An Unkindness of Ravens

Jacob and I were sitting in the dentist's waiting room yesterday morning discussing the Super Bowl. Well, not exactly the Super Bowl.

Neither of us cares about football and, admittedly, I only watched the halftime show and a few commercials. Until Sunday, I honestly didn't know the two teams were the Ravens and the 49ers. But I did pick up one interesting piece of knowledge along the way.

"Did you know a group of ravens is called an unkindness?"

"Really?" Jacob said.

"Like how there can be a murder of crows, there can be an unkindness of ravens."

 I love the names for animal groups. A pride of lions. A bloat of hippopotamuses. A shrewdness of apes.

Poetry.

We waited some more.

"Hey, what if Chris came over and gave you a shaving lesson?"

"Why don't you just show me how? You shave your legs."

"My legs are basically straight lines. Your face is all curvy. We could Google it and find a video."

"Sure." Laughing. "Let's have some strange man on the Internet show me how."

I had a moment when I thought about how it's sad that he doesn't have his dad here to show him things like that. But we were laughing about weirdos on YouTube, and it occurred to me that so many things are about timing and delivery. If you say something in the right way, people don't even notice the sad thing beneath the surface.

I decided I'd buy him a razor and shaving cream, and we'll just figure it out, as with most things.

After Jacob went back to a treatment room, a young couple came into the waiting room with a four-year-old boy and a baby girl. The dad was wearing brown work pants and boots. The little boy had on a button-down striped shirt and blue jeans and his own boots.

There are times when you feel very strongly the passage of time and I think it often happens when you spot people who remind you of certain times in your past. Younger with small children. Lugging an infant carrier around. Married to a "working man." Taking someone to his first dental appointment.

When Jacob was that little boy's age, he called the pest control guy the "Workin' man" and he followed him around the house and the yard. He called everyone who went to work in boots and who had to wash up first thing when they got home from a long day "workin' men." His dad was a "workin' man."

Jacob as a four-year-old with bright red hair seems to me like a million years ago and yesterday at the same time.

Kate as a baby in an infant carrier seems like another world, because now she dances around the house and asks me to watch her perform routines to the beat of the latest pop song. She steals my hair straightener and leaves bobby pins all over the house. She applies her makeup better than I do. She's the embodiment of everything I thought would make me happy when I was her age, the personification of my belief that "if only" I had blond hair and green eyes and was gorgeous all would be right with the world. She believes in all sorts of things like true love and her ever-changing dreams of what adulthood will bring. She rolls her eyes at me when I accidentally refer to the boy band One Direction as One Dimension. She pleads with me to please stop, Mom when I wave my arms around and sing the lyrics to "Thrift Shop" in the car pool line at the middle school.

Another parent came into the waiting room. She had a four-year-old daughter with bright red hair who immediately started climbing over the chairs. At the same time, the four-year-old boy started tossing magazines on the ground. The toddlers were in charge of the room. I think a group of toddlers would be called a chaos.

His mom caught my eye and we started laughing. I said if I was four I'd come in this room and do exactly the same thing. I would climb over the chairs that are begging to be climbed over and I would throw magazines on the floor.

The little boy's dad said, "That's why we're here. He's a climber. He fell down and broke a tooth."

There are a million ways that we will be broken in this life. Broken again and then fixed again. If you are a human being capable of loving other human beings, it can be overwhelming to imagine all the ways those you love will climb and fall and get up again and throw magazines on the floor.

When Jacob's appointment was finished, I went back to the treatment room and spoke to the dentist. I told him Jacob has given up soda. I hope next time you'll notice a big improvement, I told him. He approved, of course. The official dentist belief system is that soda is the worst and flossing is the greatest thing ever invented. I bet dentists think if only people would stop drinking soda and floss every evening that all would be right with the world.

Jacob and Kate have been going to the same dentist since we moved to Birmingham nearly a decade ago. When Jacob was 7, I brought him in to have a tooth pulled and they gave him something to relax him. When I took him home, he was like a belligerent little drunk. I made him get in his bed upstairs. I told him not to come downstairs until he felt better, and he aimed his out-of-focus gaze on me and said, in an intoxicated slur, "You won't let me do anything!"

It's a cliche that time goes by quickly, but - damn - it goes by so quickly. Everyone knows this but people don't really get it until they reach their 30s, and then it really starts going by more swiftly. My dad is a grandpa and, if you ask him, only a second ago he was a five-year-old watching his mother dance to American Bandstand. My mom is a grandmother and, if you ask her, only a second ago she was a little girl watching her elegant mother with the tiny waist and red hair go out for the evening with the little girl's tall, handsome father with the amazing grin.

Jacob is 16 now and he is everything I ever wanted to bring into the world. He's smart and funny and kind. He recognizes hypocrisy. He delights in irony. He's calm in the face of pretty much everything except his sister's requests to drive her and her friends to the mall. He asks me math questions just to watch me get flustered.

There are days when you realize you are OK with where you are and where you've been. The knowledge settles in your chest, the frenzied fluttering of a thousand wings stills for a moment. You feel the relief of it and hope it lasts. You realize it has been many months since you asked yourself what you did wrong or how you could change the past. You open yourself up to the truth that so many lovely things have happened and will happen. Is there a sadness beneath the surface? Of course. From time to time, everyone is visited by an unkindness of ravens.

But sometimes if you sit still for a minute and look around, you'll see that, at this moment, all is right with the world.

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Monday Ramblings - Half-Assed Live Blogging of The Bachelor

I watch The Bachelor so I can feel better about myself, because I enjoy judging stupid people.

There, I said it. It's not pretty. I use a reality dating show to boost my floundering ego.

I have decided to very actively and intentionally let go and let the Doobie Brothers. But today a Facebook friend posted about her recent trip to New York to meet her publishing team at Harper Collins.

I am SO happy for her.

I want to burn her house down. 

I'm kidding. I would never do that. I want to burn down Harper Collins.

So, here I sit, ready to watch idiots bounce around a mansion and make fools of themselves with the sole purpose of winning an engagement ring from the dopiest, most boring Ken Doll in Bachelor history.

Every story the girls tell Ken Doll during their private conversation sounds like this, "So when I was a child (insert sad childhood memory) and I was so, like, (appropriate sad emotion) and my dad never, like, (something dads should do). [wipes away tears] That's why, like, it's so important to me that (we make out now/you give me a rose/we start a family once you get rid of all those other bitches).

Every response Ken Doll gives sounds like this, "Every time I'm with you, you surprise me in a good way. You are so special. What's your name again?"

Here is what the other 110 minutes of the show sounds like: "I need to talk to Ken Doll. I can't take this anymore! None of these bitches are here for the right reason!"

Naturally, one of the commercials during The Bachelor is for Safe Haven, the Nicholas Sparks-penned film about Woman with Sad Past meeting Man with Dead Wife. Go here to read my review of it.

As we've discussed before, when it comes to romantic movies, dead wives are the BEST!  Here's why: Because the dead spouse shows that the man is capable of committing, but there's no annoying living ex-wife to deal with. This also shows the man has a deep wound - deep wounds are sexy - and that deep wound needs to be healed by Woman with Sad Past's sweet lovin' up against a tree in the rain.

Oh yeah.

Nicholas Sparks is the Mark Twain of romance novels. In that Mark Twain can't write worth a damn. Because he's dead. That's a pretty good excuse. Nicholas Sparks, however, has no excuse.


Oh my gosh, one of the girls on The Bachelor just spoke about herself in the third person! "When Selma gets angry, Selma gets angry." Direct quote.

I'm not even going to make fun of it because that is hilarious. I'm going to do that next time I get SO angry about how some man is dating me PLUS 25 women with whom I am sharing a house.

In the next segment, one of the crazy girls came up behind Ken Doll and put her hands over his eyes.

Let's just clear this up right now: Only hugely annoying people sneak up behind you and cover your eyes. In fact, people who do this are THE WORST. That's not hyperbole. They are literally the worst.

Ooh, which brings me to this fun snippet from a day in the life of me and my spawn. Jacob was unhappy with a parenting decision I made and he said, "Mom, you are literally Hitler."

I said, " I am literally Hitler?"

"OK, you are metaphorically Hitler."

He makes me proud every day.


Oh man, now some woman is crying on The Bachelor. I feel like someone's mean dad, but seriously, I'll come back there and give you dummies something worth crying about!


Speaking of bachelors and marriage, today Kate asked me if I was ever going to get married again.

I said, "I don't know. Maybe. If I meet someone and love him and I want to spend my life with him."

She said, "You can't just go your whole life not getting married!"

I reminded her that I have, in fact, been married before. "Duh, Mom, I know that. You were married to Cherles."

That's not a misspelling. This is how she and her brother have always said Charles: Cherles rhymes with pearls. I really have no idea why. It's like an inside joke that everyone has forgotten the origin of. It's one of my favorite things for some weird reason.

She said, "Yes, but you need to find your true love!"

Oh goodness, someone is a romantic.

I said, "You're right. Where is he?"

"I don't know. Maybe he's stuck in a tree."

Uh...

ACK! Back to The Bachelor! This woman just used her dead fiance story to get a rose from Ken Doll.

Gross. So gross.


There are 45 minutes left in this show. How in the world do they drag this show out to two hours every week?

I think I'm too bored to carry on. I will sum up the rest of the show:

"You are so special. I can tell how special you are. I will now make out with you for ten minutes before I meet with the next girl in line and make out with her."

Rose Ceremony.

"I'm so sorry I had to let [random girl] go. She was so special."

Tiny pause for appropriate sadness.

"BUT next week we're all going to [insert tropical destination here]."

Woo hoo!

Cut to [random girl] crying in limo.

Next week's promo: The most dramatic rose ceremony/group date/one-on-one/transmission of VD yet.


Good night!

Related posts:
Withholding Judgement Is For Losers: A Film Review
A Very Special Lifetime Christmas Movie
Letting Go and Letting the Doobie Brothers

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Banned Books and Pink Mustaches

Every Christmas I give Jacob a banned book. This year's pick: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

Looking especially Vonnegutesque this Christmas

 A few quotes from the novel:

“One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the Universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.” 

“That's one thing earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones.”  

“...when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.”

This one, which I have considered needlepointing on a pillow:

“Goodness me, the clock has struck-Alackday, and fuck my luck.” 

And one more that is hilarious.

 “He had a tremendous wang, incidentally. You never know who'll get one.”

So it goes. 

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Thankful for...Home

Note: This week I'll write each day about something for which I'm thankful. 

Dorm life was never for me. Even twenty years later, I can recall that feeling of just how much I wanted to go home. When I was a freshman in a college only a few miles from my mother's duplex, I would sometimes walk there in the afternoon. My mother would still be at work. I would fix a glass of water. I would sit on the sofa surrounded by my mother's things. I'd feel comforted.

I never did live at home again, though. I lived with my grandmother for a bit in college and I loved that. I liked how she had a routine that could be counted on. She was up early. She ate half a grapefruit. She worked the puzzles in the daily paper. She ran errands and went to meetings and walked around her neighborhood. She had a cocktail at 5. She watched the news. At 9 pm, she took a phone call from her friend Mrs. Nance.

The freedom of college never held as much appeal for me as the comfort of a routine like my grandmother's. My grandmother's house felt like a home. It was full of things that were familiar to me, things I'd been seeing in her home since I was born.

When I look back at the places I've lived in my adulthood, I can tell you the places that felt most like home to me.

The townhouse Charles and I lived in when Jacob was born. Home.
The first house we bought in Shreveport when Kate was 1 and Jacob was 5. Home.
The house we bought a few months after we moved to Birmingham. Home.
The first rent house the kids and I lived in after the divorce. Home.

There were places in between these homes. Places we lived to save money. Places that were transitions, an attempt to repair something damaged in the place before so that we could move forward.

Every place I have lived in Birmingham, the first thing I have done is set up my bookshelves. A room is instantly inviting and comfortable if you cover a wall with books. Try it. Works every time. (I am thankful for my mother and my dear friend Gretchen who helped me move all my books during my last move.)

Next step: Set up your bed. Put a lamp on a bedside table. Put the book you are currently reading on the bedside table.

Home is never a place. Home is a feeling.

Homesickness is a longing in your soul, likely for something that no longer exists. Not in physical form anyway.

I have experienced homesickness for the house I lived in when I was 12 and I know what I am longing for is my mother.

I have experienced homesickness for my grandmother's townhouse and I know what I am longing for is my grandmother.

The house we live in now, the first house I bought on my own, is home. We have lived here longer than any place we've lived since Jacob was born.

Considering how often we have moved makes me realize how much upheaval there has been and how much I have attempted to temper the upheaval with things that can be counted on, with the comforts and routines of home.

Set up the books. Turn on the lamps. Hang pictures. Put a throw blanket on the sofa. Set out the things that remind you of those you love.

The past couple of days I have been cleaning the house and moving things around.

I hung several framed things that came from my dad and stepmother's home. They downsized last year and, when we drove home after a Thanksgiving visit, we brought home a trunk full of items: Framed menus from New Orleans restaurants they visited 30 years ago; a framed poster from a 1976 Shakespeare festival.

I realized these things have been stacked in a corner of my bedroom for nearly a full year. What have I been doing, I wonder. How has an entire year gone by?

But now these things are just where they belong. I like seeing them. I like how they remind me of my dad and stepmother, of their home in Indiana.

I've also been busy hanging art by my friend Chris. I look around and his work is everywhere. A dog painting in the kitchen. Three small dog paintings in the living room. A tiny platypus picture on the mantle. Four tiny platypus figures in a row. One of them, holding a tiny kitten, was sculpted especially for Kate. One of them is holding a four-leaf clover, ready for good luck. All of them have Chris's fingerprints pressed into the clay. All of them make me smile.

I am thankful for these things.

Of course, I realize the difference between a place feeling like home or not lies within me. I am thankful for the feeling that this is home, not simply a transition between one place and the next. Though it is undeniable that this is a place where things are repaired and healed, where life moves forward, where my children are transitioning from childhood into adulthood.

I am thankful that I get to share this place with Kate and Jacob. I suspect one day they will long for it the way I sometimes long for my mother's home. I hope they will figure out how to carry the feeling of home within them wherever they go.

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Required Reading

The world [Monday] breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. - Ernest Hemingway

The young, blond woman standing by the counter at the library this morning looked exactly how I felt.

I heard her ask about the cost of printing something. She said, "But I don't have any money. I'm trying to print something so I can get a payday loan."

You could hear in her voice the growing anxiousness, the panic that comes up when not one thing seems to go right or smoothly.

"Do you need a dollar?" A patron, waiting to check out, set down her pile of books and pulled out some change.

I could hear the woman say thank you and in the thank you I could hear the sound of something broken. Or breaking. It's that sound when you are trying so hard to hold it all together. Sometimes, kindness is the thing that shatters you. Her eyes filled with tears. She took the change and rushed back to the computer she was logged onto.

While I looked at the new books and wandered into the stacks, I saw her again. She was having trouble printing out whatever it was she needed. The librarian was going to help her.

I kept wishing I was the type of person who could walk right over and hand her everything in my wallet and say, "Here, take this money. Nope, just take it. You have no idea how many times I have been where you are. Please don't go to those vultures at the payday loan place."

But I don't have anything in my wallet.

I was at the library this morning because the library makes me feel better. It's like the bookstore without the price tags. There are times when I'm convinced the library is probably the best thing we as a society have ever created.

The kids had their six-month check-ups today. We don't have dental insurance so that's $266. They were due for X-rays. I declined the fluoride treatment ($35 each).

Kate's teeth look great. Jacob is going to need a few cavities filled. It's going to cost about $600.

I signed the treatment form and made an appointment for Jacob to go back in December. I jokingly said, "Merry Christmas, kids."

But I could tell Jacob was worried because he could tell I was worried. I got too quiet in the car.

Quiet is the thing that worries him.

Here's the cycle, here's how it goes, here's how loving people can twist your stomach into knots: I worry, he worries that I'm worried, I worry because I know he's worried about me worrying. I feel guilty that he worries. I feel guilty that he has to be aware of money issues at all.

I work it over in my head, where this money will come from. I am too quiet while I work it out. Jacob offers to give up drinking soda because soda causes cavities.

I keep doing stupid things like giving Kate $20 to go to the movies or $15 to spend on hair dye so she can color the ends of her hair purple. I keep buying myself $4 lattes. I keep not dealing with things like the car that won't start or the axle that needs to be replaced on the other car. I keep working it over in my mind. What should I take care of now and what can wait? What's the next right move?

I keep waiting for something to happen so that I can breath easy for a goddamn minute.

I took the kids to McDonald's after the dentist even though I should have saved that $15. But that is what we do after the dentist. We get breakfast. I'm so tired of having to give up things even if they seem silly and inconsequential.

Going to McDonald's with Jacob is one of the things I wrote about after Charles died. Jacob still had braces then.

After Jacob’s regular orthodontist appointments, we would stop at McDonald’s on the way to his school. Jacob would have two bacon and egg biscuits (no cheese) and a coke (no ice) and I would have a vanilla latte and we would make up stories about the old men who regularly met for coffee at the McDonald’s on Valleydale Road. We decided they were secret ninjas and they met here each day to discuss their secret ninja missions.  

During one of our McDonald’s breakfasts, Jacob told me his class was reading The Story of My Life by Helen Keller and they’d watched a movie about her.  

“Helen Keller freaks me out,” I said. “I mean, not the person but the situation. I’ve never understood how she learned anything. She was trapped in silence and darkness. How did she break free? I don’t get it.”  

It became a running joke between us, my inability to comprehend how Helen Keller could find her way out of that darkness and into the world. Jacob, because he was a teenager and liked to tease me, would ask me “Why?” questions about the vastness of the universe that I couldn’t answer. 

When I would say, “It really is so hard to comprehend, isn’t it?” he would laugh and say, “Yes and what about that Helen Keller?”  

But he never asked me any questions about his dad. 

After I dropped both kids at school, I cried in the car because that's what I do. I have no idea why, but I think the car is a good place to cry the way some people think the car is a good place to pick their noses. I mean, it's not like no one can see you so it doesn't really make sense. Mostly, I think it's because in the car you can be in a space between places. You can decide to cry there and pull yourself together before you get home or go to work or go inside the payday loan place.

I decided to go to the library on the way home and load myself down with free books, to comfort myself with stories that aren't mine.

I'm currently reading The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe. It's a memoir about a man whose mother has pancreatic cancer. For his entire life, he and his mother discussed books and, during her cancer treatment at the end of her life, they formed an official book club for themselves. The memoir is full of the books they have read and discussed.

I love coming across the titles of books I have read. Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach. Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies. The Hobbit. The Chronicles of Narnia.

My head is full of the names of books Will Schwalbe has mentioned that I haven't read. I was trying to remember the titles of some of them when I stopped at the library.

Will Schwalbe and his mother Mary Anne approached books the way I do. Books are sometimes a place to find answers, but most often they are a place to ask questions. The best books give you permission to think about things like faith and love and humanity. They give you a way to ponder your own mysteries by searching through the eyes of characters.

Books are such clear and convincing proof that we are all the same, we human beings who - in the name of politics or religion - shriek and yell and burn things and rip each other apart in order to prove how different we are.

We are not so different from one another, no matter what culture we are born into, no matter who we vote for or who we worship or who we love.

I was standing at the shelves full of new arrivals when I heard the young woman who needs the payday loan. I recognized her in that way that you recognize someone's struggle. I knew her in the way I know how demoralizing it is to not have enough and to feel exhausted by your attempts to fix things that are broken; the way I know what it sounds like when just one more thing going wrong will make you want to cry in front of strangers in the library; the way I am familiar with the truth that it will be a gentle offer of help that will actually make you cry.

It's all going to be OK.

That's what you want to say to someone you don't even know. She isn't even the first person I've seen crying in public in the past five days. Last week, I went to Walmart to buy Kate some black tights for her Halloween costume, and a girl at the door was on her cell phone crying. "His name is Thomas." That's what she said, sobbing, to whoever was on the other end of that call.

It's all going to be OK.

That's what you want someone to tell you. Hell, it doesn't even matter if they know what they're talking about. Most people, let's face it, don't know shit.

But there is power in hearing someone else say those words and say them with assurance. And the thing is, you can be dumb as a box of rocks and you'd still be right about that.

It is all going to be OK. (It's going to suck again, too, but then it'll be OK. Then it will suck...You get what I'm saying.)

One day I switched purses. I cleaned out the one that was in the closet so I could use it again. Everything in it was from the first few months after Charles died. There was the last half of a gift certificate to Saw's BBQ that I never used. A coworker had given it to us so we could get dinner one night. There was a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield about how I owed them $600 for Jacob's orthodontic work, for a mistake they'd made in calculating benefits. I remember I cried about that, too. But the bill got paid, didn't it? And I hadn't thought about it since then.

Now the same purse holds a print-out of a new treatment plan and its dollar amount. It holds an estimate for car repairs. It holds a worn photograph of a haircut I like. It holds the book I'm reading. You never know when you're going to have a minute to sit down and read. You have to be prepared.

What's that phrase? It's not one thing after another. It's the same damn thing over and over again.

That is why it's all going to be OK over and over again, too. I don't know how. It's a mystery. But the passage of time somehow always solves that mystery.

I hope that woman from the library gets a hug from someone she loves today. I hope someone tells her it's going to be OK. I hope someone in her life offers to give up soda or something, just because he loves her and worries about her and is willing to give up something silly and inconsequential just to make her feel better.

I hope she checked out a good book or two before she left the library.

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Winter Wardrobe Essentials

Jacob: It's so cold. I'm freezing. Why is it so cold?

Me: Put some socks on.

Jacob: Do they make socks for your hands?

Me: Dude, you mean gloves? Are you talking about gloves?

Jacob: Oh, yeah, right.

...

...

Me: Can I put that on the blog?

Jacob: (sigh) Yes, OK.

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Leftover Candy

Hey, remember when people used to write notes on Facebook? Yeah, me neither. But apparently, we did. I thought I'd share a few.

Yes, that means today's blog post is a rerun. Please don't judge me. I'm up in here churning out new material day in and day out, but today I am extremely preoccupied because it's Halloween and I have yet to decide what kind of slut I'm going to be!

It's just so hard to choose from so many slutty options. I think I'm leaning toward Slutty Rick Santorum. I'm also considering a Slutty Chris Christie™ ensemble. I just need someone to be that underdressed storm whore Hurricane Sandy.

(Someone please tell me when Halloween became scary, not based on ghouls and goblins, but based on the serious threat of catching an STD.)

My next favorite idea is to dress as someone who calls in sick to work... and then call in sick to work.

Anyway, I thought I'd gather a few sweet treats from the past for you guys. Don't choke on a razor blade.

Candy Smarts
(originally written September 10, 2009)
Recently I've been receiving a free subscription to Everyday with Rachael Ray. It just started arriving a month ago for reasons that are a mystery to me. I must be the target demographic. Except for one little thing: I can't stand Rachael Ray. Throughout the magazine, the stories refer to her as "Rach." It makes me gag every time I come across that nickname.

The magazine is a mess. It opens with a section called Talk and the background is black with white and multicolored type. I can't even read it because it looks so bad.

Everyday also is suffering from what most magazines have recently come down with: a serious case of the borings. There is absolutely nothing for a reader to sink her teeth into. There are bits and pieces, boxes and bites, but nothing satisfying. My friend Todd astutely calls the contents of current magazines "a meal of hors d'oeuvres."

The October issue is full of Halloween recipes and tips. Page 21 in the section titled "Yum" offers the worst tip of all. Ever.

"One thing that haunts us about Halloween: SAME OLD CANDIES. Shop for treats that will stand out in the candy exchange (like apple cider caramels) at asianfoodgrocer.com."

First of all, you can't find apple cider caramels on that Web site.

Secondly, kids hate that shit.

So here's my advice to you: Fill your Halloween candy bowl with the USUAL stuff (Snickers, Kit Kats, Nerds, tiny Hersheys bars). And have a happy Halloween.

AB4BOOS
(originally written September 27, 2010)

When I first moved to Birmingham, I was stunned at the number of personalized license plates on Alabama cars. I never saw that many in Louisiana. Maybe they are cheaper here. Maybe people are just that devoted to sharing with the world who they root "4". Over here, you are either "4AU" or you are "4UA" and never the 'tween shall meet.

I spend half my drive time trying to figure out the meaning of the personalized license plates that aren't clearly for Auburn or Alabama.

This morning, Jacob and I pulled up behind a car parked in front of his high school. It was a convertible BMW driven by an overweight, middle-aged guy. We didn't see a student get out. We only saw the man sitting in his car. He sat there for a good five minutes, while Jacob finished up his egg and bacon biscuit. The BMW's personalized llicense plate: 4 PLEASR

After a few minutes, Jacob said, "Why is that guy just sitting there?"

And I said, in my creepiest voice, "For pleasuuuuuure."

And then we laughed our asses off.


8th Grade Smartassery
(originally written October 6, 2009)

The other day I received a letter in the mail from Jacob. Students in several classes wrote letters and the teachers mailed them. I love Jacob's letter. It is full of his personality and a not-so-secret message.

Orange you glad I'm a smart ass and not a dumb ass?

Dear Mom, 

At school our team is doing this event called "Can you hear me now?" It's for parents and students to come and learn about each other. It's on October 5 7-8 PM in the cafeteria. It's similar to the newlywed game. (I don't wanna go.) Our school wasted more than $36 making us mail this when we could've brought it home free. 

Love, 
Jacob, your son 

P.S. I don't wanna go.



And now here is an assortment of past costume photos that are incredibly scary (but only because time is going by so quickly and my children are growing up way too fast).

Hope you and yours have a fabulous Halloween!

Modeling for Lowe's Home Improvement.  

Be grateful it's blurry.

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Scenes from a Monday Night - Clap Your Hands Everybody

Me: "Can you pour me some more wine so I don't have to move the cat off my lap?'

Jacob: "I don't know how to pour wine."

Me: "Son, do you know how to pour milk?"

Jacob: "Yes."

"OK. Do it like that. But with wine."

Jacob is taking a Forensic Science class.
They're currently studying handwriting analysis. Jacob asked me to give him a handwriting sample. Here's a photo of what I wrote.
I hope he doesn't find out I'm a psychopath.

I told Jacob about my earlier post and Bad Boyfriend Jesus coming to claim his bride.

Jacob said, "That's right. Before you can enter heaven, Jesus must enter you."

Sacrilicious.

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Job Opportunities

"Question: If you dress fancy, you can stand in a public restroom and squirt soap into people's hands and they'll give you money?

- Jacob, on the topic of restroom attendants.

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November is LitAgLetWriMo

"What's with the Viking helmet?
I don't think novel-writing is that manly."
- Jacob Mercer 

If you're a writer or you dream of being a writer or you feel you have at least one novel in you, you've probably heard of National Novel Writing Month. It's also referred to as NaNoWriMo. It begins in nine days.

I've been thinking about participating this year. I have a novel idea that is almost fully outlined. I know my characters and what they're thinking. I've always thought it would be fun to participate in NaNoWriMo and just pound out the words as quickly as possible. Don't overedit. Don't belabor the point of chapter one. Move along swiftly and with purpose. Devote time each day to creating your own little world. (If that sounds right up your alley, sign up here.)

As cool as that sounds, I've actually changed my mind about NaNoWriMo.

I've decided instead to dedicate November to LitAgLetWriMo. Or Literary Agent Letter Writing Month. (Yes, I just made that up.)

I already have a book that needs to be published. I've been threatening to set it on fire. I've been threatening to just post it to my blog and say, "Here it is, you fuckers! Just read it for free while I enjoy this delicious bowl of ramen noodles!"

I have been mean to my little book. So I am going to show it some love this fall.

I have taken a significant break from writing the non-responsive bastards of the literary world and it's time to get back to it. Much like dating, seeking an agent is full of hope and heartbreak and people who seriously should have learned how to kiss a long time ago. I mean, what are you doing, trying to swallow my head?!

What? Potential agents don't require a pre-representation make-out session? Uh oh.

This is like that time Joey found out the truth about tailors.

Anyway, I've decided to send out five query letters each week in November.

If you're a writer with a book proposal or a completed manuscript, join me for what is certain to be a discouraging, disheartening, disappointing, dismal month of ups and downs, a month of being ignored by folks who wouldn't know a good book if I came up there to New York and beat them about the head with one.

People like to use the analogy that you can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket.

I'm not buying a ticket for the Lotto here.

I am practicing hope. I am putting time and effort into believing in my book. I am putting time and effort into not letting the bastards get me down.

I am lighting a fire.

I am hosting a backyard bonfire where I will burn copies of books by anyone named Snooki or Kardashian or E.L. James.

I am roasting marshmallows over the flames. I am smashing those marshmallows in between chocolate and graham crackers.

I am serving them up with red wine.

Smells like S'mores and hope up in here.

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Ruining the McMuffins

The past couple of days I've read several stories online about yelling at children. How-to stories, of course, like how you should say FREAKING instead of the other  F-word when you're wondering very loudly why no one ever does the FREAKING dishes.

No, no. That's not right. The stories were about how not to yell and were prompted by a University of New Hampshire study that found that 90 percent of parents yell at their children. The study referred to this as "psychological aggression." The study of 1,000 parents found that these parents were "psychologically aggressive" toward their children 22 times a year.

I'm not great at math, so bear with me.

There are 365 days in a year.

There are 9 months' worth of homework assignments.

There are 52 weekends' worth of chores to be done.

Sure, 22 times a year seems about right. If your pants are on fire. liars.liars.

I yell. It's one of the things I can't stand about myself.

(Other things about myself that I can't stand: My tendency to leave laundry sitting in the washing machine so that I then have to wash that load a second time; My tendency to become a hormonal, hopeless, bloated mess one day of the month and to somehow fail to realize why; My tendency to avoid grocery shopping until we have run out of all decent food and I must feed my children ramen noodles; My tendency to buy far too many books and stack them up next to the bed instead of putting that money in savings or some other financially savvy thing Suze Orman would tell me to do.)*

*This is not the real list. This is the "Oh, I have flaws that are so relatable and charming" list. My real list is only available late at night when I can't sleep.

I get worked up when the house is a mess. You'd think the freeloaders who live with me would realize this and - oh, I don't know - pick up their crap.

I get worked up when Kate whines about doing her homework and then - are you kidding me? - cries about it. Seriously, the girl wastes 20 minutes whining when she could have finished the assignment in 15.

In some ways, I'm extremely patient. I think I can hold out an impressively long time before I start losing my shit. No, really, I can.

Even Claire Huxtable lost her shit sometimes.

Here's how, in an email to a friend, I described one such incident that went down last week:


Oh yeah, then I came home from the world's most boring job and I remained patient while kids turned their noses up at dinner, while Kate asked for money (every damn night it's something) for cheerleading clinic, while I took Kate to Best Buy to replace yet another iPod she broke (thank God for the protection plan), while I paid $35 for another protection plan, while she begged me for new $25 headphones and whined when I said no, while the kids fought about stupid shit, on and on, until finally I told everyone to "shut up" and I stomped around the house like Godzilla. The end. 


Then I wrote this Facebook post: "I had a little meltdown tonight because that is what good mothers do. They give their children stories to tell later about how their mother was a crazy person."

I do it for you, kids. All for you.

I like to share these things because it's the only way to see that you are not alone in the world. You are one of 9 out of 10 parents (that 10th parent is in a coma) who is "psychologically aggressive" *ahem* 22 times a year.

My friend Emily admitted that she threw her iPhone at her husband in front of their highly impressionable toddler who, I believe, will grow up to have no respect for technology or will grow up to be a pitcher.

My daughter loves to bring up the time I threw a piece of bread at her dad. She was only four-years-old but you just don't forget watching as your mom stops, mid-sandwich-fixin', to launch a piece of mayonnaise-laden bread at your dad and that bread hits the wall and slides slowly down to the floor. I remember we laughed so hard that I forgot whatever it was I was angry about.

Emily wrote, "I have a term for when I go crazy: Throwing the McDonald's. Remember when Carrie did just that to Mr Big? So my close friends need no further explanation when I shamefully tell them I threw the McDonald's."

Jacob was sitting next to me when I read that and I showed it to him and we both burst out laughing.

This past summer, Jacob and I had an argument on a road trip. We were in the McDonald's drive-through, where - let's be honest - nothing good can happen.

It was before 10:30 in the morning so we were ordering breakfast. Jacob asked if they could fix him some chicken strips. I asked, the person said yes, but it would take at least five minutes. I looked at Jacob and he said, "Never mind." So I went on with the order and pulled forward. Then Jacob started sighing and acting put out.

And in the complicated emotions of motherhood, I felt bad that he was disappointed. Let's just forget that he disappointed himself by saying, "Never mind." I felt sorry that he wasn't getting what he wanted and so...I yelled at him.

I know. What the what?

But I felt bad for him and angry with him at the same time.

"Why didn't you just order what you wanted?!" I yelled.

He yelled back at me and then we pulled up to the window. When the guy handed me the bag full of hot breakfast sandwiches and hash browns, I threw it at Jacob.

Not my finest moment. Or his. He said something to me that you just don't write down in the baby book. Baby's first F word?

Not cool on either of our parts. I pulled into the gas station next door and I went in to the restroom and leaned against the wall and breathed in and out. When I came out to the car, I apologized for throwing the McDonald's bag at him and then I said, "Don't you ever speak to me that way again. Ever."

I told Emily that Jacob and I, having made peace shortly after that horrible incident in the drive-through, had laughed out loud at her use of the phrase "throwing the McDonald's" since I had literally thrown the McDonald's.



"But," I said, "we call it 'Ruining the McMuffins.'"

Being a parent is difficult. No one really tells you just how hard it's going to be. Sometimes you want to run away. Sometimes you want to grab short people by the shoulders and shake them into having some sense. Sometimes you are the one with no sense and your irritatingly reasonable teenage son will say, "Mom, you're getting worked up again. You should calm down."

Sometimes the yelling will feel good in the same way that pounding a punching bag feels good. You get into a rhythm and you don't want to stop. Sometimes it feels like the only response when NO ONE SEEMS TO BE LISTENING UP IN HERE!

If it makes a difference, my yelling is much like my rants about politics: mostly funny and no one takes me seriously.

But it's obviously not a good thing. We should all try to cut back from 22 times a year to two times. Two seems totally reasonable. I mean, Christmas isn't Christmas without yelling.

I don't have the answers for how to do this. The only thing I know to do is to leave the room when you feel a yell building up. Remind yourself that the mess does not matter in the grand scheme of things. Remind yourself that children in Africa are starving while you are throwing food around and ruining it. Remind yourself that these freeloaders are looking to you to show them how to react to things.

One of the articles I read said that it can be good for children to see a parent get angry and then to see that parent calm themselves down and that "the occasional, nonabusive freak-out is generally much less damaging than regular fireworks, which send a child the message that he or she is not safe and that there's something wrong with him...Kids can actually learn an important lesson from seeing you lose your temper and then regain your cool. 'This provides an opportunity to show kids that we all get angry, but what really counts is how we repair things afterward.'"

How we repair things around here is with humor and an appreciation for the absurd. If we can laugh at ourselves and forgive ourselves for how ridiculous we are, that's half the battle, I think.

The other half might be to stop eating crap from McDonald's.

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Friday's Random Thoughts - Comfortable Underwear Edition

First-Born For Sale

This week, my insurance premium went up $883.

In related news:
Funny, intelligent teenage boy seeks new home. All reasonable offers considered. Skills: Licensed driver; Xbox expert; does homework without being asked; watches The Colbert Report and gets all the jokes; open-minded, non-homophobic, non-racist, non-asshat; compassionate; reads classic novels without them being assigned; provides numerous laughs daily; gives a lot of hugs.

Oh, never mind. I'll keep him.


I Like Stuff

During the debate, Mitt Romney made a few bold statements.

"I like coal."

"I love Big Bird."

"I like great schools."

In honor of how brave he was, I'd like to share some things I like:

I like pistachios.

I like comfortable underwear.

I like dance movies.


I'm often told that I'm an honest writer. I feel better that I can be honest about liking a bunch of benign crap.


"Obama has too geaux"*

Before the debate began, we went all Mystery Science Theater during the intro.

"Hello, good to see you, sir." "Fuck your mother." 

The consensus is that Romney "won" the debate based on his "performance." Plus, his American flag pin is slightly bigger which means he is way more American-er.

The person who created this image won the Internet.

The clock is ticking on the contract, methinks.

I agree that Obama gave a lackluster performance. Someone pointed out Obama's body language and how he didn't look at Romney enough. I noticed that, too. Good thing I make all my voting decisions based on bull shit like that! (That's also how I figure out which celebrity couples are going to last and which will break up. It's a pretty easy "science" to learn if you read enough magazines and blogs. Here's the trick: The celebrities who have bodies and use language and stand next to each other in a variety of poses for photographs will break up 100 percent of the time.)

"[Obama] hasn't done this poorly since he debated Clint Eastwood." - Stephen Colbert. 

I guess Obama's disappointing debate performance explains why I woke up yesterday morning with the inexplicable urge to have Republican men climb inside my uterus and use their personal religious beliefs to make my reproductive decisions for me.

Just kidding. I still don't let Republicans in my pants. I'm still pro-choice, I still think your employer trying to restrict the benefits health insurance provides is the equivalent of them telling you how you can spend your paycheck (benefits are part of your pay, you know), and I still think gay marriage should be legal and that people who believe in the "biblical" idea of marriage clearly haven't ever read the bible.

The other night, a person that the Great Chris Talley™ and I have started referring to as "Titts McGhee" (click on "Titts" to see why) posted on Facebook that "Barack doesn't believe in God."

 Not one person in the thread called him on it. Nope. One woman just chimed in to say she thought the president should have to believe in God because all that separation of church and state stuff is just nonsense the founding fathers came up with after they smoked some of Betsy Ross's super-awesome weed stash.

I might be paraphrasing.

Anyway, I can't with these people. I just can't. Obama is a Christian. I will never understand why the "Titts McGhees" of the world have such a desperate need to spread false information. If it's not enough to reasonably outline your opinions regarding taxation, spending, civil rights, or social programs, and you feel you must make up complete and total bull shit based on fear to try to sway people's opinions, I'm going to have a hard time listening to anything else you have to say.

Yesterday, Mitt said he was "completely wrong" in his statement about the 47 percent. I'm curious what all the people who rabidly defended him for calling half of Americans lazy victims are now saying about this turnaround. Never mind. I know. "Ehrmagerd! Barack doesn't believe in God. AMURICA!"

Incidentally, I don't think it matters what Obama's religion is. If that mattered then it would matter that Mitt Romney believes in Mormonism, which is about as stupid as Scientology. But, hey, to each his own. Honestly. Believe what you like and let other people believe what they like. Maybe you've heard of a little thing called freedom of religion. Well, it also means freedom from religion.

It makes me think about this state in which I live and how, when you first move here, people ask if you root for Auburn or Alabama. You MUST choose one, they say. And I say, "No, my friend, I do not have to choose one of your two silly options. I can choose to watch Lifetime movies all Saturday long and never once hear the deafening boos and cheers of the indoctrinated houndstooth-draped masses, and it certainly doesn't mean I'm going to hell."

So there.

* "Obama has too geaux." Someone actually wrote this statement on Facebook the other night.

Dear Louisiana, Please stop spelling the word "go" wrong when you are not discussing football. It is not cute.
Dear "Titts McGhee," Please learn the difference between "too" and "to."


Girl Gone Wild

This week, I finished reading an excellent memoir by Cheryl Strayed. The title is Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.

I highly recommend it.

No matter what "trail" you have had to travel in your life, you will relate to the author's search for answers as she stumbles along the path, a massive backpack she nicknames "Monster" strapped to her back. We all carry the weight of our "baggage." We all stumble. And I so desperately want to believe that eventually we come to a place in the journey when we can look back and say, "I made it."

But we must continue to move forward, despite the ache in our souls or our soles.


Conspiracy Theories and Day Drinking

If you haven't heard, there's a new conspiracy theory in the works. The great minds of the world are spreading it via Twitter. You can read about it here or I'll boil it down to the basics for you: Democrats are only pretending to be employed so they can lower the unemployment rate in order to help their chosen messiah, the Antichrist Barack Obama.

So, in the spirit of honesty with which all my posts are written, I will confess to you that I do not really have two jobs and a freelance gig.

I sit on my back patio and indulge in elitist activities like reading books and seeking out information.

Instead of working, I do a whole lot of day drinking and host weekly abortion parties. It's like a tupperware party, but in your womb. You know you're done when you hear the burp.

Oh, don't worry if you're not even pregnant. You can still come! One of our physicians from the Todd Akin School of Medicine™ will give you an abortion anyway.

Happy Friday, everyone. I'm late for my first cocktail, er, shift at my totally true, not at all made-up job.

Linda, these abortion parties are the highlight of my week. 

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Saturdays Are For Killing Brain Cells

"If I'm old enough to drive, I'm old enough to run over hookers in Grand Theft Auto."

  - Jacob on the unfairness of not being able to purchase M-rated games until he's 17 

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Homework Discussion - AMURICA HELL YEAH

Jacob: "I have to learn all the words to The Star Spangled Banner and the Pledge of Allegiance."

Me: "Oh, easy. You know the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God...
That was added in 1954 --"

Jacob: "Because of communism."

Me: "Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."


Yep, that's pretty much how most conversations go around here.

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How To Argue Like a Drug Addict - Part Deux

My favorite sibling exchange of the week:

Jacob: Geez, Kate, are you on your period?





Kate: NO, Jacob! ARE YOU?! 

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First World Problems

"Now we have to make ice in trays like savages." 

                    - Jacob commenting on our broken ice maker

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Practical Shit My Son Says

"Luck is luck and you can't change that so this magazine is officially bull crap." - Jacob Mercer

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Shit My Son Says

Jacob's favorite movie is Inception. He also loves Shutter Island and pretty much anything else starring Leonardo DiCaprio post-Titanic, so whenever we see Leo on TV, I frequently say, "Hey, look, there's your boyfriend."

During a conversation in which I said nobody better be getting anyone pregnant around here, Jacob said:

"Don't worry, Mom, I won't get anyone pregnant.
...Unless it's Leonardo DiCaprio. I'd get Leonard DiCaprio pregnant."

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Breaking Bad and It Feels So Good

Jacob sent me an email today that reads: How I feel knowing Sunday is so close.

Then it had this fantastic gif. 

Go Jesse, it's your birthday.

His email also included this: 

If you're not as pumped about the Season Five premiere of Breaking Bad as we are, I feel sorry for you, bitch.

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Theory of Devolution - Life is Good

Every day I am living more and more like a teenage boy. It's true. My 12-year-old daughter is visiting her grandparents so it's just me and the 16-year-old boy here for a couple of weeks.

Here are a few of the signs of my devolution:

Last week, I went with my teenage son to a midnight viewing of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

I went to the bookstore and bought The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks.

I spend a good bit of time on Reddit. Advice from Jacob: "Always check the subreddit before you click on it, Mom. Always! Never go to WTF. YOU should NEVER go to WTF."

Last night at 10 pm, I rode with my son while he drove to four different stores looking for Funyuns. When the new song by Carly Rae Jepson and Owl City came on, I cursed in protest and changed the station to this song (Owl City truly is the most nauseating musical act in history):

We stayed up until 5 am watching four episodes of Breaking Bad. I am extremely caught up in the world of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, of Saul and Gustavo and Mike and Black Victor (that's not his real name but he replaced dead Victor and I don't know his real name). I want someone to murder Hector by shoving his bell somewhere really painful. I want Skylar to take out a hit on her moronic ex-boss. I can't stop adding "bitch" to the end of my sentences.

(One sign that I have not completely devolved is that I am generally very sad for Jesse and I want to take him in and help him get his life on the right track.)

We ate a lot of Funyuns, bitch.

While watching late-night television, I realized all the commercials are targeted at elderly people. The loop of commercials included one for a scooter, one for a cancer treatment center, and one for an erectile dysfunction treatment that involves vacuum therapy. I don't even want to know what that entails. I bet it sucks.

During the fifth viewing of the scooter commercial around 4 am, when the creepy looking old man in a wood shop says, "Now I can get back to the important things in life...," I said, "Like molesting this young boy behind me."

Then Jacob and I both laughed so hard that we might have hurt ourselves.

I got up at noon, woke up the teenage boy, and we went to Waffle House where Jacob ordered a waffle, two eggs sunny side up, toast, hash browns, bacon, a Coke, and orange juice. Good Lord, there's something thrilling about watching a person order so much food! It's like sitting down to a meal with Henry the VIII.

We might even see Ted the day it opens. It's supposed to be really stupid, perfect for devolved humans. If you'd like to join us Friday afternoon for a trip to the theater, RSVP in the comments.

And BYOFB.

Bring your own Funyuns, bitch.

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