~When I Was Her~

When I talk about the Boys Camp, I do so in a tone that makes me appear as though I were wise, or loving, or kind, or cunning. It has been 18 years since I left the place and I have had plenty of practice telling Boys Camp stories in a tone that fits the mood.

I tell the story of the ghost "Mary" that I made up to scare the boys, and when I tell that story I want people to appreciate my ability to improvise in emergency situations.

I tell stories that are religious in nature, in which I used some verse of the bible to explain a truth to a boy, and when I do that I want the listener to believe that I was once a twenty-two year old girl on a mission to share the word of the lord with young boys who might never ever hear it otherwise.

I tell alot of stories, and most of them are true to the best of my recollection--but I don't often tell the truth about who I was when I was working at the Boys Camp.

It is 100% fair to say that I went into the job believing that I could make a difference in the lives of boys. It is also 100% fair to say that I had no idea what it was that those boys needed. I pretended to be what I felt I should be for the eight days that I was a housemother.

The picture that I have posted was taken six months before I went to the camp, and that is the look that I tried to emulate on those nights when I was not a house mother for twelve boys. When I was at the Boy's Camp, I braided my hair and didn't wear a smidge of make-up. I did this for two reasons:
1. I had to wake 12 boys up at 6:00 am, and I didn't give a rat's ass what I looked like.
2. I recognized that at the age of 22 I was only five years older than some of my 'kids'. I didn't want them to think I was cute. I wanted them to think of me as a guardian.

But there were nights when I took the braids out of my hair and got out the aqua net.

When I was the girl in that picture, I requested an evening off so that I could go to a wedding with Martin. My request was granted, with the stipulation that I leave after the boys had been tucked into their beds for the evening and that I would be home before midnight so that I could preform my House mother duties at 6:00am the next morning.

I completed my hair and make-up while still at the camp and left wearing pants that were to big and a gray t-shirt. I drove my red Trans Am the hour and a half that it took to get to the local JCPenny where I purchased a green dress with pearl buttons from the collar bone to the hem,a pair of white pumps and thigh high nylons that I attached to a white garter belt.

I dived into the gas station next to the church to change into my wedding reception finery, and I met Martin just as the keg was getting tapped at the reception.

When he met eyes with me in the doorway, he walked across the room and wrapped his arms around waist, he sniffed into my hair and then whispered that he was so happy to see me that he would open all of my buttons with his lips.

The reception was grand, we danced and we ate and he introduced me to everyone I had not yet met as "Miss Idaho".

Because I am telling a story about When I Was Her, and She was me an entire lifetime ago, it seems only fitting to admit that we left the wedding reception inside of a Catholic church, and we went to a basement with a bed covered in animal hides and while we were there we partook of illegal substances and we listened to Ac/Dc at full volume and Martin proved his promise to open my buttons with his mouth.

Many hours later I was covered in sweat and panting on a cowhide, and I realized that I had missed my midnight curfew.

By many hours.

Many many.

I fact, I had been fornicating for so long that I had less than an hour to get back to the Boys Camp before my job began for the day.

When I was the girl in that picture, it felt like a challenge and I believed that my red Trans Am could take corners like it was on rails and I was just young enough and immortal enough to get out of town and then stomp on the gas pedal like it was a cockroach.

There is/was a spot along the road in which it was a Missouri double letter road that had hair pin turns and little hills. There is a special sweet spot that has three humps in a row, and I had always taken them a bit fast so that I could get the roller coaster butterflies--but on that particular day when I was racing the clock and listening to "back in black" at full volume--I hit first one so fast that I sailed over the hump and landed on the top of the second hump. I goosed it at the top and sailed to the third hump and I did a fist pump out of the absent T-top when I didn't crash.

When I reached the turn-off to the camp I squealed to a stop and reversed to the trail through the trees. This was when I remembered who I was supposed to be, and so I turned off the music and crept through the woods to the driveway. There I turned off my motor and coasted to a stop, just as the sun was creeping through the trees and I knew the wake-up call would be issued soon.

I snuck into the front door and made a bee-line for my room where I stripped off the dress and put on my pajama pants and size XXL t-shirt. I had to piss like a Russian racehorse, but I thought that if I went to the bathroom it would alert my partners that I had just gotten home and so I chose to pee in a coffee can in the corner rather than leave my room.

That day went from there--I pretended to have just awoken and herded boys to their various school activities while I was still feeling the after-glow mind blowing orgasms and drugs and booze. As soon as they were gone, I went to bed and slept the afternoon away.

When I talk about the Boys Camp, I usually do so in a way that makes me look like I was being selfless and doing things for others.

But ahhhh.....when I was her, I also did things because I wanted to know what freedom felt like.

~Forgetting The Swimsuit~

Martin called last night and accused me of purposefully forgetting to pack his swim trunks.

"How was I to know you would need a swimsuit? You are forty five years old, if you don't like what I pack--pack for yourself."

Then I changed the subject and we talked about kids and what the new job was like and how many days it would be before he was back. He brought up the trunks again, and again I deflected by asking him if he thought I was clairvoyant and just knew he would be in a position to get into a swimming pool.

Between you and me: I knew there was a pool, and I did purposefully leave out the swim trunks. I am not clairvoyant, but I did google the hotel in Montana and I know there is a hot tub and a swimming pool.

I left out the trunks for the simple reason that I am not interested in my husband walking around in his trunks because he looks damn sexy in those trunks. He is 45, but his mid section hasn't gone to flab and his upper body is finely sculpted--pecs, shoulders, biceps--don't even get me started on the muscles of his back. He is a fine look specimen and his trunks ride his hips just enough so that there is a peek of where his side muscles attach to his hips and it looks like a prime piece to nibble.

There a a couple of other things I "forgot" to pack for him: toothpaste. deodorant. a razor.

What can I say, when he is far away from me, I have ideas about how I would like him to appear to the general populace. I assume he will get toiletries from the hotel vending machine, but I am banking on the fact that he won't bother to shave and when he is far far away from me, I prefer for him to appear woolly.

And not particularly well dressed.

I packed all of his favorite hoodies and long sleeved shirts, and threw in all of his favorite t-shirts. I picked the work pants that weren't full of holes, and forgot to put in the pair of pants that are stain free and craddle his ass perfectly, and I passed right over the shirts that he wears on date night. I have been packing for him for 18 years, I didn't forget to fill it with clean socks and underwear--but not the underwear with the perfect ball cup.

I like to think that I pack for him out of love, so that he will be comfortable when he is far away from home. But it is fair to say that I also pack for him so that he isn't looking like eye candy all alone in a hotel hot tub.

~Christmas Carol's Weeper~

For the seventeenth Christmas in a row, we took the family to Crown of Life Lutheran Church for the Christmas Eve service. I ironed clothes for every member of my family with an element of red, and I spent an hour applying Christmas Party make-up. I wore my favorite outfit--tight black sweater, a-line grey skirt and nylons that look like tattoo's of coy fish.

I cried off the first layer of sparkles during the opening song. My daughter was sitting next to me, and at first she was amazed and perhaps compassionate, but as the songs wore on and snot started dribbling out of my nose she lost her compassion and began to started to mock me. She made her dad trade her seats after I used her hood to clean the snot/tears off my cheeks (she spent years using me as a napkin, she owes me.)

I was completely fine during the sermon and the speaking parts, but as soon as the music team started singing, my eyes started weeping.

For many years, my family was the music team--my mother, my aunts, my uncles--beloved friends I have known my whole life. When I was a kid, we sang Christmas Carols and I was overjoyed, when I reached my teens I was so cool that I was bored with the sounds of my family. And now I am an adult and the people singing the Christmas Carol's have been replaced.

The primary crying problem is that Dave and Rudy and Ken playing together harmonize so well that it sounds like my Uncle Roy is in there singing. Which of course he isn't. And recognizing the abscences of his voice, I begin to recognize the absence of all of the voices that sang to me when I was a little girl who still believed in Santa Claus.

The voice that I miss the most is the voice of my mother.

My mother is very much alive and kicking, but she gave up the singing when Roy died. She doesn't sing with the church choir anymore, and she doesn't sing at home and she didn't set down to the organ to play demanding that my sisters and I sing along with her.

My eye's weep during Christmas carol's because they have been very much absent this year--I didn't even fill my cd player with the collection of cd's that my mother made for me back in the days when she was still making music. I have a collection with over 50 Christmas cd's--music of every genre and all of the classic's sang with every composer that you might suspect had a Christmas album.

The music was absent this Christmas, and I am not the only person who has noticed it.

There are a whole lot of new things present:

Jacob has been making paper cranes for the last two Christmas' and the tree is covered with them. They are made out of envelopes, and newspaper and Kid's homework papers and colored paper.

It is the sixth year that we have had Christmas dinner in this house, and the Christmas table is decorated exactly as my mother would have it be made. I know this is true because the Christmas china, sivlerware and candleabra's are all from the gifts that she has given me. The tablecloth is the linen one that she purchased, and the silk damask napkins go into the silver napkin rings that she picked out.

I can't make the music come back, because I can't sing the music without crying--but what I can do is create the picture of the Christmas meal cooked to perfection and placed about a table set for twelve.

The gift my mother gave me when I was a child was the music and the imagery of a beautifully made Christmas table.

The gift that I give my mother is that imagery set up exactly as she had imagined it might be.

~The Answer Isn't in a Bottle~

Yesterday, the sheriff came to my house with a Writ of Execution, he needed me to give him $2218.94 or he would have to take some of my stuff.

He reminded me of my first husband, with his sandy hair and the fact that his face was flushing. He stood on the door step with papers in his hands, looking official and a little embarrassed at the same time. I told him I had $20 in my wallet, and then I invited him into my house.

My boys were obviously curious and I allowed them to stay in the living room, Jake stood next to me--I think he was manning up by standing next to his mother. Ike was watching from the couch, I read the papers and realized that this was because of that credit card that I had oh so many years ago and I never paid it off.

The officer was explaining the paperwork to me--he asked me to give him the $20 that I had in my wallet and he said that if I didn't file a claim of exemption they would be back to get some of my stuff--he told me that they could take just about everything, even the couch.

I invited him to come into my home because having a sheriff at your house does cause the neighbors to wonder. We have had plenty of sheriff's in the last couple months--some kids broke into the Durango in July and the police got them, I have been getting subpoena's to testify.

And I, the woman who walks at night so that no one can see her invited him in to get him off my doorstep, and into my home.

When I left the living room to get my purse, I thought about that me that didn't want the meter man to ask to come inside her home, she had an officer of the law standing inside her home...her home that had clean floors and dinner cooking and two clean health boys. I left my bedroom door open so that he could see that my bed was made and I wished he would notice that there were not shoes and backpacks all over the floor.

I wanted to prove to myself that it really was okay to have a stranger inside your house, because their judgement of you would be good, even though he was coming to collect money for a debt that I had not paid.

When I came out with my wallet, I discovered I actually had $23, and asked him if I had to give him my extra three bucks. He blushed and hung his head and said, "Yeah, I am sorry I have to take all the money that you have."

Jake stood next to me and asked what was going on, and I reached out and brushed his hair: "this is from a credit card that I didn't pay many years ago and they are here to get their money. It is my fault--I am responsible for the money."

When I said it, I really meant and I--the woman who is afraid to talk to people in the grocery store because she might say the wrong thing--realized that I was telling the absolute truth, and accepting responsibility relieved me of the burden of shame.

The officer wrote me a receipt for my $23 and told us that he hated this part of the job--taking people's money--and that he was having to do it more and more because many people were defaulting on credit cards. He had also defaulted on a credit card, and he gave me paperwork to file for exemptions--I can keep $750 worth of furniture, and $1000 of jewelery and my tools.

He left on a friendly note, letting me know that there were ways around having my personal stuff taken and as he left I shut the door and understood that the woman who had panic attacks at the thought of answering the phone because it might be a bill collector was perfectly calm and collected when the sheriff came to my house to get some of what I owe.

My boys, of course, were a little bit shaken up. I suppose that having the cops inside of your home is disturbing for a youngster, probably one of those memories that get so permanently embedded that not even Alzheimer will shake them free.

"What are YOU going to DO?" my daughter asked when we set down to dinner using that voice of panic that I recognize so well because it uses the same tone as the thoughts inside my own head.

I think it is telling that she didn't ask me if I had called her dad to see what plan her parents had devised. She wanted to know specifically what I was going to do, because she holds me personally responsible for all of the big problems in life. She holds her dad responsible for acquiescing to her desires, and she holds me accountable for making sure that home and hearth are secured.

The woman who could barely make herself walk into a parent teacher conference set at the dinner table with the sum of her daughter's worry and she realized that her daughter was looking to her for a path. She is learning how to be a woman from me, and her disappointment in me stems from the fact that she believes that it is possible for her mother to take care of everything because SHE will be able to take care of everything in the future.

I told my daughter that I was going to fill out the exemption paperwork so we wouldn't lose our furniture or our computer and I told her I would let them have the four TV's that were in the garage.

"They are all broken" she said.

"I know. They can also have the refrigerator and the stove in the garage."

"Neither works"

Jake chimed in, "They can also have the hide-a-bed and the two recliners!"

I looked out the window at the stuff piled in the backyard and began naming things that were in less than perfect condition--"They can take the red transAm, that must be worth something, and the trailer and those two lawnmowers."

She brooded as only a sixteen year old girl can, her disappointment stinging my nostrils and making my eyes water.I have felt the weight of her panic and disappointment in me for losing my job, she was most thrilled when I was earning enough money to support this family. She liked to take me for drivers so that I could tell her about the insurance, the 401k savings plan and the commissions that were automatically added to America Express cards. Many times during my physical illness, she asked me why I wasn't back to work yet and many times she asked me what we were going to do if I lost my job.

The fact is, the sheriff would have shown up last night even if I had not gotten sick and lost my job--but I wouldn't have been there to greet him, I would have been at work and the children would have been here alone. The truth is that even if I had stayed my course that I set on Independence Day, Pay Up day was still coming.

Last night, after feeding my kids brownies and washing the dinner dishes the woman who has been hiding inside house lying to herself when she believes that she needs to start taking pills to balance her endomorphines so that she can function in society.

I am not panicky and anxious and despondent and sleepy because of something that is imbalanced inside of my body--

It isn't something that I need to start taking to make me the woman I want my daughter to someday be--it is the things that I need to stop taking.

~I Prefer Hermit~

After my youngest son was born, I went through a phase where I didn't want to leave the house because I didn't want people to see me. I remember having logical conversations with myself and trying to figure out WHY I didn't want people to see me.

I told myself that I didn't have any disgusting deformities that would make people gasp and point, I did't have a speech impediment that would cause me to say foul things to people, I did't smell bad. In a nutshell, there was nothing wrong with me that would make me a sideshow if I were to buy groceries.

I went to great lengths to stay in the house for an entire fall and winter, and I did so in very devious ways. One more than one occasion, I let air out of my car tire so that I couldn't go to the grocery store, I made up grating sounds on the car that made it impossible for me to stick my babies in the car.

I was very good at never stepping out of my door, and the more days I stayed inside, the more panic I felt at the idea of going anywhere. Even to the mail box at the end of the driveway. The pinnacle of my avoidance of people was the day that the meter reader came to read the meter, and I hid in my bedroom closet.

It was in that closet that I realized my cheese wasn't even close to my cracker and I reminded myself that I had no reason to be afraid of the meter reader--I didn't have a meth lab that he would discover, my children were not being abused, there weren't stolen goods in my house.

Looking back, I have always assumed I was suffering from Post Partum Depression and that time of the crazies was done and gone. In fact, I have spent most of the last eight years very much in public, where anyone driving by could see me. I went to school, I found a job in a cubicle, I made friends, I went places, I went to the grocery store everyday!

The creepies snuck up on me this time, and it started with the telephone attached by a three foot long cord that tethered me to a computer. Talking on the phone has never been one of my things, but I did it for nine hours a day and I was pretty damn good at my job.

It started slowly, with just a jolt of panic when the calls were piled up back to back. There were days and days when I could answer the same question, offer the route excuse, sell the mandatory product. But then, one day, the jolt of panic happened with each beep of every call.

In my cubicle, with my headset and my earnest attempt to sell a product to a person who was trying to cancel their service, I was acutely aware that all of my calls were recorded and that there were people walking around with headsets listening to me at anytime--all the time.

I did talk to that panic and explain it didn't matter because I was great at my job, and they were probably recording me specifically to use as a training aid.

Then came the viral infection that landed me in bed for a couple weeks and by day ten the idea of leaving the house caused my heart to pound, my brow to sweat and my chest to heave.

And now I am Unemployee of the Month and once again I have no desire to leave my house and I make up ingenious excuse why I can not: "I am painting the basement. I am looking for a job. I am cleaning the house. I am babysitting someone's kid. I am Writing. I don't have enough gas to go anywhere."

I recognize where I am right now, even though I haven't hid in the close from the meter man. I know the panic that wiggles in when I must go somewhere.

Yesterday was my children's Parent teacher Conference, and I told them all that I couldn't go--to busy painting and writing and not enough gas and it would be just fine if I didn't go because they are all doing great.

Baby Girl insisted because she wanted the extra credit, and she cried and begged so that I shut down the panic voice and put on clean clothes and brushed my hair and reminded myself that there was nothing odious about me, the crazy was all inside and no one would notice.

When we arrived at the High School, the parking lot was packed and I suggested we just go home, since there was no place to park. Kate explained she was doing so good at school and she wanted me to hear it from her teachers, and she wanted them to see me so they would know where she got all of her good looks.

We found a spot and before getting out of the car I said, "I am currently experiencing a Social Anxiety Disorder and being around people makes me feel panicky."

"Get Over It" she replied.

Which is great advice, that I shall work on.

But between now and then, if you see me in public and I don't acknowledge you, it isn't because I am ignoring you. It is because I didn't notice you, I am concentrating on what it is that I need so that I can get back to my house.

If you can't get ahold of me on the phone--it isn't personal, I am avoiding everyone. To be honest, I have turned off my ringer because when the phone rings I get the jolt of panic and I would prefer not to feel that.

The root of this problem is obvious: I don't want to talk about how I am doing. I don't want to admit that my degree is in an envelope in my closet and I am not doing anything with it. I don't want to have a conversation about my habit of staying inside of my house until I gets dark, I don't want you to know that the job hunt is not going well because not many people are looking to hire people who would prefer to be invisible.

~Twelve Boys~

I have three favorite things about this blog:

Before you can access it, you are warned about adult content and you have to acknowledge that you understand you are about to trip into some adult language. This means my kids can't access it from their account, or from their school.

When I was a compulsive blogger years ago, I ran into some flack because of the things that I was writing about the people in my lives. It isn't that I was writing anything particularly salacious, just that they were being mentioned at all, especially not in a less than favorable light.

My girl wasn't thrilled when her teacher read the blog and laughed about something that I had written about her. my husband was adamant that I not write about him ever--EVER--and my outer family gave me suggestions to write about them and began prefacing every conversation with the words, "before I tell you this, you have to promise not to put it on your blog."

Towards the end of my blogging 'career', I removed content per request of people that I love and I began to think about privacy. Afteral, the people in my life do have the right to privacy, and I can understand that some of the stories that I shared were pretty personal and I didn't expressly get permission to write them. I agreed with my kids when they said it wasn't cool for me to write about their tantrum or growing pain in a public forum where their classmates could access it.

I stopped blogging when I realized that I could really only write about myself, and what is of interest about me if I omit talking about the people with whom I interact?

My second favorite thing about this blog is that it has been dead and gone for so long that nobody is reading it, it gives me the freedom to write without believing I am offending someone that I am close to.

And now I can commence with writing a blog that has adult content and thus, it is banned from all school computers, most work computers and certainly my home computer. I can write about anything I want...

and I want to write about those twelve boys at the boys camp. I spent an afternoon driving in the mountains with my dad, and he asked about the boys camp experience and I realized that I had never really talked about those twelve boys with my father. I always planned to write that story--because it is a good one about a twenty-one year old girl who goes to work at a camp for abused and neglected children believing she is going to make a difference.

I spent two summers and a winter with those boys, and I always meant to write about them, but I was reluctant because telling my story meant revealing their story--and I didn't feel as though I had the right to violate their privacy. Now that twenty years have passed, it seems okay to talk about them--wherever they are, they are far removed from who they were at the ages of 12-17.



My third favorite thing about writing this blog is that I am writing at all and that I can legitimately say to my kids, "Give me a moment of Privacy, I am WRITING!"

~Twelve Words~

When my Uncle Roy died, I said that I could write the eulogy and the obituary and make the music video. He had cancer and I had plenty of time to prepare.

When it came time to write the obituary, I went to Aunt Carols house with my lap top to meet with the family to get the words--and I simply could not do it. I handed the project to my cousin Kim who is brilliant and she did a great job of capturing him in words.

I set down to write the eulogy and I came up with twelve words.

Twelve words for the man who rode in on a motorcycles with a guitar when I was four years old and my father had left.

Twelve words for the man who taught me to fish and cook eggs and row a boat and sing songs and feed pigs and love unconditionally.

Twelve
Words
for the man who built a closet in the middle of my living room and saved my house from foreclosure and sang me songs when the wind was howling and the wolves were at my doorstep

My brother was the guy to read the eulogy and the night before the funeral I sent him a text to let him know I had twelve words and the obituary that Kim wrote and he could ad lib from there.

Long Story short: I let that twelve word failure define me.

I gave up on the writing and decided to just do something else: something corporate that paid the bills and didn't require a whole lot of creativity.

I went for rules and regulations and a job where every second was accounted for. I tied myself to a machine that gave me 667 seconds to deal with a customers problems and a written warning if I spent 2 minutes extra in the bathroom.

I got sick.

I got my walking papers from the job

And now I realize that I have Twelve Words for many different people:

I admire you and your ability to create beauty on a budget.

Stick with me kid, and I will have you farting through silk.

He is twenty years younger and you are doing a public service.

I am not avoiding your phone call, I am avoiding everyone's call.

If you make a break for it, I will pay for gas.

Don't pretend that your past didn't happen. Your story includes dumpster cookies.

If I had a million dollars, I would buy you a monkey.

If you decide you don't want your kid, I have first dibs.

I remember you in the blue princess dress crying in the corner.

Come snuggle on my lap, I will tell you a musical story.

I am overwhelmed to have a woman like you in my life

When we were kids you stated your dream and you achieved it.

He is a cocksore, but I understand why you can't leave him.

Get a haircut, get a job, chest up to your responsibilities mister.

I am not crazy, I am just chafing up against your hide.

You are a good mother, your baby smells likes Johnson's Downey heaven.

I miss you so much that I am afraid to write it.

I know the Heimlich Maneuver

I graduated from college on December 17th 2010 with a degree in Mass Communications and minor in Women's Studies. When I first picked those classes it was because I was going to be a writer who wrote about women's issues.

Now that I have the degree, I realize it makes me look like I am a gossipy lesbian. Had I been wise I would have gone to school for something like nursing or maybe business management--but NO! I was following my dream.

And that has led me where I am today, unemployed and counting the minutes til nap time or beer thirty, whichever comes first.

I should probably have a better attitude, I have only been unemployed for two months and in this current economy that isn't a terribly long time. However, I expected my dream job to arrive the same day I got my degree and so all this 'applying for jobs' crap is getting me down.

I spend the first part of my day reading want ads and applying for jobs. I made a professional resume and a cover letter using all of my college expertise so that all of my accomplishments were spit shined and highlighted in a Times New Roman Font. I have sent out more than 50 of these resume and cover letters and have received three computer generated replies thanking me for my interest.

That means 47 of the people I have applied for haven't even bothered to program their computer to send out automatically generated letters!

In the last two days I have applied for a vast array of jobs; it is amazing how a month of unemployment can make you reasses your job needs. I have applied for administrative assistant jobs, telephone answering jobs, receptionist jobs, health nutritionist/yoga instructor jobs, marketing, advertising and nuclear energy jobs.

With my new list of possible jobs comes a new series of cover letters. I figured that since no one was responidng to my anyway, I might as well vary from the professional/serious cover letter and mix things up a bit, thus pulling away from the pack.

On all of the administrative assistant jobs I have said, "I know the Heimlich maneuver and CPR, if someone in the office should choke on a bagel I can save their life. Now I ask you, what could be a better than an administrative assistant with life saving capabilities?"

For the yoga instructor/nurtionist job I said, "I have taken many yoga classes and I can lock my ankles behind my head. As a forty year old woman, I know about the struggle life can be when you have a fat jiggly buttocks. I would be a valuable addition to your team as I can feel the pain of others with pudgy mid sections."

I'm thinking on my next administrative assistant cover letter I will add the words, "As a professional member of your team, my first order of business will be to draft a cover letter that you can send to potential candidates that let's them know they are not the right person for the job because of that one thing they did that one time and perhaps they should get right with the lord before applying again."

I doubt if any of my new cover letters will land me a job, but at least I got to brag about my gossipy lesbian degree.

~Sort of Like Moses Wandering Through The Desert, But Not~

It is finally happened: I have a domain name. I have my last new site: outtabodymommy.com It gives me a little thrill to have a dot com, it makes me believe that I could have t-shirts. I don't know what they would say or if I could get my mother to wear one--but with the dot com title the door has opened to a whole new world.

A new world that is actually the old world all bundled into one place. Outtabodymommy has all of my archives from all my years of blogging in one neat and tidy space. My first blog is there! It is organized and tidy and wide open for anything I wish to do with it.

So come on over there and help me make the new spot nifty--I get to take photography this semester! Do you think I might be a budding Ansel Adams?

~Softly Into The Dull Night~

School begins next Monday, and this means I got my bi-annual hair-do. My hair had reached the length I like to call, "Polygamy hair". Because I am going to the Big Campus this Spring, I needed a something a little more sophisticated and a little more in my age group. (I read that after the age of 19 women should not have hair that brushes the top of their ass.)

What I have now is hip-hop hair, and this is the perfect time to be sporting a jouncy pony-tail because I am taking a hip-hop class this Spring. At the Big Campus. (Which is different from the little campus by about 800 buildings and parking so far away one must catch a shuttle to get to a building.)

If you have ever seen me dance, you are probably laughing right now--go ahead. I can take it. I am fully aware that my feet can't hear the rhythm and that my arms aren't even listening to the same song and that I move my lips when I am counting steps.



I am taking the hip-hop class for two reasons:

1. I have an hour after my last class and the bus ride home. I can use that hour studying (which really means, "drinking coffee and having a nosh in the sub") or I can take a hip-hop class and get ready for bathing suit season.

2. I grew up watching teenager movies like 'flash dance" and "grease". I believe that there comes a moment in every persons life when they will have to dance down either a gang fight or the authorities or to save someones life. I am getting up there in years so it only seems obvious that my West-side dance down will coming soon. And if I can't dance, my gang will be the losers (or someone could die, or the authorities could take us down) and I can't have that on my conscious now can I?

I am looking forward to this semester, I am taking most excellent classes like: Photography (and lab) the art of the Book, Women in Art, Hip-hop (effing algebra). It should be an interesting semester full of wonderful things for me to do that advance my college career in the direction I wish for it to go .

It should also be fun because my list of classes has caused my spouse to say, "Your taking WHAT? That isn't even a real class!!"

~Movie Monday~

One time? I was this close to a moose:



The day I got video of the moose is the same day I made this video:



Jen and I were sitting on a boat launch when the moose appeared. We set quietly and watched the moose--each of us thingking that if worse came to worse we could out run the other--until a truck pulled in and scared the moose away.

In other animal news: I wrote a post about dead deer that got tucked into my archives, so I thought I should give it a little bit of attention.

~Answering Unasked Questions~

One question that no one has ever asked me is: "Deborah, how do you get such sweet and candid shots of your children?"

Since no one has ever asked, I am willing to share the magic of my photographic moments.

When photographing children I have found that it is best to click shots while they are unaware. It is my goal to catch them as they play and when I discover them blissfully playing, I sneak in with my camera and capture them unaware. You could compare it to wild-life photography, though I believe that what I do with my children is much more spontaneous and natural.

This summer I took pictures of my children, my plan was for the shot to be a Christmas card photo. When I snuck up on my children I accidentally turned the camera on the video function, and thus I accidentally made a video that shows exactly how I get spontaneous shots:

~2008 New Years Resolutions~

I have been making "the list" since I was fourteen years old, so it only seemed right that I would make one for 2008. I did a little personal searching and reflecting over my twenty-something years of resolutions and what I have discovered is that I am a very shallow girl.

All of my resolutions seem to revolve around my personal attractiveness--I will lose weight or get braces or tint my hair or cut my hair or get a tan or wear a size four. My resolutions have a lot to do with losing weight, eating better, quiting a bad habit or doing something so fucking phenomenal that it runs on the CNN banner.

In other words, I have been making resolutions that never had a snowballs chance of being realized.

I read my resolutions for 2007 and I realized that there was not one single worth-while thing on that list. It seems to be written by a flippant woman who has no idea what her priorities should be; It seems to be penned by a person who hasn't taken a second to consider that really god-awful things can happen and surviving them is more important than the size of the muffin top.

I'm afraid that 2007 destroyed my annual resolution list. This year has kicked me in the teeth just enough times that I realize my paltry little yearly wish list doesn't even come close to giving me what I ultimately require.

Instead of a resolutions list I am going to write a prayer:

For 2008 I wish the yin to 2007's yang.

I desire to spend an hour of unmitigated joy for every 2007 hour
that was spent in abject desire.

I wish to spend an equal portion of 2008 laughing
for every moment of 2007 that was spent sobbing.

I wish that 2008 would enjoy a double portion of carefree hours
for every 30 minutes of anxiety in 2007.

I wish for the mundane to become common again
and for the horrible to become fantasy again.

I wish to spend a month of 2008 feeling competent, self-reliant and accomplished,
for every month of 2007 in which I felt inadequate, ill-prepared and illiterate.

Amen.

~And A Happy New Year~

I gave my daughter the perfect shopping trip for Christmas: I took her and her best most favoritest most awesome friend to the mall. Kate had cash in hand, a watch on her wrist and a cellphone in her friend's pocket. Baby girl was beaming with joy when we left, and she happens to be a first rate shopper. She had fifty bucks and she brought home six shirts, a fleece vest and a pair of earrings.

This is a far cry from the Marilyn Monroe Fiasco and I am so glad that my daughter and I finally had a shopping trip that didn't end with one of us crying.

It could have begun with one of us crying because you see, tis the season for my driving phobia to check in. It has been snowing and blowing and the Idaho roads are exactly as bad as you would think Idaho roads would be. I ran off the road last week, but I did it ever-so-gracefully. And by ever-so-gracefully I would like for you to understand that I gave another driver a parade wave to let him know I was cool while I was sliding off the road.

My ever-so-graceful slide-off was just enough to remind me that driving is not my gig and death by highway is 100% possible.


Today when I jumped into the drivers seat with six kids I was {this} close to tears. I turned to the children and suggested that if they were smart they would hop out of the Durango and ride with the other parents. They chose to ride with me and I had no choice but to suck it up and drive to town.

When I was driving on the broken ice road I turned the radio up almost as loud as it would go--I did that because the shaking of the vehicle was causing me to hyperventilate and my eyes were starting to burn with tears. I kept checking my rear-view mirror to see the other parents behind me. The father is a professional driver and I considered that if he knew that I was white knuckled and red faced he would want me to pull over so that the children could get out of the vehicle and the proper people in white jackets could come for me.

And the Brina coughed. Gently. She coughed again. Ever so softly.

"Brina puked!" Ike screamed.

And then five other kids chimed in, "eww...argh...ooh..roll down the window, roll down the window...arghhh!"
And Brina apologized with a voice that sounded exactly like a twelve year old girl who has puked, "I'm sorry...I didn't know...I thought I could hold it..."

And the kids chimed up, "Ohhh! It's chunky...arghhh roll down the windows roll down the windows!"
And I replied, "It's okay Brina, we needed to hose the Durango anyway, did you know Martin brought home a dead deer in here? This truck smells like dirty socks, dead animal and Blue farts already."

The smell wasn't pleasant but my driving phobia was cured and this causes me to believe that I am a mentally unbalanced woman.

I used to love to drive. I used to drive just for the joy of driving--I drove with no destination in mind--just gas and cash and hours to kill. I went on road trips with my favorite people in which we filled the tank, drove til it was half full, and then turned around. I liked driving at night the best. I would turn up the radio and roll down the windows--before I was a mother driving was my most favorite thing to do.

I used to stand on the gas pedal of my TransAm when I was traveling from Boise to my parents house. I drove that car as if it were on rails. I climbed mountains and made hair-pins turns at the maximum speed I could generate. I didn't slow down for rain, or snow, or sleet, or ice. I liked whipping cookies and sliding sideways into parking spots and most of all I liked standing on the gas pedal when I was traveling through the Arco desert. I would bury the speedometer and watch the RPM gauge crawl higher and higher and I would wonder--how fast am I going if I am past 120 but the RPM gauge is still climbing?

And here I am thirteen years later; a woman who practically bursts into tears if I have to merge into traffic. I used to be cool and now I am a woman who views driving as a plague--unless someone pukes.

Because if someone pukes, then the anxiety is gone.

Dude, I need a pill that will turn me into the woman I was before I had kids. Do you know what that is called?

~Why Don't You Just Roll In It?~

***I wrote this the day after Christmas but did not publish it out of respect for my sister-in-law Mary. The subject matter is dead animal carcass and I thought she might be offended. I am sticking it up now with this disclaimer::: Mary! Turn Away. The rest of this post is about dead swinging animals.***

Did you know that deer at the most dangerous animals (to man) in North America? True fact. When my husband suggests that he is practicing home land security by hunting he is telling a big fat lie, but a lie with a solid a basis in fact.


My beloved got his buck on the last day of deer season. He shot it with an arrow and brought the mighty man killer down. I appreciate the skill that it takes to get close enough to a big buck to kill it with an arrow. I understand that in the world of manly man type of things, poking something to death with a sharp stick has been a skill that people have applauded since the first time it happened.

The thing I hate about hunting season is the week in which the dead deer has to hang so that the blood can drip out and the meat does what ever it does when it hangs for a week. (Would that be, 'rot'?) I do not like to look at the face of my next meal--yes, the mighty buck is a man-killer and the man who can bring one down with an arrow is a stud--but I am not down with seeing the dead eyes of twenty meals for my family.

Perhaps this makes me a hypocrite. I eat meat so the logic seems to be that I should be able to look at a hanging carcass and think, "ummm...jerky!"

But is doesn't work that way for me. What I see is a dead animal and I feel sorry for it and then I get nauseated because it's tongue is hanging out of it's mouth and it's rib cage is flared open.

It doesn't bother the rest of my family. The children think it is cool to see what the inside of an animal looks like, they would like to have their picture taken by it, they want to hear the story that begins with, "I snuck up on him..." They are all pissed at me that I wouldn't cook the heart or the liver and they all think that it is hysterical that looking it at gives me the drive heaves.

I would be the only member of this family to have a bad reaction to the big Buck, except for Blue:

Blue looks like a dog that would like to get ahold of a giant piece of dead flesh doesn't he? He looks like the shifty type. At first glance at his half black, half white face you might think he was a prime candidate for the animal carcasses found in yards.

But nope.

Blue is much like me: he eats the meat but he prefers for it to arrive in a nice package. The sight of dead animal causes him to lose his shit. He barks, growls, howls and backs away. He will not approach the dangling dinner. He will not look at it, walk past it or sniff at it. In fact, when he catches sight on the carcass he gets the dry heaves.

Me and Blue, the two hypocrites who like a tasty steak, but don't want to see that steak wearing its face. We are the two people most happy on this day after Christmas--the carcass is now on it's way to the butcher shop and we no longer have to walk past the proof that Martin is the man.

Last years deer was delicious, when I cooked it the meat flew off the plates. I even enjoyed it and said things like, "Umm--this is a good one Martin, I am so glad you went hunting!" It is very possible that the reason I thought that deer tasted so good was that I never had to look at it's face, it showed up at my house just the way I like it; wrapped in white paper.

~The 'Ol man's Entourage~

For as long as I have known him, my 'ol man has been surrounded by men. When he and I lived in the horse stables in Missouri, there was a group of Missouri guys with thick Missour accents and big Missouri laughs. Here in Idaho it is a different group of guys with thick Idaho accents and big Idaho laughs. When you see someone everyday for months on end, you tend to form a relationship; my relationship with Martin's enoutrage is that they come to the house and sometimes I feed them and I ask them uber-personal questions.

For as long as I have known my 'ol man he has been saying to me, "You gotta stop fucking with my friends." And he doesn't mean in the biblical sense, he means in the sense that I have to stop asking uber-personal questions. He has suggested that I make his buddies uncomfortable. I have suggested that if his buddies can't take the heat they should stay out of the kitchen.

Let me tell you about the first time I alineated myself from a member of the posse: We were in Missouri living in the stables and Martin had a bunch of guys working with him. Some of them would show up in the wee hours of the morning, I am talking in the 5:00am area of the day.

The situation was this: It was summer time. Martin and I lived in a horse stables at the end of a dead end road. Our neighbors were horses, and they would start pawing the floor before the sun came up. This sound woke me up every morning and it reminded me of two things: I had to go potty and I needed to put some clothes on before the entourage arrived.

Back in those early days, I slept nude because it was always sweaty hot and I was in bed with a sweaty hot man, and there was just no reason for clothing.

On the morning of the incident, I was walking from the bedroom to the bathroom, which was through the living room and kitchen. It was still dark outside and I was schleping my naked ass towards the bathroom. I am relatively sure I was yawning and scratching my scalp when I glanced towards the window on our back door.

And there he was. The fella. He had his hand up as if he were about to knock and his mouth was hanging open. I froze. We made eye contact. I turned to run to the bedroom, took a few steps then realized the bathroom was closer, so I turned around again and ran to the bathroom.

After relieving myself and digging through the dirty laundry to find suitable covering, I set on the toilet with my head in my hands for about fifteen minutes, utterly humiliated that I had been spotted naked and devasted at the fact that I had been spotted and I probably wasn't sucking in my gut or practicing good posture. When I deemed it safe to come out of the bathroom, I cracked the door open and found the apartment just as it had been, and Martin still sleeping.

The fella had gone back to his vehicle, where he stayed until Martin went outside to find him. And ya know what? That guy never made eye contact with me again.

~Culture Up The Wazoo~

It is probably my fault that my little girl likes the symphony. It might stem from her early baby days when I would prop her between the stereo speakers and play classical music. (I did that because I thought it would soothe the savage beast long enough for me to take a shower.)

Perhaps it is all about loving music that your mother hates, and since I like almost all music, the only direction she could go was the orchestra.

Maybe my big mistake was buying her a violin so she could play in the school orchestra.

Maybe it is my fault genetically. I spawned a daughter who will find a way to get exactly what she wants, and baby girl wants a string section next to her wood-wind section.

Whatever it is: my girl likes classical music and it gives me a headache.

In the past two years she has taken me to four symphony concerts, and by "she takes me" what I would like for you to understand is that each time she said, "Will you take me?" I have said, "We can't afford it" and she replied, "but if I get tickets?" and I was stupid enough to say, "Sure, you get free tickets, I will take you."

She always manages to get free tickets. She has achieved this many different ways; I think it just boils down to the fact that when she wants something badly enough it materializes. (Note to self: convince baby girl that she wants mama to win the lottery.)


Last night we took my sister and Kate's friend to dinner and we had a typical girls on the town conversation:

"They were making out on the playground--totally gross. He said she tasted like cherries with a hint of lemon. What kind of lip gloss do you think that is?"

I handed my daughter and her friend pearls of wisdom such as, "Boys don't taste like cherries with a hint of lemon. They taste like spit, so you should avoid kissing one for as long as possible."

Then we had to stop having fun so we could go to the concert.

The concert began like every other symphony event that I have attended: someone comes out to thank the sponsors and to talk about something uplifting like maybe cancer or a childhood disease. Then someone else talks about the featured artist and suggests we buy their cd, and we clap a whole bunch of times and laugh politely at commentator jokes and we clap some more, then the music starts.

I feel like a total heathen for saying this...but...when the music starts I get a headache and I start wondering how quickly we can leave.

During the violin solo last night I whispered to my daughter:

"Check out the guy playing the bells. He has a metal spike through his face."

"No way!"

"True dat, check him out."

"Ew! Why would he do that?"

"It's a tribal thing that is becoming very popular, sort of like tattoo's or earlobe stretching."

She whispered the info to her friend and for two minutes they stared at the man and I giggled. Then he took the stick out of his mouth and ran it across the chimes to make a tinker-bell sound.

My daughter scoffed and shushed me when I laughed.

As always, a lady sang, and she had a voice like an angel and it made me cry. Kate whispered to me, "Isn't that pretty--aren't you glad we came?" and I whispered back, "if we leave right now we will beat the traffic."

"The concert has only been going for ten minutes mom."

I tried to make a break at intermission, but she didn't believe me when I told her the concert was over.

I tried to bribe her with ice cream:

"If we leave right now, I will take you out for ice cream."

"I don't want ice cream."

"I am not talking regular ice cream, I am talking cold stone creamery ice cream--the place where they mix your ice cream on a cold stone and add your favorite treat."

"I don't want ice cream."

"They have gummy bears and chocolate bits and even bubble gum."

"I don't want ice cream."

I was trying really hard to be good a culture-loving-mother during the second half. I began to pretend to be loving it for my girl. Instead of whispering lies, I started counting men in black wool coats (because I think black wool coats are sexy). I tapped my toe and clapped to the beat. I displayed my cultural excellence by resisting the urge to pull off the damn girdle.

And then the girl with the angel voice sang again, and tears dribbled from my eyes. And the famous piano guy said he wanted to have one of the sponsors read "Twas the night before Christmas" and I was done.

"gotta go!" I whispered to my daughter.

"Not over!" she whispered back.

"Gotta get Missy home before 10:00!" I whispered, then walked out of the theatre.

The evening ended with my little girl crying because she wanted to stay longer and me cranking rock and roll in the vehicle loudly so that I couldn't hear her disappointed wails.

Listen, I appreciate the culture and I think it is grand that my baby girl can pull symphony tickets out of the thin air. It makes me proud that I gave birth to a person that appreciates the classics and has the ability to play the music on a number of different instruments--

But--

I don't want to go to another symphony performance. Not unless my girl is sitting on the stage. I know that classical music is supposed to be good for me, but much like brussel sprouts, sushi and duck liver paste--I have had my fill.

The next time baby girl has tickets for the symphony, I am going to allow her father to take her. Hell, he should take the boys too, let them all steep in some flute music. I am going to refuse to attend the next event.

Unless...

...Martin gets a black wool coat and some expensive cologne and he promises to meet me in the Durango during intermission.

~Dear Santa~

I am a little late getting my letter to you this year because I haven't been sure what to ask for, or how to editorialize my year so that it sounds like I was a good girl. It isn't that I was a bad girl, but I was naughty a few times. By 'naughty' I do not mean to suggest that I was bad bad girl and I need a spanking, what I mean to suggest is that I did some things that weren't super cool.

But since you are not the big JC I don't have to confess all of my sins, so let's just say I was a good-enough girl and get down to business.

Remember the year I asked for a vehicle and I got one? That was a sweet Christmas and I loved the vehicle--but I am still making monthly payments on it--so let's not have anymore of those types of gifts okay? What I mean is, if am going to have to write a check for my gift for the next thirty-six months, let's just skip it.

What I would really like for Christmas this year is a little peace. It's been a suck year and I would be most thankful if you could gift me with health and safety for all of my loved ones--I would like an entire year without a funeral. I am not sure how you can package that, probably a gift certificate would suffice.

I would also like to have some personal peace, perhaps the best way to achieve this would be a vacation to someplace warm where I could lay in the sun. I know I have been talking about the cabana boys for years and maybe you have always thought I was kidding. But I am not. I really do want a vacation with hot and cold running cabana boys and massages and drinks that contain rum and come in coconut shells and little tasty plates of food for whenst I hunger.

Earlier? When I said I was just good-enough girl, I was just being modoest, in fact I was a great girl this year.

I would also like to take a vacation with my family someplace that requires a passport. I am thinking Italy. Or Greece. Or Italy and Greece--you can surprise me with the exact location. I would like to stay in a villa for a month someplace in the country, but with metro access to Rome. This can actually count as a family gift, as I would want to look at the Sistine chapel and the Coliseum with my children in attendance. Perhaps I alone have not been good enough for this gift--but if you multiply my goodness by the goodness of each of my children and Martin? Well, it becomes a number of good with an exponent.

There is one more thing I would like to have for Christmas and that would be a cleaning person that came to my house--just once a week--to do all of those things that I never complete until company is coming over, things like dusting and mopping. I know that sometimes you like to pull out a surprise gift that is guaranteed to make my eyes roll back in my head--this the sort of gift that could do precisely that.

That's really all I want this year, just four things. I have enough jewelry, I don't want kitchen appliances and my clothing is fine--sure I could use some more socks and potty pants, but those two things are not very high priority on my list.

Alright, that's it for me.
Thanks in advance Santa!
XOXO
Deborah


P.S. If you should decide to go the sock and potty pant route, could you please make the socks toe socks and the potty pants cotton? You are a doll.

~Name That Tune~

I have become very cynical when it comes to love songs. I am nauseated by love songs with sappy sentiments like, "I want to spend every second of every day just gazing at you...I want to devote my life to making sure you are happy every single second...I want to be close to you all the time, In fact, what I would like to do is shrink you down into a teeny man so I could carry you in the pocket of my skirt."

The weepy lovey ones, the kind you hear at weddings, just aren't working for me. In particular, I have a problem with Celine.

Celine! I know, how can I say such a horrible thing? There was a time when I sang, "I will always love you" at the top of my lungs with the car stereo--but the days of me singing the song that went with that movie in which the boy drowned are completely over. Two of my sisters would love nothing more than a trip to Vegas to see Celine in action and my thought on that is:

Are you crazy? Why would you willingly shell out cash for that torture?


The problem with it is that it goes on for hours. Mindy and Celine can easily spend five hours singing the same song. Over and Over. The volume on the head phones is maxxed, so I can hear the actual song--and sometimes? I think my parents are saints because they listen to it for eight hours everyday.

There are a number of things that can go wrong if the batteries die. Choice number 1 is that she decides to watch "dirty dancing" til mom and dad come get her--and that isn't going to happen for another twenty hours. During those twenty hours, Mindy will watch the part of the movie where they sing, "baby, woo-oh--whoa, my sweet bay-ay-bay..." for nine hours.

The second thing that could go wrong is she will decide she has had it with my house and she will begin calling my parents, sometimes she will call them on the phone, sometimes she will just stand in front of the window screaming, "I hate you name dad!" (What she means is that it pisses her off when she gets the answering machine in which my dad declares his name.)

Let's just say that the next level of bad hasn't truly been plumbed yet. There have been various degrees of bad, including the time she decided to walk home. It's rather hard to know what action to take when walking next to a handicapped woman who is screaming for her parents. But I am sure that she is working on something else, something extra special--something so loud and obnoxious that my parent's will never leave her alone with anyone else ever again. (This is her goal, you see--to make sure my parents are always in her sight.)

At this very moment the cd is playing and there are batteries to spare. It's a little nerve racking but it's better than any of the other options.

Now that I have made it sounds as though I do not enjoy my sister's company, let me tell you some of the things I like about her.

I like driving with her. She sits next to me in the front seat and she points to other cars on the road. "Don't hit that car Debbie." She says it about every car on the road. Once the game begins I start, "How about that house? Can I hit that house? What about that guy? Can I hit him?" Needless to say she is not impressed, she gasps each time I ask about another object in our range and when she has had enough of my hijinx she says, "I am telling mom." I always treat that as though it is grave information and then I say, "Well, I am telling mom you called me a rotten bitch." The reaction to that is sufficient that I can drive all the way to town without remembering that I hate to drive.

I like going to Walmart with her. There is always a nice parking spot close to the front.

It used to be that I was embarrassed when I was with my sister and people stared at us. I don't think it bothers Mindy, I think she believes people are checking her out because she is wearing a new coat. I have recently discovered that having people stare at you in Walmart comes with it's own benefits; people move their carts so that we can get through. And if they don't move fast enough Mindy will say, "excuse me? I am walking here?" Mindy also stops traffic. If I should stop the cart and then walk to the other side of the aisle Mindy stops the on coming carts, "My my my sister is right there--be careful!" When I am shopping with my sister, it is a liesurely expereince, there is no such thing as hurrying with Mindy, so I might as well relax and enjoy it.

It seems that Mindy soothes my two biggest phobia's, shopping and driving. That's a pretty sweet deal isn't it?

It's true that I have a long list of love song singing woman that I can no longer stomach, but who cares? Trading two phobia's for Celine seems a fair trade.

~No, I do not have my Christmas shopping done, thanks for reminding me~

I hate the question, "Do you have your Christmas shopping done?" because it reminds me of how inadequately prepared I am for holidays.

It really chaps my ass when I hear it from men and they follow up with, "Yeah, I'm done--I was done two weeks ago..." and then they start naming the gifts they have purchased for the various people in their lives. I think it is particularly grating from men because I live with a man who does his Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. IF he is going shopping. There have been many Christmas's when he has purchased something expensive in November, like say a carburetor re-build kit, and he declares that my gift. I think I broke him of that habit the year I locked myself in the bathroom and sobbed, "I can't believe you really didn't get me a present--and no a fucking carburetor re-build kit DOES NOT COUNT!"

For the last few years he has gone shopping on Christmas Eve, and he makes a display out of it, "Here I am---going shopping--for YOU--I know that you want a pair of camouflage coveralls, in my size--and I am going to the Sportsman's Warehouse to get them!"

I laugh at him, like I think it is funny that he is jerking my chain and tripping out of the house on Christmas Eve. Like there is nothing to be done at the hacienda before Christmas day. It's pretty convenient that while I am cooking and wrapping and cleaning--he is going shopping.

But at least it's for me. SO I pretend he is funny, and then I tell him to take Kate. You can be assured that Kate and I have set down together and I have held a picture of jewelry up to her face, "memorize it. Remember the name of the store, practice saying, 'oh daddio! I think mom would love this one, and it's on sale!"

Martin will not be shopping at all this year, he ponied up the gift card to buy me a coat and in his mind that counts as his Christmas shopping. See, it was something new that came into the house and it counts, so he is off the hook. He probably won't even 'get' to go to Walmart with me this year, as he will have so much work to do.

But me? Am I off the hook? No! No I am not! Christmas comes careening around the corner with demands of "decorate! Give me a party! Buy me gifts! More gifts! more gifts!" and it doesn't take into consideration that December is not a 'free' month. The bills still need to be paid, and the extra money for the celebrating of the expensive holiday doesn't usually drop from heaven.

I've done some stupid money related things this year such as this: I started writing for the paper and I thought, "I will not get any of my checks til Christmas, and then I will have moolah for presents!" That sounds like a cool plan doesn't it(?), all grown up and responsible, exercising my delayed gratification organ. The problem is, I didn't fill out the paperwork, so I wasn't on the payroll. But I didn't know that--until November when I breezed into the office to pick up my handful of checks.

SO the Christmas money that I have been saving might be saved until next semester.

So no, I am not finished Christmas shopping, I've barely even begun, and when you ask me if I am finished with my Christmas shopping it just reminds me of all of the things that I need to do in the next few weeks AND that I worked at a job for an entire semester without bothering to check my payment status. "I wonder how much I am making? Won't this be a great surprise in December!"

So stop asking about my shopping status, that question just brings up a whole mess of problems I would rather not think about, not the least of which is this question:

Would it be wrong of me to suggest to my family that we become Jehovah's Wintesses during the holidays?