heebie-geebie

Grades were due Monday. I'm FREE! On Tuesday, I took the kids to daycare and was immediately re-imprisoned. On my way out the door, they handed Hokey Pokey right back to me because of a rash on his neck and a cautionary "Hey, hand-foot-and-mouth disease has been going around his room."

It turned out to just be a rash, so he does not have to stay home for days on end. Just yesterday. He's very cuddly when it's just the two of us. I got to do lots of smelling his hair and nuzzling.  I also got bit a lot, and I got to watch him make a holy racket with some metal pots and pans, and pull books off the bookshelves, and upend chairs, and generally be a nonstop nuisance. Raise your hand if you're glad you don't work at a daycare.

Hands to the sky

I consulted various people over email about my ideas for projects, namely the math-biology connection and a new children's book idea. The responses said that neither idea is so terrible that it ought to be trashed out of hand. Which is terribly exhilarating! In addition, there are songs to record, old papers to get written up, and Honors Programs to work on. (In addition, there are housing tasks that I procrastinate mightily on.  All this excitement bodes poorly for the projects around the house.)

I signed up for swimming lessongs. My first one is Friday. I am not super excited. If swim lessons make you more efficient, doesn't that decrease the workout? Do I really care how far I travel while swimming? I just want to be tired when I get out of the pool, no? Eh, learning and lessons are generally fun and I only signed up for four, anyway. 

Hands on your hips

From Hawaii: "I cut your penis off and put it on my nose! AaOOOOOga!"  

From Hokey Pokey: Listen to me repeat "no more, no more, no more, no more" to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Also I can say "Up-and-down!" quite articulately, to refer to absolutely everything - I want up, down, I want this box open, I generally want that thing and I'm too small. Help.

I desire to spend my summer inculcating myself in the creative class. Isn't that some pretentious bullshit?  Wouldn't it be romantic if my soul was seized by inspiration so dear that I must hole up and slave away in creation for days on end? I have not trained to be a musician, or a writer, or a cartoonist. It would be so romantic to be Gertrude Stein, but without all the hard work.

I have spent time training to do math. I have a loose idea but I need to talk to someone who knows about chromosomes. 

Look at these:

  and  

Super gross! Hokey Pokey's class was studying chick decomposition. Or that was my joke, at least. In reality they planted lima bean seeds in some damp cotton. That's Pokey's on the right, looking particularly bloody and gruesome.

Hawaii says: "Do you want to play Starbird and Dark Vader? You play like this:" and then she sings "BOM BOM BA-BOM, BOM BA-BOM, BOM BA-BOM," or something recognizably similar to the Emperial March. It's cute.

Lately Tu Ti Tu is on rotation at this house. It's so dull. It might have been someone's senior capstone project. A hovering car (Tu ti tu) slowly deposits parts of an object (yes, like pooping, only not quite). Each part slowly rolls around and gradually the object assembles itself. If this is all it takes to entertain 3 year olds, I know a other shows which might dial back their effort.

I googled Tu Ti Tu to find a picture but turned up this:



Hoff! You're always trying to pretend to be boring Israeli animation for young children, silly! You're not Tu Ti Tu!

You're Tu Ti Tu:



The background music is kind of hypnotic:

My arch-nemesis is retiring! He's such a jerk! The department took him out for a very pleasant (strange but not antagonistic) lunch. His favorite restaurant is a Chinese Buffet in a strip mall, which I found endearing (but the food was terrible). His wife struck me as one of those eternally giving, sacrificial people. They have been married for 60 years. They got married when he was 17 and she was 16. She wore a big button on her blouse that said "Ask me how I can PRAY for you." I didn't, though.

We all contributed to his retirement present. A few years ago, I was collecting money for the building secretary and custodial staff, to go inside Christmas cards. I told everyone "I'll give the cards on Friday, so any time before then!" The following week, this nemesis came by my office with a 10 dollar bill for the cards. I told him "I'm sorry, I already gave the cards. But you can just give it to them yourself." He said "I'll just leave this with you and you can get it to them," and he left it on my desk. Which, fuck you dude. I don't have change for a $10, and it sounds awkward to go up to the secretary and custodian and hand them a $5 bill. That's why we cloak the money in a Christmas card. And do it yourself, stupid jerk.

So I put the money in my desk for a few years. And then recently contributed it to his retirement present. Isn't that nice?

He gave a short speech, including his proclaimed favorite pieces of life-advice:
1.  Good losers usually are.
2. If you want it bad enough, you'll get it bad enough.

See how incompatible we are? Neither of those make any sense to me. Good losers are still losers? Or they're still good? Or they should pout and be bratty? Or they should have tried harder? I am not clear. And, if you get it bad enough, that means...what exactly? It'll be a pyrrhic victory? Or it will be scrappy? Anyway, clearly he is a wise man.

Look Ma, I look one trillion times better!

They had a little barbershop chair in the shape of an airplane.The propeller spun and the steering wheel too, and Hokey Pokey screamed and screamed bloody murder until the haircut lady popped a lollipop in his mouth. Then he perked right up.


Hey Mama, I want a haircut, too!

Well, we can do that. Are you sure? 
Yes, I've been asking non-stop all week.
Ok, then. How short do you want it?
Hawaiian Punch makes "itty-bitty" with her thumb and index finger.
Really? Like Hokey-Pokey's length hair?
Yes!

It turns out that that is confronting to me! On the one hand, wow my daughter is delightfully unaware of gender norms.  When I was three years old, I was the gender police, (and I think that's pretty typical). And I know she gets a healthy dose of gender norms at daycare. But hey, great, it is not making an impression on her.

On the other hand, what if we cut her hair off and she truly freaks out, because she didn't actually realize what she was asking for? I suppose worse things have happened.

Our plan is to get a few inches chopped off, so that she has the haircut experience. If she actually wants short hair, we'll go back in a few weeks. (Fuzzball halo curls - like Pokey's - would be adorable on her. I'll grant you that.)

I'm proctoring a final exam right now. That means...endless time-lapse blogging! We're here for the long haul!

...Actually I'm being productive and writing my other final exams. 

We took two months off from baby-making, so that we might not miss Jammies' family reunion in December. I've been a bit tunnel-vision about getting back to trying. (If there was one emotional aftermath of the miscarriage, it seems to be that my body is saying "GET KNOCKED UP AGAIN. FIX THIS, NOW."  It feels weird and embarrassing, like I'm a howling cat in heat. Not very dignified.)

I made the mistake of searching SCIENCE! for a link between intense exercise and miscarriages. I read a lot of abstracts. It turns out the literature is all over the place. Here is what I currently believe:
1. Keeping your heart rate between 50% and 85% of your max heart rate is probably fine. 
2. It may not be fine to exceed that, nor achieve that for over 4 hours per week.
3. Implantation, a week or so after conception, seems to be a particularly bad time to go around jumping off boxes and getting kicked in the stomach.

The point of Crossfit is to keep your heart rate as high as possible for the length of the workout. I'm not pregnant! But I'm skittish about miscarrying! So I'm quitting.

I'm actually gloomy and annoyed to quit. I might not get pregnant all summer, in which case I just wasted three months. 

My plan is to take some private swimming lessons. Maybe I could learn to enjoy swimming if I knew what I was doing a little more. But still, I really liked the brutal decimation of the Crossfit classes. 

I can do so many things with my STRONG MUSCLES now. I like to tell Jammies about these Crossfit workouts, which is about as interesting as other people's dreams or meals.  I say "Guess what my strong muscles did today?" and he sighs. (But they are getting strong! Let's pretend my recent weight gain is from my strong muscles because I really don't feel like thinking about it very hard.)

 (Hawaiian Punch, last week, climbing on daddy: "I climbed up here with my STRONG MUSCLES and now I'm dancing!" Naked, crotch in his face. It was great and plus I co-opted her great line.) 

Co-opted the crotch in his face too

Classes are almost over. This is such a sweet feeling. It's like watching small children in a big noisy crowd, and knowing that soon you'll leave. And put them down for a nap. And then be magically transported to a magical world where you're all alone and it's perfectly quiet and still.  To the horizon, everything is still. Let's throw in some tall trees and purple twilight.

Or, it's like having lots of people tugging at you and needing help with their calculus and the poor dears are super stressed out and lazy, which is a combination I relate to very well. And knowing that soon they'll all go away and you can go home where it will be perfectly quiet and still, and you could get in bed at 10 am with a magazine, if you wanted to.

(Getting in bed at 10 am with a magazine: I never would, because summer vacation is always a little harder than it sounds. It's sort of bottomless and cavernous and echo-ey with free time, and I end up imposing order and structure, so that there's still an authoritarian schedule to feel guilty about. Then I dwell on the many ways my family could die.)(Maybe it'd be healthier to go back to bed at 10 am with a magazine.)

Here is a concept which my students find stunningly difficult:  What happens when you divide by ∞? What happens when you divide by 0? Well, yes, it's undefined. But now we're studying limits. What does the answer tend towards? (And by "now" I mean "since January".)

¹⁄_∞ means "1, divided by super big numbers". It tends towards 0.
¹⁄₀ means "1, divided by super tiny numbers, like .000001". Well, we know about dividing by fractions. 1/¹⁄₁₀₀₀ means "multiply by the reciprocal", so you get 1 x ¹⁰⁰⁰⁄₁ = 1000.

In other words, if you have one gallon of milk, and you want to pour it in to containers that each hold .000001 gallon of milk, how many containers will you need? A whole lot. Tending towards infinity.

Or consider the graph of f(x) = ¹⁄_x:

Teeny tiny x-values have super big y-coordinates. Really big x-values get sent to tiny y-values.

My students really seem to understand. I ask them questions and they can answer by looking at the graph or immediately after an explanation.

The problem is this: they have goldfish memory, and the next time they swim around the fishbowl it's like this is a whole new concept. "One over infinity? What the fucking fuck?! Curious!" That's what I can't handle - the two-second memory, again and again and again and again. What is that?

But you can't divide by zero, Dr. Geebie.

"Hey Hawaii! For your birthday, we didn't get you a bouncy house!"  Another birthday party set up tables directly to our left. Then they set up their bouncy house directly to our right.  That was a bit cruel. Our kids swarmed the house.  The other party gave me severe stink-eye until I went and fetched them out. (There were meltdowns.)(And then the bouncy house sat unused, because their party was mostly adults and toddling babies.)

Our party was actually great, though, and I started to like other parents in our cohort. I think the frosting on the cupcakes was made from melted crayons and permanent marker. They came in Deep Hell Red, Play-doh Yellow, and Equally Thick Blue. 

TIll now, I've been anti-materialistic about acquiring all these toys every holiday. Somehow it dawned on me finally that, no, a new toy infusion will be awesome and keep the kids entertained for the next week or so. 


Yes, son, do you ever. Today is your lucky day.

Hawaiian Punch turned THREE years old. Goodness, sweetie, I sure do love you to pieces. (And lately, you give great big displays of affection to me: unprompted hugs, I-love-yous, invitations to play. This is all super lovely.)

Last night I asked her if there were any differences between boys and girls. I was just curious. She was basically confused by the question, and rambled about various people, pointing out if they were boys or girls along the way. I'm sure her gender indoctrination is in full swing already, but it's nice that she's still oblivious to the concept of rigid behavioral categories. 

For her birthday dinner, she requested corn, shredded cheddar cheese, and hot dogs without the bun. May your every wish be so freaking easy to please.

Jammies bought Hawaii a freestanding basketball hoop and a hockey game set - pucks, balls, and nets. Our house feels a little like Tom Hanks from Big was our interior decorator.  See for yourself:

    

(So not pseudonymous. I'll friends-lock in a week.)

Oh we sound so dippy

Jammies and I had a big fight, where he emerged fundamentally disappointed in me. I am not the person he thought I was. No, he's not mad. Just disappointed. (It's really okay.)

Here's what happened: I was bringing a meal to a friend, post-surgery. After the kids went to bed, I called her to say "Is this a good time?" and she didn't answer. Jammies texted her husband, and he didn't respond.

I thought "Oh well!" and mentally hunkered down for the evening. Shifted from active duty to off-duty. I was all ready to put on sloppy clothes and find my book and get into bed.

Then the husband called, and I listened to Jammies' side of the conversation, and caught bits like "Oh, you're in town for a cub scout meeting?" and "Oh, your wife is already asleep, so Heebie shouldn't ring the doorbell?" and how nice! Perhaps the husband can just swing by and pick up the dinner!

Jammies got off the phone and I said "Is he just going to swing by here on his way home?" and Jammies said "I didn't ask him." I said "Call him back! See if he's nearby!" and Jammies said "No, that's ridiculous. Just drop the food off." 

But I didn't want to drop off the food, because I didn't want to leave the house, see? I already hunkered down for the night. And I wasn't even going to say hi to my friend or anything, because she'd gone to bed and I wasn't supposed to ring the doorbell.  So can't the husband swing by? Or can't we at least ask?

Jammies was appalled. We're doing a favor for them. You can't ask someone for a favor when you're doing them a favor. (Of course not. But really, sure, just do it?)

It escalated until we were quite furious. I eventually dropped the food off, but I glared at Jammies and felt sorry for myself. Jammies is very deeply disappointed in me. But it's healthy for him to have a reality check on my laziness. I'm disappointing!

Whoa a rocket!

Yesterday I attempted a handstand and fell on my head, and jammed my neck. Actually I attempted a bunch of handstands. We were in the Mixed Martial Arts room at Crossfit yesterday, and I felt like a bad-ass. The neck and upper back slowly got worse over the course of the day. When I woke up this morning I was totally frozen, but I always sleep terribly. Some advil and some motion and it has warmed up again this morning.

Would I try it again? Sure, because how cool would it be to be able to do a handstand? Very. I just need to tuck my head when I'm falling.

The last time I promised Grandma stories was last November, when my cousin got married. I did not deliver a single story. The previous family get-together did not yield any stories, either. The truth is that in the past year or so, she has suddenly become very much 94 years old. She is getting forgetful, and she talks less in busy, high energy situations.

In truth, we have entered a new phase, where she's totally obnoxious in new, senile ways. My mom said, "Mom, in April I'm going to come visit you. And then in August, Ken and I will both come visit you." Ken is my dad. Grandma replied with, "I just want to see Ken in April." 

And when my parents were visiting my brother, my mom called Grandma. She planned a big group phone call so Grandma would feel loved and remembered. When Mom called and said, "Hi Mom, I'm out here visiting C and his family, and we wanted to call and say hi!", Grandma replied "If you can visit him, you can visit me."

Normally she would be terribly pleased and fawn all over a big group phone call. But now, what a jerk! See, we have never appreciated how much obnoxious crap Grandma was filtering from us. She may have exercised heroic restraint, and now we'll finally know.

(If she hadn't been a jerk her whole life, I might have more compassion over these new manifestations of jerkiness. Instead I'll just document it.)

(Oh look, a three inch miniature version of my mom is now looking at me disapprovingly from my shoulder. Fine, Mom: Grandma also has lots of good traits. She's not all bad. She's very accomplished and loves us to pieces and can we fault her for seeing so clearly all the ways we should improve? Really now.)


Hokey Pokey has some screwball hair. It's getting really long. I think he looks ridiculous but I'm too lazy to do anything about it. Jammies thinks he looks great, and he is the one who actually gets shit done. So we're in a stalemate.

(I need a better photo, because above he looks passably ok.)

Hokey Pokey loves books a lot. He brings me books, one at a time, and then he turns around and backs into my lap, butt first. Beep beep! Backing up. Here comes my big diaper butt. That's probably the most lovely thing in the world, to have a toddler turn around so that he can back proprietarily in your lap, and then he does, and nestles in. His favorites are picture books about animals. Go get another book, Pokey! That's right! A book! Go get me one! Go on now! Ok, bring it here!

Hawaiian Punch's hair is also ridiculously long. We've never given any kid a haircut. Not due to strongheld convictions, but it has just evolved this way. If she gets a haircut, we'll lose most of her curls forever, and so we are hiding out in sentimentality.

I tell her this lie: "If it hurts when I brush your hair, it's because you're wiggling." It's the same lie my mom told me. Remember everyone, if the outside world hurts you, it's because you were insufficiently stoic and still.

(I'm at a conference where five women in my age cohort are very pregnant. It's making me feel impatient. Let's get this show on the road, Heebie's body, okay?)

I guess I'm massively naive, because I know that our Kosovar students lived through a war, but I somehow didn't realize that they'd lived through a fucking war.  

Last night, I drove a Kosovo student to San Antonio to hear Rudy Giuliani spout asshat nonsense for an 90 minutes, but at least our drive to and from the talk was very nice. We chatted all about his plans. On the way home, the student was irate about Giuliani's bloodlust and desire to bomb Iran.  So I asked him what the Kosovo war was like.

Are you supposed to bring up a war in conversation, with a survivor? In hindsight, it feels like I asked someone about that time that they were raped.  Are you supposed to pretend it never happened? That seems equally ham-fisted and obnoxious.

Anyway, I asked him about the Kosovo war, and out came a flood of atrocities. Having your door broken down and being ushered into the street in the middle of the night.  Soldiers marshalling twenty thousand people into a train station to live, nose-to-nose, without food and water. Indiscriminately killing babies and children and raping young girls, and then killing them, in the train station, meters from my student.  Why didn't it occur to me that my students might have lived through actual unspeakable horror? 

He was seven years old, and stopped speaking after the first day, and showed severe PTSD (my words), and his parents worried that they had lost him (mentally) for good. Fifteen years later, he compartmentalizes and tries not to think about it, and embraces life, and wants to do everything, and is just an outstanding kid.

One time, a few years ago, the Kosovo students hosted Kosovo Day, and then I'd asked a different student about the war. He'd given me a highly sanitized version, which I'd happily chosen to believe. The student last night told me the earlier student's father had been killed.

(I can't write "So it goes" because I'm not Kurt Vonnegut, and those are my dear students who lost their dads, although that is how war goes, and we all seem to be complicit.)

I can compartmentalize, too.

I'm in a reverie, again.  For the past month, I've felt sappy and happy. Oh so happy and sappy and bright. What's up, Heebs?

1. Both kids are in mellow stages. Or maybe they're responding to me, in my mellower state.

2. I decided to relax, basically, and let things slip. I decided that working after the kids go to bed should be safe, legal, and rare, as opposed to a daily albatross around my neck. This is because I got tenure and realized that no one will cut back on my work for me. If you're doing too much, you just have to be a little more irresponsible.

3. I'm exercising more regularly, having started to attend a Tuesday-Thursday power extreme bootcamp sore muscles beefcake preening macho hellhole workout class. Kidding about the preening macho hellhole part. It's Crossfit and slightly cult-ish, but mostly I've gotten my ass handed to me each day and it's hard to keep going back. (But later on I feel delicious and mellow.)

Also thank you baby Jesus for giving me these two lovely days off before Easter. 

I keep thinking about how hard it was when Hawaiian Punch was 16 months old, because she hated me, and it sucked, a lot. I keep thinking about it because now Hokey Pokey is that same age. And he's vastly different, but in my mind, I see Ghost of Hawaii Past flitting around the corners. (Giving me a wide berth and shrieking if I approach her. Sobbing "Mommmmmmy talked to me" as she runs to Jammies. Etc.)

Hawaiian Punch hated me. Now she doesn't.  That should be that, except I can't write about it, so there must be more to it than that.

It's because I'm worried about Future Hawaii reading this. (Baby, I love you and you were just a little evil jerk and then you grew out of it and I was always in your corner.)

If I'm writing to Hawaii, then I should keep a trump card visible, to the tune of "Sweetie, I always knew it would turn out fine. And it did! sleep tight!"

If I'm writing to myself, then I should entertain the possibility that it just plain sucked, for a year, and maybe it does actually bother me.

I don't know who I'm writing to or what exactly happened, but I keep thinking about it.



What if someday, I'm elderly and suffering from dementia, and my antennae to reality is flickering, and what if this is the period of my life that keeps re-intruding itself? What if this period is zooming by too fast for careful reflection, and it consequently gets lodged as that period that I will revisit again and again and again?

Would I be happy in the nursing home, logging hours in 2012, while familiar faces swim in and out and pull me back into 2060? I think so. I think I would happily revisit this period. Not relive it. But I think I would suppress the memory of hours spent grading, and remember idly watching my growing babies with their bigs heads and short legs and giggles that turn abruptly to crying.

What if there's a tragedy that is coming and supersedes this period in my future senility? I'm obsessed with death and ruminate endlessly over things I wouldn't put down on paper for fear I might call them into being.  Maybe my senile brain will seek refuge in 2012, pre-tragedy, in this comparative tranquility, instead of tormenting elderly, daffy Heebie. I hope that's what happens.

I got word that this person died, age 33.  No one mentioned the official cause of death, in the email chain. But this is what I wrote about her, in 2007:

Jules is diabetic, and has seizures all the time, and this is taken casually by everyone. I think she's 29 years old.  Yesterday at half-time, she got very shaky and someone went to go get her Gatorade. This happens all the time.  After she had some sugar, she idly said to me that she'd almost stayed home from the game, because she had a seizure the night before.

In her obit, they used her high school graduation photo, in letter jacket and whack-a-doo hairstyle. That seems sad to me, that your go-to photo at age 33 would be 15 years out of date.

I asked her how often she had seizures. She said, "At this point, about every othe day."

I asked her how the seizures end. She said, "Someone has to put glucose in my mouth or give me a shot."

I asked, "So if no one finds you, you'll just keep seizing?" She said yes.

I asked her what the longest seizure she'd ever had was, and she answered, "Eight and a half hours."

I tell you, I was really shocked. Eight and a half hours of having a seizure. I asked her how old she was. She said, "I was 15 or 16. I have brain damage from it."

And the thing is, when you talk to Jules, the light is off upstairs. Or noticeably dim. The brain damage is perceptible.

She said, "I had to move back in with my parents. I can't live on my own. But they're retired, so it works out okay."

She was a fantastic soccer player, however. She'd have been a super-force if she hadn't had brain damage. I think the problem is that she started mis-managing her diabetes as a rebellious teenager, and was having seizures before she realized the full lifetime implication of what she'd done.  Or that is my best guess.

But of course, she didn't change course in light of the seizures. I know several soccer players with diabetes, and it doesn't have to be a problem.

I've never seen her prick her finger. I think she wears an insulin pump. But mostly, she lets her blood sugar drop until she's groggy and people around her suggest that she eat something. Basically she mismanages her diabetes to the point where you could call it slow-suicide-via-negligence.

I hope I don't sound like I'm relishing how she got served her just desserts, or something. I'm really sorry that she's gone, and I always really liked her. I'm just reflecting on what it's like to watch a slow motion car crash, over all these years.

Jump, jump

Geebie Family Day was yesterday. To do it right, we ought to rent a house, because then it feels like a vacation, and here come all our friends! But we never had a party to show off our addition, so we kept it at home.

When you walk in the door, there was this sign:


I faintly hoped the adults would join in, but they mostly didn't.  The seeds were cheerios.

I love how seriously kids take this stuff. The kids ranged from 1 to seven years old, and they kept checking back and saying, belligerently, "They're not even SPROUTING yet!" and I overheard one kid tell his mom about the cheerio tree he was going to put in their back yard.

When everyone was busy eating fajitas, I took the tray of potted cheerios and stuck donuts on skewers, and planted one in each pot. (I didn't take a photo of the field of donut plants, but I wish I had.)

The older kids were excellent detectives and roundly accused me of rigging the system. With sugar glazing ringing their mouths as they happily munched.  I enjoyed feigning ignorance and making them roll their eyes. "Do I look that clever?" I plead helplessly.

Also everyone left by 7:30. We were startled when the booming party suddenly evaporated. I know other families hold parties, which somehow segue to adults drinking into the evening. Maybe you have to plan more explicitly for that part.

Snump, snump

I save the most boring shit for the end of a post.  Remember when I bought this purse?


It arrived, and it was also not as photographed! Dum-dum-duuuuuuum.  Scandalous! But wouldn't you know: I love the true color even more than the apparent color. I'm delighted; all is right in the world; etc.

I want to reflect on Hokey Pokey's 16 month old-ness, but I'd like to go into detail, and I think I will save that for a future post, soon.

I'm sad to say that I'm single-parenting this weekend. Bye-bye, Grandma Mimi. Parenting makes me so whiny. (Hawaiian Punch threw her toothbrush in the kitty litter tonight. I made her brush without toothpaste as a spontaneous consequence, since she loves eating globs of toothpaste. There are some obvious holes in my parenting. The whole scene would have made Jammies retch.)(On the plus side, it's 7:45 and the kids are down.)

We went to a birthday party today, at a bouncy castle warehouse. I was slightly embarrassed by how much parenting help I got from other parents, as Hawaiian Punch and Hokey Pokey went in separate directions. She gets overwhelmed by the roughness of older kids, and I was nowhere to be found, again and again and again. Usually because Hokey Pokey was trailing five minutes behind. Other parents were exceedingly gracious. (Other parents' names: a big eternal mystery.)

There was a very big (inflated, bouncy) ladder to a very long (inflated, bouncy) slide, and Hokey Pokey was really awesome at getting 3/4 of the way up it, all by himself. The party was kind of exhausting.

A stupid fight I fought

I am deeply fond of the following two things: our daycare, and complaining about daycare.  But then I fought with another parent, about daycare being stupid, at a dinner party.

Here's the (stupid) backstory: We send organic milk in to daycare, for the kids.  We buy 2% milk. In order for Hawaiian Punch to be allowed to drink our milk, we had to supply a note from the doctor. According to their Holy Pyramid of Nonsense, children over age 2 should drink fat-free milk. (Were we to buy fat-free milk, we'd need a note for Hokey Pokey, because children under 2 should not drink fat-free milk. Or we could buy separate milks for each kid, but obviously fuck that.)

Did you catch that? Not a signed note from us, the parents. A note from a doctor, saying Hawaii can drink 2% milk.

This is self-evidently ludicrous. It's not a medical issue whether or not a 2 year old drinks 2% or fat-free milk. A note from the parents should be sufficient. They also require a doctor's note if your kid is vegetarian and you don't want them being served meat. Again, not a medical issue. 

So I got into a fight, because another parent was defending this policy. She started it! She came over and said "So I hear you think their policy is stupid?" Yes. Yes, and I can soundly defend my position. We were at a dinner party.

Her point was that this isn't daycare's choice, but they are forced to do this because of accreditation. I said "Well, okay. Then the accreditation rules are dumb."  

She said, "You don't understand. Parents would walk in serving their kids soda and doughnuts if they were allowed to bring outside food in." 

I said, "But daycare has a staff nutritionist. Surely she can set some reasonable parameters. As long as a parent stays within those parameters, why pull in a doctor?"

Ad nauseum. Heebie, don't transcribe the stupid fight.

What gets me is that we're just using the physician as a Stern Authority Figure. Let's just get the note officially notorized and blessed by a rabbi, and SWAK, and call it a day.

(Daycare, if you're reading this, I really do love you and forgive your asinine policies about doctor's notes.)

I'm listening.

Hawaiian Punch is really into reading us her books. It's fascinating how she's internalized what children's books ought to sound like. She's prone to explain, page after page, how the character went looking for its mama. But no! That's not it's mama! Or, she'll improvise along with the illustration and then say, "But that didn't work!" and on the next page, "But that still didn't work!" and on the next page, "Would they ever get it to work?"

She was amazingly accurate on Amelia Bedelia, with all the arcane puns about dusting the furniture and drawing the drapes, and Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. She was stunningly nonsensical with the Very Hungry Caterpillar. (The caterpillar popped! Here is some fruit. Then he saw a butterfly. The end.) She was quite enjoyable with Harry The Dirty Dog, in which she told about how two dogs, one white and one black, were looking for their mommy, and then they scared the family.

Hokey Pokey has some words. I mean, Hokey Pokey has some words!!! He's got "up" and "down" very clearly. We recognize specific "puhs" and "buhs" and "muhs" , etc, to refer to bottles, milk, dogs, his blanket, his book, a ball, and so on. Also he can follow instructions like "Go get that trash, and throw it away, baby!" Which he does proudly.

Also he hates having his diaper changed.

Also he's got a really big belly and tiny little hips and butt, and skinny little legs, and it cracks me up when he runs around naked.

We went to Sea World on Sunday. 


What I like best is to be alone in the house.  I wish I could spend one day this week at home, by myself.  How ungrateful am I, that my mother-in-law is down here to help the kids with me over Spring Break? What a brat.

(I am very appreciative of her.) I'm greedy, that's all.



There was a girl at Sea World who leaned way over the edge of the dolphin tank. Her feet were off the ground. One dolphin kept caressing against her hand over and over. There was a feeding going on across the tank. He'd go get a fish, and then come back and love on this girl.

The girl's mother was nearby. We remarked on this lovey pair. She said (peeved), "We spend hours here, every day. They're good friends."

That is kind of cool that for $80 and a lot of time, anyone (who can get to Sea World) can befriend a dolphin, isn't it? She's just some high schooler who logs countless hours with a dolphin.

Here is who Hawaiian Punch would befriend, if she only had transportation:



She's not generally a huge Zoie fan, but a celebrity sighting is a celebrity sighting.

Here is who Hokey-Pokey would befriend - this clover patch at the park:
Here's who I would befriend - some fake melancholia:


If the sun is setting, and there are clouds in the east, then you should look to the east. Objects like this train are lit by the setting sun, positioned in front of clouds, and they just look like glowing embers. This is my favorite thing. (I suppose it would happen during sunrise too, but you'd have to look west, which is just crazy.)

These are the train tracks by our house. 

Spring Break! We took the kids to Taco Cabana for dinner. 

It rained all day and I left my purse at Taco Cabana. When we got home, I slapped my forehead, and went to take Jammies' truck back to the restaurant. The windshield wipers wouldn't work. 

There have been three times when I've tried driving with broken windshield wipers. It is so scary. You should really just pull over.

1. Up in Michigan, in college, my windshield wipers broke. It was sprinkling. I was driving my Little Sister (of the Big Brother/Big Sister program) home. (Have I ever written about how guilty I feel about that Little Sister?)  I knew my wipers were broken, so I waited until it stopped raining. But when it stops raining, you still get droplets on your windshield, of course.

 The sun was setting, and it would catch all the droplets on my windshield and bounce light into my eyes. The windshield was a blinding mirror. I couldn't see the lines on the street. The streets were big and busy. Terrifying! Stupid! (Eventually I pulled over, wiped the windshield, and then crawled along backroads the rest of the way.)

2. In Austin, on the highway. It was pouring rain. The driver's side wiper arm went the wrong way, and it bent around the side of the car, next to the sideview mirror. Also terrifying! The highway! This time the blindness was a big blurry smear, rather than the piercing reflecting light of a mirror.

I put on my hazards and hoped everyone could see me crawling towards the shoulder, and then I took the next exit ramp.

3. So retrieving my purse from Taco Cabana was really trivial, in comparison. It's three blocks away, and was merely drizzling, and I convinced myself that I could navigate the blurry impressionist painting of my hometown. 

A nice man had rescued my purse. Then the wipers started up like they were peachy-keen, so I guess the electrical system hadn't fully engaged for some reason, earlier.  All was right with the world.

Speaking of paintings,

Speaking of broken cars,

Speaking of Big Brothers/Big Sisters,

Speaking of purses,

Speaking of Spring Break,

Speaking of tampons,

(Now I will remember everything I wanted to tell you.)


I would really like to own a print of a luscious Dutch Renaissance still life of flowers, like this one by Mr. Vosmaer of the Netherlands. Patience, my sweet. I like to drag out purchases, sometimes for years.

Clutchy

Remember when Clutchy, my car, had the key ignition ding that dinged incessantly for a month? And a bunch of other unconnected symptoms? And it turned out to be the fault of the broken sun visor, which had snagged on some wires as it fell out? And all told, it took me about 9 months to get the right visor, and the electrical system all better, and then Clutchy started having problems with the engine starting?

Clutchy, our love affair is over. Clutchy, we are sleeping in separate beds. Clutchy, we are not yet divorced but it's coming. I explained all this to Clutchy when she died, yet again, on the first week of classes, in January.

Here is what I want to drive:


I think Ford Flexes are awfully cute.  And it can hold three car seats. (I have not priced them, or test driven them, or researched them. I do not want to look seriously, until I'm pregnant and past the risky window for a miscarriage. That I may soothe my superstitious reptillian brain.)

Clutchy retaliated for my wandering eye, though: the passenger sun visor broke last week. Fuck you, Clutchy!

Awkward Sisters

My Little Sister was in fifth grade, and we were so shy around each other that we couldn't keep conversation alive, and I found it exhausting to plan these arts & crafts activities, or figure out something cheap to do, or else spend money. She never asked me vexing questions about peer pressure or getting your period. She was really, really nice, but she was the oldest of four, and quite parentalized and responsible, already.

My role in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program started as a semester-long college course.  Then I felt guilty ending our relationship. (The course was really poorly managed and unsupportive.) So our Big Sisterhood dragged on until I moved away, three years later. We were always very shy around each other and never found common territory.

Tenure Presents

Speaking of purses, I bought myself an extravagant tenure present:


What color is that purse?

How much did I spend on my present?

( Okay, pick a color. And a dollar amount. )

I don't like it in the actual color. I'm going to exchange it for this one:


(Gee, Heebs, you sure do write about boring shit when you get up at 5 am on the first day of Spring Break. Where's your filter?)

Speaking of Spring Break, my mother-in-law arrives today. We may go to SeaWorld tomorrow. Except for all the rain. This entry has come in a full circle, like the deserts miss SeaWorld because of the rain.

Speaking of tampons, they are now organic. Organic tampons have appeared on the shelves, since I last looked, nearly four years ago. 

I bought tampons this morning, for the first time since 2008. It's not a huge tragedy, but it's not according to plan, either. The new plan is to take a break for a few months, so that we don't have a December or January baby. Jammies' family has a big family reunion next Christmas.

Oh hey! HEY! I got tenure. The board of regents met last weekend, and afterwards the provost called to give me a thumbs up. Now I can start having sex with my students!


( Now that I'm tenured, I can reveal my true identity... )

Today I'm at school for some community outreach programs this morning. Calculus-themed outreach. Nothing I like better than spending my nights and weekends at school.

The weather has turned warm, and the purple saccharine Texas Mountain Laurel have bloomed all over campus. So it's spring. I'm getting bitten by mosquitoes.

Speaking of weather, did you notice that it passed from winter to spring, without my favorite in-between season, where it rains down leadership quotes? March came around, and I thought "I never got any chocolate! Where's my chocolate and quotes?"

(I got de-sponsored, after the Hitler incident last year. You don't know you got de-sponsored until you don't get your chocolates.)

This year, I saw leadership quotes begin to flutter through the air. And then one of the sororities had a hazing incident, and all of Rush was cancelled.  Rumor has it that one sorority took their minions down to the river and had them line up, according to how many guys they'd slept with. Then they berated the slutty end of the line until one of the girls called her parents, crying.

Mostly it's horrible. I am mostly outraged that they were hazing their pledges. I promise I am only 10% entertained by the phrase slut-shamed down by the river.  A colleague asked "Were they in the river?" I said, "How dare you! These are sluts, not witches. It's not a dunking booth."

But it is so very antiquated. I know the torment was real, and the pledges were truly tormented. But slut is still a really funny word.

I'm going to friends-lock this in a few days. I may be tenured, but I'm not that tenured.

Before I left this conference, I took photos of all the carpets in this hotel. It is aspirational for all you sorry other carpets out there. All sorry carpets are hereby put on notice.

     

This was the hallway outside of our room.  What a thoughtful carpet you are!  Here is the lobby:

     

The lobby was so terrific, it demanded I go to the mezzanine for a proper overview:



I was in Portland for two days. I used to hate conferences, and get very sulky and resentful. Now I tolerate conferences, because I freely go to my hotel room for the afternoon, or leave to explore, or whatever. I answer to ME, Bub, not your sorry conference. 

(Our talk went well.)  One last carpet:

     

Ah.

I got nipped by a dog, while jogging, and nearly shit myself. I was by the river, on a path. This big brown dog came up to my waist, with a big old barrel head, and he and his yippy little friend were super excited to say hi to me. I hate dogs. Especially when I'm jogging. I've got my headphones on, I'm half-brained, and just get the fuck away from me.

Anyway, the big dog bit my arm.  It was playful and light, but still: big teeth on my arm. I stopped and bellowed "NO!" and got all murky-brained with adrenaline. Then I screamed at the owner, off lounging in the river, "Your dog just bit me! Your dog just bit me!"

(Me scream? That seems so shrill and lame. But I did.)

She came over, in a bikini and dredlocks, and was so abject and apologetic that I calmed down in about two seconds. I had the perverse female urge to apologize myself, perhaps for bothering her. (I refrained.)

I ended by saying "I uh, just think you should know: your dog bites joggers." That was that. I do not like dogs when I'm jogging. (I don't like dogs.)

On Monday we have a BIG GAME! Big game, team! This is what I say, clapping my hands for emphasis, in Calculus class. I think I'm so funny, because what I mean is that we have a test. (I realized that this entering class is the first class who had to read my essay on Why You Are Forced To Take A Math Class, last semester, when they were in Heebie U Homeroom.  In it, I went into this big digression on treating your math class like a sport to be trained for, with lots of practice and sweat and tears.)  

So I asked them, "Hey! You all must have read my chapter last semester!" and they all cooperatively nodded. Since then I've been teasing them relentlessly about the BIG GAME on Monday! Train hard! Final push! C'mon you yellow-bellied sap-suckers, I expect you lazy pansies to WIN.

I no longer you bruise

Yesterday I had a core biopsy. They put you face down on a massage table, and your breast hangs through a hole. Then they crank you up high and work on you from underneath, like a car.  They put your breast in a vice. The room is dark, because the only light is the bright surgical light under the table, and then shadows cast the rest of the room dark.  You have the illusion that there is no blood, because you can't see anything below the table, you only feel tugging because you're all numbed up, and the doctor is wearing business casual clothes and high heels, but no smock. 

Afterwards when you sit up and see through the hole, you can see that there was blood, draining into a little basin, like at the dentist's office. Clearly it is well-behaved blood, though.

I actually had the same aide as last time. It was in the same room, too. With the same lava lamp for you to look at, since it's otherwise dark. Longtime readers may remember the 2007 biopsy. (Bitch PhD! Di Kotimy! Mcmc! Soupbiscuit! all commented.) 

I have a cluster of three super tiny calcifications. They took photos and stalled and the aide kept going back to talk with the doctor. Eventually the doctor came into the room and at down at eye level with me. Gently, she asked "Is there any reason that you feel like the biopsy is the right thing to do right now?"

Gentle reader, my face turned red and I felt like I'd gotten sent to the principal's office. She couldn't have been any kinder, and yet  she's obviously wondering "Why are we doing this?!" (Normally you would just wait six months and take another mammogram.)

I eked out "I'm BRCA1 positive and we're trying to get pregnant."

"Oh!" she said brightly, "That's a great reason! I never get reasons like that!  Usually people are anxious..."  The implication being that patients are often frightened and want more scrutiny than is medically warranted, but here is this actual unusual extenuating circumstance! Where you could not mammogram in six months, and there's a good reason to be extra-cautious!

However, my dumb body continued to feel like I had gotten in trouble and was at the principal's office for the next ten or so minutes. Heart beating, face reddish. Settle down, Heebie. Sometimes adults have to communicate information.

I'm no longer your muse

I have a theory that nobody writes music, books, or movies about adults who have small children, because you can't construct a plot or heightened emotion, or anything. The only emotion is "I can't, I'm busy and tired, and hauling the kids along will take a boatload of extra planning and then they will demand all of my attention." If the artist were to introduce something like illness or accident or unexpected event, then the small children just gunk up the plot, or distract your main characters constantly. Small children make terrible art. (Pregnancy is a great plot point or music subject or topic! Just not the actual small child.)

This is relevant, because in 2007 and 2008 and 2009 I had many more readers than I do now.  Once you have small children, your blog gets boring. You get cute pictures! But it gets repetitive and there aren't adventurous tangents anymore.

I'm okay with this; it's the online equivalent of how small children also strain friendships, sometimes. So I've lost a lot of readers, but they should be off reading something more interesting.  The ones who stick around must like reading about small children, or feel fond of me, or something.

I'm no longer infused

Here's the type of adventure you get now: on my birthday, daycare called, and Hokey Pokey's teacher said "He's had a fall, and his foot caught, and he won't put any weight on it now."

I love Hokey Pokey's teacher a lot, but she is indirect. I said "Oh, poor baby. I'm sorry to hear that." She kept giving me more and more details, until it dawned on me that she was telling me "You need to come pick him up. We're sending him home" only not in so many words. They thought he should have his leg x-rayed.

Jammies was having a crisis at work, so I (cheerfully) cancelled class and headed to get Hokey Pokey.  My mom was already at the airport, to come visit. I texted her to say I'd pick her up early and we'd head to a clinic. 

I called and called and texted and texted and never got ahold of my mom. The highlight of the story is: I pulled up at the airport, and flagged down a traffic enforcer - "Keep circling! No parking! Unloading and loading only!" - and said "My mom is in there. Can you get her for me?" I described her: "She looks like me, only short white hair and very petite. Often wears a giant straw hat with flowers clustered near the front, and earmuffs."  Now you will always be able to spot my mom, too.

After that, we went to the med clinic, and the story becomes boring and tiring but eventually his leg was fine. All better. Good birthday, Heebs.

Well my counter is going to be discontinued. As of 2/4/2010, I had 40432 hits. Good job, heebie-geebie. (Officially dead counter on 8/24/2010, with 47261 hits.)

Before Valentines Day, before Jammies returned and before that left, before Mom visited, before I had a birthday, I went to the Ladies Greek Oracle Club of Sad Town, Heebie U. They asked me to talk about the writing and publishing process of our children's book.

The ladies were chatty and elderly. Some were all rhinestones, dyed hair, and pep. Others were geese with bows, and pastels. Still others were just sort of like me, only older. One was named Jolly Ann, which is possibly the best name around.

I opened by saying "This story is about my mom. In many ways, I'm just a bit player, in her story." And then I told the story, with the esophageal cancer, and conversations with the publisher from the ICU, and the revisions, and the years of shopping it around before anyone liked it, and the second book, and everything.

These little old ladies were wrapped around my pinky finger. What older southern lady doesn't love hearing a daughter give a long, loving tribute of her mother? Afterwards they bought a lot of books from me, but possibly because I was giving the money to their local library, whose librarian was right there in the room with us. Otherwise the books were just collecting dust in the attic, for pete's sake.

Afterwards, a little old lady cornered me by the cookies and said "The problem in Washington is that none of them care about the country, they just care about their own selves." Obviously I agree. But do I agree because she's on the side of Good or Evil? It was a peculiar situation. She kept talking, and I kept nodding.

Eventually she said, "Do you know what Boehner said? I heard him say, on my TV, that his big goal is for Obama to be a one-term president. And he said this a long time ago! That is just wrong!" She went on for awhile longer, and I felt gleeful and pleased.

WHOSE HOUSE?

Say Heebie, what are you doing right this very instant? HAVING THE BEST DAY. It's jury duty day! I'm home with my cup of coffee, my sunshine patch, my cat, my living room, my deliriously silent silence, my internet, it's mine all mine and I love you.

RUN'S HOUSE.

I have married colleagues, Husband and Wife. I work closely with Husband. Wife is on sabbatical. Wife is dying of cancer. Wife is extremely private. Much of the campus doesn't know that she's ill, at all. I'm scared she's going to die without her colleagues, who have known her for decades, ever knowing that she's sick.

Husband gave me permission to track down some of her students and ask if they'd like to write something to her. He said "She's really out of it right now, but hopefully she'll feel better enough to appreciate such a thing." That made my heart pound, like we are rapidly running out of time, so I spent yesterday tracking down students on Facebook.

It's weird, because now a lot of students know what her colleagues don't know. I was vague - I said her health was failing - but still. (Also the insurance companies are refusing to pay for treatment for ungodly reasons that I shouldn't speak about, but on the order of "they've essentially killed this woman." Obviously she might not have survived anyway, but without treatment, it's very quickly determined.)

Horror and humanity, and how extensive it is, I suppose.

The first day of single-parenting feels simplified and streamlined, paradoxically. There is no one to consult, and no one to pay attention to besides the kids, and no one whose agenda might overlap mostly, but not perfectly, with yours. You call all the shots. You have a list of tasks: pick kids up, carseats, buckles, home, feed, pajamas, teeth brushing, toilet, milk, cheerios, Super Why, bedtime stories, stalling tactics, one last poop, M&Ms for pooping in the potty, and then they're both down. Easy-peasy.

Today is the third day. We're all sick and snotty. Being scheduled within an inch of my fingernails no longer seems ingeniously organized. It just seems tiring. (Just wash your hands. Just wash them. Just. Wash. Them. Shit, that is broken glass from your jar of M&Ms all over the kitchen. Oh hey, the baby is running a fever.)

Next Tuesday I have jury duty, which means I will sit in a room all day with my laptop and nothing being demanded of me.  (Actually, even better, I'll call ahead and they'll dismiss me. I'll sleep in and lie to my colleagues and students. Midmorning, I'll lay down in the middle of the kitchen so that I can watch the clouds through the window over the sink. On my way back to bed, I'll stop and sit on the couch and listen to the faint sound of traffic.)(As my mom said, "Monasteries are such bullshit. It's easy to be zen in a grassy sanctuary; try being zen in the middle of a bunch of babies and small children; then I'll listen to you." I paraphrase, but not much.)

For a day or two there was a contact lens, disposable, just resting on the tip of the bathroom faucet. Like a butterfly. So I photographed it. Another time a contact lens lived in the sink for a week, slowly melting through the passage of our hygiene.


It's on the right side, about a half inch from the end. Hey Heebie, we can see you, doofus. 

This contact lens is already gone, so it was more like a fleeting ice sculpture of eye rectification. Look, our faucets look like Mickey Mouse hands.


Last weekend we colored in Hokey Pokey. In the end we went for deadpan irony in the form of utter realism:



He's an evil little shit all right. (Actually he's running a fever and is hot and clingy and sweet, and rests his head on me, and holds on tight.)