Momomama
And here's more! And yes, I know links are a poor excuse for blogging, but I need to save my energy for the war.
What makes me laugh so hard I nearly pee my pants?
New captions for the ready.gov icons, of course.
Today, one of my co-workers told me (again, but for the first time in a long while) that I look like Julia Roberts. I find this amusing, and untrue. But she's the third person in my life who has said this (the other two referred specifically to Julia Roberts in Notting Hill) so it can't be completely wrong. Most frequestly though, I get Daryl Hannah (or if it is Bill doing the talking, Daryl Hannah's much hotter younger sister). The first person to point this out to me was my junior high science teacher, Mr. Ross. I thought it was very nice of him to say so, considering I had blown out three expensive microscopes during the bobby pin power strip incident of 1987. What was not so nice was the fact that he called me Splash for the rest of the year. Complete strangers also point this resemblance out to me...once my brother and I were at the Horde Concert (headlined by the Allman Brothers, but also featuring The Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveller, and a then fairly unknown Joan Osborne). We were wandering around, looking at the hempy products for sale, when a drunk guy raced up to us saying (to my brother)..."Dude! Kurt Cobain! I thought you were dead!" Then he looked at me. "...and you know Daryl Hannah!" Other people have told me I look like Laura Dern or (ahem, ALANA) Juliette Lewis. So what does this all say about me? I guess it says I have a wide mouth and lots and lots of hair. It must be the hair, because when I was a baldy no one ever compared me to anyone but Ms. Lewis and Sinead O'Connor. I like to hear whom people are told they resemble...It says a lot. In my family's case, it says that if Audrey Hepburn and William H. Macy/young Orson Welles had babies they would have looked like Daryl Hannah and Curt Kobain. That, my friends, is disturbing.
"Girls are fancy on the inside,
Boys are fancy on the outside.
Every body's fancy,
Every body's fine!
Your body's fancy,
And so is mine."
Rest in Peace Fred Rogers!
And, now, thanks to my beloved boss...
"Lollipop", complete with cheek popping noises.
Over the course of today the following songs, in the following order, have been running through my head....
"Hey ladies!"
the theme song from "Dear John"
"Hey Ladies!"
"Forever Your Girl"
"Afternoon Delight"
Normally, I would take this as yet another sign of my brilliance, but I am forced to admit that Alana planted "Sear John"and "Forever Your Girl."
So I just tried to return a call, and I misdialed the number, instead of hearing the voicemail message of one Sue Daniels, I heard this message..."This is
Ellis Cose. I can't take your call right now..." I hung up. And now, I wish I had left a message saying how much I liked his book
Color Blind. Maybe he would have called me back, and we could have had a chat about race. That would certainly be more interesting than telling Sue Daniels what time her son's reading is tomorrow.
My dear friend Autumn is one week from her due date. In an email to me, she explained how she is so uncertain about how it will be to give birth to Jacob Andrew. I don't know why, but it surprised me. I feel like I am being re-educated about how women's bodies work.
First of all, I feel like I was duped. All through high school (and junior high for that matter) I was told that I could get pregnant at any moment. When I was in my art class, we could hear the babies laughing and crying through the wall between us and the baby room. The student moms would spend their lunch periods breastfeeding their babies while they gossiped about their crushes. My senior year, one of my best friends got pregnant and had an abortion. There was one guy in my school who got his girlfriend pregnant without even having had intercourse with her (go little sperm, go!) Until I was nineteen, I was convinced I was pregnant everytime I had sex. Now, I listen to my friends and friends of friends talking about trying to pregnant, and about what an ordeal it is, and how the window of opportunity is so small, and how all conditions must be perfect. And then there's this talk about how female fertility rates plummet after age 27. Suddenly, I am having converstaions about monitoring your cervical fluid and about Toni Wechsler's book on fertility. And that's just the lady end of things - I have no idea, beyond things like tight pants and high body temperature, what can go wrong with male fertility.
Then there's the whole pregnancy question. I still don't understand how a baby makes its way out into the world, and I was raised on
Our Bodies, Ourselves. I get it, in the abstract. And I always figured that once you are pregnant, an ancient, hereditary understanding takes over and you suddenly get what it will be like. Now, I find out, you don't really know until you actually do it. Autumn wrote that she wasn't sure if her water would break dramatically (a la Hollywood) and they'd rush to the hospital, or if she would just have more and more contractions until it was sort of clear it was time to go. Since she can't imagine what it will be like, she just imagines that day in the future when she will be in the backyard hammock, nursing her son.
I bet that's how women have always done it...we just imagine the beautiful outcome, and try and put all the fear out of our minds (sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing...) But, I am suddenly feeling the urge to go and buy that Toni Wechsler book, just so I can start to figure it all out before I start imagining.
Alana claims I won't admit my so called "obvious" attraction to her when in fact, it is she who will not admit her obvious attraction to me. Just this morning, during an perfectly innocent IM conversation about "Old School," she implied that she and I should have a foursome with Luke and Owen Wilson. Then, just minutes later, she turned my comments about people needing to dance more into my expression of a need to dance more with her. While it is true that I find Alana irresistible and luscious, it does not make me unique. We ALL find Alana irresistible and luscious. I want nothing more from Alana than her friendship, and to feel her soft hand in mine as we walk along the water's edge on a tropical beach - the sun setting in the distance, her face bathed in the golden light, the Wilson brothers waiting for us in the Cabana.
If you have ever met me, face to face, you know my laugh. It's a machine gun, it's loud, it can lead to hyperventilation and occasional snorting. I love my laugh, and I love that people love it and I love that it makes people who don't even love it laugh too. I have laughed this way my entire life. So why, when I was in Santa Fe, did the woman who hosted our event take me to the side after everyone had left and do this? She put her arm around me and said, "Now dear, you have a very distinctive and infectious laugh, but you are going to need to tone it down sometimes." Oh yes she did! To you, one Elizabeth Brooks West '66, I say, hahhahahahahahaHAHAHAHahahahahya(snort) heh heh heh heh heh heh heh HAHAHAHAHA!
I am feeling very frustrated on my Adirondack job search. I got a "No thanks, we'll pass, but we hired someone GREAT!" letter from the AuSable River Association (Why do they need to say they feel they've made a "wise decision" with their choice? Well, I would hope so! Don't need to reassure me I was not that wise decision, butthead!) I got nothing from UVM, inspite of my follow-up attempts. I was denied by SUNY Plattsburgh. And the Peru Library Director job, which I was "not able to be considered for," is now being advertised again. I have had no response from any of the five non-profits arts organizations I emailed resumes to. I know I am a great worker and all, but I feel like a fucking loser. It's so depressing. I fear I may end up taking some crappy hotel job, but I am sure they wouldn't hire me, as I am too experienced. Maybe I am being a snob about this, but who the hell are they hiring for these jobs? There are just not that many professional type people up there (because there is no economy outside tourism...) I have fundraising experience! I can write! I can use a computer! I am the most personable people person a person ever met! Yet no one even calls me back about an interview. Maybe my resume sucks...I struggled over the format. Maybe I have been making huge typos. Looks like I might be applying to be a deckhand on the ferry afterall (not that I wouldn't like that job, but I think the feds would repo my brain pretty damn quick.)
What happens when two planners try and plan something together? Does the world implode? We are about to find out, as Bill and I embark on the WEDDING PLANNING. We are thinking of dates more than a year and a half away (July 3rd, 2004? August 7th, 2004?) and whenever I ask him questions he says we have a lot of time. Then, five hours later, he calls me back with a million ideas (a 21 shotgun salute, clay pigeons with our names and the date on them, bottles of Mountain Martha's bug spray for favors). We are still in that pre-ring, pre-formal announcement time (which I have a feeling will somehow morph into "engagement" without us knowing it.) I refered to him as my fiance for the first time last week, but it was to a stranger. Yesterday he called to tell me his mom had a book to give me on making your own wedding dress.
"So you told her!" I said (he wanted to wait until he gets a ring.)
"No, I said that we were at the fabric store and you were showing me wedding dress patterns."
"Gee, I don't think she'll figure it out then!"
"Probably not."
"So what happened? What did she say?"
"She smiled and ran to the bookshelf and got out this book for you."
"That's it?"
"Yeah. I want you to be there when we tell her."
"Because she has no idea."
"Right."
My Grampie passed away last night. I was okay when I talked to my dad, though it was very sad to hear his voice shake. I was okay when I talked to my mom. But then, as I tried to shovel away two and a half feet of snow to park my car, I could not stop crying. I was thinking about how when we were little, he used to pick Jon and me up once a week and take us to his and Grammy's house for the afternoon. Once, when he was working as Fire Marshall, he took me (I am not sure where Jon was) on an inspection of the local VFW hall. While he checked for violations upstairs, he let me sit in the downstairs bar, and I got to drink Shirley Temples and sit on a bar stool. Mostly, though, we'd just go their house and play ColecoVision, and send the dumb waiter up and down, and listen to the police scanner, and watch Grampie make the red jello he loved. When Grammy would get home from work, we'd go to Saint's for dinner and at the end of the meal Grampie would buy Jon and me bags of chips to eat on the way home. Before they moved to that house, when they still lived on Broad Street and had the pool, Grampie would have us help clean it and he would say, "No work, no food." But we didn't really have to help, we could just swim around while he skimmed the leaves from the surface. In the summers, we'd visit them at Stanley Pond, their camp in Maine, and Grampie would take us out to breakfast and dinner everyday. Once, we were driving around and "Islands in the Stream" came on the radio. Grampie and Grammy convinced me that they were the ones singing, that they, in fact, sang every country song. Dan, my stepbrother, and I once spent a couple of weeks at Stanley Pond. We'd help Grampie rake the leaves off the sand at the end of the dock with the ladder for swimming. When I got into grad school at the University of Texas, all my Grampie said was "Good job, kiddo, don't get shot." Grampie was a tough guy, in the best ways. He fought fires, and put two sons through college, and worked hard, and loved my Grammy and later loved Dot too, and golfed, and square danced. All I have to say is some one better have red jello waiting for him, and it doesn't even have to be sugar free. He's worked, now he gets to eat.
Indeed, we had snow. It's hard to say how much, what with the drifts being knee, or thigh, or waist, or shoulder high. My best guess is two feet. I even measured in three places, for accuracy. I had the perfect snow dayn - crafts, tea, books, cuddling, followed by burgers and wings at the pub down the hill. (I am not calling it a pub to be pretentious, either, it is a pub.) All of these activities were alternated with dog walking. Momo loves the snow, as you all know. The best part is when he finds himself bellydeep in a drift. It took him a while to realize that walking in snow deeper than he is high is futile. Once he figured this out, he used his giant doggy brain to come up with the idea of
swimming through the snow. He even gets his happy, panty (maybe it should be panting?) swimming smile on while he does it, bless his little heart. He tired himself out so much that I could not blame him for napping on the backseat while Bill and I spent more than a half an hour digging the car out this morning.
Ahhh New Mexico. So so beautiful. I spent my time eating dessert with every meal, driving through the mountains, and not watching the news or listening to NPR, like I normally do. So I was little surprised to return to the real world and discover that there's a run on duct tape and plastic wrap. My sister-in-law is way ahead of these people and their jury-rigged fallout shelters. Right after 9/11 she created a bunker in her basement. She has enough canned foods for a year, bottled water enough to water an Arizona golf course, and foam board panels to put over the windows. She has candles and matches and blankets and toilet paper. She's ready. I am not, and I don't care. My emergency plan (you have to have one, says the Red Cross) is to head for the Adirondacks with the dog, and hope I get there before the world ends. I picture Bill and I living a Weaver family existence (without the weird godliness, racism, and dead people under the kitchen table) at his camp, fighting off the hoardes with guns. Except I could never shoot anyone, so I'd just wave a rifle in the air at the hoardes and then invite the hoardes in for chili. We'd have a great time. Failing escape to the mountains, I'd do what my mom always suggested back during the Cold War...I'd go outside, hold hands (or paws) with my loved ones and breathe in the nuclear fallout.
The Hearts are Flapping
At Christmas time, my Uncle Dick was telling us all that since he has started meditating and doing yoga his heart has just been flapping in the breeze. This is the uncle who I was terrified of as a little girl, because he is 6'4" and he would pick me up and swing me through the air. I was also afraid because I had heard some terrifying stories about him, and when I was just a few years old he was in a horrible car accident that left him with a broken neck. He still has scars in his forehead from the screws used to hold his halo in place. Over the last ten or so years, he's seemed softer and softer to me. Now, he cries during commercials, and FEELS so very openly. We were sitting in his basement, waiting for my cousins to get ready to go to a movie when he told Bill and me about the heart flapping, and how he just lets it go. His wife, Ann, joked that it's great, but a little messy. This morning Bill called me to tell me about seeing Antwone Fisher. He said he had to try with every muscle in his body not to cry, and he NEVER cries during movies. When I asked him if his heart was flapping he said, "No, my heart was on the floor, throwing a temper tantrum."
Lately, my heart has been flapping more, too. Anything can make it start, thinking about my Grandma, who went into a nursing home yesterday, because she can't be alone and take her pain pills; thinking about my mom, who has to watch her tough as nails mom get older and weaker; thinking about getting married, and having all of Bill's family and friends and all of my family and friend's together to celebrate with us; thinking about Norah Jones' beautiful voice; thinking about how Dolly Parton rocks my world; thinking about how blessed I am to have such wonderful friends to kick my ass; thinking about fishing with my Dad this summer; thinking about eating tacos in Santa Fe. It's flapping, all right. Sometimes it hurts and sometimes it feels good. And yes, like Ann said, it sure can be messy.
If there was any doubt about my obsessive nature...I sent my resume to the Ausable River Association this morning (by email) andI have checked my yahoo account every ten minutes, on the ten minutes, all day. No answer yet!
I like to think of myself as a spontaneous, fly by the seat of my pants kind of gal, but when it comes to some things, I like consistency. Things like lunch. I have to be consistent in my plans our I becomehorribly disillusioned and spoiled. You see, for a long time, I have been a lunch bringer. I buy frozen foods on Sunday, and bring a box a day. If I stick to the Healthy Choice, the Stouffers, the Trader Joes, and the occassional Amy's, I feel okay. I become accustomed to the blandness, the being hungry an hour later, and then general feeling of dissatisfaction. It's reassuring, it's comforting, and, after a while, not so bad. Yesterday, I ruined my lunch for the rest of the week. You see, Libby has been talking about getting pastrami sandwiches at Epstein's Kosher Deli for a month now. So we set a date, and she, Barbara and I headed up Central Avenue in the rain yesterday. Epstein's is tucked between Parade of Shoes and David's Bridal. It's long, narrown and incredibly bright. When you sit down, the waitress brings you bowls of coleslaw and pickles. You order your cream soda, your fries, and your hot pastrami on rye. Your sandwich comes, you lift the bread and squeeze out spicy mustard from the yellow bottle. You shut the bread. Then you unhook your bottom jaw and try and get your mouth around this thick, thick sandwich. It is divine. Libby said to me, "This is the Jewish experience, Martha." I am jealous - my people like the ham on Wonder bread with mayo. (Well, not MY particular people, we are more of the yummy hummus on 12 grain bread WASPs, but still...) I was in heaven. I must have eaten six pickles. I didn't even eat dinner, because I wanted to remember how good lunch was for the rest of the day. It was all great, until today, when I was back to a frozen turkey pot pie, eaten with a plastic fork. For the rest of the week, no lunch will measure up to my hot pastrami. I rocked the boat and now I am unhappy. All for what? Twenty minutes of sandwich joy? I am ashamed, so, so ashamed.
(happy now,
Alana?
Turns out, for $17 I can soak in their pools AND get a Milagro Relaxation Wrap. mmmmmmmm.....one week from today, I will be wrapped in hot towels and lying on a table. I LOVED that scene in
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.
On my trip to Santa Fe next week, I am stopping to see an alum who has built a "transgenerational" house with her husband. Apparently, the house is made to be child-safe, handicapped accessible and all round good for all ages. I'll be sure to report back. I am trying to figure out what to do next Wednesday, my FREEEE day in Santa Fe. I may go to Chimayo. I wish I was rich so I could go to Ojo Caliente and soak in the mud for the day! As you can tell, I don't have much to say today.
I just got off the phone with a little old lady who is planning on coming to her 60th college reunion in June. Then I realized my 60th Reunion will be in 2057. I'll be 81. I hope I am planning on spending the weekend doing something fun, even if it's not at SLC.
The following sign was in the elevator when I got home last night:
The residents on the lower floors have a problem, a problem that can only be solved with
your cooperation.
That problems is suds backing up into their sinks. (in red, and bold.)
The rest of the sign went on about why this was a problem, and how there's no way to fix it really. People with suds get a sign, but my toilet leaks for months without attention.
Excutive [sic.] Director,
AuSable River Association
The ASRA, a non-profit organization dedicated to the enhacement of the Ausable River Watershed and its communities, seeks a high energy, experienced individual to direct the organization. We are looking for a creative, personable, bright, independent, and hard-working person to write & administer grants, carry out projects, and handle day - to -day administrative work. Must be self-motivated and have excellent communication and relationship - building skills. This position is part-time in the winter and full-time in the summer.
***
Is it inappropriate to mention your love life in a resume? I thought so...I am sooooo applying for this one!
Today's PSA
Ladies, do me a favor and take your calcium! After six hours in the ER with my grandma and her compression fracture (about which nothing can be done) I have decided to start taking a supplement, and you should too!
In other news...last night's dream...
I was supposed to meet Bill at the ferry near his mom's house. Unfortunatel, there was all of this crazy flooding, and hurricanes and typhoons on Long Island. He was not at the ferry terminal when I arrived, so I checked into our hotel and walked over to Emily's house house. Emily, Bill's sister, Lori, and some made up cousin where there, so we ate cookies and watched the storm clouds roll in and out. It was like no storm I have ever seen, with a sky black like night and fog, and then blue sky. We decided to walk to the ferry and see if he had arrived. We walked along the shore and in the distance we could see this giant cat, walking on the water and swatting at boats. Everyone freaked out, "Oh No! The Sea Cat!" Suddenly The Sea Cat was chasing us. It ran out of the water and onto the road and just when we were sure we would be killed, it turned into a lady and got on a bus. Then we walked through the woods, and knocked on her gay neighbors' door to see if anyone was home. We chatted with them and as we were leaving Bill came down the road. He and I went back to the hotel and met his brother, Dan, and some friends. We went down to the bar to have drinks. The bar did not charge per drink but per hour, based on your kind of drink. We each forked over $20 for an hour of rum punch. Then I fell off my stool (we had not yet been served) and I woke up.
Analyze THAT!
