St. Patrick's Day Parade

So, this weekend brought another in what I think of as my own personal series of Really Lousy Parenting Moments.

Yesterday was the Baton Rouge St. Patrick's Day Parade. Baton Rouge doesn't really have much of an Irish community or any kind of Irish heritage. But we have a tv weatherman who's been broadcasting forever; I guess you'd call him a "television personality" round here. And he has some Irish roots, I gather, tho' not an Irish last name. He does have an Irish first name: Pat. Ol' Pat is a canny character. He's the one who started the St. Patrick's Day Parade more than two decades ago--and it just so happens that the parade ends right at the front door of a bar that he owns. Anyway, it doesn't matter that few folks are Irish. What matters is that this is south Louisiana, where every parade, be it Christmas or Halloween or Memorial Day or 4th of July or St. Pat's Day, resembles Mardi Gras. First, there are floats, and the float riders throw stuff--beads, mostly, but also stuffed animals, candy, plastic cups, toys, flowers, panties, condoms, and (only on St. Pat's) cabbages. Second, there are parties--everyone on or near the parade route throws a party. And third, there is alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol, even tho' the parade rolls at 10 am. The drinking begins on Friday night and doesn't let up in some areas--e.g. around LSU--til the wee hours of Monday morning.

As it happens, we live right on the parade route. So, as required, we have a party every year. It's not hard--I make Bailey's Irish Crème brownies and Keith makes an eggy, cheesy casseroley thing and Irish soda bread; we make coffee; we fill up coolers with ice, orange juice, and champagne; we line up patio and lawn chairs, and voila', a party.

Except it gets harder when you have teenagers. Because teenagers have friends. Who are also teenagers. And these friends have friends. Who are also teenagers. And before you know it, hordes of drunken teenagers have descended on your house and infested your attic and overrun your back yard. But that, dear reader, was last year. This year, I was vigilant. I was prepared.

And I was also pissed off. Really, really pissed off. We have had a hard week with Hugh. A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. I am angry, so angry that when he walks into the room I want to spit on him. Truly. But beneath the raging, pulsing, shrieking anger is fear, fear and sorrow and guilt beyond measure. All these emotions burning their way through my very core, eating and corroding my soul. It's like I've swallowed Voldemort.

Perhaps it wasn't the best of times to host a parade party.

But St. Patrick's Day waits for no woman.

It was a beautiful day, as early spring so often is in Baton Rouge. Friends gathered; the brownies beckoned; the mimosas sparkled. The teenagers came. I sternly sent them on their way. All was well.

Then, it happened. I was standing at the kitchen sink, grabbing a quick glass of water. I looked out through the window to the deck that sits on our side yard along the street that runs perpendicular to the parade street. (This is a significant detail. On this side street the cops assigned to parade duty tend to gather.) I looked out the window and saw, on the deck, a group of Hugh's friends laughing and talking. . . and passing a joint around. (Hugh was not with them. Minor detail, but I thought I'd point it out.)

Now, personally, I think marijuana should be legal. But it is not. And there were those kids and there was my deck and there were the cops. Now, of course, a good parent would have walked out and pointed out the problems with their actions to the kids. Perhaps a good parent would have engaged them in a discussion of the possible consequences of their actions, maybe turned that situation into one of those learning/bonding moments that later, as adults, the kids would have looked back upon as a transformative time.

But I'm too goddamned angry and afraid and sad and guilty to be that good parent. Nope. It took less than a second to transform me from Cheery Parade Party Hostess to the Incredible Crazy Woman. I ran out, stormed onto the deck, thrust my finger in their faces, and screamed (sadly, this is an exact quotation): "GET OUT! Holy fuck! What the hell do you think you are doing?!"

They left. Looking back, I realize I should have confiscated the weed and smoked it.

I always thought I'd be a Cool Mom. The mom my boys' friends would confide in. Instead I'm That Mom. The insane one.

Being a Mom on Mardi Gras

We went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and didn't see a single parade.

How pitiful is that?

Now mind you, we've seen hundreds, maybe thousands, of parades over the years. By some standards, we are Mardi Gras experts Moreover, there doesn't seem to be much hope that we'll be living anywhere else anytime soon, so we have many, many more Mardi Gras opportunities ahead. Still, why trek out to New Orleans, why pay for a hotel room, why shove our way through the crowds--if not to join in the celebration?

Because, dear reader, we were, once again. tricked. Duped. Manipulated. Hoodwinked. Fooled and  flummoxed. Yet again teenaged Hugh pulled our strings and made us dance to his music.

Supposedly we were enjoying our last Mardi Gras with Hugh before he grows up and heads off to college. Supposedly we were introducing his classmate to the Mardi Gras experience--parades costumes and beads and masks and marching bands and "throw me something, mister!" In actuality, we were paying ridiculous sums of money to allow two horny teenaged boys to hook up with a crowd of nubile young things who attend the girls' school across the street. No parades, no interest in parades, just lots of masterful twisting and turning, flipping and flopping, obscuring and obfuscating, until we're left, a couple of confused, middle-aged, well-meaning souls, wondering why we're sitting in this ridiculously priced hotel room at 11 pm and where is our son and how in the hell did we let this happen again? Goldangit and goddammit. Why are we still so friggin' bad at this?

Cursing Doris

Oh lord, Doris Kearns Goodwin on The Colbert Report. I hate seeing historians on Colbert and Jon Stewart. Overcome with longing, I watch in sorrow and think, "why not me me me?!" Obviously I don't think this when the guest is a rock star or a movie actor or the president. But an historian?? Damn damn damn. I coulda been a contender! Instead, I had children. Sigh.
 
Not that I'd trade the kids for fame and fortune or a chance to chat with Jon Stewart. Except sometimes.

Such as last Sunday morning, for example, when Keith and I were driving up and down and around every single friggin' parking lot on the LSU campus. It's a big campus: 35,000 students, God knows how many administrators, a few faculty, and lots of cars. Lots and lots and lots of cars. Amidst which we were hunting ours. Just one nondescript black Honda Civic, lost by our horrifyingly non-penitent teenaged son during a drunken tailgating session the day before.

Sorry, what? You say you don't know "tailgating"? Ahh, guess you're not from the American South, eh? "Tailgating" = 24-hour party that precedes all Southern university football games. Picture massive encampments of those temporary pavilions, Weber grills and smokers, gargantuan generators fueling large-screen tvs and stereo speakers mounted on pickup truck beds, coolers the size of industrial refrigerators, people of all ages painted in purple and gold, vats of gumbo and jambalaya, platters of fried chicken, barbecued ribs and boiled crawfish, and miles and miles of red Solo cups filled with cheap beer. And now picture my extremely sociable, not-very-consequences-minded teenaged son in the midst of all that.

We trusted him. Dumb, eh? Sure seemed so as we forsook our usual leisurely peruse of the Sunday papers and instead toured acres and acres of concrete expanses strewn with grimy plastic red cups and broken beer bottles and chicken bones and crawfish shells.

Eventually we found the car. Son has lost the right to drive. Son thinks we are unfair. Mom is staring at the television and cursing Doris Kearns Goodwin. Sorry, Doris.

Trying Not to Think about Politics

I live in Baton Rouge's Garden District, which has just been designated one of the 2012 Great Places in America Neighborhoods! No foolin'. And it truly is a great-place-in-America-neighborhood, shaded by trees straight out of Tolkien, featuring wonderful vernacular architecture (that's a technical term--impressive, eh? means "local") and a truly amazing abundance of flowering shrubs and trees. And it's walkable and has sidewalks and front porches and cute kids and a real sense of itself. It's a good place. It's a Great Place in America.

Except it's in fucking Louisiana. Minor FUCKING detail.

Sorry, sorry. But it's election night and I'm in FUCKING Louisiana, which means my vote means utterly and absolutely nothing. Geez. The Democrats don't even bother with us any more. I had to vote for Crazy No-Party Guy, just to register my complete contempt for my horrifying congressman. (Do you realize how many crazy little parties are out there? and this guy couldn't even find one of them to endorse him. . . )

But I am not blogging about politics. This is not a political blog. This is the blog of a middle-aged, getting- -old lady who is trying desperately not to think about politics tonight.

So I'm thinking instead about my shat-in-the-shower kitty, who has gone psycho, even by middle-aged kitty standards. It's my fault. I bought her a touch-activated squeaking mouse toy, filled with catnip. Actually, I bought it for the young kitty, since Wimsey never, even when she was a kitten, had any interest in toys. But Marple ignored the mouse while Wimsey, well, I do believe the mousey has sparked something deep within Wimsey, has in fact triggered a mid-life crisis, a veritable existential struggle. All night long, she wanders around the house, batting this mouse and wailing loudly, articulating, as only a cat can, those basic, keep-you-awake-all-night-long questions about life and love and meaning and purpose. I'm ready to strangle, skin, and barbecue the damned animal but I do admit that when she yowls, I find myself thinking, "Oh baby, yes, I know, I know."

Meeerowwww.

Hurricane Envy

Last night Keith and I sat cuddled under a blanket (we're having our first cold spell and it turns out our furnace is kaput) and watched the news coverage as Superstorm Sandy ravaged New York City and the Atlantic states. Given our experiences in the many storms that have hit so hard down here over the last several years, we of course felt this profound sense of connection, of shared vulnerability, of our common humanity, with our East Coast brothers and sisters.

Well, not really.

I mean, we're not totally terrible people. We thought with concern about our friends in New Jersey and in D.C. and we don't wish pain on anyone. But I have to admit that as we watched the coverage, we did behave rather like high school seniors who smirk and snicker at the freshmen who can't open their lockers and get lost on their way to P.E. When the anchorman reported with horror that three feet of water had flooded the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and then added with a gasp, "And it's a wooden floor! In an historic building!", we burst out laughing. Water on wood floors in historic buildings--not quite gasp-worthy in southern Louisiana.

Yes, we're being pitifully petty. Because it's not just that we're the hurricane seniors smiling at the antics of the storm freshmen. It's that hurricanes are our thing, you know? We don't have much. We don't have Broadway or Central Park or good public transit or riotously colored autumn leaves or great Ecuadorian and Ethiopian food or mile-high buildings or a sandy shore or great museums or some of the best universities in the world. We're not a swing state. We're not an economic incubator or a transportation corridor and we don't have a high tech valley or triangle or hub. So forgive us if we feel a bit proprietorial about hurricanes. A deprived people can become a bit deranged.

Secret Worlds

'Tis the roach season.

Well, ok, yes, it's south Louisiana. Every season is roach season.

But this time of year, the nights get a bit cooler, and the roaches, accustomed to our usual subtropical temperatures, get nervous and scuttle indoors. Every morning, every room bears witness to their occupation: the night's leftovers, the aged or too enthusiastic bugs who flip over and are left flailing on their back sides, waiting for the kitties to bat them around until I come and squash them. The thrill of squashing the big bad bugs is poor compensation for the knowledge that for each roach squashed, dozens, oh lordy, hundreds, lurk. A secret world, alien creatures, right here among us.

Then the roofing guys come and solve the problem of our rather large living room leak: The wooden planks beneath the shingles feature several rather large holes--and a large, exuberantly healthy, and well-entrenched colony of termites. Apparently we've  been sharing the house with the termites for quite some time. . . . another hidden and horrifying universe, existing parallel to my everyday reality.

I retreat to the comfort of my laptop. I miss my boys. So like any good mother, I log onto Facebook and go stalking.

But but but--who are these people? where are these places? when did that happen? what the fuck are they talking about?

Secret worlds, hidden universes. Except you can't squash these alien creatures.

Neighborly

Keith has a pinched nerve in his back and so one of the neighbors has just sent over a "back massager." Hmm. It's long and slightly curved, can be extended, heats up and vibrates, and is best when used with lubricant.

I know that Southerners take the whole neighborly thing really seriously but still. . . .

Hurricane

Hunkered down, waiting for the hurricane. Got our coolers of ice, flashlights and batteries, candles and cans of tuna. Got Hugh home from his school since it sits right on the Gulf. Got the radio on with all the usual reports of storm surges and downed power lines and flash flood alerts.

I probably shouldn't admit this, but I love hurricanes. Not the actual hurricane, not the danger and the destruction, but this part, the waiting part. Each hurricane is different, but The Wait is always the same. Preparation rituals replace the ordinary rules. The suspension of normal work and school routines infuses The Wait with holiday flavors. A beer at 10 am? Why not? Better use up the meat in the freezer and the leftovers in the fridge—so everyone gathers for an impromptu party. Even the last-minute scramble for batteries and ice becomes something of a game as we pass on tips, exchange horror stories, and share our loot —“The Home Depot on Airline still has D-batteries!” “Four hours in line for ice!” “We picked up flashlights for you guys.” The sky is clear; it’s still hot; the whole idea of a storm seems unreal. I hit the sale at Talbot’s, buy Hugh a sweatshirt at the Gap, weed the back flower bed. But then the wind begins to pick up and the temperatures to inch down. We secure our lawn furniture, take in the potted plants, make sure we’ve ground the coffee beans, debate which car gets to take shelter under the carport. We wake in the middle of the night to the whoosh of wind and snuggle under the sheets. In the morning we sit at the window and watch the trees sway and bow and bend, crazed dancers at a rave, flinging their limbs about with abandon.

I think, “I should get some work done.” But I know I won’t. It’s a hurricane. Ordinary life on hold. I just love this bit.

A Very Weird Mother

I wonder sometimes what it would be like to be normal, you know, as in "mainstream," part of the general current, floating in the middle with everyone else. I don't think of myself as a contrarian and I'm certainly not much of an original thinker and I really rather like feeling like I belong.  And yet it so rarely works out that way. Maybe it's the consequence of being the first daughter after five sons; maybe that experience of being the outlier just got woven into the fabric of my being. More likely it's just happenstance, the random throw of the dice. But somehow I ended up a political and theological liberal and an impractical humanities grad in a family of fundamentalist Republican moneymakers, a Midwesterner in the Deep South, a city lover submerged in strip malls and subdivisions, a sports agnostic in a universe of football fanatics, a European with an American accent.

And, evidently, a Very Weird Mother.

I have just begun a new position as the sort of academic head honcho of a residential college at my university ("head honcho," that is, in the sense of "the person in charge of making lots of phone calls and begging people to do stuff," not, mind you, "the person with power or prestige"). Now, if you're my age, and you attended an American college or university, you probably lived in a dorm. You are old. Dorms are no more. Now we have residential communities, or if you're really cutting-edge in the student services industry (and yes, oh yes, what an industry it is), residential colleges. Which is all well and good, and if you're really interested, go Google it, but the point is, I now have more exposure to the parents of university freshmen than I've ever had before. And I've come to realize that I am not a normal mother.

Normal Mothers--or perhaps, given the range of my data, I should say "Normal Mothers of Freshmen Attending Public Universities in the Deep South" but then again it's an Election Year when we're all used to general conclusions based on the flimsiest bits of anecdotal evidence so hell, let's just go with "Normal Mothers"--Normal Mothers accompany their children on Move-In Day.  They come in with enormous refrigerators and microwaves and flatscreen tvs and they demand to know when Brittni's WiFi will be available. They storm down from the room with long lists of Things That Must Be Repaired Immediately. They stand in the various dining hall/mailbox/rec center lines in loco offspring-is so that their children can be free to do whatever it is such children do. Normal Mothers know their children's course schedules by heart--they know course titles, times, classroom assignments, professors, the required book lists, the tentative dates of the midterm and final, and the various ways these courses fulfill the General Education requirements. They say things like "We're thinking about Engineering. Or maybe Interior Design. We're not sure yet."

Weird moms like me? We stick the kid on the plane with a suitcase, $50, and a big hug. And then we wait for him to call. And when he doesn't, we figure he's doing ok or he'd call. And we avoid looking at his baby picture or that beautiful painting he did when he was ten and we let him be.

I guess I'd thought that was the whole point. Raising him, releasing him, letting him be. Except it's so damned hard. And now I find out it's just weird.

Well, shit. Can we rewind?

Revenge

In the chaos following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, looters specifically targeted Royal Street in the French Quarter. Although just a quick walk from the drunken frat boys, sad strip shows, and tacky bars of Bourbon Street, Royal's high-end antique shops epitomize a world of luxury and elegance and privilege that most of us can only gawp at. After Lake Pontchartrain overtopped the levees, then, and before the National Guard descended to restore a highly racialized version of "law and order," looters descended on Royal Street. They broke the plate-glass windows, smashed all those Regency chairs and Louis Quinze tables and Delft china sets, spray-painted the walls, and then, in shop after shop after shop, defecated in the cash registers.

I had thought that out of all the animal species, only human beings were capable of actions of such symbolic and substantive fury.

I underestimated my cats.

We've had friends from Britain come to stay, and because one of the group has severe cat allergies, we boarded out the kitties. When I picked up our two cats from Petz Plaza yesterday morning, I knew they were miffed, but by the evening, they seemed happy; I assumed all was forgiven. Until the wee hours of this morning, when one of the cats (aided and abetted, I am sure, by the other), jumped on the bed--our bed, the bed containing both of us, the bed in which we were sleeping--and left us a steaming pile of shit.

Message received.

I am not an Anglophile

Watching "Antiques Roadshow," waiting for "Doc Martin."

A friend in England once introduced me to her neighbor as a "complete Anglophile." I was stunned, and rather horrified.. An Anglophile? Me? No way. Anglophiles are like antiquarians. . . you know, crazy people, those folks who bore everybody at parties.

I am not a boring party person. I"m a British historian.

Oh dear. Not a very convincing argument.

Strange, isn't it, how one ends up doing what one does? I ended up in British history because I had to pick a senior honors thesis advisor, and  I was having a really rough time, and the British historian at Calvin was a kind, gentle man who looked like he carried peppermints in his pockets. So, I chose him instead of the famous French history guy or the cool U.S. social history guy or the serious ancient history guy. It had nothing to do with the subject; it was all about the guy. At that point in my life I desperately needed a grandpa, and Henry Ippel was it. I wrote my honors thesis, and that became what I submitted with grad school applications, so of course I ended up in British history. Happenstance, really. Just a lonely fatherless girl looking for someone to care about her. And here was this aging British history professor, such a decent man, who was willing to play the part. In such arbitrary ways, one's life gets decided.

And so, arbitrarily, as a result of a kindly college professor who never actually offered me a peppermint, I've spent much of my life studying, reading about, thinking about, living in the British Isles. I know more about British politics, social life, intellectual developments, popular and high culture, than I do the Southern American counterparts, even tho' I live in southern Louisiana. Ostensibly. But can one really live in a place when one spends most of one's time thinking about somewhere else?

After more than 20 years, I still find the South an alien place. I can't figure it out; I'm constantly stumbling, careening into no-go areas and horrified by what I uncover. Would I have embrace my area of study with such passion if I'd been able to live my life in, say, Chicago? Dunno. Life didn't happen that way. All I know is that when Keith is out of town, I switch on the Baton Rouge public radio station in the evenings: At 9 pm, the BBC World Service comes on and stays on all night long. I go to sleep, and I wake up through the night and finally in the morning, to these beautiful, comforting British accents. Strangely, the sound of home.

Bad Neighbor

Well, dang. A "For Sale" sign, right there in Carole's front yard. Life will be so much less interesting without her.

Carole hates me. I have no idea why, but I've enjoyed it immensely for years.

It all started when Owen was a pre-schooler, and desperate for friends in the neighborhood. We were in our house on Cherokee, and Carole and her husband and two little boys lived just around the corner. We had met at a couple of neighborhood functions. I'll admit there was no immediate attraction. Carole is the kind of person for whom the word "coiffed" was coined. And her house sported "window treatments" rather than shades and drapes. Still, several of my best friends have window treatments and a number of them could even be described as coiffed. I'm a tolerant soul. Plus, my kid needed some nearby playmates. And there they were, Carole's Edward and Charles. They suited our needs:
1) They were kids.
2) They lived close by.
3) They seemed normal despite their Little Lord Fauntleroy playsuits and their royal names. (And I can say with a certain degree of pride in my self-control that I never ever gave in to the very strong temptation to call these kids Teddy and Charlie, and certainly not Ed and Chuck. But, can I just note that eventually Edward and Charles had two sisters named Isabella and Eugenia? 'Nuff said.)

To continue: Determined to get Owen some neighborhood buddies, I pursued Carole whenever I saw her on the sidewalk, trying to engage her in conversation, asking about the boys, talking about this and that. And she'd smile her perfectly modulated smile and nod in a kind of "oh, mmm, yes" way. I then pinned her down by issuing an outright invitation, complete with date and times, for her boys to come over and play. She agreed, but insisted that Owen come to their house instead. "Great!" said I. "And then I'll have your guys over next week." Wow. Her facial expression taught me what "brittle smile" really meant. The Play Date arrived, I dropped Owen off (God, he was so excited) and an hour later--an hour earlier than agreed--Carole brought Owen back. "We all had such a good time," she said politely, "Bye bye."

Now look. Owen was (and is--you've just got to embrace the tattoos) a perfectly normal, friendly, fun boy. He behaved himself at other people's houses. He wasn't mean or squirrelly or inappropriate or obnoxious. Even at age 4, he went out of his way to please the other kids, to do what they wanted to do, to play their way. In other words, no way in God's green earth this child caused any trouble in an hour. Yet Carole communicated, clearly and absolutely, that the first playdate was the last.

I understood. I got it. I immediately abandoned all hopes of Edward and Charles as preschool pals. (I am not as clueless as I appear.) But, you know, I'm a mom. And there was no excuse to do that to my boy. So, well, umm, ok, fact is, I decided to drive Carole nuts by pretending to be that clueless, by continuing to call and drop by and accost her on the sidewalk, by greeting her enthusiastically whenever our paths crossed at neighborhood parties, by acting as if I didn't notice that my very presence caused her pain. Her face, ah, her face, our first Halloween back after four years out of the neighborhood, when she and her kids (all four of them by this time) showed up at our door--different house, she had no idea--and I greeted her like an old and dearly beloved friend.

I shouldn't have done it, I'm sure. My mother raised me better. And yet, really, did I do any harm? And more to the point, boy howdy, it was fun.

Bye, bye Carole. I'm gonna miss you, darlin'.

Growing Old at Mardi Gras

Samuel Johnson famously said, "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." The south Louisiana feminist version would be, "When a woman is sick of Mardi Gras, she is friggin'' old." And evidently I am. Old. Friggin' old.

This year, for the first time since I moved down here 24 years ago (with the exception of four years in England), I am not  going down to New Orleans  nor have I attended any--not a single one-- of the now many Baton Rouge Mardi Gras parades on offer. Now, granted, there are many folks down here who never attend any Mardi Gras parades. We call those folks boring. And anti-social. And just plain pitiful. I mean, geez louise, why live down here if you don't do Mardi Gras? Why endure the petty parochialism and the horrific public schools and the godawful heat and the fire ants and the neanderthal politicians and the gargantuan roaches and the all-consuming humidity and the stinging caterpillars and the searing, burning, still livid legacy of Jim Crow, if you don't at least enjoy Mardi Gras?

Um. Because you're tired? Because you've had a cold for three weeks and your throat is still sore and your ears hurt and you're still struggling with copious quantities of snot? Or maybe, because you are, let's face it, just fuckin' old.

Maybe not. Maybe next year I'll be all fired up, ready once again to brave the neutral grounds (known in other places as "the medians," the ground between the traffic lanes) of New Orleans and drink beer at 10 am and jump up and down and yell "Throw me somethin', Mister!" and stagger home with a vast treasure of plastic beads and stuffed animals and raunchy souvenirs. This year, tho', I'm happy to snuggle down in the sofa and stream "Friday Night Lights" on HDTV and drink white wine and eat the fish my husband has lovingly prepared. Which sounds ok. Good. Normal. Healthy.

Except IT'S MARDI GRAS! It is not the time for Good or Normal or Healthy. 'Tis the time to break the rules, throw off the traces, violate the boundaries, turn the world topsy turvy.

Next year. Maybe.

Excitement

My Epiphany gift is Excitement.

Explanation: Several years ago, we started what has become a tradition at my church. During the offering on Epiphany Sunday, the ushers not only collect our gifts, they also hand out stars--simple stars cut out of construction paper by the members of the Mission-and-Peacemaking Committee on a chili-and-beer-filled evening the week before. [Note to those of you outside the Christian liturgical tradition: Epiphany throughout the Christian world marks the day the Wise Men arrived bearing gifts for the Christ Child. But both the Mission and Peacemaking Committee and the beer-and-chili nights are rather peculiar to my particular church. . .] On each star is written a simple noun naming a "spiritual gift"--things like steadfastness or hospitality or charity or simplicity or generosity or discernment. Each member of the congregation receives a star, and is supposed to spend the next year thinking about, reflecting on, trying to develop, giving thanks for that gift. Most years I receive Patience. I had begun to think it was a plot: that the Peacemaking Committee members and the ushers sat there in the back of the sanctuary and stacked the deck against me, that they huddled in the back pews and cackled at the thought of me with Patience.

This year, tho', I think the Peacemaking folks downed a few too many beers, as the stars bore "spiritual gifts" not found in any version of the New Testament: gifts like "moxie," "introspection," and yes, "excitement." Keith got Creativity. He leaned over during the choir anthem and whispered, "With some creativity, we could generate a lot of excitement"--nudge, nudge, wink, wink. I ignored him. Geez louise. We were sitting in a friggin' pew, for pete's sake.

OK. For marriage, yes, excitement is clearly a good thing. But --a spiritual gift?

Trying not to reject what was given, I decided my star must be a gentle divine smack for my lack of, yes, excitement, at the fact that right now, even as I type, the LSU Tigers are playing The Most Important Game Ever against Alabama. Except that that game was actually last month, so this time around it's The Mostest Importantest Game Ever And We Really Mean It.  The prestigious Catholic boys' schoool in town cancelled classes today and tomorrow morning  "to maintain academic integrity." I kid you not.

In the midst of all this, ahem, excitement, I am, I hasten to assert, not entirely unmoved. I mean, push comes to shove, yeah, I do hope LSU wins. Mostly because I'm a nice person and do not want my husband, sons, and family to be depressed. Also because, in general, I am not fond of anything to do with Alabama, which ranks right up there with Mississippi as a place that Time and Good Sense and Right Thinking passed on by.

But here's the thing, normally on a night featuring yet another LSU Most Importantestest Game Ever For Sure For Sure, I'd send on my guys with a wave and a smile and then I'd smugly and snugly settle into blissful solitude with a good book. This time, however, a dopey paper star bearing "Excitement" inscribed in  Magic Marker tossed me into orbit, launched me into dizzying spirals of anxiety: what'swrongwithme whycan'tI joinin otherpeopledoit justgoalong whyaren'tyou whydon'tyou whyhaven'tyou . . .  And so, despite my utter lack of any real interest, the end result of my Epiphany-wrought neurosis was that I actually did intend to attend the Game Party tonight with Keith. Out of this sense that, well, given the star and all, maybe God was saying hey you dull person, you boring soul, get excited, join in, be a sport, BE SOMEONE ELSE.

And then I came home this afternoon and my heart was racing and I felt like the mere act of breathing took a certain amount of intentionality, if that makes any sense.

It probably doesn't. But neither did not breathing. So I decided to skip The Game. Watch some British tv. Drink some white wine. Watch the rain. Pet the dog. Calm the kitty.

I'm breathing just fine now. I ripped up my star. Damn Excitement anyway. Even Patience seems preferable.

Mold Removal

Thanksgiving Eve Day. A beautiful cold Chicago morning, with a pale blue cloudless sky. I love cold. I love trees stripped of leaves and lawns turning brown and flower beds dug up and hunkered down, waiting for snow. I love chunky sweaters and thick socks and lined boots and puffy ski jackets.

It was 80 degrees in Baton Rouge when we drove away. I should never come north during the winter. Denied long enough, my winter soul ices over, settles down in a hard lump, kicked into a forgotten corner of Me. But back up here, that lump expands and explodes; icycles sliver through and shred all the bits of southernness that stick and cling, like mold, building up over time and distorting the shape of Me.

It hurts.

And what's the use of getting Me all clear and uncovered, when we're heading back south on Sunday? Easier and less painful to stay moldy.

New Light

I've been looking for a new lamp for awhile and so was delighted to see that my niece today posted a link on her Facebook page to a real possibility: a vagina lamp. (Check it out: http://www.regretsy.com/2011/11/04/cervix-with-a-smile/). But what really tickled me about this lamp was the notation above the picture, which says "Filed in  Decor, Vaginas." I had no idea there was an entire category of vagina decor. I guess I really don't get out enough because I thought my only option was a Georgia O'Keefe flower painting. After all these years of enduring phallic symbols everywhere (especially in Baton Rouge, where the state capital building really should have a condom put on it, it's such an obvious erect penis), I am delighted that vaginas are getting some, um, face time.

Human-Scale

As I mentioned in the last post, I had a family wedding in Atlanta last weekend. My first visit ever to Atlanta, if one doesn't count the airport, which of course one shouldn't. Gah--the idea that folks might mistake O'Hare for Chicago. . . Anyway, I have to say I was distinctly unimpressed. I did expect to be impressed, I really did. I mean Atlanta--home of the New South, an Olympics venue, the place where all the young movers and shakers seem to spend time. But the downtown was so dead, so utterly empty of people except for a few bewildered tourists like us, so lacking in urban edge, that I felt perfectly ok sending my really-not-much-to-be-trusted 16-year-old and his 13-year-old cousin off on their own. They had a great time getting sick after sampling 60 different kinds of Coke at the Coca-Cola Museum. As a result, Hugh is now a passionate wanna-be Atlantean. "We should move here!" he enthused.

Damn. One more thing dividing me from my son.

We made the mistake of staying in the Westin Peachtree--the highest hotel in the western hemisphere in "an iconic downtown location," according to the website (how weird is that? the hotel isn't "iconic," just the location?), but according to Wikipedia, actually only the second tallest all-hotel building in the western hemisphere. So who do you trust, Westin or Wikipedia? Ah, the dilemmas of life in the internet age. Designed by renowned Atlanta architect John Portman, the Westin Peachtree is the embodiment of modernist alienation and elitism. Now mind you, I love modernist architecture; I'm a Chicagoan, for pete's sake, and any Chicagoan worth her organic seasalt is a fan of modernist architecture--but the thing is, Chicago accustoms you to modernist architecture done well, done right, done with respect for the humans who will inhabit it and the society that will swirl around it. Ah, Mr. Portman. You should have spent more time in Chicago. Your hotel, Mr. Portman, sucks. Excuse the highly technical language there, but it just really sucks. Your hotel makes its guests feel they've just booked a weekend in a parking garage--except most parking garages are far more easy to find one's way around in and, frankly, far more attractive. Your hotel is cold and uncomfortable and dehumanizing and godawful ugly.  It is staffed by fine and friendly people, all of whom wear a look of terror and doom. They know they cannot compensate for the physical ghastliness of the place and that their tips will reflect this fact. But at least they haven't absorbed the hard lines, the unforgiving nature, of all the concrete around them. Still, my tips were miserly. I couldn't help it. Everything around me demanded unkindness, a heart of stone, a heavy boot. Orwell, oh Mr. Portman, what Orwell could have written about your hotel.

And the thing is, Mr. Portman, you don't actually have to travel way up north to Chicago. Just go down the street to the High Museum of Modern Art. There's a splendid building, a wonderful example of modernist architecture done with feeling and sensibility and a basic humanity. Go wander around there for awhile. It will do you good. It certainly did me good after being subjected to the brutalism of your hotel.

So now I'm home, in my 1930s Craftsman-inspired, Chicago-tinged, totally funky Baton Rouge house. It's crumbling around us, but it's a lovely house, a house for human beings. And when I go to work, it's in a crumbling 1930s building that is part of the original LSU campus--a lovely building, tho' slowly disintegratiing due to years of budget cuts and deferred maintenance. Despite the exposed asbestos and the paint shards that fall on my head, I love Himes Hall. Like my house, it was built to human scale. So, Atlanta, thank you. And thank you, too, Mr. Portman. Thank you for reminding me of what I have. Unlike so many people, I get to spend my days and my nights in physical environments that I find sustaining and restorative. And as I begin to realize that there really aren't all that many days and nights left, not in the big scheme of things, such things matter. Life is too short to be spent in concrete.

Neighborly

The dog next door is barking. The dog next door is always barking. I have actually contemplated buying a pound of raw ground beef, lacing it with rat poison, and tossing it over the fence. Except I don't throw very well and we'd probably end up with blood dripping down our side of the fence and glops of poisoned meat all over the flower beds. The thing is, I like our neighbors--the human ones. They're good-humored, good-hearted folks, just, you know, with a dog problem. So I grit my teeth and swallow hard, avoid the meat section of the supermarket, and try to focus on being thankful for my own quiet dog. He may be prone these days to bleeding and vomiting, but he's not a barker, bless him.

Plus my hunch is that the folks next door with the incredibly annoying dog often have to grit their teeth, swallow hard, and hold themselves back from sending us a nice neighborly plate of brownies flavored with arsenic. In fact, I fear that everyone on the street, or actually two streets since we occupy a corner lot, is having to do a lot of teeth-gritting and insult-swallowing these days, for we have become Bad Neighbors. More precisely, we have become The People Who Do Not Take Care of Their Yard.

I blame Keith. Now, "Blame Keith" is the default mode in most areas of my life but honestly, the yard has always been his thing. When we married, he had a condo with a small back yard, in which he'd fashioned a series of raised flower beds and vegetable plots. I had spent years as an apartment dweller, with nary a potted plant to my name. So he kept doing the gardening and lawn care, and I didn't. And when we moved to this corner house with its large front yard, side yard, and back yard, Out into the Wild he went, encircling the house with serpentine beds, laying out an enormous herb garden, experimenting with lettuce, planting perennials, grappling with ground cover, trimming, digging, culling, mulching, mincing, dicing, slicing, pruning, cultivating, and whacking away,

And then he changed jobs. And now he's far too busy, far too intellectually and emotionally and physically engaged in his work, to have time or energy or interest in the yard. And here in the semi-tropics, where plants grow several inches overnight and veritable armies of insects wage constant warfare, even a momentary lapse of attention allows nature to thrust in and take back its own. On our beautiful street, a boulevard lined with live oaks and a variety of flowering bushes that guarantee splashes of color all year round and a series of carefully cultivated lawns running in front of wooden porches, our yard stands out--and not in a good way. It's like the students who stumble into my 8:40 class at 8:55, their hair greasy and clumped, traces of last night's pizza still on their unwashed faces.

I get these moments, when I look at at the tangle out there and think, "I could do something about this. I should do something about this." And then I think, "why?" The homeowner gene seems to have passed me by. I realize I'm incredibly fortunate to own a house, but I've never found it in the least bit interesting.

So. The dog next door barks. Our weeds grow. I grit my teeth and my neighbors grit theirs. We meet periodically for drinks and remind ourselves how much we all actually like each other. And someday soon, I hope, we'll move. Maybe the new owners will be enthusiastic gardeners. Deaf enthusiastic gardeners, even. And all manner of things shall be well.

On a Cliff's Edge

Today three dozen undergraduates and I climbed through torrential rain, gale-force winds, and a steady slamming stream of tiny hail stones to a prehistoric fort perched on a cliff's edge at the very end of the civilized world. Just another typical day in the life of a typical European history professor. Sort of.

It's a good life, all in all. The pay is crummy but the perks are splendid. At least if you like fierce winds and dramatic rain and the icy cold that slices through your skin and settles deep within your bones. Which I do. Always have. It's weather with integrity, sharp-edged, clearcut, purposeful, direct. Not like the miasmic heat of the Deep South, the humidity that envelops you, the heat that first lures you in--"shush now," it whispers, "just slow down, have a rest, why don't you put your feet up and have a nice cold drink?"--and then warmly smiles as you slowly suffocate.

After I made my way down from the cliffs, I sat on the bus, my jeans completely soaked, icy cold against my skin. And just like a certain smell can suddenly catapult you into a memory so vivid, so present, that the lines of time and space collapse, so this physical sensation sent me spinning into Mrs. Wolterstorff's third grade classroom. Eight years old, just in from recess, the windows all fogged up, water beneath my desk puddling up as the snow embedded in my corduroys slowly thawed, the cold and clammy cotton firmly stuck to my thighs, my feet little blocks of ice within wet socks. This is not, actually, a happy memory. I was an extraordinarily grumpy child, and I sat there on my plastic seat, my hands so cold they burned, even my underpants soaked from the snow, and I glowered at Mrs. Wolterstorff. How in the world, thought my indignant eight-year-old self, can I be expected to concentrate on homophones and homonyms while my butt itches and prickles as it thaws?

I imagine many of my students, Deep Southerners born and bred, were asking themselves something along those lines today. But, the thing is, integrity is not comfortable. It cuts and chills and makes your butt prickle. Still, it's rather bracing when you're perched on a cliff's edge at the end of the civilized world.

Just fine

I spent the last week in Chicago.

This is Not Good. It's akin to a recovering alcoholic taking a wine tour of southern France, or an addict deciding to vacation in an opium den.

I live my life in Baton Rouge and I am fine. I made my peace long ago. It's the Deep South and it's suburban and it's damned hot and it's provincial and parochial and politically primeval. . . but it's fine.

Until I go back to Chicago. And then it's. . . not fine. Because suddenly there I am, once again. Me. The Me who fits, who belongs, who gets it, who can explain it; the Me-in-embryo who stared out of the windows of our family station wagon during our tri-annual visits from the western suburbs into The City and thought, "I'm going to make this mine" And I did.

And then I lost it.

But I'm fine. I've made my peace. I have a great life. Keith and I enjoy satisfying jobs and the support of good friends in a very livable city. I bike to work along a lake filled with egrets and gigantic turtles and squabbling ducks. I while away the hours in an excellent local coffee shop. We live in, and can afford, an amazing house in a charming, tree-lined, historic neighborhood. We enjoy world-class drama, courtesy of LSU. We have a decent public radio station. A good airport. Easy access to New Orleans. A regenerating downtown. An . . . a . . .

Shit.

Chicago, it is not.

I'm fine.

But who wants to be fine? Just fine? I want to laugh so hard that I pee. I want the el. And the Cubs. And the ferocious wind off the lake. Brick bungalows. Plump parkas and deep dish pizza and hotdogs without the blasphemy of ketchup. Hispanic groceries jumbled against Korean take-outs and Serbian Cultural Centers and Polish bakeries. The flat Chicago aaaaccent. The breathtaking beauty of skyscrapers' reflections in the Chicago River. The startling combination of the accelerated metropolitan pace with genuine midwestern friendliness: "Hey, you OK?" And mostly, that adrenalin rush, that sense of yes, that smooth slipping into a place I always wanted and I always knew was mine.

But I'm home now. In Baton Rouge. It's fine. I'm fine. Just fine.