ve since forgiven her, but MAN.) So book six finally arrived yesterday and I just finished reading it this morning. I feel much better now. Especially since book seven is just sitting there on my piano bench.
Why am I blogging instead of reading it? Because I care about you, too, gentle readers. I need to know how YOU are. Also, as much as I enjoyed books three through six, I’m feeling more than a little wrung out, emotionally. It might be good if I took a break from Russ and Clare. And by “take a break” I mean “start book seven after the kids go to bed tonight.” Or “after I finish writing this post, if Elvis hasn’t gotten off his bus yet.” However, there is no book eight, and I’m a little worried about what will become of me once I have finished book seven. Also, I’m afraid of what might happen in book seven. Will it be some horrible cliffhanger like in book five? If so, how will I handle that? I just don’t think I’m ready to go there. I will, but not in the next ten minutes.
Mister Bubby and Girlfriend are off school today because of parent-teacher conferences. We had both their P/T conferences in the noon-o’clock hour, and then I dumped them both off at a friend’s house and now I am alone in the house typing up a stupid blog when I could be sleeping. What a jerk I am.
I don’t even have anything to talk about. How have you all been?
1. She loves her science classes and always does well in them. She is especially interested in biology and genetics.
2. She doesn’t like math, but she’s still good at it.
3. She had a game design unit in one of her classes (can’t remember which one), and for her final project she designed a board game based on My Chemical Romance’s Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. One of the game pieces is a Killjoys character she based on herself. (And yes, it is one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in my life.)
4. She’s totally in love with Gerard Way.
5. Although her primary obsession is still My Chemical Romance, she is starting to branch out. She is becoming a little obsessed with the book The Outsiders. She draws pictures of the characters. She told me she’s even written some Outsiders fan fiction. (No, I haven’t read it. She hasn’t offered. Sort of a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell thing. Except she told a little.)
6. She loves scary movies, but we don’t let her watch R-rated movies, so there aren’t a lot of scary movies she can watch. If you know of any good scary movies rated PG-13 or milder, let me know.
7. She still has really, really, really long hair. Everywhere she goes complete strangers comment on it and ask if they can touch it. She’s a good sport about it, but sometimes she gets tired of it, as if all she is is walking hair.
8. She hates sandwiches–except for sub sandwiches. She’ll eat sub sandwiches. But other sandwiches, forget it. Packing her lunch is a continuing challenge for me.
9. It’s funny how much she hates sandwiches because she’s game to eat just about anything else. Last night she tried frog legs for the first time.
10. She’s still conflicted about religion, but only because she thinks really deeply about it. She has all kinds of questions that can’t be answered. She finds that very frustrating. I’m trying to think of a gentler way to say, “Welcome to the club.”
11. She thinks the One Big Happy comic strip is hilarious.
12. When she saw me reading Cinderella Ate My Daughter for a book group, she asked me what it was about, so I told her it was about the harmful effect of media images on girls (or something like that). She said it would be a much more interesting book if it were about Cinderella turning cannibal. This inspired her to draw an alternative book cover featuring Cinderella feasting upon a young girl while a shocked mother looks on in horror. Then she started on an alternative back story for the fairy tale, in which we discover that the wicked step-mother had a really good reason for hating Cinderella.
13. She STILL bites her nails, even after all the lectures received from me and her orthodontist. But at least she no longer bites her toenails…I think.
14. She is fourteen years old today!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRINCESS ZURG!
You know who I find attractive?
This guy.
I was just thinking of him the other day. Never mind why. I didn’t know his name. I’ve always just thought of him as “the guy who plays the cheerleader’s dad on Heroes.” I was never super-into Heroes. I don’t think I finished watching the second season. I dunno. I might have. It wasn’t very good. But anyway, I was thinking of him and didn’t know his name, so I Googled him–because I’ve been known to do that with the handsome men. I probably don’t have to tell you that. So I found out his name is Jack Coleman, and then I Googled the Google images of Jack Coleman, and what appears before my eyes?
This guy.
Yikes. That is to say, wow, that was not what I was expecting. Yes, that is Jack Coleman as he appeared on Dynasty twenty-something years ago. I never watched Dynasty. And yes, I understand that I missed out. What was I watching instead of Dynasty? Probably some great show that went off the air because it got killed in the ratings by Dynasty. That’s neither here nor there. I never watched Dynasty, so I never knew Jack Coleman as this hunky, eighty-licious doofus. I do not find this version of Jack Coleman attractive. It might be the haircut. The haircut is really bad. I mean, it’s almost emasculating. But I actually think it’s his youth that’s the real problem. The intervening years have made his face much more interesting. Without the crinkles around his eyes and the other tell-signs of aging, he’s just another thin-lipped punk in a polo shirt. A turquoise polo shirt. Yegh.
I think that men, generally, tend to get handsomer as they get older. Their faces have more character. Of course, there is a point at which the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Paul Newman was always handsome–he stayed handsome for a disgustingly long time–but was he more handsome at 80 or at 60? I’d say 60, no contest. (No offense, Paul Newman. I hope that in the afterlife, you are perpetually 45-50.) And there are exceptions. Robert Redford is always the first one that springs to my mind, but now that I look at pictures of him, I think I may be holding him to an impossibly high standard. (The Paul Newman standard.)
I think women also get better-looking as they get older, but the age at which they stop looking great and start looking great-for-their-age is much lower than for men. This is probably some kind of sexist crap that I’ve internalized and have no control over. It does pretty much suck. I have to say, though, that I feel more attractive at 40 than I felt at 20 (or 30), but I don’t know if that translates to actually being more attractive. I have to think it does, to some extent. I’m more comfortable in my skin metaphorically, even if the skin itself has seen better days. That has to have some positive effect, or at least a compensating effect.
On the other hand, I’m finally getting my teeth fixed and my jaw properly aligned, so maybe I really will be more attractive in my middle age than I was in my youth. Maybe skin tone is overrated.
Who do you think has gotten better looking with age? Who is aging poorly? Do you think you’re aging well or not?
I’m asking because I have nothing left to say. Also, I’m feeling kind of shallow today.
Remember that old board game, Aggravation? I think we used to have that game. I don’t remember enjoying it.
You know what aggravates me? PayPal. I know PayPal is the safe, secure way to pay. Once upon a time–a very long time ago, I’m sure–I set up a PayPal account. I even remember the e-mail account and password I used. I can log in to my PayPal account, but I can’t use it because every time I try, it tells me my credit card is no good. It doesn’t matter which credit card I use; it hates all of them. (To be fair, I don’t have an unlimited number of credit cards, so I’ve only tried a couple.) Which is fine, you know–I use my credit card online all the time. It hasn’t been stolen yet, and when it finally is, I’ll probably say, “Well, it’s about time, I guess.” Between the grocery store club cards and the Facebook I’ve pretty much given up on keeping my personal information private. I’m at peace with the fact that someday my identity will be stolen. Maybe that’s why I have this blog, to warn potential identity thieves that being me isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But I digress. My point is that I’m okay with PayPal rejecting me; I don’t need PayPal. That part doesn’t aggravate me.
What aggravates me is when I pay with my credit card and PayPal pops up and says, “We see you already have a PayPal account. Would you like to use it?” No, melon-farmers, I would not like to use it. I already tried using it and you wouldn’t let me. Maybe you don’t remember–IT WAS TWO WHOLE SECONDS AGO. Privacy-pimping bastards.
That’s really all I had to say about that.
I just bought some clogging shoes online WITH MY CREDIT CARD. (Bring it, identity-nappers!) My performance on Saturday went reasonably well. Better than I had feared it would. I practiced very hard. It more or less paid off. So I figure I’ve earned myself some proper clogging shoes. Actually, I already felt like I deserved them. It’s just that after Saturday I decided that I’m tired of being the only one in the group without them. Mainly because my tap shoes are black and everyone else’s clogging shoes are white. They make black clogging shoes–they make red ones, too–but apparently no one uses black (or red) clogging shoes. Only white clogging shoes. All the used clogging shoes I see on the eBay are also white. So yeah, I’m tired of not matching. If I’m going to stand out in the crowd, I don’t want people saying, “Why is that lady wearing black shoes? Is it because she dances so poorly? Are they the dunce cap of the clogging world?” when the truth is that I’m just too cheap to buy real clogging shoes.
Except I’m not because I just bought myself clogging shoes. And risked my identity to do so.
Elvis’s birthday party went well. I don’t know why it was stressing me out so much. Parties hosted by third parties are inherently less stressful than parties one hosts at one’s own home. They’re spendier but worth every penny. You have a party, then you just WALK AWAY. It’s that simple. It’s a good feeling. My husband took charge of the party favour situation. I think he volunteered once it became plain that I wasn’t going to do a darn thing. And I really wasn’t. The guests all would have gone home favourless. Why am I insisting on spelling “favour” the British way? Sometimes I just do. Same reason I insist on saying “grey” instead of “gray.” Not consistently. Just sometimes. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. My husband. Party favours. He just handed out a bunch of candy. Like, a lot. But I had nothing to do with it.
I think it’s amazing that with all the autistic children I’ve invited to parties, I’ve never had a guest who was GF/CF. Maybe all the GF/CF kids just stay away because they don’t want to watch everyone else eat cake and ice cream. Last year we had invited a boy who I knew was GF/CF because he’d come to another classmate’s party and had to watch everyone else eat pizza and cake and I thought it was the saddest thing I’d ever seen. (He didn’t seem too happy about abstaining.) I was all prepared to make a gluten-free cake for Elvis’s party, but the GF/CF boy never RSVP’d, so I gave up the project and went with the chock full o’ gluten option, which was a lot less trouble. I wonder if the GF/CF boy’s mother finally said, “Screw it, we’re not doing this again.” Maybe next year I will explicitly state on the invitation, “WILL HAPPILY ACCOMMODATE ALL DIETS.” Except that would be a lie. I might not happily accommodate all diets, but I would still accommodate and act like I was happy to do it because that’s the neighborly thing to do.
Or maybe I should just stop trying to feed our guests at all. Our culture has become too food-centered. No wonder we’re all obese. Maybe next year I’ll say, “Instead of a party favour, do yourself a favour–thirty minutes on the treadmill! Go!”
I’m just kidding.
I’ve decided that I’m going to find Princess Zurg another sewing mentor. I just haven’t broken the news to her yet.
What else is stressing me out these days? The laundry. The laundry is out of control again. It’s stressing me out a little bit.
Saturday is PZ’s birthday and I haven’t bought her a present yet. Mister Bubby and Girlfriend have bought her presents, but they’re kind of…frivolous. So the pressure’s on to buy something that won’t make her say, “What the crap…?” She told me some things she wanted that I could only get on the internet, and now it’s too late to do the internet shopping. I didn’t really want to get her those things anyway. I don’t know what I want to get her. It’s impossible to buy my child’s love! Why do I continue to try? Why haven’t I taught her how to sew yet? I’m just a selfish, sad excuse for a human being!
Okay, I’m done with that. Moving on.
My MIL goes back to California next week. That’s stressing me out because I’ve gotten used to having her here. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Gertrude, our regular babysitter, for about a month. Gertrude is going to have to find a new position once my MIL is up here full-time. I feel obligated to find her something. I know I’m not, but I still feel it. So that’s stressful.
Oh, I forgot about all the other birthday-related stress. So PZ’s friend’s birthday is two days before hers, but she’s having her party on PZ’s birthday. So PZ is going to have her party the day before, we think, provided her other friend is able to attend that day. PZ’s birthday party always stresses me out because her two BFF’s are so…ADHD. They’re dear, sweet girls but they fray my nerves. The experience of having them around is somewhere between an obnoxious neighbor cranking up his bass and a colicky baby screaming non-stop for several hours. That’s stressing me out.
Also, Mister Bubby’s class was supposed to elect a mayor for some…school-related…thing…and he just lost the election and is sorely disappointed and hasn’t moved beyond the anger/denial stage. That’s stressing me out, too.
I just remembered I forgot to take my happy pills today. And now it’s time to unload the dishwasher.
This post wasn’t that creative.
Princess Zurg has wanted to learn to sew for the longest time. For Christmas 2010 we gave her a sewing machine. I really, really intended to teach her how to use it. It’s not like I don’t know anything about sewing. I know a few things. I’ve used sewing machines before. Specifically, I used a sewing machine when I took Home Economics in the eighth grade, and I also used a sewing machine when I decided to sew my own temple dress in 1996 and I stitched half the bodice before my mother took pity on me and finished the whole thing herself. So yes, I have some sewing experience. No, I was not under the illusion that I had extensive sewing knowledge that I would simply pass on to my daughter. I knew that I would need to give myself a, ah, refresher course before I could tutor PZ in the womanly art of sewing. I didn’t think it would be like riding a bike. I did think it would be a bit more like doing algebra. You know, a little perusal of the material and it would all come back to me. I did it before, I could do it again.
So. Sewing. It’s not at all like algebra.
I figured we’d start small, with simple projects. For instance, we made Girlfriend a pillowcase for Christmas. (With puppies on it! It’s so cute.) That went well. I figured we would gradually work our way up from there, eventually ending up in the arena of actual apparel. But PZ has been wanting to do actual apparel for such a long time that she just isn’t willing to wait any longer. She told me she wanted to make herself a new Sunday dress. I figured, okay, that’s fine. I’m a grown woman who’s used a sewing machine before. I passed 8th grade Home Ec. I think I might have gotten an A. Surely I can fumble my way through a basic dress pattern.
Because I am a terrible mother who lacks enthusiasm for her daughter’s sewing project, my MIL took pity on PZ (and me) and took PZ to the fabric store to select an appropriate pattern and the appropriate fabric. PZ had this particular vision in mind–being that she intends to become a fashion designer someday (hence the interest in sewing, which I have not nurtured nearly as much as I’d hoped I would)–so my MIL tried her best to help her find materials that would approximate that vision. They came home with the pattern and the fabric, and my MIL volunteered to take the boys this evening so PZ and I could examine the materials in more detail before beginning the project in earnest.
Well, I’ve spent the last hour or so examining the materials, and I very much want to cry right now.
It’s not at all like algebra. It’s not at all a basic dress pattern. It’s a dress with a fitted bodice and a skirt comprised of many panels, and oh by the way she will need to add sleeves to it, so voila, here’s another pattern for some other item of apparel that does have sleeves, so we can just do a mash-up of those two patterns, okay, only incidentally this dress laces up the front and she doesn’t want it to lace up the front because that looks like a corset and that will look slutty, so we’re going to have to figure out some other mode of fastening (whatever I think is best, she’s not really that picky).
This is impossible. This is Just.Not.Possible. I read the pattern instructions. They’re in English, but I don’t know all the words. The sentences don’t make sense to me. There are diagrams, but I can’t discern the relationship of the diagrams to reality. It’s not at all like algebra. It’s very, very complicated. I don’t remember it being this complicated in the eighth grade. I don’t remember integral calculus being this complicated.
I can’t do this.
I can’t.
I don’t mean that I don’t want to. I don’t want to, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that I can’t. I can’t do it. It’s above my pay grade. It’s above my level of expertise. It’s above my level of intelligence. There is no possible way I can accomplish this task.
The fabric’s been bought. There’s fabric and lace and interfacing and…something else I don’t even know what it is. It’s very unclear. I don’t know how I’m going to break the news to my daughter. She’s going to need another sewing mentor, and I need to find one fast.
Just as soon as I throw my son a birthday party and make a fool of myself clogging in front of a bunch of old people and throw my daughter a birthday party the following week and then I think the housekeepers come again OH CRAP WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME???
Easter! I still haven’t shopped for Easter!
A disturbing development in my life: It seems that in the 48 hours leading up to my scheduled housecleaning, I am apt to dream dreams about preparing my house for the housekeepers. In my dreams the house is always a wreck and I am overwhelmed by task before me (not at all like my conscious state—oh, wait). But I set about methodically tidying despite constant interruption and seemingly insurmountable odds. I work very hard. I am very stressed out. And then I wake up. The house is still a wreck, and I don’t feel well rested at all.
Et tu, subconscious?
People have suggested that my housekeeping service may be causing me more trouble than it is actually worth. Believe me, I have considered this. I consider it at least every fortnight. (Do you know how much I love the word fortnight? Such a useful word.) But I must conclude that the trouble is indeed worth it. Because I know myself. Without this enforced fortnightly stress, my house would never get cleaned. I would just lie down and die. Or I would try to lie down and my kids would pile on top of me and kill me. In either direction lies death. For me. And anyway, as much stress as there is, nothing compares to the sublime feeling of relief I feel after the housekeepers have left and the house is (momentarily) clean. It’s very much like having a baby. As horrible as labor is, it all becomes inconsequential once the baby’s born.
I really don’t want to take the analogy further than that.
Suffice it to say that my house is still in that just-cleaned stage and I feel like I can do just about anything! Aside from that brief period between 5:00 and 5:30 this evening when my ovaries took my brain hostage and I screamed at two of my children for failing to play Scooby Doo Monopoly in a peaceful manner and also at a third child for failing to stay out of the Scooby Doo Monopoly fiasco when I clearly had it covered with a full-scale freak-out. That was…a thing. I would say I don’t know what came over me, but I know exactly what came over me. SATAN.
(That’s my pet name for my ovaries.)
It’s okay, we all survived. And here we are. Well, here I am. The others, hopefully, are in bed.
Here’s a thing: I’m kind of stressed out about a couple other things. Elvis’s birthday party is on Friday. There will be many children there. We’re having it at an inflatable bouncy toy place, so it’ll be fine, but there will be many children there and I really don’t have the goody bag situation under control, i.e. I haven’t done thing one about the goody bag situation. Damn it all to hell, I really hate goody bags. I don’t want to repeat myself, but the goody bag problem keeps presenting itself, and so I have to say it over and over again: I freaking hate goody bags. I hate everything about them. It’s not just that I hate making them for my own kids’ parties. I hate that my kids get them when they go to other kids’ parties. I hate them on principle. And I hate them for themselves, for what they are—i.e. bags of useless crap that I become responsible for. I hate that I feel compelled to participate in this thing I hate, that I perpetuate the system. I hate that I can’t seem to break free. Mostly I hate not knowing what the crap I’m going to give these kids as a token of my appreciation for showing up and partaking of my hospitality that won’t cost me too much more money than I’m already spending on this god-forsaken party and that won’t violate my Prime Directive, which is “don’t inflict more crap on other innocent parents.” I always end up violating my Prime Directive. It seems like there should be a way not to, but I just…can’t…see it!
Gah! Goody bags. I hate them!
So that’s a little stressful.
Another thing that is stressing me out a little is that I have another clogging performance coming up on Saturday. It’s another retirement home gig, and it shouldn’t worry me because it isn’t that big a deal, but I’ve missed three of the last five practices (one for my daughter’s emergency psychiatric appointment, one for my dad’s birthday and one for my spring break jaunt to The Dalles) and I really don’t feel prepared. I was going to just back out of it—culturally, that is okay in this clogging group because people are really laid-back and informal, but so many ladies had already backed out and there are formations in these numbers and the woman who teaches our group was planning on me being in the formation, so…I just feel obligated. Moreover, maybe I just don’t want to have to back out. I want to be dependable. But I also don’t want to suck.
The last performance we did, back in December, was also at a retirement home, and I don’t mean to perpetuate condescending stereotypes about retirement home residents, but they tend to be very forgiving audiences. That said, the December performance was, to some extent, a disaster. For me personally. One number went reasonably well, but the other one was a disaster—an unmitigated disaster—and I still haven’t gotten over it psychologically. Every time we practice that number I have PTSD issues and I can’t remember any of the steps; it’s like my brain and feet don’t want to remember the steps—they just want to forget they ever heard of that number and pretend that December never happened because how could it if they never heard of that number? Exactly. So there’s that.
Yes, I mean that we will be doing that dreadful number again on Saturday and also a new number that I don’t quite have down yet. It is rather complex. The steps themselves are challenging, and then there are these formations. I have to tell you, in a dancing situation, there is almost nothing worse than facing the wrong way at the wrong time. I have that problem, and then I also have the problem of being on the wrong foot at the wrong time. This is not as obviously horrible from the audience’s perspective, but from the dancer’s perspective it is even worse than facing the wrong way at the wrong time because once you are on the wrong foot, it is hard to get back on the right foot again, and then you’re all confused and behind and it isn’t long before you’re giving up and thinking, “gah, when will this song be over so I can get off stage and stop humiliating myself?”
Such is the suffering of the artist.
Well, I’d blather on endlessly, but my husband is calling me and the longer I ignore him, the more he will think I’m ignoring him. Adieu, gentle readers, adieu.
If you have a Blogger blog that requires commenters to prove they’re not robots by having them enter the characters in the little box before posting their comments, and you’re wondering why I haven’t been commenting on your blog lately, it’s because I have not been able to enter the characters in the box in a satisfactory manner, no matter how many times I try. The robot-detector is never satisfied! It remains unconvinced that I am not a robot! It’s a shame, too, because the comments I tried to leave you were so brilliant. I put a lot of thought into each and every one of them, and to have them rejected again and again, well–it’s been hard, emotionally. I won’t lie to you. I’ve been having this problem for a couple weeks now. Before that I was having issues with the Open ID login, so if it’s been months since I’ve commented on your blog, that is why. It’s not because I don’t love you.
Now, if you have a WordPress blog or some other type of blog that doesn’t require me to prove I’m not a robot and I haven’t commented on your blog for months, it might be because I don’t love you, or it might be because I’m just freaking lazy. I prefer to think I’m just freaking lazy. Either way, you can totally blame me. But those of you with the Blogger blogs have to give me the benefit of the doubt!
1. He loves Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. He’s watched every episode on DVD and recites lines from it frequently. Yesterday he was watching it and writing down all the secret words of the day, including Zyzzybalooba (or however it’s spelled–I’ll have to ask him later). We’ve showed him Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure also, but he wasn’t as into that.
2. He can throw a ball with astonishing accuracy. He has a very strong arm. He can throw a ball over our second story roof. He’s also good at shooting baskets, provided he is concentrating. When he played basketball this year he found the game part of it rather distracting.
3. He loves to play board games, especially Monopoly. He has his own set of rules that he plays by. If you land on a property, you have to buy it, and you play until all the properties are bought. This makes what is already a long game into an even longer game. On the other hand, he never gets upset about not winning because as far as he’s concerned, when all the properties are bought, everyone wins. (There’s probably not an economic lesson to be learned here, but if you think you can draw an analogy, go for it.)
4. He loves the music from Spamalot. He also likes Barney and The Wiggles. And Stevie Nicks. And he sometimes likes to listen to My Chemical Romance, thanks to his older sister’s influence.
5. He still enjoys writing words with shaving cream. A few weeks ago I found him on the front porch writing sentences with deliberate mistakes so he could edit them.
6. Every Sunday he puts up the hymn numbers before sacrament meeting. It’s pretty much his official job now. He feels called to the work. Once they made a mistake with the program–they had the wrong number attached to the closing hymn. He almost had a stroke. Fortunately, such incidents are few and far between.
7. His favorite books are still Frog and Toad, but he also enjoys Mo Willems’s Elephant and Piggie books.
8. He’s developed a taste for sparkling water in a variety of flavors. Originally he just wanted to use the bottles to make bottle rockets, so he’d force himself to drink the stuff even though he found it kind of disgusting, but now I think he really likes it. We always have to buy all the flavors when we go to the store. Safeway sells Arrowhead sparkling water in natural, lemon, lime, orange and pomegranate. Trader Joe’s sells its own sparkling water in natural, lemon, lime, orange and mixed berry. Nobody really likes the mixed berry, but we have to drink it anyway because it’s part of the collection. He has a different flavor for each day, but I can’t remember which is which. Tuesday is usually orange. He insists that we finish the bottle at a given meal. It doesn’t matter if you’re not thirsty. You must drink the sparkling water. You must do it expeditiously. He’s kind of insufferable about it. But it’s a healthier habit than juice or soda, so we indulge it.
9. He is nine years old today! Woo-hoo!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELVIS!
I am the giraffe 
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