About Me

Woman, reader, writer, wife, mother of two sons, sister, daughter, aunt, friend, state university professor, historian, Midwesterner by birth but marooned in the South, Chicago Cubs fan, Anglophile, devotee of Bruce Springsteen and the 10th Doctor Who, lover of chocolate and marzipan, registered Democrat, practicing Christian (must practice--can't quite get the hang of it)--and menopausal.
Names have been changed to protect the teenagers. As if.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Bad Words II

In 1999 we moved to Manchester, England. Owen was 8 years old, and the move was brutal on him. Differences in the dates used to decide placement meant the poor kid was put in Year 4 (4th grade basically) when he had only just finished 2nd grade. That meant he missed lessons in what the English call "script": cursive writing. So he couldn't read anything the teacher wrote on the board and he couldn't understand the northern English accent. Plus we lived in a working-class center-city neighborhood--rather more gritty than what Owen was used to. As his headmaster put it, "He's having a bit of trouble with the rough-and-tumble of the playyard." Actually, what he said was, "'e's 'avin' eh bi' uh trooble wi' thi roof-'n-toomble uh thi playyard."

For example:

After about two days in school, Owen came home and asked, "Mom [in a few weeks, it would be "Mum" but not yet], what's a fooker?"
"Fooker? Gosh, hon, no idea. Can you use it in a sentence?"
"Yeah. The kids say, 'Yeh blewdy moother fooker."
Oh.

Over the next several weeks came many more new words: Git. Tosser. Wanker. Slag. Skank. But none measured up to Blewdy Moother Fooker.

[Bad Words I]

Thursday, April 29, 2010

I have seen the future

For the past two days, my left eye has been twitching.

And, starting about a year ago, but with an exponential increase in severity over the last few months, my left toe and the top of my left foot has been hurting/aching/throbbing, to the point where walking is becoming a tad problematic. I did see my regular general practitioner/family practice doctor about it, and she warned that if anti-inflammatories didn't work, I might very well have arthritis. Anti-inflammatories don't work.

Twitching. Arthritis. Geez. Add 'em to the list: chronic insomnia, daily headaches, vulvadynia, anxiety disorder. And a tendency toward Bad Hair.

So, as I look ahead to my 50s, I'm seeing me: an arthritic, twitching, crazy-haired, exhausted old lady looking anxiously over her shoulder, one hand clutching her burning vulva, the other massaging her forehead, while she limps slowly in a fruitless hunt for a cool, dark place of absolute quiet.

Wine. I need more wine.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Double Standard

Keith and I regularly watch the next day evening rerun of The Daily Show. We're too old to stay up late enough to watch the live broadcast and, well, way too old to watch tv shows online at any old time, which yes, I do know we could do. But we can't because that's just, oh, just so not right. My laptop screen is too small and I tend to spill stuff. But more than the Practicalities, there are Principles involved here: 1) one should have to endure commercials as penance for watching tv; 2) one is supposed to watch tv shows at specific times on specific days--how else will one learn time management skills? and the exquisite pleasure of expectation and impatience?

Anyway, one evening last year, Owen joined us in the living room--

--oh hey!!! Principle 3# of It's-TV-Not-Computer-Watching: the family is to cluster around the tv set (one cannot cluster around the computer--there aren't enough chairs and there's always that annoying booping noise alerting one to incoming chat message thingies for Hugh); if one does not cluster as a family around the tv, what will happen to family values?--

--while we were watching The Daily Show and right out of nowhere, Owen turns to me and says, "It'd be all right with me if you left Dad for Jon Stewart."

OK, then.

But perhaps I should confess that Owen's comment was not as random as it might appear. I mean, we weren't talking about it right at that moment, but the fact is, that as much as I love and adore my husband and think he's really sexy (particularly when he's wearing his clerical robes, which I realize is a little weird, tho' let me note that he has never worn said robes to bed, which would be a lot weird, tho' somewhat interesting, actually, now that I think about it), Owen and Hugh did grow up hearing me assert, on occasion, that I would leave Keith for a select group of individuals.

Paul Newman, top of the list. Not only Cool Hand Luke Paul, when he was at his all-time sexy peak (which must be actually the peak of male sexiness in human history) but Paul at any time (except now, of course, because he's dead)--all that beauty and dedication to craft and social consciousness and quirky humor and that utterly splendid marriage to Joanne Woodward. (I know you're thinking that if I had left Randy for Paul, he would have had to leave Joanne for me, but I would have shared. Joanne's wonderful. And an LSU grad to boot.)

Others on the List of Men I Would Leave Your Dad For: Bruce Springsteen (but he and Patti seem very happy these days), Kenneth Branagh on his good days, the Tenth Doctor Who (a fictional character and so perhaps not very promising, particularly as he's now regenerated as the Eleventh Doctor Who, an engaging character I'd enjoy hosting for dinner but not a man, err, Time Lord, for whom I'd toss aside marriage, children, and life as I know it), and now, thanks to Owen, Jon Stewart.

So, not a lengthy List and not one that poses much of a threat to my marriage (tho' the fact that all seven slots in my car cd player are occupied by Springsteen albums bothers Keith to no end--to which I respond, with my usual sensitivity, Suck It Up).

The subject of my sensitivity, however, brings up a teeny-tiny little itsy-titsy niggling detail: my kids have not grown up with a List of Women Dad Would Leave Mom For. Unlike horrible mom me, at no point has Keith had to comfort a sobbing Hugh and assure him that Bruce Springsteen was really not very likely to come knocking and take away his daddy. Keith's more inclined to comment (out loud at least) on Julia Roberts' incredibly fake puffed-up-looking lips than on any of her more appealing attributes--tho', dammit, he does get totally misty-eyed and tongue-tied and downright goofy on the subject of Keira Knightley in the long green gown in the library sex scene in Atonement. . . .KEIRA KNIGHTLEY!!! Anorexic stick insect Keira Knightley!! She must be, what, 18 years old? Gaaahhhhhh . . . . But the thing is, the boys don't know about Keira. Well of course they know about Keira--what teenaged boy doesn't?--but they don't know of her as Someone Dad Would Leave Mom For. As far as they know, there's no such woman.

Umm, so yes, there's kind of a double standard here. I'm aware of it. I'm not proud of it. Too damn tired to change anything, mind you, but still with enough integrity to feel a wee bit guilty and uncomfortable.

Except, I mean, Keira Knightley. Geez louise.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Bad Words

I never used to swear or curse. I grew up in an astonishingly curse-free, swear-averse environment. My mom and dad did both say the occasional shit, but that didn't count--as I explained in an earlier post, shit isn't really a Bad Word in the Dutch immigrant society that constituted my early universe. But hell, damn, dammit, God, Goddamn, oh God, my God, oh my God, Jesus, Christ, and Jesus Christ--if not used in the religious context, such words were absolutely, utterly forbidden. And I never heard either of my parents--or their friends-- use these words in a cursing context, not ever, not even during their pinochle games with friends that went long into the night and were accompanied by copious quantities of hard liquor. (Always a light sleeper and a highly skilled eavesdropper, I'd lie in bed and listen to the rumble of adult talk punctuated by shouts of laughter.) The only exceptions were the Donovans, but that made sense because unlike all my parents' other friends, the Donovans were not Dutch and they did not attend a Reformed or a Christian Reformed church. So they did utter the occasional damn and their girls, my some time playmates, frequently said, Oh my Gahd. But Mrs. Donovan was also the only mom I knew who smoked and drank beer, so it was all of a piece.

Swear words had a small but more marked presence in my childhood,via my older brothers and the occasional movie. I first heard cunt, for example, when I saw An Officer and a Gentleman in high school; I wasn't really sure what it meant tho' I sort of got the gist of it. And I first heard prick in an argument between my brothers; I just thought, huh? Fuck came in much earlier, I don't know how, when, where, or why (probably the Donovan girls); but I knew the word, and knew it was Really Really Bad long before I knew its literal meaning.

But the point is, I didn't say it. Or any of these words. Except in situations of extreme duress or heartbreak. That's what they were for. Words that tore through the curtains of respectability, words that broke all the rules in acknowledgment that extraordinary times demand extraordinary words.

Now I swear and curse all the time. Extraordinary words for extraordinary times? Umm, well, "extraordinary times" hardly seems an appropriate label for the mundanities of menopause. Mostly I'm just tired, confused, and pissed off most of the time, and so inclined to ignore the rules.

But my linguistic descent began before the onset of menopause. First, there was George W. Bush. Honestly, during the Bush years, how could one not swear and curse?

And then there was, there is, the Owen Factor. I realize parents are supposed to mold their children, rather than vice versa, but basically I've learned to swear from my son. Most kids are fascinated by Bad Words but Owen, Owen was enchanted, mesmerized, transfixed, obsessed. When he was tiny and the Bad Words were shut up and stupid, I finally told him if he felt like saying them, he should go into the bathroom. If he wanted to whisper Bad Words in there, or shout them, or chant them, well, ok. So, golly, that's what he did. Repeatedly. Enjoyed himself immensely. As Owen got older and we'd allow him to watch the occasional PG film, he'd giggle in absolute delight at every naughty word. And then we moved to England, where we lived in a working-class neighborhood and took the city bus to his school, so his mornings were filled with "fookin' idjut" and "bloody hell, yeh wanker." He lapped it up.

Then we came home from England and took the boys to an anti-Iraq war rally in New Orleans. Within minutes, 12-year-old Owen was part of a college group that had resurrected that old chant, "1-2-3-4, We don't want your fuckin' war!" He was so happy.

By the time Owen entered high school, we were battling constantly, and fruitlessly, against his bad language. Then, at age 15, he spent 6 months in South Africa on an international student program. Fundamentalist Christians, his host family nonetheless utilized fuck as comma, period, exclamation point, adjective, and qualifying adverb. And that was it. Owen came home, we acknowledged defeat in the language war, and somewhere along the line I went over to his side.

Which is a problem. Because when the bad times come, as they do, as they will, what words will I have left?

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Running Water

We have running water in the kitchen! Hallelujah. Blessed be the saintly Plumber Guy. Much as I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when I was young, I'd be a really lousy frontierswoman.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

A Life of Danger

All of my life I've been a cautious, rules-oriented, color-within-the-lines sort of soul. So, now, facing 50, it's kind of a revelation to look back and realize that really, I've lived a life of incredible danger.

I grew up drinking whole-fat milk at every meal (the Dutch legacy--milk and cheese were big) and eating red meat at least once a day. We'd pour spoonfuls of sugar onto our already sweetened cereal and shake layers of salt onto our canned vegetables.

I didn't have a car seat; as a toddler I sat on the arm rest next to my mom and when she braked suddenly she'd put out her arm to block me from flying through the wind shield. (To this day, Mom flings out her right arm when coming to a sudden stop while driving.) When I was older, I romped around the back seat; using a seat belt was unheard of. Bike helmets? I don't think we knew they existed. (Did they?)

And by the time I was 4, it was common, in fact expected, that I'd disappear from home for hours on end. We frequently went exploring in the woods behind our house that led up and beyond the interstate highway--which we ran across without much thought. We also never gave a thought to the signs screaming WARNING: HEALTH HAZARD: NO SWIMMING that were posted along the stream that ran through the fields below. We couldn't see any health hazards so we thought the signs were silly. Into the stream we'd plunge, the same stream that came running out of Argonne National Laboratories (you may have heard of Argonne; big name in the development of atomic and then nuclear weapons).

On summer nights we'd listen for the telltale rumble of the mosquito truck, and once we heard it we'd all run out, jump on our bikes, and peddle like mad to catch up with the sweet-smelling, cough-inducing cloud of poison.

On Halloween we headed out as soon as we could get off the school bus and into our costumes; we'd tumble back home around 10 pm, exhausted, streaked with chocolate, (no one told us an adult should check out our candy before we ate it; I doubt if any adult in our lives realized they were supposed to do such a thing), our costumes ripped from climbing fences and jumping culverts. Sometimes grown-ups would drive by and see us, slogging on home with our bulging bags of candy, and they'd offer us rides, which we gratefully accepted. Strangers. In cars. And in we'd pile.

Good lord. Where were our parents?

Inside. Drinking martinis. Playing pinochle. Watching Gunsmoke. Living adult lives completely separate from our own.

Bizarre. Tempting, but bizarre.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Reading Buddy

For a number of years, I've had a Reading Buddy. For two years Trinity has been that Buddy. Now a 2nd grader, Trinity is a bright, cheerful, sociable, energetic, well-cared-for little girl. According to the assessment I was given some time ago, she is also behind on all four reading "targets." I'm mystified. The kid can read beautifully. Tell her something once, she remembers it forever. My personal, utterly unqualified take? She's bored out of her mind. You're probably thinking, "Well, just go talk to her teacher." Uh huh. Her teacher. The woman who, invariably, is screaming at the class every time I knock timidly on the door? Nah, don't think so.

Anyway, awhile back I dragged Hugh along with me during one of my reading sessions. Trinity was enchanted. She's asked about him constantly ever since. Well, of course. He's lovely and he was sweet to her. And he's black and she's black, and she's trying to figure out, how come this white lady has this black son.

Today, I was scheduled to pick up Hugh an hour later than usual: he had a detention because he had not worn a belt one day. (Ah, the obsession with uniforms. As a historian, I find it all a tad reminiscent of the fascist era, but hey, life's a matter of learning what rules are worth breaking. This one? Probably not. But Hugh has yet to learn that.) So, I had the schedule all planned: work at home, read with Trinity, drive out and pick up Hugh. Five minutes into my session with Trinity my cell phone rings. It's Hugh: "Mom, detention's been postponed. Where are you?" I explained that I was reading with Trinity and wouldn't be there for at least 40 minutes. Result: one pissed-off teenaged son.

At the end of our session, Trinity, as usual, tried to convince me to stay longer. I told her no, I absolutely had to go as Hugh had been waiting for quite awhile and was already furious with me. She stared at me, confused, and asked, "You mean he don't get no whuppin'?" It took me a few seconds to grasp the logic, and then I burst out laughing.

No. Hugh was not about to get "whupped" and he knew it. But in Trinity's world, a child who dares to show anger at a parent is a child about to get a whipping.

He was a total shit to me this morning. An unbelievable, utter shit. I dunno. Maybe Trinity's on to something.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Score one for Hugh

Shortly after we moved into this house we converted the attic into a small bedroom for Owen and a large tv room/ "hang-out" space for both boys. Given my sons' slovenly natures, general laziness, and inability to draw a connection between large piles of dirty dishes and the growing roach and rat population, the area quickly degenerated. Each boy blamed the other. So one day, Owen challenged Hugh: you keep track of the dirty dishes I leave behind and I'll keep track of yours--a kind of scientific tabulation of who was the greater slob. On the door leading to the attic staircase Owen hung a piece of paper titled "LEFT UPSTAIRS".

By the end of the first weekend, here's what was listed under "Hugh":
2 glasses, 1 plate, 1 fork, bag of popcorn, 1 spoon and yogurt cup, 1 bowl ramen noodles. And here's what was written under "Owen":
his dignity.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Recovery

Hi. My name is Allison [chorus of "hi Allison"] and it's been 16 months since my last Advil.

Aspirin was my gateway drug. By college I was hitting the Tylenol pretty hard. Then one fateful day in grad school someone offered me some Advil and I was hooked. Whereas aspirin and Tylenol often had little impact on my headaches, Advil took care of them instantly. As long as I had a bottle of Advil on hand, I was invincible. And I never went anywhere without that bottle.

Turns out tho', that if you use a lot of ibuprofin, your brain comes to like it. And brains are a bit like toddlers; they figure out pretty quickly that the best way to get what they want is to throw a tantrum. By my 40s, daily headaches were my brain's version of a 2-year-old throwing himself on the floor and screaming. Brain needs ibuprofin; brain gets headache to get ibuprofin.

So, yes, I'm a recovering ibuprofin addict. Is that pathetic or what? Most addictions at least begin with pleasure. You get a high, a kick, a buzz, a rush. Or so I'm told. But what would I know?--my addiction began with a headache. "Well," said Keith the other night, "when you first started taking ibuprofin, your headaches went away. So that was a form of pleasure." I glared at him and explained in my "I'm talking calmly and slowly but say one more wrong word and I will hurt you" voice that the absence of pain is not, in fact, an equivalent for pleasure.

At least if I were recovering from some other sort of addiction I'd have the memory of good times, of late nights and dancing and gales of laughter, of the delightful and the delectable. . . you know, life on the edge, a bit of risky business. But no, no decadence and debauchery with ibuprofin. Just a total nerd addiction, a dweeb dependence. One neurologist told me that by taking too much Advil I have permanently bruised my brain. And I didn't even get to have fun.

Friday, April 16, 2010

The Limits of HRT

So, I've been on HRT for about a month now, and I have to say, it's pretty good stuff. Not as good as the painkillers I was on after my C-section--gosh, those drugs were great--but still, it is lovely to wander thru my days and meander thru my nights without repeated, sudden, intense flashes of heat and sweat.

Sadly, however, the HRT has done nothing about my mood swings, the rapidity with which I shift from Professor Jekyll into Ms Hyde, nor (much to Keith's regret), has it aroused my somewhat dormant libido in any noticeable way.

I guess could badger my doctor for a higher dose, a bigger pill. I mean, what's a higher risk of heart disease and cancer in comparison to the promise of emotional equilibrium and a lively sex life?

Except.

The thing is, my emotional life didn't exactly resemble Lake Placid even before the onset of menopause. I have always been a tad prone to bouts of bitchiness. Expecting HRT to make me a nice, gentle, sane person reminds me of that old joke:
"Oh, but doctor, doctor, will I be able to play the violin?"
"I don't see why not."
"Wow, you're a great doctor. I've always wanted to play the violin."

And, umm, much as I hate to admit it, menopause hasn't changed my sex life all that much. I like sex, I really do. But I also like a good brownie. Or a great cup of coffee. Or watching the Doctor Who "Silence in the Library" episode for the umpteenth time. Or--hey--enjoying a good brownie with a great cup of coffee while watching the Doctor Who "Silence in the Library" episode--we're talking, like, multiple orgasms. The point being, much as I'd like to be the historian version of Samantha in Sex and the City, I'm not and never have been a voracious Sex Goddess, and I doubt that even mega-doses of HRT will change that.

But I dunno. I'd like to be a voracious Sex Goddess. And I'd like to be a placid person. I just don't think more HRT is the answer. Maybe if I eat more good brownies and drink more great cups of coffee and keep watching Doctor Who. Maybe then.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Yankee lost in Dixieland

Today one of the advice-seekers writing in to "Miss Manners" asked how to decline an invitation, actually a demand, that she and her husband attend her sister-in-law's "birthing party." As in, the sister-in-law was having a party while giving birth.

I imagine we can assume it's Baby #1 for said sister-in-law. Still, the mind boggles. Does she actually think she'll be serving canape's? refilling drinks? engaging in witty repartee?

And yet I remember a crucial episode, shortly after we married. Keith called me to report that a friend of his had gone into labor and so he wouldn't be home for dinner. Huh? I was totally confused. He was confused that I was confused. "Sharon's in labor," he repeated. Yep, yep, got that part. But what did Sharon's birthing pangs have to do with our dinner? He was astonished that I didn't realize that of course he was going down to the hospital.

Whoa.

Sharon, rest assured, had a husband on hand. And family. And a host of female friends. "Sorry, but why are you going to the hospital?" I asked in my usual dulcet tones.

"Sharon's in labor," he repeated, as if I, somehow, just could not wrap my pea-sized brain around this fact.

Dulcet tones got considerably more bitchy. "Yes, I know that, but exactly why are you going to the hospital?" I snapped.

Good Person that he is, Keith was able to figure out, far more quickly than I, that what we found ourselves in the middle of was another in a long series of cultural misunderstandings, what I think of as yet another installment of "Yankee lost in Dixieland."

Turns out that when Keith had a regular church appointment (did I mention he's an ordained Methodist minister? probably not as it doesn't come up all that often), he attended many a birth. Turns out it's some kind of Southern thing, or Southern Protestant thing, or Southern Methodist thing, or maybe just a south Louisiana Methodist thing, I dunno, to have the minister come join the show. At that point in my life, not having been pregnant, not having had a baby, I thought that was really weird.

At this point in my life, having been pregnant, having had a baby, I still think it's really weird.

I always had a good relationship with my various pastors, but no way in hell did I want any one of them present while I was in labor. Nor did I want a party. I did not want friends. I did not want family. (Well, let me qualify that. I was pregnant and giving birth in south Louisiana. My family members were/are all up in Chicago. No chance any of them would be around for the birth. So not wanting family meant not wanting Keith's family. And no, I didn't. And on the whole, I didn't want most of my own family. I can see maybe wanting my sister. But brothers? You've got to be kidding. As for my mom, good lord, she'd be wandering around saying she was going to puke and how in her day the doctors just knocked the women out and took care of things.)

The thing is, perhaps I truly am a cold Yankee bitch, but when I'm in pain, I do not want company.

So, when I did get pregnant, I made Keith promise that it would just be me, him, the baby abornin', and the medical professionals. This promise was hard on him. He's a sociable guy. And a Southerner. But geez, I was the one carrying the damn baby, so he had no choice. That's the great thing about being pregnant, you can totally milk the whole woman thing.

I've never received any invitation to a birthing party. Miss Manners advises that should I ever do so, I reply that I am squeamish and guaranteed to faint at the sight of blood and so think it best not to attend so as to ensure that I not take up any of the valuable time of the doctors who should be looking after the mother and baby. I figure I'll just say, "Look, I'm from Chicago; I'm a cold Yankee bitch," and that will be that. Works for me.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Delta musings

I first encountered Louisiana in 1988, when I was flown into Baton Rouge for a job interview. (I got the job; pitifully, I still have that job.) On that momentous flight I had a window seat and I remember looking down as we were approaching the city and thinking, "Oh dear God. I'm landing in Vietnam." Because there, stretched out below me, was the Mekong Delta, suffocating in its greenness, lush and deadly. I knew nothing about south Louisiana, except the little I had gleaned from the film The Big Easy (basically: although the guys talk funny, they understand the clitoris--which, of course, did make the job prospect rather appealing). But Vietnam? Well, heck, the consumption of dozens of feature films and documentaries and photojournalistic essays and illustrated histories had tattooed the Mekong Delta firmly on my consciousness. And there, that January afternoon, it lay below me. I kept waiting for the thwip-thwip-thwip of helicopters, for Robin Williams to howl maniacally "Gooooood morning, Vietnam!, for Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" to burst forth.

Of course it wasn't that delta, it was another: the Mississippi Delta, the bayou country of south Louisiana. But that early impression has never left me: the suffocating greenness, the lushness, the deadliness. Nature, here, is not gentle and soothing. No soft English rain. None of the swelling lullaby of a Midwestern corn field. Here, nature is on the move. And if you don't take care, it will swallow you whole.

The grass, for example, does not grow vertically; it grows sideways. Coarse and prickly, it thrusts out horizontal feelers and within a matter of weeks, creeps across and chokes the sidewalk. This is not Friendly Grass. It does not invite picnics and children's tea parties and teenaged tanning sessions. Fall asleep on your beach towel and by the time you wake up, you may well find yourself pinned down by grassy, scratchy ropes. It's like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors. It will feed on you, if given the chance.

Evidently it's also like Singapore (where I have never been). Here's J. G. Farrell's description in his wonderful novel The Singapore Grip: "Foliage sprang up on every hand with a determination unknown to our own polite European vegetation. Dark, glistening green was smeared over everything as if with a palette knife."* Perfect.

Springtime always brings these facts to mind, because it's s the time of year when the south Louisiana vegetation pretends to be polite, innocuous, pretty, easily domesticated. With the humidity levels relatively low (relative to what they'll soon be down here, that is, not relative to humidity in any normal place) and temperatures in the 70s, with the azaleas popping with color, with the birds copulating like crazy, one is easily sucked into the illusion that one can work with nature, that, you know, a garden would be lovely. But it won't be. Like the Lady in The Silver Chair, Nature soon enough reveals herself as the devouring gigantic green serpent.**

* Farrell, The Singapore Grip, 1978; NY: NYRB, 2005, p. 11.
**A reference to Book 4 of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia--but you already knew that, right? Because if not, geez louise, you poor benighted soul, go grab a copy.

Not in a state to perform the function

Trying to log on to my computer just now, I was informed: "Log-in has failed. The group or agency is not in a state to perform the function." Huh? There's a group or agency inside my computer? And what are those group or agency members doing in there that has rendered them incapable of performing their usual functions? What kind of state are they in, anyway? Should I take their car keys away? Get them ibuprofin? Call their mothers? Report them to, I dunno, Bill Gates?

Sunday, April 11, 2010

The Slough of Corruption

It's official. I am Morally Corrupt.

I used to be pure. Unsullied. I didn't own a tv. Then my mom gave me an old black-and-white portable that used to be in my parents' bedroom. That was fine. Most of the time the "picture" was just a bunch of wavy lines, so I could watch I, Claudius and yet still feel untainted because I was really just listening. That tv melted in an apartment fire and shortly thereafter, I took my first step down the slippery slope. I accepted a small color tv (bizarrely, the giver was once again my mom, not usually one to play the Temptress in my life's story).

So, ok, tv. But free tv. I drew the line at paid tv, and when we married, Keith gave up his cable subscription. Time drifted on, however, as did technology, and eventually we found the only way to ensure that the free network channels would actually appear on the screen was to purchase a cable tv subscription. Basic cable, just the networks and a bunch of local and religious stations, but still, we were now paying--paying--for tv. Down the slope we slid.

I suppose I should note we had paid for tv before--when we lived in England. But that's different. That's paying for the BBC. The BBC is worth it. It's moral. Totally different.

Anyway, there we were back in the U.S., with Basic Cable, clinging to our moral sense, as the boys moaned and whined and sulked and pestered us. Evidently we were the only family left in America with Basic Cable. Evidently we were guilty of child abuse by depriving them of Nick-at-Nite and MTV. But we stood firm.

Until Keith read one of those mail advertisement things and discovered that for less than what we had been paying, we could get our wireless internet bundled in with our phone and satellite tv--with the regular package of tv channels. Well. A Really Good Deal trumped morality. We went from about 5 watchable channels to umm, 95? Not that all 95 are watchable, not at all, but the thing is, the regular package included BBCAmerica, which meant there was no going back. Not ever. Life without BBCAmerica is totally unthinkable. I am not sure how I survived so much of my adult life without it. I know for a fact that if I were deprived of the new Doctor Who, my adult life would not be worth living.

Still, I retained some shreds of moral decency--after all, we purchased only the regular package, not the fullbore, deluxe, HBO-Showtime extravaganza. "Oh, we don't have HBO," I could say gently, but loftily, when someone started raving on about The Wire or Mad Men or whatever. We are Good People. We wait for the series to come out on Netflix. We do not demand Immediate Gratification. We do not Spend Our Money on TV. Umm, not as much as we could, anyway.

Then I read about this new HBO series: Treme'. Set in post-Katrina New Orleans. it begins tonight. We live in south Louisiana. We lived thru Katrina. Keith works with the homeless--Katrina continues to shape his daily work life. And it continues to shape the world in which we live. We can't wait for Netflix. So, weve upgraded to HBO. We'll be watching the series premiere in just 15 minutes.

It's official. I'm morally corrupt. I gotta say, tho', this moral corruption stuff, it's really kinda fun. We just watched True Blood--without waiting for Netflix. And there are these cool movies. And that Tudor series is coming on. And Hugh is so very happy . . .

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Look before you leap

So I've gotten a really short disastrous haircut and the rats have returned. There's a causal connection there somewhere.

Hair first. I was in need of a trim. It was a lovely spring morning, cool, the hint of the warmth to come, flowers ablaze in aching glory, the last day of spring break--a time for leaping. And New Haircutter Guy was in the mood for radical cutting. So, I leapt. He cut. I now look like an old lady with an erratic perm. Liberated by the short cut, my hair is doing what comes naturally: sprouting in odd curly combinations here, sulking in a fit of straights there, sticking out at random points in anarchic conviction throughout. It is not an attractive look. It does not bespeak the playful promise of springtime that New Haircutter Guy dangled in front of me like a chocolate cupcake.

What it evokes, nay, what it uncannily duplicates, is my grandmother the morning that I surprised her with a visit. Turned out it was her cleaning morning. When I sprung upon her, she was on her hands and knees dusting the crevices of an upturned kitchen chair. Usually immaculately coiffed, rouge carefully applied, pearls resting gently on her Marshall Field's blouse, Gram was in a duster, with bare legs and ankle socks, and her hair--her hair looked just like mine right now. She was horrified to see me seeing her crouching in that kitchen. Much like I am horrified to see me seeing me right now.

Much like the rats, actually. I thought we had defeated the rats some months ago, using a combination of poison, rat traps, glue trays, and, I dunno, human resolve, esprit, determination. But no. Putting away some suitcases in the attic late yesterday afternoon, I heard the telltale rustling and the rhythmic tat-tat-tat of little feet. And today, when I went down to the basement to get a packet of veggie burgers, I was stopped short by the sight of a rat, stuck in glue, right in front of the freezer.

It's all our neighbor's fault. He chopped down an ailing tree that, it turns out, housed an entire city of rats. But these rats do not act like poor refugees. No, they are rodent Republicans. They have Made It and moved to the suburbs. Freed from the packed confines of urban tree living, they embrace the wide open spaces of our human houses with great gusto. I keep expecting to find rat-sized Weber grills and built-in swimming pools, rat-marketed cul-de-sacs with names like Little Gnawing, rat versions of the tennis club. Big and sleek and well-fed, these are rats with really good health insurance plans. They Have Arrived. And they do not intend to leave.

So, I'm an old lady with crazy hair and rats. I always knew it would come to this.

Friday, April 9, 2010

I gotta take this call

Hugh is, once again, scheming for a new phone. He's decided he doesn't like his ridiculously expensive phone, the one that he had to have, the one that he actually saved up money to purchase, the one that is only a few months old. So he's gone online, investigated the account, figured out I have an upgrade due, and concocted a plan whereby he takes the upgrade and gets a new phone, and I get his hand-me-down phone. All of this amazes me. I have no idea how to access our account online, I never keep track of the upgrade schedule, and I cannot comprehend caring very much about my phone, tho' I do wish the screen was bigger so that I could read the time without having to put on my glasses. And I guess I should admit that I have a customized ringtone (Hugh, of course, had to arrange it for me): it's the theme song from the new Dr. Who and it makes me very happy.

Given my phone apathy/ignorance, I am putty in Hugh's hands when it comes to his phone scheming. Somehow, I always end up in the horrid AT&Y store, waiting forever for some Bright Young Thing with an astonishing amount of product in his hair to come mystify me with technological terms. And somehow, I always end up handing over my credit card and paying a large amount, even tho' I always insist that I AM NOT PAYING FOR ANOTHER PHONE JUST TAKE THE FREE ONE I DON'T CARE WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. There's always some promise--a mail-in rebate, extra chores, a payment schedule--that somehow never actually gets fulfilled. The rebate form is lost, there's some byzantine contract (MAHH-UMM! DON'T YOU REMEMBER I TOLD YOU) to be fulfilled about the chores, the payments evaporate.

And somehow Hugh always ends up with a new phone. We see nothing but the top of his head for a couple of weeks, as he explores its capabilities, but soon, all too soon, he discovers that, well, life with the new phone is pretty much the same as life with the old phone, and the scheming begins anew. That part--the ceaseless quest for the one thing that will make all the difference--that part, I get.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Outside the Land of Mordor

This is the time of year when south Louisiana sucks me in. The long, pleasantly warm days, the cool nights, the azaleas exploding with color in silent fireworks displays all across town, the leafy trees playing tag with the sun. Snowy egrets line up along the shores of the lakes; a brown heron struts her stuff; ducklings bob about the shallows. The restaurants trumpet, "Boiled Crawfish Now Available," and at every table diners descend into the primordial pleasure of twisting off heads, peeling tails, and sucking meat. I find myself thinking, "what an amazing, what a glorious, what an exotic place to live."

I've been had. Again.

I know, I do know, that within a matter of weeks, the heat will rise from the pavement in waves, will wrap its sticky cloak around me so that I'm like Frodo caught in Shelob's sticky web: pale, poisoned, unable to move a limb, not caring if I live or die.

But for now, I'm living in the Shire in 1420, "the marvellous year." Mordor has fallen, the good and the golden have triumphed, and "not only [i]s there wonderful sunshine and delicious rain, in due times and perfect measure, but there seem[s] something more: an air of richness and growth, and a gleam of a beauty beyond that of mortal summers that flicker and pass upon this Middle-earth. . . . And no one [i]s ill, and everyone [i]s pleased, except those who ha[ve] to mow the grass."*

But here in Shire-on-the-Bayou, in the glorious springtime, even mowing the grass is a fine and wonderful thing. Not that I actually mow (what else is the point of male offspring?), but I watch from the porch and really, Hugh looks happy, even bucolic. Ish.

Soon, tho', he'll be stumbling behind the mower, gasping for water, falling to his knees and muttering about "My Preciousssss."

Mordor will rise once more.

Every damn summer in south Louisiana.

*J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. Vol. 3. The Return of the King, p. 1000 (1991 ed.).

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Tacky

For Baton Rougeans, "the beach" means the Alabama-northern Florida Gulf coast. There's no "beach" in south Louisiana, just wetlands. So going to the beach means piling a bunch of stuff in the car and driving east for at least four hours. (Well, you can drive for just two hours and end up at the beach in Biloxi, but trust me, keep on going, unless you don't mind swimming thru clumps of oil.) Once you hit Gulf Shores, you are in the land of clear waters and white sand, dolphins and stingrays, brown pelicans and white egrets, massive schools of little silvery fish, and (depending on which way the wind is blowing), frightening clumps of jellyfish.

When we first started going to Gulf Shores, the town/beachfront was tacky, to put it mildly. Uber-tacky. The quintessence of tacky--tacky taken to such levels of tackiness that it was almost transcendent. [A note to my British readers: think Blackpool on an American scale. Yes. Really.] The shell animals. The endless racks of tee-shirts bearing images relating to
1. beer,
2.vomit,
3. naked boobs,
4. big butts,
5. meaningless sex,
or 6. all of the preceding.
The plastic dolphins. The shark tooth necklaces. The seedy amusement park with the rickety roller coaster. The tattoo parlors. The grimy bars and fried fish restaurants, all bearing names related to Sea, Sand, Surf, Sun, or Shore. The sad See Live Alligators! "nature" park. The cheap motels. It was great. I mean, if you're going to do something, DO IT--and gosh, Gulf Shores did tacky.

Then, in 2004, Ivan came. Hurricane Ivan rampaged through Gulf Shores and swept it almost clean. In moved the developers. The cheap motels are gone, replaced by expensive condominiums. The restaurants still specialize in fried fish, but the quality has improved immensely, as have the non-fried options. There are now chi-chi delis and a coffee shop and even a couple of wine bars. A colorful array of various theme parks have taken the place of the creaking roller coaster. The supermarket, where once upon a time you couldn't even find skim milk, now stocks every upscale and ethnic item you could possibly want. Baby eggplant? check. Hoummus? check. Hazelnut fresh roasted coffee? check. Thai green chili paste? check. All very nice and comfortable and convenient but as a result, of course, the Gulf Shoriness becomes ever more diluted as the Pretty Much Like Everyplace Else grows more pronounced.

Still, the ocean, the white sands, the dolphins remain unchanged.

We had a good beach break, even with two teenaged boys along--mostly, I think, because menopausal me no longer Tries Hard. When we first started going to the beach as a family, almost two decades ago, I had this vision of what beach vacations should be, a vision that I Tried Hard to realize: the four of us frolicking in the surf and building sand castles together all day and then tumbling into the condo and playing board games and charades til bedtime. And in this vision, the basics of modern existence--tv, video games, ipods, computers, dvd players, cell phones--disappeared from our lives. Good Families, I was certain, did not watch screens while at the beach. As if the company of children, hour after hour, day after day, without a break, wasn't in the least bit problematic, as if sunburnt, weary kids don't get cranky and beastly, as if being in the sun all day didn't guarantee me a blinding headache by 4 pm, as if Keith didn't get testy without a few hours of solitary reading time every day, as if the boys actually got along, as if we were the Good Family.

I didn't Try Hard at anything this time. The boys spent lots of time hooked up to ipods and staring at computer screens. We watched several movies. We frequently went our separate ways. We're not the Good Family.

Good enough, tho'. No more Trying Hard. No more development, no more dilution. Just tacky us bracing for the next hurricane.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Easter Dolphins

I've been at the beach. A strange way to spend Easter, really. No sunrise service--in fact, no church service at all. No Hallelujahs. No "He is risen indeed." No colored eggs. No lamb dinner. No cross or chick-shaped butter cookies. No little girls in bonnets (tho' it's been awhile since I've seen that, come to think of it).

We did have Easter baskets, sort of. A few weeks ago, Hugh told me to be sure to remember to bring Easter basket stuff for his friend Eli, too. (Eli came to the beach with us.) I informed Hugh that I really wasn't planning to do Easter baskets this year as 1. we'd be at the beach, and 2. isn't 15 a bit old for the Easter Bunny? Well, geez, you'd have thought I'd told him we were moving to an organic farming commune with no electricity or indoor plumbing. The shrieks of anguish, the cries of deprivation. I relented and promised Easter baskets. Scarred and traumatized as he was, however, Hugh didn't trust me and instead convinced his grandmother to fill up a massive shopping bag with Easter essentials--marshmallow and miniature chocolate eggs, Peeps, jelly beans, pastel-colored M&Ms. . . . We hauled all this crap to the beach, where I (ridiculously guilt-ridden and, dammit, not to be outdone by my mother-in-law) tossed in some more sugary crap, poured it all into our beach tote, and put it between the boys' beds on Easter morning. Rolling into semi-consciousness around noon, Hugh and Eli threw candy at each other, ate a bunch of chocolate, then went back to sleep. And at some point in the afternoon, a mumbled grunt thrown my way conveyed their thanks.

So much for the magic and miracle of the most important day of the year on the church calendar.

Still, we were at the beach. And if you're at the fabled white sands of the Gulf coastline, if you're up well before noon and you sit out on the deck and watch the ocean patiently, if you sip your coffee calmly and just wait, then--almost always--there will be dolphins. I sat. I watched. I sipped. I waited. And there were dolphins.

Now, let me make clear--I am not of the "a hike in the mountains/fishing/gardening/insert some form of solitary activity in Nature here = my church service" school. It's not that I don't grasp how one can more easily commune with the Divine on a mountain hike or while fishing on a quiet lake or during time in the garden. Absolutely. I get it. But the thing about a religious service is that it's not just about Self and God. It's also about All These Other People. Many of whom drive me nuts on a very regular basis. And that, I think, is kind of the point. Here are these people who make you crazy. Now love them.

So, I'm not saying that watching the dolphins frolic in the Gulf was an alternative form of Easter church service. It would be totally cool if I could believe that was the case, because--let's face it--dolphins are so much more lovable than people. Did you know that dolphins are the only mammals, apart from humans, who have sex for fun? They have sex for fun and they do not shoot each other. They do not have gated communities. There is no dolphin version of Rush Limbaugh spewing hatred.

Loving dolphins, then, is not difficult. It's literally a no-brainer--no thinking, no strategizing, no need for inspirational reading or sermons or a rousing hymn. You just look at those lovely faces, so goofy yet so smart, and you watch those graceful bodies transform the anarchy of the ocean waves into a carefully choreographed ballet, and you love them.

So, no (damn!) I don't believe that dolphin-watching = church-going. But the thing is, this Easter, Easter morning 2010, God said, "Daughter-darlin', you jus' enjoy dose dolphins." (Sometimes, you see, God speaks to me in the voice of Aunt Jemima. More often God uses my Auntie Hank's voice. Tho' at times He/She/They sound/s like Sean Connery. Occasionally there's a kind of Robin Williams thing going on. I go with the flow. I mean, God's God. When He/She/They speak/s, you know it.)

The dolphins came. I enjoyed them. God let me be. And in the letting, showed me a bit more of what the being is all about.

A bit confused

There's a shop in Gulf Shores (Alabama) with the name "JUST BOOKS." And underneath the shop sign is a second sign: "Rent your movies here."

I just love that.