Because I Said So

Forget That "All The News That's Fit to Print" Stuff...

"It's like USA Today, only much, much better."

Exact quote from NYTimes telemarketer, calling to offer me a free, 8-week trial.

No Golfing

A bitterly cold night, with a current windchill of -32 and a nighttime low of -40.

Golf conditions are poor, according to the weather.com site. They list several parameters they use in reaching this conclusion (high dewpoints, low visibility, thunderstorm risk, etc.), and state that they "attempt to be as objective as possible".

And in my subjective, highly personal, non-empirical, prejudicial opinion, it is too damn cold to golf.

Beautiful Mucus

Long break: vacation, house sale (yay! we sold our house!), illness, house guests, and now finally things are settling down and life can get back to normal.

Henry had the croup, which started in the middle of the night (3AM-ish), as it always does, and we took him outside in the cold night air to help him breathe better. I stood just inside the front door while Jon and Henry huddled under a blanket on a folding chair on the front walk. It was snowing gently, and the flakes spun in the light of the streetlamp like summer fireflies. Yes, there is even something beautiful in nights of disturbed sleep and seal-like coughing coming from the next room.

And what of the milky way-ish streaks of snot that cover my shirt sleeves? (Henry is always wiping his nose on my arm.) See how they catch the light and sparkle like fairy dust! Here, too, is something lovely to behold.

Even more lovely is naptime, sweet sweet sweet sweet naptime, Henry and the dogs snuffling in their respective beds, the house finally quiet, and I have a few minutes to myself. Just me, and my blog. Together again at last.

Threads

Welcome to 2006, gentle readers.

I'd really like to write something profound and amusing in honor of the new year, but I just can't do it. My mind is a hash of different thoughts: ideas for poems, books I want to read, where are my pants?, things I should buy, goals for the new year, there's a funny taste in my mouth, etc.

For a couple weeks in early December, my mind was very focused and I read one book after the other with intense concentration. However, that phase ended and for the last couple weeks I've felt hazy and disconnected, have started reading several books and kind of fiddled around with them for awhile, and finally in an act of sheer will I polished off three of them in the last two days. Trying to FORCE my brain into a single track, and dispel the fog.

Not fog exactly. More like having your radio tuned to a few different stations simultaneously. The pell-mell cacophony of noise your brain creates in the depths of a fever. This has been my waking life for the last couple weeks.

How to take these threads and weave them into a carpet of sense? I don't know, I can't sew. Well, a button -- I can sew a button on. Buttons. What do you do with all those tiny zip-loc (tm) baggies of extra buttons that clothing manufacturers attach to their garments? I keep them all in a box, and after a few years pass I throw them away. I've never actually opened one and used that extra button.

What a waste! I suppose there's some huge pile of zip-locked buttons somewhere -- some plot of land that used to be a wetland, that used to be home to ducks and geese; beavers and frogs; dragonflies alighting on cat tails, their wings pearlescent in the sun, their big ugly heads twisting this way and that in that creepy dragonfly manner. And now they're all dead and/or displaced by the huge pile of buttons that some dopey clothing maker needlessly attached to their shirts in an effort to make said shirts seem "upscale." (We're talking Target shirts here.)

And speaking of clothing, what's the deal with the sizing for women's clothing? I ordered some Levi jeans the other day, my usual size, and I tried them on and they are HUGE. I could slide a cantaloupe down the front of those jeans, and I'd still need a belt. Plus, they were really long. Much longer than necessary, even for that spiked-heels-with-jeans fashion. A fashion I will not wear, though I'm fond of the chunky heels. But I read some bit online the other day --- some guy on some fashion show who opined that women over 25 shouldn't wear chunky heels. Pfft! Screw you, fashion guy.

Anyway, I think a size 12 should be a size 12 should be a size 12. It shouldn't matter who makes it, what color it is, what style it is, what age group you're aiming for -- size 12 is size 12! Don't go make size 12 into 16 or (worse) into size 8. It's true, some clothing companies do this. Especially those general sizes, like small-medium-large. They make a small size 0-2, medium 4-6, and large 8-10. A LARGE is size 8? Ridiculous!

These are the folks who only want very thin women to wear their stuff; they don't want "fatties" like us (i.e. something like 70% of women) to be seen in their pants. Don't worry, bub. I won't besmirch your precious pants with my hideous butt. But anyone who reads this blog knows what a fantastic ass I have, so you're the real loser! You -- you -- clothing guys!

So now I have to return the jeans that I'd hoped to wear in Arizona on my vacation...yes, I'm taking a vacation. We're going to hike in the desert and up (and down) some mountains and stuff. Kid-friendly trails, because Henry will -- of course -- be with us. I've been doing some research and getting prepared, and I found some very interesting information about rattlesnake bites. Remember that John Wayne movie, where he sucks the venom out of someone's leg? Well, don't do that. No.

First of all, avoid rattlesnakes. That's rule number one. But if you don't avoid the snake, if you approach the snake in a manner that s/he finds offensive (say, with a Folger's coffee can or a large knife), and the snake bites you, here's what you should do: go immediately to the hospital. Keep the affected limb lower than the heart while you're on the way to the hospital. Don't stop for a burger on the way to the hospital; go straight there. No, not for coffee either. Go STRAIGHT there.

Take some pictures of the bite, if you have a camera available -- but don't stop for film! Who uses film? This is the digital age! Don't stop for a flashcard either. Just scroll through your saved photos and delete those you took of yourself, while you were holding the camera at arm's length. They never turn out. Your nose looks weird. And large. While doing this, keep heading toward the hospital. You're not driving, are you? Because you shouldn't be driving. That's rule number...what is it? I forget, but it doesn't matter. You're bitten, you're going to die, now is not the time to be putting things in numerical order.

Stoopid

Sunday afternoon. Hot. Jon's taking Henry to Grandma's house for dinner. I have the afternoon and evening to myself. What should I do?

I HAVE NO IDEA.

I am truly an idiot.

Nights in White Pleather

Tomorrow is my free day and I'm contemplating a trip to IKEA. This brings to mind an idea I had several months ago: an IKEA personality quiz. Are you an Innervik, or more of a Hummvark? Or perhaps a Slom?

(I was going to use this as a feature on my website, but I never got around to it. Feel free to steal it.)

I was browsing on the IKEA website and saw the Skruvsta chair: a retro-70's swivel bucket chair in (artificial) white leather. Funky, but will my ass stick to it when the weather is warm? Probably, but the aesthetics are so cool. And I guess I could toss a cushion on it (the chair, that is, not my ass, since my ass is a cushion -- a really big, soft cushion). The more practical chairs are just too office-y.

I think I'll get it. It's just the chair I need to sit in when I ACTUALLY SIT DOWN AND WRITE SOMETHING (besides this blog -- not that I'm denigrating the blog, mind you, because I like it and it's fun but it's not going to be reviewed by the TLS or short listed for the [enter name of any literary prize] prize, or even pay for itself in pleather chair purchases...)

Pre-Blogging: It's Like Magic

Today is Sunday, and I'm in the land of no blogging -- my mom's condo doesn't have internet access. We could go to Starbucks, but it's expensive and it takes forever. So we'll skip it.

What have we done in Arizona, so far? I don't know, because it hasn't happened yet (I'm writing this on Friday). But if the past is a predictor of the present (or future), then we have eaten take-out Chinese food, and we've shopped the clearance racks at Target, and we have gone swimming in the condo pool, and we've gotten drunk and read through old family letters that are by turns fascinating and depressing. Not sure about the drunk part, because that's out of character for us, but it would be in keeping with family tradition: we come from a proud (sic) line of drunkards and scalliwags.

Welcome to June

It's twelve minutes into June, and I am already blogging. That's dedication for you. I was going to post a bunch of pictures of Henry, but I am too tired; it will have to wait until tomorrow, I mean, later today.

Yesterday I gardened and killed a June bug with my spade. Tycho the dog dug up my prized, jumbo rhubarb plant so I killed her with my spade. (No, no, calm down: I just hollered at her.) Now I'll have to get off my richly padded rear and bake rhubarb something-or-other, because we've got a fridge full of it.

And yesterday I wrote my 1k words just like I promised myself. The piece I wrote made me think about grief, and about how profound grief has an almost opiate quality to it: numbing and absorbing and strangely comforting (because you cease, or at least I ceased, to feel). Perhaps this kind of grief puts your mind into a kind of suspended animation to give it time to recover, like a coma can do for a physical injury.

The other day I wrote about a very creepy, "haunted" (or at least quite disturbing) house I saw last summer -- something I'd pushed to the back of my mind, and then it just spurted out when I sat down to write. Why the sad, weird stuff lately? I dunno. Maybe it's good to tap into that disturbing, murky stuff bubbling away down there...

The Mirage of Adulthood

Two of my birthday resolutions: to blog more often, and to write 1000 words a day for general fiction writing practice. It took me a few days to get going, but today I did it: I wrote 1000 words (a little more than that, actually) and here I am, blogging away. I will post my "1k pieces" in their own category here -- but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Yes, I had a birthday. On Saturday, I turned 39. I notice that as I grow older, the age at which I think "adulthood" begins keeps getting higher. In my 20s, I thought it was 30. I hit 30, and thought "35 will about do it." Of course 40 was next, and now I think it must -- absolutely must! -- be greater than 40, because I am definitely not a mere 12 months from true adulthood. It's like those patches of water you see shimmering ahead of you on the highway; they disappear as you get closer, only to reappear further ahead.

Let's Build Something!: A Tribute Entry to Marcel Proust

In preparation for this entry, I was Googling to find an SCTV episode guide (I found it here). I could have sworn there was a running gag/skit called "Let's Build Something!" I could picture John Candy shoving a two-by-four into a piece of plywood to make a table -- but according to the SCTV guide, there was no such skit. Or rather, there was one skit called "Paul's Workshop" in which Paul builds a table for little girls and boys. That must be it -- the episode I remember.

Yet what a tenuous thing is memory! What other hazy "remembrances" that yesterday I counted amongst my personal truths have today been crushed into dust by the behemouth Google? Too many, my friends, too many.

And why was I researching SCTV skits in preparation for this entry? Um...I forget.

No! I do not! Stay with me, now...

The writing/art studio I share with my friend Berta has a loft within it. When we first moved in last August, we talked about having a small nap space up there. But the only way to reach it was to climb up a rickety, unsteady, aluminum step ladder. You had to actually step off the ladder entirely to get into the loft. Many times I've climbed that ladder and gazed into the loft, thinking of all the naps that could be had within its deliciously cozy confines -- determined that I would take that last step; but I never did.

It needed a ladder, a REAL ladder. Something steady and dependable. Many Google searches later, I was still without a workable ladder solution. Not wanting to spend much on this project, I decided against hiring a real carpenter: I would built the ladder myself.

Last Saturday, I did just that. Using my own design, the assistance of my friend Paul, and $30 worth of materials, I built a lovely, wooden ladder from two-by-fours. It is attached permanently to the lip of the loft, and sits at a comfortable slant so that the climber ascends (and descends) at an angle. Paul's brain provided the piece de resistance: the left-hand rail is two feet longer than the right, and acts as a kind of handle to assist the climber in getting on and off at the top.

I am unreasonably proud. And I will post pictures soon.

I will never forget the warm breeze that fluttered through the open window as I measured and drilled, and the voice of my father seemed to whisper in the spring air: "Measure twice, cut once..." The beads of perspiration graced my forehead like the tiny, salt crystals hugging the icy side of a strawberry margarita, and the smell of the sawdust recalled the scent of the pine woods outside my grandmother's double-wide trailer, which lay like a loaf of warmed bread on the hillside near the undulating shores of Lake Tupperwareconomowoc...